A PC for peasant farmers? China targets digital divide.
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China's computermakers tap vast rural market with simple tools and local officials' support.
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A combined PC, telephone and television is being used in aid projects in India.
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(InfoWorld) - A Chinese PC maker today introduced a low-cost PC designed for customers in rural China that can be used with a television as a display. The 998 renminbi ($129) Tian En GX-2 was developed by Sichuan Sinomanic Technology, based in the western Chinese city of Chengdu, and is being pitched as a low-cost system that can help narrow the "digital divide" between China's rural and urban areas. The GX-2 is based on a 400MHz MIPS processor from Raza Microelectronics. It runs either a version of the Linux operating system or FutureAlpha, a Chinese-developed operating system. The GX-2 has128MB of DDR (double data rate) DRAM, one USB 2.0 port, a 10/100MbpsÂ Ethernet adapter, and a 1GB SD (Secure Digital) memory card to store data. The PC, which does not include a monitor, has a VGA (video graphics array) output for computer monitors as well as a TV output. This capability could help some users save money as televisions are found in most homes across China. Software that comes bundled with the GX-2 includes an Internet browser, a Chinese-English dictionary and a calendar application for managing appointments, among others, Sinomanic said. The price of the GX-2 is roughly the same as the laptop developed by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which the group recently saidÂ costs about $130. That system is expected to enter volume production during the third quarter of this year. Â
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The "digital divide" between rich and poor countries is growing with developing countries still far behind in the use of broadband internet, the UN trade and development agency has warned.
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While young people embrace the Web with  real or virtual friends and their cell phone is never far away,  relatively few like technology and those that do tend to be in  Brazil, India and China, according to a survey.
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Lots of people own two or three computers. But thanks to a powerful new technology anybody can make any computer their own, just by plugging in a common digital device.
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Blog: MIT academic researcher argues that teens who don't have constant access to technology are falling into a "participation gap."
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With the Government embracing electronic media as tools to increase commerce and inform the people of what it is doing, words with the prefix "e" have become synonymous with new development.  The Internet and the World Wide Web offer new opportunities and pose new challenges for China.
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As farmers are pitted against developers allied with local officials, peasants and other rural landowners who still make up 60 percent of China's 1.3 billion people increasingly have tried to resist.
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Infotech spending by small and medium businesses (1-999 employees) is on  track to reach a whopping US$95 billion this year across the  Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan, with three key countries--China,  South Korea and Australia--leading the pack.
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China paid back 32.2 billion yuan (US$3.9 billion) owed to migrant rural workers from rural areas as of December 3, accounting for 95.88 percent of the total owed, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security said in Beijing December 17.
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By Andres Oppenheimer, The Miami Herald  Feb. 18--Andres Oppenheimer   Several Latin American countries are about to make their most ambitious investment in education ever -- giving out millions of $150 laptop computers to schoolchildren.
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The One Laptop Per Child project to lessen the digital divide is in full swing.
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GUIHUA, China -- For years now, nearly half the rice, wheat and vegetable farmers in this village in Henan province have been unable to make a living off their land. They have turned instead to more profitable migrant work in large, faraway cities.
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Vive La France! Column Last week, a report emerged with one of the most unlikely conclusions in the short history of digital policy. The report was built around yet another ranking of the technological performance of different countries around the world.â¦
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The politically sensitive gap in incomes between China's booming cities and the poor countryside is widening
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By van den Ban, Anne  The Virtual Farmer: Past, Present and Future of the Dutch Peasantry, by Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, Assen, the Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum, 2003. 432 pp. Euro 3750 (paper). ISBN: 90-232-3892-3.