221 - Fourth-Generation Aakash Tablet’s Proposed Specifications Revealed - IB Times

Fourth-Generation Aakash Tablet’s Proposed Specifications Revealed

By Rohit KVN: Subscribe to Rohit's RSS feed | July 2, 2013 1:35 PM IST

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DIETy) has released the proposed technical specifications of the fourth generation Aakash.

The upcoming Aakash 4 tablet will sport a 7.0-inch LCD display with 800x480p resolution and is reported to support two operating systems - Android V4.2.1 Jelly Bean and the ubiquitous Linux Ubuntu OS

Other striking features include 4G support (via external dongle), calling facility, 1GB DDR3 RAM, 4GB(minimum) inbuilt memory which can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD card. It also reported to ship with a 0.3-megapixel camera and a 3-Axis accelerometer.

If the proposed spec list does ends up in the final product, the new Aakash 4 will be major upgrade from its previous generation models as they were panned by tech pundits for their sub-par features such as a less-responsive display panel, outdated Android OS and low storage capacity.

According to various reports, Aakash 4 is said to be developed under the guidance of IIT Madras Professor, Ashok Jhunjhunwala (Department of Electric Engineering). It is expected to priced around ₹3.000.

Proposed Specifications of Aakash 4:

Model	Aakash 4
Display	7.0-inch LCD display with 800x480p resolutions with scratch resistant screen guard
OS	To support Android v4.2.1 Jelly Bean as well as Linux based Ubuntu OS
RAM	1GB DDR3 SDRAM
Storage capacity	4GB or more,  microSD card to enhance memory space up to 32GB
Camera	0.3-megapixel VGA camera at the front, (more pixel count can be expected in the final product)
Network	2G ,3G and 4G via external dongle support
Battery	Minimum 3 hours back-up for online 720p video playback
Add-ons	Voice calling, Bluetooth v2.1, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 b/g/n), USB connectivity, 3-Axis accelerometer
Dimensions	190.5 x 127.0 x 19.5 mm
weight	Less than 500 g

216 - IIT-M ALL SET TO MAKE CHEAP AAKASH TABLETS !!!

IIT-M ALL SET TO MAKE CHEAP AAKASH TABLETS !!!

JULY 11, 2013 ·UNCATEGORIZED ·BY ADMIN

You may soon get a new ultra low-cost tablet personal computer for your college life.

Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology – Madras are ready with the technical blue-prints to manufacture Aakash 4, the low-cost student-oriented tablet introduced by Ministry of Human Resource and Development.

Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, from Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, has been providing guidance to the stated project.

An upgraded version of Aakash 2, this model would be priced as low as below Rs 2,000 for the students.This version will be based on open specification. Unlike the Aakash 2 which was an Android-based tablet computer developed by the British company Datawind, multiple vendors will be able to manufacture the Aakash 4.Around ten vendors, including big players such as HP, Lenovo and Dell, have evinced interest in developing the low-cost tablets, said Prof BhaskarRamamurthi, Director, IIT Madras.

“They [the vendors] have come to the conclusion that the specification that has been made here is good enough for use in education. Is it comparable to iPad, of course not. It is not a toy, but will be of use for the students. That’s all I know,” he commented. The Government will issue the tender and the vendors need to bid to mass manufacture the product, he said.

This time the government plans to non-commercialize the distribution of the Aakash 4 tablets, it will procure and sell the tablets to students directly without any external aid. No financing cost or marketing cost or any tax would be imposed upon the product, letting the students pay only for the actual material cost. The advantage of this move may be realized from the fact that the same unit’s cost will be easily doubled if it is sold in the market.

You might be the lucky person to get the all new Aakash tablet. So, stay tuned for more information and we’ll keep you posted.

212 - Aakash 4 to join the ranks of low cost tablet PCs in India

Aakash 4 to join the ranks of low cost tablet PCs in India

July 10, 2013  

Will be hard going for it to get significant market share

By R Chandrasekaran

CHENNAI: A few days back, the Indian government released technical specifications of Aakash 4 for getting feedback before floating a tender to determine suppliers. However, given the fast developing advancement of technology in the smart devices sector, there are some concerns about the components as well as some of the specifications getting outdated even before the launch. Scores of low-cost tablet PCs have hit the Indian market in the last few years.

A lot has changed since the first launch of Aakash in October 2011. The Indian tablet PC market is dominated by low-cost tablet PCs that is priced below Rs.10,000. On the other hand, when Aakash was launched, the low cost tablet PC market enjoyed only 10 percent share compared to about 70 percent now.

Though it is not fair to compare Aakash 4 with any other tablet PC, be it branded like Apple’s iPad or unbranded local versions, the time taken to finalize the specifications and release it suggests that it will likely take another five to six months to see the product in the market place. During this period, the technological advancement will be faster and could have the potential to brand Aakash 4 tablet PC as having failed to meet expectations since there could be more low-cost tablet PCs offering similar or more features.

Despite such concerns, Aakash 4 could continue to serve the purpose for which it is developed. Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala of Indian Institute of Technology had earlier reiterated that the purpose of the Aakash is to provide students a good digital device so that they benefit from good teaching. Another objective of Aakash is to build an educational eco system around that.

Given these ideas and objectives, the technical specifications of Aakash 4 include multiple new features such as in-built Bluetooth, 1GB RAM, 4 GB internal storage with an option to expand up to 32 GB, 7-inch 800×480 display, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with battery back-up of minimum 3 hours of 720p video on a single charge. As far as software is concerned, Aakash 4 will come up with Android 4.2.1 (Jelly Bean) or above, apart from being able to boot from Linux stored on an external card.

The new version of Aakash will also have the calling facility and high speed 4G services support besides driver for phone functionality with external dongle and support data functionality with external 2G or 3G or 4G dongle.

The government of India had launched Aakash in October 2011 with basic features and the cost was to be around Rs.2300. This was later upgraded with some additional features but with the same price.

A committee of four eminent personalities, Dr. Deepak B. Pathak, IIT Mumbai’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Dr. Rayat Moona of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), N.K. Sinha of Ministry of Human Resources Department and Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Madras, has finalized the specifications of Aakash 4 and handed it over to the government.

Commenting on the Aakash 4 specifications, Convergence Catalyst founder and partner Jayanth Kolla had reportedly asked, “The specifications of Aakash 4 appear good on paper, but given the past experience, can the government ensure that good components are procured at the prices specified for Aakash 4 so that users can have a good experience?” A similar view was also expressed by IDC Centre for Consultancy and Research’s senior market analyst Manasi Yadav.

In 2012, it was estimated that some 1 to 1.2 million units of tablets were in circulation and this is predicted to reach between 3 and 3.5 million in the current calendar year. Of this, up to 70 percent of the tablets are expected to be low-cost.

Though Aakash 4 specifications have been released, its price is yet to be decided. Currently, Wishtel Ira Thing 2 is the cheapest tablet PC available in India costing Rs.2,999. Except RAM, the features of both the tablet PCs seem to be the same. It is rumored that Aakash 4 may be priced at Rs.3,000. User experience suggests that Wishtel Ira enjoys better followers than Aakash.

There are also other cheap tablet PCs from Micromax, Zebronics Zebpad, Zen Ultra Tab and Amazon Kindle costing less than Rs.10,000. Among these, Micromax Funbook Talk P350 costing Rs.7499 and Micromax Funbook Infinity P275 costing Rs.6699 seem to be going strong. Zen Ultra Tab priced at Rs.5999 is also reportedly among the best sellers list of cheaper tablet PCs in India.

It is quite clear that the low cost tablet PC market has changed since the launch of Aakash 4 and it remains to be seen whether a student can bet on Aakash 4 or other cheaper low cost device such as Wishtel Ira Thing. The government, however, is confident that Aakash tablet PC will help students since the objective is to create educational eco system and not profiteering.

More Articles By R. Chandrasekaran.

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200 - Why the Aakash 4 could be a step back - CIOL

Why the Aakash 4 could be a step back

The a full-size powered USB 2.0 socket of Aakash 4 is a left-over from the last century. It does not belong to a tablet, especially a small, low-cost tablet

Features | by Prasanto K. Roy

NEW DELHI, INDIA: When the world's cheapest tablet gets a new version, especially one attached to a government tender expected to be in the millions, there's always excitement.

"Aakash 4 to have 4G and voice calling", went the news headlines today.

As sometimes happens with tech announcements, much of the media got it wrong.

The successor to the Aakash 2 (version 3 is being skipped, for reasons unclear) will have no phone call capability. Worse, it will have no built-in support for cellular data. Not 4G, not 3G, not even 2G. That's going by the proposed specs created by IIT Madras and released by the information technology department, DeitY.

Instead, the specs require the product to support external USB dongles for both phone calls, and data (2G, 3G or 4G).

Why is this such a bad idea? Why doesn't any tablet or smartphone adopt this route? For three good reasons.

One, a dongle for a small, portable tablet is a bad idea. It makes the user spend more for basic functionality. And users lose dongles, and damage the connectors. More cost.

Two, it's cheap to include the same feature in the base product. Cellular data is now quite standard in tablets as well as e-book readers.

Three, this requirement actually increases the cost for the base tablet, without adding value. The specs demand two USB sockets: a micro-USB (standard with phones and tablets today), and a full-size powered USB 2.0 socket.

That full-size USB socket is a left-over from the last century. It does not belong to a tablet, especially a small, low-cost tablet. It also means additional power drain, especially with third-party dongles plugged in.

Aakash 4: What's New? * The major change is the need to support USB dongles for phone calls and cellular data, thus requiring an extra full-size type-A powered USB 2.0 port. The original Aakash 1, panned by reviewers, had such a USB port. This was dropped in Aakash 2. Aakash 4 reintroduces it. * RAM has doubled to 1GB. Internal flash memory remains 4GB (as in Aakash2). * NFC-enabled micro-SD card (this would probably require an NFC antenna and other circuitry on the PCB. Interesting addition, though of questionable immediate value.) * USB printer support. (Android does, at present, have USB drivers for Printers) * Phone functionality over external dongle (Questionable availability of phone dongles; plus, technical issues concerning USB audio from both dongle and tablet, during a phone call) * Finally, there's the addition of Bluetooth. Probably a good thing, though of low additional value in this class of tablet, apart from being a potential battery drain. With this one spec, the Aakash program is taking a step back. Yes, Aakash 4 improves on some specs, such as memory, doubled to 1 GB RAM and 4 GB internal flash, with support for micro-SD cards. But it doesn't go to the next logical step and specify a dual-core processor (such as a Cortex A9-based chip) which now costs what a single-core (Cortex A8-based) chip did when the earlier Aakash was specified. I'm not even considering the fact that USB dongles for phone calls aren't easy to find. In fact, I didn't think they exist, so I asked the IIT Madras' Ashok Jhunjunwala, the man behind these specs. He tells me that such dongles do exist and that they do work. He also adds that the Aakash 4 specs define performance, rather than the exact CPU or single or dual core or clock speed. Fair enough. Jhunjhunwala also adds that the primary connectivity is wi-fi. "Secondary connectivity will be through USB." Why? "2G is too slow for serious use. 3G or 4G is expensive, but can be used through USB by those who can afford it. " he says. The guidelines say that vendors are welcome to exceed the proposed specs. But tenders are decided significantly on price. With the price-fattening addition of the second USB port, a vendor would hesitate to add other features that would add to price if the others aren't going to. Datawind CEO Suneet Tuli says he welcomes the release of the Aakash 4 draft specs, as the next big step in this project. But he's "surprised that an embedded cellular modem is not included in the draft specs," and hopes that it will be reconsidered. "Anytime, anywhere internet connectivity is essential for such a device. Bluetooth cannot serve that purpose, and an external cellular dongle increases costs, and undermines the low-cost price target." The Aakash project to develop an ultra-low-cost tablet is now into its second phase, past the prototypes. The early Aakash in 2010 had felt like a product designed by a government committee, and got scathing reviews. The program moved out of IIT Rajasthan to IIT Bombay, where Professor Deepak Phatak oversaw the specs for Aakash 2, which turned out to be a dramatic improvement. Datawind, which designed and made the product, finally supplied the required 100,000 units, after some delays. For the next version, the spec development moved to IIT Madras and Professor Jhunjhunwala. This phase is crucial, as it comes ahead of the next tender-the really big, live one, expected to be for over 5 million units, to be supplied by at least five vendors. The price could go up to Rs 3,000, from the previous version's Rs 2,263, to factor in the rupee's decline, though Jhunjhunwala expects the price to stay at Rs 2,500 for volume supplies. Hence the criticality of getting the specs right-and avoiding missteps. Some hope lies in the fact that these specs for Aakash 4 are still "proposed", not frozen. They have been published, and feedback sought by July 12. Here's hoping that feedback will be acted upon, to create an Aakash 4 that's a clear step forward. (Prasanto K Roy (@prasanto) is editorial advisor, CyberMedia)

199 - New Aakash computers are about quality: Prof Jhunjuhunwala - Two Circles.Net

New Aakash computers are about quality: Prof Jhunjuhunwala

Submitted by admin4 on 4 July 2013 - 1:47pm

• India News

By Prasanto K. Roy, IANS,

Aakash is a series of Android-based tablet computers promoted as a learning tool by the Human Resource Development ministry.

A new version of this tablet was announced Wednesday. Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, the man behind the Aakash 4 specifications at Indian Institute of Technology - Madras, responds to criticism over its proposed specifications.

Q: Why have these specs for Aakash 4 changed so little from version 2?

A: The focus in Aakash 4 has been on quality, ensuring that multiple vendors can supply us, and that we can measure quality.

Q: Yes, but technology has changed. Yet even the processor spec has not been been updated to, say, dual-core!

A: The specs for the Aakash 4 CPU are based on performance, rather than single or dual core, or clock speed in MHz, or even the CPU type. Many performance and quality issues have been touched upon in the specs. The testing and acceptance criteria have also been defined.

Q: Why are basic features like cellular data and phone call capability being kept as optional extras?

A: The primary connectivity is envisaged as Wi-Fi. Secondary connectivity will be through USB, and any modem can be connected to it. Two USB ports are in the specs. The tablet is primarily for data connectivity. 2G is too slow for any significant educational use. 3G or 4G would become very expensive, but can be used through USB by those who can afford it. Bluetooth has also been added.

Q: But a dongle for a phone call? Does such a dongle even exist?

A: Yes, dongles can be used with USB. They exist.

Q: The procurement price, up to Aakash 2, was Rs.2263 excluding taxes. You had indicated this would be in the range of Rs.2,500 for the next round, but there are reports now of this going up to Rs.3,000, due to the rupee's decline?

A: We expect the price to be around Rs.2,500 in volume and we expect multiple manufacturers to progressively manufacture in India and supply it.

(Prasanto K Roy (@prasanto) is a technology writer)

198 - Proposed Aakash 4 specs are a step back (Comment: Special to IANS) - Business Standard

IANS  July 4, 2013 Last Updated at 13:31 IST

Proposed Aakash 4 specs are a step back (Comment: Special to IANS)

When the world's cheapest tablet gets a new version, especially one attached to a government tender expected to be in the millions, there's always excitement. "Aakash 4 to have 4G and voice calling" went the news headlines today.

As sometimes happens with tech announcements, much of the media got it wrong. The successor to the Aakash 2 (Version 3 is being skipped, for reasons unclear) will have no phone-call capability. Worse, it will have no built-in support for cellular data.

Not 4G, not 3G, not even 2G. That's going by the proposed specs created by IIT Madras and released by the information technology department, DeitY. Instead, the specs require the product to support external USB dongles for both phone calls, and data (2G, 3G or 4G).

Why is this such a bad idea? Why doesn't any tablet or smartphone adopt this route? For three good reasons.

--One, a dongle for a small, portable tablet is a bad idea. It makes the user spend more for basic functionality. And users lose dongles, and damage the connectors. More cost.

--Two, it's cheap to include the same feature in the base product. Cellular data is now quite standard in tablets as well as e-book readers.

--Three, this requirement actually increases the cost for the base tablet, without adding value. The specs demand two USB sockets: A micro-USB (standard with phones and tablets today), and a full-size powered USB 2.0 socket.

That full-size USB socket is a leftover from the last century. It does not belong to a tablet, especially a small, low-cost tablet. It also means additional power drain, especially with third-party dongles plugged in.

With this one spec, the Aakash program is taking a step back. Yes, Aakash 4 improves on some specs, such as memory, doubled to 1 GB RAM and 4 GB internal flash, with support for micro-SD cards.

But it doesn't go to the next logical step and specify a dual-core processor (such as a Cortex A9-based chip) which now costs what a single-core (Cortex A8-based) chip did when the earlier Aakash was specified.

One is not even considering the fact that USB dongles for phone-calls aren't easy to find. In fact, one didn't think they exist. So this IANS columnist asked IIT Madras' Ashok Jhunjunwala, the man behind these specs. He said that such dongles do exist and that they do work.

The guidelines say that vendors are welcome to exceed the proposed specs. But tenders are decided significantly on price. With the price-fattening addition of the second USB port, a vendor would hesitate to add other features that would add to price if the others aren't going to.

Datawind CEO Suneet Tuli says he welcomes the release of the Aakash 4 draft specs, as the next big step in this project. But he's "surprised that an embedded cellular modem is not included in the draft specs," and hopes that it will be reconsidered.

"Anytime, anywhere internet connectivity is essential for such a device. Bluetooth cannot serve that purpose, and an external cellular dongle increases costs, and undermines the low-cost price target."

The Aakash project to develop an ultra-low-cost tablet is now into its second phase, past the prototypes.

The early Aakash in 2010 had felt like a product designed by a government committee, and got scathing reviews. The program moved out of IIT Rajasthan to IIT Bombay, where Professor Deepak Phatak oversaw the specs for Aakash 2, which turned out to be a dramatic improvement.

Datawind, which designed and made the product, finally supplied the required 100,000 units, after some delays. For the next version, the spec development moved to IIT Madras and Professor Jhunjhunwala.

This phase is crucial, as it comes ahead of the next tender-the really big, live one, expected to be for over 5 million units, to be supplied by at least five vendors (reportedly, at a price that may go up to Rs.3,000 ($50), from the previous version's Rs.2,263 ($38), to factor in the rupee's decline). Hence the criticality of getting the specs right-and avoiding missteps.

Some hope lies in the fact that these specs for Aakash 4 are still "proposed", not frozen. They have been published, and feedback sought by July 12. Here's hoping that feedback will be acted upon, to create an Aakash 4 that's a clear step forward.

(Prasanto K. Roy (@prasanto) is a technology analyst and writer)

175 - IIT Madras to work on next version of Aakash - Indian Express

IIT Madras to work on next version of Aakash

Anubhuti Vishnoi : New Delhi, Fri Jun 21 2013, 02:06 hrs

Roping in a third IIT to get the Aakash tablet project moving, the Human Resource Development Ministry has now asked the Indian Institute of Technology Madras to steer the project. IIT Madras will work on the next version of the Aakash tablet while IIT Bombay will continue to field test the tablet and evolve related pedagogical method and tools.

HRD Minister Pallam Raju said that his ministry was "very supportive of the R&D on the Aakash tablet". "We have now asked IIT Madras to help develop the next version of the tablet. IIT Bombay will continue the testing of tablets and training teachers and students to use technology in education with its help," he said.

IIT Madras's Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, who is closely involved with the Aakash tablet project -- in developing its newer versions and an ecosystem for it -- is expected to head it at the institution.

Incidentally, with the ministry showing little enthusiasm in the project of late -- amid manufacturing and procuring problems -- Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal had swung into action getting his ministry to finalise specifications for the next version of the tablet. He had mooted a proposal to the PMO to establish manufacturing hubs for the tablet in India and to route this through the Department of Science & Technology.

Announced with great fan fare, the low cost tablet has been mired in controversies from the start. While the project was first given to IIT Rajasthan, it was moved out of there amid differences between the IIT and Canadian manufacturer Datawind over the testing specifications and quality of the tablet delivered. The project was finally handed over to IIT Bombay.

173 - Science for All - (Prof. Ashok JhunJhunwala)

NEWSFOCUS

31 MAY 2013 VOL 340 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS 
Science for All
With 400 million people earning less than $1.25 per day, India is home to a staggering one-third of the world’s poor. Can scientists do more to lift people out of poverty?

CHENNAI, INDIA—In March 2012, Ashok Jhunjhunwala invited 45 young hotshots in India’s electronics industry to this southern Indian city to brainstorm on a challenge: 

Could they design a tablet computer with Internet connectivity that would sell for 2500 Indian rupees—about $50—and still allow their companies to turn a profit on the device? 

To Jhunjhunwala, an electrical engineer here at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, it wasn’t merely the fortunes of India’s Silicon Valley that hung in the balance. India’s future was at stake.

India has made strides in extending education to all strata of society. According to the Ministry of Human Resources Development, in 2010, 50% of children attended school through grade 12—up from 37% just 8 years ago. Equality is taking root in higher educa-

tion as well. “The poorest children are getting into engineering colleges. That was inconceivable a decade back,” says Jhunjhunwala, who serves on a science advisory council to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. 

But India is failing, Jhunjhunwala says, in what it offers up to those young minds in the classroom. “We have made zero progress, even negative progress, in the quality of education,” he asserts. Steering away from rote instruction and raising the bar, he says, “is our biggest challenge.”

Jhunjhunwala didn’t expect a cure-all from the computer jocks he coaxed to Chennai. But he knew that an inexpensive tablet, purchased en masse by the government and distributed to students, would be a powerful teaching aid. Two previous attempts had not lived up to their promise, and half the companies represented in the room, Jhunjhunwala knew, “were dead opposed to the idea” of a cheap tablet. It was hard to erase memories of the first cut-rate handheld alternative to lap- tops developed in India: the Simputer, which flopped a decade ago. The industry needed a reboot. But after huddling with the group all day, Jhunjhunwala recalls, “we felt confident that we could do something.”

Unlike in past efforts, competition is the name of the game this time. As Science went to press, a dozen companies were racing to refine prototypes of a $50 tablet. These are undergoing dozens of performance tests here at IIT Madras’s research park. Based on the benchmarking outcome, the Indian government is considering making an initial purchase this fall of 5 million tablets from the five top-performing manufacturers; all of their machines will be marketed under the name “Aakash 4.” The price for each unit: Twenty-five hundred rupees, plus taxes. With educational applications that will initially enhance and someday possibly even supplant printed textbooks, the Aakash-4, Jhunjhunwala predicts, “will be an integral part” of India’s effort to raise education standards.

The Aakash 4 is at the vanguard of India’s drive to use science and technology to raise millions of people out of poverty. The aim is to bypass hidebound approaches and link talent and ideas in a push for rapid economic growth. 

S. Shankar Sastry, dean of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues envision the emergence of a new academic discipline—development engineering— aimed to assemble a toolkit of methods to find sustainable solutions to poverty. India, where 833 million of the country’s 1.21 billion people live in villages sorely deficient in health care, sanitation, electricity, and educational opportunities, is a natural crucible for such experiments.

In this impoverished landscape, Singh, an academic at heart, is sowing the seeds of an intellectual revolution. Last week, speaking about his vision of inclusive growth, Singh said: “The glass was almost empty when we started. The important point to note is that it is being filled.” High on the agenda are plans to extend a $1.2 billion National Knowledge Network—a high-speed Internet backbone now linking 1000 agencies and research institutions—to every one of India’s 630,000 villages.

Another push is coming from the National Innovation Fund, established last year with a $50 million pot of money to bankroll promising technological solutions for societal woes. “The fund is built on the principle that innovative enterprise can engage citizens at the bottom of the economic pyramid,” says Sam Pitroda,

chair of India’s National Innovation Council, which
helps oversee the fund. For example, using a grant from the fund, villagers coping with periodic droughts spawned by deforestation in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand are teaming up with scientists from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai to identify where ground water is more readily recharged in the watershed. The nuclear scientists are mapping underground water flow using isotopes of oxygen and tritium, enabling villagers to pinpoint locations to build recharge ponds.

Other initiatives that promise to transform India include agricultural extension services that use cell phones to broadcast best prac- tices and prevailing market prices for crops to farmers and fishers; a national ID pro- gram that will extend the welfare safety net to the nation’s poorest corners; and vaccines against diseases whose toll is highest among the most deprived. All told, experts say, India in 2013 will spend about $6 billion on science-based efforts to raise living stan- dards: half of its total R&D budget.

In a nation known for its prowess in rockets and atomic bombs, poverty alleviation is not something that most researchers gravitate to, says nuclear scientist Rajagopala Chidambaram, principal scientific adviser to the Government of India. “Active scientists are not the best suited for grassroots inter- vention,” he argues. The lion’s share of work, he says, should be left to nongovernmental organizations led by scientists. Others feel differently. “We have a moral responsibility to help the poor,” Pitroda says. For years, Pitroda, who helped establish India’s mod- ern telecom industry in the 1990s, doubted whether significant inroads were feasible. “The problems of poverty weren’t drawing talented researchers,” he says, and the gov- ernment approach was at times piecemeal, at times negligent. However, India’s rapid eco- nomic development is rewriting the script. “I didn’t think it was possible to do much to help,” Pitroda says. “Until now.”

Read More

117 - Aakash 3 Specs & Features Don't Make It "Remarkably Different"

17th March 2013

Aakash 3 Specs & Features Don't Make It "Remarkably Different"

Discussion in 'Engineering & Technology News' started by Kaustubh Katdare, Mar 17, 2013.

by Kaustubh Katdare, Mar 17, 2013 at 9:22 AM

Finally, the Aakash 3 specs and features have been revealed. Our love affair with the tablet dates back since the launch of the first Aakash tablet. Since then the tablet has been in the news for severa right and wrong reasons. But despite all the hype, positives and negatives, Indian consumers have loved the tablet and at one point of time, the tablet was selling at the rate of ~100,000 tablets per day! Don't misst out on our article on whether Aakash tablet is made in India or China? The latest entry in the series of these low cost tablets is no different.

Few weeks ago, we revealed the Aakash 3 specs, and it turns out that most of the specs we revealed are correct. The tablet has A8 Cortex processor operating at 1GHz frequency, about 512MB of internal memory, 4 Gigabytes of storage capacity, Multi-Touch capacitive screen, Front VGA camera, Wireless 802.11 b/g/n connectivity. We also learn from the social media leaks that the tablet will have a SIM card slot (read 3G connectivity) and ability to make calls (we doubt this though). We don't have concrete information on the Android version this tablet will ship but we'd definitely want to see it with Jelly Bean. We learn that the final specifications of the tablet will be stamped by the National Mission For Education.


What's important to note that the revealed specs don't make the Aakash 3 tablet 'remarkably different' as we thought. Earlier we had learned that the tablet is under development at IIT-B, IIT-Rajasthan, IIT-Madras and Prof. Jhunjhunwala is working on making sure that the tablet delivers all the expectations from it.

HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal is already Gung-Ho about the use of tablet in effective delivery of education through the tablet. The Indian Government even plans to hand out these tablets completely free of cost to a large number of students.

We'd of course keep our eyes on the tablet and related developments. It'd be cool to have your opinions on the upcoming Aakash 3 tablet.