Africa’s Gift to Silicon Valley: How to Track a Crisis

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/weekinreview/14giridharadas.html?sudsredirect=true

Ushahidi also represents a new frontier of innovation. Silicon Valley has been the reigning paradigm of innovation, with its universities, financiers, mentors, immigrants and robust patents. Ushahidi comes from another world, in which entrepreneurship is born of hardship and innovators focus on doing more with less, rather than on selling you new and improved stuff.

W3C Workshop on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social and Economic Development

held in Maputo, Mozambique on 1-2 April 2009. This workshop was organized by the W3C Mobile Web for Social Development Interest Group, part of the EU FP7 project Digital World Forum. During the two day event, the 70+ participants held discussions regarding the potential of mobile technologies in the development sector. The key outcomes that are expanded in this document can be summarized here

Computer-Based Learning a Reality in Rural Senegal

Manassas, VA (USA), April 2009 – EarthWalk Communications in partnership with the Academy for Educational Development, is extending opportunities for learning with computers in rural Senegal through the use of innovative solar-panel technologies. EcoSolar2 power solution is enabling schools to seamlessly integrate technology into their classrooms and communities regardless of the availability of electricity. more

Datadyne EpiSurveyor

EpiSurveyor is a free, open source tool enabling anyone to very easily create a handheld data entry form, collect data on a mobile device, and then transfer the data back to a desktop or laptop for analysis -- without expensive consultants.

How to build a local phone network

Article about Dabba, which uses re-programmed wifi hubs, cheap wifi handsets, and pay-as-you-go cards.

Voiping the outback

Communications in the remote Australian outback are getting a boost following the development of a system that links the internet to amateur radio technology. more

Open source mobile phone platform

Mobile phones, currently closed and self limited, will rival broadband computers. When based on Open standards, they will deliver ubiquitous computing and vanish.

Ubiquitous computing means more than computing wherever you wander: It means knowing the locale, weaving seamlessly into the local fabric, and vanishing.

OpenMoko is an open source, Linux-based mobile phone software platform. Read more here.

Workshop on Ubiquitous Sustainability: Technologies for Green Values

Workshop in Conjunction with the Ninth International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2007)

Botanicalls

A soil moisture sensor in each plant sends information to an Arduino board which then passes the information to a ZigBee network. An XPort is used to send data via PHP to a mySQL database and to Asterisk, which drives the phone calls.

The code on the chip averages the data and makes decisions about when a phone call request should be sent. There are set thresholds, unique to each plant, for minimum and maximum soil moisture.

The moisture sensor circuit is based on Forrest Mims. Read more here.

WiMAX

Called (or competing with) 4G technology or wireless broadband, it could theoretically provide up to 50km (31mi.) range, 70Mbps (shared)/268Mbps (peak); in practice it will probably provide only 2 to 4 Mbps. The first products certified in Jan. 2006; backed by Intel, Nokia, Motorola and others.

Service has already been rolled out in some US cities; 100 cities are expected to be covered next year (by Sprint Nextel).

Source

Second Workshop on Speech in Mobile and Pervasive Environments

Matt Jones from VeSeL partner project StoryBank will be the invited speaker at this workshop in Singapore, September 9, 2007, part of ACM Mobile HCI 07.

Traditionally, voice-based applications have been accessed using unintelligent telephone devices through Voice Browsers that reside on the server. The proliferation of pervasive devices and the increase in their processing capabilities, client-side speech processing is emerging as a viable alternative. As in SiMPE 2006, we will further explore the various possibilities and issues that arise while enabling speech processing on resource-constrained, possibly mobile devices.

In particular, this year's theme will be SiMPE for developing regions.

Les usages ruraux de l'internet

French initiative has rural communities setting up their own wifi networks.

Beyond the technical aspects, this solution brings some interesting side effects. The RAN Group notes that its members became more involved in the social life of their areas. The network requires regular meetings to plan periodic maintenance operations. The decision to establish their own Internet service has required the RAN Group to contact municipalities, negotiate with local farmers to plant antennas in fields, calculate costs with potential new members, share technical information among the different RAN members of several regions, etc. In this way, the network generates social links instead of isolating people.

From this article.

WiFi with mileage

Intel Research working on long-range wifi using standard hardware. Details here.

3G coming to Kenya

See this article for the latest on the telecom's plans for fibre optic lines and 3G connectivity.

Sensor network companies

Arch Rock
Crossbow
Dust Networks
Ember
Microstrain
Millenial Net
Moteiv
Ranch Systems - agricultural monitoring (primarily to vinyards). Monitor wind, water, soil temp to manage frost, disease, pests
Riga Development
Sensicast
Tranzeo

Source: Economist special report on wireless telecoms: A world of connections, 28 Apr 07.

Arduino

Arduino is an inexpensive and open source hardware prototyping environment. It can take input from any number of sensors, and output to devices, actuators, computers, etc.

A new Bluetooth module is just out - this is Class 1 Bluetooth, with range of about 100 meters (versus 10m for normal Bluetooth). Up to 7 devices can connect via Bluetooth; this can be extended with one of several hacks such as a 'scatternet' in which one device bridges two networks; or by automatically connecting and disconnecting.

Telit makes a GSM modem module which provides onboard mobile telephony. With an audio chip it could make phone calls; it has a microphone input. So effectively you could build your own mobile phone if you want to. It can also do SMS, email and FTP, has an embedded TCP/IP stack, and Python interpreter.

Arduino is also working on an embedded web server on the board, so you can check and set inputs and outputs to a remote module from a web page.

A ZigBee module is also under development.

Pure Data is a free and open source visual programming environment (like Max/MSP) for which a graphical Arduino programmer has been written.

Asterisk VOIP gateway

Asterisk is an open source telephony system. It can be installed on any server, take incoming calls and do various things with them, such as route them internationally via VOIP, record audio, perform messaging functions, and interface with web servers.

Here is an asterisk to skype gateway. This means that phone calls made to the asterisk server can be routed internationally via skype. Conversely, contact with the server via skype could be routed to local phones.

Here is a method of podcasting vis Asterisk. Audio podcasts can be recorded by making a phone call, or by uploading files. They can be listened to by making a phone call, or by accessing audio files on the server.

sensors -> mobile phone

Mobile phone network looks like the best communication option for sending/receiving data in a remote location. This page describes interfacing a microcontroller with a Nokia phone. A challenge, however, would be keeping a battery charged via solar panel. Power requirements for the microcontroller/sensors will be low (~5V) and may be able to run off of the same panel used by the phone; microcontrollers can usually withstand up to 12VDC. Heat of course would be an issue...

Kew camera captures climate change

See BBC story here about a timelapse camera at Kew Gardens, London, which captures images over the long term which help to show evidence of climate change. Such a device could be solar powered, but would require continuous access to the Internet, or intermittent access with an image cache.

Wireless sensors in agriculture and food industry...

Just a link to a review paper I found useful in getting an overview of possible uses of sensors in agriculture.

Wireless sensors in agriculture and food industry—Recent development and future perspective. Ning Wanga, Naiqian Zhangb and Maohua Wangc.

Abstract: This paper presents an overview on recent development of wireless sensor technologies and standards for wireless communications as applied to wireless sensors. Examples of wireless sensors and sensor networks applied in agriculture and food production for environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, M2M-based machine and process control, building and facility automation and RFID-based traceability systems are given. The paper also discusses advantages of wireless sensors and obstacles that prevent their fast adoption. Finally, based on an analysis of market growth, the paper discusses future trend of wireless sensor technology development in agriculture and food industry.

Available from Computers & Electronics in Agriculture