26th June 2012
Yogita Rao, TNN Jun 26, 2012, 01.36AM IST
MUMBAI: Aakash 2.0 was launched on Monday at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay. Aakash 2.0 has a faster processor and a capacitive touchscreen as opposed to its previous version and a battery power which lasts for three hours. Initially, the tablets will be sent only to engineering colleges across the country.
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said, (via video conference), "Aakash is no longer just a device that only consumes content. Through the efforts of IIT-B, Aakash is now a device that creates content."
Aakash 2.0 has a processor of 800 megahertz against the 366 MHz of the previous version. The touchscreen is capacitive making it easy on the fingers. The battery power has been upgraded from 2,000 mili ampere hour (approximately less than 2 hours) to 3,200 mili ampere hour (approximately 3 hours). All these features were negotiated at a price of Rs 2,263., down from 2,276 by the IIT-B team.
The specifications of Aakash 2.0 were upgraded at the Aakash lab set up in the computer science and engineering department at the Powai campus.
The first 100 samples of the device were sent for research and around 150 people were engaged. , including PhD scholars, MTech students, project engineers and interns.
Aakash was earlier launched in October 2011; however, the project failed to take off. Three months ago the project was handed over to IIT-B under Professor D B Phatak.
Phatak said, "Since the tablets in phase I is to be used by engineering students, we had to upgrade the specifications to meet their requirements." Speaking about the future plan, he said, "We are planning to deploy around one lakh tablets funded by the Centre to more than 500 engineering colleges. In the initial phase, the plan is to issue 100 tablets each to 168 engineering colleges by September this year. By December we plan to increase the numbers to 250 colleges." While 60 tablets in each college will be used for teaching, the remaining 30 will be given to final year students to develop applications for Aakash. "The applications developed by students from across the country will be collected and stored as repository to be used and downloaded in open source. Some of the applications can be developed for schools to colleges, to vocational education and professional studies for future use," said Phatak. He is also on the committee set up to ensure continuous R&D on Aakash. "Aakash will not be available just to the student community in technical institutions and universities, but will be a low-cost access device for the public at large." The institute has partnered with CDAC in this project to do rigorous lab tests for the samples. In later years, IIT Bombay proposes to continually work with CDAC to develop future enhancements to Aakash.
