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Handhelds Hardware

Scientific American Reviews 'Simputer' PDA 227

Posted by timothy from the at-long-last dept.
Bill Kendrick writes "The 'Simputer' (Simple, Inexpensive, Multilingual Computer), a Linux-based PDA developed by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, and released a few weeks ago, has been reviewed by Scientific American, and they seem to like it!"
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Scientific American Reviews 'Simputer' PDA More

Scientific American Reviews 'Simputer' PDA

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  • but will it sell in Japan? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Killall -9 Bash ( 622952 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:12PM (#4711027)
    Does it have IR ports so i can trade my pokemon with friends?

    Hand held computers are for kids, and adults who choose to let their jobs intrude into their personal life more than it has to.

  • My people? (Score:5, Funny)

    by IIRCAFAIKIANAL ( 572786 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:13PM (#4711037) Journal
    Because the device can convert text to speech, it can help teach villagers how to read the local language, Kannada.

    I can read Kannadian too - I'm from Kannada. It's kinda cold, but hardly a third world country...

    (ok, that was bad, moderators feel free to bury this one :)

    • 3rd world? please...! (Score:4, Funny)

      by bsDaemon ( 87307 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:43PM (#4711268)
      as a 'soverign mediocroty' they clearly qualify as 4th world!

  • A Noble Endeavor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by m.lemur ( 618095 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:16PM (#4711053)
    but the final paragraph of the article sums it up perfecly:

    Perhaps the greatest obstacle for the Simputer, though, is cost. Will people in developing countries be able to justify the expenditure of $250 on a device that may be helpful but is not essential? When so many communities in the Third World still lack clean drinking water and adequate medical facilities, are computers really a priority?
    • What do you mean? With computers they can get food, water, and medicine over the internet!

      • Communication is vital (Score:2, Insightful)

        by bfinuc ( 162950 )
        It's naive to think that you can help the hungry by giving them food. It doesn't really work.

        Saying poor people don't need telephones is like saying they don't need roads because you can't eat roads. But how can you get vaccines to remote areas without decent roads, and how can people access local markets?


        What really poor people need is some way of making a decent living, not food aid - except in an emergency. Cell phones are spreading rapidly in South Asia right now among surprisingly poor people. Thea aren't individually owned, either groups buy them or they are bought by very small entrepreneurs as pay phones, often supported by micro lending.


        Poor people sometimes save for weeks or months to make a single phone call. This is mentioned in passing in the sciam article. It may seem abstract, but it's reality in poor countries.

    • Re:A Noble Endeavor (Score:2, Insightful)

      by davidmcn ( 606752 )
      I agree with you m.lemur. Why would they spend 2-300 dollars on a product when according to the likes of Sally Struthers that money would feed a starving child for almost a year. Starving child, cool toy, starving child, cool toy....which one to pick, which one to pick....

      • Re:A Noble Endeavor (Score:5, Insightful)

        by pe1rxq ( 141710 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:27PM (#4711138) Homepage Journal
        Just feeding the starving isn't going to help much.
        You need to find a structural solution.
        Besides there are plenty of places (e.g. India) were starvation is not the biggest problem, but lack of education. And there things like this will help.
        You instantly get all the knowledge from the internet (insert porn joke here :) for free.
        E.g. a farmer could learn himself the latest new techniques for increasing the amount of crops...

        Jeroen
        • E.g. a farmer could learn himself the latest new techniques for increasing the amount of crops...

          As soon as I read that I had a vision of farmers trying quite unconventional techniques for effect more than for production and a blog with lots of stories about crop modding. Time to search for that backyard tesla coil that guy made...
      • It is a matter of horses for courses. The world has roughly 6 billion people. This tool is not for the one billion poorest, who needs basics like water, and do not have access to the telephone line to connect this thing to the Internet. But it is an appropriate tool for the next billion up from them, hopefully helping them to move from the poverty line to comfort in a small fraction of the time it took us in the West.

        While we, the well-off billion at the top, should certainly carre about the poorest billion, we should also think about the other four billion between us and them.

    • Re:A Noble Endeavor (Score:3, Informative)

      by YahoKa ( 577942 )
      Here is a bit from the simputer FAQ:

      # Q: $200 still sounds like it might be expensive for poor communities - will the government be providing financial aid for purchases?

      A: We hope government and large multilateral organizations will use the Simputer as a platform for various IT initiatives, indirectly making it affordable for poor communities to get access to Simputers.

      We have also recognized that even $200 could be too high and such products may need to be subsidized. However, we have added a SmartCard as a prime method of enabling the "sharing" of such devices. Rural communities could own several devices and hire these out for usage to individuals based on the ownership of a SmartCard. Each user's Smart Card would contain the minimum "personalization" information required to log into a Community Server which would maintain personalized data about the user. You can treat this as some sort of "roaming profile" information maintained in a smart card.
      This model of sharing would bring down the cost of the Simputer to that of owning only a simple smart card, and paying for the usage of a shared Simputer.

      Shared Simputers could be made available in rural schools, community halls or other such areas where common facilities are usually found.

    • Re:A Noble Endeavor (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jericho4.0 ( 565125 )
      I think the simputer needs to be evaluated in a different way than a normal handheld. The article points out that it could be owned communally by a village and provide many usefull services to rural villagers.

      It still needs to be shown that a collection of illiterate folks can get enough out of the device to make it cost-effective though. The article also mentions the difficulty in finding power for the device, but fails to mention availability of internet access. This seems to be an important detatil.

    • Re:A Noble Endeavor (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MyHair ( 589485 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:28PM (#4711146) Journal
      What I found interesting is that in that paragraph he pooh-poohed the $250 community device with simple-to-understand user interface (his description) and text-to-speech capability to help the illiterate and suggests that high-end text messaging mobile phones may usurp its purpose.

      Cellular phones aren't cheap. We Americans think they are sometimes, but try to buy one without signing up for a year of service. They are US$300-US$500 last I checked (Nextel Motorola i500's and i1000's at Office Depot w/out service). That figure doesn't necessarily fairly compare with the quoted $250 for the Simputer because my cell phone price is USD in a US retail store and they will likely be much cheaper in the "developing world", and I presume the quoted $250 for the Simputer would be the "developing world" price.

      Plus a cellular phone requires an ongoing expense. Depending on how they set it all up, they may pay a relitavely high price for the phones and low price for service or vice versa for one to offset the other, but I doubt this solution will be much cheaper than the Simputer even if they share one mobile phone for text messaging.
      • Plus a cellular phone requires an ongoing expense. Depending on how they set it all up, they may pay a relitavely high price for the phones and low price for service or vice versa for one to offset the other, but I doubt this solution will be much cheaper than the Simputer even if they share one mobile phone for text messaging.

        The ongoing expense of a cellphone is to pay for communications.

        How does the simputer remove the need to pay for communications?

        More likely senario is that you need to buy simputer + CF cellphone modem + cellphone service.

        • I doubt there is cellphone service in the areas this is target at. For the telcos to put in a cell, they probably want several hundred potential users per cell - more if those are poor, low use customers. A cell can cover several villages - but not that many, and at one phone per village, it probably won't pay. More likely there is a single landline into the village already - the Indian govenment has pushed to ensure that as many villages as possible have minimal telephone communications.

    • Re:A Noble Endeavor (Score:2, Interesting)

      by demi ( 17616 )

      I disagree.

      A device that connects an otherwise isolated villager to the Internet could help with these other priorities, rather than detract from them. For example, it might expose people to birth control information [fwhc.org] who might otherwise not have it. How about information on treadle pumps [bbc.co.uk] or getting clean water [bagelhole.org]? It might be difficult for the population to which the Simputer is targeted to get this information via nonelectronic means, for any price.

    • Re:A Noble Endeavor (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ryochiji ( 453715 )
      > are computers really a priority?

      Give someone a fish, they get a meal. Teach them to fish, and they'll feed themselves.

      I think the same concept might be applicable to computers in developing and/or oppressive nations. Information is power. When empowered, people can do far more than get water.

      Someone's going to say, "But look at China and the Great Firewall". Yes, as things stand now, the internet and computers don't empower people to the fullest extent. But when the internet becomes truly decentralized (so that something like the Great Firewall becomes impossible) and computers become cheap enough, don't be surprised if there are changes on a global scale.

    • Yes, and my thought was, hmmm.. how much does a sybian-based phone with keyboard, color screen, text messaging and multi-protocol phone go for these days? By the time these folks are up and running the Nokia 9210s [psionplace.com] and their less-expensive cousins will be getting down to about the same price range.
      Hey, the Simputer people *sorta* have their hearts in the right place, but capitalism will be providing this stuff just fine in a few years anyway.
      They'ld probably be better off buying up tons of old Palms and Newtons with some of their millions and using them to get working computers out there NOW rather than creating yet another platform. People seem to forget that an *authorized* licence of pretty much any non-Microslime OS can be had for five or six dollars in quantity if you're willing to get stuff a few releases back. What do you think copies of Mac OS System 6 are going for these days? Wanna bet that there isn't some school out there that converted to Windoze years ago and would sell them for the cost of shipping?
      Looks a bit like hubris to me. Kinda reminds me of when Brazil went into the car manufacturing business.
      Wishing the people of India well but doubting that a non-profit, NIH-obsessed bunch of do-gooders is the way to go,
      Rustin

    • Re:A Noble Endeavor (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mysticgoat ( 582871 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2002 @02:27AM (#4713528) Homepage Journal

      Will people in developing countries be able to justify the expenditure of $250 on a device that may be helpful but is not essential?

      Alice is a shrewd 17 year old who plans to build on her investment in a Simputer and a cell phone until she achieves world domination. With the optimism of youth, she figures that will happen when she's about 25. After all, she needs two years to pay off the Co-op loan she took to get the things, and then she needs to really learn how read and write, too. That might take a little while. But she's willing to put off starting her family until she's 25. Much as she wants kids, she wants to be rich, first.

      One of Alice's clients of the day is Bob, who is a 28 year old who has a full set of socket wrenches, a number of other tools, a backpack, and an excellent memory of the exploded diagrams of the half dozen different types of Briggs & Stratton engines that are in use within walking distance. Today he brings Alice a broken fan belt from Chuck's rototiller. With him helping her figure out the part identification code, Alice is able to find a store that has a replacement in stock, fifteen miles-- a round-trip walk of only a day-- away. That's much better than the fifty mile trip to the city.

      Chuck, who tagged along with Bob in a very worried fashion, is delighted at this good news. Three years ago his tiller had also broken down in the middle of planting season, and it had taken a week of sending a runner around to the distant towns to find the needed part. A week without work had thrown off the usual schedule, and while his farmer clients understood these things happen, some of their wives were angry at him because their kids had to be pulled out of school to hoe the fields, and those families had become the butt of village jokes for months. Nobody likes to be called "old fashioned", not that way. Chuck had lost something much more important than just the loss of income in that debacle, and he did not want to repeat it.

      Alice, the shrewd businesswoman, suggested that if Bob and Chuck wanted her to, maybe she could try to broker a delivery deal and get the new belt into Bob's hands before noon. At first they thought she was joking: same day delivery, better even than the mythical FedEx! But after a few minutes of enjoyable haggling, the three agreed to a payment. Then Alice chased them out of hearing distance, while she did furtive things with the internet access and the cell phone. No, I won't reveal her trade secrets, so don't ask me. Something about a regional network of teenage girls with Simputers, but you didn't hear that from me.

      The upshot was that 10 minutes later Chuck started sloshing across the western marsh to the highway, where he was to flag down a Frito Lay delivery truck heading east. The driver would give him the fan belt, and also a dozen batteries and a bag of potato chips for Alice. Meanwhile, Bob went back to the rototiller and began removing cover plates and things that needed to come off before the new belt could go on.

      End of story: Chuck is back in business before the day has even started to get hot. Bob's reputation for fast, friendly, quality field service is even more enhanced. That evening Alice counts the day's take with a laugh, and then gently tells her latest suitor that no, she's not yet ready to marry. There is a world out there and she is going to claim her piece of it. Marriage and children have to wait awhile.

  • Design sucks! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... m ['son' in gap]> on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:16PM (#4711056) Journal
    <quote> Although the Simputer can run on three AAA batteries, it can operate for only a few hours before draining them. And in the developing world, even batteries are expensive and hard to come by. </quote>

    AAA batteries cost more than AA batteries, and provide a lot less juice.

    Stupid design flaw, right off the top.

    Solar panels and a ni-cad power pack would be cheaper in the mid-term, and environmentally much more friendly. There's more ... just read the article.

    • Re:Design sucks! (Score:3, Informative)

      by McCart42 ( 207315 )
      I could be wrong here...but Ni-Cad? How is that environmentally friendly (reusability aside)? Wouldn't NiMH be a better option both performance-wise and from a disposability standpoint? When a Ni-Cad battery dies on you in India, how many places are there nearby to recycle it, and how much damage would it do if the cadmium leaked into a water supply?
      I would definitely say a rechargeable power pack is a good decision, I only question the Ni-Cad aspect of it.
      • You're right. My point was that, in a remote location, rechargeables should be the ONLY option. Not throw-aways. And not for a target audience that has a family income of $5 per day.
    • Perhaps a case made out of corn starch plastic, and rechargable batteries with a Battery Exchange Program in place. Offer 35% off a new battery only if you bring your used one in. Make it easy, and no batteries will end up in rivers or sand pits.

      I didn't see any mention of ports, btw. How about a universal interface (serial?) that can control machinery like heaters, lights, feed dispensers, pumps and the like? I could see that being rather useful for irrigation or raising livestock. Of course timers work well, but something that could respond to real time data could be invaluable.

      I guess that's why we have kids.

      • rechargeable batteries and an exchange program are a good idea, except that the target "market" lacks basic skills that we should be concentrating on, such as the ability to read and write, rather than giving them useless hi-tech toys.

        After all, which would you rather have, a computer, or the ability to read?

        Now extend this to underdeveloped countries.

        • After all, which would you rather have, a computer, or the ability to read?

          Of course what you seem to have forgotten is that a computer is a great way of getting reading teaching out to areas of the world where there is very little or no existing educational infrastructure, and improving it where it does exist. If the computers have internet access, all the better, because then the student can communicate with teachers elsewhere. Sure, it's perhaps not as good as having a real, physical teacher there in the village, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

          My nephew (age 4) learnt to read almost entirely using a computer, and he probably learnt earlier than he would have done without it, simply because the computer was always available to teach him (unlike his parents or nursery teachers). If it works for my nephew I don't see why it can't work for rural Indians - both children and adults.

          • Please read the article. Most of the target market is illiterate. There's no internet infrastructure - these people need safe drinking water and schools more than they need a PDA. And even if there were an internet infrastructure - how can these people use it to communicate with teachers - they can't write in the first place, so forget about email.

            Besides, books don't consume resources every time you want to access them, they're cheaper, and if you drop one, it doesn't become a useless pile of junk.

            You mention your nephew - I'm assuming that you were not the primary care giver - please check with his parents to find out how much time they spent with him before assuming that the computer "taught" him how to read, and how much he picked up off the.TV (Sesame Street, etc), from his parents, and at nursery school (yes, they do teach the ABCs at preschool).

            But you didn't answer my question - which would you rather have - I know that if I had to choose between my personal library or my two computers at home, as to which I'd choose to take to a desert island, I'd keep the library. It works without power, and in an emergency I can burn it to keep warm or cook whatever I catch, whereas the PCs are useless w/o power.

    • Re:Design sucks! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @08:00PM (#4711367) Homepage
      Solar panels and a ni-cad power pack would be cheaper in the mid-term, and environmentally much more friendly. There's more ... just read the article.

      Are you MAD? first off. Nicad batteries are the absolute worst to use use something with a low self-drain-off and higher capacity with 10 times the life expectancy.. Li-ion or Nickle Metal Hydride. both are not as toxic as Ni-cad's after disposal (Cadmium is NASTY) second have the solar panel a seperate item. a nice 1 foot by 2 foot panel on the hut with a wire running down to plug the unit into. It'll charge it in a couple of days around most hot regions. and if you use the right kind of solar panel.. the flexible silicon ones, they will last much longer.
      • No, I'm not mad, but look at our hypocrisy. We've used NiCads for years. We're allowed to pose a threat to the environment, but 3rd world nations aren't.

        But you're right, there are other alternatives, as I've pointed out in a previous reply :-) My point was that AAA disposable batteries (no recharger) for a device to be targeted for distribution where $5 is a weeks' income, really sucks (sounds like a late-90's dot-com business plan).

    • More to the point, how would a village with such limited income be able to keep powering that thing?

  • From the FAQ (Score:4, Funny)

    by extagboy ( 60672 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:19PM (#4711073) Homepage
    Q: Can I create a Beowulf cluster using many Simputers?

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

    Its about time someone recognized the Beowulf Clustering needs of Slashdotters!
    • Q: What is your business plan?
      A: 1)Make Simputers.
      2) Sell it to people with hardly any money.
      3)???
      4) Profit!

      yep...they love slashdot.

      nbfn

      • I think their model is more like this:

        1) Make Simputer
        2) Get some investor to give us millions
        3) Try to sell is to poverty stricken indian farmers
        4) ???
        5) Profit (AKA Spend the millions invested on inflated salaries to me and my buddies - rinse, repeat)

  • screen res (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rendermouse ( 462757 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:21PM (#4711086) Journal
    If you go by that screenshot, that thing must have 1280 resolution. You gotta love people who Photoshop screen mockups of web pages onto PDAs.
    • If you go by that screenshot, that thing must have 1280 resolution. You gotta love people who Photoshop screen mockups of web pages onto PDAs.

      LOL, read the caption for the photo. It says that the pictured unit has a black and white display. I never knew black and white was so colorful.

  • Interface (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IIRCAFAIKIANAL ( 572786 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:22PM (#4711097) Journal
    In addition, the Simputer has a program called Tapatap that displays a three-by-three grid; you can input a letter or number by tapping on the squares of the grid in a particular sequence.

    Welcome to interface hell.

    Seriously, this idea probably won't fly. As they say in the article, mobile phones will be much more practical and cheaper, and given the user interface description (ok, only half the story, but anyway), much easier to use. There is little that this device could do that someone couldn't accomplish with a phone (except for, perhaps, teaching literacy, but can't you do that with picture books or cassette tapes or something cheaper?)
    • and given the user interface description (ok, only half the story, but anyway), much easier to use.

      So, you're saying a 3x4 phone keypad is much easier to use than Tapatap which displays a 3x3 grid? T9 which uses 3x3 of the keys for text input is fairly popular on US phones; I don't really see where the interface difference is.

      Unless you're saying they'll use the mobile phone to call someone for the info they need. But they presumably already have a community land line for the Simputer modem, so they could just call using that instead of getting a mobile phone.

      But who do you call that has the info they need at low or no cost?

      When was the last time you called up 844-1111 (or whatever that number was) to get a bank-sponsored weather report for the day? You use the internet now, right? It's much cheaper to distribute information through the internet than through call centers.
      • So, you're saying a 3x4 phone keypad is much easier to use than Tapatap which displays a 3x3 grid? T9 which uses 3x3 of the keys for text input is fairly popular on US phones; I don't really see where the interface difference is.

        I agree, but for the most part, I would expect them to be receiving information, not submitting it, so it's a mostly moot point anyway.

        Unless you're saying they'll use the mobile phone to call someone for the info they need. But they presumably already have a community land line for the Simputer modem, so they could just call using that instead of getting a mobile phone.

        That is what I am saying. There is no community land line in the picture, according to the article. I assume (the article doesn't clarify) that people will use Simputer with a cellular modem. (So everyone making points about this being a one time investment are wrong)

        But who do you call that has the info they need at low or no cost?

        If the information has a cost associated with it, why would it become freely available on the Internet? Anyhow, for communication, they would simply call people - that we all agree on. Now, to receive information, they could ask people that have access to the information (ie/ live in the city, work for the government, automated phone systems, etc). And nobody is saying that this information couldn't be freely available to cell phone users with access to the Internet through their phone.

        What I am really getting at is that a PDA is a half-assed solution. It only goes halfway. I'm not saying that, in the long term, something like simputer wouldn't be useful, but why a PDA? Why not a laptop? You could build a cheap one that operates with a food pedal generator and get a much more useful device. I always thought that miniaturization was more expensive and harder to perfect and repair. Why $3 smartcards when you could use floppy disks? Too many questions, too many risks. It would be far safer to use a tried and tested design using common parts.

        Is the PDA more durable?
        Is it easier to use?
        Is it a more stable system (doubtful, since the article says otherwise)?
        Is there applications available for it for other purposes that a cell phone can't solve (article hints at this but skimps on details)?
        Etc, etc etc

        I think that the article is just lacking to much detail. There is probably some strong arguments to counter mine, but the article doesn't present any...

        When was the last time you called up 844-1111 (or whatever that number was) to get a bank-sponsored weather report for the day? You use the internet now, right? It's much cheaper to distribute information through the internet than through call centers.

        I just look outside (call me crazy), but I am not convinced that it's cheaper to serve weather information over the Internet when the cost is mainly associated with gathering that information. A better example would be static information or a large volume of information - those are better suited to the Internet instead of a phone.

  • Sounds very expensive. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stevejsmith ( 614145 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:23PM (#4711106) Homepage
    $250!? For a poverty-stricken Indian farmer? You have got to be kidding me! Some make this much in six months! I don't think I'd starve for six months to get a "Simputer." It seems to me that it would be smarter for the village to buy a cheap-o computer of two. You can get an okay computer with a monitor for $500 ("okay" is a relative term, but what are a whole bunch of internet-challenged Indians going to do with a 3.06GHz computer? All they need is a simple Pentium II and a 15" monitor)...arguable five times as good as the "Simputer." And regarding power: why not sell a solar adapter?
    • And regarding power: why not sell a solar adapter?

      Because for the price of a solar adapter capable of feeding a pc+monitor you can probably buy several simputers....

      Jeroen


    • This device was manufactured by Indians for Indians. It bafffles me how you can opine what a "poverty-stricken Indian farmer", I imagine you get this image from your National Geographic posters, or any other Indian *needs* for that matter. Maybe you should leave this issue to the locals.

      • The Simputer is not targetted to those with tons of money. People with a decent amout of money own a power outlet and enough money to buy a real computer. Think before you type.

        Oh, and there was a lot of crap designed for Americans by Americans. That doesn't mean it's good. So now just because it was made by an Indian means that it is useful to Indians? I think not.

  • Even more important as an enabler (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jki ( 624756 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:27PM (#4711135) Homepage
    for developing "niche" applications, aimed for specific ltasks. I don't believe Simputer alone does any magic - but it is the corner stone for providing the exact tool for exact needs - such as for creating an application for increasing milk productivity. You would not guess how complicated (and important) issue something like that can be. There are zillions of cases like this which could be solved with very simple (and intentionally very simple) applications. Before, it was just impossible to have that application reach those in need.

  • What's the Difference with the PDA from Dell ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Khalid ( 31037 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:30PM (#4711160) Homepage
    This is not a troll just a question, but I fail to see a real advantage of this on the last PDA from Dell. Which does cost the same price if my memory serves Well.

    The Indian Paysan with not really care if it rans Linux or not, the most important factor is the price.
  • Though they may seem like cheap, obsolete devices made for third worlders, these could open up new opportunities for them -- how many people went from the love of ancient early 1980s computers into lucrative computer careers? Don't laugh at these simple devices -- one man's trash is another man's treasure.

    If these PDAs turn more of the Indian population from people to be (yes, sadly) exploited for manual labor into a skilled labor force, it would greatly banish poverty and help build a viable middle class in the third-world country.

  • such a good idea? (Score:3, Funny)

    by tps12 ( 105590 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:37PM (#4711211) Homepage Journal
    This is exciting technology. Every couple of months, it seems like we're moving closer to the day when I can carry a computer around with me wherever I go. In the long run, especially as it is portrayed in the many science fiction novels I read, humanity has nothing to lose and everything to gain from making computers more ubiquitous.

    Something that occurs to me is that making decisions based on long term outcome can have unforseen, or undesirable, effects in the short term. Industrialization has been beneficial to everyone, but a few generations lived in filth and poverty when it was first introduced. Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't have industrialized in the early 19th century, just that maybe we should have thought about it a little more beforehand. Yeah, I know, 20/20 hindsight and all that.

    I don't think there's really any danger to the people of India from this device. I do, however, fear that we may be putting ourselves at risk by permitting them to use this technology. India has always been unstable, and with both it and Pakistan in possession of nucular weapons, it might be better to keep powerful computers out of their hands. They shouldn't be denied access to them, but that access should probably be better monitored by the international community. For all intensive purposes, they pose a threat to our very nation. We need to make sure we don't allow the events of 911 to transpire again.

  • literacy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cristipp ( 190840 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:41PM (#4711246)
    Many of these potential users are illiterate...

    Spend the money for a literacy program in the first place.
    • Great for oncoming generations - if you can start a convincing literacy program - but that doesn't help the adults who aren't literate. Adult illiteracy isn't an easy nut to crack for people who have leisure time to play with; in the rural third world, it's a huge hurdle.

      Marshall McLuhan used to say that we were heading into a post-literate age - that new media technologies would make literacy, if not obsolete, at least not the totalizing pre-requisite it used to be.

      In a lot of rural environments, the information needs may not actually require a lot of literacy. A symbolic/representational language could be sufficient to enable them to derive a lot of benefits from the device. Illiteracy in much of the world is an artifact of the infrastructure, not the raw intelligence or creativity or dilligence of the people there. It's entirely appropriate that new technologies are developed that can augment their productivity and increase their power in the market.

    • Spend the money for a literacy program in the first place

      Thanks, mate. It's enlightened, literate Westerners like you who need to come to India and teach us how to read, write, eat, cook, have sex and oh, log in to the net to watch (American) p0rno.

      I don't care if I'm marked down as a troll, but I'm fed up with this paternalistic attitude that most posts here seem to have. You think there are no literate Indians out there? Or you think there's so little money that we can't provide for both Simputers and mass adult literacy? Does the US government stop all research until all the 33 million "food-insecure" Americans [thehungersite.com] get a proper nutritious meal every day? Why do I not see any posts comparing that with Windows XP's billion dollar [amo.net] marketing budget?

      Oh wait. This is about bloddy Indians, isn't it.

  • crazy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by minus_273 ( 174041 ) <aaaaaNO@SPAMSPAM.yahoo.com> on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:46PM (#4711291) Journal
    250-300? for that thing? WHY? This is such a dumb idea.
    More over, if you are illiterate and poverty stricken, how do they expect you to pay for this?
    Middle class i could understand, but the middle class might was well get a DELL or Ipaq.. much better for less
    looks more like a national pride thing than anything else. Sort of saying.. yeah.. we can make PDAs too! tisk. pretty sad if you ask me.
    • There seem to be a lot of negative comments about this device; I see where these comments are coming from, but I -- and maybe this is just the /. propaganda getting to me -- thing this is generally well-designed device. Here are my thoughts on most of the criticisms put forth.

      1. Why not just buy a Dell? It'd be more powerful and cost only a little more.
      By making a miniature computer of very low cost, the users can keep personal data on smart-cards and share one Simputer amongst many users. Thus the cost can be spread around. This could also be done with a laptop, but the power consumption and cost of a laptop much higher than this Simputer would be.

      2. Why not just spend the money on picture books for literacy, or better farming tools, or condoms, or hand-soap?
      Because the root causes of illiteracy, starvation, overpopulation, and unsanitary living are often educational. This one device, unlike picture books, could be used to teach literacy at many levels, as well as other languages and subjects (such as effective farming.) Throwing condoms at a population is useless without some sexual education / health propaganda. Unsanitary living is the same way -- many of the diseases caught by not doing a post-shit soap handwashing can be eliminated by washing one's hands in ash, which is free. Again, this problem is educational and/or propagandistic.

      3. Why does it run on AAA batteries? Yecch!
      The batteries can be rechargable. For usability and transportability, the Simputer should be small.

      4. Why not just get a cell phone?
      This thing has fairly high specs for a hand-held, and its cost will likely be defrayed by non-profit and governmental organizations. The design needs of cell phones go in a different direction -- they're targeted towards hip Japanese schoolgirls and soulless American yuppies. The Simputer is meant for communal use by the very poor (and remember, the design is pretty much open, so the problem-domain-targeted features can be upgraded). Also, where's the flash card slot on these cell phones? These machines need to be usable as a machine shared by a large group of people.

      5. Why is it so expensive?
      Again, shared computer amongst a poor group. They all chip in for the machine and their own smart card. This design -- and few others, I posit -- meet the needs of this problem domain.

      Did I cover everything? What other reasons do folks have?

      • 1. Why not just buy a Dell? It'd be more powerful and cost only a little more. By making a miniature computer of very low cost, the users can keep personal data on smart-cards and share one Simputer amongst many users. Thus the cost can be spread around. This could also be done with a laptop, but the power consumption and cost of a laptop much higher than this Simputer would be.

        Additionally, India would be importing technology. The Simputer may require imported components (notably the CPU) but much of it can be fabricated inside India. That employs people, boosts the economy and offers export opportunities for other developing markets.

        There is no reason to suspect that this is the end of their ambitions. They have a viable solid state device for the mass-market. Why shouldn't they be thinking of a more fully-featured product for the upper end of the market?

        I seem to remember people laughing at a little company from a group of islands off the coast of China; they used to produce cheap and nasty copies of Western radios. Strange name - something like Somy... I wonder what became of them?

        India has traditionally tried to concentrate on indigenous technology even when there are established alternatives. This is an attempt to jump start the economy and is not too dissimilar to the way the US industrialised during the 19th Century.

        And India has had many successes in advanced technology - nuclear power and its space programme immediately spring to mind.

        Good luck to them with this.

        Best wishes,
        Mike.

  • value vs some other stuff (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:49PM (#4711304) Homepage
    I wonder how something like this compares to the "MoneyMaker", a middling low tech human-powered irrigation device that they're selling to farmers in Kenya...from the article from [wired.com] :
    the MoneyMaker Plus is small enough to be carried on a bicycle, simple enough that it can be installed by the farmer and repaired without any tools, and powerful enough that it can irrigate 1½ acres a day.
    Seems like this answers a real direct need...except for the markets contact, I'm not sure what the simputer offers.

  • Used Palms (Score:2, Interesting)

    by twalk ( 551836 )
    Used Palms go for $20-$50 on eBay. You could get possibly 10 Palm PDAs for the price of one of these. So can anyone tell me why this is better than flooding the country with a bunch of old and obsolete Palms?

  • What are the applications ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rajslashdot ( 470501 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:50PM (#4711311)
    The success of the simputer will rely on the applications it will be useful for. The article really did not mention any. I know for a fact that farmers in India find out about prices in the various markets by radio and phone. They do not need access to internet for that.

    Also most major villages have or are in the process of having "PC centers" with internet access. Here villagers can access the PC for a fee, much like accessing the phone at a "STD phone booth", which is so popular in villages and towns all over the country.

    There is no mention of a monthly subscription charge for internet access. I am very sceptical, that combining the cost of aquisition, the cost of internet access and the lack of applications, if the device is going to capture the popular imagination.

  • trial and error? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doppler00 ( 534739 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @07:58PM (#4711357) Homepage Journal
    ... commands, even illiterate users should be able to learn by trial and error the purpose of the icons and buttons on each page.

    You're kidding right? Giving someone a computer and not teaching them how to read first doesn't make any sense. I don't see how having a computer in itself will help solve illiteracy. What they need are schools to educate their children.
    • And also given how inept some supposedly educated people from industrialized nations are at using a computer, how can they expect that this will fly with people who have never seen one?
    • You're kidding right? Giving someone a computer and not teaching them how to read first doesn't make any sense. I don't see how having a computer in itself will help solve illiteracy. What they need are schools to educate their children.

      I agree education is a crucial issue in India, but to answer your question, kids can do the darnest things. To quote a social experiment mentioned earlier [slashdot.org] on Slashdot,

      "most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net.

      But yes; things like this can't be a large-scale solution to education.

    • Giving someone a computer and not teaching them how to read first....

      is selling plenty of Leapfrog [leapfrog.com]'s young learner's toys.

      There are plenty of good [cmu.edu] reasons [bovik.org] to explore the topic.

  • Simputer costs more than new Dell Axim5 PDA (Score:3, Insightful)

    by waldo2020 ( 592242 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @08:00PM (#4711368)
    Yes, both have pda form factors and StrongARMs. Simputer has an obsolete 200Mhz S1110 while the Dell AXIM5 has a 300Mhz PXA250 Xscale(ARM) cpu with a tiny 3.5" color screen for $199. Dell claims they will come out with cheaper unit for $150. The Simputer however is a native, license free effort: open hardware and runs open software (Linux) - so no Winblows CE aka Pocket PC 2002 for 1.2 billion Indians:) It's not a bad first effort, but it's hard even for Indians to compete with pac-rim labour and industrious Koreans. Worry not - the StrongARM Ipaq linux will be ported to the DELL in no time and replace the Simputer for those rich enough to afford it.

  • Wait a minute... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zenjive ( 247697 )
    From the slashback article: "We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own."
    Hmm, seems like they are doing ok in this instance.

  • According to the article, the simputer sometimes crashes if left idle for a while... I mean, c'mon, guys...

    Either way -- they should check out dasher [cam.ac.uk] for text input... much better than the methods described. There was a slashdot story about it a while back...

  • From the website, it says that you can download:

    * The schematics, pdf and ORCAD(.dsn) files for the complete schematics of the Simputer

    * Bill of materials in .xls and .pdf formats

    * The layout and pcb details in PADS2000 format

    I think this is the best thing about this product. They released these under the Simputer General Public License (SGPL). This means that any small companies, or better yet, universities can create their own version of the Simputer and perhaps improve upon it, even at the PCB level. Perhaps even downsize the PCB even more. Because they've provided schematics in OrCAD format, it makes it very easy to edit the design from the ground up, and spin your own new design. Having the bill-of-materials is great too, because you can see exactly which parts they used. This is TOTALLY NEW in the hardware business as far as I know. I have heard of OpenCores [opencores.org] but that is different. I think this is a step in the right direction. When I was doing hardware on the job I used to always find myself and other at the company repeating old designs and designing PCBs for stupid things that could easily have been open-sourced by someone along the way. Like RS-232 to RS-485 converters. We found it cheaper to just spin our own PCBs than to buy these all packaged up, but it took a month just to do the schematics, PCBs, and then get the damn thing working.

    My question is though, what is the motivation from the company's perspective to release their hardware designs as open source?

    • The Simputer [simputer.org] is actually designed by a trust, the Simputer Trust, which leased out the design to companies who might be interested in manufacturing it. Their motivation in having liberal license policies is to promote hardware development, allowing Simputer users to benefit.

      Technically, this is neither Open Source according to the Open Source Initiative [opensource.org]'s definition [opensource.org], , which says: "The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.", and companies producing designs have to pay a licensing fee of $25,000 if they're from developing nations or $250,000 if they're from richer nations.

      It also isn't Free, according to the Free Software Foundation [fsf.org]'s [fsf.org]
      definition, for the same reason.

      However, given the differences between hardware and software development (and manufacture), it's very reasonable and not surprising that a free hardware license won't count as free/open source software, and is definitely in the same spirit as the open source movement, and inspired by the free software movement as well.

      Related Links:

      SGPL vs GPL [simputer.org]
      Simputer Licensing terms [simputer.org]
  • You can get a Dell Axim A5 for $199 and a lot more PocketPC hardware for less than $300. Of course, the PocketPC software sucks, but porting the Simputer software environment to such hardware shouldn't be too hard. The new low-end iPaq might be another good target and might be supported fairly soon by handhelds.org [handhelds.org].

  • Cultural ingnorance and Mobile phones (Score:4, Informative)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2002 @07:10AM (#4714281) Journal
    First of all I am somehow shocked by the racism and total lack of cultural perspective often shown here. Words like "Habib" and "dothead" remind me of the Sihk who was killed at his gas station in the US after 9/11 last year. Firstly, most Indians (not all but most) are Hindu. Secondly, lumping millions if not billions of people into one basket is below the level of even some of the more sickening trolls on this forum. Thirdly (and please don't take this as anti-American, because it's not meant that way), It often seems that people here compare items like this from their own social and economic perspectives. For the target audience, most of whom have never seen a computer before, arguments about the processor speed etc and other commercial systems, such as Dell's PDA or a Palm are not exactly useful. No one in this device's target audience can afford commercial WinCE or Palm software. For a village in India or CAR (Central African Republic) that has to club together to buy a device like plus a hand generator or a small solar cell, $20 for some software to do text to speech In Their Language (since the ability to read english is strangely not universal) is a lot of money in an area where the per capita annual income is about $400.

    While the gist of the idea is an axcellent one, I agree completely with the SA article in that mobile phones will probably fit these people's needs better. Wireless communication is already more widespread in Africa than landlines and most mobile phones based on the symbian platform offer localised languages and extremely easy to use interfaces as well as the ability to load Java applications which can do extra tasks needed by these people.

  • The price! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GCU Friendly Fire ( 563491 )
    I just don't see this flying. You can pick up a second-hand palm for about 70$ and it has loads of software.

    It's very cheap and easy to teach people to read, all it takes is manpower, and that's an abundant resource in India. English is the main language of commerce and government in India, and overall literacy is 52%, not bad for an agrarian system. Instead of buying this obscenely expensive, battery-hungry computer, illiterate people would be better off clubbing together to pay for a teacher. If they then want a small computer they could do better on price and appropriateness.

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