No frills Mobile Computer System

Having taken a sabbatical I dust the cobwebs off here.

I happened to attend a seminar on Simputer(Mobilis),a hand held computer by Mr.Vinay,Encore Information Systems in college today.The presentation started with some hilarious comic strip of "Blondie" throwing some pointers on how at times understanding certain features become difficult,bulky software,how softwares become easily obsolete and with the question of how many people fail to use or explore all the utilities of a given software say Microsoft Office where an ordinary user requires only 30% of the features provided one is not a power user.Their motto is to make PC's cost effective,easily understandable to non-English speakers,support multi-lingual features so that it can be procured by one and all.It was one of the best seminars I attended.

Mobilis, could be used as a desktop and a laptop.,more for users than developers.The one I was shown was in AltaVista Linux(I don't remember exactly,correct me if am wrong) with 32 bit RISC.It comes with an innovative carry-case that opens up as a desktop stand and a keyboard that could be rolled up and kept in a pouch of the carry-case when the user is on the move and a touch pad.Below is the snapshot



According to Vinay L. Deshpande, chairman and chief executive officer of Encore Software,the system would have the essential features of a conventional personal computer: everyday applications such as word processing, spreadsheet, personal information manager, e-mail and web-browser. It will play music and movies, have text-to-speech conversion facility and built-in local-language support. For now, Kannada, Hindi, and Marathi; work is in progress on Tamil and Telugu. It will weigh 500 gm and be compact. It can be synchronised with a regular PC, "considering that it [a PC] cannot be wished away.''

The power source will be a rechargeable battery with a life of more than six hours per charge as of now. The system is meant to be used in all conditions. It will have built-in ethernet and analogue modem, and optional built-in fingertip sensor for use as a kiosk terminal.

It will have no hard disk but will have built-in memory and facility to plug in memory cards for any storage over and above that provided for in the built-in memory. It will not have games. High-speed computing is ruled out. The reasoning is that "while adding to the cost, these are of no use to many users.''

It supposedly weighs only 800 grams and is pretty sleek.It is developed using C and all softwares used are Open Source as they reduce the cost.I personally held the Mobilis and it is pretty robust.Its no planned obsolescence-a stable system,Keybooards of Phonetic,Inscript and Typewriter types,GPS/GPRS Wi-Fi enabled.

Answering to the Question will it be a replacement for Desktop he was impromptu.
There is SofComp a Desktop PC for cramped spaces developed.Below is its snapshot.The CPU itself looks like one UPS ;) what say?



The challenges ahead is that the software should comsume low disk space,optimized and develop many more applications to make it comparable with Desktop PC's,to increase battery life to 12 hours and use Solar source during day time so that it can help areas with power deficit.

Personal Observation:Well,there isn't a CD-R slot so CD's are given a toss and yes for Gaming it might be difficult as games need high resolution.May be a Portable HD or a USB can come handy.
Many features have to be incorporated still.

For Rs.19,000 current price (might slash to 10k) this wonderful innovation can sure make it available to all masses be it rural or urban and its definitely worth a buy,to fiddle with it.

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