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Browser To Facilitate Text Browsing In Emergencies
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Programmers at Fast Company are developing the Cosmos browser to allow text browsing from Android phones when networks are buckling under the load of local disasters. A common phenomenon when disaster strikes is the overloading of cell and data networks by massively increased traffic. The Cosmos browser is intended to facilitate using SMS text messages, which often still get through in such circumstances. To quote one developer, "We want this to be a way for people to get information when they're in dire need of it." Sort of a Lynx comes to Android affair. The Smithsonian contemplates the possibilities, here."
We saw a project like this (at least) a couple years ago. Someone did something like this previously, when data plans were generally expensive but unlimited SMS was easily available.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
With all the javascript driven websites these days, text browsing is a PITA.
Important information should be served via Gopher.
So in a disaster, when SMS i the only communication left, they want to encourage people to send even *more* SMS messages to ensure that SMS's fail too?
It's not likely to work very well, in the one disaster I was in where I could use SMS but nothing else (even my landline had no dialtone), SMS between customers of the same carrier worked well. SMS messages destined for other carriers took hours to arrive, sometimes longer, some didn't make it through at all. SMS's coming through an SMS to Email gateway stopped coming through at all, until after the disaster when they all came through at once.
Why do you miss it? It's not gone anywhere -> sudo apt-get install lynx
The Cosmos browser is intended to facilitate using SMS text messages, which often still get through in such circumstances.
But now that we're crowding SMS, people in need can't get those through either. Good going. This is a case of "Just because you can doesn't mean you should".
Having a text browser option is interesting, but if you can text, then why browse instead of texting? It seems inefficient. That said, IF (and that's a big if) people knew to go to some site to get information or updates and everybody could go to the site rather than individually texting the world - then that would be an improvement. While it would be nice to get people organized - and I wish you luck - it's like herding cats.
Everybody is busy busy busy in their own little world, no time to organize - just the way the people pulling the strings want it. Just had to put that sinister bit in there.
I refuse to sign
People are foolish to rely on a mobile phone for anything during a disaster or wide-area emergency.
If you want reliable information in those times, get a battery powered AM radio, and tune to your local station.
Forget about the FM music stations, they are all automated, and will just keep on playing "more music per hour than..." No one is there.
Your locally owned, small-market, analog AM station will have someone there giving you needed information.
Radios are still available starting at around $10. More expensive models also have the VHF NOAA weather band - a big plus, as in many states, the weather service radio stations are also authorized to provide emergency information, weather related or not.
Well said....
Leave SMS to just be SMS for disasters.....we don't need people trying to browse via text and overloading the SMS network (which will already be straining). JMHO...
Everything old is new again.
You can always buy a portable HF/VHF transceiver with some nifty digi modes. When disaster comes, what else is going to work anyway?
Ezekiel 23:20
SMS also uses the call setup channel, which if you're not able to make calls, means SMS isn't going to work well either.
I've had Lynx on my phone for a long time now...I would like a text-only browser that's more user-friendly (as in, more "normal") and maybe tries to make the layout match the rendered HTML more closely than Lynx though. For example Lynx shows a lot of menus as trees with different levels of indentation. There's no reason a pop-up menu system couldn't work in a CLI.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
elinks can be compiled with graphics support, allowing you to browse with images in a console as well (need gpm too or a touch screen equivalent).
And doesn't Stallman claim to surf the web via some hackery involving wget and email?
http://article.gmane.org/gmane...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
why much it up with browsers and stuff?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
When disaster comes, what else is going to work anyway?
I have my handheld aviation radio. Tune in to 121.5 and someone is going to listen. I also have CB radio as a backup. Plus of course, said AM radio (but most people will have AM, even if they don't know it: just get into your car).
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Wasn't there a girl who received an SMS message on 9/11 from her father telling her he was ok...only to find out that the message was several hours delayed and he was unfortunately dead by then? I'm thinking SMS probably can't be relied upon.
Remember how way back when mobile phones were marketed for emergencies? Now that almost everyone has one companies pocket the profit and run the network so close to capacity they become useless in an emergency. Personally I have a satellite phone for this very reason but it isn't cheap even with a limited plan.
Good luck with digital TV. Analog was great back before the current era when the signal might fade in and out, but still was enough to hear the vocal part and see images like weather radar, even if a bit fuzzy. Now the digital TV is much harder to keep tuned in, and is on or off, with nothing in between like analog.
Local TV stations should have kept some kind of analog fallback option for disaster situations to support a "public service/emergency broadcast network" capability.
Your experience with internet-transiting SMSe suggests the utility of an sms2web gateway would indeed likely be limited in a disaster. And the reason's obvious: If you're going to the Web, the requests eventually have to get onto an Internet router... which is buried under a tidal wave of normal web traffic. And that's assuming that the tower's wired WAN connection to the central office is up, and in turn that its CO's Internet connection is up.
I don't know that much about cell towers - Do they have narrow-beam wireless links with each other in order for e.g. a city-area network to continue working, or do they route everything through a wired connection, presumably a dedicated pipe to their central office?
SMS is a part of GSM circuit-switched technology (and retrofitted into CDMA). Carriers would like to eventually drop GSM altogether. In LTE, is't SMS supposed to eventually just be a virtual circuit, along with voice?
Then SMS isn't so simple, and loses a lot of it's robustness. An awful lot of stuff has to work vs the simplicity of SMS over GSM.
I wonder how reliable SMS will be when it is nothing more than just another packet, which may have somewhat higher priority over other packets?
Check out Degen or Sangean on Amazon. Some are shortwave radios, some world-bands, graphic-equalizers, portable, many take SD cards for MP3 playback.
TextOnly is an android app that pulls just the text from most web pages. Its based on IE6. I use it to read news.
Good luck with digital TV.
Where I live, rabbit ears work OK. Rooftop UHF antenna works great, which is my primary TV source anyway.
Have gnu, will travel.