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A $20 8-Bit Wikipedia Reader For Your TV
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Wired about another entry in the ongoing quest for low-tech-high-tech educational tools to take advantage of distributed knowledge: "The Humane Reader, a device designed by computer consultant Braddock Gaskill, takes two 8-bit microcontrollers and packages them in a 'classic style console' that connects to a TV. The device includes an optional keyboard, a micro-SD Card reader and a composite video output. It uses a standard micro-USB cellphone charger for power. In all, it can hold the equivalent of 5,000 books, including an offline version of Wikipedia, and requires no internet connection. The Reader will cost $20 when 10,000 or more of it are manufactured. Without that kind of volume, each Reader will cost about $35."
I can't imagine that the audience this is aimed at is likely to own an HDTV, so presumably they'll be trying to read masses of blurry text on an older SDTV. Sounds like fun.
Cool, but places where people have televisions also have public libraries. It's not like they can't find knowledge if they want to.
That's $2.50 per bit!
Outrageous!
it can hold the equivalent of 5,000 books
...if the books are 200 pages long each. Or it can hold 500 books if they are 2000 pages long each. In other words it either holds a dump truck full of books, or a Volkswagen full of books. Hope that makes it clear for the non-technical readers out there.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Just kinda underwhelming?
Maybe I've become a relic, but I don't enjoy reading for long periods of time on a screen.
If I do, I want a book, or at least, a printout.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=download+wikipedia&l=1
You didn't try at all did you?
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
You realize the kindle doesn't have a monthly fee right? Not saying anything about your other requirements, just that one.
Considering India just announced a $35 Linux laptop INCLUDING screen, memory and hard drive this product is overpriced and under capable. In the longer run the Linux laptop should be under $20. IThe laptop also allows the user to learn anywhere not just where the TV is located. I think most people would be OK carrying a laptop versus a TV. I would also think it takes less power for an LCD laptop than for a TV. Nice invention, only 10 yrs too late.
That's why the majority of eReaders on the market use eInk as their primary display. It basically eliminates the problem of eyestrain from reading off a screen. The older ones don't have very high contrast though, which makes Amazon's recent announcement of 50% better contrast very intriguing to me.
The wikipedia articles are alright, but it seems to me that having photos with short articles would make this much more compelling. After all, people don't love reading old copies of national geographic just for the articles. The pictures are generally what make it interesting and exciting, which is exactly how we want to portray learning to third-world children.
That is where e-ink comes in. Seriously, the first time I tried a Kindle I thought there was a sticker on the screen, it looks that much like paper.
Yes, trying to read it on your iPad, laptop, etc. is going to be underwhelming, but the Kindle/Nook e-readers with e-ink is very easy on the eyes and just as good as paper.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I wish I'd thought of that.
The difference is that this can actually be built for around $35, less than that in bulk. The Indian announcement is very unlikely to actually result in a $35 laptop.
Just kinda underwhelming?
Maybe I've become a relic, but I don't enjoy reading for long periods of time on a screen.
If I do, I want a book, or at least, a printout.
That's where the whole e-ink thing comes into play -- a screen that uses reflected (instead of emitted) light. As much of a cliché as it is, the screen really does disappear once you get into whatever you're reading.
This guy's the limit!
http://www.free-soft.ro/pocket-wikipedia/pocket-wikipedia.html
It's not official, but it's fine.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I seriously doubt that $35 claim on his device. If he sells it in the USA the requirements to make it "safe" will drive up the cost. Who even makes 8-bit microcontrollers? The last time I played with them was the Intel 8051 and 8031 in the early 1990s and they were hard to get then. The $35 laptop made in India for use in India..yea they can do that.
Most places where this would be useful can't afford a TV to hook it up to.
Where I live (*not* a particularly rich town), there is a total glut of old-style portable CRT TVs- no-one wants them and charity shops aren't even accepting them any more. I'm damn sure you could get one for bugger all if you wanted to.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I second that. Plus the you can change the font size to help the hard of seeing.
Can't see the forest for the trees, huh? Some guy is trying to create a device to try spread knowledge and you're bickering over a simple typo.
I mean, you're using double question marks in your topic and failing to capitalize a bunch of stuff. Oh, and 'nonetheless' should be contracted into a single word. If you're going to wail about grammar and spelling, then at least try to contribute a comment that's properly formatted, rather than paint yourself a fool.
You might want to check out the statistics as related by the company making these devices. The developing world has a glut of TVs but very few computers and little Internet access. These devices can help fill that gap.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I remember the first time I dared hook it up to the VCR input
(5 siblings, one televison, and i was going to do something that made it single use person only)
and DAMN it looked good in color on the TV...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
You made two capitalization errors (three, if you count "the internet") and spelled nonetheless as three words. I really don't care, but since you're being a pedant...
I might doubt the cost too, but 8 bit microcontrollers are very popular now, even with the widespread availability of 32 bit systems. Many consumer devices include Microchip and Atmel chips if they don't need more power. There's also a bit Arduino (Atmel) hobby crowd.
It doesn't say what the display is but it's probably going to be 40 column text. 80-column is possible but I remember 80 columns being almost unreadable in my home computer days (and it took 16k of RAM for a black/white 80-column screen).
Will there be graphics....? Decoding JPEG images on an 8-bit chip will be painful. The device won't be able to hold all the bitmaps for a page in RAM so they'd have to be decoded on the fly as you scroll. Ick.
Doing this in 8 bits is reducing it too far. A 16-bit chip wouldn't cost much more but would make this device much, MUCH better.
No sig today...
No mention of actual storage capacity that I could find...or does it rely on SD cards....or what? Wikipedia is in the Gigabyte range afaik
8-bit microcontrollers are easy to buy. You just have to buy the part micro-controller. The arduino has an 8-bit micro-controller.
And, Wikipedia will not need an Internet conx, so what ever version it is will soon be stale. When they discover that Abraham Lincoln was a Jewish meat-cutter on Staten Island who liked hardcore punk, the people surfing Wikipedia on this thing will remain ignorant.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I don't disagree completely, I'm just wondering about how much this is going to be useful where it's really needed. I mean, it's a "bring your own screen", and that means it's going to need a TV. Oh, and be somewhere you have enough power to run a TV.
I suppose you could find enough of those little 9" black and white portable jobbies to fulfill some of the need, and those take various voltages of power both in AC and DC, but the kind of power a hand-crank generator puts out isn't going to run any TV anyone in Middle NoWhereistan is going to be able to get.
By and large, the market that can afford this and a TV and power to run the whole thing isn't going to want it. Or am I missing some significant market segment?
Except maybe as a portable schoolbook in areas where TVs are common, I suppose. Kid hooks it up to a TV at school, has access to textbooks, hooks it up at TV home and has same access, and if kid drops it school district is out a replacement cost that's far less than the cost of one printed textbook, and two orders of magnitude less than the cost of a brandy-new MacBook Pro.
VGA-out, if it's not terribly expensive, could at least allow it to be hooked up to a computer monitor - slightly better resolution, not all that much harder to obtain, etc.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Considering that the 10 dollar computer that was also announces is turning out to be a 30 dollar plastic box with no input or screen, and it costs no less than $30? that $35 tablet is going to be at least $60 when they are done with it.
Two micro controllers sounds like at least one too many to me, and it looks like they're using reed switches instead of the much cheaper membrain type.
Let's face it, $35 isn't cheap. $20 is a lot better (you're now in impulse purchase range) but it's still not cheap - there's a link to a $12 computer on the same page as the article.
I like the idea, but if you're going to wish for 10,000 units, then you might as well wish for enough units to support full scale integration and put everything on a single chip.
Oddly enough that might not be the demographic they are aiming at, but I would think that would be the demographic more likely to buy one.
Much like the OLPC, they may have been targeted at undeveloped nations, but I would bet more geeks bought them as toys than how many were deployed to undeveloped nations.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Even if it is $60 or 60 rupees, for double the cost you get one hell of a lot more utility!!! Plus the laptops can also access the Internet where it is available. IIRC, this thing you hook to the TV you need a PC to download then xfer to an SD card, unless of course they catch on and someone starts selling books on SD cards. With Kindles at $139 now, and laptops under $100 the cost vs utility of this device is poor.
I'm Brazilian and you wouldn't believe how few public libraries there are in Brazil. Even most public schools don't have libraries. But every family, even the poorest ones, have a TV.
Am I the only human in the world who has reverted to CRTs on the desktop and in the living room?
Cheap to buy. Colour looks right from all angles. Nice range of dark to bright. And built to last for decades - every LCD I've had to use is so fucking flimsy by comparison. Backlights fade and power supplies seem to be built with a self-destruct.
Hell, on a larger non-HDTV screen (btw I want better writing, not more eye candy) the softness of an older set is much nicer than the blockiness of a new LCD.
But then when I'm on the move it's with a Psion Series 3a and a 7-year-old mobile, wondering how the hell anyone does any real work on an iPhone thumbpad.
It's been overloaded for hours and there's no real details on the linked page.
No sig today...
Plus, oh I dunno, the cost of publishing is reduced to NEGLIGIBLE!
(or should be)
I like mine better, it has DON'T PANIC on the cover. its cheaper than Encyclopedia Galactica. and says mostly harmful on the earth entry.
Move along, nothing to see here
The design is truly lame. Yes bitbanging ntsc video out of an AVR is neat but if you are really trying to build a mass produced device this design is about as stupid as possible. Bitbang video and bitbang USB via yet another AVR with a third as the CPU? Oh. My. God.
Use a single chip ARM or MIPS with a real framebuffer with video out and USB on chip. Can't cost more than the three AVRs in quantity and will do so much more.
And another benefit is that they are also pitching it as a computer but it isn't. I love the AVR line as an embedded colution but the Harvard arch is a killer in that you can't run programs from RAM and the program flash is only good for 10K writes.
Democrat delenda est
...and while it's obviously over $100 more than his price, the new $139 WiFi Kindle is tempting -- and I already have far more physical books that I've already bought than I have time to read (and no, the carrying around of them is not a reason why I haven't read them). Even just for the free books you can get.
And I am very excited to see they want to use this for 'learning'. Great, 'learning' from an offline dump of Wikipedia. What's going to happen when hundreds of thousands of children in developing nations get a dump with some vandalism in it? Will they learn that George W. Bush is the spawn of some underworld creature, or Barack Obama is an Islamic terrorist born in Kenya? How will they respect the British elite military frogmen when they believe them to be half-men half-frog creatures that live in the sea?
The developing world has a glut of TVs but very few computers and little Internet access. These devices can help fill that gap.
How does this help them get internet access? It requires a pre-existing internet connection to work.
... and then they built the supercollider.
It was easy to read the text on a standard (non-HD) TV screen.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
With Kindles and Nooks headed below $100, probably by Christmas, this is not worth the eyestrain and massive headaches!
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Yeah, that's what I tell everyone about the Nook's screen (prefer the Nook b/c of its format support)--just like paper.
"I've spent my whole life figuring out crazy ways to do things. It'll work." -- Montgomery Scott, "Relics"
More likely that some other geek builds their own design to the same spec.
"I've spent my whole life figuring out crazy ways to do things. It'll work." -- Montgomery Scott, "Relics"
Who even makes 8-bit microcontrollers?
Atmel and microchip mainly at least if by 8-bit you mean 8-bit data (most microcontrollers at that level are harvard architectures with wider program memory than data memory).
I haven't used the atmel stuff (which he is using) myself so I can't comment on how easy it is to get. Most of the microchip stuff i've used is held as stock by both RS and Farnell (the two major prototyping parts vendors here in the UK) and microchip will also sell it you directly (though the shipping and handling charges are annoying). In the US you'd probablly want to look at digikey, mouser or newark as a source.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I still stand by my original perspective on this device in perpetuity.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
The summary says it doesn't require one, and the implication on Humane's website is the same. It makes no sense to design a device for areas without Internet connectivity and then require it to have an Internet connection!
Check out my world simulator thingy.
If you're in the UK, you might also want to look at Maplin Electronics; they're generally slightly more expensive than RS or Farnell, but willing to sell in smaller quantities, which is nice if you're a hobbyist. (Last time I went there, several years ago, they were even willing to sell single resistors for 7p each, rather expensive for a resistor, but cheaper overall if you just want a few because you don't have to buy thousands at a time. I assume they're more expensive nowadays.)
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
It makes no sense to design a device for areas without Internet connectivity and then require it to have an Internet connection!
But you say in your post that it helps give them an internet connection. Not making a lot of sense there.
... and then they built the supercollider.
No, you just misread it. Or I was not clear enough. The "gap" being filled is one of information, not Internet access.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
The "gap" being filled is one of information, not Internet access.
Yeah, you don't really say that. The "gaps" you explicitly mention are "computers" and "internet access," neither of which this device addresses (technically, it might be a computer, but not how we would think of one in the modern context.)
Couldn't the lack of information be better addressed by printed documents and local libraries, which don't even require electricity?
... and then they built the supercollider.
If you're in the UK, you might also want to look at Maplin Electronics
mmm I do sometimes use them when i'm in a pinch. the big problem with maplin is that thier range of components has got worse and worse over the years. I do still sometimes use them in a pinch though.
they were even willing to sell single resistors for 7p each, rather expensive for a resistor,
seems they have gone up to 17p. Buy 10 at that price and you are up to nearly what rapid want for 100 equivilent resistors*
because you don't have to buy thousands at a time
Thousands is a bit of an exaggeration but yeah resistors do tend to come in fairly high quantities (50-100 is a typical pack size).
A bigger problem is minimum order values and/or small order charges. It's fine when your buying everything for project at once but a real pain when I just want one or two components for a hobby project**.
When it comes to prototyping resistors i've found the best thing to do is to get a resistor kit, for prototyping resistors e.g. http://www.rapidonline.com/Electronic-Components/Resistors-Potentiometer/Metal-Film-Resistors/MR25-Metal-film-resistor-kit/65199 .
P.S. I didn't mention maplin or rapid in my previous post because the subject at hand was micrcontrollers and afaict both maplin's and rapid's ranges of microcontrollers seem pretty absymal.
* The resistors maplin sell are actually relatively high spec having a power rating of 0.6W (in the conventional 0.25W body size) and a tolerance of 1%, if all you really needed was a cheap carbon film then maplin's price looks even worse.
** when doing stuff for the uni the uni hs deals that get us out of things like minimum order values and small order charges as well as getting us pretty steep discounts
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Am I the only human in the world who has reverted to CRTs on the desktop and in the living room?
FWIW, I'm still watching my Trinitron portable, and very happy with it. Until about a month ago I was also using a CRT monitor, and replaced it partly due to some scratch-like damage to the CRT coating that (oddly) appears to have grown much worse and intrusive even in casual use- and partly due to it being fairly lo-res by modern standards.
But despite the benefits of my new monitor, the viewing angle is poor (LCDs seem to have started getting *worse* after years of improvement in that area(!)) and its inbuilt TV tuner isn't as nice for standard definition material as the Trinitron. Partly because it's upscaled to 1080i, and partly because it's a matte screen. But the viewing angle is still an issue for TV viewing- then again, I bought the TV tuner as a cheap "nice to have" additional feature on a monitor, so no big deal.
But the fact remains that there's a glut of portable CRT TVs, particularly since such sets never(?) include an integrated DVB-T digital tuner and my area is switching off the analogue signal soon. Sure, you can buy a digibox, as I've owned for years- but it's still not as "nice" if you're looking for an excuse to buy a new, dirt-cheap LCD telly anyway.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
(Additional; "digibox" = genericised trademark commonly used in the UK to refer to an external digital terrestrial DVB-T TV tuner (*), similar to the American "converter box")
(*) Irony is that the trademark Digibox came from Sky's *satellite* TV set-top box...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Displaying Ascii porn as a JPG
63,488 bytes of jpg- to show a picture that AS DESIGNED
took maybe80*200=16,000 bytes in the original iteration?
ascii is LOSSLESS imagery.. you can even zip it down and compress it further
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random