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loband - Killer App for Developing World?
An anonymous reader submits "With recent stories about hardware products for the developing world - namely the MIT Media lab's $100 laptop and the Simputer, its interesting to see a software solution to the problems of internet access. Aidworld, a Cambridge (UK) based organisation specialising in ICTs for the developing world have created a free internet service to speed up web browsing in low bandwidth environments: loband. Using server-side compression and by filtering images, scripts and plugins while retaining content and basic formatting, loband reduces bandwidth requirements by between 5 and 50 times. Its making waves in development circles but it also seems to make for a much leaner browsing experience in this world of heavyweight websites. Could this be a much needed stepping stone for users in developing countries? Do high bandwidth consumers find the sites they view could look much cleaner?"
Using server-side compression and by filtering images, scripts and plugins while retaining content and basic formatting, loband reduces bandwidth requirements by between 5 and 50 times
I wouldn't mind making that standard for cell phone and PDA browsing
I don't care that I have fast broadband, I want the option of cleaning the html up and speeding my web experience.
Every second counts.
liqbase
loband - Killer App for Developing World?
I knew that overpopulation is a concern, but this is ridiculous.
I mean, if pr0n is what makes internet happen, how is loband expected to actually have success?
It's a good idea to heavily use adblock as well. As an average page refers to several advertising services, knocking them out will usually reduce the number of DNS queries by 2/3 and bandwidth use by like half. The key is to not limit it to just images, but gratuiously give wildcard bans to entire domains that have something with "counter" or "ad" in name.
And as a side effect... yeah, you'll have no ads as well.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Trying to design a $100 dollar laptop for starving users or kids who still go to schools where blackboards are mounted on trees is not a feasible idea.
Because they don't believe in stupid stereotypes.
Finally, we give them money, and stop giving them manufacturing equipment. Then they are only dependent on us for money. That's where we are with a lot of countries currently. Now, we need to phase out the free money we give them.
Free money? What do you think Third World Debt is?
Yes, those are sterotypes. But that doesn't make them untrue.
They are very real situations for thousands of children. The number of people in the world living in homes made of straw and mud with no electricity, running water, or even floors might surprise you.
$100 laptops is a good idea for developing regions.
But there are also regions where a $100 laptop is beyond the realm of possibility.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
Why dont they just sell their levitation technology to the west, they'd be rich!
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
It's a misconception that the developing and third worlds are unable to grow their own food and feed themselves. They can, and they don't even need genetically modified crops to do it.
What they need is well run, stable governments. Take a look at Zimbabwe. Used to be fairly stable and able to feed itself. Not anymore, expect to see and hear of famine and death from that region in the near future.
It's a similar story throughout Africa. Corruption, poor government, poor planning all mean that any problems such as drought are massively exaggerated and kill millions.
Of course, import tariffs on food, created by developed countries in order to protect their domestic agriculture don't help even a little bit.
Deleted
Nobody gives them free money. Even today, we see how the social cost of what money is offered often comes at a terribly high cost--the result of lending policies that absolutely nobody has enough experience to get right (yet). Even though you want to make the answers to third-world development sound simple, it repeatedly demonstrates itself as being beyond every program's and individual's expectations.
You sound interested, so Read up, buddy, and expand your mind at the expense of your confidence.
More than making them dependent on "free" food, one of the biggest problems with sending food (or money that is earmarked specifically for food*) is that it distorts the market prices in those areas. In other words, the local farmers can not compete with "free" and they are forced to shut their farms and move on to other ways to make a living. Given the relatively underdeveloped economies, this is a real problem because there aren't that many other ways to earn a living. Over the long term, this hurts their economies greatly.
Note that disasters are a different situation entirely.
* it's a common practice in Canada, and probably most other developed countries, for national (government) level donations of cash to come with stipulations that the donation must be used to buy Canadian (or [insert donating country name here]) goods. It makes everyone feel good about helping other countries without "costing" quite as much.
I think you have a pretty naive image of the world. You seem to believe that if poor people only knew how good it is to be rich, they will start making changes to become rich? So, what do you suppose they are doing right now? Do you think the problem of starvation is due to lack of motivation for agriculture?
I'm sorry for bashing you this hard, but I often meet people in western countries who seem to think that the developing world could become rich if they only knew or only tried harder. I believe there are quite a few structural hurdles as well. Western companies' interest in keeping a low-pay workforce for coffee, shoes, cocoa etc. is one of those hurdles. Tax barriers in developed regions is another hurdle. And lacking economic strength makes it in itself hard to develop a stronger economy (ironically), because it makes it extremely hard to defend your currency, interest rate and your companies from hostile foreign takeovers.
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you