The Indian government has announced that will soon be offering students a £23 touchscreen laptop, stating that it will be pushed out to higher education institutions in 2011.
Speaking in New Dehli India's human resource development minister Kapil Sibal revealed that the development was done, and that talks were already underway with global manufacturers.
"We have reached a (developmental) stage that today; the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35, including memory, display, everything," he told a news conference.
Linux-based
The £23 laptop is based on Linux and will come with web browser, PDF reader and, intriguingly, video conferencing facilities.
There are also plans to extend the capacity of the device and ultimately to drop its price to a staggering $10 in the coming weeks.
The development work was done by the Indian Institue of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science.
It obviously isn't the first time that low cost internet device has been mooted, with the One Laptop Per Child project aiming to do just that.
But, if the Indian government can provide a £23 laptop to even a small portion of its 1.2 billion population then the world will sit up and take note.
Via Reuters
Your comments (4) Click to add a new comment
zero_cool
July 25th 2010
4. Isn't it a tablet rather than a laptop?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7906399/India-unveils-the-23-iPad.html
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intheflesh77
July 24th 2010
3. This has to be applauded! - Just goes to show you how massively ripped off by the big guns we are! :0
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romi
July 23rd 2010
2. It must be cheap for the mass scale IT education ambitions, not many will be able to afford Core i9 type computers on a mass scale.
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caimbeul
July 23rd 2010
1. Wow...
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