Monday, April 30, 2001		Latest in IT world

Indians launch $-200 Simputer

A non-profit trust founded by engineers of a science institute and an Indian firm launched a $200 computing device, called the Simputer, in an effort to bust the digital divide. Clad in jeans and T-shirts that said "Radical simplicity for universal access,"the scientists showed the Simputer in easy-to-use applications aimed at rural folk, including voicemail, text-to-speech capabilities and Internet access. They showed how illiterate farmers could get to know the ruling prices of vegetables by using symbols and speech software. The Simputer Trust has built the device, named as a short form for Simple, Inexpensive and Multilingual, with a planned street price in India of Rs 9,000 (nearly $ 200).

"The Simputer is essentially an empowering device," Vijay Chandru, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science and one of the trustees, told a packed auditorium in the state-run institute’s lush-green Bangalore campus.

Sun Microsystems Inc will shut down for a week in July, asking employees to take holidays or take unpaid leave during that period, company sources said last week. A Sun spokesperson was not immediately available for comments. The shutdown in the first week of July will affect four business days, and would mark the first time that Sun has taken such action. Sun had said that it was implementing tough cost controls in order to preserve funding for research and development. Computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co., which is implementing cost controls of its own, has also used mandatory holidays as a way to cut expenses.

The secluded Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan will soon have its first daily newspaper on the Internet to help reach out to a global readership. The Internet daily, yet another sign of the opening up of the reclusive country, will be launched by the state-run Kuensel Corporation which also publishes the weekly Kuensel. "The Web site will contain a daily updated news page with photographs and articles...an opinion forum for public discussion and digital advertising to make Kuensel sustainable," the weekly Kuensel said in its latest issue. The national weekly’s initiative would be financially supported by Denmark and an agreement to the effect was signed recently in Thimpu. Kuensel said the electronic version would also reach its Bhutanese readers much faster, overcoming transportation and distribution difficulties in the landlocked country of some 6,00,000 persons

Bhutan logged on to the Internet and also launched its first domestic television channel less than two years ago amid much fanfare as part of the ongoing policy of modernisation led by its King Jigme Singye Wangchuk.

— Reuter