New Delhi: Union minister for human resource development (HRD) Kapil Sibal on Thursday unveiled a laptop that is cheaper than a mobile phone.
The HRD ministry got the laptop, costing just $35 (Rs1500), specially made for students and teachers. It is a touch-screen access-cum-computing device with all the functions of a laptop but lesser speed and memory.
The laptop is expected to hit Indian market by early 2011. It has Linux operative system, with multimedia content viewer and other computing capabilities such as Open Office, SciLab, etc. Its media player is capable of playing streamed as well as stored media files. And it is wi-fi enabled having remote device management capability and solar panel.
We have made the breakthrough and are now ready to capture the market. The price of these devices will be around $35 per piece. We expect it to go down to $20-$10, Sibal said.
In the first phase the government plans to place orders for about 10 lakh such laptops for the college students.
However, the students will have to wait as the government hasnt decided on the distribution aspects of these laptops.
The new product is an upgraded version of the $10 laptop, which had to be used with a projector, launched in Tirupati last February. However, the device failed to reach the market as its cost rose to $54 in no time.
An MHRD official said that over the past one year, various IITs made progress over such devices. MHRD too held discussions on the concept with experts from IISc Bangalore, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras and IIT Bombay. B Tech and M Tech students were also guided to produce the mother board for such low cost devices with ample flexibility to change components. One mother board design was generated under MHRDs guidance in the B Tech project of a student at VIT, Vellore.
The cost of the material, which worked out to $47, was brought down after a massive exercise, including a 50% government subsidy.
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