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Can India Produce the Next Steve Jobs?
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 12 October 2011, 01:42 IST |
17 Comments
3. Absence of a sense of perfection, thoroughness and excellence:
The best example of this is the $35 tablet that was introduced recently by the Indian government. The world's least expensive tablet $35 was one most promising and showcased idea by the Indian government for the enhancement of Indian students. This super-cheap tablet computer was devised as a method to impart higher-quality education to students around the country. The device was developed by student teams from India's premier technological institutes, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. The basic idea was to develop a computer that can be used by students of developing nations to better their educational quality. The $35 tablet started its journey way back in 2009 as a $10 tablet and went through a lot of difficulties and delays. Alas it was released on Oct 5 but was awaiting a bigger disappointment. The machine is quite slow, and its touchscreen is not very agile. Well, with low horsepower 366MHz processor, all you can have is a 'real snail' of the tablet space. What kind of computer related education will students in this country have with a device that is so substandard? Most middle-level mobile phones available in India are probably capable of giving a better computing experience than the tablet. The device uses resistive LCD displays rather than a full touchscreen. As it connects via WiFi, its usefulness in rural areas is seriously compromised. In urban areas students probably have access to better devices. At a time when HP is conducting a fire sale of its super-advanced Tablet, the TouchPad, at $99, and Amazon is retailing its brand new tablet, Kindle Fire, at just $199, we are trying to palm off $35 piece of plastic packed with obsolete hardware and software on our students! The need of the hour is to make the best hardware and software available to our students; we can't keep foisting useless plastic junk, which is tablet in name only.
