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Bytes For All
TELECOM CELEBRATION
The Centre for Knowledge Societies in Bangalore (cks-b.org) thought
of an interesting way to celebrate World Telecom Day. It was an
exhibition of photographs by Sridala Sawmi. The theme: Voice and
data in India. CKS is led by research scholar Aditya Dev Sood. The
Centre for Knowledge Societies “affords insight into the use
of information and communications technologies in non-traditional
and emerging market environments.” It also offers research,
design and strategy consultancy services to technology houses, international
agencies, and governments.
“Through usability research, sectoral intelligence
and quantitative analysis, it drives the development and deployment
of emerging technologies for the benefit of rural, non-elite and
mass users,” says the Centre.
Given the spread and reach that telecom has achieved over the past
decade or two, India does have something to celebrate...the price
hikes apart!
TEK PROJECT
US-based Bill Thies is one of the lead developers on the TEK project
at MIT. The goal of the TEK project is to build a low-connectivity
search engine for use by people at the far side of a bad telephone
connection. See cag.lcs.mit.edu/tek
Says he: “In fact, we just released a new
version of the software. If you’re currently using www4mail
(a means of downloading Web pages via simple e-mail), I think TEK
will provide some advantages—for example, a browser interface
with full colour and formatting, an intelligent server that remembers
what you’ve downloaded, and a local search engine that indexes
downloaded pages.”
This project may not have originated in India,
but it could sure have a lot of utility here.
BACK IN INDIA
Prof Kenneth (Ken) Keniston, the Andrew Mellon Professor of Human
Development and the director of MIT’s India Program, will be
back touring various ICT4D projects sometime around June 2003.
If you have an interesting project to point him
to, send in your mail at kken@mit.edu (more links on www.kken.net).
SIMPUTER PLANS
From Bangalore, reports in early May say the Simputer, “India’s
most innovative technological product in recent times, is poised
for mass use in the country and abroad with one of the license holders
set to sign a 100,000-unit deal with an Indian company.”
Encore Software, which is one of the two license
holders for the Simputer launched two years ago, is also in talks
with two firms from Japan and one from Singapore for the supply
of a similar number of the cost-effective handheld device that promises
to bridge the digital divide. See their mailing list at groups.yahoo.com/group/
simputer
PEOPLE’S NOTEBOOK
Thailand is to get it, but India will have to wait. HP is offering
that country a ‘people’s notebook’ that runs on Linux.
Reports from the Far East say HP’s budget laptop will retail
for 19,500 Baht. It features an 800 MHz Intel Celeron processor,
128 MB of RAM and a 20 GB hard disk. There is no CD-ROM or floppy
drive.
Meanwhile, a desktop, made by local computer
makers Belta, SVOA and Computec, costs 10,900 Baht. It sports an
Intel Celeron 1GHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, a 52x CD-ROM drive,
20 GB of hard disk space and comes with a 15-inch monitor, speakers
and a keyboard. Said one friend: “Fantastic rates for the desktop
and the sub-notebook—when do such computers come to India?”
Any chance of replication in India? An executive
at HP said in an off-the-record comment: “I asked the same
question to my colleagues. Will keep you posted.”
USING WI-FI
From The Hindu we learn that Wi-Fi, the technology that wirelessly
connects to the Internet, is being used by many rural centres across
India to access important information and facilities.
“In the Loni-Shirdi area of western Maharashtra,
over 200 villages have formed a cooperative and raised Rs 2 crore
to leverage information technology for their benefit. They have
set up nearly 50 wireless hotspots to harness the latest Wi-Fi systems
so that villagers can get agricultural access systems right at their
doorsteps. The technology to wirelessly connect to the Internet
has recently been legalised by the government,” said the report.
It’s hard to sift the claims from the reality
sometimes... The article is available at infochangeindia.org/ItanddItop.jsp?section_idv=9#2168
India Computes! is presented by Frederick Noronha,
a freelance journalist based in Goa. He is the co-founder of BytesForAll,
a voluntary, unfunded venture focusing on how IT and the Internet
can benefit the common man, particularly in South Asia. To join
the BytesForAll mailing list send a blank e-mail to bytesforall_readers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
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