A 7" tablet computer is being purchased for schools in India. It’s multi-touch and has a camera, microphone, and speakers.

It costs $40. The government of India will subsidize 50% of the cost, making it available to students for roughly $20. It's part of the Indian government's commitment to equip all 220 million students in the country with low-cost computing devices and Internet access over the next 5 years.


It’s amazing to see countries leap-frog on technology. While many in India are on par with first-world countries on access to technology, many of their students have not worked with computers much, if at all. Now they will have access to tablets and the Internet. Imagine the opportunity that is opening up for them to learn!

Here's more detail:

The US$40.41 price is the price the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development gets for their large orders. Individual units sell for US$64 for the model with the resistive screen and US$82 for the model with the capacitive screen (the better glass screen like your smartphone has). Other companies ordering larger quantities are getting prices in the $50 to $60 range. They are taking individual orders from the manufacturer’s website (ubislate.com) in India.

The Aakash 2 tablet has a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of memory (expandable to 32GB with a microSD card), and a 7-inch display 800×480 pixel resolution — not exactly top of the line, but enough to get most tasks done. The tablet runs on Android 4.0. Battery time 4 hours. Micro USB port. WiFi enabled (optional 3G modem).

Here’s a video review of the Aakash 2 tablet (model UbiSlate7ci).

 Read more at Mashable



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