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Ask Slashdot: Making a Tablet Run Only One Application?
An anonymous reader asks "I'm working for a medical centre who want to make a tablet with various videos and webpages about smoking cessation available in their waiting room. The tablet can't access the Internet because of security policies. I'm planning to use a local server with copies of the (Creative Commons) videos and pages accessed through local webpages using the tablet's browser. How can I make only the browser be available to the tablet users? Ideas? Suggestions?"
Easy if the tablet runs Windows or Linux. Much harder on other platforms. Maybe you should narrow the problem domain.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Put it on a VLAN, and Make HTTP(S) Go straight to the web server and only the web server. There are portal WAPs that do just that. Securing the tablet from running anything else would be as easy as installing a custom version of CyanogenMod or similar. Heck even Apple might be able to make an iPad that did just that.
I'd also tether the thing to the room, or it will walk away.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I do not have a solution to your problem. I am curious about the situation though. Is there a reason your organization wants this to be easy-to-steal-and-expensive tablets? Especially when there's the security policy. And you'll have to keep them charged too. Why not just a cheap laptop. Or a pamphlet and TV?
I realize it's difficult to get people to stop smoking, but fancy technology isn't always the solution.
If using Android: create a replacement launcher app, set your new app as the default launcher, and... profit?
Just roll your own AOSP build that only has /system/app/Browser.apk along with essential system UI apks and include none of the networking drivers that the device needs.
I mean seriously - the first time someone thinks they can walk out the door with the tablet, it's gone. Don't think it wouldn't happen.
Why not instead just make a dvd with those videos and print out the text of the websites? You could have a small tv hooked up to a dvd player, have the dvd available to those interested, etc....
It wouldn't be as convenient to steal, and it is a technically easier way to set something like this up. Why are you going to such great lengths to make something more complicated than necessary?
You need digital signage, not a tablet. Only one person at a time can use a tablet. A couple of flat screens off a cheap PC hidden up in the ceiling or a closet, and use Xibo.
If you are using iPad, there is an app called MediaKiosk. This is used with metal kiosk housings that prevent the 'home' button from being pushed and will allow the charge cable to always be connected. Not really helpful for portable.
Without knowing what Tablet OS you are targeting it is difficult to give you advice. You can just search on google for the terms "kiosk mode" + whatever OS and that should give you what you are looking for.
Android Tutorial: http://www.basic4ppc.com/forum/basic4android-getting-started-tutorials/10839-android-kiosk-mode-tutorial.html
iPad: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kiosk-pro/id409918026?mt=8
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os
The only app that runs is the browser, it is based on gentoo so you can install pam modules to meet your site requirements needs (ldap, kerberos, etc),
And it is designed so you can easily force an enterprise wide os refresh whenever you need/want.
Work bio at MMWD
The solution that you want may fully well exist without having to reinvent the wheel.
Is there any reason you can not use a LCD picture frame?
I don't know how well they deal with video but I suspect that you can put a good a presentation using stills on one of those.
Just paint a black frame around some rectangular mirrors and put a big reversed brochure printout on the ceiling. Nobody will know the diff and you can keep the real tablets for yourself. (My experience at AOL is paying off.)
Table-ized A.I.
iOS has parental restrictions. Enable restrictions, enable Safari, leave everything else disabled. No step 3.
Delete the other applications? Was that the answer?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Tablets are generally designed to be resilient, and usable by the unskilled. For that reason, they can't usually be locked down like this, because the feature, in and of itself, is more technical than tablets are meant to be.
I don't know much about Androids, but an iPad makes a good example. Can you hijack DNS on the your wifi network? Yes... but it's incredibly easy to join another wifi network that isn't redirected, and there are no User and Administrator type accounts to keep people from doing so.
If you jailbreak an iPad, there is an extension you can install that locks it into a particular app (the browser, in this case). But getting around it involves, I think, nothing fancier than rebooting the device. You could modify the Hosts file on it to redirect no matter which network the user is on, as well... but a dedicated goof-off could always resort to direct DNS entry to cause mischief.
I would try to find out if anyone sells a wireless display with touchscreen capabilities. That could be linked to a computer that's locked down at an arbitrary level, and would prevent users from engaging in the kinds of shennigans they get up to when they have access to function keys and Reset buttons. If users can use the ctrl key or reboot the machine, you -will- end up with porn on your browser.
As a bonus, the device would be borderline useless to anyone who walks off with it and isn't fairly gadget-oriented, and you might be able to run several of them off of one host machine.
If this exists, someone should let me know, because I've made made want one.
If it doesn't you cold even use one of these:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/usb-gadgets/c609/
Wireless is great, but the real goal is just something hand-held that each person in the waiting room can have one of. Run some USB cables out to each end-table in the waiting room, and attach them to these. They're cheap, so have them stolen is less of an issue... unplugging them makes the, stop working, which makes them less immediately temping... they have no keyboard and no buttons that affect the actual computer behind the scenes... They're a perfect solution if you don't mind a few cables.
iPad in Kiosk mode:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mediakiosk/id352741530?mt=8
Android in Kiosk mode:
http://www.42gears.com/blog/2011/10/kiosk-mode-on-android/
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Why not use one of the cheap ass video players that sell for 80 bucks and can hold video and PDF documents and pretty much nothing else?
My kids have these Coby knockoffs that they love and have no trouble using. They play video (in way more formats than most tablets) and PDF and picturse, and that's about it, no pesky browser or wireless networking to bother with. Best of all it isn't a 500 dollar item people will want to walk off with, and even if they do walk off with it, you are out 80 bucks instead of 500.
Of course if what you are trying to do is show that you can throw thousands of dollars into the waiting room, that won't really accomplish what you are trying to do.
...he wants a digital photo frame with Wifi
and for security... unplug the dam server from the internet! if it's only serving local file then no bloooooody net access is required. ^_^
Simples!!!
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Ou mean like copying the video to an SD card and set up a user with only execute permissions to one file on the system
.... Nah that would never work.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.