Tablets in schools

A $40 tablet has just reached the US market. The Aakash2 is manufactured and sold in India by a Canadian company called DataWind. It was conceived as a tool to help give school students access to books and technology and help overcome illiteracy. To this end, Datawind has reached a deal with the Indian government to subsidize half of the price of each tablet in order to make it available at schools for up to 220 million Indian students, bringing connectivity and books to school children across the country. 

The 7-inch Android-powered device has 512 MB of RAM, a 1 Ghz processor, 4 GB of flash memory, a multi-touch capacitative screen, front-facing camera, an internal microphone and speakers. The Aakash2 includes a USB hub, an adapter cable, a wall charger and a 12-month warranty.

According to DataWind, the device can be made so inexpensively because of two technological breakthroughs. First, a lot of its memory and processing power is transferred to back-end servers. Second, a parallel processing environment speeds up the user experience in remote areas and congested networks.

“This tablet seeks to empower the world’s neediest and bridges the digital divide within our society,” says Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s permanent representative to the U.N. “To us, Aakash2 is the epitome of such high end innovation and excellence.”

http://www.thinkdigit.com/Tablets/Hands-on-with-the-20-Indian-Android_11585.html

http://www.firstpost.com/tech/review-aakash-2-runs-like-an-entry-level-android-smartphone-542254.html