Comments on: Building a wall free Digital Tomorrow

By: Stuart

Stuart — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:23:22 +0000

The BBC World Service’s Digital Planet often covers the issue of the digital divide and internet access around the world. For instance in the developing world people may be more likely to access the internet in the future via mobile phone (cell phone) as it is cheaper to bypass installation of expensive land-line systems.

Consideration is required for both low bandwidths *and* vastly different screen sizes. Simple interfaces are generally better.

By the way, I think the One-Laptop-Per-Child initiative may be pre-installing some multimedia content on the sub-$100 laptops so some bandwidth issues could be addressed if agreements were made with them.

Various flavours of Linux are being distributed in the developing world presumably on CDs in the post. That is another way to get around bandwidth issues.

By: utsav

utsav — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:35:27 +0000

i loved your web site and youshould keep giving the information that you gave me
thank you,

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By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 13:00:59 +0000

Hi. I’m from Russia. Internet here NOW costs really about #20-30 per month (in the Moscow/S-Pb). Almost anyone can afford it. But as long as i can see – only few use it for educational purps/ for job. I am programmer… But i hate internet, because it is twice as evil as TV. It gives us opportunity to communicate, but people are sitting at their homes
p.s. Your blog and podcast are great!

By: David Madison

David Madison — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:24:16 +0000

Being bedridden from Multiple Sclerosis, I depend on the internet to occupy my mind. The router downstairs failed, but oddly, there are about a dozen local signals my notebook can hear, some of which are not secure. The next time I go downstairs, a major operation, I will install the new router. In the meantime, I listen to your weekly astronomy podcasts, marvel at the beauty of the skies, and write hundreds of short essays about astronomy and physics. There is no divide for me.

By: JTH

JTH — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:37:32 +0000

What’s a radio?

By: Freiddie

Freiddie — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:15:45 +0000

From where I was living, most people from developed countries would be very surprised at the expense of getting Internet, let alone high speed ones which are even comparable to a 1/10th of what’s normally seen in Western countries. It’ll certainly take some time before some “revolution” could happen and bring everyone in the world in pace (or so I think).

By: Spiro

Spiro — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:35:35 +0000

Greetings I am in Africa reading this om my phone. I can get internet through safaricom they also have mpesa which you can send money to someone with your phone. Keep up the great work.

By: Katie Berryhill

Katie Berryhill — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:20:56 +0000

I teach for an online university that has an amazing online library with access to all sorts of content. However, 85% of our students are military, and some of them are taking courses while deployed around the world. While broadband access is increasing, many of them have slow connections and/or limited time on shared computers.

Then there are the millions of people worldwide with no access at all (OLPC may help, but not completely). There are infrastructure problems that must be solved first. The developing world cannot solve these problems on their own.

By: Jorge Schrauwen

Jorge Schrauwen — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:35:59 +0000

Content wise it really depends on your audiance (sp?).

If a lot of your resources will be video and pictures…
Is a low-bandwith version needed? Probably not since if you are on low-bandwith ti will take minutes to download the pictures and video’s anyday.

If the majority will be text, then a low-bandwith version would be a nice addition for the few less fortunate.

Flash => big nono if you can avoid it.
Yes flash is nice and you can do wonderful things with it with ralative ease.

Yet lots of small devices (my ex PDA, phone…) all have limited support for javascript but no flash

If you design the page with these in mind (every thing is based on em’s not px for example) things will scale resonably well.

But flash content won’t even play.

So try to use as much of the basics as you can xhtml-transitional + css and some javascript can get you a whole way! (especial combined with frameworks)

By: (Mr.) Annas

(Mr.) Annas — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:52:21 +0000

…Wow… What a great post, of all of your posts, I have to say that this one struck me the most. I don’t know why precisely, but every point you make is completely true and the quesitons you pose are ones to consider. I just wanted to say keep up the good work!