We’ve heard it before — the promise of a "$100 laptop" that could be distributed to needy children throughout the world, revolutionizing the learning process. Collective hopes and dreams were squashed when the realities of component and manufacturing costs inevitably surfaced. So, there could be a healthy amount of skepticism attached to an announcement by India’s Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, who recently showed the press a prototype of a touch-screen tablet PC, with an expected price tag of $35, which it hopes to roll out next year.

The device is aimed at students, and supports web browsing and word processing. Support for e-books is also expected, making for an tool that could be used throughout the educational system. According to some reports, the device is being developed as part of a broader national plan to update the technology used by Indian colleges and schools.

Sibal said a manufacturer was being sought for the gadget, which was developed by India’s top IT colleges. "This is our answer to MIT’s $100 computer," he said, referring to the "$100 Laptop" (or XO-1) that was promised by-but so far has eluded-that university’s spinoff effort. The new Indian tablet PC will run on Linux, uses a memory card instead of a hard disk, and can run on solar power. Sibal added that their plan is to drop the price eventually to $20, and ultimately to $10.

MIT’s XO-1 was an inexpensive notebook computer designed to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world. The computers were designed for sale to government-education systems, with a stated goal to reach $100 in 2008 and $50 by 2010. In reality, pricing has remained at $199. A newer design, the XO 1.5, is based on a VIA processor, and provides twice the speed of its predeccesor, 4x the DRAM memory and 4x the FLASH memory. Running both Linux and Windows operating systems, the XO 1.5 became available in January 2010 at about $200 per unit. Follow-up versions are currently slated for 2011 and 2012, with target prices of $150 and "well below $100." Nicholas Negroponte, of the MIT Media Lab and Founder and Chairman of the One Laptop per Child Foundation (OLPC), has pledged to provide India with free and open access to all of the OLPC technology.

Last year, the Indian government announced—to great worldwide interest—the development of a $10 laptop, only to have hopes fizzle when the product failed to materialize. While avoiding the costs of licensing an operating system such as Windows, even the cost of the LCD display alone would seem to make these low cost projections questionable. However, Mamta Varma, a ministry spokeswoman, said the device was "feasible because of falling hardware costs."

Getting the cost down to even $50 would be a great achievement. From a land that is home to the $2,100 compact Nano car, the $16 water purifier and $2,000 open-heart surgery, we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss this announcement outright. And, it could be that the quoted price tag is one after some sort of subsidy is credited. Word is that the laptop itself won’t be subsidized directly, but the government will pick up 25% of the cost of broadband for colleges, and there will be free e-learning textbooks available to students online. In any event, much can be learned about how to make a device like this affordable. As they say, the journey is often more interesting than the result. Let’s hope this one’s a success.