This tablet is not against ignorance!

As the smoke cleared this week, The Government of India’s Education Ministry became a laptop or tablet or digital slate or an electronic junk producer!

That adds to its enviable record of offering perhaps the worst education to its villagers anywhere in the world, of producing more illiterates since it became a free nation than it inherited, of an amazing dropout rate of 11 out of 12 students by the time they finish high school, the quality of teachers you would not trust your child with if they paid you for it and an abysmal record of anything even remotely interesting outside its islands of privileged institutions better known for taking the best and turning them into someone ready for retraining to be productive.

That said, the price alone on India’s new $50 tablet computer (up from the promised $35 with features down by more than half) is enough to warm the buying public’s response: an eye-popping, subsidised price tag of just $35. Still, even that low price may be a bit much for what you get in return.As with any tablet, the $35 laplet is going up against the mighty OLPC, and everyone is asking for a comparison of the two. In fact there is little in common between the MHRD’s $35/$50 device and OLPC.

MHRD is going for urban and college crowd. OLPC is targeting the village school goers.In fact, MHRD does not even have to invoke OLPC’s name. But then it will lose the goal post. Who else could inspire it?I can tell you right now, the $35 laplet doesn’t begin to come close to being an OLPC-killer that it started out to be.For example, the hardware on the $35 laplet is lacking. If MHRD isn’t taking aim at the OLPC, what’s the $35 laplet all about?MHRD is using the $35 laplet to take on OLPC.

This is MHRD’s opening salvo on OLPC’s educating the underprivileged as a whole. But its not targetting the same students as it knows its $35 is a gimmick and there is little Indian about it.What Michael Dell could do in a college dorm has taken taken MHRD 5 years and 30 years later!What could at best be a high school project in the US has been touted as India’s “most revolutionary” technology project.OLPC’s dominance in the “learning learning” segment isn’t just about OLPC’s hardware. It’s about OLPC’s entire ecosystem.

The OLPC is not just a laptop or PC or a tablet. Its all of that and comes with every application imaginable and works in the villages and has been tested by 3 million children over the past few years.It’s both simple and powerful. That’s why, when it comes to educating the underprivileged village children, no other tablet can beat OLPC. Many other gadgets have better this software and that hardware. But they don’t have that cohesive ecosystem.That’s why MHRD has set its sights on OLPC’s ecosystem.

The low price is the ONLY visible piece of MHRD’s plan. OLPC, led the price reduction movement and starts at $200 for the basic model if you order a million pieces.The reason for all this is that $35/$50 laplet has a very specific purpose. It is first and only a CHEAP tablet. The interface helps you find and enjoy movies, music, games, apps and books. There’s also a Web browser.So, the big question is: Should you buy the MHRD $35 laplet?At this point, I’m going to say ask the value you will get, not just the price you may have to pay. I usually recommend waiting a few months to see how any new gadget or system works in the real world.

This is MHRD’s first foray into any product ecosystems, so I’m sure hiccups will occur.I’m also not sold on the hardware. I think a 7-inch screen is a bit small for an entertainment gadget. Additionally, it is Wi-Fi only, which makes it fine for home use. Travelers, however, won’t get far on it.For now, if you want to educate village children, most cost effectively, and the best all-around educational tablet, the OLPC is still your best choice.

After all, India’s poor children do not need less to become as good as potential may let them. They need a general purpose computer that allows them to learn intuitively, with a rugged machine in a way that is a lot of fun as well. If India is serious about education, it will most likely embrace OLPC. If gimmicks are all it seeks, it will be hard to reap the “demographic dividend” with 95% population being barely literate.Sometimes people do not know which of the telescope is for looking beyond. India seems to have chosen to look into the telescope from the other side!

Aakash gets thumbs down from students
16 October 2011
The Statesman

ranjeet s jamwal
NEW DELHI, 16 OCT: Ten days after the government hit global headlines for making the impossible possible by launching Aakash, the ‘world’s cheapest tablet PC’, students using the device appear to be giving it a thumbs down due to its overall poor quality.
The most common problems faced by students using the device include overheating (within 10 to 30 minutes), extra slow processing, frequent hangs, poor sound quality, lack of camera or user-friendly touchscreen, absence of support for all formats, and inability to install free software available online.
“This (Aakash) is much below our expectations. They (government) should have waited till all the problems were fixed before launching it,” said an IIT student, who was one of the 500 who were given the tablets on the day of the launch on 5 October, for field trials.
While watching a video fullscreen, users cannot go back or abort seeing it midway; it hangs and does not shut down even after pressing the button and the battery gets exhausted by the time the device starts functioning again, he says.
“It takes time to switch on or off, doesn’t support all video formats,” the student said, adding additional software cannot be installed in the tablet as no connector is provided with the device.
“It’s not at all useful for IIT students for we can’t even listen to (video) lectures with it. We thought its portability will help us but there’s no point in carrying a device if it’s useless. In fact, I have stopped using it now,” another student said.
A student of TERI university said Aakash is not user-friendly like a laptop or desktop. “It starts heating up in 10 minutes and then becomes slow. The battery lasts only about two hours; its recharging process is also slow and it gives no indication if the battery is charged or not. The touch screen is also not functioning up to the mark,” he said.
To cut costs, Aakash uses a resistive touch-screen, instead of the now common capacitive variety.
Another IIT student said: “YouTube videos can’t be seen with the device. When I tried to open PDF files, it opened in bits and pieces. Software options are there, but they don’t work. The processing is really slow; so much time gets wasted. It’s not useful. It certainly needs to be upgraded.” Interestingly, some of the 170 students who gave final shape to the computer in IIT Rajasthan said they had conveyed these problems to the authorities, while it was being tested. But their feedback apparently was not taken into account before going ahead with the decision to launch the device. Responding to the problems pointed out by students, assistant professor in IIT Rajasthan, Prof. Vivek Vijayvargiya, who was part of the team which worked on the project for Aakash, acknowledged the problems but said it is because the device is being compared to laptops or iPods.
“You can’t compare a Maruti 800 with a Mercedes. Expectations are very high. Our aim is not high efficiency but to meet the need of rural and urban area students who can’t buy a laptop,” he told The Statesman over phone.
On the question of launching an unfinished product, Prof. Vijayvargiya said the launch of (Aakash) is being misunderstood by lots of people. He said the manufacturer (Datawind) has supplied only 1,000 devices and they have been given to state coordinators (including students) for testing.
“After testing, they will submit their reports after 45 to 60 days. So if they find the specifications of the device are not correct or it’s not working as it should, we will tell the manufacturer to further improve the device,” he said.
The CEO of Datawind, the company manufacturing the tablet, Mr Suneet Singh Tuli, maintains that the ratio of defects in any device sold in India is higher when compared to America because of the harsh climatic conditions in New Delhi.
The company, selected through tendering process, is supplying the device at a price of US$ 49.98 (Rs 2,276) per unit, including taxes, levies, and charges like freight and insurance, servicing and documentation, etc. Mr Tuli will sell the government Aakash tablets for Rs 1,750 if the order is for 10 lakh units. At present, Datawind has an order for supplying 1 lakh units to the government for Rs 2,276 each.
The government plans to sell the tablets to students at a subsidised price of US$ 35 (about Rs 1,700) even as it will be launched commercially at about Rs 3,000 (US$ 60).
Comments (1)

respected sir i am a student I want to purchase the tablet through college so send how can I purchase the tablet through college