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The Indian Info-Rickshaws
DoomDoom writes "CNN is running a story
on how the Indian government is delivering health and educational services on a WiFi equipped rickshaw to the poorest of its citizens. It's a poetical union of a typical third world product with high-tech! Do you still think computing is unnecssary for the poorest of the poor?"
English is a very common language in India. The Times of India, for instance, is an English-language newspaper.
Given the imperfections in any distribution system, the only way to make sure the poorest can get enough food to avoid starvation is to make it obscenely cheap.
Ever notice how the help for the poor is the US has changed "ending starvation" to "stopping malnutrition" to "feeding the hungry".
Yes, in the last few decades the US has eliminated starvation and undernutrition within its borders.
Pssst - don't tell the UN....
They probably won't say "this is just like when I was a UUCP node!" But I would :) Actually UUCP would be an excellent way to handle this stuff, although it wouldn't be necessary. You could come up with a UUCP protocol which handled one-way transmissions so you could receive the day's batches via some kind of cheap satellite system, and then use a two-way protocol (nothing wrong with g) to send when the rickshaw rolled by.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I could use a few ex-dotcommers to pull my rickshaw around.
unlike chinese rickshaws, indian rickshaws are not pulled, they are driven
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
If they were serious about that they'd create a tiny computer center in each village and instead of sending rickshaws around, send teachers instead.
There are a few barriers, from what I understand. One is communications lines, which don't exist in many of the rural areas. The other is that many rural Indians speak only a local dialect which isn't found on the Internet. It is possible that the tech support that goes along with the rickshaw also provides some translation facilities to help people make use of the Net. A group in Delhi called Radiophony is proposing using the Internet for voice communications (p2p or radio-like) in India to overcome the language barrier. This same group works on voice software for the disabled, and wrote the voice synthesizer software for Stephen Hawking. The idea is that voice is a more universal medium than text.
I just read
unlike chinese rickshaws, indian rickshaws are not pulled, they are driven
Actually India has both kinds of rickshaws, the human powered ones and those of the automobile kind. In bigger cities - like Delhi - where distances are greater, automobile rickshaws (or simply auto-rickshaws) are more practical. In smaller cities and towns, human powered cycle rickshaws are more popular 'cause they are greatly cheaper for the same given distance.