Venture Beat has a first "western review" of the now famous Aakash tablet.


For all practical purposes, this is a bad, nay, a very bad idea to ensure public funds to roll out a digital tablet.

It's not a sexy idea to highlight the investments made in chalk and blackboard, to ensure permanent jobs to contractual teachers (being forced out on the roads to protest) or even school buildings with proper toilets. Nor does it make any headlines that mid day meal scheme is faltering in many places because State Governments don't roll out the funds on time.

It does not even make headlines when there is a huge and alarming drop out rates after Class 8 and the contributes to the huge army of unemployed labour taking to crime and drugs.

Thats a reality.

But what does make news with purple eyed scribes (often licking the unmentionable backsides of the politicians to curry favor) is the roll out of Aakash. No one has questioned this because this generates positive press.

Sample this when the author highlights:

The Aakash is running Android 2.2, Froyo, with the UniSurfer browser installed..... However, while browsing the Internet and testing out apps, we couldn’t help but notice that the reaction time seemed very slow.

But contradicts himself stating that it is all a matter of perception.

Then:

Its battery power is limited to 180 minutes of use on a full charge, but it comes with an AC adapter. What’s important isn’t that the tablet can run off of the battery for long periods of time, but that it will still be able to work and surf the net when the power goes out.

That's stating the obvious! It's overtly optimistic to state that 180 minutes of battery would be of any use. Who's got the power in the rural areas to charge it?

Then of course,

What makes the Aakash tablet different is that its creators didn’t strive for perfection. Instead, the emphasis was on getting the product into the market quickly so it could be adopted, tinkered with, and improved over time. As Wadhwa said, “to get the cost down, you have to make some compromises”

 The design obviously is not open source; so I don't really understand how it is to be tinkered with.

It is for the "potential" that this bumbling writer goes over the top:

Now imagine the educational potential of the world’s lowest-cost tablet being unleashed to hundreds of millions Indians eager to join the world economy. At the heart of the Aakash tablet is an HD video co-processor that will connect viewers to one of the largest educational libraries ever assembled: YouTube.

 I'd like to call him choicest names, but it's not fair. Reason? They don't even realize that we have one of the worst connectivity ever. Period.

Of course, the writer is smart enough to skirt the issue of educational apps and the content that isn't there. Is youtube going to be an educational library? Seriously? How?

Especially when there is NO bandwidth to support such an initiative!