The Sirius Handheld Computing Platform

In 2004, FiveRivers Technologies in Pakistan decided to embark on a project that, at its very least, was an adventurous, risk prone and highly innovative experiment. Our goal was to figure out how we could deliver an Information Technology appliance to the whole world. Yes, the whole world. A long shot for a small company based in Pakistan? Stranger things have happened.

Why would anyone even bother trying something like this? Aren’t there millions of PCs in use already? Sure, there are lots of PCs out there, but the vast majority of the population of developing countries – which also happens to be the vast majority of the population on earth – is still unable to take advantage of the IT Revolution. Certainly, things are better now than they were 10 years ago. One hears about the stories of a VoIP phone in a remote village somewhere in Pakistan or India, a Wi-fi network in an underdeveloped African Country… but these are individual, isolated projects which are far, far away from creating substantial social impact at a global scale.

Why has there been a 30 year lag between the birth of the PC industry and the general availability of such technology to everyone that needs it, regardless of geographic location, colour or creed? The answers are simple to understand but have proven difficult to address. Computers are expensive. When most developing countries have per capita incomes approaching $400, certainly, widespread deployment of a $500 computer is impractical. More often than not, computers require an electricity grid in order to operate – a reliable and relatively clean one at that, if any measure of long term use is to be expected. Electricity, when sporadically available, is normally not very clean
or reliable in developing countries. Computers are complex to configure and use.

Modern operating systems, whether Windows or the open source Linux, are suffering from code-bloat. They are beasts to run and configure when you contrast their complexity with the technologically unsophisticated and not necessarily literate audience of a globally relevant computer. Often embedded with moving parts and mechanisms sensitive to dust prone environments, many computers are simply unsuited for prolonged use in many open environments.

Projects that have been carried out, or are being carried out currently, to produce inexpensive computers use a very western definition of, “low cost”. Whereas $150 may not be much to someone who thinks of it as the price of 2 decent dress shirts, it is certainly quite a bit to an ordinary citizen of a developing country. Also, the approach taken to develop these low cost solutions can be summarized as follows: Start with a PC and chop things off until you’ve reduced cost to what sounds reasonable to the designers. Fundamental assumptions about what a computer is and what level of functionality it should provide remain basically unmodified. For instance, Windows and Linux were both designed with considerations that included a high degree of multitasking capability, support for a large number of peripherals, expandability and compatibility with a thousands of software and hardware products. However configurable an OS may claim to be, all of these contribute to the bulk and complexity of the operating system, which will then necessarily require more powerful hardware in order to function and run all the supporting processes, drivers, daemons and modules that are necessary for the OS to function. None of these are key requirements for the majority of the world’s population.