$10 Laptop Downgraded By Reality; Now Fancy Storage Device 143
Ian Lamont writes "The news last week that the Indian government was working on a $10 laptop was too good to be true. It turns out that the project is actually a wireless-enabled storage device, not a laptop." Update: 02/04 21:36 GMT by T : Always-illuminating Liliputing has a short article with a picture of the device.
Bait and switch. (Score:5, Interesting)
$10? Low ball. (Score:2, Interesting)
Shocking/still not seeing the point. (Score:5, Interesting)
Although the new form of the widget is rather fuzzy, I don't think I understand the point. Very low cost computers, designed with the particular attributes of low budget education in mind, are something that hasn't seen much market focus, and are thus a logical target for a special development program. Mass storage, though, has been cheapened and commodified with ruthless efficiency by the mainstream tech market. As have wireless communications mechanisms(GSM is super cheap on the WAN side, and for LAN/PAN you have zigbee, bluetooth, and wifi, depending on your budget). In either case, I'd be shocked if a special charity R&D project could outpace the standard R&D driven by people's desire for cheap gadgets.
Perfectly respectable 2gig USB drives can be had, retail, quantity one, now, for under 10 dollars. If sneakernet isn't good enough, wireless chipsets can also be had for under 10 dollars a unit. What niche, exactly, does this thing fill?
Re:And by wireless-enabled (Score:5, Interesting)
More interesting are, going by the photo, 3 cables going out of the device. Any logical reason a wireless storage device would need 3 cables? Or any more than power supply for that matter?
Cutting through the BS... (Score:2, Interesting)
Two Gigbytes? (Score:4, Interesting)
Jeez... I have a Type II CF microdrive that's three times that capacity! Couldn't they just design it to accept any Flash media or microdrives? They're kinda reinventing that wheel again, only less round this time.
Re:$10? Low ball. (Score:5, Interesting)
>It needs to be very simple, no physical buttons, no moving parts, built in solar cell on the back, screen on the front, complete touch interface. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
India and tried and has failed with the Simputer [wikipedia.org], which is a real, you know, computer.
The problem is that you cant dictate need. If there's no legitimate need for an ultra cheap machine then you simply cant create need. People will ignore it, just like they did with the linux based simputer. If people are doing fine with cafes, phones, and computer labs in school then they wont get excited over a subsidized inferior machine.
When there's need, the streets will find a way and capitalism will refine it and package it. You dont start from the top, you start from the bottom (basement hackers, kids, startups). This is why so many grand top-down designs of "great ideas" and utopias always fail. Buckminster Fuller and Dean Kamen never realized why they were completely irrelevant.