| Frederick Noronha (FN) on Wed, 2 Apr 2003 12:30:02 +0200 (CEST) |
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| <nettime> BytesForAll * April 2003 ezine |
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ B y t e s F o r A l l --- http://www.bytesforall.org _/ Making Computing Relevant to the People of South Asia _/ APR 2003 * APR 2003 * APR 2003 * APR 2003 * APR 2003 * _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Software for the blind ---------------------- President Abdul Kalam has launched a software for the visually impaired, that can make information in Telugu and Hindi languages easy to access. "Reading Aid for Blind", developed by the International Institute for Information Technology (IIIT), enhances the reading capability of the visually handicapped. With the help of this software, text on-screen can be transformed to speech. The computer then reads this out to the user. This project has been funded by Satyam Computers. Cheaper PCs closer? ------------------- Business daily The Hindu Businessline reports that the promised 5KPC (priced at just Rs 5000) could be closer than thought. Two companies - Via Technologies and NetCore (promoted by Mr Rajesh Jain of the India World fame) are jointly making this possible by bringing down prices of hardware and software respectively. The 5KPC, as Mr Jain calls it, is expected to revolutionise the usage of computers. The Via machine is a thin client, with a motherboard and processor but no hard disk or floppy drives. Marketed with a full OS - Netcore's Emergic Freedom, based on Linux - it offers e-mail, browser, office suite, instant messenger and supports specialised Windows applications through add-on software. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/stories/2003031601420100.htm PDAs for infoaccess ------------------- Rahul Nainwal <[email protected]> is doing a series of case studies on ICT initiatives in India. He is keen to know of any intiatives in India worth studying where PDAs or other access devices are being used to provide information access to communities. More details from Rahul Nainwal Director MITRA F-48,Ground floor, Lajpat Nagar-1 New Delhi-110024 Tele/Fax: 91-11-26911720 ICICI volunteers ---------------- Check ICICIcommunities volunteering scheme online at http://www.ICICIcommunities.org/communities/volunteerindex.asp Bloodbank online ---------------- This initiative could do with more volunteers... another bloodbank online, this time one from tiny Goa. http://bloodbank.goenkar.com Health initiative ----------------- Thanks to Shu <[email protected]> for alerting us to the news that IITs of Madras and Bombay are planning to link rural patients with the doctor through Internet. They are trying to use kiosk and Bluetooth technologies for rural healthcare. The TeNet group of IIT Madras in alliance with HP Labs India is planning a kiosk Internet link with a doctor for primary ailments. The plan is to equip the kiosk with certain basic devices like stethoscope, thermistor, blood pressure meter and ECG. The readings of these devices are transferred through Internet to the doctor at the district or taluk level. There will also be provision for video conferencing between the doctor and the patient. IIT Bombay is working on use of wireless technology for healthcare by application of Bluetooth and WLAN technologies for patient monitoring. http://www.wirelessweek.com/index.asp?layout=story&articleId=NEa0306280.5iw&vert icalID=223&vertical=Technology Window to Bhutan ---------------- >From Bhutan, a private independent online newsmagazine featuring comprehensive web-based news, view, opinions and articles on Bhutan and includes a comprehensive set of links to other international and regional news sources. That's what it promises to be. It also includes links to Bhutan government's Ministries and Departments and features information on Bhutan's festival, people, weather and travel. It includes information on diplomatic missions based in Bhutan. Thanks to Partha and Alan G Alegre for sending this through. See http://www.bhutannewsonline.com/ Bhutanese refugees ------------------ The Bhutanese refugees ( http://www.geocities.com/bhutaneserefugees ) website provides information on the origin, causes, and current situation about Bhutanese refugees and political situation in Bhutan. Looking at India's role ----------------------- A US National Science Foundation supported workshop on the Indian development experience in the context of ICTs was jointly organized by the School of Public Policy at George Mason University and the Department of Management Studies, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The workshop was co-sponsored by the Indian Institute of Information Technology and held in Bangalore during March 3- 5, 2003. A CD containing the profile of participants and abstracts of papers have been released for limited private circulation, according to Sreekumar <[email protected]> of the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. http://mgmt.iisc.ernet.in/conf2/GMU-IISc%20Workshop.htm Localized browsers ------------------ One of India's prominent Internet companies has been looking for programmers who will help localize Mozilla to Indian languages. Those who apply need to have at least 2-3 years experience, but above all, a passion for the Internet and for free /open source software. The objective of Indianizing Mozilla is to revolutionize computing in Indian languages, especially on the Internet. The selected individuals will be based in Mumbai. Contact [email protected] or [email protected] Consequences of IT ------------------ Anil Kanhangad of the ATPS <[email protected]> informs about Vivarasangamam, that was scheduled for March 8-9. It was a a joint meeting of various organizations and individuals for discussing the consequences of information technology in different sectors , with special reference to Kerala. See the web site: atpskerala.org for more details of Vivarasangamam. Back to Baramati --------------- Digital Partners and Vidya Pratishthan's Institute of Information Technology (VIIT) will be holding its third annual Baramati Initiative on ICT and Development from May 30-June 2. The Third Annual Baramati Initiative on ICT and Development will explore ways in which information communication technology is being used as a tool to empower the poor. It will emphasize the role of social entrepreneurs using ICT in opening new avenues for the poor in markets, e-commerce, and information sharing, and will explore models that demonstrate both social impact and financial sustainability. More details from Vipasha Gupta, Program Officer for our Social Enterprise Laboratory, at [email protected] and [email protected] and cc [email protected] or by fax at (011) 2649 4380. Digital Opportunity ------------------- Check out the Digital Opportunity Channel coming in from OneWorld South Asia in New Delhi. http://www.digitalopportunity.org You can contact the editor at [email protected] Tops in Urdu ------------ BBC's Urdu news site, BBCurdu.com, has just been ranked the world's best Urdu website by South Asia's leading internet magazine, Spider from Pakistan. The March issue of Spider carried out a survey of Urdu sites to rank the top 10 websites. BBCUrdu.com shared the honour with the news daily Jang's internet site, jang.com. Spider said BBCUrdu is "remarkable - one of the best news and entertainment sites and gives a high standard content in Urdu". "Since Urdu is just developing on the web, it is truly exciting to be part of the whole process," BBCUrdu editor Mohammed Hanif has been quoted saying. Others in the list include, two are Urdu dailies (Jang and Ausaf), and three portals. One offers Urdu and other regional language downloads (Liwal). One is a bilingual news site originating from the US (Urdu Times), and one offers Urdu tutorials, dictionaries and Urdu website building skills (Ukindia). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2831075.stm Indic solutions --------------- Joseph Koshy <[email protected]> from Bangalore asks: "Any suggestion on how we could increase the participation of talented developers in indian language (free software and) open-source projects?" Koshy, deeply involved with FreeBSD and IndicComputing, has done a lot of work on this front himself. See http://people.freebsd.org/~jkoshy/ or http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/ Planting ideas -------------- Ajit Maru <[email protected]> stresses the need for more agri-related information online. Says he: "I believe that increasing connectivity in the National Agricultural Information Systems will lead us towards new innovations.... Some of these are 'open information sources', 'virtual universities', agricultural intelligence units (though sinister sounding, they are primarily aimed to provide nations and regions of agricultural development and trade issues in other parts of the world), virtual collaboraties for multi-location, multi-disciplinary collaborative research which share resources such as laboratories, experimental farms and technical expertise within and across NARS etc.,. These will need new knowledge and skills for not only collaborating but managing these collaborations and joint activities." ICT in agri ----------- For more info on ICTs in agriculture, join the mailing list by sending a blank email to [email protected] Akshaya, Kerala --------------- Akshaya project is being implemented under the leadership of Kearala State IT Mission, Department of Information Technology, Govt. of Kerala. For more information see http://www.akshaya.net GNUMalayalam ------------ See this collection of Malayalam GNU/Linux screenshots. If you're to join with this effort, please contact Baiju M at [email protected] http://www.keralaindustry.org/malayalam/screenshots/screenshots.html Vernacular SMS on its way ------------------------- 11 million mobile phone users SMS primarily in English. A Canadian company, Zi Corporation, has introduced predictive text input for SMS in Hindi. Zi Corporation has announced what it claims to be the first predictive text input (also referred to as dictionary mode) for mobile phones in Hindi. The Devnagari script is complex unlike the English alphabet. Hindi alone has 33 consonants and 11 vowels. Add ligature - combinations of letters to form new letters of new shape, to these 44 characters and you have a horrid experience of creating text; even with a keyboard equipped with more than one hundred keys. http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/features/stories/77297.html See also http://www.zicorp.com Thanks to Ashish Kotamkar (ashish at mithi.com) for this piece of information. "Communicate in your own language. Log onto www.mailjol.com." English-Bangla translator source -------------------------------- Hasin Hayder <[email protected]> has announced the uploading of English to Bangla translator source code to a Bangla Open Source Community Site at : www.banglaosc.tk Check out the mirror : www.banglaosc.cjb.net "Download. The translator is easy for simple sentence conversion," says Hasin Hayder, the administrator of www.evelindev.tk and www.banglaosc.tk. You can send in comments at [email protected] National Workshop on Library Automation in Hindi ------------------------------------------------ [email protected] announces plans by INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad to hold such a workshop from April 7-11, 2003. Information and Library network (INFLIBNET) Centre, is an IUC of the Indian University Grants Commission (UGC), in Ahmedabad. This workshop will provide an opportunity to the working Library professional to understand and learn different aspects of Library Automation in Hindi medium. The workshop will cover topics related to library automation, networking, standards related to library automation, software for library automation etc. Special focus will be given on hands on practice. The entire lecture as well as practical sessions will be in Hindi. http://web.inflibnet.ac.in/info/NWLAH.pdf or contact Dr TAV Murthy, Director <[email protected]>, Shivpal Singh Kushwah, Sci/Tech Officer-I <[email protected]> or H G Hosamani Scientist-B <[email protected]> http://web.inflibnet.ac.in Info via PDAs ------------- Allsoft Technologies <[email protected]> is into into handheld PDA applications for storing and sending information and monitoring remote data. They say they've been one of the few companies who have been into applications for pocket-based handhelds wherein one can carry, capture and transfer data from remote places with the help of just a telephone line with or without access to the Internet. They offer expertise to government departments such as education, healthcare, agriculture, tourism, rural development, power, social welfare, rural/tribal development, watershed, police, healthcare, taxes, panchayati raj, etc. Besides to private segments such as pharma, insurance and logistics. More details from Rajeeb Ghosh Vice President Allsoft Technologies T-3, Priya Apartments, Somajiguda, Hyderabad 50008 India. Phone 91-40-5566-6868/6869 Fax 91-40-5566-6870 Email [email protected] http://www.allsoftindia.com 0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 bYtES For aLL is a voluntary, unfunded venture. CopyLeft, 2003. bYtES For aLL e-zine volunteers team includes: Frederick Noronha in Goa, Partha Sarkar in Dhaka, Zunaira Durrani in Karachi, Zubair Abbasi in Islamabad, Archana Nagvenkar in Goa, Arun-Kumar Tripathi in Darmstatd, Shivkumar in Mumbai, Sangeeta Pandey in Nepal, Rajkumar Buyya in Melbourne, Mahrukh Mohiuddin in Dhaka and Deepa Rai in Kathmandu, among others. If you'd like to volunteer in any way, please get in touch. BytesForAll's website www.bytesforall.org is maintained by Partha Sarkar, with inputs from other members of the volunteers' team and supporters. To subscribe to our main mailing list, send a blank email to [email protected] If you've missed out recent debates, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers 0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 -- Frederick Noronha : http://www.fredericknoronha.net : When we speak of free Freelance Journalist : http://www.bytesforall.org : software we refer to Ph 0091.832.2409490 : Cell 0 9822 122436 : freedom, not price. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]