Discussions – Quflow & Perfeco

Specifications for a super-low-cost access and educational device

Wanting to contribute to higher education for everyone? Below is minimum specifications for an access device with this purpose, according to The Near Computer Science & Engineering Department at Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan (http://www.iitk.ac.in/iitj/Expression%20of%20Interest%20for%20Low%20Cost%20Device.pdf):

Projected base prize assuming 1-10 million devices, including all software and hardware licenses (see link above): $35

Mobile system on chip or module meeting quite moderate performance specs (see link above)
Qwerty keyboard, mouse, webcam
7” color screen or projector (support for RGB projector required)
2 USB, SD, RGB, ethernet, external HD
RF certification according to FCC guidelines (of course!)
Three hours usage per charging, charger
Shock resistant casing or suitable form factor
Normal operation at 0-48 degC temperature, 80% relative humidity, 2g acceleration
ROHS Compliant

Prize margin opportunities:

WLAN
RAM and hard-disk/NAND-flash options
Environmental shield
Larger screen/projector
Touch screen
Solar cell or hybrid capacitor replacement for battery
HDMI port
Playback: AVCHD
Multimedia I/O Interfaces: DTV, IPTv, DTH
Internet browsing: flash player (adobe)

If interested in streamlining your product suite towards such extreme low-cost and high usability requirements, please contact Quflow for a free (draft) customized feasibility analysis, technical coordination offer and project sponsoring strategy under strictest NDA.

Big problems – small solutions

Mobile devices contribute more and more to the every-day life. Their abundance and rapid development has led to very short product life-cycles which cause quality, health and recycling problems, and customers start to look for better and more sustainable alternatives (http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1010/green-brands/flat.html).

All major mobile product manufacturers nowadays use generic platforms instead of custom designs. They can shop around for platforms that fit their complete product portfolio and roadmap best, and also change platform and component suppliers since they all are designed to fit generic platform architectures. This change in design methodology make it much easier and faster to introduce and establish new technologies that are smaller, more powerful, environmentally friendly, flexible and future-proof – exactly what is needed now.

Sustainable engineering of consumer devices means a much reduced amount of production waste, careful choice of good commodity components, integration of technologies with robust and scalable performance , and in general designing for a life together with the customer rather than a brief financial transaction.