On Fri, 29 Jun 2001, Mayuresh A Kathe wrote:
- How a measely handheld computing device can benefit a rural area
Actually, the whole purpose of the simputer was for use in rural India. That is the reason why it is build using reguional languages. Currently has Kannada and a few other languages, while support for most regional languages will come soon. Also has text to speech conversion for people who can't read.
The touch screen has self explanatory icons for anyone to select. The price also, which they are trying to fix at Rs.4000/- once production increases. Starting cost will be higher - 10000/-, but that's standard economics supply-demand.
To really figure out how it will help rural India, read the article (don't think you have yet). http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,44642,00.html
The simputer's homepage is http://www.simputer.org/
This is definitely one of the best projects in India, surpassing all the service that our IT biggies have done to the Americans.
Philip