All Things Cheaper

[JogaBonito1502]

MUMBAI, India — It looks like an iPad, only it's 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.
If the government can find a manufacturer, the Linux operating system-based computer would be the latest in a string of "world's cheapest" innovations to hit the market out of India, which is home to the 100,000 rupee ($2,127) compact Nano car, the 749 rupees ($16) water purifier and the $2,000 open-heart surgery.

The tablet can be used for functions like word processing, web browsing and video-conferencing. It has a solar power option too — important for India's energy-starved hinterlands — though that add-on costs extra.

"This is our answer to MIT's $100 computer," human resource development minister Kapil Sibal told the Economic Times when he unveiled the device Thursday.

In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte— cofounder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab — unveiled a prototype of a $100 laptop for children in the developing world. India rejected that as too expensive and embarked on a multiyear effort to develop a cheaper option of its own.

Negroponte's laptop ended up costing about $200, but in May his nonprofit association, One Laptop Per Child, said it plans to launch a basic tablet computer for $99.

Sibal turned to students and professors at India's elite technical universities to develop the $35 tablet after receiving a "lukewarm" response from private sector players. He hopes to get the cost down to $10 eventually.

Mamta Varma, a ministry spokeswoman, said falling hardware costs and intelligent design make the price tag plausible. The tablet doesn't have a hard disk, but instead uses a memory card, much like a mobile phone. The tablet design cuts hardware costs, and the use of open-source software also adds to savings, she said.

Varma said several global manufacturers, including at least one from Taiwan, have shown interest in making the low-cost device, but no manufacturing or distribution deals have been finalized. She declined to name any of the companies.

India plans to subsidize the cost of the tablet for its students, bringing the purchase price down to around $20.

The project is part of an ambitious education technology initiative, which also aims to bring broadband connectivity to India's 25,000 colleges and 504 universities and make study materials available online.

So far nearly 8,500 colleges have been connected and nearly 500 Web and video-based courses have been uploaded on YouTube and other portals, the Ministry said.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-07-23-cheap-tablet_N.htm

 

[reccakeys]

Interesting information. But i prefer buying the real one. Now a days there are lots of copy cat technologies. Piracy still continue to spread.

Stop Piracy....

 

[jmacavali]

Not really piracy in this case, though I don't disagree with you about it spreading. This is really just competition at it's finest. However, sometimes I think you get what you pay for -- and this just might be one of those times?

 

[iPwn]

When this hits the states, I may just pick one up out of sheer curiosity.

 

[setishock]

35 dollars wouldn't even pay for etching the motherboard. And do you think Apple is going to idly sit by and let them bring that thing in to the US? They'll file an unfair competition suite against them and keep them tied up in court.

 

[iPwn]

35 dollars wouldn't even pay for etching the motherboard. And do you think Apple is going to idly sit by and let them bring that thing in to the US? They'll file an unfair competition suite against them and keep them tied up in court.

Booooo

 

[shozzking]

has anyone seen the exopc? its a windows 7 tablet with an atom and 2GB of RAM for $599, I'm debating picking one up when its released in Canada.

 

[lhuser]

Didn't see that, and Zero, buy one from India...Apple are always crybabies, form my own point of view at least.

 

[root]

by the time it's made (in where ever it's made) it's going to cost $35.
then it's going to be shipped half way around the world,
it's going to go through several shipping companies.
get moved about a load of times.
end up in a store that had heating an lighting to consider... etc etc etc...

so it's probably going to end up hitting the shelves in the US or the UK at a price tag of closer to twice possibly even three times it's manufacturing costs...

and realistically what are you actually going to get for that?
a really slow device, with hardly any processor speed, and hardly any memory.
it's unlikely that it'll have the grunt to run any media rich applications or even content, (so no flash apps or flash enabled websites).
it'll likely have an obscure version of linux on it, and installing extra apps? are there going to be apps that you can install on it.
what's the connectivity like? I mean is it going to have wireless? if so what type?
it's using solid state memory for a disk, (and that is cool and cheap), but how much disk space if this thing going to have? -will you even have space to install other applications?

this is undoubtedly a really cool device, it's low cost low power and probably accomplishes exactly what it's meant to.

but lets face it, this is a device designed to give kids a research tool, it's meant to replace dog eared books, and provide a writing tools that's a little more 21st century than 19th century.

it's going to be cool for the kids in Africa who are going to get to write on a screen with a stylus pen rather than writing on a piece of slate with a bit of chalk.

but I think it's going to be a bit more limited for our 1st world consumer habits.

I'd love them to prove me wrong... but I don't think it'll happen.