India's much-hyped plan to build a $10 laptop has been exposed as a massive exaggeration.
Several media outlets, including The Industry Standard, cited a Times of India article that last week stated India would be unveiling the laptop as an educational tool for children across the country.
The Times article quoted a government official -- Secretary of Higher Education R. P. Agarwal - which seemed to provide more legitimacy to the claim. Indian offficials had said it was to be an answer to Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project.
Now it turns out that the project actually centers around a 2GB hard drive with wireless capabilities.
Fast Company reports that the device "appears to be nothing much more sophisticated than a specialized digital storage hub/net access point for educational media."
More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:
Comments
It's a wireless thumbdrive? Who cares? Just buy 2 gig usb drives in bulk and it'll be cheaper but you'll - oh noes - have to plug it into a jack.
2 GB???? isn't that awfully small???
can the "drive" part be upgraded?
If it's a wireless thumbdrive with an LCD and a small-form keyboard - that ought to be interesting.
I think the $10 computer begs the question of what really can be done for $10.
At a local store I have seen personal organizers for less than $10 with small keyboards and LCDs that can store small documents, schedules, and other bits of data.
How much would it cost to add an SD card slot and a wireless capability to such a personal organizer? An SD card slot would enable book-sized documents to be stored and exchanged, enabling programs and digital textbooks to be used. Wireless would allow e-mail exchange, lesson downloads, and perhaps some primitive web surfing.
Something as simple as a 68000-based processor, a few megabytes of RAM, a black and white LCD, a simple keyboard, SD card slot, and wireless would go a long way to making a simple networkable personal computer that could be cheaply mass produced.
As far as I understand about this product, this would be more like a device that will enable you to view the learning material at your place. this might not be a laptop with operating system and other software. I guess this will be a very good gadget for a student to connect to a common place and then get the latest learning material.
I might be connect-read-disconnect kind of device and for that 2 GB would be enough apart from connectivity.
My piece :)
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