India's $10 laptop out in February 2009
UPDATE: The so-called laptop turned out to be a storage device that can be plugged in a laptop! I wonder why they even used the word laptop in the first place. Read more at Guardian and The Hindu
Does not look much like a laptop (Courtesy: The Hindu)
Indian's version of the OLPC laptop will be on display next month in Tirupati in India. This was developed by students of Vellore Institute of Tecnology, scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), IIT Madras and some public sector units (PSUs).
The cost of this laptop, which runs on 2GB RAM, is about $20 but the price is expected to go down soon to about $10 (INR 500). In any case, $20 is very low cost.
This was also one of the reasons the Indian government wasn't too interested in the OLPC project because OLPC's costs were too high.
The government plans to give 2.5 lakh* rupees to each school and university for a 10kbps connection and subsidies.
According to the article in today's Times of India,
The mission would seek to extend computer infrastructure and connectivity to over 18,000 colleges in the country, including each department of nearly 400 universities and institutions of national importance. The mission would focus on appropriate e-learning procedures, providing facility of performing experiments through virtual laboratories, online testing and certification, online availability of teachers to guide and mentor learners, and utilization of EduSat and DTH.
Posted by Arul on Fri, 30th Jan 2009
Comments
Hi Suyash, it was a hoax, rather an unfunny joke from the organisers! They had no reason to call it a laptop. They could have at least announced that they were going to display a different form of "flash drive". Check the update at the top of the page.
Hi Arul...
There was a lot of buzz all around about this new laptop. However, I didn't find it realistic. Various resources mentioned that it's going to be launched on Feb 3rd. Later on Feb 3rd I found no news regarding this. Are you aware of it's launch???
Posted by Suyash Ramineni on Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:14:09 -0500.