India to unveil 10 Dollar Laptop

India is poised to unveil the ultimate in credit-crunch computing: a 500 rupee (£7) laptop.

A government-developed prototype, due to be shown for the first time tomorrow, will mark the most ambitious attempt yet to bring computers to the developing world and to bridge the "digital divide" between rich and poor.

It is also the latest example of ultra-cheap engineering to emerge from the sub-continent. India has already given the world a 100,000 rupee (£1,420) car, the Tata Nano, and a super-basic £10 phone — goods that are now expected to find favour among relatively affluent Westerners as the global economic downturn bites.

However, the launch of a viable computer that costs less than most paperback books would herald a startling new era in thrifty manufacturing. The Indian laptop, which has been on the drawing board for at least three years, will be the centre of attention at the launch of India's new National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology, a scheme to boost learning in rural areas through the internet.

-Update from BBC
Early reports of the cheap laptop suggested that it would cost only 500 rupees (£7). However, this could be a mistranslation, because transcripts of the speech, in which it was unveiled, mentioned it costing $10 (£7) but this was later corrected to $100 (£70).

Work on the device has been carried out at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras.

Even if the finished device costs $100, it will significantly undercut other low cost laptops aimed at the developing world, such as the One Laptop Per Child's XO machine and the Intel Classmate.

Originally, the XO was intended to cost $100 but the finished version ended up costing about $188 (£131).

The development of the cheap laptop is the latest in a series of initiatives to create low cost computing devices for Indians. In late 1999, the Simputer hand-held computer debuted and has been used in a variety of projects, including digitising land records.


Full Story