India Launches Low-Cost Tablet - Aakash

India’s Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal launched Aakash, the $35 tablet, midst much fanfare last week. The launch was hailed as a grand moment for India’s innovative prowess and claims to have silenced the skeptics. Aakash is developed by DataWind, a wireless Web access products maker in Montreal in partnership with IIT Rajasthan. The tablet has a 7-inch display with 800-by-480 pixel resolution, 256MB of RAM, 2GB flash storage, a 366MHz processor from Connexant and runs on the Android 2.2 operating system. The tablet costs $50 but government of India is making it available for graduate students at the subsidized cost of $35. Making technology cheaply available is a great way to bridge the digital divide but Aakash is technologically unimpressive and socially insensitive.

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