So about a week ago, the Indian Education Ministry set the tech world aflutter by announcing the launch of its 10$ Laptop to help poor, underprivileged children have access to information more easily.
Yay! for Arjun Singh! There were respectful whispers everywhere of the brightest of minds from IIT-Madras and IISc Bangalore coming together to create this magical device that would surely set India on the path to righteousness and glory.
And then they launched this.
Umm… Wait… is this a bad picture of my last internet router?
Oh, no. That’s actually what they launched. That thing is the Education Ministry’s idea of a laptop. But hey, at least it costs just 10$, right? We’ll see about that. First, let’s see how the world took being mocked.
Fox News had a thing or two to say about our wonderful creation. Choice words, and I don’t grudge them.
Rediff news, on the other hand, seemed to think we were quite the bee’s knees.
The Times of India (a paper I’ve lost a lot of respect for in recent times, though this redeems them just a bit) saw through the bullshit, though.
Gizmodo, the gadget blog, in two separate articles, called the ‘10$ Laptop’ a ‘big, dumb joke’ and ‘a complete bust’.
So what possible explanation could our dear government have for releasing a ‘laptop’ that needs to be plugged into a computer or laptop to work (heard of thumbdrives/pendrives/flashdrives/USB storage devices, anyone? I thought not)? I demand one, really. And has our government ever failed us? Ha! A laughable notion, that!
Their excuse? It was a typo. They meant 100$.
Of course! They meant to do the usual by releasing that piece of garage junk for 100$, not 10$.
Of course.
6 member protest rally:
And why i am not surprised?
Damn I hadn't even heard of the $10 laptop news forget about the typo.
But ya I wouldn't have believed a $10 laptop no matter where the bright minds were from who built it.
@ Gina.
I couldn't agree more.
@ Deepali.
Arre, how can citizens such as ourselves not bring such wondrous news of our country to the world?
Dude you have to bow in front of them ya, its not as bad as it seems =P. This shit beats everything, i thought they were going to use Mitashi ka video game laptops that they cell for 2 grands and tweak it with some junk parts.
Isn't this like a perfect metaphor for our government?
@ Over.
= p Totally...
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