INDIA AIMS FOR $10 LAPTOP

It sounds too good to be true, but the Human Resources Development ministry in India is trying to get engineers to devise a $10 laptop.

So far, the ministry is looking at two different designs: one from an engineering student at the Vellore Institute of Technology and another from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, according to the newspaper times of india . (The Institute of Science, by the way, is not the colleges that are part of the Indian Institute of Technology. The Institute of Science is a grad school. Out of over 100,000 annual applications, it takes about 350.)

So far, one of the laptops, even after factoring in labor charges, costs about $47.

The cost is encouraging and we are hopeful it would come down to $10. We would also look into the possibility of some Indian company manufacturing the parts,? an official said.

Even though labor is cheap in India, getting a laptop to this level will be tough. A laptop is made from components, after all, which have to be made in factories. The $100 laptop from Nicholas Negroponte has ballooned up to $175. These laptops will be made on a single board. And most likely, it will be made with old, discarded component. You and I may not want them, but a lot of old components are pretty good. A 1GHz processor is considered out-of-date these days.