India: $10 Notebooks for Students

jims80By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Here’s a tip from Innovate‘s editor-in-chief, Jim Morrison: India’s $10 Laptop to be revealed Feb. 3 (Physorg.com, 30 Jan. 2009)

I’ll be adding more sources to this post as they become available. In the meantime, please submit posts of your thoughts re this new development. What impact will the $10 notebooks have on education? or Is it really possible to produce a useful notebook for $10?

UPDATE 2/2: “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).” (“India to unveil low cost laptop,” BBC News, 2 Feb 2009)

UPDATE 2/2: Many other sources are reporting the price at $20, for example, James Lamont in “India to follow $2,000 car with $20 laptop” (FT.com, 2 Feb. 2009)

UPDATE 2/4: $10-laptop proves to be a damp squib (The Times of India, 4 Feb. 2009). Photo below by K.V. Poornachandra Kumar, from The Hindu (4 Feb. 2009).

10dollar_laptop

Additional Sources:

The Times of India, 30 Jan. 2009: Rs 500 laptop display on Feb 3

Expressindia.com (29 Jan. 2009 IST): Govt set to make computers available @ Rs 500

Amarendra Bhushan, CEOWORLD Magazine, 1 Feb. 2009: India plans $10 or Rs 500 laptop computers for everybody: Sakshat is it for real?

DWS Tech (1 Feb. 2009): Rs 500 laptop announced by Indian govt. – that’s just $ 10 for a little computer!

Background Sources:

From 247wallst.com (2 Feb. 2009): Will India’s $10 Laptop Kill PC Business? (DELL, HPQ, AAPL, MSFT, RHT)

Gartner Says the $100 Laptop Is at Least Three Years Away 28 July 2008

nicholas-negroponte-100-dollar2This is a photo of Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 Laptop. (Photo from One Laptop Per Child.) Click the image for David Kirkpatrick’s “This PC wants to save the world” (Fortune Magazine, 24 Oct. 2006).

Here’s a YouTube video of the Victor-70, a “$10 Educational Computer,” posted on 3 Aug. 2008. Could this be the prototype?