Simputer - Bridging the Digital Divide

Simputer is a low cost hand-held computer developed by a group of engineers in India. The word "Simputer" is an acronym for "simple, inexpensive and multilingual people's computer". It was designed to bring computing power to the Indian rural masses and other parts of the poor world. Imagine a farmer in a remote village using a computer in the simplest form to go online and check the latest price of crops, hence, avoids duped by the greedy middle men.

Well, Simputer runs on Linux operating system and equipped with a range of software, which include, internet browser, scheduler, spreadsheet, voice recorder and so on. It has a touch sensitive screen and operated by a stylus. As such, it’s also equipped with handwriting recognition software.

Some recognized large scale use of Simputer are as follows.

• Govt. of Karnataka – Automate the process of land records procurement.
  
• Chattisgarh for the purpose of e-education.
  
• Mahindra & Mahindra - automobile engine diagnostics
  
• Dempo, Goa - tracking of iron-ore movement from mine pithead to shipping point
  
• Microcredit (Sanghamitra, Mysore) - electronic money transfer between UK and Ghana (XK8 Systems, Kenya)

Picopeta Simputers Pvt Ltd of India is commercially producing Simputer, which is branded as Amida Simputer. It comes in a number of models with slightly different specification. Below is a general hardware specification list.

Specification

• 32 bit Intel StrongARM 206 MHz processor (Although current Simputer models are using the Intel PXA255 processor)
• 64 megabytes of RAM
• 32 MB of flash memory
• Can use cheap removable smartcards, each able to hold from 8 kB to 1 MB of data.
• 33.6/56 kbit/s V.90 Modem (external) Encore offers this as an internal option.
• Display Interface 320x240 LCD+ (Encore also offers a 16x4 character monochrome display in its lowest end version.)
• Accelerometer Only on the Amida.
• Built-in USB (Amida has support for 2 USB Masters and 1 USB Slave), speaker, and microphone (Builtin and Jacks provided), Legacy technology like CFII are also supported in Encores Simputer
• Infrared Option available on the Amida that conforms to the IrDA 1.0 Standard.

For the latest info please refer as follows.

http://www.simputer.org
http://www.amidasimputer.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Simputer&oldid=58457751