India’s 10$ laptop is a pen drive

India’s 10$ laptop is an expensive pen drive. The much touted 10$ laptop seems to have been fake, hoax or just a mere claim. The hype created by some government officials seems to have annoyed many a technology buffs who now think that the 10$ laptop was a bad publicity for India.

Raj Mehta, a computer engineer who works with a top technology firm in New Delhi says that the frenzy created by the unverified claim fizzled fast giving a bad name to the country.

Mehta says that as of now it is absolutely impossible to manufacture a laptop for rupees three or four thousand rupees let alone claiming that the laptop would cost around as low as rupees 500.

He says that the government agency seems to have got everything wrong. He says that the hoax also gives bad name to Indian Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh who unveiled the computing device.

Everybody from media to tech companies had expected something better from Indian government, notwithstanding the speculation that how and what exactly it will be. Every media outlet seemed to have been hit by the bug as they thought it may be something as good as least Nano car.

Rs 500 laptop or 10 dollar laptop has generated the same sort of buzz in technology circles like Rs 10000 Simputer generated a few years ago. But does anyone remembers that forgetful innovation called Simputer?

Only a few years ago, the Simputer was the biggest story to come out of the Indian IT industry. It was to be the first time that a computing product would be completely indigenously developed and marketed. What made the whole idea sweeter was that it would be a product that would take computing to the very interiors of India.

It would be a 'personal computer' costing less than half the price of the conventional desktop available in the market. The promises were many.But how far has the Simputer come since then? Is one currently available in the market and how much does it cost?

In fact simputer was a mere promise that never really materialized. And when some device with some basic computing functions was made available India already had computers that were available in the market in same price range but with hundred times better performance.

Two companies, PicoPeta Simputers and Encore Technologies, were given the licenses to produce the Simputer.

But within a few years the two distributors have abandoned the device. They no longer market the product that no one wants in the market.

Critics of the Simputer suggest that the project has whittled away the profuse good publicity it had received. "They had over three years of some of the best publicity that any product in the world could get. But at the end of it there is little to show," says a senior manager in one of Bangalore's software companies who has been keenly following the project.

What was true about Simputer may be true about the promised Rs 500 laptop. It is simply not feasible. Demonstrating the laptop in presence of HRD Minister Arjun Singh and experts in the Venkateshwara University campus, Education Joint Secretary S.K. Sinha said the low-power consuming gadget would hit the market in the next six months.

“The device, which is smaller than the normal laptop in size and weight, still needs fine-tuning. With 2GB (gigabit) memory and wireless internet connection, the laptop will be priced between Rs.500-1,000 to make it affordable to everyone,” Sinha said.

Though the government can manage to pour funds into it but it will not be feasible as we do not have technology that can change the very dynamics of the technology available in the world.