What is the Simputer?
I just saw a pointer to the Amida Simputer, an Indian designed and manufactured PDA. The review at Engadget sounds sort of down, but it comes from a company on a mission. It seems others are fed up with importing (and paying for) US technology, so they’re developing their own.
Take a look-see at the Amida and mix that with a quick browse of the Argosy EB660, a Chinese designed ebook reader. The review at Blackmask (a good place to find ebooks has an interesting take on it all. Here’s some background they offer:
In mainland China, where the education of an impossibly large student body is a government priority, they’ve got challenges providing books in rural areas. So, Professor Chu Bong Foo, a man who had previously invented the Changjie system for inputting Chinese characters onto PCs, devised a CPU, the 33 mhz CultureCom 1610, a system-on-chip which supports 32,000 Chinese characters, and licensed the design to anyone seeking to make an ebook.
All of this reminds me of some remarks by Reed Hundt, former FCC Chairman, at Dartmouth’s Unleashed conference on wireless technology. He suggested that in an increasingly global marketplace, the country that can best educate its people will have a competitive advantage.
Now, mix that with the US’s foundering education system and growing limits on the free-flow of ideas, and you’ll see that I’ll probably be looking for work in Asia soon.
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