Grandiose plans in India:

The Indian government, in the person of Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal have just announced that they have designed an iPad look alike that they intend to have in production early next year.

This device, as yet unnamed, will be aimed mainly at students in Indian Higher Education Establishments,  but obviously, if it works there, it will filter down through their education system to younger kids in due time.  It will have all the normal functions that such a device would normally have, and thus is obviously intended to be used as an eReader, among other things, in exactly the same way as the iPad and other such tablets except this baby will run under Linux, rather than Windows, which of course helps keep the price down, as Linux is free.

Apparently it has been designed by the good folk of the Indian Institute of Technology, and the Indian Institute of Science, and makes use of the latest technology, which I imagine means that it will actually work  well.

So far there isn’t much technical information about this device, or at least, I have not been able to find much in spite of searching all over the web for details, but apparently it will come equipped with a webcam and mic, as they say that it will be capable of video conferencing.   Further, it wont have an internal hard disk, but will use SD cards for data storage (another move to reduce the price, obviously).   As it will run under Linux, it will be capable of running any software that works with Linux, so students will be able to use it as a word processor and all the other normal things that any other computer is capable of running.

Solar Power:

A further curious idea is that it will run under solar power, they don’t say if it will have internal batteries, or only work when you can give it sunlight, but I assume it will have some sort of power storage built into it, since otherwise it would be of rather limited use as even in India, the sun doesn’t shine at night, for example.   But I love the idea of a device that uses the sun as its power source, rather than mains electricity.

A boon to developing countries?

This could mean, should it become reality, that this device could be placed in schools in underdeveloped places in huge numbers and be a real benefit to such people (solar charging, very cheap, multitasking and so on).   Could be a real breakthrough in getting such technology into the hands of the world’s poor people.

Later addition:

Since writing this post I have found a video on Youtube in which the relevant minister discusses this device, so here it is in all its glory:

As yet, no manufacturers ready:

Apparently the Indian government is in talks with a number of companies (including a number of unnamed international companies) to actually make this device, but as yet – obviously – none have signed on the dotted line for this project, so as is all too often the case with good ideas such as this one, it may yet all come to nothing, like an earlier  project of the Indian government to produce a 10 USD lap top, which fizzled out.

But I hope not.

Will become even cheaper in time:

They have also claimed that once it is in production, and given that India has a huge population of students, the production runs will be enormous, then the unit price could well get down to as little as 10 USD per tablet, which, should this be achieved, means that this tablet could truly bring about a revolution in the developing world at a price that most NGO’s could manage.   This really interests and excites me!

Not really an eReader:

I know that this device, as with all tablets, isn’t primarily intended to be an eReader, and thus perhaps I shouldn’t be writing about it here, but as with the iPad and similar, it can perfectly well function as an eReader, so I feel that if I can consider the iPad as an eReader, then I can talk about this one too, and frankly, the idea of a fully functioning tablet that costs between 10 and 30 USD interests me much more than the iPad at almost 500 USD.  And should it actually happen, and become available to the general public as well, I would certainly consider buying one for myself, which to be honest, is unlikely with the iPad and other similar tablets.

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