India’s Secretary of Higher Education made an announcement to make accessible low-power laptops for a minimal fee of $10 each in a bid to step up the number of students joining college. (Thanks to Chronicle: The Wired Campus) Excerpt:
R. P. Agrawal, India’s secretary of higher education, told the newspaper that online courses are the only way to bring quality education to remote areas of the country. He added that the ministry is working out ways to beam lectures from the Indian Institute of Technology across the country. “We will be providing free e-content to students,” Mr. Agrawal said.
A prototype of the computer is expected to be unveiled next week. It will come with wireless Internet capability, expandable memory, and a variety of other features. The government has approached manufacturers like Intel about producing the devices, the ministry said. The prototype has been developed with the help of students from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science, and the Vellore Institute of Technology, among others….
In 2006 the ministry decided not to buy the so-called “$100-laptop” developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The ministry’s technical experts questioned the design of those low-cost laptops and said the machines had high hidden costs that would bring the total price to $200 apiece.
