NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- A $35 computer has been introduced in India that will run on the Linux operating system.
The touch-screen tablet looks like an iPad and will be Internet accessible, have web browsing, basic word processing and video chatting. To cut manufacturing costs, the device uses a memory card instead of a hard disk, and buyers will be able to purchase a solar power add-on.
"This is our answer to MIT's $100 computer," Kapil Sibal, India's human resource development minister, told the Economic Times on Thursday.
A prototype of a $100 laptop was introduced in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte, cofounder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. India rejected this model because it was too expensive.
Sibal hopes to eventually get the cost of the $35 Linux device down to $10 as a part of an education technology project in India. The project aims to provide students in India with the Internet so they access online study materials.
No manufacturing or distribution deals have been confirmed yet, but the tablet is expected to be in production by 2011.
-- Reported by Theresa McCabe in Boston.