Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
On
SIMPUTER
In partial fulfillment for the award of degree of
Bachelor of Technology
In
07E71A0539
MR.P.V.S.RAM PRASAD
2010-2011
Anantharam, Bhongir.
2010-2011
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the technical seminar entitled “SIMPUTER” that is being
submitted by SANTOSH RAO CHANNAMANENI (07E71A0539) in partial
fulfillment of the requirement for the Award of the degree of Bachelor Of Technology in
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING to the Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University is a record of bonafide work carried out by them under my
guidance and supervision.
The results embodied in this technical seminar have not been submitted to any other
University or Institute for the Award of any Degree.
Principal
(Prof. Sri. Dr. B RAVEENDRANATH SINGH)
It gives us immense pleasure to acknowledge with gratitude, the help and support
extended throughout the technical seminar from the following:
We will be very much grateful to almighty our parents who have made us capable of
carrying out our job.
We are grateful to Mr. P.V.S. RAM PRASAD who is our Head of the Department,
CSE, for his amiable ingenious and adept suggestions and pioneering guidance during
the technical seminar.
We express our deep sense of gratitude and thanks to coordinator MR.K.HARI for
his support during the technical seminar.
We are also very thankful to our Management, staff members and all our friends for
their valuable suggestions and timely guidance without which we would not have been
successful in completion of the technical seminar.
(07E71A0539)
SYSTEM OVERVIEW 6
SIMPUTER LICENSING 10
SIMPUTER SPECIFICATION 11
APPLICATION SOFTWARE 13
ILMI 14
APPLICATIONS 19
INTERFACES 21
FEATURES 22
CONCLUSION 30
FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS 32
BIBILOGRAPHY 33
PPT
Even the poorest of the poor will pay for the service, if that service improves in some
way 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 Global
Village, an International Seminar on Information Technology for developing countries,
conducted during Banglore IT.com event in October 2001.
If the right service is made accessible in the right way information technology can impact
the lives of 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 in no longer barrier to handling
a computer.
The Simputer is a
self-contained, open
hardware hand held
It's simple, it's portable. At about Rs. 9,000 per piece, it's highly affordable. It is
compatible with your everyday PC, helps you check e-mail, browse the Net, keep
accounts, and get information.When the invention of the Simputer(Simple Computer)
was announced in 2001, it instantly captured the imagination of the world. The venerable
New York Times called it the most important invention of 2001 ahead of Apples G4 and
Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. Here was a computer that was rewriting
every rule associated with computers.
The goal of the Simputer project is to harness the potential of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) for the benefit of the weakest sections of society. The
software developed by the Simputer Trust will be under GNU GPL and the hardware
developed will be under Simputer General Public License (SGPL).
The Simputer is also known as a Simple Inexpensive Multilingual Computer, is
important in surveying its projected uses. The Simputer was originally planned to be a
stand-alone computing device with a simple user interface, and features like speech
synthesis that made it work for very low-attainment users. Various usage models were
considered, but the key to the ‘Inexpensive’ aspect was the shared model.
The device was to enable large groups of users to share one device, possibly
purchased communally. Individual users were expected to own smartcards that enabled
them to store their information offline. A potential owner for a Simputer would thus be a
village council, or a cooperative, or any group of people willing to share it. Public funds
could potentially be applied towards such purchases.
SYSTEM OVERVIEW
ABOUT SIMPUTER:
The primary application interface would be a browser that can render the
Information Markup Language. IML is a new XML application being designed
specifically for handheld devices like the Simputer. The use of XML-based language is in
line with the philosophy of utilizing global Internet standards. To the rural Indian poor,
and even to most city dwellers, a computer is probably as remote an option as a trip to the
moon. But things are about to change.
An important feature of the Simputer is the SmartCard Reader/Writer. The smart card is
emerging as a credible delivery vehicle for financial transactions on the Internet and has
A user's individual profile can be stored on a smart card, which he can carry
around with him. 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.
AFFORDABLE COMPUTING
Once commercialized and put out in the market -- its designs will be freely
released to companies for reproduction -- the Simputer can not only be used as a device
for individuals to access the Net, but also by communities Sthrough kiosks. A smart-card
interface is being worked on to facilitate micro banking.
CPU
Memory
16–64 MB of SDRAM
Display Options
Input Device
Audio Interface
Audio Codec
USB Interface
USB Port
Data Modem
IrDA Interface
Power Supply
ACCESSORIES
Expansion Docking Cradle
SYSTEM SOFTWARE
Operating System
Network Protocols
Application Libraries
GTK+, glibc
Internet Access
Music
PIM Applications
The new Simputer range from Encore thus attempts to meet the
requirements of various market segments. The entry-level Simputer will, at production
volumes, be priced at about $210, and has a monochrome LCD, 16MBof DRAM and
8MB of flash memory, IrDA and USB interfaces and audio connectors, but no modem.
Some of the enhancements include a built-in battery charger, a real-time clock, and
support for J2ME.
The top-end Simputer, priced at about $480, has a color display,32MB of
flash memory and 64MB of DRAM, a built-in modem, and a pocket-sized cradle with a
Compact Flash expansion slot for memory cards and wireless connectivity.In addition to
the cradle which ships with the high-end model, Encore is also designing specialized
cradles with built-in functions such as a micro printer, keyboard, and support for GSM
and 802.11 wireless connectivity. The company is opening up to designers the interface
between the Simputer and the cradle to encourage others to design their own specialty
cradles.
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. The novelty of the Information Markup
language (IML) browser(user-interface of the simputer) is:
ease of use
IML Syntax
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.
Tap-a-tap is a method for generating keystrokes to be sent to other applications, for devices,
where a keyboard is absent. Tap-a-tap uses a3x3 grid for recognizing characters. For example,
each character of the
Kannada alphabet can be generated by "tapping" on the cells of the 3x3grid in a particular
sequence. The figure generated by connecting the "tapped" points, roughly resembles the way the
character is written.
Tap-a-tap starts of in "letter" mode; it can be changed to go into "number" mode by clicking on
the button at the bottom. This brings up the numeric telephone style keypad, for number entry.
Clicking again
Text entering
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.
The above figure shows the text entering via first option i.e., touch screen.
Smart Card
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"
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.
The architecture of the Simputer integrates various devices such as Smart Card reader, a Modem,
a Touch Screen, a Multi-lingual Text to-Speech system. This makes Simputer an ideal device for:
e-governance
Smart Card enabled citizen services( Voter IDs, driving license, ration card, etc. )
e-mail device
Microbanking
29
Education
Communication
Health
Integration with Global Positioning Systems for directions and way finding
Interfaces
Smart-card connector.
Serial port
FEATURES :
The Simputer runs on the free-to-use Linux operating system software, making it
one of the few handhelds not to use Palm's software or a version of Microsoft
Corp's Windows.
It also has a speech synthesiser that can read English and Indian texts, making
computer use possible for more than one third of Indians who are illiterate.
Ease of use
Ease of use has to be an important guiding principle if this device is to gain a substantial
measure of popularity. A low-cost version of this device may be targeted to the home
user, whereas a slightly higher functionality version can be designed for use in cyber
kiosks where people can come in and surf at their convenience.The Simputer can also be
used in schools to allow them to offer Web access to students at relatively low-cost. It
This could be in areas as diverse as Web-enabled email access, home banking, home
shopping, educational services and new forms of entertainment.
Micheal L Best, research scientists at MIT's famous Media Lab, toldrediff.com some time
ago that his centre was working on developing a similar device which should cost $50
apiece.
So the Simputer is certainly not a unique project globally, although itis certainly new and
special to India.
Best felt that even that was too high a cost for the target user of such a device, which is
basically a poor, rural farmer.
Multiple Benefits :
"The system software of the Simputer, since it is Linux based is under GPL," say the
trustees.
"We have been working on a license similar to the GPL, but applicable to
hardware. We realized, after considerable discussions, that hardware has significant
differences that precludes the possibility of using a simple extension of the software
GPL."
"We now have the first draft of the Simputer General Public License that
we believe to be a practicable license which at the same time facilitates the rapid spread
of Simputers."
"We invite comments from interested manufacturers and others on the SGP,
which was drafted by Rahul Matthan, the legal counsel of the Simputer Trust."
SUCCESS INHIBITORS
By 2005, sales of Simputers failed to live up to the ambitious goal of selling 50,000 units:
only 4000 Simputers were sold .
A reason often stated is that the poor have no need of computers before their basic
needs (such as electricity) are met. However, the Simputer was never designed to be a
"poor man's computer" (a position often used by the media)- it was a device designed to
help bridge the digital divide. While most people tended to look at the cost of the
Simputer as a factor, they ignored the fact that the "cost of ownership" for the end-user of
the device in villages was not the cost of the device, but the cost of the Smart card used to
store the user's data. The device itself should be considered shared infrastructure for the
village.
Lack of support from Government and NGO’s
Another reason may be that lack of purchasing by the Indian government and NGOs
(as earlier committed) led to lack of adoption in the field.
License Cost
The SGPL, the license under which simputer is marketed, asks for a license fee of
1 Million Indian Rupee to commercially exploit the Simputer design. This was perceived
to be a high entry point for small scale organizations wishing to license the Simputer
design.
Cost of Laptops
The decrease of prices of Laptop computers may have reduced the Simputer’s
price competitiveness.
DEPLOYMENT
Simputers were extensively used by the Government of Karnataka to
automate the process of land records by procurement.
Used for Electronic Money transfer between UK, Ghana and others
The global
launch of the Simputer is
.Vast potential
But what the Simputer can potentially do is of tremendous value. Pilot
projects in Indian states of Karnataka and Chhattishgarh, which are applying it in micro
banking, distance education and rural information access, are showing promising results.
In Chhattishgarh, rural schools are using Simputers to receive information
via the WorldSpace radio and to learn from consultants across the world. Farmers in
Karnataka are using it to learn about the going crop rates; to get local market and
fertiliser news; and to send and receive email and voice mail.
Doctors in rural areas want to develop a portable ultrasound monitor that
can be plugged into the Simputer. Local government agencies can use it to extend their
services to the rural communities. Post offices can use it to service money orders
electronically, cutting delays and loss in transit. Local communities, such as village
councils, schools, kiosks, postmen or neighbour hood shops can loan the device to
individual users for different uses. Non-literate users can browse the Web using pictures
and its text-to-speech capability allows the Web content to be delivered in local
languages.
Even in developed nations, there are possible applications such as
Most important, the Simputer can help in community building and bridging
the social gap. Because the digital divide is not so much about the gap in access to
technologies as the social divide between haves and have-nots. Sharing a community
resource like the Simputer can multiply the effect of traditional open-air theatres or
festivities in countries like India, which foster a sense of community among the rural
people. This can get a further boost when its users also become part of the online
communities that can be created.
The significance of the Simputer is, however, more to do with its
philosophy than its features. Its designers have proved that developing nations can build
their own solutions to their problems and need not accept generously doled out pre-
fabricated, proprietary and expensive technologies.
The good news is, other developing countries are also now designing
similar low-cost solutions. In Laos, a team is designing Jhai PC, a rugged, pedal-powered
computing system for village telephony and Internet access. There have been reports
about a PDA similar to the Simputer being developed in Sri Lanka that will cost about
$50. In Kenya, a fishing community is currently testing the Village PDA, an African
counterpart of the Simputer.
• Design for the community
CONCLUSION
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.
The goal of the Simputer project is to harness the potential of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) for the benefit of the weakest sections of society.
FM radio
Camera
www.simputer.org
www.ncoretech.com/simputer/
www.learningchannels.org
www.express-computer.com
www.wired.com/news/technologies
www.anchila.8k.com/Aboutsimp.html
www.windows.idg.net/english/crd_internet_192403.html
www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002jul/gee20020708015274.hml