Imagine a tablet that can diagnose your heart rate? Or web-cam, textbook with audio notes in your mother-tongue and SIM card slot, all available within the existing price band.
Researchers and professors at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, are burning the midnight oil to equip the third edition of the low-cost tablet Aakash with newer apps and more open source software than ever before.
About 50 lakh 'Aakash 3' tablets are expected to be rolled out in the next phase, the global tender for which may be floated in February.
According to committee members engaged in developing the third version of Aakash, the endeavour will be to make the product as indigenous as possible and involve multiple vendors.
"Our aim is to imbibe the usage of tablets in the education system and create an ecosystem for this. We have distributed Aakash tablets to 250 colleges across the country and asked them to come up with newer ways to use the device," said Deepak B Phatak, committee member and a professor in IIT- Bombay's Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Aakash 3 will have a faster processor supporting both Linux and Android operating systems and come with advanced memory, he said. "It could also have a SIM card slot so that people can use it as a communication device," Phatak said.
Besides Phatak, Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras along with hundreds of students and other partners are also involved in making the new Aakash 3.
One of the aims of students involved in the project is to develop an application for the tablet that can tell pulse rate. It will also have a larger distribution and servicing system so that owners can get their tablets repaired locally.
He also suggested two models for Aakash 3 — one for schools and the other for colleges with graded pricing. Phatak said that the model for students could be made available at the current price of Rs 2,236, while the one for college students could be higher. However, there is no consensus on the proposal at present.
The most recent version, Aakash 2, developed by IIT-Bombay along with C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), was launched by President Pranab Mukherjee in November.
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