Low cost tablets

The digital divide between India and the West will be eliminated quicker than five years, if a recent report in the Times of India is anything to go by. Sales bookings for the Aakash tablet soared to 1.4 million units just two weeks after it was put on sale for Rs 2500 ($45). To cater for the demand, the UK-based vendor Datawind will establish three new factories, in Cochin, Noida and Hyderabad, in the first half of 2012 to assemble the tablet, giving a total output of 70,000 units per day by April. The Aakash is an computer tablet jointly developed by Datawind and the Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan. The 7-inch touch screen tablet features 256 MB RAM, uses an ARM processor with the Android 2.2 operating system, has two USB ports and delivers HD-quality video.