It's like my head

Update: India launches ‘world’s cheapest’ tablet computer

Called the “Akash” (“Sky”), the locally-made device will be launched in New Delhi by Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal after years of delays.

“It will cost 2,200 rupees ($45) and the first batch of 500 tablets will be handed over to students after the release,” ministry spokeswoman Mamata Varma told AFP.

“Initially, 700 Akash tablets will be made every day and we expect the production to pick up when more companies join in to manufacture the device,” she said.

The commercial marketing strategy for the Akash remains unclear, but most of the computers are likely to be sold through universities and colleges rather than shops.

No matter if we end up with molecular computing or quantum computing, we will radically disrupt the computing process — processors, programming, storage and, yes devices — all of what we use today will no longer fit into that new computing process and thus will all become obsolete. And then, the desktop will finally die.

And that, says Kaku, is as important to the world economy as it is to humanity’s ability to compute. When we drive headlong into the silicon chip’s dead end, devices will no longer sell at a fast pace simply because there will be no improvement in new models over old models. However, with the birth of a new computing process and all the new devices that it will spawn, the world economy will thrive.

And therein lies the answer to why hardware manufacturers are so eager to prematurely declare the PC dead: they need to sell more devices quickly before the silicon chip maxes out. And, they can already see that Moore’s law will collapse entirely within the next 10 or so years. In other words, their desperation is showing.