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The Aakash is an Android tablet computer jointly developed by the London-based company DataWind with the Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan and manufactured by the India-based company Quad, at a new production centre in Hyderabad — under a trial run of 100,000 units. The tablet was officially launched as the Aakash in New Delhi on Oct 5, 2011. A substantially revised second generation model is projected for manufacture beginning in early 2012. The seven-inch touch screen tablet features 256 megabytes of RAM, uses an ARM 11 processor[5] with the Android 2.2 operating system, has two USB port and delivers HD-quality video. For applications, the Aakash will have access to Getjar, a proprietary market, rather than the Android Market. As a multi-media platform, the Aakash project was beset by delays and setbacks. The device was developed as part of the country's aim to link 25,000 colleges and 400 universities in an e-learning program. Original projected as a "$35 laptop", the device will be sold to the Government of India at $50 and will be distributed at a government subsidized price of $35. A commercial version will be marketed as the UbiSlate 7 at a projected price of $60. The name Aakash derives from the Hindi word for sky.

Aakash Tablet Commercial Launch Postponed To Jan 2012: The much anticipated Android tablet, Aakash, will not be launched this year. You need to wait little more to own the world’s cheapest Android Tablet, priced at Rs 3,000. A representative of DataWind, the Canadian owned company that is developing Aakash for the government of India, has recently announced that an upgraded version of Aakash Tablet would be available in the market by the end of the January, 2012.

Aakash was supposed to be available in retail stores by 2011 November end. So, the actual launch has been delayed for about 2 months. The Data Wind representative said that the delay in launch of the tablet had been due to improvements in the tablet and some issues related to manufacturing.

The good news about this postponement is that the improved version would include certain upgrades in terms of Operating System and processor speed. The original version was announced with a 366 MHz processor, the upgraded version would possess a much faster Cortex A8-700 MHz processor along with graphics accelerator and HD video processor.

Other specifications include a resistive touchscreen,, 2GB internal memory, and 256 MB RAM, one standard USB port, 3 mm audio jack, 7 inch display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution, GPRS and WiFi support.

The company had previously announced that the premium tablets available in the market are for the higher class and DataWind could not compete with them at the price it is offering the tablet for; also added that it is manufacturing high quality products in India for Indian users at a reasonable price.

The chief executive officer of DataWind, Suneet Singh Tulu, had earlier said to the media that they had not set any time frame for future launches yet they were working on 9 and 10 inch Android Tablets. They would include capacitive touchscreens and the company would try to price them under Rs 5,000.

Aakash Tablet Version 2.0: By February 2012, an improved and more competent Aakash-2, world’s most affordable tablet PC, is expected to be launched at the same price as its previous version. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Rajasthan has confirmed the improvements made in Aakash-1, which was launched on October 5. HRD minister Kapil Sibal said that new version of Aakash will be launched during January-February, 2012. Aakash has got an ample response internationally, when exhibited at a recent United Nations conference in Paris. Aakash has shown so much of interest among several international organizations and world leaders. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said. “Several prime ministers and ministers have evinced interest in Aakash who want it for their country in thousands,” he told media correspondents without elaborating.

The Aakash-2, based on response from more than 500 users of Aakash-1 in IITs and many other institutions, will include microprocessor of 800MHz instead of 366MHz processor. It will improve the speed of the tablet and will enable downloading videos from internet.

The RAM (Random Access Memory) of the Aakash-2 will be enhanced to 1GB from 256 MB in Aakash-1 that restricted multi-tasking.

A senior professor at IIT Rajasthan, who is leading the Aakash team, said that changes would increase the performance of the tablet and would be more competent to the existing tablet PCs in the market.

In order to make Aakash-2 smarter, the IIT Rajasthan has decided to include a built-in camera to it, to ensure video chatting facility to its users. It also will include a seven-inch touch screen for a better look.

This version is a result of feedback from IIT students, who tested Aakash-1, and claimed some of the problems of the current version, which include frequent hanging, overheating within 30 minutes, not supporting all formats, poor sound quality, and lack of ability to install software available online.

Though the Aakash-2 will be available by February 2012, to meet the government’s target of supplying it to 2 million students is still a challenge.

“We have to evolve an eco-system of several vendors and its testing by IITs and other institutes to provide an Aakash to each child by 2017 (end of 12th plan),” a senior HRD ministry official said.

As in case of Aakash-1, where companies like London based DataWind, India based Quad came together, the government believes that Aakash-2 will make a bigger collaboration

As the HRD Minister Sibal said that several international organizations and world ministers have shown interest to purchase Aakash for the children world-wide, this collaboration will be very essential. The minister, who has been marketing Aakash since its launch, also said. “There is a lot of global buzz about Aakash and we have to meet the global expectation”.