Friday, July 5, 2002
India Rolls Out Cheap, Handheld Computer This Month
Posted by Jason Dunn in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 06:37 AM
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&ncid=738&e=3&u=/nm/20020705/tc_nm/tech_india_simputer_dc_1
PDA computing brought to the masses - sounds like a good idea. In many ways, this makes sense - full PCs are too expensive for the majority of the population to purchase, but this article says the Simputer will cost about the same as a cheap colour TV set. Affordable & portable - good combination.
"India is ready this month to roll out its $200 "Simputer," a handheld computer aimed at wooing the poor across the digital divide. "The waiting period is almost over. We are near the take-off stage," Vinay Deshpande, chairman of Encore Software Ltd, one of two firms with licenses to make the device, told Reuters late on Thursday. The Simputer -- short for simple, inexpensive and multilingual computer -- was launched in April 2001 by the non-profit Simputer Trust, formed by officials at Encore and professors from Bangalore's prestigious Indian Institute of Science to license designs of the device...
...Resembling trendy handhelds such as those built by Palm Inc, the Simputer has easy-to-use applications including voicemail, text-to-speech capabilities and Internet access. Powered by an Intel StrongARM processor, the Simputer runs off two 'AA'-size pencil batteries and comes equipped with 32 megabytes (MB) or 64 MB of random-access memory." Source: Willa
PDA computing brought to the masses - sounds like a good idea. In many ways, this makes sense - full PCs are too expensive for the majority of the population to purchase, but this article says the Simputer will cost about the same as a cheap colour TV set. Affordable & portable - good combination.
"India is ready this month to roll out its $200 "Simputer," a handheld computer aimed at wooing the poor across the digital divide. "The waiting period is almost over. We are near the take-off stage," Vinay Deshpande, chairman of Encore Software Ltd, one of two firms with licenses to make the device, told Reuters late on Thursday. The Simputer -- short for simple, inexpensive and multilingual computer -- was launched in April 2001 by the non-profit Simputer Trust, formed by officials at Encore and professors from Bangalore's prestigious Indian Institute of Science to license designs of the device...
...Resembling trendy handhelds such as those built by Palm Inc, the Simputer has easy-to-use applications including voicemail, text-to-speech capabilities and Internet access. Powered by an Intel StrongARM processor, the Simputer runs off two 'AA'-size pencil batteries and comes equipped with 32 megabytes (MB) or 64 MB of random-access memory." Source: Willa
