HP builds touchscreen Linux PC for India
And only India
HP will this month begin selling an 18.5in touchscreen all-in-one PC running what it almost certainly Linux. The snag: it's only available in India.
The DreamScreen 400 was "developed in India for India", HP said, adding that the custom UI and spec was inspired by interviews with 2,600 Indians. The company put 200 prototypes into homes to fine-tune the gadget.
The result is a machine designed to provide access to the web and online media, and provide communications tools and games.
The DreamScreen 400 is the first of a "new category of products aimed at those who are ready benefit from the power of the internet for the first time", HP said. So it's an 'information appliance', then - remember how, in the late 1990s, we are all going to be using these in the new millennium?
The UI appears on the 18.5in screen, and the appliance has a built-in DVD drive. That's pretty much all HP has said about the 400's spec.
The machine will go on sale around India later this month for RUP19,999 plus tax (£282). HP already sells its Touchsmart Windows-based touchscreen all-in-ones in India. ®
COMMENTS
Why only India?
At that price they could sell a shed-load here in Blighty. I'd buy one.
He'll probably call himself "Sanjay"...
... then remark upon the weather in Hyderabad before launching into his scripted troubleshooting.
User support
So when a user phones up for support, will their call be routed through to the UK, to someone who doesn't really understand what the problem is and doesn't know the product because it's not sold in their home country?
Dollyknot
Go into your local computer store, checkout the PCs on sale, they will all be running Microsoft's closed source operating system, I was led to believe that Monopolies were bad for the economy and illegal.
If Windows was such a brilliant operating system, why did the London Stock Exchange ditch it recently for Linux? (well advised, by their mates at the New York Stock Exchange)
Why don't Google, Facebook, Amazon and many other companies use Windows.
Our National Health system, Education system, Police service and local government have given Microsoft millions and millions of pounds, when a free and better operating system exits, the only reason I can think of is, that the people who run our country are corrupt.
When the government keep telling us we are massively in debt, what they really mean is, we have a massive balance of trade deficit.
One way to make quite large dent in this deficit is to stop paying the Windows tax.
The BBC could do an immense amount to promote open source, but it hardly mentions it, this suggests to me that the BBC is corrupt also.
The fact that the BBC made a program about Linux and it was shown abroad but not here, is a dead give away.
What is now called chemistry, used to be called alchemy, this happened around the time of Issac Newton, a contemporary of Newton's was Robert Hooke and apparently they were enemies, after Newton's remarkable insights into physics, he turned his powerful intellect towards alchemy, here is the kicker, he kept his research a secret.
Hooke realised that Newton did this, because he wanted to be the only beneficiary.
Amongst others Hooke realised, that if alchemists published their results then other alchemists could build on their discoveries and the science of chemistry was born.
Why should computer science be any different?
OK I can hear all the programmers out there complaining, how do we get paid, this is like asking Astronomers Physicists Geologists Mathematicians, people in the armed sevices ETC. how they get paid, rather silly question, if you ask me.
Closed source software, only makes the people who issue the binaries richer, it makes most of the rest of us poorer.
I will give you an instance, last August I bought a 1 x NNB-831 Xplora 15.6" - AMD Athlon X2 TK42 Ati Graphics 2GB DDR2 250GB SATA HDD DVDRW from Novatech not paying the Windoze tax, saved me around £70, I put Ubuntu on it and have not looked back since.
All we need is an exec with Assange sized balls on the Beeb, and the UK could make a good sized hole in its balance of trade deficit.
Would not take much, just a few programs showing how easy Ubuntu is to install and use.
And if people think I only advocate Ubuntu, I actually run Mandriva on my PC.
Aah yes, but you'd then be able to say:
"Please do the needful"
