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Handhelds Hardware

Get Ready For The Simputer 255

Posted by timothy from the humble-handheld dept.
EccentricAnomaly writes: "CNN is reporting that the Simputer will roll out next month. The Simputer is a handheld computer running GNU/Linux starting at around $214 and is aiming to be an affordable computer for the third world that can be used even by the illiterate with its text-to-speech features. From the Simputer website: "The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man." Slashdot ran a story in May 2001 reporting the launch of the Simputer project." The same Reuters story is also found at the Hindustan Times.
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Get Ready For The Simputer More

Get Ready For The Simputer

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  • given the recent user friendliness story, i can see tech support calls already...

    LTTFM!!! (Listen to the f****** manual)
  • It's a bit scant on the details of how exactly this will 'help the common man' over there.

    I mean, people in third world countries will be more bothered about where their next meal is coming from than browsing their email or reading Slashdot.
  • why does an illiterate person in a third world country need a computer?

  • From the Faq! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    # Q: Can I create a Beowulf cluster using many Simputers?
    A: You must be a /.er; in which case you know the answer!

  • Bizarre claim about Simputer... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by abbamouse ( 469716 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:03PM (#3830859) Homepage
    The article quotes the designers as wanting to bring the fruits of India's software revolution to the poor. But the Simputer still costs more than a year's salary even for the average Indian. Imagine a $40K computer (US per capita income) being touted as a way the American poor could use computers! Even though the Simputer supports smart cards so people can share the device and store personal info on the card, I suspect this will merely make it affordable for (Indian) middle-class families rather than the poor. I suspect the poor would have more appreciation for clean water, reliable sources of electricity, a working health care system, and a food stamp program than a Simputer that costs more than a year's pay.
    • true.. i've lived in India.. you're quite right.. this is NOT for the poor ---- but to be fair.. the middle class populations in India is HUGE. Giving the middle class of India access to computers would be like giving computers to the entire population a Canada (30 million last i checked) -- for that matter it could affect a greater number of people !!
      So it is a step forward -- but technology is only useful as you pointed out if you're standard of living is above the poverty line

    • Re:Bizarre claim about Simputer... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by big.ears ( 136789 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:23PM (#3830925) Homepage
      India is one of the regions where microloans were pioneered. These are small loans of $5-$10 at a time, mostly to women in small villages, to create small businesses. It sounds crazy, but it really works. Among the businesses you would expect this to foster in such places (like farming, weaving, pottery, etc.), one of the more successful sectors is cellular phones. A family will take out these microloans to help finance their purchase of a cell phone, and then sell phone-time to everyone in the neighboring villages. This not only brings money to the family that owns the phone, but by being able to communicate with their friends/relatives in the city, the local residents are better able to operate their own businesses.

      It appears to me that this is the model the Simputer people are looking toward. They sell these gadgets (probably with financing) to one family per village, and it lets your whole village communicate with the village 100 miles up the road, probably more cheaply than the cell phone (you don't have to wait for the guy who owns the phone to ride his goat over out to the farm you are calling to talk to your business partner).

      So, the price isn't that different from the costs associated with a citizen of the US starting his/her own business. It could cost $30,000-100,000 to start up a bar or restaurant, or car repair shop, a small farm, or many other retail businesses.

      Of course, I've never been to India, so maybe someone from there can fill in the details.
      • The idea is cool, but the market orientation of Simputer is really not that clear to me.

        If the Simputer is supposed to be shared by villagers, I will suggest them to buy a cheap PC instead. Sharing a PC is much easier than sharing a PDA size device (more expandable, easier to service, not that easy to get stolen or squashed by a careless user...). According to Price Watch, a completed Duron 750MHz system with 128MB RAM, 20GBHDD, CD/modem/ethernet/video/keyboard/mouse/MS tax costs US$255. Adding a 14-15 inch monitor, the price is still around $350, on par with the Simputer ($214 to $469).

        If you really think the handheld form factor is important, get this Linux PDA [slashdot.org] for US$160.
        • But if you read the article, it says the Simputer is 1/4 the cost of a PC in India. The prices you're quoting are only valid if you're in the US. There are several different languages spoken in India, some with different alphabets/characters. Also, shipping a US computer over there would be expensive & they may have different power requirements (I have no idea if India is 110 or 220 V & 50 or 60 Hz & so on.)
          • I think you may miss my point. I just want to point out cheap PC's price is on par of the Simputer. That does not really make sense to ship assembled PC from US. Most PC components (mobo, case, keyboard etc) are manufactured in some part of Asia anyway. Of course, if the price difference is due to tariff, talk to their govt instead..

            Power supply voltage (110 vs 220 V, 50 vs 60Hz) is not at all a problem, any manufacturer can supply both spec. If an organisation like simputer.org can figure out how to design a PDA, I don't think they will have any trouble sort these out when ordering parts.

            • I think you may miss my point. I just want to point out cheap PC's price is on par of the Simputer. That does not really make sense to ship assembled PC from US. Most PC components (mobo, case, keyboard etc) are manufactured in some part of Asia anyway. Of course, if the price difference is due to tariff, talk to their govt instead..
              Most PC components are built in Taiwan, China, Japan, & Korea. These countries don't trade much with India. If they were to buy PC components straight from manufacturers the prices they'd be offered would not be favorable, as their market for PCs is orders of magnitude less than the US. Lower volume=higher prices.
              Power supply voltage (110 vs 220 V, 50 vs 60Hz) is not at all a problem, any manufacturer can supply both spec. If an organisation like simputer.org can figure out how to design a PDA, I don't think they will have any trouble sort these out when ordering parts.
              What about the 1000s of villages with no electrical power? They'd need lots of hamster wheels to generate enough electricity. The Simputer runs on 2 AA batteries.
              • Most PC components are built in Taiwan, China, Japan, & Korea. These countries don't trade much with India. .... Lower volume=higher prices.
                Agree. However, if you fix to a single spec (ie same mobo, same case) for a few thousand units (or even few tens of thousand), the unit price can actually be as cheap as you can get in US.

                Tariff [eetimes.com] is a big deal in India. For example, cabling materials are taxed at 35 %. It probably concludes the whole situation.
        • How are you going to power that computer? Or store it? What if you are nomadic and don't actually have a house to live in. Having to carry a computer around with you would suck. Also make it hard to share, since everyone would be hanging out at your house using it.

          The simputer can easily have its batteries swapped out and recharged elsewhere. Also it is probably a lot more durable than a normal computer / PDA, include custom software, so it costs more.

      • Re:Bizarre claim about Simputer... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by metlin ( 258108 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @12:26AM (#3831318) Journal
        Yup, not just that, there's another very essential point.

        Contrary to popular belief, there is a very very significant tech-savvy population of farmers and others in India.

        I think it would be great if they could get information regarding the weather, crops, harvest and the like in a much more accessible forms. Right now, there are counters and phone centers who answer such queries for them, if the simputer could make their task easier, then what's the problem? The returns would be way higher.

        And some poster had commented about illiteracy, that an illterate populace does not need such stuff. You know, you do not weed out illiteracy by saying, "Hey! You don't deserve this coz you don't read." You try and motivate people. And by the way, who the hell gave you this crap that most Indians are illiterate? In the southern state of Kerala, there's more than 99% literacy. There are a lot of states and union territories which boast of 90%+ literacy.

        And literacy for us is a very different thing altogether, a lot of the so called illiterate people do math, but can't write and read. Why? Because that's the way the culture and the society is. A guy running a family businesss here just knows what he needs to, nothing more nothing less. Just that they've not had the opportunity to exploit their capabilities does not mean that they should not be.

        And besides, I'm sure that the govt. would introduce subsidies and banks would gladly give loans to the needy. Already a lot of subsidies with really reduced interest rates exist for small scale industries by banks with both public and private holdings. With enough help from the govt. Simputer could be really made available to the masses. More than a geek or hacker to fiddle with, this could mean a whole lot more to a farmer or a fisherman to know the status of the weather and the crop. Think about it.
    • "We are now making a range of Simputers with different configurations and prices ranging from 10,500 to 23,000 rupees," he said. Equivalent to roughly $214 to $469, this figure compares to average annual Indian per capita income of about $450.
      Isn't $214 less than $450? Am I missing something?

      -Sokie
    • The idea is that there will be centrally located Simputers, like kiosks or at markets. Individuals plug in personal storage cards and use the public system -- taking their storage with them when they leave.

      Storage cards and lots cheaper than the unit.

      Sort of like library computers and solid-state floppy disks for users.

      And for the fool who is getting ready to scream about viruses -- the Simputer is flash based, so you power it off/on and it resets to a virgin (non-virus) state before inserting a card.
    • I live in Panorama City, which used to be part of Pacoima until the 1950s when the locals petitioned the USPS for the name change for their post office because they didn't want to be associated with Pacoima. If you've ever seen "La Bamba" you know what Pacoima had become in the 1950s...a place where minorities were steered to by housing covenants. In short, a ghetto.

      Panorama City is still kinda rough, and it's largely Latino. However, parents here scrimp and save to send their kids to Parochial school, and now they scrimp and save to buy their kids their own computers. It's the classic story...they want their kids to have a better life than they do.

      About 3 years ago I started to see it: bus benches with the legend in Spanish, "Computadoras, credito facil." What does that mean? Computers on easy credit. It was then that I realized that the computer had gone from being a business tool and a hobby for the idle rich to being a device on the way to becoming as ubiquitous in households as the TV and the telephone.

      How many poor families have you seen who still have a TV and a telephone? Prolly most of them. How many of these also have a game console? Probably the majority of the TV/Telephone owners. The computer is next on the horizon. 5 years from now computers will be ubiquitous even in poor homes.

  • They sure picked a great name. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Monkeyman334 ( 205694 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:04PM (#3830861)
    Anyone else think of the femputer from futurama when they hear the name "simputer"?

    Simputer: That does not simpute. Simputer will return after deciding your punishment ... After lengthy simputations I, Simputer, have decided the fate of the men. Simputer sentences them... to death!

  • Computers for who? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gerardrj ( 207690 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:05PM (#3830867) Journal
    Targeted at the 'third world' at $214 a pop? Who exactly is going to buy them for these people? I can't help but think that if residents of the underdeveloped nations could get their hands on $200, they'd MUCH rather purchase a cow, grain, a plow or many of life's other necessities so they could survive another day.

    Does the thing come standard with a solar battary charger and a satellite dish to connect to the Internet? Most of these people don't have reliable electricity, never mind a reliable data connection. And what good will such a device do if they can't connect to the 'net to learn things. They'll just have a fragile piece of equipment to which they can transcribe their existing database (books and papers).

    They have a nice idea, but I just don't see it working in the environment they target.

    • Try reading the article next time... if you had, you'd know that the thing supports smart cards, so that it's easy for multiple people to share it (saving their personal data on a card), so a whole family/village/whatever can split the costs of buying one if necessary. You'd also know that it runs on AA batteries, not wall-outlet power.
      • Then you have the ongoing costs of AA batteries, smart cards and repairs. Which brings us back to the point the guy you replied to made.
        • I won't argue that a Simputer can be used absolutely free of expenses; that is obviously not true. I will say that it is possible for it to be useful enough to pay for itself (e.g. if you can use a Simputer to send and receive email, you save lots of money on phone calls or wasted trips). Time will tell whether or not this is actually the case.
    • Indeed. And furthermore, what's up with that Information Markup Language [simputer.org] specification? It seems counterproductive to create an XML doctype nobody's using for a machine which is supposed to be as simple as possible. It would've been better for it to use a subset of HTML such as is used by some already existing PDA browsers, and to just ignore the tags it doesn't understand. Then at least there would be a large base of information already available for its users.

      Furthermore, at $214 it seems to me that it would make more sense for the target nations to import a bunch of discontinued and/or reconditioned laptops, e.g. old 486 models, or even those old B/W MS HPCs you can occasionally find on sale at discount places.
    • Targeted at the 'third world' at $214 a pop? Who exactly is going to buy them for these people? I can't help but think that if residents of the underdeveloped nations could get their hands on $200, they'd MUCH rather purchase a cow, grain, a plow or many of life's other necessities so they could survive another day.

      And this is why "the poor," (also known as "these people") once Western Liberal Experts get their hands on them, remain "the poor," and why Western Liberal Experts find they have such limitless opportunities to Do Good.

      To the Western Liberal Expert, "the poor" is not an aggregation of men, women, boys, and girls of varying tastes, abilities, and interests. "The poor" is not composed of humans at all. It is a substance, a homogeneous paste-like goo such as might come out of a tube of toothpaste.

      Experts such as quoted here would measure out, say, 70 kg of "the poor," and tell us that a 70 kg barrel of poverty requires three-quarters (0.75) cow or culturally-suitable livestock in undivided share; half a kilo (0.5 kg) grain per week grain fresh-issue, and one-quarter (0.25) share in stock-drawn plow of suitable manufacture and dimension. Every barrel of Poor Person is identical, so every barrel has the same needs.

      Dufus.

      It turns out that one of the development programs that actually works is microcredit: You do not barge into a place with an eye to rationing everybody into lockstep subsistence agriculture. You offer loans of, like $10 or $100.

      In the early '90s, women in parts of the Third World found a good measure of independence and prosperity by raising money of their own, borrowing the rest, and getting a cellular phone: They then go into business renting out the use of the phone. Peanuts to you, but the community (as well as the borrower) has a gain in wealth, and in the habits of making wealth, above what could be had from sinking the money into More Subsistence Rationing.

      So, yes. I could see somebody sinking a life's savings, or a family's life savings, into something that could put half a village over the hump into an above-subsistence economy, if they had a real cheap computer to do it with. Sneer all you want, white boy.

      • I did not claim to be an expert in anyting. I did not make any reference to "the poor", besides: the notion of poverty is a manifistation of guilt of those with more money/resources than they need. I f one is happy with what they have, they do not consider themselves poor. If one feels they may have too much, they label those with less as 'poor'. Try this sometime: go to a 'poor' area and poll the people with a simple question: "Do you consider yourself poor?" I think you'll be surprised at the number of people who respond 'no'. From the standpoint of those with an overabundance, there will be poor people; at least until the planet is a single socialist society or people get over the guilt of their wealth.

        Saying that the people in the third world are poor simply because they don't have monetary resources equal to that of your average American is just plain ignorant. It is completely feasable to order a society around an economic system other than the US dollar or currency in general. In fact most of the third world countries have been doing it for millenia, it's called bartering and community property. Common currency allows for easier trade across a larger area, once a common value of a product has been settled upon.

        I never suggested hand outs, substinance rationing or anything of the like. I merely suggested that in a third world society there are probably things more impotant than an electronic device for which there is likely no infrastructure and for which there is a high risk of loss of the device due to damage without any means of local/self repair.

        The cow, grain, and plow I suggested are all self sustaining, profitable items both to the individual and the community in both monetary and sociological ways. A cow provides calfs, milk, blood, and at some point meat (well, except in India). Grain can be planted to grow more grain and then harvested for building materials, food, fuel and more grain seed. The crop waste can be tilled back in to the soil with the plow to naturally fertilize the fields for the next crop.

        You see... my suggestion was that there are more practical things that these people could spend money on that would have a more direct and longer lasting effect on the person and the community. My suggestions require no futher costly infrastructure to achieve benefit. A very poor community could indeed purchase such a hand-held computer. Then they need to purchase batteries, smart cards, and the information (or bandwidth to access it) to make the device useful, never mind the inevitable repair and replacement cost of the device itself. If education is the goal, a lower technology format of books would probably be a better choice. Giving a computer to a community that doesn't have access to a library seems to be akin to giving a 6 year old a Ferrari. Sure the high Ferarri is the 'best' form of personal transortation, but the kid can't ride a bike yet. Think about how many used encycolpedias, literary works, fictional novels and other used books could be sent to or purchased by these communities for the price of one of these gadgets. My local university surplus outlet, and my local thrift stores (good will, salvation army, etc) all sell used books for anywhere from $.05 to $1.00. Even in my reguar used book store I just picked up a copy of "McGraw-Hill's Concise Encyclopedia of Science & Technology" for $20 (A $400+book). So on average a comminty could purchase 300+ books for $200. Up to 300 people could access that material at any time. With the computer, $200 gets one useless device (smart cards and content are extra $$) that only one person can access at a time.

        Which do you choose: the hard or soft option?(wasn't that the Pet Shop boys)

    • Targeted at the 'third world' at $214 a pop? Who exactly is going to buy them for these people?

      Actually, a year ago, $200 would have been _very_ reasonable for the 'common man' in south america (I don't know about the rest of the 3rd world). But that was a year ago.. right now $50 would be too much.. they'd rather upgrade the existing (desktop) machines.

  • I got there new show.
    When marketing strategies go bad. Seriously though I doubt a handheld machine is neither a good sell or really something that India needs.

  • Sally Struthers (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For only 0.54 USD a day, you can provide the neeeded computing power to a third world child. Think about, that is less than the price of a bad cup of coffee a day. Less than a newspaper even. Won't you help? I want you to meet Nidia. Nidia is seven years old and lives in a village with no running water, no schools, and no healthcare. Your 0.54 UDS a day would change her life, allowing her to compute with the other kids in the village. Start helping today!

  • "Trade Secret" License (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Adrian Lopez ( 2615 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:12PM (#3830893) Homepage
    The last time I heard about the Simputer I was put off by the license, which treats the specs as if they constituted trade secrets. I don't know how you can publish specs and still expect trade secret protections.

    It reminds me of Microsoft tying a license to their version of the Kerberos protocol. Although different in intent, the basic legal mechanism, if recognised as valid, is very, very dangerous.

  • Specs. (Score:1)

    by Fixer ( 35500 )
    Dispite everything about how India's poor cannot afford the device, $200 for a 32M/24M Flash StrongArm PDA with a 320x240 display is really very good. In fact, add a USB->9pin Serial adaptor to it, and the sky's the limit for the hobbyist looking for a cheap machine to run his projects.

  • for all those questioning its use... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by univgeek ( 442857 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:18PM (#3830908)
    Computers are, as all of you know well, extremely useful tools for management, getting information and communication. But, you ask, why is this needed for the poor?

    Let me tell you one area where it could be useful. Many, many times in the past, there have been growth of some vegetable or fruit, in quantities much larger than usual. Normally this follows a period of scarcity of that item (perhaps due to some disease). Once the farmers see that the price of some particular produce is very high, all of them start growing the same. Note that farm holdings are extremely fragmented in India. So when the harvest comes in, compared to the amount available, there is little demand. Most of the produce just rots on the plant, as it cost of picking the produce is more than the sale price. I have seen this happening many times. Imagine, if you will, an index of areas of cultivation of a particular crop. This would not be too difficult to make, at least on a rough basis, say per village. If all the farmers could see this information, then they could avoid these periods of excesses and scarcities.

    The above was just one example where it could be useful. There are some organisations planning wireless internet through buses!!! Every time the bus passes through the village, the people in the village could download information off the bus. So they would get 'up-to-date' information say twice a day. Since long distance phone calls are expensive, emails could and probably would be quite a killer app there.

    Even now, there are pilot trials going on where eye doctors, remotely view the patients' eyes with web-cams and recommend medication or ask them to come for further diagnosis/treatment.

    In this case, I truly believe that once this becomes popular, there can be very useful applications benefitting the common people.

  • The benefit a third world country would get from something like this is not actually being able to purchase it. A system targeted for that kind of area with a cheap pricetag (cheap relative to western prices) would be purchased not by the enduser but different aid groups. Just as "cheap" medicine, food, etc. is delivered by aid groups now. No, poor people of the third world will not purchase this, but aid groups will--and then donate them. This is why you can't compare half a years salary there to half a years salary here (an aid group would not purchase systems at 40K).
  • Poor villages in India and China typically share a single telephone. So I could see a village sharing a simputer, provided the simputer actually does something useful.

    However the simputer page is very vague about what the simputer actually does, and why a villager would want one. The page [simputer.org] which purports to describe the role of the Simputer basically states the simputer will bring IT to the masses. Well, yes, but to what end?
  • Aside from the rather hefty price tag (for the supposed "third-world" userbase it's aiming for), where would one buy batteries for this thing? Where, exactly, is the Radio Shack in Ethiopia? :) I'm a poor college student... am I third-world? Because I don't really see myself plopping down 200 bucks for a PDA, no matter how cool it is. Perhaps once I get out of college... Lordfly

  • Simputer cost. (vs, say, Palm), and applications. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vkg ( 158234 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:38PM (#3830981) Homepage
    Partly, this is the first production run: probably half the run will go to aid agencies for evaluations ;-)

    Once they get economies of scale going, cost will drop quickly - and in any case the cost of all micro-electronics manufacturing is constantly dropping (except for Apple's LCDs it seems ;-)

    Plus, we're talking about a one-per-village item, not an individual use device, which is why it takes smart cards. Think of expert systems for microcredit loans, medical diagnosis, first aid, farming and the like - deployed with a voice interface in the back of beyond.

    It's early stages yet, but give it time.
  • "The Simputer is more likely to be used in a client/server environment where it is primarily an access device and the Storage requirements will be met by storage at the Server. Internal storage would have consumed substantially more power and real-estate."

    So it's a thin client in the form factor of a palmtop, that can only access content specialized for it. It's not even the cheapest thin client. Why?

  • $200? Hell, I've seen old 486's at Goodwill for around $15. You can do the Web, E-Mail and even word processing on that garbage.

  • Half a dozen applications for the simputer. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vkg ( 158234 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @10:58PM (#3831032) Homepage
    • Management of microcredit loan systems
      Microcredit loans (of a few tens of dollars, repayable by a group rather than an individual) are rapidly turning into a key aid strategy, but finding people to run the schemes and do evaluations for who should get the loans is difficult. A simputer application could help with data and loan application gathering, and keeping track of repayments. You'd essentially run the local microcredit loan office on one, or perhaps have a traveling bank officer.
    • Medical expert systems
      Have been proven to improve medical diagnosis in trained doctors by respectable margins. Even a simple database with appropriate treatment instructions for, say, the 100 most common ailments in the region the machine is in, plus some first aid, could really make a difference. Particularly if it had a preventative medicine bias.
    • Useful Science Education
      People do not know what they do not know. A simputer app which contained a basic science and appropriate technology education (concepts like germ theory, designs for things like fuel efficient cooking stoves), which people could query easilly, could be very useful.
    • Email
      Dumb as it may sound. Just wait for the "Help, I'm 9 years old, live in Andhar Pradesh, and my family is starving because the harvest failed again. Please do something" emails to begin.
      More seriously, with email, and a little time, we could see things like pairing of western high-schools with third world villages - they have a question, the highschoolers find the answer for them and email it back.
    • Trade
      Similarly, trade becomes possible once you have information, financial structures and transport of goods (and, perhaps, rule of law). There are a lot of skilled crafts people in India - wouldn't you like to be able to order custom-made clothes or furniture for a fraction of what it would cost for generica at the Gap or Ikea?
      Just amortize the shipping costs (by the container, of course) across a large enough set of trades and this begins to make sense.
    • Mapping
      One problem in governing places like India, even in the most basic distribution of help to the poor, is inaccurate or incomplete data about what is going on in the field. If we do end up with a simputer per village at some point in the future, and people log events on the box, mining that data stream may tell us how to help ten times more effectively than before.
      It may also help the poor organize: PeasantDot.Org - where the rural poor get together to help each other out.
    Microelectonics is the only thing I know of which has a sustainable exponential curve anywhere in it's makeup. If we can figure out how to make our current computer technology help the poor a little, as prices drop and the gear gets better, it will help a lot more. Fifteen years down the line, it helps hundreds of times as much, if the mapping from (price per transistor) to (human benefit) holds.

    Even if it doesn't, making what we're really good at help the people with nothing makes a lot of sense.
  • Why not Tcl/Tk? Is there any TCL-ers here? What about TCL/TK for that beautiful thingie?
  • If they want to make something really ubiquitous, they should publish all of the specs and let them be made by anyone who wants to.

    I also agree that a PDA that costs a year's salary is the last thing a third world person needs. If they want to make a cheap linux box for that market, it should be a small laptop with a keyboard, that runs on D cells (WAY cheaper per unit of energy than AA cells). That's far more useful for important applications like email, and should be cheaper to make because not as much custom hardware is needed.

  • A new computer from an old place: Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dinotrac ( 18304 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @11:01PM (#3831042) Journal
    For all of the strange ramblings about who in India could or could not afford one of these things, I cannot help but be intrigued by a new machine and concept that originated outside of the US, Japan and China.

    It makes me think of Henry Ford rolling out the Model T in the early 20th century. Up until then, automobiles (at least in the US -- I'm not familiar with elsewhere) were marketed to the well-to-do. The Model T was marketed to the ordinary. In fact, one of Ford's goals was that every worker in the Ford factory be able to buy one.

    Does that mean everybody in the US could buy a Model T? No, it didn't. But the Model T made automobiles much more accessible than they had been, for both individuals and for businesses.

    I will trust that the developers know their own country better than I do, and wish them well. It will be interesting to see what comes of their efforts.
  • Not to keep tech out of anywhere, but I think it may be appropriate to check out:
    a project from btdoya [blowthedotoutyourass.com]
  • how the hell is a pda usefull to the people of central africa? besides, the thing looks pretty flimsy. we now how the best pda's in the business (palm) hold up to abuse. and they think they will hold up to the daily treatment by people who have never used anything of the "modern" technological era? does it have a symbol for "carefull" on it? when people get aggravated with it, and they will, what happens when they throw it like a stone? when they throw a stone, the stone is still functional as a stone, but will this silly thing still be functional?

    also, does it help the rain to come down, or for the locusts to stay away? how is this going to be usefull for a people who do not need it?

    must we push our ideals onto all other cultures? seems that the ones that are peacefull and without major conflict do not need us paleskins coming in and telling them that they "need" this gadget.

    • Way to go, moron.

      You speak as if these people can' tell the diference between a stone and an expensive, fragile electronic device.

      The funny thing is, by exacerbating one stereotype (poor indians must be dumb as bricks), you're only affirming another (Americans are self-centered, egotistical, and rude).

  • I will buy one of these... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Newer Guy ( 520108 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @11:14PM (#3831094)
    So far, I've held out from buying a Palm or Handspring....but if this is half as good as I think it will be, I'm sold...
  • At first I thought this was about a new game from Maxis.

    -
  • I see so many responses here about why it WON'T work but very little about how to MAKE it work.

    To me this is typical of the /. crowd. A bunch of intelligent people who collectively could make it work but fail to take the step towards sanity to do so.

    Do I have the answer? Hell no, I'm a moron. But collectivly we could make a difference if the majority took their heads out of their ass and those of their respective life-partners, and started thinking about 'how' things could be achieved instead of saying things are impossible.

    NOTHING is impossible.

    How about a minor grant of 10K bucks to get these out to 50 villages? Even with no internet access, and an issue with batteries, do you think it'll make a difference to at least one human being? Me, being an optomist, I think it would. And after all, isn't helping 1 person as important as a million?

  • Per capita income is not a good indicator (Score:3, Insightful)

    by teslatug ( 543527 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @11:39PM (#3831157)
    You could have many poor people with a few really rich people, and a big middle class. It does not necessarily mean that the poorest will save up a couple of years of income to buy this thing. There is also no good way to find out what people really make. Is it what they declare? What about "gifts" from relatives abroad?
    Don't forget that this item could be considered an investment. A little kid that gets started with one of these could end up a very rich(or at least comfortable) programmer in his/her adult life. India has some really good programmers, which means they have some really smart people that got their hands on a computer.

  • What will we do with it? (Score:4, Funny)

    by acceleriter ( 231439 ) on Friday July 05, 2002 @11:43PM (#3831167)
    This is a mass market device with a low price point and decent capabilities, which would normally mean that we should hack it to run Linux. But it already runs Linux.

    Does this mean we must r00t it and install Windows?

  • Interesting device - I'm looking forward to seeing "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" [thenetnet.com] written in ILM.
  • I almost fell out of my chair when I got to question 10 of their FAQ:

    Q: Can I create a Beowulf cluster using many Simputers?

    A: You must be a /.er; in which case you know the answer!

    rotflmao!

  • The stench of arrogance is stifling (Score:3, Insightful)

    by teetam ( 584150 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @01:19AM (#3831491) Homepage
    I am saddened to see so many racist comments about developments in a country that is half the way across the globe from people who have never been there. If you don't know anything about a topic, please shut up - and I say this with all respect. In all the urban and sub-urban parts of India, here is how computers are used - the rich have PCs at home, just like in USA. (BTW, there are rich people in India, Tarzan!) There are thousands of Internet cafes all over the major cities and towns, where people time-share computers. At about a dollar an hour, it is very affordable for people to visit hotmail or yahoo. Atleast, a lot more affordable than making international or long distance phone calls. The poor in rural areas do not know much about computers. The only thing they get from the wealthy white people is a bunch of missionaries trying to convert them. The simputer is an indigenous effort to reach them and for that, it should be applauded. I was surprised to see such arrogant and rampant racism in slashdot, as this forum is supposed to be for technical guys. And I somehow assumed that /.ers would have visited Silicon Valley atleast one or know what percentage of NASA engineers are from India. Apparently not. Apparently, you don't need to know anything to post here - all you need is a computer (a powerful one, not a simputer) and an internet connection!
    • This is OffTopic perhaps, but what on earth are you Indian people so incredibly oversensitive about? The article is about a special kind of PDA that the designers envisage as being usable in the third world through sharing. Whether or not it is a good idea surely says nothing good or bad about india.

      How would you like it if the "white people" started getting affronted off every time some ignorant from India started claiming that we're all missionaries?

  • Simputer - a Critique (Score:2, Insightful)

    by afarhan ( 199140 )
    i have followed simputer for a while and some of the people working on simputer are well known to me. i live in india and i am familiar with the terrain they are trying to cover.

    1. simputer at $216 is a very simplistic estimate (it it is not the list price). the $216 is the sum of prices of its parts if bought in bulk. it does not include the cost of assembling, testing, packing, CEO's lifestyle, rent of the office space, etc. By the time you add it all up and pay the taxes, the price could well touch $500. i bet a dollar it wont cost less $400.

    2. simputer is a hardware platform that is not very different from ipaq. it uses arm processor, it has all the standard hardware features of a pocket pc. in that case, wouldnt it make sense to port simputer's software to existing hardware platforms that can leverage the economies of their existing scale of production?

    3. dont be fooled into thinking that simputer is an open design. to use it, you have to pay them. check their fine print. their software is free, but their hardware design is not. which may explain why they didnt port it to existing pda platforms.
    4. there is nothing especially about the simputer hardware than cannot be achieved, lets say, using the $150 handspring pda. then why pay more?

  • What Cnet neglected to mention was that the hardware in this Simputer is actually licensed under the SGPL (which is inspired by the GPL). I wrote an article about it here [64.239.126.64]. But is it right what they're doing with the license? Should they give complete freedom like the GPL? or would that not work with hardware?

  • An african swallow or eruopean swallow? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @04:56AM (#3831951)
    The Simputer is ridiculous. Its designed ostensibly to provide computers to people who can't afford computers and help people learn and communicate. There is not a snowball chance in hell it can effectively meet either of these tasks.

    If they think they have a reasonable price for some third world country to buy for schools they are putting themselves on. A pricetag of a "mere" $216 in US dollars is beaucoup cash for some family in the middle of nowhere on a dirt farm. They'd be lucky to sell just one per small village let alone one per person. People would be better off buying anti-biotics or flu shots rather than one of these things.

    They get cool points among Linux zealots for even mentioning GNU or Linux but in reality having Linux on it means very little. It's like having Linux on a TiVo, nothing the user interacts with is Linux-y so to the user they aren't using something called Linux. You don't turn on a TiVo and watch a Twilight Zone marathon rerun and think "holy peepants this uses Linux and it is so cool because of that", well sane sociologically adjusted people dont. The Simputer isn't going to win over a bunch of third world Open Source zealots or some stupid shit like that. The software running on the Simputer will be all they really know or care about with regards to the system.

    Instead of a stupid idea like the Simputer they should have stuck with something like a Dreamcast. The late edition DCs had a bunch of components packed onto a handful of chips and Sega even had a DC on a chip worked out ready for fabrication. They intended to stick DC guts into DVD players like the Matsushita/Panasonic DVD capable GameCube. They would be much more flexible than some handheld toy that is itching to be dropped or otherwise lost. Plus it could hook up to a television which a place likely to have the ability to plop down $50 for a DC based console ought to have at least one television in town. A number of people could use the thing at once which makes it much more cost effective.

    Educational material is easy to ship off to people, a CD or DVD can store instructional material in the form of animated or live action movies for people who can't read. A student's entire lifetime curricula could be stored on a single CD. A class of students could use a single CD-ROM for several years worth of education. Textbooks from elementary to a high school level (or whatever your local equivilent is) could be stored at HTML or PDF files or some other format friendly to your particular language. As for languages, a single disc could contain the same information in multiple formats so a bunch of people speaking different languages or dialects only need to buy a single disc. Using CD-ROMs rather than semiconductor memory cards is scores cheaper and people could afford to not only buy more software but multiple copies in case one ends up ruined.

    The goal of the Simputer would be more easily met by a much simpler and cheaper machine. Its creators might have the right mindset but they don't seem to have thought through the implications of the hardware they developed. Even if there was some requirement for a portable device people would be better off putting tough rubber cases on a bunch of Palm m105s or Handspring Visors and handing them out to people.
  • From their FAQ:
    Q: Can I create a Beowulf cluster using many Simputers?

    A: You must be a /.er; in which case you know the answer!
  • Note before I start: This comment of mine says nothing about the quality of indian engineering or the state of life in that subcontinent. This because I see some over zealous Indians getting upset about perceived racism where there is actually valid questions. (I come from africa so fuck you anyway with your claims of racism)

    I personally have my doubts with this device. I personally think that a standard PC with Windows or Linux Speech Input would do the job at the same price for a community of users. Even devices such as a modified iPaq or a Sharp Zaurus would do the trick. I don't know the conditions in India but I do know that induviduals in India and South Africa have started to set up Internet Cafe's etc in poorer areas and there was an artcle on the BBC on one of these places hooking up to a hospital so that the Doctor could do some diagnosis via a web cam.

    The thing is that these people have access to electricity and unless you have a device that charges via solar cells, you're going to have problems in poor third world areas. Not only this but I cannot imagine a device that is loaned out to various people lasting very long anywhere (school library books anyone?) and therefore think it really is a better idea to have the device centrally located in a village where it will also fit in better with a villages social customs instead of enforcing firstworld social isolation on the people.

    However this thing could go anyway. The level of corruption in industry could ensure that it get's implemented in India on a national level, but nowhere else, just as has happened in South Africa, my own homeland.
  • Well, this simputer reminds me of the french minitel.
    This beasts were before the internet really got off very successful in France, although they were just some terminals with a built in modem. But french telecom gave them away for FREE. So if they want to have some digital revolution in india for the masses, just follow this idea. Give those simputers away for free!

    The only unsolved problem is: Is there a phone jack in every indian household?

    I would suggest this: Free Wireless access points in india, where owners of the simputer can access the internet.
  • It should be no more than $21.60 but really move the decimal point again: $2.16. Make it out of paper and make it disposable. Then it will be something.

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