I am amazed. I will expect the unit to sell very well in the US and Europe. It is staggering how far ahead the rest of the world is in terms of producing items without the huge overhead and exposing just how grossly inflated the costs are.
NOT.
In a country where 30 million people are treated worse than dirt, a country with a Constitution that bans discrimination based upon class yet 10% of the population are routinely ignored and or physically injured, often with the police supporting or encouraging the behavior, in a country where medical care for birth consists of rolling 1000 women into a massive room at approximately the same moment, giving birth, handing them the baby and their discharge papers, and wheeling them all out for the next group to be rolled in, in a country where you pay the Sudras a penny a day for 8-10 hours of work, I could produce the space shuttle for $10,000. On the other hand - slavery, human bondage, unfair employment practices, greed, and intolerable working conditions, along with sweat shops - all come to mind. I could make a car for $100.
Anyone who jumps at this chance, who heralds this achievement as a stunning breakthrough for the Indians, is insensitive, at the very least.
India develops world's cheapest "laptop" at $35
July 16, 2010
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - 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.
India
Subscribe To
Posts
Comments