There's a reason that India's $10 Sakshat computer is just $10. It does almost nothing. What we thought would be a humming notebook equipped with Wi-Fi and 2GB RAM turns out to be little more than a box with sockets – no keyboard, no monitor.

The Sakshat is a 10"x5" plastic box which, despite an official unveiling at India's Sri Venkateswara University yesterday, still contains only mystery parts. The project is part of India's education program, also named Sakshat, and is a triple-team effort from three of the country's research institutes. In fact, costs have been kept low by letting graduate students take care of a lot of the design process.

But what good will this machine be? After all, while it's great to have a tiny portable computer that is cheap enough to give to every student (as is the plan), the units will be useless without an input method and a display, both of which will cost more than the Sakshat and neither of which will be portable.

We wonder if this is a proof of concept, a way for the government to create an open standard for cheap computers. The actual making of things could be done by private companies. That way, the little box starts to make sense – a single, core system sat inside anything from a cheap OLPC-stlyle notebook to a low-powered desktop. This is guesswork, but it certainly makes more sense than a single, blind and mute plastic box.

There's another disappointment, too. The $10 laptop is no longer $10 – the expected price is closer to $30. Just wait – before long it'll be $400, have a 10" screen, Atom processor and... Wait, what?

‘Ultra-low-cost’ access device introduced [The Hindu via Engadget]

See Also: