przycinek.usa
26.07.10, 08:25
www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66M0R720100723?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r4:c0.051948:b35920842:z0
India has come up with the world's cheapest "laptop," a touch-screen
computing device that costs $35.
India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal this week unveiled the
low-cost computing device that is designed for students, saying his department
had started talks with global manufacturers to start mass production.
"We have reached a (developmental) stage that today, the motherboard, its
chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35,
including memory, display, everything," he told a news conference.
He said the touchscreen gadget was packed with Internet browsers, PDF reader
and video conferencing facilities but its hardware was created with sufficient
flexibility to incorporate new components according to user requirement.
Sibal said the Linux based computing device was expected to be introduced to
higher education institutions from 2011 but the aim was to drop the price
further to $20 and ultimately to $10.
The device was developed by research teams at India's premier technological
institutes, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of
Science.
India spends about three percent of its annual budget on school education and
has improved its literacy rates to over 64 percent of its 1.2 billion
population but studies have shown many students can barely read or write and
most state-run schools have inadequate facilities.
(Reporting by Reuters Television, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)
