253 - Aakash 4 will be ready by next year: HRD ministry - ZEE News

Aakash 4 will be ready by next year: HRD ministry

Last Updated: Sunday, October 27, 2013, 20:12

New Delhi: After much deliberation, the Union HRD ministry has given the go ahead to its ambitious Aakash 4 project, and a cabinet note seeking permission for the production of the low-cost tablet is expected soon.

Under this proposal, HRD plans to procure over 22 lakh tablets at a cost of Rs 330 crore through Directorate General of Supplies (DGS&D), ministry sources said.

In the first phase of the scheme, Aakash 4 tablets will be given to engineering institutes which will be directly bought from vendors empanelled by the DGS&D.

The tablet, estimated at USD 35 per piece, will be provided to students at a subsidised rate.

Sources at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology have said the new tablet will be out by January next year.

The CAG in September had slammed the HRD Ministry for the shortcomings in the Aakash tablet project, raising questions over "arbitrary" selection of IIT-Rajasthan to launch the scheme.

The public auditor had observed that the ministry decided to launch Aakash through the IIT-Rajasthan without ascertaining their capacity to undertake the work which adversely affected the project delivery.

The development of the tablet has since been shifted from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur, to IIT Bombay.

The new version of the tablet will allow students to read and compose in Hindi, Kannad, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Manipur etc along with audio-video chat facility. 

PTI

First Published: Sunday, October 27, 2013, 20:12

252 - HRD ministry approves Aakash 4 project, students to get tablets on 'loan' - Financial Express

HRD ministry approves Aakash 4 project, students to get tablets on 'loan'

Anubhuti Vishnoi | New Delhi | Updated: Oct 26 2013, 09:56 IST

SUMMARY

The 22 lakh 47 thousand tablets are estimated to cost over Rs 330 crore.

The Pallam Raju led Human Resource Development Ministry has, after much contemplation, decided to back the Aakash tablet project. The HRD Ministry will now move a Cabinet note seeking approval for procuring over 22 lakh Aakash 4 tablets, officials confirmed.

Estimated to cost over Rs 330 crore, the 22 lakh 47 thousand tablets are proposed to be procured through the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D) — a central government purchase and quality assurance organisation — that will conclude rate contracts for the low-cost tablet.

The ministry proposes that in the first phase, the $35 Aakash 4 tablets will be given to engineering institutes which will be directly bought from vendors empanelled by the DGS&D. The cost of the tablet will be borne on 50:50 basis by the HRD ministry-backed National Mission for Education through Information Communication Technology (NMEICT) and the concerned educational institution.

Once acquired, the tablets will be the property of the educational institution that will ‘issue’ the tablets to its students much like a library book. The technical specifications for Aakash 4 have been worked out by a committee constituted by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

The new Cabinet note will replace the original proposal in 2010 which had sought approval for a Rs 700 crore project to provide 100 personal computers — largely for faculty — to higher education institutes.

Earlier this year, Raju had expressed doubts about going ahead with the project and the much awaited tenders for 5 million tablets, in view of delivery and testing controversies. The ministry had constituted two committees to review the project and was to take a final view on the basis of these reports. Only one of these committees — headed by Prof Goverdhan Mehta — had submitted its report on the issue and it had firmly backed the tablet.

Announced with great fan fare, the android tablet has been mired in controversy from the start. The project was first given to IIT Rajasthan, but differences between the IIT and Canadian manufacturer Datawind made the HRD ministry hand over the project to IIT Bombay.

251 - The $40 Indian tablet that could help bridge America’s digital divide - Washington Post

The $40 Indian tablet that could help bridge America’s digital divide

• BY VIVEK WADHWA 
• October 23 at 9:54 am

Students try out the tablet during a pilot test in Raleigh, N.C. (Photo courtesy of Shako Oteka)

When people think of Silicon Valley, they imagine a place where people are well-educated, well-to-do technologists.  Palo Alto has some of the most expensive real estate in the world — and innovation thrives there. But if you go on the other side of town to East Palo Alto you see poverty and despair. High school dropout rates are 65 percent and only 10 percent of its children go to college. Most don’t have access to basic computer technology.

It is no different in nearby towns such as Oakland and San Jose — and other parts of the United States.

This is particularly unconscionable given the tech industry is so desperate for talent that it has to scour the world. Bridging America’s digital divide would not only uplift disadvantaged communities, it could help solve Silicon Valley’s skills shortage.

Why don’t all children have laptops and tablets—which are as necessary today as are textbooks? Because these are too expensive. Laptops typically cost more than $500. The low-end iPhone 5C costs well over $500 without a carrier subsidy. The cheapest iPad, the mini, costs $300.  Every product upgrade by Apple, Samsung, and Dell just includes a faster processor and new features, but the prices don’t go down to the point that they are affordable by everyone.

The Indian government realized a few years ago that the technology industry had no motivation to cater to the needs of the poor. With low cost devices, the volume of shipments would surely increase, but margins would erode to the point that it wasn’t worthwhile for the big players. So, India decided to design its own low-cost computer.  In July 2010, the government unveiled the prototype of a $35 handheld touch-screen tablet and offered to buy 100,000 units from any vendor that would manufacture them at this price. It promised to have these to market within a year and then purchase millions more for students.

(Photo courtesy of Shako Oteka)

Three years later the Indian government delivered a 7-inch Android-powered tablet called “Aakash.” This had a processor as powerful as the first iPad, twice as much RAM memory, a LCD touchscreen which displays full-screen video, browses the web, displays eBooks, and plays video games. The manufacturer was a Canadian company, Datawind. The tablet is expected to be sold in the United States in early 2014.

I asked one of Palo Alto high school teacher Esther Wojcicki, to evaluate these tablets—to see if they were fit for American children.   Esther gave six $40 Aakash tablets to her students at Palo Alto High—where the children of Silicon Valley’s elite study. The results were surprisingly positive. Although the children found the tablets to be slower than their iPads, they were usable—and fun.

I asked another friend, philanthropist Chris Evans, to try these with the children that he was helping. Evans donated 100 Aakash tablets to Communities in Schools of Wake County of Raleigh, N.C. for its “Smart Summer” program—a summer camp for disadvantaged African-American children. This helps 4 to 14-year-olds prepare for their next year’s studies. They loaded the tablets with science and math apps donated by Mango Learning and textbooks by Bookboard.

Evans tells the story of when he visited one of the sites where the tablets were being used by 30 children. “They were all running different learning programs — some teaching math, others reading.  After a few minutes, one five-year-old proudly announced he had achieved “level four” in a game involving addition (I was told he’d started the day at level one).  The administrators told me that the kids in the room were already becoming proficient in the skills they would be learning in school the coming fall. They were excited that these kids, who can often find themselves at a disadvantage to their classmates, will start school actually better prepared than many who they’ll go to school with.”

The next step is teaching children to write computer code. Two pilots are planned, in Virginia and Silicon Valley.

The Virginia project is organized by former U.S. chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra and led by education non-profit, Virginia Advanced Study Strategies (VASS). There, six school districts including Prince William County — have enrolled 85 students in either of two free online coding courses — Team Treehouse, and Codecademy, with the offer of an Aakash tablet as an incentive for kids completing the course and developing an app. According to Chopra, VASS sees this as a step on its path for improving rural STEM employment, and will build on the project through its Department of Education i3 (invest in innovation) grant focused on building a shared responsibility between students, parents and school districts in better preparing the workforce for today’s jobs.

In Silicon Valley, Level Playing Field Institute, which was founded by Lotus Development Corporation founder Mitch Kapor along with his wife and business partner Freada Kapor Klein, is coming together with Silicon Valley Bank and AT&T to hold two hackathons to teach 250 low income kids of color to write code. The students, grades 6-12, will be given a new version of the Aakash tablet which has a cellphone built in as well as 3G access. They will be taught to write code, and asked to compete to develop the best tablet applications. Says Klein, “Let’s help them imagine themselves as creators of tech, not just consumers. We know from 10 years of running programs that there are tens of thousands of high school girls and boys from low-income communities of color that have the talent to compete in STEM fields at the highest levels — all we need to do is to unleash the waves of hidden talent”.  The project is also being supported by the Kapor Center for Social Impact of Oakland.

“This is a policy problem,” said Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker of the digital divide. ”This is an education problem. Most importantly in Silicon Valley and in tech hubs around the country, this is everyone’s problem.  We need to create a tech-savvy, highly skilled workforce to put people to work, stay competitive globally and to keep developing the technologies, medicines, devices and innovations that are solving human problems.”

The least we can do is give all children access to technology—the tablets, connectivity, mentors and support. We will not only lift millions out of poverty, but also expand our economy. As the experiments with the Indian tablets show, we already have the ability to do this.

250 - After Aakash, DataWind launches low cost tablets starting at Rs 3999 - Economic Times

After Aakash, DataWind launches low cost tablets starting at Rs 3999

PTI Oct 9, 2013, 08.26PM IST

NEW DELHI: Low-priced Aakash tablet maker DataWind today launched affordable phablets or tablets with voice call facility at prices starting from Rs 3,999.

The 'UbiSlate 7Cx' is the company's cheapest 7-inch tablet with cellular connectivity, allowing internet access with a regular SIM, Datawind said.

In addition, the UK-based company has launched 9-inch tablet UbiSlate 9Ci at Rs 4,999 and its first 3G device UbiSlate 3G7 at Rs 6,999.

"Despite the recent drop in value of the Indian rupee, we have held strong and not increased pricing of our products, and instead, now are introducing new products with breakthrough pricing," DataWind President & CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said in a statement.

In addition to regular voice calling feature, UbiSlate phablets incorporate web-delivery platform which would allow devices to deliver the fastest mobile web experience on regular GSM-EDGE based networks, the company claimed.

"All of the new models are in-stock and available for immediate delivery," it said.

The UbiSlate 7Cx and the UbiSlate 9Ci run on Andriod Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 OS, while UbiSlate 3G7 runs on Andriod 4.1 system.

Ubislate7Cx has internal memory of 2GB, 512 RAM and 1 Ghz Cortex A8 processor. The rest two have internal memory of 4GB, front VGA camera and support Wi-Fi networks.

DataWind had bagged a contract from IT department for supplying 1 lakh low-priced tablets, named Aakash, which was billed as the world's cheapest tablet PC.

249 - Are Ubislates The World's Cheapest Tablets? - Tech Tree

Are Ubislates The World's Cheapest Tablets?

DataWind releases three really low cost Ubislate tablets.

Nikhil Rastogi

10th Oct, 2013

Just in time for Diwali, DataWind, known for their Aakash tablets, have released three low cost “phablets” (phone + tablet), the UbiSlate 7Cx, UbiSlate 3G7, and UbiSlate 9Ci — all under Rs 7,000.

All the tablets have a capable-enough A8 or A9 CPU (around 1 GHz) with meagre 512 MB RAM (forget multitasking on these) and come with Android 4.0.4. You can forget Android updates too. And even if there are, we'd recommend staying away from them, especially with such low RAM and Android's bad habit of slowing down further in time.

"Despite the recent drop in value of the Indian Rupee, we are committed to bringing affordability in computing and internet access to India’s masses. With this commitment, we’ve held strong and not increased pricing of our products, and instead, now are introducing new products with breakthrough pricing", said Suneet Singh Tuli, President & CEO of DataWind Ltd.

DataWind promises that all new models are in-stock and available for immediate delivery by ordering on DataWind’s website. Products will be shipped within 24 hours of order and delivered by courier companies within 3 to 5 days, is what they say.

Here are the specifications:-

- See more at: http://www.techtree.com/content/news/4779/ubislate-worlds-cheapest-tablets.html#sthash.oqCngopI.dpuf

248 - After Aakash, DataWind launches low cost phablets - Zee News

After Aakash, DataWind launches low cost phablets

Last Updated: Wednesday, October 09, 2013, 21:17 

New Delhi: Low-priced Aakash tablet maker DataWind Wednesday launched affordable phablets or tablets with voice call facility at prices starting from Rs 3,999.

The 'UbiSlate 7Cx' is the company's cheapest 7-inch tablet with cellular connectivity, allowing internet access with a regular SIM, Datawind said.

In addition, the UK-based company has launched 9-inch tablet UbiSlate 9Ci at Rs 4,999 and its first 3G device UbiSlate 3G7 at Rs 6,999.

"Despite the recent drop in value of the Indian rupee, we have held strong and not increased pricing of our products, and instead, now are introducing new products with breakthrough pricing," DataWind President & CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said in a statement.

In addition to regular voice calling feature, UbiSlate phablets incorporate web-delivery platform which would allow devices to deliver the fastest mobile web experience on regular GSM-EDGE based networks, the company claimed.

"All of the new models are in-stock and available for immediate delivery," it said.

The UbiSlate 7Cx and the UbiSlate 9Ci run on Andriod Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 OS, while UbiSlate 3G7 runs on Andriod 4.1 system.

Ubislate7Cx has internal memory of 2GB, 512 RAM and 1 Ghz Cortex A8 processor. The rest two have internal memory of 4GB, front VGA camera and support Wi-Fi networks.

DataWind had bagged a contract from IT department for supplying 1 lakh low-priced tablets, named Aakash, which was billed as the world's cheapest tablet PC. 

PTI

First Published: Wednesday, October 09, 2013, 21:17

247 - After Aakash, DataWind launches low cost tablets starting at Rs 3999 - Economic Times

After Aakash, DataWind launches low cost tablets starting at Rs 3999

PTI Oct 9, 2013, 08.26PM IST

(Low-priced Aakash tablet…)

NEW DELHI: Low-priced Aakash tablet maker DataWind today launched affordable phablets or tablets with voice call facility at prices starting from Rs 3,999.

The 'UbiSlate 7Cx' is the company's cheapest 7-inch tablet with cellular connectivity, allowing internet access with a regular SIM, Datawind said.

In addition, the UK-based company has launched 9-inch tablet UbiSlate 9Ci at Rs 4,999 and its first 3G device UbiSlate 3G7 at Rs 6,999.

"Despite the recent drop in value of the Indian rupee, we have held strong and not increased pricing of our products, and instead, now are introducing new products with breakthrough pricing," DataWind President & CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said in a statement.

In addition to regular voice calling feature, UbiSlate phablets incorporate web-delivery platform which would allow devices to deliver the fastest mobile web experience on regular GSM-EDGE based networks, the company claimed.

"All of the new models are in-stock and available for immediate delivery," it said.

The UbiSlate 7Cx and the UbiSlate 9Ci run on Andriod Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 OS, while UbiSlate 3G7 runs on Andriod 4.1 system.

Ubislate7Cx has internal memory of 2GB, 512 RAM and 1 Ghz Cortex A8 processor. The rest two have internal memory of 4GB, front VGA camera and support Wi-Fi networks.

DataWind had bagged a contract from IT department for supplying 1 lakh low-priced tablets, named Aakash, which was billed as the world's cheapest tablet PC.

246 - The born-again Aakash tablet - LiveMint

The born-again Aakash tablet

The first two versions of the tablet were a disaster, but the newest iteration being developed at IIT Bombay appears to be on the right track

Shweta Taneja 

  

Aakash 2.1 and the expEYES system

In February 2012, the Aakash tablet was one of the biggest embarrassments of the year. Instead of a home-grown device that could deliver great value for students, we got a tablet whose touch screen worked inaccurately and with lag, one that was so slow that most apps wouldn’t work properly, and worse, it needed to be reset fully after a few hours of use. In Mint’s reviews of Aakash and Aakash 2, the overall user experience was unsatisfactory.

The development of the tablet has since been shifted from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur, to IIT Bombay, and the team there says a new version, skipping a generation and labelled Aakash 4, is coming soon, even as software development continues. In the interim, they have overseen development of the Aakash 2.1 tablet (the third-generation), which features some improvements and comes with a 1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB storage and runs on Android 4.0.

Aakash 2.1 is not going to be released to the public. However, the tablet, produced by DataWind, is on sale under the name UbiSlate 7Ci. The UbiSlate 7Ci, available for Rs.3,799 at www.akashtablet.com , is essentially the same thing, just without the new software developed at IIT Bombay.

After using Aakash 2.1 for one week, we found that the screen picks up scratches very easily, and the 800x400 pixels resolution is extremely low; budget tablets launched last year had a similar display, and it’s not unreasonable to expect improvement after nearly a full year.

This tablet, however, is lighter than earlier versions and the display also seems to be clearer than before. Video playback is smooth too, which was a problem with earlier versions; gaming remains sluggish, but that does not matter because it is not a primary function of Aakash, billed as an educational device.

The tablet includes USB ports to attach a keyboard and mouse and it is pre-loaded with a large number of educational apps designed to work well on the hardware, a step in the right direction. The apps include ProxyMITY, which lets students access high-quality lectures from reputed teachers online; Blender Animation, a simple tool that can teach people the basics of animation software; and also other software related to education and robotics.

The team has also worked on a way to install Linux on the tablet to increase its functionality, and learners can boot Ubuntu 12.10 on their tablet from an SD card without having to root their Android OS, which is a unique feature.

We spoke with Kannan M. Moudgalya, professor of chemical engineering at IIT Bombay and the co-principal investigator on the Aakash project, over the phone about Aakash 4 and the plans for the project. Edited excerpts:

What were the challenges you faced with Aakash and how did you solve them?

Our biggest challenge was that the price couldn’t go up from $50 (around Rs.3,100). Thankfully, the price of capacitive touch screens has fallen in the last two years, and we have been able to update it (Aakash 2.1). The tablet’s performance has been updated too.

We have given about 60,000 tablets to teachers and students through IIT Bombay’s remote education programmes, to use and test. With so many hands, we are bound to learn of new deficiencies in the product, the learning of which we would then put into the new updated version of Aakash.

Aakash is not a toy to be given to students. We aim to make it a computing and learning device, and the fruits of all other projects, like the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning, Spoken-Tutorial, etc., which universities across the country have been working on since a few years now, will be delivered through Aakash.

What kind of apps are you planning for Aakash?

Our priority is to develop educational apps to view all the e-content being developed now. To name a few, Aakash comes pre-loaded with Clicker, a student-teacher interaction app where you can conduct multiple-choice quizzes. ProxyMITY is a tool which plays lecture videos and presentation slides through an SD card with all content for a lecture. Robot-control lets you use the tablet to programme and control a robot. Aakash Programming Lab is where you can code in C, C++, Python and Scilab. There is also expEYES which is used for conducting science experiments.

We’re also developing a platform called Aakash Bazaar, where all apps developed for Aakash, made by teachers and students, will be open source and available for free download.

When will we see Aakash 4?

The government will float a global tender and open it to all companies. The government needs to decide when the tender will open up. I do wish it went a little faster. We have already announced the specifications for Aakash 4 to the public. The next order will be big, for about 5-6 million tablets. Once the bids come to us, we will do some research on the company’s technology and production background and then decide. While we wait for Aakash 4 launch, we will continue to develop apps for it.

245 - $50 tablet heading for SA - IT Web

$50 tablet heading for SA

By Tallulah Habib

Johannesburg, 4 Oct 2013

A $50 tablet device that completely altered India's tablet market will soon be heading to local shores.

This is according to Derek Kopke, executive VP of international business development at DataWind, the company behind the device.

DataWind made international headlines a few years ago when it won a tender from the Indian government to produce affordable tablets for schools. The resulting Aakash tablets, which were sold to the government at $40 each, had a large impact on India's overall tablet economy. DataWind is now the number one tablet manufacturer in the country by tablet sales, and the number of tablets in India has grown from around 250 000 to three million.

"Technology suddenly becomes affordable for the masses where it never was before," Kopke reflects.

The Aakash tablets had a knock-on effect in the global market, with a number of manufacturers across the world also starting to produce affordable devices.

There is a widespread belief that Africa, which is known as a "mobile-first" market, is in fact a mobile-only market. The argument is often made that those in rural or under-developed areas will only ever experience ICTs through a feature phone screen.

Kopke, however, disagrees. "It's just a case of the right PC at the right price," he says. "The sub-$50 tablet effectively has 95% of the PC functionality on a portable, handheld tablet."

Staying connected

Coupled with the affordable device is the need for affordable Internet access, says Kopke. While the tablets that were used in Indian schools were preloaded with the entire school curriculum (eliminating the need for printed textbooks), ubiquitous Internet access and the ability to download educational apps can also have an important impact on education.

Kopke believes DataWind will soon be able to offer free Internet access on the tablets. The company has developed a method of server-side compression that will reduce the size of Web sites by up to 30 times.

"Because we use a fraction of the amount of data that other browsers use, when you surf the Web, you're using so little data that your costs are at a point where we can earn advertising revenue on the browser that offsets the cost of data, allowing us, potentially, in very short order, to offer free mobile Internet from anywhere," he says.

DataWind is currently developing a solar-charging accessory for the tablets, which have a very limited three- to six-hour battery life.

Kopke says DataWind is aiming to make the tablets available to the South African mass market in the next couple of months.

Kopke will deliver a keynote presentation at the Tech4Africa conference, in Johannesburg next week, where he will address the importance of having ubiquitous Internet and PC access globally, and how it especially affects education within developing nations. He will speak about how the devices were manufactured and go into detail around their use for education in India.

244 - Darda for use of Aakash tablets across Maharashtra - DNA

Darda for use of Aakash tablets across Maharashtra

Friday, Oct 4, 2013, 8:13 IST | Agency: DNA

DNA Correspondent 

Minister Rajendra Darda

Impressed by the Aakash school pilot project sponsored by the HRD ministry, minister for school education Rajendra Darda has decided to study the project site in Pandharpur and propose implementation across schools in the state.

The project aims at testing the role of Aakash tablets  to improve the quality of education in a rural set-up. Students from four schools around Pandharpur were selected.

“Pandharpur was selected  as the 1Mbps broadband connection provided was very conducive for the project,” said Madhavi Sawant, senior research scientist at IIT, Bombay, coordinator for the all India Aakash school project.

Sawant said the initial response to the project wasn’t too positive. “But soon students got used to the tablets and began to explore. It was an incentive for dropouts to return to school,” said Sawant.

Darda said they will evaluate the project and then put up a proposal to the CM.