$35 Tablet Computer Unveiled (PHOTO)

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.

Comments

[Chico41]

11:47 AM on 07/27/2010

I bet $35 that these are better than the iPad in every possible way, and another $35 that we'll never see these in North America.

[mike72]

03:35 AM on 07/28/2010

I bet $35 that this $35 tablet computer will never come through production line anywhere in the world and dropped off like never happened once the it is out of the headline news cycle.

You want to bet? I will still be in HuffPost next year. Send me a message in 12 months if it is coming out in production. :)

[Chico41]

01:39 PM on 07/29/2010

Ummmm, if I'm not mistaken you want to take the same side of this bet that I do. :)

I think we can both agree that Apple will do whatever they have to to block this from ever seeing the light of day in North America, or in any other market that Apple has a stake in.

[bnbtimes]

05:35 AM on 07/27/2010

Great piece of work by India.Let this project be a success.

[jjdrma]

09:07 PM on 07/26/2010

Oracle CEO was paid 1.4 Billions last ten years. Apples CEO Steve Jobs was paid 750 mil. last 10 years.
How many of these computers need to be sold to pay something like that. A ny guess work? Why do people complain about jobs going out of town? Misuse of previleges will have to be accounted for.

[edrick1]

05:35 PM on 07/26/2010

Smart move india

[jjdrma]

11:08 AM on 07/26/2010

yo pessimists, listen up, the cheapest car nano ( $ 2k) is up and running on indian roads since last year, so be patient and lets give it a chance.
Walmart must start helping them build millions of these units and flood poor homes with this new toy across the planet I suspecct it is cheap because no component is imported and every miigram of it is made in india. I hope the computer is reliable and durable, only time will tell that.....

[fromdnorth]

09:34 AM on 07/26/2010

India building nuclear submarine
India is reportedly building a nuclear submarine amid rumors that the Asian country is running a clandestine naval military project.

The former Chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission unveiled the plan in a speech over the weekend, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

India has been trying to build its own nuclear submarine, code-named the Advanced Technology Vessel, since the 1970s, but it has had problems to produce a suitable nuclear reactor.

The Indian officials have never before confirmed the reports.

"Indian scientists and technologists are capable of making light water reactors and we are already constructing an LWR at Kalpakkam in south India for (the) submarine," PTI quoted former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman P.K. Iyengar as saying.
www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=22634§ionid=351020402

[enigmatic zero]

12:15 PM on 07/26/2010

they already have one.
completed the first of the Arihant class in 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INS_Arihant

[fromdnorth]

09:24 AM on 07/26/2010

India begins aircraft carrier construction, to go in for more
PTI
Saturday, February 28, 2009 15:09 IST
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Kochi: Joining an elite club of nations capable of building large warships, India on Saturday, began the construction of its first indigenous aircraft carrier at the Cochin Shipyard here and will go in for 2 to 3 more carriers in the heavier class.

Pressing a remote to lower the keel - the ship's backbone - into the construction dock of the shipyard, defence minister AK Antony said, "The Navy's carrier will showcase India's technological prowess and warships' building capabilities to the world. It will be the largest ever warship to be built in India."

The 40,000-tonne carrier will operate nearly 30 aircraft including the Russian MiG-29Ks fighters, Kamov-31 helicopters and the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA).

www.dnaindia.com/india/report_india-begins-aircraft-carrier-construction-to-go-in-for-more_1234960

[Freenation]

11:34 PM on 07/25/2010

great work...

[richnerd]

11:25 PM on 07/25/2010

It's also edible?

[TheStarFox]

10:29 PM on 07/25/2010

its a fake fake fake

[fromdnorth]

09:28 AM on 07/26/2010

Is this fake too...?
www.dnaindia.com/india/report_india-begins-aircraft-carrier-construction-to-go-in-for-more_1234960

By the way, if this is the level of your posts to come, it would be better you slip back under your rock until you mature...

[ForAmericaAndRoosevelt]

07:29 PM on 07/25/2010

But I thought business drives innovation?

Come on, let's hear some squealing from the "business drives innovation" folks.

If I'm not in flames in 20 minutes I'll be very, very disappointed ...

... I'll leave you with some playgournd taunts -

"You said 'business drives innovation', you said 'business drives innovation', nyah nyah nyah"

[Torrentlover]

08:23 PM on 07/25/2010

Big business rarely drives innovation. Most innovation is done in a University lab or the garage of a yet to be formed business. Heck, the Internet was developed by the US Air Force, a government entity.

However, I don't doubt businesses' drive, power and innovation to suppress potentially threatening products such as a 35$ tablet.

[ForAmericaAndRoosevelt]

08:34 PM on 07/25/2010

HAHA Thank you.

"The war revealed what might be called the "dirty little secret" of American capitalism. The myth of capitalism is that the free market is the most efficient economic system. But it is not. Governmentally sponsored and regulated production is far more efficient. It was the war, not the New Deal, that finally reversed the Great Depression. In wartime, the government can compel the collection of raw material, channel research, subsidize new production methods without taking time for them to prove profitable, redistribute labor pools, eliminate distracting competition by the incompetent. All these things happened during the military-industrial explosion of the 1940s, without which there would have been no American victory. That is why, in wartime, governmental interference with business competition is always, in some measure, adopted. When it is important to get things done, and done fast, the government must be relied on."

- Garry Wills, "Bomb power"

[LordByron13]

06:56 PM on 07/26/2010

Would you PLEASE remind big business of that the next time they try to pressure the FCC or any other government entity, or for that matter, the American People, into giving up on Net Neutrality?

The way I see it, not only is it NOT that I'm asking for 'free internets' I PAID for them with my taxes; but more to the point, ISP's have no right to charge any fee, reasonable or not(though we can be sure of price slanting, ie. "cheaper" to visit a gun website or DrudgeReport as opposed to say a site for the Dalai Lama or HuffingtonPost) for access to content created on another website.

I think of it as saving business from itself...because as usual they can't be trusted to see whats right and wrong. If ISP's were to charge higher fees, less traffic moves, therefore less commerce is done. In THIS economy, of all things.

I mean, is it me, or do these guys come up with the worst ideas at the worst times, and they smirk like they're ahead of the game, meanwhile, from our view point, they have a knife to our throats and theirs at the same time...and wonder why we fight against them in the first place...

[WPF]

06:03 PM on 07/25/2010

American products are overpriced and we love it.

[Behind the Tweed Curtain]

04:43 PM on 07/25/2010

Wow. That phrase "intelligent design" jumped out and hit me in the eye.

[enigmatic zero]

01:14 PM on 07/26/2010

haha!! how different and diametrically opposed the two meanings of "intelligent design" are! :))

the one in the article stands for the real meaning...the other stands for religious fundies pushing their pet theories down the throats of others:P

[Behind the Tweed Curtain]

02:24 AM on 07/27/2010

It's dreadful when a perfectly sensible phrase gets hijacked like that, isn't it?

[bleubunny]

10:58 AM on 07/25/2010

They'll probably make it illegal to have in the USA like how they made it illegal to get your medicine from Canada.

[santiago sherwood]

03:17 PM on 07/25/2010

so much for the ipad making money, but I think all the apple stuff is overpriced. this might be the first step to india challenging the current electronic industry leaders.

[lordmi]

09:02 AM on 07/25/2010

Just Great!
When our manufacturers are bidding on higher-higher price, this India really thinks about Students, Education and Feature of The Nation.

I think it is time for Apple to cut their profit and think about our students as well.
They got already that much welath - enough for 5 generations.
How about to increase educative level for those ganarations as well?

[mike72]

12:03 PM on 07/25/2010

You want to bet that in 6 months, this thing is dropped off like never happened before?

[drjasonmd]

04:09 PM on 07/25/2010

Yup. They drag one of these out every year. Never come to fruition, though.