Is India $10 laptop ’souped-up calculator’?
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- With news that the One Laptop Per Child Project is reducing its staff by 50% in the background, India says it’s making good on a project first mooted almost three years ago
It’s scheduled to unveil a $10 laptop, says the Indian Express.
But, “Even with a huge Government subsidy, it is unclear how ten dollars can get you much more than a souped-up calculator,” it says, continuing »»»
It supposedly costs twenty dollars to manufacture, but India’s massive economies of scale should drive costs down to ten dollars — roughly five hundred rupees. According to a report, ‘It uses a cheap microprocessor (not Intel or AMD’s standard PC chips) and removes the hard disk, CD/ DVD drive and other costly and problem-prone components, leaving the keyboard, screen and USB port.’ But even the most rudimentary netbooks cost more than ten times as much, and it is uncertain how this laptop will manage to display most internet content or really, even cover the cost of its material components. Atanu Dey, economist and tech commentator, has been scathing in his attack on the credulous press that bought the ten-dollar boast.
Most tech blogs have, “tagged the news in the ‘yeah right’ category,” adds the Indian Express.
‘A moment of hubris’
Meanwhile, “Any proposal that aims to provide children with inexpensive access to computers can only be welcome,” said the Times of India in 2006, going on »»»
The plan devised by officials of the HRD and telecom ministries, along with experts from IIT and the Indian Institute of Science, aims to provide laptops to children for Rs 450 (or $10) each.
A few months ago, India had opted out of the One Laptop Per Child project launched by MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte. The HRD ministry had then felt that money spent on laptops may be better utilised to provide food, schoolrooms and basic amenities like furniture and toilets to those same children.
And, “In what seems to be a moment of hubris, the Indian Human Resource Development Ministry, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science met last week to devise a roadmap for a direct challenge to the One Laptop Per Child program – an Rs 450 ($10) laptop,” said an OLPC post from the same period by way of a response, going on »»»
That’s right, $10. Or $128 dollars less than the One Laptop Per Child’s 2B1 Children’s Machine continuously revised price point of $100 $138 dollar per laptop. Regardless, the OLPC 2B1 is still the leading realistic low-cost option for at least it has a working prototype screen, developer boards, and software.
This announcement from India has none, and even less information about the features of such a cheap computer than Negroponte’s string power generators.
Outside The Times of India editorial endorsement this seems mainly to be a bureaucratic follow-up on a promise made by Ashok Jhunjhunwala (right), Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, to develop a cheaper but equally advanced computer for India’s students.
Or to quote the original The Times of India story:
One official who attended the meeting said: ” No one had any doubt about the feasibility of the project. Everyone is enthusiastic and wants a quick rollout. But we have given ourselves three years before the first $10 laptop comes out.”
That would be three years of thinking and pontificating, while in three years, the OLPC laptop will be a real option with a price projected to be between the fabled $100 dollars per laptop and a price point promise of $50 in 2010.
“By then, maybe the Indian government will have forgotten the OLPC rejection backstory and deemed the laptops pedagogically correct,” it adds.
Now, “India is poised to unveil the ultimate in credit-crunch computing: a 500 rupee (£7) laptop,” says Times Online.
“A government-developed prototype, due to be shown for the first time tomorrow, will mark the most ambitious attempt yet to bring computers to the developing world and to bridge the ‘digital divide’ between rich and poor.”
Stay tuned.
Indian Express – Little laptops that couldn’t, February 2, 2009
Times of India -
OLPC – India to Attempt $10 Laptop Per Child, September, 2006
Times Online – India set to follow cheap car with £7 laptop, February 2, 2009
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