India Developing $35 Computer
By Chris Weiss
Wow, I thought the $500 sale I found for my hunk-o-crap Dell laptop was a deal. India announced today that it is working on a computer that is less than a tenth of that price. And it will probably work better than the paperweight Dell that’s currently collecting dust in my closet.
Displayed today in its prototype form by human resource minister Kapil Sibal, the computer is designed to get university and college students connected for an affordable rate. The country hopes to distribute computers to one million college students during the first phase of the project, then move on to primary and secondary students. The plan is to eventually drop costs to just $10 or $20 a piece.
The computer is a basic touchscreen tablet that’s based on Linux and offers Wi-Fi, a Web browser, multimedia player, video conferencing and PDF reader. It also has a solar charger. Not bad for 35 bones. It’s scheduled to hit the market by early next year and should provide an important step in India’s continued development. [via WSJ and CNN]
