India has come up with the world's cheapest "laptop," a touch-screen computing¹ device that costs $35.

印度政府日前推出了一款世界上最便宜的笔记本电脑，这款触摸屏的计算设备售价仅为35美元。

India has come up with the world's cheapest 'laptop.' a touch-screen computing device that costs $35.

India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal this week unveiled the low-cost computing device that is designed for students, saying his department had started talks with global manufacturers to start mass production.

"We have reached a (developmental) stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively²（累积地，渐增地） cost around $35, including memory, display, everything," he told a news conference.

He said the touchscreen gadget³（小玩意，小配件） was packed with Internet browsers⁴, PDF reader and video conferencing facilities but its hardware was created with sufficient flexibility⁵ to incorporate new components⁶ according to user requirement.

Sibal said the Linux based computing device was expected to be introduced to higher education institutions from 2011 but the aim was to drop the price further to $20 and ultimately to $10.

The device was developed by research teams at India's premier⁷ technological⁸ institutes, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science.

India spends about three percent of its annual budget on school education and has improved its literacy（读写能力） rates to over 64 percent of its 1.2 billion population but studies have shown many students can barely read or write and most state-run schools have inadequate⁹（不充分的，不适当的） facilities.