Simputer
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Introduction

Simputer is a multilingual mass access low cost hand held device currently being developed. The information mark up language is the primary format of the content accessed by the Simputer. The information mark up language (IML) has been created to provide a uniform experience to users and to allow rapid development of solution on any platform.
The Simputer proves that illiteracy is no longer a barrier in handling a computer. The Simputer through its smart card feature allows for personal information management at the individual level for a unlimited number of users. Applications in diverse sectors can be made possible at an affordable price.

A rapid growth of knowledge can only happen in an environment which admits free exchange of thought of information. Indeed, nothing else can explain the astounding progress of science in the last three hundred years. Technology has unfortunately not seen this freedom two often. Several rounds of intends discussions among the trustees convinced them that the only way to break out the current absurdities is to foster a spirit of co-operation in inventing new technologies. The common mistake of treating to-operation as a synonym of charity poses its own challenges. The Simputer Licensing Framework is the Trust's responds to these challenges.

What is Simputer?
A Simputer is a multilingual, mass access, low cost, portable alternative to PC's by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man. It has a special role in the third world because it is ensures that illiteracy is no longer barrier in handling a computer. The key to bridging the digital divide is to have shared devices that permit truly simple and natural users interfaces based on sight, touch and studio. The Simputer meets these demands through a browser for the Information Markup Language (IML). IML has been created to provide a uniform experience to users to allow rapid development of solutions on any platform.

Features
Simputer is a hand held device with the following features:
- It is portable
- A (320 X 240) LCD Panel which is touch enabled
- A speaker, microphone and a few keys
- A soft keyboard
- A stylus is a pointing device
- Smart card reader in Simputer
- The use of extensive audio in the form of text to speech and audio snippets
The display resolution is much smaller than the usual desktop monitor but much higher than usual wireless devices (cell phones, pagers etc). The operating system for Simputer is Linux. It is designed so that Linux is to be started up in frequently, but the Simputer is in a low power mode during the times it is not in use. When the Simputer is 'powered on', the user is presented with a screed having several icons.

What Makes Simputer Different From Regular PCs?
Simputer is not a personal computer. It could however be a pocket computer. It is much more powerful than a Palm, with screen size 320 x 240 and memory capability (32MB RAM). The Wintel (Windows + Intel) architecture of the de facto standard PC is quite unsuitable for deployment on the low cost mass market. The entry barrier due to software licensing is just too high. While the Wintel PC provides a de facto level f standardization, it is not an open architecture. The Simputer mean while is centered around Linux which is freely available, open and modular.
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RADICAL SIMPLICITY FOR UNIVERSAL ACCESS
INTRODUCTION
Even the poorest of the poor will pay for a service, if that service improves in someway their quality of life. Several corporates are now addressing rural markets and they have the need for information and communication infrastructure in remote rural locations.
For achieving this the Simputer project was conceived during the organization of the Global Village, an International Seminar on Information Technology for Developing Countries, conducted during Bangalore IT.com event in October 1998.[1]
If the right service is made accessible in the right way information technology can impact the lives of the people all over the world .The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man. It has a special role in the third world because it ensures that knowledge of English is no longer a barrier to handling a computer. [1]
Simputerâ„¢s About:
Bridging the Great Digital Divide Affordable Computing: A device which can bring benefits of IT to the people[7]
The key to bridging the digital divide is to have shared devices that permit truly simple and natural user interfaces based on sight, touch and audio. It is designed to be modular and extensible and based entirely on free software from the open source initiative.
Developers
Simputer was developed indigenously by scientists from the Indian Institute of Science and technologists of Encore Software. They have started a commercial venture, PicoPeta Simputers Pvt. Ltd., to ensure that it does not, like many other promising projects, remain on the drawing board. The Simputer Trust is a non-profit trust created basically to develop technology that will help take information technology to rural areas. The Managing Trustee of the simputer trust is
Mr.Vinay Deshpande. The other trustees are Vijay Chandru (IISc), Shashank Garg (Encore), Vivek.K.S (IISc), Swami Manohar (IISc), Mark Mathias (Encore), and V Vinay (IISc). Rahul Matthan (Trilegal) is the legal counsel for the Simputer Trust and has played a key role in defining the Simputer General Purpose License.
Affordable Computing
The projected cost of the Simputer is about Rs 9000 at large volumes. It uses all off-the-shelf components so they are mature technology components that do not have a very high price.[4]
Simputer Vs Palm
Simputer is not a PDA, it is a lot more powerful than a typical PDA; it has a 206 MHz RISC processor. The screen size is 320x240, with memory of 32 MB RAM. It is a complete Linux machine, it runs x-windows; we can run many x-applications by simply recompiling for the ARM processor. We have xterm and xclock running on the prototypes of the Simputer. [7]
Similar devices
The designs similar to the simputer are: the Japanese Morphy One, the Pengachu and more recently the Brazilian
'VolksComputer'.[1]
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SIMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
Hardware
CPU Intel's StrongARM SA-1110 CPU running at 206 MHz Memory 16-64 MB of SDRAM 08-32 MB Flash for non-volatile storage Display Options 240x320 LCD Colour or Monochrome Display Panel with backlight Input Device Touch-panel Overlay on LCD Display with a plastic stylus (Pen) Direction and Selection Keys Audio Interface Audio Codec Support for external head-set SmartCard Interface USB Interface SmartCard Reader/Writer USB Port
Connectors in Basic Unit
SmartCard Connector RJ-11 Telephone Jack USB Type-A Connector AC Adapter Input
Power Supply
2xAA-sized NiMH batteries Internal charge management Operates with external AC Adapter
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System Software
Operating System Soft-Modem Algorithms Network Protocols Perl/Tk scripting environment TCP/IP, FTP, Telnet, PPP, HTTP etc. Linux Kernel 2.4.18 V.34/V.17 Data/Fax Modem Technology
Application Software
IMLI Tapatap: Dhvani Internet Access Music PIM Applications IML browser Input method Text-to-Speech Software Browser, Email, File-Transfer MP3 Player Notepad, Address Book, Calculator
Accessories
Expansion Docking Cradle Compact Flash [CF-II] Slot, USB Slave and Serial Port
Development Tools
Software Development Kit [SDK] consisting of
ARM Cross-compilation Tool-chain Utilities[8]
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HARDWARE
Smartcard interface
Smartcard driver for the simputer is a driver for the Philips TDA8008 smartcard controller. It uses the ALPAR protocol to communicate with the controller. The controller supports ISO7816-4 complaint cards following the T=0 and T=1 protocol. Drivers are available for Linux/x86, for use with the smartcard development board and for Linux/arm, for use with the simputer.
The Smartcard driver for the Linux/x86, uses the serial port to communicate with the development board. In the case of the arm platform, the driver uses a kernel module to communicate with the controller. This is because a polling serial driver is used rather than the default interrupt-mode serial driver in Linux. Currently, the smartcards that have been tested include BULL-CP8, Schlumberger Payflex and Philips DS Personalization cards. [2]
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SYSTEM SOFTWARE
The boot loader : Blob
The boot loader used on the simputer is called blob. Blob for the simputer is present at offset 0 on the flash of the simputer, and is responsible for loading the kernel and ramdisk images from flash to DRAM. It also displays a logo on the LCD of the simputer when it is loading the kernel and ramdisk. This logo is also stored on the flash and can be replaced by our favourite logo too.[1]
The Simputer Linux kernel
The Linux kernel for the Simputer is based on the arm patches to the Linux kernel maintained by Russel King and Nicolas Pitre. This has been modified to work on the Simputer. The current kernel version is 2.4. The source code includes the drivers for flash, audio , keypad on the simputer, and simputer touch screen and frame buffer.[1]
The Ramdisk image
The Ramdisk image is transferred to DRAM by blob, during boot time, and is used by the kernel as a root file system on ramdisk. It contains the GNU C library and associated libraries, a shell, busybox, various startup scripts and a flash driver to mount the flash file system. The Ramdisk image is a compressed ext2 file system created using the loopback file system.[1]
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The flash file system
The flash file system on the simputer contains libraries required for XFree86 clients (libX11, libXaw, libXt...), Perl 5.5, Perl/Tk, perl modules required for IMLI (XML:Tonguearser, MIME::Base64), rxvt, xclock, chimera, Tapatap, wmx, kernel drivers for the simputer, all compiled for the arm. The flash file system is an ext2 file system. It also includes various X11 fonts that are required by the applications.[1]
Modifications to X-Windows and Window Manager
Modifications to XFree86 4.0.1 X window gives some X windows related developments including the modified wmx window manager used on the Simputer and the patch to X needed for portrait mode 4-bit display. XFree86 4.0.1 runs in portrait mode (required by most handhelds), for displays whose depths are 8, 16, 24 and 32 bits.[1]
Modifications to the window manager (wmx) wmx-5 requires clicks from both the mouse-buttons and some keyboard clicks for effective usage. Since the right mouse click is not easy on a touch screen, and since the simputer does not have a keyboard, modifications have been done for easy usage on the simputer. A launch menu has also been added. The modified wmx follows the same licensing model as wmx.[1]
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The Simputer Softmodem
The modem for the Simputer has been written in software and currently works at 2400 bps without error correction. The code currently is capable of uploading a file from the Simputer to the remote host and has been implemented in user level.[1]
The softmodem distribution includes the following files: 1. A user level V22 softmodem (2400 bps) 2. A driver for the telecom codec (ucb1300) 3. Userland utilities for controlling the telecom codec like going off/on hook, changing sampling rates, buffer sizes etc.
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SIMPUTER SOFTWARE PACKAGES
IMLI: The IML browser
IMLI is an abbreviation for IML interface. The purpose of IMLI is to provide a simple and consistent interface for displaying information and developing applications that are simple, user friendly. IMLI supports display of Indian languages, and is also integrated with a speech-synthesis system, that is capable of synthesizing voice in Indian languages. The speech synthesis system is distributed separately. It uses a protocol called ITP, IML transport protocol.[1]
The novelty of the Information Markup language (IML) browser (user-interface of the simputer) is: uniformity across diverse applications ease of use support for multilingual text and speech output support for smart card usage.
Tapatap: cool character composition
Tapatap is a method for generating keystrokes to be sent to other applications, for devices, where a keyboard is absent. Tapatap uses a 3x3 grid for recognizing characters. For example, each character of the Kannada alphabet can be generated by "tapping" on the cells of the 3x3 grid in a particular sequence. The figure generated by connecting the "tapped" points, roughly resembles the way the character is written. Tapatap starts of in "letter" mode; it can be changed to go into
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"number" mode by clicking on the button at the bottom. This brings up the numeric telephone style keypad, for number entry. Clicking again on the button at the bottom, brings it back to the "letter" mode. [1]
DHVANI: The Simputer Text-to-Speech Software
DHVANI gives resources needed to set up text-to-speech synthesis in Indian languages. Using images in conjunction with voice output in local languages makes the Simputer accessible to a larger fraction of the Indian population. Currently, Dhvani has a Phoneticsto-Speech engine which is capable of generating intelligible speech from a suitable phonetic description in any Indian Language. In addition, it is capable of converting UTF-8 text in Hindi or Kannada to this phonetic description, and then speaking it out using the Phonetics-to-Speech engine.[2]
Technical Description
Text to Phonetics routine The Text-to-Phonetics routine for Kannada/Hindi reads a text in UTF-8 format and converts this text into phonetic description. Indian Languages are, by and large, phonetic in nature, so this task does not present major challenges. Hindi, however, turns out to be an exception. Eg:why is karna, i.e. to do, pronounced karna and not karana The Hindi routine uses a new algorithm to determine where this implicit vowel occurs; this algorithm works correctly for all basic words but goes wrong on compound words, like DevNagar ,which it would pronounce as Devangar. Kannada poses no such problems and is relatively straightforward. Sample UTF-8 files for Hindi, Kannada, and
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phonetic demo files for Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam are included with the distribution. [1]
Phonetics-to-Speech Engine The Phonetics-to-Speech Engine works by diphone-
concatenation. It uses a database of about 800 basic sounds, which are pitch-marked. All the engine does is to read the phonetic description, identify the appropriate diphones, concatenate them at pitch-marks, and play out the resulting signal. To reduce the database size, we use an open-source implementation of the GSM 06.10 RPELTP compression standard. This reduces the database size to about1MB (even though it appears to be 2MB due to fragmentation).All basic sounds are recorded at 16000Hz as 16 bit samples.[1]
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INFORMATION MARKUP LANGUAGE (IML) 0.8
Abstract
IML is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) application so it follows the Internet standards.It is used for describing the content and applications handled by a Simputer. The goal of IML is to enable handheld computers, that have limitations in the display size and input capabilities, to access and render content from the Internet. Use of simple icons to be selected by pointing with a stylus and text-to-speech output in the local language are the two primary means of communication. The user is not expected to be familiar with the currently widespread user interface paradigm -windows, slidebars and pull-down menus. [1].
IML Encoding
All application data is transferred between IML applications in a simple self-extracting format called IML encoding. The underlying assumption is that all data is in the form of a simple three column table. It can contain an arbitrary string, including characters that may have special meaning to XML, or to the IML encoding scheme itself. The following example illustrates this coding scheme:
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Name
Magic
Value
---------------------------name s Manohar CSA Department, ISRO, Bangalore 560012
address s DOB Status phone
s June 21 1960 e567rty Married
ru87iii89 3092368 pizza
choice t345tyu
--------------------------------The table has six rows and 3 columns. The IML encoding of the above table will be a single long string as shown below. S[6,3:4:Name1Confused10:S. Manohar7:address1Confused38:CSA Department, ISRO, Bangalore 5600126:choice7:t345tyu5:pizza3:dob1Confused12:June 21 19605:phone9:ru87iii897:30923686Confusedtatus7:e567rty7:Married
The general format of the string is as follows: start with an 'S[' followed by the number of rows and the number of columns in the table, separated by a comma. The ':' (colon) is used as a separator between the contents of each cell in the table. For example, in the encoded string above, after the initial "S[6,3:", (indicating a table with six rows and three columns) 4:Name indicates that the next 4 characters are to be read as a key, followed by a single character ('s' for secure variable), followed by a 10 character string which is the value for the key just encountered. [1]
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IML Overview
The basic unit of an IML document is a page . An IML document can be thought of as a deck of pages. A page contains three types of elements:
Immediate Content: These elements are a small subset of the content markup present in HTML. Since the display of a Simputer is much smaller than desktops, the range of features displayed is limited. For instance, frames are not very meaningful. Some elements in this category are text, table, itemized text, image, audio etc.
Generated Content: These are elements useful in generating content either by applications running locally or by remote applications. Some elements in this category are appl, input, output, select etc.
Control elements : These elements control the rendering of the other elements. Some elements in this category are iml, head, b, i, u, large, small, lang etc.
IML Syntax
IML syntax is governed by the rules of XML syntax and its grammar is specified by a Document Type Definition (DTD): the details of using tags, attributes, entity references and so on are defined in the XML language specification and the details about IML element, attribute names and their nesting etc. are specified in the IML DTD.
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<title> -- Title element Description: Element for holding the title of the document.
Example of title can be seen in various IML examples presented in this document.
<iml> -- The root element Description: This is the root element of an IML document and holds all its content. Attributes of <iml>: None.
<head> -- Header Information element Description: Currenlty the head element simply contains a title element. Subsequent versions of IML will include elements for author information and other meta information about the document. Attributes of <head>: No attributes.
<text> -- Text element Description: For presenting text content. The text element is distinct from text directly occuring inside a page element in that its attributes enable pieces of text to be hyperlinked. Otherwise, the presentation of text in this element can be modifed by the use of b, i, u, small and large elements.
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<itemize> -- Element for listing This element provides a simple listing environment. The attribute style controls whether it is a numbered list or a bulletized list. A list element can contain most of the other elements. Attributes of <itemize>: style = enum|bullet
<image> -- Image display element Description: The image element unlike its HTML counterpart, is quite complex and allows for interesting image presentation and manipulation. IML images have the notion of a canvas on which the pixels are rendered. Several images can be placed on this canvas and moved around on the canvas. Since this is an empty element, the various values of the attribute control the effect of the image element. Attributes of <image>: The following is the list of attributes: id: attribute identifies each image entity and is useful in image manipulation, both by subsequent image elements as well as by the update element (discussed later). mode: attribute can have one of three possible. values create|src|draw.
When mode=create, the width and height attributes specify the size in pixels, of the canvas on which subsequent images can be placed.
When mode=src, the image file (only gif format is supported) specified by the src attribute is placed on the canvas created by an earlier image element, identified by the tagid attribute. The xoff and yoff elements can be used to specifiy the offset from the origin of the canvas at which the image is to be placed.
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When mode=draw, it is possible to specify line and arc drawing using the draw, coord, extent, fill attributes. The config attribute can be used to scale or move the images placed on the canvas by preceding image elements.
audioformat, audio, audiomode and speak: These attributes are valid only when mode=src, and they allow audio content to be associated with an image. Look at the semantics of the <audio> tag for more information.
<setattr> Description:Changing various attributes of elements
<input> -- Input element Description: The input element is the basic element for obtaining user input, primarily in forms. Attributes: There are several attributes to the input element. these are type: text|password|check|radio| width: width of the text area height: height of the input text area var: name to be asociated with this input field magic: one of r|e|s|t (respectively, read, exclusive,secure and transient) value: value of the variable
The var attribute has an important role in enabling IML to deal with smartcards. The var attribute can take any alphanumeric string as its
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value with a special case of a name starting with the underscore('_') having a special significance. See IML and smart card for details. For a variable name starting with an underscore, the value of the variable is to be obtained from the smartcard, using the appropriate passwords input by the user. The level of security and access is defined by the magic attribute as follows: magic=r : The variable is readable by anyone without a password. For changing that variable, a password is required.
magic=e: The variable is readable and writable with passwords.
magic=s: The variable is secure. It is readbale with a password, but cannot be changed from the IML environment. magic=t: The variable is transient and can be accessed using a password, but has no permanence beyond the current session. (i.e. the value is not stored on the smartcard)
Display and markup in IML
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Indian language audio and display
Markup: <iml> <head><title>Indian Languages</title></head> <page> This is a demo of Indian languages being displayed and synthesized<br/><br/> <!-Hindi : speech through phonemes, Hindi text using ISO8859-1 data --> <audio audioformat="tts" speak="s3m pHy6 tt1r G3000 2p k2 G3000 0s v2 g1t G3000 k1r t2 G3000 h9 G10000 \n"/> <lang script="hindi">rnà =e bu ôJtd;T</lang><br/> <!-Hindi : speech through itrans, Hindi text using ISO8859-1 data
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-->
<audio audioformat="hindi" audiomode="itrans" speak="hi.ndI me s{}vAgata"/> <lang script="hindi">rnà =e bu ôJtd;T</lang><br/> <!-Kannada : speech through phonemes, Kannada text using ISO8859-1 --> <audio audioformat="tts" speak="s3m pHy6 tt1r G3000 n3m m7l l1 r1n n5 G3000 0s v2 g1 t3 s5t t1 d8 G10000 \n"/> <lang script="kannada">OÚ«ÚÂsÚ¥Úàá ØúÊVÚ}Ú</lang><br/> <!-Kannada : speech through itrans, Kannada text using ISO8859-1 data --> <audio audioformat="kannada" audiomode="itrans" speak="kan{}naDadal{}li s{}vAgata"/> <lang script="kannada">OÚ«ÚÂsÚ¥Úàá ØúÊVÚ}Ú</lang><br/> <!-Kannada : speech through itrans, Kannada text using UTF8 --> <audio audioformat="kannada" audiomode="itrans" speak="kan{}naDadal{}li s{}vAgata"/> <lang script="kannada" mode="utf">ಸೢಸೢವಾಔತ</lang><br/> <!-Tamil : speech through phonemes, Tamil text using itrans data -->
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<audio audioformat="tts" speak="s3m pHy6 tt1r G3000 11n g1 ll15k k15 G3000 n1l v1 r1 v15 G3000 k6 r3 g3 r1 d15 G10000 \n"/> <lang script="tamil" mode="itrans">tamiJil{} vaNak{}kam{}</lang><br/>
<!-Telugu : speech through itrans, Telugu text using itrans data --> <audio audioformat="telugu" audiomode="itrans" speak="sim{}p{}yUtar{} mIku s{}vAgatam{} palukutO.ndi"/> <lang script="telugu" mode="itrans">telugulO s{}vAgatamu</lang><br/> <!-English : speech through phonemes, Text using ASCII(UTF8) --> <audio audioformat="tts" speak="s3m pHy6 tt1r G3000 v7l k1m 0s G3000 y6 G3000 tt6 G3000 d3s G3000 3 n13 gHy5 r8 sh1n G10000 \n"/> <b>Welcome in English</b><br/><br/><br/> </page> </iml> [1]
User input form
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Mark Up:
<iml> <head> <title> Form Demo </title> </head> <card> We have here all sorts of form elements<br/> <table> <tr><td> Name: </td><td><input type="text" width="15" height="1" var="var0" value="_name" magic="s"/></td></tr> <tr><td> Occupation: </td><td><input type="text" width="15" height="1" var="var0" value="_occupation" magic="s"/></td></tr>
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<tr><td>Passwd: </td><td><input type="password" width="10" var="var1" value="Hello!"/></td></tr> <tr><td>Working: </td><td><input type="check" var="var2" value="working"/></td></tr> <tr><td>Paid: </td><td><input type="check" var="var3" value="get paid"/></td></tr> <tr><td>Male: </td><td><input type="radio" var="var4" value="male"/></td></tr> <tr><td>Female: </td><td><input type="radio" var="var4" value="female"/></td></tr> <tr><td>Count upto: </td><td> <select var="var5"> <option value="1" label="one"/> <option value="2" label="two"/> <option value="3" label="three"/> <option value="4" label="four"/> <option value="5" label="five"/> </select> </td></tr> <tr><td>Out -> </td><td> <output label="enter" method="exec" anchor="persist.pl"> <collect varid="var0"/> <collect varid="var1"/> <collect varid="var2"/> <collect varid="var3"/> <collect varid="var4"/> <collect varid="var5"/> </output> </td></tr> </table>
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<update class="input" varid="var5" label="three" do="set"/> </card> </iml> [1]
Image Display
<iml> <page> <page> <image id="img1" mode="create" width="210" height="200"/> <image id="img0" tagid="img1" mode ="src" src="/simputer/imgs/spec/big.gif" border="0"/> <image id="img4" tagid="img1" mode ="draw" draw="line" coord="20,20,100,50, 75,180" width="2" smooth="1" dash="-" /> <image id="img5" tagid="img1" mode ="draw" draw="line" coord="20,20,100,50, 75,180" width="2" smooth="1" /> <image id="img6" tagid="img1" mode ="draw" draw="arc" coord="50,70,100,100" start="0" extent="120" fill="black" /> <image id="img7" tagid="img1" mode ="src" src="/simputer/imgs/spec/abhu.gif" border="0" xoff="40" yoff="120"/> <br/>
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Illustrating features of the image element and <br/> <i> Abhu </i> </page> </iml> [1]
USAGE
Text entering
There are two options on the simputer for entering text: 1. one is a soft keyboard, that can be brought up on the touch screen and you poke at it to enter one character at a time. 2. The second option is to use a novel character entry software called tap-a-tap which is similar in spirit to graffitti, but quite distinct. But to enter tons of text using the Simputer, you can attach a USB keyboard. Simputer is not recommended as a mass data-entry device.
Smart Card
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The built-in smart card reader/writer of the Simputer is a critical feature that makes the Simputer an ideal device for almost any kind of transaction. In addition, the smartcard is the mechanism that allows a Simputer to be shared among a group of users.
Rural communities could own several simputers and hire these out for usage to individuals based on the ownership of a SmartCard. It has a built-in chip. Each user's Smart Card would contain the minimum "personalization" information required to log into a Community Server(Simputer) which would maintain personalized data about the user, which he can carry around with him. It can hold several hundred letters like bank account information, personal information driving licence, personâ„¢s identity, picture and signature. Once inserted into the smart card interface the simputer will read the profile from the smart card and also update changes if any during the current transaction cycle. User profiles can be stored in flash memory as accessible files and also in the smart card. Sharing would bring down the cost of the Simputer to that of owning only a simple smart card, and paying for the usage of a shared Simputer. It is better viewed as a "personalization" and security device.[1]
Storage
Internal storage, of limited capacity, is already available through Flash memory. USB is the medium for access to external peripherals. Products like the M-Systems Disk-on-Key Flash Disk are now available on USB. They can provide reliable storage ranging from 16MB to 1GB in capacity. [1] The Smart Card should not be seen as a storage medium of any significant capacity, though capacities could increase as technology advances.
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APPLICATIONS
The architecture of the Simputer integrates various devices such as Smart Card reader, a Modem, a Touch Screen, a Multi-lingual Textto-Speech system. This makes Simputer an ideal device for:
e-governance
¢
Smart Card enabled citizen services( Voter IDs, driving license, ration card, etc. )
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Data collection and processing Land and revenue records Education, health care and information access e-mail device [2]
Microbanking
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A Smart Card pass book Synchronizing transactional details through modem connectivity Interactive multi-lingual transaction log book Human error eliminated, increasing the integrity of the calculations [2]
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Education
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Interactive text book Massive data storage at low costs compared to books Universal interface for education in any language at any level Automatic adjustment of content based on progress. Entertaining and engrossing medium Regular download of new educational data without reliance on infrastructure or additional expense[2]
Communication
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Cheap communications device High performance communication technologies for the masses Data and text transmission, as well as voice Potential centralization of the communications network Simplifying usage through storage of preferences of each user on a Smart Card
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Simplifying communication by removing the barriers of language and literacy
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Universality of data transmission achieved through use of icons and text-to-speech [2]
Market pricing and agriculture
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A friendly companion to know the current prices of his produce A trader looking for right market to sell or buy his goods An interactive assistant for a farmer to implement the best farming practices
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Both market and weather forecasting data instantaneously distributed
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Digitization of the barter system via organization of secure transactions using smart cards [2]
Health
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Interactive data collection device for a health worker Simple education medium for healthy practices Preliminary diagnosis of common ailments via an expert system Health schedules, data storage, advice on livestock Communication barrier broken between health service workers and rural patients
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Telemedicine : remote health care advice [2]
Technology in everyday life
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Usage in restaurants to automatically report orders to the kitchen Digital Assistant and diary options for personal home use Portable entertainment on a versatile platform Distribution network organization; Simputers carried by delivery agents
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Inventory management made easy Integration with Global Positioning Systems for directions and wayfinding
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Voice transmission over standard telephone lines in emergency situations
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Global satellite digital broadcasts for educational and entertainment purposes [2]
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READING ALOUD
WorldSpace data broadcasting is considered a cost-effective way of making digital content available to a large percentage of the world's population. WorldSpace makes news, music, education and
entertainment programmes available to more than two billion people in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
The tie-up with WorldSpace is a major initiative for the simputer trust, one of the first start-ups. Presently, the data is being picked up by receivers mounted on standard personal computers. Once the content is downloaded via satellite, the Simputer can be disconnected from the receiver and taken around for use by the target users. [5]
32
PILOT PROJECT
The long-distance education pilot project will get under way soon in the tribal district of Bastar in India's northern Chattisgarh state. The state government is implementing the project for schoolchildren. As many as 2,000 students will benefit, in the first phase from this programme. These students will receive digital content beamed via satellite from WorldSpace radio broadcasts.[5]
33
CONCLUSION
What makes the Simputer unique
Portable and a mobile device Sharable and affordable Integrated Smart Card and Modem Multi-lingual text-to-speech system Imli makes knowledge of English no longer a barrier to the use of IT Images allow universal comprehension of IML content Relies on non-proprietary software The simputer platform technology, being a cost effective platform can be used to develop several other products such as thin clients, cost effective e-commerce device and in embedded systems.[2]
34
REFERENCES
simputer.org picopeta.com express-computer20020401/indcomputes.shtml wirednews/technology/0,1282,44642,00.html news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1560771.stm geeknews/geeknews/2002Jul/gee20020708015274.htm anchlia.8kAboutSimp.html ncoretechsimputer/ learningchannelviews/editorials/EditorialJuly2001.shtml windows.idgenglish/crd_internet_192403.html
35
ABSTRACT
A rapid growth of knowledge can only happen in an environment which admits exchange of thought and information. Indeed, nothing else can explain the astounding progress of science in the last three hundred years. Technology has unfortunately not seen this freedom too often. The solutions to bridging the much hyped and talked about digital divide can come from within the developing world itself Problems of access to telecommunications in the developing world have often paled into insignificance beside those of gaining access to a working computer capable of connecting to the internet. For a vast mass of the rural poor for whom a computer is probably as remote an option as a trip to the moon, the Simputer can well become the power button to prosperity.
Simputer (Simple Computer) is a low-cost, portable alternative to personal computers. It is pegged as the first of its kind in the world as it promises to ensure that knowledge of English is no longer a barrier to handling a computer. It permits simple and natural, user-friendly interfaces based on sight, touch and audio.
36
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I thank God Almighty for the successful completion of my seminars. I express my sincere gratitude to Dr. M N Agnisharman Namboothiri, Head of the Department, Information Technology.
I am deeply indebted to Staff-in-charge, Miss. Sangeetha Jose and Mr. Biju, for their valuable advice and guidance. I am also grateful to all other members of the faculty of Information Technology department for their co-operation.
Finally, I wish to thank all my dear friends, for their wholehearted co-operation, support and encouragement.
37
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION SIMPUTER ARCHITECTURE HARDWARE SYSTEM SOFTWARE SIMPUTER SOFTWARE PACKAGES INFORMATION MARKUP LANGUAGE (IML) 0.8 USAGE APPLICATIONS READING ALOUD PILOT PROJECT CONCLUSION REFERENCES
101seminarstopics.com
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#3
[attachment=5840]
SIMPUTER SOFTWARE PACKAGES



SIMPUTER S/W PACKAGES


IMLI:THE IML BROWSER

IMLI is an abbreviation for IML interface. The purpose of IMLI is to provide a simple and consistent interface for displaying information and developing applications that are simple, user friendly.
The novelty of the information markup language (IML) browser is:

Uniformity across diverse applications

Ease of use

Support for multilingual text and speech output

Support for smart card usage.
TEXT-TO –SPEECH SOFTWARE

DHAVANI gives resources needed to set up text-to-speech synthesis
in Indian languages.

Using images in conjunction with voice output in local languages makes the Simputer accessible to a larger fraction of the Indian population.

Currently, Dhvani has a Phonetics-to- Speech engine which is capable of
generating intelligible speech from a suitable phonetic description
in any Indian Language.

IML is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) application so it follows the
Internet standards .


The goal of IML is to enable handheld computers, that have limitations in the display size
and input capabilities, to access and render content from the Internet.


Use of simple icons to be selected by pointing with a stylus and text-to-speech
output in the local language are the two primary means of communication.

The user is not expected to be familiar with the currently widespread user interface paradigm -windows, slide bars and pull-down menus.


IML
IML ENCODING

All application data is transferred between IML applications in a simple self-extracting format called IML encoding.

The following example illustrates this coding scheme :

Name Magic Value
----------------------------
name s Manohar
Address s CSA Department, ISRO, Bangalore 560012
DOB s June 21 1960
Status e567rty Married
phone ru87iii89 3092368
Choice t345tyu pizza
--------------------------------

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#4
[attachment=14403]
INTRODUCTION
Even the poorest of the poor will pay for a service, if that service
improves in someway their quality of life. Several corporates are now
addressing rural markets and they have the need for information and
communication infrastructure in remote rural locations.
For achieving this the Simputer project was conceived during
the organization of the Global Village, an International Seminar on
Information Technology for Developing Countries, conducted during
Bangalore IT.com event in October 1998.[1]
If the right service is made accessible in the right way
information technology can impact the lives of the people all over the
world .The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which
the benefits of IT can reach the common man. It has a special role in
the third world because it ensures that knowledge of English is no
longer a barrier to handling a computer. [1]
Simputer
Simputer’s About:

Bridging the Great Digital Divide
Affordable Computing: A device which can bring benefits of IT to
the people[7]
The key to bridging the digital divide is to have shared devices
that permit truly simple and natural user interfaces based on sight,
touch and audio. It is designed to be modular and extensible and based
entirely on free software from the open source initiative.
Developers
Simputer was developed indigenously by scientists from the
Indian Institute of Science and technologists of Encore Software. They
have started a commercial venture, PicoPeta Simputers Pvt. Ltd., to
ensure that it does not, like many other promising projects, remain on
the drawing board. The Simputer Trust is a non-profit trust created
basically to develop technology that will help take information
technology to rural areas. The Managing Trustee of the simputer trust is
Simputer is the legal counsel for the Simputer Trust and has played a key role in defining the Simputer General Purpose License.
Affordable Computing
The projected cost of the Simputer is about Rs 9000 at large
volumes. It uses all off-the-shelf components so they are mature
technology components that do not have a very high price.[4]
Simputer Vs Palm
Simputer is not a PDA, it is a lot more powerful than a typical
PDA; it has a 206 MHz RISC processor. The screen size is 320x240,
with memory of 32 MB RAM. It is a complete Linux machine, it runs
x-windows; we can run many x-applications by simply recompiling for
the ARM processor. We have xterm and xclock running on the
prototypes of the Simputer. [7]
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#5

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