Sneakernets: Bringing the Mountain to YouPresentation Transcript
Sneakernets: Bringing the Mountain to You Sameer Verma, Ph.D. Professor Information Systems Department San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA 94132 USA http://verma.sfsu.edu [email_address] @sameerverma Seminar Department of Computing University of the West Indies, Jamaica Unless noted otherwise
Content Store Transport Use
sneakernet Walking data across buildings on a storage device from one computer to another. High bandwidth, high latency. “ The theoretical capacity of a Boeing 747 filled with Blu-Ray discs is 595,520,000 Gigabytes, resulting in a 245,829 Gbit/s flight from New York to Los Angeles.” – Wikipedia
~ 70% http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Internet Access http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_Penetration.png
Can information flow like water? http://ltse.env.duke.edu/files/ltse/images/India%20Persian%20wheel%20irrigation%20Ganges%20Plain.jpg
A water “battery”. Can we build information batteries?
Viva La Revolución Can we spark a paradigm shift by providing equitable access to information all over the world?
Somebody is finally thinking of the children! To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. — OLPC Mission Statement, It's an education project, not a laptop project. — Nicholas Negroponte
in the beginning...
ooh! laptop! (July 2007)
Give 1 Get 1 – Nov 2007
Next thing I know... De facto founder of OLPC San Francisco http://olpcsf.org
Then I run into this guy... Click here to learn more...
Next thing I know... De facto founder of OLPC Jamaica! http://olpcjamaica.org.jm
A tremendous “Thank you!” to the UWI community for making this happen. http://olpcjamaica.org.jm Providence Basic School, Kingston, Jamaica August Town Primary School, August Town, Jamaica
OLPC
Mission OLPC's mission is to empower the world's poorest children through education We aim to provide each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop. To this end, we have designed hardware, content and software for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered learning. With access to this type of tool, children are engaged in their own education, and learn, share, and create together. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.
Worldwide 40+ countries, 30+ languages, 2.2+ million laptops, 350+ applications
Where no computers have gone before...
School Galadima, Abuja City, Nigeria See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Galadima
Samkha village located in the suburbs of northern Thailand See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Thailand/Ban_Samkha
Khairat school is India's pilot site. See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India
A zip file, which includes content and structure for the entire course! Moving courses ...deploy in Madagascar! Create in San Francisco...
XS: Internet in a box No Internet? No power? No problem :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XS http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server
Pathagar: A Book Server Open Publication Distribution System Pathagar : Path + Agar पाठागार : पाठ + आगार A Practical Hindi-English Dictionary http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/caturvedi/
Problem: Dissemination of Media in remote places
Books
Portable Document Format (PDF)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf
Electronic Publication format (ePub)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB
Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html
All digital “media” are a collection of bits. So we can also disseminate
Music
Video
Images
Internet Access http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_Penetration.png
How do we get books to here ?
OPDS: Open Publication and Distribution System
OPDS Specification
The Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) Catalog is a syndication format for electronic publications based on Atom RFC4287 and HTTP RFC2616.
Catalogs enable the aggregation, distribution, discovery, and acquisition of electronic publications.
OPDS Catalogs use existing or emergent open standards and conventions, with a priority on simplicity.
http://code.google.com/p/openpub
Book Server
Book Server = OPDS Server
Repository
Add books, along with title, author, language, description, etc.
Serve
Atom-based OPDS feed (XML)
HTTP-based web pages that allow searching, listing, download, etc.
Pathagar (पाठागार)
Written in Python
Requires python-django as a framework
Creates a website for managing and accessing books
Allows you to add books + metadata on books
Catalog allows for listing
Search feature
OPDS Feed, which is Atom (XML) based.
Books are served books via HTTP to:
Browsers
Get Books activity
Written by Sayamindu Dasgupta http://sayamindu.randomink.org Get it at http://github.com/sayamindu/pathagar