Creating the World's Cheapest Tablet

Back in October, we discussed news that India had launched a $35 tablet. Now, JohnWiney writes with a story in the Globe and Mail about the device's development. Quoting: "Part of the difficulty in engineering such a device is that the underlying goal—that its final price should be within the means of those who can’t afford high-priced tablets—dictates crucial engineering and component decisions. A piece of high-impact-resistant glass, such as the touchscreen face of an iPad, can cost upward of $20. Datawind’s touchscreen glass, which the company had engineered down the street, costs less than $2, though it won’t allow for luxuries like pinch-and-zoom finger swiping. There were also compromises on processing power: Datawind’s 366 megahertz processor costs less than $5, a fraction of the $15-plus price tag on the chips that power iPads and other comparable tablets. And while the decision to run Google’s free Android mobile operating system on the gadget saves money, it requires coders to dig deep into the Linux kernel that underpins the software, tweaking it until it runs smoothly on Datawind’s weaker processor."

Comments

Race to the bottom

[Overly Critical Guy]

Unfortunately, a race to the bottom will always result in a lower-quality experience. It doesn't seem worth it for the compromises made. Amusingly, devices like this get figured into the amorphous statistic of "Android marketshare" in countless forum operating system arguments.

Re:Race to the bottom

[garcia]

You're posting this on a forum where a good number of readers are obsessed with Linux. It's not that Linux isn't a great OS (I use it for server-side stuff) but it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do.

There is a breakeven point for many people. Those people who are happy to pay $200 for a machine and spend the time getting it to run well with something like Linux even at the expense of a better experience which may cost 6x as much (Apple).

So, if someone cannot or is unwilling to pay $500 for an iPad but may be willing to pay less than $100, it's going to give a much better experience than nothing.

Re:Race to the bottom

[LDoggg_]

I wouldn't expect a 35 dollar tablet to have the hardware to be my main tablet, but probably a bunch of cool things you could do with ten of them networked in a building and mounted on walls or something.

Re:Race to the bottom

[CohibaVancouver]

It doesn't seem worth it for the compromises made

So if you're an Indian for whom an iPad costs the equivalent of a year's salary you should go without altogether, rather than have the best-in-breed? Sounds like a plan - Since I can't afford a Porsche I'll stick with walking.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Belial6]

There is no consumer product that isn't part of that "race to the bottom". If you were willing to spend several million dollars on a tablet, I'm sure you could get something dramatically better than any tablet currently on the market. There is always a cost/quality trade off.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Taco Cowboy]

A race to the bottom may result in a lower-quality experience, if the user happens to have a high expectation.

That says, we need to understand that the users of this $35 computer are from India, and although not everyone in India is poor, many of the Indians still don't get to own much to begin with.

One more important thing that will affect the experience thing is the software.

If the apps (including the OS) runs on the $35 computer are bloatwares, they will surely add to the frustration of the users.

So, in other words, the people who are behind this $35 computer project better come up with super-efficient apps in order to not let down the users too much.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hedwards]

Depends a great deal on the distro. I've been using Linux Mint and I've spent very little time trying to fix it, probably similar to how much time I've spent trying to fix Win 7.

OTOH, Arch, Gentoo and similar are aimed at people that are more interested in controlling their complete experience, and probably take more time to maintain.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

It is actually not $35 because the company's is asking for $52 each to build it while the government pays the difference.

Also if this were a real retail product, there would be additional mark up etc making it more like a $75 item (number off my ass).

Re:Race to the bottom

[Jeremi]

So if you're an Indian for whom an iPad costs the equivalent of a year's salary you should go without altogether, rather than have the best-in-breed?

You're assuming that any device is necessarily better than no device. That's not a valid assumption. What any low-end device has to be better than is not nothing, but rather the low-tech alternatives (e.g. land line phones, libraries, talking to friends and neighbors, the phone book, etc). There have been many instances of devices that were sufficiently crappy that it was faster and easier to just ignore them and get your task done the old fashioned way.

Sounds like a plan - Since I can't afford a Porsche I'll stick with walking.

If the alternative was spending $1000 on a car that was terribly unreliable and left you stranded on a weekly basis, you'd likely find that walking was in fact a better idea. At least with walking you would know for sure when you would get to your destination, so you could plan out your day with some consistency.

Re:Race to the bottom

[ifiwereasculptor]

I'd fully expect it to be my main tablet. But I'd only use it to browse the web, and that I could do on a 486 DX2 66MHz. Of course the internet has changed and HD video and flash games, for instance, are off the table, but for IM, e-mail, Wikipedia et al? 366MHz should be enough for everyone.

Re:Race to the bottom

[broken_chaos]

It depends heavily on your hardware, too -- especially for laptop systems. Particularly on brand new machines, there's often things that just don't work or don't work by default yet, though these pieces of hardware often have their support (and default setup) improved over the span of a few years -- which, for some people, is just in time to replace their old machine.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Jeremi]

If you were willing to spend several million dollars on a tablet, I'm sure you could get something dramatically better than any tablet currently on the market.

I'm not sure that's true. The amount of R&D already sunk into, say, an iPad is already much more than several million dollars. Starting over from scratch and then spending less on R&D than Apple (et al) have already spent is a good way to get an expensive product, but not necessarily a better one.

Of course if you're willing to start with an already-developed product, I suppose you could always do this...

Re:Race to the bottom

[SuricouRaven]

"It's not that Linux isn't a great OS (I use it for server-side stuff) but it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do."

Major flamewar imminent! EVERYONE, GET TO THE BUNKER!

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

And if this comes with super-efficient apps, Hell will freeze over.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hedwards]

That's a fair point, most of the time I've found that just buying quality components makes a lot of those problems go away. Granted it's not perfect, but for the most part I've found computers that work well on Linux tend to work well on Windows because they've been well designed. A large number of problems I've run into over the years were the result of manufacturers taking shortcuts or using inferior components.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Ambvai]

My sister's boss got a 100$ digital picture frame (no battery, data is SD) for Christmas. I think a 35$ tablet is more than adequate to replace that.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Except its would be an issue about reliability (well, not too much) but about speed. A more accurate comparison would be a choice between a car that can only go 30 mph or a car that can go 200mph. If you are talking about tablets alone, the greatly reduce price may well worth the crappier experience. While tablet do currently share the same market place as computers and net-books, even the cheapest won't compete with this product at this price point. Raspberry Pi is the closest but it's more akin to a desktop as in it has no display. If you take reliability into issue, sure they may be higher hardware faults due to cheaper components, but even then, the reliability won't be that bad (look at cheap routers so many people use as an example). Also, at $35, it's almost becomes easily throw-away-able in that caring about it dying is limited at best. These prices also opens up uses on the hobby front much like the Raspberry Pi.

Re:Race to the bottom

[oakgrove]

Those people who are happy to pay $200 for a machine and spend the time getting it to run well with something like Linux even at the expense of a better experience which may cost 6x as much (Apple).

Speak for yourself. I use Linux because for me it is the better experience. Kind of like for Mac people, OSX is and for windows people, well, windows is. That's a very arrogant attitude you have there.

Re:Race to the bottom

[tepples]

land line phones

Provided that pay phones still exist in a given part of the world in case you need urgent assistance. They have been disappearing in the United States, for example, because so many people own cell phones.

libraries

Which often lack the book you want, resulting in a week(s)-long wait for an interlibrary loan.

talking to friends and neighbors

And pay big bucks for long distance calls to friends and relatives who have moved away.

At least with walking you would know for sure when you would get to your destination

It has become more difficult with urban sprawl putting destinations two hours apart on foot (7 mi; 11 km) or more.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends heavily on your hardware, too

Same thing with popular proprietary systems too like OSX and Android. People don't seem to have a problem with the concept of just buying hardware that these operating systems are intended for so why not do that for Linux without having to make an issue out of it? And, yes, I know Android is Linux.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that's what YOU use it for. You're in the minority.

Re:Race to the bottom

[mapkinase]

Because iPod is a new human right.

Re:Race to the bottom

[roc97007]

Well, for an Apple fanatic, that's a viable choice -- if you're unwilling to sell your kids and cow to buy an iPad 2, you just don't want a tablet bad enough.

Re:Race to the bottom

[roc97007]

> You're assuming that any device is necessarily better than no device.

Um, no. He's assuming that the Datawind tablet is better than not being able to use the applications the tablet provides. I know this is hard to understand, but if you need to run an application to help you plant your crops, a device that doesn't happen to have a trendy metal bezel and won't play Angry Birds is still better than not planting your crops.

It's not about the device, it's about access to content.

Re:Race to the bottom

[larry bagina]

They probably should go without. I don't have the disposable income to buy a private jet or a yacht so I don't own them.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that's what YOU use it for. You're in the minority.

Bull fucking shit I'm in the minority. The vast majority of people do just a few things on their computers. Those things mainly being 1) browse sitonmyFacebook 2) write emails 3) edit some documents 4) fiddle around with their digital photos 4) pirate mp3's and avi's 5) burn said pirated mp3's to a cd. Last I checked, the repositories has all of those bases covered. The last real frontier for most home users is hardcore PC gaming and that's moving over to consoles.

Re:Race to the bottom

[tantaliz3]

It's not that Linux isn't a great OS (I use it for server-side stuff) but it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do.

That's an illusion. Look at all the crazy problems people have with PCs now. People are just afraid of change.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Amusingly, devices like this get figured into the amorphous statistic of "Android marketshare" in countless forum operating system arguments.

Wow, got anything to back that strawman up with, jackass? Last I checked, the official statistics for Android activations were coming from Andy Rubin. You know, the guy that fucking heads Android development. And he gets his statistics on new device activations. If you were to lump in the off-brand chinese stuff, Android market share would be much higher than is officially reported (and argued about). But, hey, don't let reality get in the way of a good Android bash.

Re:Race to the bottom

[couchslug]

For people with NO alternative experience, even weak devices can change their lives.

Would you rather have NO computer, or a Celeron 500 with 256MB RAM? Those specs don't even merit a dumpster dive nowadays in the US, but don't forget what you can do with one.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Jeremi]

I know this is hard to understand, but if you need to run an application to help you plant your crops, a device that doesn't happen to have a trendy metal bezel and won't play Angry Birds is still better than not planting your crops.

I know this is hard to understand, but people already have an application that helps them plant their crops. They've had it for generations. It's called asking the local farmers how to do it.

That is what any new device has to be better than.

Re:Race to the bottom

[roc97007]

Then... I have an idea -- why don't you go tell them that. Someone over there thinks there is a critical need for a device at that price point. It's easy for us first world residents to say they should be buying iPads instead without any appreciation at all for what life is like in that part of the world. The last time I was there, the houseboy slept on the floor in the hallway outside my hotel door, because it was more comfortable than his home. (I asked him.) Away from the cities, the great majority don't have access to any of the things you take for granted -- GPS, cell service, access to the internet. It's a totally different environment. *We* think you're a little nuts for camping outside the AT&T store in the rain waiting to replace your 4 with a 4s. People in *that* part of the world think you're batshit crazy.

Re:Race to the bottom

[certain death]

This is my mantra! Use what you NEED to, not what someone ELSE tells you that you need to use. My Macbook is running a Linux firewall in a VM that I am behind at the moment, typing this on a Linux Mint peecee on a desk next to my Windows 7 Laptop connected to the corporate network.

Re:Race to the bottom

[certain death]

Host an email server for 5000 heavy users - That's what! :o) Linux/Postfix/squirrelmail FTW!!!

Re:Race to the bottom

[majmunsograne]

Exactly, you can't afford a private jet or a yacht, so you shouldn't buy that car that you can afford as it will never be as good as private jet. Just walk everywhere.

Re:Race to the bottom

[djl4570]

It's an excellent proof of concept. How much of an IPad can we do for one tenth the price of an IPad? There's a lot of whinging on the net about bloated software and overpriced gadgets yet all too often we react with disdain when someone delivers a low priced example without the bloat. There could be a market for a billion cheap tablet computers in India and China alone. Hopefully other designers will follow suit and ask "How much of an IPad can we do for one fourth the price? Perhaps HP should have asked that question a couple of years ago.

Re:Race to the bottom

[jtownatpunk.net]

Then it's not very revolutionary because I can already run down to Big Lots and get a low quality $80 Android 2.2 tablet. I guess the revolutionary part is getting the government to heavily subsidize your product.

Re:Race to the bottom

[rrohbeck]

All that bling (what you call polish) gets on my nerves. Setting "Windows Classic" is the first thing I've done since XP times. Gnome3 and Unity are too blingy for me too so I run XFCE.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you're willing to use lynx as your browser, mutt as your email client, and a command-line IM client, then perhaps you can get by with a 486/66. But on a 486, even a largish JPEG takes a noticeable time to render, which should make modern web pages (even those without flash or video) extremely painful.

The memory constraint is even worse. A typical 486 motherboard supports 16MB ~ 64MB, IIRC. You did read the Slashdot article about how an average web page is approaching 1MB, right? Do you have any idea how much memory that is going to take up on your 486 when it's fully parsed and rendered? Not counting the memory that is used by anything resembling a modern browser? I'll settle for a computer built in the last ten years, thank you very much.

Re:Race to the bottom

[jon3k]

Amusingly, devices like this get figured into the amorphous statistic of "Android marketshare" in countless forum operating system arguments.

Andy Rubin - Dec 20, 2011 - Public ...and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and "activations" means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service.

Re:Race to the bottom

[symbolset]

Now would be a good time for you to propose a low-tech alternative to a cheap tablet that holds 20,000 books about the sciences, history, the arts - that promotes literacy and hygiene and medicine. It should include instructions for various good practices such as sustainable agriculture, clean well digging and sanitary sewage practices, mortuary and food preparation practices among other things - in native language or with a suitable translation engine. All subjects introductory to advanced in math, chemistry, biology, mechanical and electrical engineering and history must be included. It must contain enough information to be able to uplift an entire village out of the stone age and into the space age - in a 7" tablet form factor that can be hidden, trekked across the desert and charged by laying it in the sun.

Ideally this low-tech solution should weigh less than half a kilogram and cost less than $35 - durable and disposable enough to smuggle into or airdrop from drones into places like southern China, North Korea, India, the Phillipines and Arkanas.

What did you have in mind?

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Eww...buuuurn.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Jeremi]

Then... I have an idea -- why don't you go tell them that.

They already know how to run their lives, thank you very much. They don't need me to tell them anything.

It's easy for us first world residents to say they should be buying iPads

I never said anything about anyone buying an iPad. Perhaps you are confusing me with another poster. What I said was, any electronic device that you want people to use (and pay money for) has to be better than the non-electronic methods they already have.... otherwise they won't use it. I don't understand why that is such a difficult concept to get across.

Re:Race to the bottom

[dakara]

Major flamewar imminent! EVERYONE, GET TO THE BUNKER!

Major flamewar imminent! EVERYONE, GET TO THE CHOPPA!
FTFY

Re:Race to the bottom

[PopeRatzo]

I know this is hard to understand, but people already have an application that helps them plant their crops. They've had it for generations. It's called asking the local farmers how to do it.

I don't think you realize how much more productive the farmers in the US became after they were able to get their hands on the bulletins and advisory pamphlets that the Department of Agriculture put (and still puts) out. Or how much science goes into running a farm. How much information is required for successful farming.

Apparently, you're not familiar with the business of farming and how much of it depends on an up-to-the-minute awareness of market conditions, weather conditions. economic conditions, and forecasts. Even their bank balance.

Having access to a bit of technology that allows them access to a library of information and online data could definitely mean the difference between a farmer making it or failing utterly.

Why don't you let the farmers decide whether or not they need the trendy metal bezel and SIRI or not?

And yes, any device that allows farmers to ask farmers all over the country "how to do it" is better than having them asking only the local farmers. They could get information about pest control, get help with crop diseases and learn about various types of fertilizers. Indeed, the communications capabilities of a basic tablet could help them ask the local farmers and maybe participate in discussions with ALL the local farmers.

I guess you think they all just drive their tractors or mules and meet up down by the barn with hayseeds 'twixt their teeth to tell each other how to plant a potato.

I don't care if they're sustenance farmers in rural India or a Wisconsin dairy farmer with a few thousand heads. They're using tons of data and having access to that data in the form of a handheld tablet could be a real boon for them. Farmers here in the US are probably among the small businesses that make the greatest use of the Internet and personal computing technology. For some of those farmers, the Internet is a literal lifeline.

Re:Race to the bottom

[ToasterMonkey]

It doesn't seem worth it for the compromises made

So if you're an Indian for whom an iPad costs the equivalent of a year's salary you should go without altogether, rather than have the best-in-breed? Sounds like a plan - Since I can't afford a Porsche I'll stick with walking.

I hate to point out the obvious, but for many people walking is NOT worth the money saved on a bike or used car. I think I could find evidence of this even in India, given a minute to google it...

There quite conceivably could be a table that is FREE, yet still not worth the effort to use it. If this isn't immediately obvious, you're thinking too hard.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hairyfeet]

Well I think a lot of that was caused by Linux developers and advocates being frankly stupidly low with regards to system requirements. How many "Dumpster dive a great Linux box!" and "Save a PC from the dump, just use Linux!" articles have we seen? Well by putting their system reqs at frankly ludicrously low levels what you ended up with is OEMs slapping Linux on machines that frankly would have had trouble running Win98 without hanging and gave Linux a worse view from those that don't know about specs and just look at price. i mean a 366Mhz CPU? Geez we were throwing out faster chips than that a decade ago! It reminds me of those junkers Walmart used to sell with Linux that had worse specs than what you'd find in a dumpster.

Sure its nice that you can run Linux on some POS that used to run Win95 but that doesn't mean its gonna be a pleasant experience with the modern web. This thing might be fine for an ebook reader but i shudder to think what trying to surf the bling bling heavy web will be like, even without flash but just dealing with all the heavy JavaScript out there with a 366Mhz CPU, I bet its like trying to load modern web pages on a 300 baud modern...eek! of course many will just say its because Android or Linux sucks and hurt the rep when its just the OS is being squeezed into woefully underpowered hardware.

Re:Race to the bottom

[chrb]

it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do.

Nice switch. The Linux variant being discussed by the OP was Android, which is by all accounts pretty polished (the latest version in particular has been widely praised), but your then go on to define your argument against Android based on desktop Linux distributions. Desktop Linux and Android are not the same, so this line of reasoning is completely invalid. I could go on and point out that many people don't care about visual bling, and how it's taken years for Windows and OS X to incorporate support for simple concepts like software repositories that Linux distributions have had for over a decade (do the Windows and Mac app store repositories even do dependency tracking across packages yet?) Linux isn't even a desktop. If you're going to say that something isn't polished, at least tell people what you are talking about - Gnome, KDE, Xfce?

Re:Race to the bottom

[artor3]

I understand where you're coming from, but I think you're greatly overselling this device.

1) Assuming it does hold 20k books on topics from history to advanced biology, is that really preferable to funding better schools? Among the Indian poor, the target market for this device, the school dropout rate is more than 50%. For girls, it's more than 90%. Is giving them a bunch of books really going to improve that?
2) Assuming that the device does contain info on (for example) hygiene and medicine, are people really going to follow it over the common knowledge? I know a doctor in Moldova who, despite his medical training, still believes that moving air is the root cause of illness (a common belief in that country). Even in America, we are still trying to get past our old beliefs that "everyone knows" which are not only false but damaging (e.g. drinking alcohol keeps you warm).
3) Diagrams on well digging and such would be a great help, but is this device rugged enough to be taken into the field? The GP made a good analogy... if your choice is between a $1000 car that breaks down all the time, and no car at all, you're better off without a car. What happens to a man who makes 10 cents a day if his $35 tablet stops working because he dropped it in some muck?

While it might do some good, this thing is not going to uplift a village from stone age to space age. Nor could any realistic gadget. You can't rely on technology to solve a cultural problem.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious or joking, because what you described sounds like something from a sci-fi novel. If you think you know so much about how to fix developing countries, I suggest you go study a PhD development economics. It will only take a few years, and afterwards you will be in a much better position to implement your ideas. And maybe, just maybe, you will find out your techno-utopitian ideas are just a bit unrealistic.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Now would be a good time for you to propose a low-tech alternative to a cheap tablet that holds 20,000 books about the sciences, history, the arts - that promotes literacy and hygiene and medicine.

Borg nanoprobes. Assimilate them.

Re:Race to the bottom

[ToasterMonkey]

I know this is hard to understand, but if you need to run an application to help you plant your crops, a device that doesn't happen to have a trendy metal bezel and won't play Angry Birds is still better than not planting your crops.

It's not about the device, it's about access to content.

If you REALLY need a a computer to help you plant crops, then couldn't you do far more for the same price or the same for less with a stationary computer?

You guys are really stretching your something is better than nothing logic here, there are lots of useless things in the world...

Re:Race to the bottom

[thej1nx]

>>They already know how to run their lives, thank you very much. They don't need me to tell them anything.

But you seem pretty content to tell us what we should or should not buy, and what we should be allowed to have, eh?

Here is a clue. One of the many uses for this tablet is to get them on internet, and have educational apps/websites to help teach poor illiterate kids in villages, where there is serious lack of educational material, and even teachers. It is about giving them an opportunity.

Having a cheap affordable tablet can help the government to distribute one in practically every village, and provide current information to those who would not have it otherwise.

It is incredible, how an arrogant know-it-all like you, who has no idea whatsoever about the ground realities in India, feels compelled to spout off his patronizing opinions in any case, without understanding the least bit what use these tablets are meant for. (hint : it is not for playing angry birds!).

Re:Race to the bottom

[symbolset]

1) The full King James Bible (unillustrated, and a formidable text) in epub format is about 1.6MB. 20,000 of that would be 32GB - well within the capacity of a tablet like this, though it might raise the cost another $5. Funding better schools (even if it were possible and it's not - there's no money) will not improve the dropout rate because it arises from different social issues: the need for the students to subsist. But with this? It's a library in your pocket. For much of history a school was a log with a teacher on one end and a student on the other. Knowledge is the means the poor need to lift themselves up without outside help. As they know more, better ways to do things, they will have more leisure and the need will pass. With this the poor can take their schooling now where they need to be instead of sacrificing their needs to go to school. There are no resources to feed, clothe and house them while they do that. The poverty line in these places is $6 per YEAR. There's no lack of labor for them to teach each other to read. They're not stupid, they're just struggling too hard to take 12 years out of their youth to attend school. In some places just gathering a lot of children into a fixed place regularly is a tempting prize that makes the practice unsafe, as children are a labor pool and that's an asset too.

2) Even in the finer suburbs of America you will find folk who believe relief of subluxation of the spine can cure diabetes, that the most potent medicines are the most highly diluted, that cancer can be cured by bombarding a tumor with beta radiation. There's only so much you can do, but raising the general level of education improves the average lot. Average people are still going to be average, and half of everybody is going to be even worse.

3) The bigger danger is that the thing is an asset among folks who have few, it contains knowledge that empowers people to subsist. In some places to be caught with an asset or forbidden knowledge is near certain death. Some will be lost or broken, it's true. That's why it's essential they be cheap: so we can afford to send many of them - making them less worth stealing, making the knowledge so available it can't be forbidden. It has to be small so it can be smuggled and hidden. It has to have enough local culture, history and knowledge to be valued, and the ability to add more. It has to require no infrastructure whatever - not even power. And if we send 10 million $35 tablets to India and such places, what does it cost? $350M. For what you get that's a hell of a deal because self-sufficient people neither want nor need our other help.

We're thinking about different things. You're thinking iPad 2, I'm thinking about something completely different. I'm thinking Boy Scout Handbook x 20,000. It still doesn't happen accidentally. You don't really just airdrop these into Africa and India and North Korea. You need to have a seed of people who know what they are, to clandestinely distribute them, to teach about teaching and self-sufficiency and so on. It's not fast either.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

If people are willing to buy the Amazon Kindle for $300 cheaper than an iPad, why not go further down? Most products are actually about how they build on top of essential hardware and how useful it is to the users. This is the same reason Slashdot mentions the $99 webOS based tablets. Or why Blackberry decided to start selling its tablets for half their price in some geographies.

Android is pretty standard - just like Linux. People who sell for the cheapest price actually have a value proposition to the masses. The rest who make tablets are only behind the profit margin. Which is why arguments like yours don't make sense.

Re:Race to the bottom

[drinkypoo]

I know this is hard to understand, but people already have an application that helps them plant their crops. They've had it for generations. It's called asking the local farmers how to do it.

asking the locals fucking sucks. First, you have to walk around and ask them. Next, they have to be willing to share their information. Also, they have to be willing to share their information with you. It's much more convenient to not only be able to ask large numbers of people from far away your question, but actually to see if anyone else has ever asked your question so that you can just read the answers that are already out there. Being able to occasionally download a wad of books is a decent compromise. If you don't understand this, please stick a book up your ass and press your face against your monitor.

Re:Race to the bottom

[drinkypoo]

You can polish a turd, if you freeze it. Now, I'm not actually saying that Windows or OSX is a polished turd, I'm just saying that if you were to imply that Windows or OSX has a level of polish absent from Linux, it wouldn't be hard to make your argument.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

... but it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do...

To each, his own. What one calls as "polished overall experience", others call as "dumbing down".
As for me - yes, computer (defined as "a general purpose computing machine") should be easy to use. But it shouldn't be made easier - after all, this is a general purpose computing machine. Once dumbed down too far, it's no longer a computer, it's an appliance. You don't need half a brain to operate a fridge, even if it's controlled by an embedded CPU able to regular the temperature, check stocks, orders automatically from your favorite grocery when it's near empty, etc - because the purpose of the fridge isn't to perform "general purpose computing".

Re:Race to the bottom

[symbolset]

I'm quite serious. These tablets are themselves from a sci-fi novel - and a not-so-very old one at that - but they are nevertheless realizable in the near term. The pace of progress is picking up quite a bit.

When my grandfather died men had not yet walked on the moon and the very idea was laughable science fiction. My mother was quite the successful medical professional and now I carry more books in my pocket each day (several thousand) than she ever read in her life. We have things now like Khan Academy and Open Courseware that offer the modern connected person with the time, ability and inclination the opportunity to learn many things that were once the secrets of a privileged few. And of course material facts like the seventh US President's policy on federal debt are but a google away, when once upon a time to discover such a thing you needed access to a good library with an encyclopedia.

These things are not just possible but inevitable. You cannot stop them no matter how much you protest because the fusion of information and communication means that knowledge will penetrate into the darkest spaces even against determined opposition. All you do in the attempt is reveal your bigotry. You think the impoverished are in some way inferior when in fact you are no better than them. It seems likely the stone of suffering has honed their wit substantially. You just have the advantage of more plentiful resources, chief among them knowledge about how to do things more easily, safely and comfortably - and not because of any personal merit but by accident of birth.

People are lazy. Show them an easy way to do something and they'll take it every time.

Re:Race to the bottom

[symbolset]

I'm quite serious. It's these tablets that just a few months ago were seeming quite unrealistic, the stuff of science fiction. It seems the pace of progress these days is quite brisk. Do try to keep up.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Stewie241]

And DRM'ed software that relies on proprietary software. How many people use Linux for everything except Netflix?

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

"You're posting this on a forum where a good number of readers are obsessed with Linux. It's not that Linux isn't a great OS (I use it for server-side stuff) but it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do."
          Sorry but you are idealizing Windows. *Ocassionally* I see it actually running smoothly and doing what the user wants. Way more often, I see people dealing with weird quirks, slowdowns, and problems. A good Linux distro can give a quite nice user experience.

"There is a breakeven point for many people. Those people who are happy to pay $200 for a machine and spend the time getting it to run well with something like Linux even at the expense of a better experience which may cost 6x as much (Apple)."
          Realistically, the sub-$100 tablets are slow enough so someone will spend time getting it to run well as you say. Even at $150, the tablets are 800mhz-1ghz on up, plenty of speed. People buy Apples because they want an Apple.

"So, if someone cannot or is unwilling to pay $500 for an iPad but may be willing to pay less than $100, it's going to give a much better experience than nothing."
          Agreed. I got an $88 tablet for my mom, it's really not that quick. But it works for GMail, her crappy webmail for her work, web browsing, book reading, and I got the app store onto it so it can do whatever else she feels like. She knew she could get a much better one for even $140 or $150, but has no regrets. She liked it enough that she got one for my aunt who is also liking it.

Re:Race to the bottom

[cgenman]

To be fair, the OLPC was a crappy 200 dead end, that spurned the development of the $200 broadly available netbook and the $400 entry-level laptop. Smartphones were derided as incompatible portable browsers attached to a uselessly tiny screen, until they took over the world. The "Race to the bottom" is pretty much where most people live, and where revolutions happen.

Maybe a $35 uselessly anachronistic tablet will finally spurn some $50 broadly available tablites. Or single-use interactive eTextbooks. Or embed it into devices as a standard UI component on dishwashers, cars, or other things. Or maybe it will actually take off on its own.

Who knows? But give credit where due: they've done something fantastically geeky.

Re:Race to the bottom

[pimpsoftcom]

The last thing they need is bibles. They need STEM education; a bible is antithetical to this.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Belial6]

There are no products that start from scratch, so of course you would start with an already-developed product. I'm pretty sure that if you go to Apple with several million dollars, and tell them that you would like an iPad with twice as much storage, they would accommodate you. For several million dollars, they would probably even put in an SD slot if you asked real nice.

Re:Race to the bottom

[mcrbids]

Well by putting their system reqs at frankly ludicrously low levels what you ended up with is OEMs slapping Linux on machines that frankly would have had trouble running Win98 without hanging and gave Linux a worse view from those that don't know about specs and just look at price. i mean a 366Mhz CPU?

To be fair, I have a 400 Mhz P3 that has performed admirably for a decade or so with effectively zero downtime as a dev server and network monitor for a production server cluster. To say that you can't get significant use from such comparatively scant resources is simply wrong. I manage my expectations... I am not expecting a responsive, HD flash video experience, nor am I expecting to render expressive graphics with a "snappy" experience.

Look at this as a research project: how do you get a good experience at a reduced power level? You aren't going to get a good experience at 366 Mhz, but given just two Moore's law doublings, you are up to 1.5 GHz, roughly in line with today's midline tablet processors. That's just 4 to 6 years away, depending on how you interpret Moore's law.

The lessons learned today will result in a much better experience for future users of both "low end" and more mainstream processors.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Jeremi]

But you seem pretty content to tell us what we should or should not buy, and what we should be allowed to have, eh?

You are accusing me of writing things that I never wrote. I never told anyone what they should or should not buy, and I certainly never said anything about what people should not be allowed to have.

Having a cheap affordable tablet can help the government to distribute one in practically every village, and provide current information to those who would not have it otherwise.

That sounds great. The question remains: will a $35 tablet meet that need, or not? I can certainly imagine a $35 tablet that stops functioning after two weeks, or is so slow or unreliable that nobody can get it to do any useful work. Paying $35 for a brick would not do anyone any good.

It is incredible, how an arrogant know-it-all like you, who has no idea whatsoever about the ground realities in India, feels compelled to spout off his patronizing opinions in any case, without understanding the least bit what use these tablets are meant for. (hint : it is not for playing angry birds!).

You really need to deal with your anger better and stop name-calling. Even in India people will not use a tablet that doesn't work, and therefore even a $35 tablet will need to be usable. If stating that fact makes you so angry, perhaps you should ask yourself why.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

If you REALLY need a a computer to help you plant crops, then couldn't you do far more for the same price or the same for less with a stationary computer?

Short answer... No.

Long answer... There is also the cost to power the computer. Places that the tablet is aimed at more often than not, do not have an existing electrical infrastructure or access to generators. So small solar panels (size that fits in your hand) to recharge small devices are more feasible.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Jeremi]

asking the locals fucking sucks./quote.

Yes, I agree. So the bar for making a tablet that is better than doing that should be pretty low. The question remains: For $35, is it possible to make a tablet that meets that bar?

(gratuitous insults ignored)

Re:Race to the bottom

[symbolset]

It was an example of the size of a book in readily recognizable terms, not a recommendation for content. There is no more recognizable unit of measure to work with.

Re:Race to the bottom

[dave87656]

it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do.

I'll agree with you on the apple comparison, but the MS comparison is a little more difficult. I think it is more polished in some ways but less reliable and certainly less crisp than Ubuntu as one example. I moved away from Windows when Vista became unusable -- boot times of several minutes, even starting from hibernate. Windows 7 was okay at the beginning but it now boots slowly and is sluggish. Anti-vir checks don't find any viruses and I haven't installed any software on it since the beginning. Ubuntu has worked on all my desktops (one PC and two laptops) in a consistent manner from the start, boots quickly and reacts to what I want to do. My Windows laptops do not.

I recently was requested to install Linux on a friend's laptop which had Vista on it for the same reason. I know the Windows apologists will shout that Vista doesn't count -- even MS admits it was bad. Of course they did, when it was time boost sales of the next OS. Let's see what they say about Windows 7 and Windows 8 comes out.

Re:Race to the bottom

[dave87656]

That's what I use it for and several of my friends, some of whom were Windows users but got frustrated with sluggish systems and malware.

Re:Race to the bottom

[symbolset]

This is actually a very good point for an AC - the Roddenberry Prime Directive. These humans suffer and die impoverished within arm's reach of the resources that could save them if only they knew how to exploit them. We can alleviate their suffering and prevent their deaths by giving them knowledge, at the risk of destroying their unique culture. Absent such a universal law, for moral people this is a painful choice and so some will choose one way and some the other on the balance. In sum this does mean the people will be assimilated so it's best to preserve their culture as best we can. Of course we'll lose some things, but if the people die their culture is still lost. It's of course morally wrong to use these people as our cultural diversity laboratory, but what choice is there?

A difficult question. Thanks, AC.

Re:Race to the bottom

[roman_mir]

I have lenovo w510 laptop with 16GB RAM etc., it's nice. I use it for my work and there are 2 OSs on it - Windows 7 (which it came with) and a Ubuntu 10.

Here is what I can tell you about these: I tried Windows 7 and never mind the fact that I can't stand the overall graphical interface in it, under Windows 7 I couldn't copy files from a CD that somebody gave me with a medical application onto the disk. (well, it said it would copy the disk in 55 hours, after 'calculating' or something the files for 10 minutes straight).

With Ubuntu it just copied the files. Took a couple of minutes I think, maybe less.

With Ubuntu I have various issues as well, which are all convenience problems; anything from dual monitor behaving strangely once in a while to the hang ups, when the mouse gets stuck 'between' the two monitors (it's on both at the same time and keeps jumping) and at this point nothing works, can't switch to another shell, nothing, so have to reboot. This happens once a month maybe.

But with all the problems under a GNU/Linux I can't imagine using that Windows partition, it's just sitting there, stealing 50GB of space from me, but I keep it around just in case I really need to run something Windowsy. But apparently I have to do it in some XP compatibility mode, because Win 7 didn't even run apps that I needed.

As to Apple - yeah, next life maybe.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a cheap cop-out. Windows and Mac are objectively superior experiences for end users with very few outliers.

You might, stress *might* be an exception to that rule. But consider this... lately all the major UI groups have been aiming to do something better. So far everyone seems to think they've badly missed the mark and are screaming bloody murder to get their busted ass windows 95 paradigms back. Even when they have that, things never work as smoothly.

That's a pretty obvious indication of the state of user experiences for linux on the desktop.

Re:Race to the bottom

[rtfa-troll]

Same thing with popular proprietary systems too like OSX and Android. People don't seem to have a problem with the concept of just buying hardware that these operating systems are intended for so why not do that for Linux without having to make an issue out of it? And, yes, I know Android is Linux.

This is 100%. If you buy a PC and try running OS/X on it you will have a hell of a time. On the other hand I have bought HP laptops with pre-installed Linux and they work great. If there's one thing Linux advocates have to learn it's to tell everybody that they won't have a good experience if they don't buy dedicated hardware. Being able to work on strange/old hardware should be seen as an additional feature for experts rather than a good way of getting Linux about. Even if it does work, the experience is always going to be worse for Linux on five year old hardware than Windows on the newest hardware. I've heard good experiences with System 76 for Ubuntu. Are there any equivalents for Mint, for example?

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anne Thwacks]

Most people interpret Moores Law as "quick, lets invent more pointless bling!".

I still remember running Unix on a 2MHz VAX. I believe it supported 64 users theoretically, and about 20 in practice. (No GUI, of course).

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anne Thwacks]

OTOH, if it comes with one app that enables the user's village to sell a week's production for $35 more than they would have done without, its party time for the whole village!

Some of you need to get out more!

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's the current minimum required specs for dumpster diving?

Re:Race to the bottom

[hairyfeet]

Most people interpret Moores Law as "quick, lets invent more pointless bling!".

I still remember running Unix on a 2MHz VAX. I believe it supported 64 users theoretically, and about 20 in practice. (No GUI, of course).

Hear Hear Anne! I remember surfing the web on a 233MHz with a stripped down Win98 running on 64Mb and frankly it was nice...until Geocities came out! Then it was OC the hell out of that Celeron and if you're lucky the silicon won't melt when the page you visit ends up making a comet Cursor pocketwatch hang from your mouse cursor like a string of snot!

Website developers are the absolute WORST when it comes to loading on the bling! Anyone else remember when a page that was 100Kb was considered bloated shit? We used to have frankly VERY usable websites on a third of that because they didn't go nuts with piling on the bling, now even on the fastest connections you can watch as the crap from all over the web is called and the bloat piles on up and that is WITHOUT flash! Now picture that on a 366Mhz mobile device where its doubtful they'll have ABP to block the 3 pages worth of ads for every page worth of content not to mention all that ultra heavy JavaScript and HTML...eeek! if they think a 1.5GHz mobile will be usable in 3 years much less 6 they haven't hung around any website designers obviously because by that time anything under 3GHz dual cores will be like that 366MHz is today, just a horribly painful experience. I'm all for saving money but there is a floor where you go below it and you've made the device nothing but a worthless toy and I think TFA has reached that floor and then tunneled under a couple of feet.

Re:Race to the bottom

[thej1nx]

And why do you think it is unreliable or will stop working? Slow is not an issue for most of the educational apps. There is also a difference in expectation of speed when reading a book, and when playing angry birds.

What you are unable to grasp is that these tablets are intended for kids/folks who have NOT used a tablet/PC ever in their life. They do not have any per-conceived expectations regards speed/responsiveness. The computers that were around in the 80s and 90s, in no way compare to the laptops you may own now. You will throw those old ones in trash, if someone gave you one for free. But back in that time period, they were just fine.

I really cannot understand the "let them eat cake" mentality. There ARE kids in rural areas of India, who want to study but usually don't get the opportunity due to school being many miles away(with no roads) and inability to even buy books. And you have no idea about the sheer population v/s size of India either. The government just doesn't have the kinds of resources to make it happen. But put in a solar panel in a village(already done in many places), and even one such tablet can help those kids, if government can make it cheap enough for mass distribution...

Here is one example of what I am talking about :

http://blogs.worldbank.org/files/edutech/hiwel_050.jpg

See the kids gathered around the screens? Those are actual really really low end PCs embedded in the walls. They work just fine for the purpose intended. They do not stop working and are pretty usable, for the definition of use intended.

I am not venting off at you in particular. It is the simply non-comprehending, patronizing "let them eat cake" attitude of folks like you, who for some reason make assumptions that if it is not the latest Samsung galaxy tab or the IPhone 4gs, it just won't work, and the people in Indian government are just dumb folks, who are investing in tablets that stop working after 2 weeks. (Hint : they are just very very slow, and you need patience to work with them. But they are reliable).

Re:Race to the bottom

[drinkypoo]

There were no insults, I simply asked you to carry out an action.

You really have to ask if it's possible to make a $35 tablet that does that stuff? We have $50 tablets that do that stuff that are sold with a profit motive. Sure, they're slow, but they're literally an order of magnitude more powerful than the computers most of us started with, and two orders of magnitude more powerful than the computers that SOME of us started with. If you doubt that you can do useful work with that today, I don't know what to tell you; you could do it yesterday, what's changed? Answer: for this job, nothing.

Re:Race to the bottom

[thsths]

You make me feel old. I started browsing the "web" using xmosaic on a 486 with 8MB of memory. And it worked, just about. 10kB was considered a large page back then - and myspace was still the future.

So yes, I am sure you can do useful things with 366 MHz. Heck, my phone only has 600 MHz, and it runs just fine (not always fast, but that's ok). Of course you are bound to struggle with some of the apps - Angry Birds is probably out of reach.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Raenex]

I don't know why people are so hung up on culture. Just think about the cultural shifts that have occurred over the centuries, or how many shifts there have been in the past century alone. A lot of times that culture has a lot of negative aspects that are better left behind. Culture changes. Get over it.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hairyfeet]

You wanna feel young again? My first "PC" didn't even have an OS, just a BASIC interpreter! Look up the specs on a Commodore VIC sometime and be amazed anybody could do anything with the thing, hell a $1 watch at Fred's has more power than the VIC had.

This is why I say everyone should take the time and just be amazed at what we have. I mean my fricking netbook has dual cores, 80 stream processors, 8Gb of RAM and a 320Gb HDD and I paid less for it than I did for the VIC minus the tape drive! The desktop I'm typing this on has SIX cores, 8Gb of RAM, 3 fricking Tb of HDD space, 800 stream processors for video, a 1600x900 widescreen and cost less than the 386SX with a lousy 20Mb HDD which was my first IBM PC compatible! Hell you could easily fit my first 5 HDDs into the RAM I have on EITHER system!

So I think as we are about to send another year into the pass folks ought to just take a minute and be amazed at what Moore's Law has given us. I mean when even my 71 year old dad is running a quad, I have a dual core in the closet for a spare "just in case' and even my kid's hand me downs have truly insane levels of graphics power you really need to stop a minute and just be amazed at how far we've come in terms of power in such a short time. I mean when i started out a "laptop" would have been the Osbourne or Commodore Portables and they would have busted your knees if you tried setting them 20 pounders on your lap, not to mention the need for a REALLY long extension cord if you wanted to go anywhere with it and i hope you had great eyesight for that 3 inch screen, now I enjoy 6 hours of HD video on a charge on a machine that just weighs 3 pounds and only cost $350? that's nuts!

Re:Race to the bottom

[hattig]

I seem to remember having a solidly great quality experience with my 4MHz Z80 based computers in the 80s, then my 8 and 14MHz 680x0 computers in the early 90s. With proper software, a ARM11 (I presume) 366MHz system will feel great too. Especially when you consider the IPC of each of those processors. And with tens of millions of users, this software will come.

Although I guess they'll need an Android application development system that runs on the tablet itself...

WikiPedia also says there is a higher spec UbiSlate 7 made by the same company with an 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU, for a bit more money. I guess that's the difference between using a $5 SoC and a $10 SoC.

Both products are sold out apparently, even future production. Then soon there will be the Aakash 2 which will have a 800MHz CPU and 1GB RAM. http://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/PersonalTech-Updates/Better-faster-Aakash-2-to-be-launched-in-Feb-2012/SP-Article1-764394.aspx

It sounds like there are a lot of problems with the first version - overheating apparently. Overheating! In a 366MHz ARM11 device!

Re:Race to the bottom

[hattig]

This company isn't sitting still. Apparently they will release the Aakash 2 in early 2012. This is getting an 800MHz CPU, 1GB RAM and a front-facing camera, for the same price. Even if that's an 800MHz ARM11 (to keep costs down), that is significantly faster than the current device.

Even the current SoC has a GPU and video decode acceleration - that Flash video experience might not be too bad, even on the 366MHz device.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hattig]

This is the chip used: http://www.conexant.com/products/entry.jsp?id=626 - it can actually do HD 1080p decode, and the graphics performance is 200Mpixels/s.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hattig]

The $52 is with the company's sales margin on top. Parts and assembly are $35-$40 or so.

At this price you could have a two way video entry system on your house for under $100 - if someone writes the software.

Re:Race to the bottom

[roc97007]

Thanks, PopeRatzo, you saved me from having to type all of that in. Some people just don't have a clue. Or they don't want to have a clue. And that's fine, you can't force people to look up from Angry Birds, take the earbuds out, and see what's actually going on in the world. But it's kinda sad.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hattig]

When the local farmers in the first world are using computers to help them with their crop planning, having access to a cheap portable computer in the second and third worlds will be a great help to the local farmers there to increase their yields and plant the optimal crops for the forthcoming months.

Re:Race to the bottom

[roc97007]

> If you REALLY need a a computer to help you plant crops, then couldn't you do far more for the same price or the same for less with a stationary computer?

I don't think you're going to get this, perhaps unless you go over there and see the conditions. Laptops and tablets, even when they're plugged in, have a natural UPS that gets you through frequent power hiccups. Desktops not only draw more power, which is a huge disadvantage in that environment, but UPS and power conditioning costs extra, and then we're back to the price thing. Moreover, in places with no power, it's more practical to charge up a device with a small, ultra cheap solar panel (dc to dc) than to put together panel, storage (external deep-cycle batteries) and inverter (dc to ac) to power a desktop unit. I've done both; can attest to this. Even in the US you can charge up a slate or laptop with a $22 panel, probably a lot cheaper over there. There are other issues, but you should at least be able to understand that one.

Parenthetically, the first time I was there, I was trying to power my company's communications gear from their diesel generators and the results weren't pretty. I put in a big industrial power conditioner between their power and the equipment. First time I'd ever seen a conditioner catch fire.

In fact, if Datawind is listening, I'm wondering if you couldn't make a "deep country" version of the slate, where the back of the slate is a solar panel. Flip over to charge.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hattig]

Maybe this will let the entire indian subcontinent get onto Etsy to sell their products at prices they couldn't even dream of to middle class bored housewives and househusbands.

Re:Race to the bottom

[couchslug]

P4 2.4 or faster for me. They make good space heaters.

I leave my P4 running in my ISO container shop on cold nights and it makes a noticeable difference in temperature the next day.

Re:Race to the bottom

[sjames]

Not to mention that as a long time user of Linux on the desktop, I find that Windows feels rather clunky in comparison. It always seems to demand extra steps and make things seem more difficulty than they have to be.

It's almost exactly like when Picard had to use the children's terminal when the Ferengi took over the Enterprise.

World's cheapest tablet

[multimediavt]

You mean slate and flint? Pen and paper? Or, I'll give you the more advanced, yet clumsy, Etch-A-Sketch.

Re:World's cheapest tablet

[Tumbleweed]

You mean slate and flint? Pen and paper? Or, I'll give you the more advanced, yet clumsy, Etch-A-Sketch.

Pfft. Time to get medieval all up in this thang: blood and skin!

Re:World's cheapest tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, modded down to a 2! I was trying to be funny, yet giving a valid answer.

Re:World's cheapest tablet

[couchslug]

"I'll give you the more advanced, yet clumsy, Etch-A-Sketch."

Those make great gifts. We gave one to our Lieutenant as a laptop.
(He had a good sense of humor!)

This is great

[Metricmouse]

It it is imho a basic human right to compute, now a lot more people can.

Re:This is great

[hedwards]

It isn't a basic human right. Basic human rights are things like food, clothing, shelter and arguably health care. As long as those things are not being provided to a huge portion of the human race, it's a bit soon to talk about computing.

Even when those things are provided for, it's hard to argue that something like computing which isn't a necessity to live is a basic human right.

That being said, it is something of significance, without which one cannot hope to be fully engaged in society, at least not in the future as the technology makes its way to the 3rd world.

Re:This is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't even try. There are too many of the...let's say...elevated age class here to believe these things. I bet they'd gladly tell you a pencil and paper are a part of a society that value's basic human rights, but tell them that about a computer and it's just "a privilege" etc. And don't even get started telling them that healthcare is a human right, why in their day they scraped their knees and bled out all over the kitchen floor, now they walk funny everywhere they go and they like it damnit!

366 MHz?

[0100010001010011]

Ha. You old people are so funny. You could never do anything real on a 366 MHz processor. I mean, like, the Android I got for christmas has at LEAST 1200 megahertzes. I bet they had at least that when they went to that moon or invented the awesome SR-71.

Who are these indian kids that would even get this. I would be soooo mad if someone got me this for christmas. Such a horrible gift. No one could ever even use it.

Let them have the original iPhone.

Re:366 MHz?

[windcask]

Ignoring the blatant trolling of your comment, I will tell you that I used a 33MHz processor in my first computer (a 386), and here's exactly what it couldn't do: Play video.

I could still get on the internet, play music, code, run Office, play some simpler games. Everything that's come since has just been a more complex refinement of the same stuff we've been doing since the beginning of GUI computing.

Re:366 MHz?

[CohibaVancouver]

Ignoring the blatant trolling of your comment

WHOOSH!

Re:366 MHz?

[Kurlon]

I'd just like to point out that I had a 386sx-33, and I could in fact play video on it.

No, I couldn't stream netflix but many demos had video clips, as well as some early CD games.

Re:366 MHz?

[Richard_J_N]

You make a good point. I always thought it rather a shame that the excellent GPE (for iPaq) never went anywhere - GPE (the gnome-palmtop-environment) ran really well on the 266 MHz CPUs of its day, and contained regular linux + busybox + X + Gtk + some applications. It fitted into 16 MB of flash and 32MB of RAM. Sadly nobody ever created the phone-peripheral to make this into a smartphone, and we ended up evolving backwards - making phones gradually more smart, instead of fitting a voice-modem to a pre-existing portable computer. As a result, Android is 7 years late, and an atrocious resource-hog. Meanwhile, we had a diversion for QTopia etc (on, for example, the Zaurus). Qt was so much slower than Gtk for embedded devices (though it was prettier if one prized beauty over speed), and the resulting systems were unusable.

Part of the problem with Android (and iPhone) is that they run a Java GUI rather than X/Gtk (thereby making them incompatible with all the old, and fast apps); the other problem is that most apps aren't GPL. The consequence of this is that there is no central package manager (with dependency resolution and shared libraries). So every single app has to bundle its own icons, its own copy of the libraries, and run in its own sandbox. This makes them far more bloated. I do like Android, but we could get at least 10x better performance out of it if the environment were better engineered.

You can easily demonstrate this to yourself: take a look at MenuetOS, which fits an OS + GUI + browser + media-player + editor + source-code on a single floppy!

Re:366 MHz?

[drolli]

Excuse me. My palm worked reasonably with 16MHz. Ok that wasnt android, but if you restrict the appication to the things you really need it should be fine.

Re:366 MHz?

[angiasaa]

I'm Indian you know.. Perhaps it does not occur to you, but there are people in this country who earn less in a year than you'd pay for a decent meal at a two star restraunt. There are millions of such people in fact. To say that the government agencies work hard to play this figure down, would be a gross understatement. But even though I live in a fairly prosperous patch of the country, living here since I was born, I have actually met such people.

In a country of over a billion people, with barely 0.4% of the population sucking up 90% of the money that floats around, it is a spectacular vision of neglect and sadness.

About 35% of the population of India lives below the poverty line. FYI, the poverty line translates to $6 US a year!
Sure, for you it would feel like a kick in the stomach to receive a device such as this for christmas, but trust me, kids who get this device here would literally be willing to sell their kidneys for the opportunity to have one of them.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying I love the device, just that there are loads of people who will. And not only will they love and enjoy it, they will actually get it to do stuff the rest of us never even dreamed possible on such a low-spec toy.

So if someone asks me to buy the device for myself, I'd tell them to go eat shit. But I would nevertheless be glad to see it go out into the market for those who would otherwise go completely deviceless. I think there's some honour in that somewhere, but I'm having trouble putting it into words. :) Forgive me.

Re:366 MHz?

[garyebickford]

Yeah, troll, but ... I was working on $40,000 workstations in the late 1970s and early 1980s - 768x1024 or 1280x1024 displays, both monochrome (bit-mapped) and color (pixel-mapped). The fastest one (see Perq) had a 1MHz CPU, processing on a 64-bit memory pipeline. It had a pretty good window manager (with a mouse that worked on a special tablet), a programmable microprogram store, and an OS written in a systems-capable variant of Pascal. (Perq didn't come out with color till later.)

The hard drive was IIRC up to 24 MB, and the memory was up to 2 MB.

All in all, performance of the user interface was as good as anything we have now, not counting compositing and other compute-intensive functions.

Much later (into the beginning of this century) I had a NextStation 25MHz. It was also pretty good as far as the user interface was concerned due to the use of the TI 9900 signal processor for drawing the display, but compiling anything significant could take all night. Ray tracing an image was a multiple-week project for anything complicated.

Re:366 MHz?

[tepples]

I could still get on the internet, play music

By "music" do you mean recorded audio or just MIDIs with no lyrics?

Re:366 MHz?

[roc97007]

I don't think it was trolling, it was rather obvious sarcasm. "megahertzes" should have been a clue, also that the SR-71flew five years before Intel released the 4004.

(And didn't they use slide rules on the moon missions?)

Re:366 MHz?

[Anonymous Coward]

I played the original Elite on a 2MHz BBC Micro. My Archimedes had a responsive GUI on an 8MHz ARM2. It's astonishing, with so much processing power available on even the crappiest device, just how poor the user experience can be.

Re:366 MHz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pah. 16MHz ought to be enough for anybody.

Re:366 MHz?

[Osgeld]

hm I had no issues playing back video on my 25mhz 386

Re:366 MHz?

[meowhous]

I've never eaten at a two-star restaurant (nor wanted to), I've always lived in the U.S., and I personally think cheap gadgets are great even if you can afford better because they are less financially risky to experiment on. Eat shit or not--I don't care about your diet either--I'm not into $tatus.

Re:366 MHz?

[ChinggisK]

Yea judging from the other replies to the OP, everyone's sarcasm detectors are on the fritz tonight. Must be those sun storms from yesterday.

Re:366 MHz?

[Anonymous Coward]

A 366 Mhz SOC would support the playback of encoded video and audio by means of hardware codecs included on the chip, not by means of the 366 Mhz core.

More Mhz means more power consumption. Your 1200 Mhz device will not have the same life on the same power source.

Re:366 MHz?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Qt was so much slower than Gtk for embedded devices

Not in my experience.

>> Part of the problem with Android (and iPhone) is that they run a Java GUI rather than X/Gtk

Oh now I see, you don't know what you're talking about. The iPhone runs a Java GUI? Sure it does.

>> I do like Android, but we could get at least 10x better performance out of it if the environment were better engineered.

That number courtesy of your ass.

>> You can easily demonstrate this to yourself: take a look at MenuetOS, which fits an OS + GUI + browser + media-player + editor + source-code on a single floppy!

Yes, isn't it amazing how fast your operating system can be when you have no features to speak of?

Re:366 MHz?

[symbolset]

We hear you. You make great sense. Please ignore the jerks. The Internet is full of jerks but it has good people too. This stuff is coming and to these folks it will be free. It will hold enough information to help people live successful, healthy, educated lives without imposing any burden on them. They will not require power or wireless, or anything else. And there will be a LOT of them.

They will still have to work but if they will work together all other things are possible.

Re:366 MHz?

[Anonymous Coward]

My palm usually works in the 1/2 to 2 Hz range, and I have no complaints, even fireworks at times.

Re:366 MHz?

[roc97007]

> I'm Indian you know.. Perhaps it does not occur to you, but there are people in this country who earn less in a year than you'd pay for a decent meal at a two star restraunt.

Having worked in many parts of India, I understand, and have tried to point that out also. I personally don't understand the philosophy "well if you can't afford an ipad you don't need a tablet" and I'd like to assure you that there are many of us here who think that's an offensive, ugly-firstworlder position to take, comparable to saying "I don't understand why you're hungry. Why don't you just go out and buy some food?"

Re:366 MHz?

[roc97007]

Um, not a troll, was sarcasm -- you're in violent agreement with original poster.

But thanks for making your points. I also started career in the late seventies, developed software on massively expensive workstations with resources much less than is currently available in an ipod nano. (I still have an original DEC VT100, and it still works.) These young earbud junkies... [1] appear to be incapable of understanding that valuable work can be done on hardware that is not the latest and greatest trendy up-to-the-minute cutting edge stuff. I think it goes back to the device itself being the thing, rather than what you can accomplish with the device.

[1] At least I assume they're young.... it'd be kinda sad and pointless if they were my age and still had that worldview.

Re:366 MHz?

[artor3]

That was an excellent and informative post, and well deserving of a +5 moderation, but I think you should know that the person you are responding to was speaking sarcastically. As he pointed out, while this tablet may be weak by modern standards, it's still much stronger than what was used to put men on the Moon or to design and fly the world's first supersonic stealth jets.

Re:366 MHz?

[chrb]

Let them have the original iPhone.

412 MHz... Too slow to ever be useful.

Re:366 MHz?

[garyebickford]

Yes. It's amazing how we can manage to keep creating ever-larger software that manages to suck up all those cycles - it's a dirty job, but we're up to it! :D

Re:366 MHz?

[drinkypoo]

YHBT. LOL. HTH. HAND.

And just as seriously, I would love to have a mess of these tablets. I have all kinds of uses for them.

Re:366 MHz?

[kaliann]

Poverty in India (and elsewhere) is truly a horrific problem, one I hope becomes a more widely understood issue in the "privileged" world. However, I am curious as to this assertion:

About 35% of the population of India lives below the poverty line. FYI, the poverty line translates to $6 US a year!

World Bank estimates that ~24% of the Indian populace earns less than $1 per day, but $6 per year is orders of magnitude more dire. Now, estimates are estimates, and I am certainly willing to be corrected, but if the situation is so severe that reliable estimates vary by orders of magnitude, I would be interested to know about it.

Regardless, I think that the tremendous opportunity that this tablet may provide for whoever has the chance to make use of it could help the people involved innovate in really exciting ways. I look forward to hearing about the uses the devices are put to, because I know that many of them will be surprising and ingenious. Potentially, those innovations could help other impoverished people if similar programs are initiated in other countries. It sort of reminds me of a digital Heifer International, except that information replicates even faster than rabbits!

Re:366 MHz?

[voidptr]

IIRC, the 1st gen TiVos were PPC running at a whopping 50 MHz, about the time Intel was hitting 500 MHz with the Pentium III. The system was designed so the encoder or satellite tuners and video decoder could bus master to and from the IDE interface directly, the main CPU never touched the video stream.

Re:366 MHz?

[lkcl]

Sadly nobody ever created the phone-peripheral to make this into a smartphone

gpephone. http://gpephone.linuxtogo.org/

Re:366 MHz?

[EETech1]

My OLPC XO-1 is perfectly useable running Fedora on a 433 MHz AMD Geode with 256 MB DRAM. I can run FireFox, Abiword and just about any other program you need.

It takes it 1 minute and 20 seconds to complete the entire boot process (full Gnome 2 desktop and all background processes) and connect to WiFi. Launching FireFox, and loading Google takes 15 seconds. Faster than millions of botted up 1+ Ghz Win XP machines still in use.

Sounds like somebody needs to spend a few months on a VIC20.

I'd wait 5 minutes for a web page to load if it was that, or no internet. Think about it, if you could have a gen 1 kindle or nothing to access the web for the next 5 years, would you take the nothing?

The Internet is power, think of what it all enables! There are many people who desperately need it just for the medical, health and agricultural reasons, not for entertainment like we use it.

Cheers

Re:366 MHz?

[jbernardo]

The KDE-alike one was sweet too, IIRC it ran entirely on framebuffer. I don't recall it being slower than GPE though. I forget what it was called, someone here probably knows.

Opie was the open source version, but I also recall that Sharp had made a fork for the Zaurus line of PDAs called qtopia. It was as fast as GPE, if not faster. Sadly, nobody is interested on it any more. When I tried to offer my SL-C1000 to a developer who could keep maintaining it, but nobody in the angstrom mailing list was interested.

Re:366 MHz?

[roc97007]

Yes, there is something to that also. Bloat naturally increases to fill up all available resources, so naturally as resources increase, bloat does also. Someone has already made the point that eye candy, for instance, sucks up significant resources, without which one could probably make do with much cheaper hardware, which is kind-of the point of this product. And then an iOS junky jumped in and said something to the effect that people *have* to have those visual cues in order to know how to operate the device. And those of us who have written programs on punch cards, or toggled in a boot routine on front panel switches, feel really sad for, and a little ashamed of, the current generation.

Re:366 MHz?

[hattig]

Damn right. And this tablet can actually play 1080p video, because the Conexant SoC it uses incorporates a hardware decoder - I guess the chip was aimed at low-end "smart TVs". It's actually a modern chip from 2010, that originally retailed for $9 a piece - so getting it for $5 in late 2011 was probably easy enough when you promise millions of sales.

So what if the device is equivalent to a low-end PC from 2000 or so? People did a lot with systems like that, they ran full-featured business software, they played games, they developed software ... and it's portable with a battery too! I did loads on my first laptop - a HP Omnibook 4100 running at 266MHz with 64MB RAM.

Re:366 MHz?

[angiasaa]

Apologies for the delayed reply.. India has a different definition regarding where its poverty line lies.

I tried to find the statistics I used in my reply above, but can't seem to find them. Any way, here's an article from The Times of India from May of 2011 that might throw some light on the facts.

Just a reminder.. The exchange rate is: $1 USD = Rs.51.71 INR.
As per my calculations, the Urban Poverty Line lies at $7.16 per year while the Rural Poverty Line lies at $3.48 a year.
Of course, this data is a bit out of date.. However, considering inflation levels and the massively slow ambling of the government, I think the point comes through quite clearly.

I hope this info satisfies your curiosity. God knows, I wish more people were as interested. :(

Re:366 MHz?

[angiasaa]

My bad.. I miscalculated unforgivably. They don't match the article I linked to.

The values recalculated to $135 urban and $104 rural.

I feel foolish now. I'll go sulk under the first stone I turn over. :(

Re:366 MHz?

[kaliann]

I appreciate the article and data. Even the corrected figures demonstrate an attempt by the government to minimize the numbers of people counted as officially "poor". I have been to India and seen a small portion of the poverty that is so widespread. It enrages me to know that officials who know that the people they are supposed to represent are fighting starvation and preventable diseases for lack access to basic necessities can calmly insist that it isn't such a big problem.

On the subject of the tablets, I hope that the innovation can help some people change their lot, but I fear that the tool may not be enough to overcome the institutionalized callousness.

Reduce the price of tablets overall

[parallel_prankster]

I think the benefit of such undertakings - creating the lowest costing item - is usually that some of the ideas that come out of it can be used by other companies to bring down the price of the device in general. Ofcourse, if they hit upon a radical way of making tablets cheaper yayy. Otherwise, if at least some of their ideas can incorporated to make things cheaper and more accessible to other parts of the world as well, then thats the biggest victory for them.

Yes please.

[w0mprat]

Lord knows I have a million and one uses for cheap tablets. I could stick them to the back of the seats in the car, to shut up the kids in a long road trip. Stick one to my dashboard and connect it to a bluetooth ODB-II dongle. I would stick one to the front of the fridge to turn it into a new smart fridge. Hell, duct tape them to anything to smarten it up.

It would also make a hella good universal remote for the lounge.

Problem is now that tablets are spiffy high price gadgets with premium hardware and spiffy graphics that cost the same as a entry level laptop. I'd have one tablet to do all those things and have to carry it with me. Things will change radically when tablets really do become as cheap as they should be. Cheap enough and we'll start covering surfaces with them.

All the interface animations and physical metaphor graphics (brushed metal, wood grain - Apple's microsoft bob era design philosophy), but after a while it's no benefit and a small waste of your time and battery power every time you watch a 500ms transition animation. They just get in the way and in the end I'd rather have more battery life/response/cheaper hardware.

I really cannot wait to get my hands on a useful $99 or less tablet that actually doesn't look good, is rugged and doesn't have fancy graphics.

Re:Yes please.

[tepples]

A transition animation helps the brain (subconsciously) recognize how one piece of information on the screen relates to other pieces of information on the screen.

Re:Yes please.

[stephanruby]

I really cannot wait to get my hands on a useful $99 or less tablet that actually doesn't look good, is rugged and doesn't have fancy graphics.

Assuming it even works in the first place.

Personally, I'm like you, I couldn't care less about the look, the icons, or the form factor either, but at the minimum I'd require a super cheap tablet that registers the touches properly.

I've tried cheap under-powered android-derived tablets before, and I can tell you, there is nothing more frustrating as a user than having to touch a screen three or four times instead of touching it only once because the touchscreen doesn't register touch inputs properly. And I do like the goal they have, but my hope is that bare-bones usability is not sacrificed for the goal they have, otherwise everyone (even the schools in India I'm sure) will be sending their tablets back to them demanding their money back.

Re:Yes please.

[Anonymous Coward]

I could stick them to the back of the seats in the car, to shut up the kids in a long road trip.

"This isn't the one my friend has! It doesn't have the games my friends have!" Sorry, gotta use a full price one.

Re:Yes please.

[marcosdumay]

It doesn't have the games my friends have!

"No, it doesn't. If you don't want it, just go without games."

Not all kids are spoiled.

Re:Yes please.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.frys.com/product/6792145?site=sa:Tablets%20&%20iPads%20Pod:Pod5

Re:Yes please.

[rrohbeck]

Don't forget you can stick one on the steering wheel.

Re:Yes please.

[TheUser0x58]

Ah right, in 1997 running FVWM on a Pentium Pro was fine for me, a super-power-user, so its obviously good enough for the general computing populace. Marketing, design: call it what you want, but Im casting my lot with the company thats making boatloads of cash selling products that according to the Slashdot crowd are over-priced and under-functional.

Re:Yes please.

[evilviper]

Lord knows I have a million and one uses for cheap tablets.

Correction: You have a million and one uses for EXPENSIVE tablets, if you could get them cheap.

I've used several cheap tablets. There's good reason they are cheap. Usually, I wouldn't take them if they were giving them away for free...

On a very cheap tablet, expect the touch-screen to be either massively unresponsive, to the point you're gouging your thumb into it pretty hard to get it to respond, or even worse, very responsive, to the point it goes and does all sorts of things you didn't want it to... using swype on such devices is tantamount to cryptography.

And even if the they managed to not screw up the screen, expect the experience to still be painful, as in incredibly unresponsive, whether because of a pathetic CPU, too little RAM, very slow flash/rom, or just horrendous software development. And I know we're all accustomed to the last one being easy to work-around, but that's not true in the embedded world... CyanogenMod only supports a fairly small number of devices, and none of them are the cheapo crap tablets. And don't expect to find others, either... You'll get plenty of people releasing the normal firmware slightly hex-edited, and some hacked google market, but nothing more.

Oh, did I miss that part? Expect no light sensor, so you have to keep flipping around, blind, to adjust that up/down all the time, as you're blinded by the ultra-bright screen at night, and ultra-dim screen during the day, completely unreadable in even indirect sunlight. No compass, no GPS, and possibly no accelerometer so the screen doesn't even rotate on it's own. Likely no multitouch, so you've got big zoom buttons in every app sucking-up maybe 1/6th of the screen space and always getting in the way as you try to scroll or click on something at the very bottom... And there's always the low quality screens, with horrendous screen-door effect, even if the specs SEEM like the resolution SHOULD be high enough that you wouldn't expect such problems.

And just wait until you find out that they use ARMv6 (ARM11) CPUs, while every Android device you've ever come across has been ARMv7, and many programs simply aren't compatible, multimedia apps in particular, but also others like firefox as well.

And for the record, buying brands you've heard of is no solution. Archos, Samsung, LG, HTC, all make some truly crap Android products that you'll throw through a window in short order.

Re:Yes please.

[Hamsterdan]

Just hope the airbag doesn't inflate, otherwise it's gonna give a new meaning to retina display :)

Re:Yes please.

[drinkypoo]

Dealextreme has a 600MHz tablet for $89 which has Android 2.2 on it IIRC and which is reputed to actually be fairly good. Not great battery life, but what do you want for under a bill? You have to wade through a bunch of craplets to find the one good one in that price range.

Re:Yes please.

[drinkypoo]

A transition animation helps the brain (subconsciously) recognize how one piece of information on the screen relates to other pieces of information on the screen.

it could, but only if it were meaningful. the magic lamp effect in OSX (or compiz with xgl, under which now-dead combination it was actually smooth and usable) is a good example of that. since stuff moves around the OSX dock (or avant window navigator, which I was using when I was using xgl) it's nice to see your window collapse into the icon so you know which one to restore later.

Re:Yes please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out:
http://www.merimobiles.com/MID_V8_Android_2_2_VIA_VM8650_800Mhz_8inch_800_600_p/meri0670.htm

Or for a slightly more expensive device you can get 2.3, with a capacitive touchscreen and 'modern' hardware:
http://www.merimobiles.com/Ployer_MOMO9_Android_2_3_OS_Multipoint_Capacitive_p/meri0383.htm

My favorite is the Ainol Novo 7 Advanced (ICS is already running in beta on it!!):
http://www.merimobiles.com/Ainol_NOVO_7_Android_2_3_8GB_1_5GHz_CPU_Dual_Camer_p/meri0723.htm

Cheers

Re:Yes please.

[Osgeld]

Apple has studies that it in fact does ... course they are from 1983 when people might have an heart attack if a game show host popped his hands out of his leisure suit a bit too fast ...

Underlining the notion that time is worth nothing.

[rainer_d]

At least, the time of Indian people. In other markets (Africa especially) I'd argue that it is much more important to provide schoolbooks, paper and pencils to pupils (and school-buildings that don't get swept away by large rain-falls and where pupils can learn without getting soaking wet from the rain).

All "pads" are at or around $100 to make...

[Anonymous Coward]

Any engineering teams will tell you that most "pads" are around $100 to make (todays costs), including development, if you buy the components in lots of 1000 or 10,000. That goes for the "iPad" as well. This is the reason that everyone and their brother is trying to sell the things these days. There are huge sums of money to be made if you can just break into the market. The problem is, as always, marketing is not cheap, and the first to enter with a "good enough" product and marketing usually wins.

If you don't believe that "pads" can be made for around $100.00 USD, then do this... Just go into any "Home Depot" or "Lowes" home improvment store with $500 and see what you can get. How about "Walmart", "Target", or even "NewEgg". Compare some of the other products that you can get with $500.00 to the design and construction of what is inside an "iPad". Very few people actually open their products and look at the design and construction. But there are a great many things you can get for $500 that are: 1, more complex in both mechanical and electrical design, and 2, have a greater bulk bill of materials.

People are being taken to the cleaners with "pads" because they only see the "wow" factor. It's called "confusion marketing". If the consumer has no basis of comparison for what they are paying for, then you can charge them almost anything.

Re:All "pads" are at or around $100 to make...

[jo_ham]

I can see why you didn't log in.

Can't tell if trolling or genuinely stupid.

Well played sir.

Cheap isnt always the best

[nurb432]

What you want is to be a reasonable price point. Just being the bottom feeder isn't always a good goal.

$60 'commercial' price point?

[nurb432]

Odd, i just bought a 5" 'tablet' from China for that price. Seems this has already been done.

and ..

[Anonymous Coward]

so what ?

It Depends On Your Profit Margin and features

[LuxuryYacht]

Currently there are ARM Cortex A8 tablets with 7" LCD's using the $5.00 Allwinner A10 ARM soc on sale for ~120ea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCvef9IYX0o
http://tabletrepublic.com/forum/cortex-a8-allwinner-a10/

The actual cost to build them is around $60 ea

Basic human responsibilities

[tepples]

You have enumerated the most basic human rights. So what are the basic human responsibilities? And doesn't one have the right to the means to such responsibilities?

it's hard to argue that something like computing which isn't a necessity to live is a basic human right.

If one of the basic human responsibilities is paying tax, doesn't one have a right to any computing device needed to file a tax return?

Re:Basic human responsibilities

[hedwards]

Sure, but you don't need a computer to do that. You can still fill it out long hand on paper and send it in. It's still quite a bit of a stretch to believe that computing is a basic human right.

Re:Basic human responsibilities

[marcosdumay]

In Brazil you can't.

Re:Underlining the notion that time is worth nothi

[garyebickford]

If they can make the thing dirt and water resistant (almost essential, and ideally even waterproof, in the humid Indian climate), I would say it's a better solution for India than books and paper. Some of the OLPC ideas for making it cheap, robust and usable would be beneficial. Books may cost as much as several days pay for an average poor Indian just for the printing. If a single 'book' can be downloaded 100,000,000 times to simple tablets, it's much cheaper than printing the necessary books to educate 100,000,000 students for, say eight years. I would estimate that counting distribution and other factors, a tablet is probably cheaper after the first year.

Scale of Economics

[Niscenus]

What you call, "The Race to the Bottom," is in fact an essential link to making the Scale of Economy as rapidly effective as possible. Were you under some delusion that the original Apple computer was cutting edge from the then modern mini-computer perspective? Did you think the Motorola flip phones of the mid-nineties were the best cellular communications device available? There is a significant advantage, even without government subsidies to make things affordable to the poorer portions of the spectrum, to creating a basic experience as cheaply as possible.

Today's pre-data-plan-required phones are five times more powerful than my first computer and a quarter the cost without adjusting for inflation, and that is available thanks to what you have titled, "Race to the bottom [sic]." Whatever moderator thought you were insightful must have the understanding of Economics and technology development cycles as 1/3rd of the US Congress.

Too expensive... I prefer.. a rock tablet!

[DraconPern]

I picked up a rock tablet for free! Sure it's kind of heavy, but It'll never need an upgrade. No need to reset and it'll never loose data. Performance is a bit slow but it multitasks (it's got two sides for joting down stuff).

Re:Too expensive... I prefer.. a rock tablet!

[Anonymous Coward]

I had one of those, but I was disappointed with the chips.

Soon cheaper than a pharmaceutical tablet!

[Anonymous Coward]

:)

Terrible company

[Anonymous Coward]

I know people that have worked there in the past. Everyone quits, once they figure out that the place is a sweatshop. The main guy--Raja--specifically hires people that don't know what they're worth, usually from south america or china. Once they figure out that people in the tech industry in Canada don't need to work for peanuts, they go out and find jobs where they're paid twice to three times as much.

It's been about three years since I've talked to anyone that is or was working there, but it sounds like the cardboard boxes piled in the halls haven't gone anywhere.

(Posting anonymous, 'cause who needs the potential hassle of angry emails later. I know this makes my story hard to verify, but I wouldn't be posting if it otherwise. Why make stuff like this up?)

$35 tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

I would hazard to guess at $35, these are still going to be a tough sell in India.
90% of Indians still cannot afford this. The 10% who can will rather pay a little more for more powerful devices.

It's like the Tata Nano 'car' (more like a riding mower with a cabin)(another hot seller in India).
Most Indians still can't afford it. Those who can want something more upscale.

OLPC - bye bye

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL - good riddance to that obnoxious One Laptop per Child guy

Cheaper stuff is cheaper

[lahvak]

Duh! Cheaper stuff is not as good as expensive stuff (most of the time). I have an old dumb phone, that is not as good as a new powerful smartphone. Is my "experience" lower quality than it would be with a brand new i-phone or something similar? Sure it is. Am I willing to pay my phone company the money they charge for such new phone, plus data plan? Hell no! It's simply not worth to me, and I know better way to spend my money. Another example: when I go backpacking, could I spend few thousand dollars on gear that would keep me dryer, warmer, safer, etc? Sure. Would it improve my experience? Actually, no, I would be to worried about all the expensive stuff to really enjoy being in the woods. Is my old jacket, backpack, banded pot and old fire making kit as good as all the new expensive stuff? No, they are not, but they are good enough for me, I know them, I know I can rely on them, and if I happen to loose some of them in the woods, it's no big deal, I can get another one just like that very cheap.

What I am trying to say, there is use for expensive, carefully designed stuff that will give you "high-quality experience", and there is place for cheap, rugged, "inferior" stuff. The problem with tablets is, right now there is no choice, you either have the expensive stuff, or you have nothing. Creating something that will give us choice cannot be bad.

One of the advantages of systems like Android is that it makes devices like this possible, so it is perfectly right that they get counted.

A lot of them don't really know what you think

[reiisi]

Why are they stuck in poverty?

Sure, part of it is the lack of resources.

But another huge part is lack of information.

Moreover, your talk about them getting information from their neighbors? Many/most of them live in villages where the neighbors don't have a phone, even if they do.

You don't have to have a cutting edge communications device to benefit from a communications device. Calculation and informations storage and retrieval are additional benefits.

ubislate-aakash 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Their next version sports 700mzh cortex a8 with gingerbread slapped with same price tag!

sarcasm

[reiisi]

FWIW, the parent post linked his indelicate utterance with another on wikipedia (the famous "... let them eat cake.")

The wikipedia article was interesting, as well, because I didn't know that the evidence points away from Marie Antoinette having said it.

Its not the tool, its how you use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't look at this as a cheap knock off the iPad, look at it as something cheap that you can buy with a government grant and use to educate scores of children in countries that hate us. So when it comes to joining us or joining Al Qaeda, children of the third world will help people who gave them angry birds.

And then steal their jobs.

SERIBU PERNAK PERNIK PONSEL ANDROID

[djackria]

woww http://dicka-berbagi.blogspot.com/2011/12/seribupernakpernikponselandroid.html

seribu pernak pernik ponsel android

[djackria]

You can easily demonstrate this to yourself: take a look at MenuetOS, which fits an OS + GUI + browser + media-player + editor + source-code on a single floppy! http://dicka-berbagi.blogspot.com/2011/12/seribupernakpernikponselandroid.html

Experience shmexperience

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sitting on a box running Debian and FVWM. Yes, I went through Gnome (used to be a Gnome fan), a bit of KDE (never liked that too much), then XFCE (much better). At work, I sometimes have to sit in front of a Mac OSX. I feel claustrophobic, in spite of its much nicer screen.

Every time I hear the word "experience" I feel like punching someone in the face.

Gentlemen!

[Crouty]

Everything you say is true, but the tone is way too rude. Srsly.

Have you tried a stylus?

[tepples]

there is nothing more frustrating as a user than having to touch a screen three or four times instead of touching it only once because the touchscreen doesn't register touch inputs properly.

A lot of the cheap tablets have resistive touch screens. Steal a stylus from your kid brother's Nintendo DS and see if it responds any better. The touch screen of the Archos 43, which was the closest Android-powered counterpart to an iPod touch for a long time (until Samsung finally introduced the Galaxy Player), is resistive and works wonderfully with a stylus.

tl;dr: Stylus for resistive and finger for capacitive.

Use a stylus

[tepples]

On a very cheap tablet, expect the touch-screen to be either massively unresponsive

Please see my reply to stephanruby.

So are there affordable 4" and 7" class Android tablets that you'd recommend?

Raspberry Pi + Screen

[Stonent1]

So when is someone going to make a tablet kit for a Raspberry Pi and also make a Meego and Android distribution for it? That's what I'd like.

Re:Underlining the notion that time is worth nothi

[hattig]

But this device can hold every textbook that a student ever needs. It can view every educational image, animation or video that a student ever needs. With a keyboard it will let the student take as many notes as they desire, to write essays and email them to the teacher, to communicate with other people. Maybe it can teach communities new ways to build cheaply to resist storms and avoid floods.

Eventually they will evolve to western standards, stuck in front of a computing device all day getting a bad back, in the dark, not communicating with people in real life, and eating fast food delivered to their front door. And granny will still be recovering from seeing something involving a cup.

upgraded version already available

[Dzimas]

Datawind has already announced an upgraded version that sells for 2,999 INR (about USD $56). The extra 500 Rupees gets you a Cortex A8 running at 700 MHz, Android 2.3, a 3200 mAh battery (instead of 2100) and WiFi + GPRS. One thing to remember is that it doesn't matter if the specs are rudimentary -- if there are millions of these in the marketplace, they will become a de-facto standard and developers will create functional apps for them.

Also don't forget that the upgraded Aakash tablet costs about the same as the average monthly salary in India. It's a big purchase.

Re:Underlining the notion that time is worth nothi

[garyebickford]

I just happened to think - 100,000,000 students time $25 is $2.5 billion.

A tablet that works

[ananthap]

I think many people just want a tablet that works. When HP announced the fire sale of their $99 tablet, I went after it and was disappointed that it wasn't available in my country (India). The main article makes it clear that DATWIND's target market is for companies

who focus on low-cost digital products for the disenfranchised, markets like India (and China, Asia, Africa and Latin America) are what’s referred to as the “next billion.” And they are huge.

Datawind has 2 versions.
(1) AKASH (translates to SKY) is the subsidised student version that is goin to be subject to government regulation, corruption, deal making etc and
(2) UBISLATE the commercial version.

UBISLATE just might fit the Indian market place since it is a "MOBILE TABLET".

There is already a trend in India that a large mobile company (Reliance Communication) has a low priced table (three times the expected price of UBISLATE and 40% of the cost of an IPAD) This has already been standardised by many companies with roaming sales forces. They have upgraded from feature phone with (paper) note taking with day end connectivity to their head office from an internet cafe. Now they use get to use the tablet on line at practically the same communication cost.

OK.

You're high.

[crhylove]

Linux Mint 11 offers a superior experience to any Apple or Microsoft product. Period.

Not that that has anything to do with tablets, but Linux has a better interface than any Windows or Mac machine could ever hope to in the form of Gnome 2 as done by Linux Mint 11 (and 10, and 9, and 8, and......).