Necessity, it’s said, is the mother of invention. Small wonder, then, that a new small wonder designed to put computing into the hands of masses has been born in a country with, well, plenty of masses. The government of India has released a prototype tablet computer that it says will sell out of the gate for a mere $35. The touchscreen tablet can draw solar power and runs on a variation of Linux and has no internal storage, though it’s memory-card ready. On the what-it-does-have-front, those oh-so-few beans will get you a built-in word processor, video conferencing capabilities and, most important, a connection to the internet. Cloud-based computing is a key factor in the device’s low ticket price and compact architecture, as users can access web-based tools and applications through a browser as opposed to programs installed locally on the computer itself. According to Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal, the device is designed for students and low-income families, and will be made available to 110 million Indian schoolchildren as early as next year. Quoted in the guardian.co.uk , Sibal says, “The solutions for tomorrow will emerge from India. We have reached a stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35, including memory, display, everything.” At $35, PCWorld , calls the device “virtually disposable,” in comparing it with the $100 XO computer developed by MIT and used in the One Laptop Per Child program. Who knows, the technology might even one-day give Apple’s $500 iPad a run for its money; India says it’s looking for manufacturing partner to mass-produce the device and eventually push the price down to $10. Yeah, that’s right.  $10 .

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