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$10 Laptop Downgraded By Reality; Now Fancy Storage Device
Ian Lamont writes "The news last week that the Indian government was working on a $10 laptop was too good to be true. It turns out that the project is actually a wireless-enabled storage device, not a laptop." Update: 02/04 21:36 GMT by T : Always-illuminating Liliputing has a short article with a picture of the device.
I can use it in my lap, right?
I am not a *blank*, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
They mean it has no wires. It's actually an Etch-a-Sketch.
would you believe, a a storage device that plugs into your wireless router for $10? how about, would you believe, a usb dongle that plugs into a laptop that could have wireless, for $10?
Wives also make good laptops, i hear.
Plug the vents and they overheat?
Did the India Times succumb to economic pressures and outsource their reporting jobs to the US?
Wait a second. What started off as a laptop has devolved into a flash drive with a bluetooth chip & a battery! Another week and it'll be described as a "spiral-bound notebook and a pencil with a string tied to it."
Wives also make good laptops, i hear.
how the hell we are suppose to know, asshole
839*929
it will include a preinstalled copy of Duke Nukem Forever
Couldn't they just have said it was a glorified USB mem stick? Why the hoopla? Oh, yeah, no one would have cared otherwise. Smart.
Yes, I can see it as possible, in vast mast production, but $10 is a bit ambitious. Still, if any country were going to do it, India with it's semi-socialism, semi-capitalism and very large population is certainly a candidate. It needs to be very simple, no physical buttons, no moving parts, built in solar cell on the back, screen on the front, complete touch interface. Simplify, simplify, simplify. What might be a better idea, is to plan on a cost tag of $100, again with all possible simplification, and then subsidize the cost down to $10 via advertising on the device. Turn all those kiddies into future consumers. With what one asks... $10 is possible, if it's kept simple and there are no middlemen adding to the costs. Products we make get doubled or quadrupled in price before they get to consumers. The wonders of retailing. The real cost of manufacturing is generally about a quarter to a tenth of the price.
The project was not a laptop but actually a cob of corn.
SD card slot, Microcontroller chip, Radio chip. Viola, low power, moderate bitrate and range wireless data storage device for $5. Development costs furnished by the Indian tax payers.
Why so expensive? Have you priced violas recently?
This guy's the limit!
Not necessarily just western media..
Wives also make good laptops, i hear.
If they are Japanese made maybe. My North American made model barely fits on the desktop. Also it's loud and doesn't do well in the closet (needs plenty of ventilation.. but that's a whole other issue). Buy american my ass.
I'd upgrade if possible, but with the poor economy that's just not financially feasible at this time. Heck, I can't afford the disposal fee for the current one let alone how much it is to procure a better slimmer model.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
So, who else is shocked that Team $10 laptop didn't actually have the magic bullet? No hands? Hmm.
Although the new form of the widget is rather fuzzy, I don't think I understand the point. Very low cost computers, designed with the particular attributes of low budget education in mind, are something that hasn't seen much market focus, and are thus a logical target for a special development program. Mass storage, though, has been cheapened and commodified with ruthless efficiency by the mainstream tech market. As have wireless communications mechanisms(GSM is super cheap on the WAN side, and for LAN/PAN you have zigbee, bluetooth, and wifi, depending on your budget). In either case, I'd be shocked if a special charity R&D project could outpace the standard R&D driven by people's desire for cheap gadgets.
Perfectly respectable 2gig USB drives can be had, retail, quantity one, now, for under 10 dollars. If sneakernet isn't good enough, wireless chipsets can also be had for under 10 dollars a unit. What niche, exactly, does this thing fill?
Didn't the original reports tout this as a "portable computer"? This is still what it appears to be. It was the western media that labeled it a "laptop" and ran with it.
No, they didn't. According to TFA (as well as TFA this is retracting), the Times of India reported that it was a laptop and other news sources picked it up from there. I'm a little curious as to how this left the blog-level and made it to NPR, but the government itself was hyping it as their answer to the $100 laptop, which is clearly not the case.
Sendou Wave Kick!!
...doesn't do well in the closet...
Well THERE is your problem. Your wife needs to come out of the closet.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
You know when your company is considering outsourcing something, and the team that's bidding for it all have twenty years experience (in something that's only existed for two and a half weeks, but hey, they're keen! I like a can-do attitude) and actually speak reasonable English?
And then, reality dawns...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Having worked with outsourced Indian coders, I, for one, am shocked that Indian engineers overpromised, underdelivered, and were overbudget.
I've had my fair share of laughs from this whole turn of events, but giving this some serious thought (after cutting through all the Indian government's political BS), I surmise this will grow into some sort of distribution platform for schools across rural India. Imagine a low-cost, alway-on media server for educational materials that is more current than several-year-old textbooks, and is available to students at virtually no cost (hopefully the government will subsidize the hardware). I would imagine schools might be able to buy a notebook shell type accessory, which has just a display and keyboard. The accessory plugs into this unit (or perhaps connects wirelessly) and can then access all materials available to the educational institution. It cuts the cost of storage and some motherboard electronics from the individual laptops that students can own, making the system viable and inexpensive.
Jeez... I have a Type II CF microdrive that's three times that capacity! Couldn't they just design it to accept any Flash media or microdrives? They're kinda reinventing that wheel again, only less round this time.
At a puny capacity of 2GB, you'll have to take three.
voila != voilà
voila is a conjugated form of the french verb voiler. (in the indicatif passé simple if you were interested)
voilà is, in english, an interjection and the intended meaning of the gp.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Given that this is Slashdot, I'd say that "The Father, The Son and The Holy Goatse" were more like it.
chloroform
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
In other news:
* $100 Car Downgraded By Reality; Now Used Bicycle
* $75 House Now Tent
* $1 GPS System Now Toy Compass from Box of Cracker Jack
We're wanted men. I have the death sentence in 12 systems!