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Microsoft increases focus on Fone+ cellphone project for the poor
Microsoft has been touting its Fone+ project for a little while now, but it looks like the company is starting to step up its efforts a bit further, with the new head of Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Group, Craig Mundie, reportedly leading the charge to increase the focus on the project aimed at bringing cellphones to the poor. This isn't a case of simply handing out as many barebones handsets as possible, however. Instead, Microsoft wants to use the cellphones (which are described as a "low-to-mid-end smartphone") as an alternative to computers like the OLPC, an idea the company has been tossing around since before the Fone+ project even had a name. To make things a bit more practical, the cellphones would be paired with a dock that hooks up to TV, resulting in a system that Mundie says is "a lot cheaper than having to buy a whole separate computer." Unfortunately, while it is upping its efforts, Microsoft apparently still isn't ready to provide any sort of timeline about when we can expect to see an actual product, and Mundie adds that the company continues to "explore and look at both phone-up models and PC-down models" to make computing more accessible to the poor.[Via Phone Scoop
Microsoft's educational IQ PC for India
It looks like Redmond will be dipping its toes into the affordable education-PC pool, at least in India, with its new IQ PC, part of the Unlimited Potential venture (the program behind the budgeted software being sold to developing countries) . The project, while not as ambitious (or portable) as the OLPC or the Classmate, will be tested in the cities of Bangalore and Pune, with a country-wide rollout in November. The computers will sell for RS21,000, or around $500, and will be based on AMD processors and built by Zenith and Wipro. The systems will run a combination of online and offline content centered around "edutainment" and educational programs. In addition to the hardware, Microsoft has trained over 100,000 teachers in PC-based instruction, and they're continuing to develop technologies for use in classrooms where multiple students will share computers. It sure is good to see Bill putting that money to work.
