Friday, July 23rd 2010
Government of India Unveils Sakshat $10 Tablet PC for Students
The Government of India today unveiled the much talked about 10 Dollar Tablet PC for students. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal unveiled the tablet which is initially priced at 1,500 Indian Rupees (US $30), but is expected distributed for 500 Rupees ($10) once manufacturing is streamlined. The device is named Sakshat (meaning "personification" in Sanskrit), and boasts of performance-grade hardware for a device of its class. It has a 10.5-inch multi-touch colour screen, ARM processor, 2 GB of memory, cloud storage, WiFi b/g and 10/100 Ethernet for connectivity with school networks, a highly-customised OS based on the Linux kernel, supporting Adobe Flash for online videos and interactive educational content, and a digital camera.
School curriculum will be distributed to students in an interactive format, as well as drive "e-classrooms" for live-streaming classes from eminent teachers to students from across the country. The device supports OpenOffice.org and open document formats, as well as Adobe PDF, and various multimedia formats. Sakshat was developed by students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) from various IIT institutes across the country. As part of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology, Sakshat will be backed by a network connecting 18,000 educational institutions and 400 universities.
Sources:
IBNLive, PCWorld India
School curriculum will be distributed to students in an interactive format, as well as drive "e-classrooms" for live-streaming classes from eminent teachers to students from across the country. The device supports OpenOffice.org and open document formats, as well as Adobe PDF, and various multimedia formats. Sakshat was developed by students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) from various IIT institutes across the country. As part of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology, Sakshat will be backed by a network connecting 18,000 educational institutions and 400 universities.
125 Comments on Government of India Unveils Sakshat $10 Tablet PC for Students
In anycase, I remembered back then when one of my class implemented some e-learning thing.. wasnt very motivational, and cheating on the tests was easy and rampant (since it relied on honesty rather than an iron fist system)..
Looks like 2gb of actual ram.
edit: looks like 35$ is the actual price but the minister plans to bring that price down to 10$. shoot even at 50$ it'd be a steal.
We get ripped off here :roll:
it looks like a BETTER iPad xD more for 30$ then we get here for 400$ lol
I'd buy a few right now if I could lol
bta, would you buy me one? xD Then next time you come to North America you can ship it to me :roll:
Do they know that many people understand English and don't understand Sanskrit?
And that name doesn't sound really great in English....... :laugh:
Sorry couldn't resist...
Wait a sec... you mean the normal price is $30?? I hope they will be available for sale outside India, perhaps on ebay or somewhere...
And I have to spend €250 every September to buy my daughter's school textbooks and the rest of her school stuff!
I take my hat off to the Indian government for this initiative.
Malta should definitely follow example.
but if they tried to pull this in the U.S. there would be outrage. just another form of wealth redistribution.
my point is that these don't cost $10 to produce. they cost a lot more but are selling them to citizens for $10 and calling it charity.
A country that takes tax money and spends it on children ends up with smart children 15 or 20 years down the road. (These children will eventually end up able to produce more, and in the end, the country will make money.)
A country that doesn't, well, ends up like America.