India Hopes to Make $10 Laptops a Reality

sas-dot writes "We all know Nicholas Negroponte's $100 OLPC. India, which was a potential market, rejected it. India's Human Resources Development ministry's idea to make laptops at $10 is firmly taking shape with two designs already in and public sector undertaking Semiconductor Complex evincing interest to be a part of the project. So far, the cost of one laptop, after factoring in labor charges, is coming to $47 but the ministry feels the price will come down dramatically considering the fact that the demand would be for one million laptops."

Comments

Re:I must be living in a story book..

[QuantumG]

If your research is really limited to press releases then I'm not surprised you are so ignorant.

Re:I must be living in a story book..

[lambini]

What would the function be for a 10$ child computer? Push the button next to the image of the animal to learn what sound it makes......moooooooooh

Re:I must be living in a story book..

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

$15 scientific calculators are not costly. That's extremely expensive when 1/4 of your population lives on less than US$0.40/day.

Re:I must be living in a story book..

[NerveGas]

When you say that we haven't gone beyond eliminating starvation, you're wrong. I know people who don't work. AT ALL. And not only do they get fed, they get health care as well. And if they *want* to go to school, many avenues are available to them, anywhere from reduced to no cost. I see it in action all of the time.

Now, not everyone takes advantage of that. That's a given. But it's there if they want.

Now, compare that to India: Even if you *want* to go to school, if you're from the wrong parts of society, too bad. You won't be able to. That's it, end of story. Getting into health care... let's say that you need an operation in India. It's up to *you* to pay people to donate blood, and if you don't get enough blood donated, you don't get the surgery. That's it, end of story. You see groups of people on hospital steps BEGGING for people to give blood so that they can be helped.

It's two different worlds: One where help is available if you want it, and one where quite often, help simply isn't available AT ALL.

I'll bet that you haven't ever lived outside of a "Western" nation, and haven't seen the conditions that I'm talking about. Once you do, your views change forever.