While we are kept in amazement by the latest iMac which runs a mere 1800$ US, most of the population of this planet cant afford any sort of PC. There are many countries that are on the other side of the so-called digital divide. But one of them – India – is taking giant leaps to get over it.

    Unless some complications arise, The Simputer Trust organization in conjunction with India science institute will start giving out licenses for manufacturing of a super-cheap computer for India’s provinces. The little machine is called Simputer – sort of Simple Computer, and carries a resemblance of an oversized ghetto PDA.

    The idea behind the Simputer is very simple: even the poorest people should have access to a computer. The device will cost 200$ US dollars – the bare minimum. The two hundred dollar price tag is still a little too much for most India people however. Trust hopes that the government will pay for Simputers and distribute them to villages. Additionally, all data is stored on smart cards. So theoretically three Simputers and sixty smart cards should be enough to computerize a small village.

    Overall, Simputer is just a heavily modified PDA. It doesn’t have external keyboard [however you can use USB to plug one in], and information entry is conducted via an on-screen keyboard or graffiti – a special program called tapatap uses a 1x1 inch area of the screen to read each written symbol.

The developer team

    Technical characteristics is as follows: RISC-based Intel Strong-Arm processor running at 200 MHz, 32 MB RAM, Monochrome 320x240 LCD display, sound module, smart-card slot, microphone input, USP and RJ-11 telephone jack. In other words, it is no doubt a pretty powerful machine – at least more powerful than most palm-compatible devices. The Simputer runs a heavily modified version of Linux.

    A special technology called DHVANI can read aloud text written in several languages circulating in the country. Along with iconic interface, this will let even those who don’t know English be computer users. What does it all mean? It means that soon we will see kids in India that will familiarize themselves with a computer earlier than with alphabet.