Christian

cool links related to class

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:27:56 -0600

Pioneering Community-Run Radio in Laos (A Photo Essay) http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org/photogallery.php?id=363

Kristin Drogos thought others would be interested in an atlas of successful municipal wireless projects in small communities released this month by Wired Magazine. (I don't know where they got the data.) http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/st_atlas_1603

Class News Brief

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:00:12 -0600

Things I heard about yesterday in class when I went from group to group:

The Tribal Digital Village group is writing a screenplay and traveling to Southern California.
The Dirty Laundry of Technology Standards group is preparing to defend itself against a lawsuit.
The Spectrum Policy Metablog group is finished already!
The $10,000 Wireless Network group is traveling to the state capitol next week to present their work.
The "Does wireless policy speed technolgy adoption?" group is working on principles to be presented to the United Nations.
The "Is Unlicensed Spectrum Full?" group found out the answer is "YES!"
The Campus Emergency Wireless group is preparing to secure the cover of Newsweek and to visit every building on campus.

Wireless Applications for the Next Billion

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:49:44 -0600

I ran across this draft call for papers on "Wireless Applications for the Next Billion Users" and I thought it might help us think of projects. It is from the journal Info: The Journal of Policy, Regulation, and Strategy for Telecommunications. See:www.emeraldinsight.com/info.htm If we can think of important topics on wireless that aren't here, we can suggest those topics to info. (email me for that.) If we see a great topic on this list, we can use it for a project. Grad students may want to submit a paper here? --Christian

_______

Network Development: Wireless Applications for the Next Billion New Users

Mobile telephony has brought first line access to the information society to much of the developing world. But beyond mobile handsets for voice, most information society services have yet to be realized, and there are still billions of people without any access. Both the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Targets are focused on 2015 for achieving poverty alleviation and connectivity for the poorest of the world's poor.

The next stage extension of global network development is being supported by new wireless technologies and a better understanding of the economic, social and cultural circumstances of the unserved and minimally served poor. But it is also being restrained by many market structures, policies and regulations based on obsolete historical models of service provisioning. New market models and proactive regulation will be required as the next billion users are poorer and more difficult to reach for a variety of reasons - geographic, social and economic.

Network development must increasingly (and urgently) be informed by a better understanding of how the poor value and use communication technologies. The research community has begun to give greater priority to these issues, often revealing counter-intuitive results. For example, recent research in the LIRNE network has provided new explanations about the price elasticity for communications use at the bottom of the pyramid as well as the usage patterns of the poor. It is now documented that low income users typically spend a higher proportion of their income on communications.¹

This special issue of new wireless applications for the next billion users will examine priority issues relating to the extension of ICT infrastructure to the world's unconnected poor, with particular reference to the design of innovative strategies for network development. Given the opportunities provided by new and emerging wireless technologies, and the rapid erosion of the relevance of traditional service and product models, creativity in the design and implementation of connectivity solutions is needed. This special issue intends to highlight current research on innovative strategies for the next stage of network development.

The guest editors welcome the submission of draft material or work in progress based on current or recently completed research for possible publication in this special issue. Research published in this special issue will be subject to the info² review process in addition to review and editing by the guest editors.

Illustrative topics that will be considered include, but are in no way limited to the following:

Measuring mobile penetration, defining mobile users
Pro-poor mobile applications and services
Services for the financially constrained and developed economy services: a comparative assessment of demand and uptake
M-banking services for the unbanked
SME mobile use in developing economies
Emerging technologies for reducing costs of network development
Impact of national regulation on excluded communities or minorities
Regulation for promoting innovation and alternative network development
Mobile broadband, telephony usage patterns and poverty
Emerging technologies, markets and new business models
Developing country case studies of mobile diffusion
Mobile telephony - access path to the Internet
Universal access policies and mobile and wireless technologies
Mobile telephony and economic development

First Project Ideas

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:53:17 -0600

Here is a list of ideas for our first project: Build Your Own Radio Receiver. Ideally we want to see if we can figure out how to do this as CHEAPLY and as EASILY as possible. Thanks to Jake for #2 and #3. Other ideas for radios are welcome! Christian

I. Foxhole Radio

Using only wire, razor blade, pencil stub, safety pin, tacks, paperclips, and a toilet paper tube...

Video:
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/09/make_a_foxhole_radio_week.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

PDF instructions:
http://cachefly.oreilly.com/make/wp_foxholeradio.pdf

II. Radio Out of Household Items
This website offers several ideas on how to make a radio. The sections "radio out of household items" and "quick and simple radio" might be of particular interest.
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/radio/radio.html

III. The Simplest AM Receiver
The next site discusses how you might make a very simple receiver without even a tuner. However, you have to be very close to the transmitter for it to work (they suggest within 1 mile).
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/radio9.htm

IV. Kit Radios
Radio Shack Electronics 202 Snap-Kit
Radio Shack Web Site

The AM Radio Experiment Kit
http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-MX-901A-Radio-Experiment-Kit/dp/B000AQED5M/ref=pd_sim_dbs_t_img_4

Smithsonian Crystal Radio Kit
http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Science-Industries-Smithsonian-Crystal/dp/B0002X7X5A

Self-Inventory

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:47:31 -0600

I am going to write this as a long, stream-of-consciousness "note to self". Here it goes:

I am allowed to check out cars from the University's motor pool for a fee. I was once told that this includes a cherry picker and garbage trucks but that may have been a joke. I know it includes buses. For another class we checked out a bus, took a class to learn to drive it, and went to Chicago. I can sign a form that allows grad students to drive motor pool vehicles.

We are at one of the top research universities in the world. I have access to a lot of letterhead and I am not afraid of using it or of putting the university logo on things.

If I have a good reason I can ask my bosses for a small amount of money that we can use for class projects. So that we don't have to have a bake sale. (I will also pay the "textbook cost" if we can't get any money out of them.)

I know a lot of people who work in wireless technology, policy, and industry. Some of them are on the class panel of advisors. I also have students and former students who work in radio locally, which might be helpful somehow (?).

I have a access locked lab room that we can use if we need a somewhat-professional looking office for any reason. It has three desks, a disreputable sofa, and a refrigerator.

I maintain two web servers in the ATLAS server room. (Useful things they already run may include: Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Perl, Movable Type). We could use these to host a web site with our own domain name, for instance. They run SUSE Linux.

I used to work at a Web-based application development company in Silicon Valley in the 1990s. (We were making a search engine but google was better at it! We went bankrupt.) I can make web-based applications.

I like to write and I am good at copy editing.

I have some experience explaining technology to non-traditional audiences. I used to teach classes for homeless people who want to learn how to make Web pages. I worked on a project a few years ago that tried to design a series of lectures to explain the fundamentals of how the Internet works to journalists in developing countries.

Possibly Useful Things (I own or can borrow)

the usual toolbox of household tools (I am not good with tools, though)
crimper
electronic wire tracker
three modified Sharp Zaurus PDAs that have been retrofitted to detect wi-fi (they run kismet)
several almost-new GPSs with cabling to connect them to computers
digital camera
station wagon (seats 5, roof rack)
broadcast quality Marantz solid state digital audio recorder with SD cards (for radio documentary or something?)
broadcast quality (XLR jack) microphones for above recorder (1 panel, 1 shotgun)
microphone boom pole (don't know how to use it)

Software

MS Office (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint)
various databases (Postgres, mySql, Berkeley DB)
graphic design (Photoshop, Illustrator)
GIS (ArcGIS, GPSMap, GeoDA)
statistics (SPSS, S-Plus)

Skills:

formerly certified to teach target archery to 6-year-olds on a 15 foot range (my certificate has lapsed)
I know how to put together the kind of outdoor wifi equipment that might be useful to use to build a wifi network. (e.g., I've built a CUWiN Metrix node and a Soekris node and some other things like that)
I know how to organize a conference
I know how to chair a committee (or run a meeting) -- I think!
I am pretty good at finding things on the Internet and using the library's electronic databases.

Computer/Scripting/Programming/Markup Skills

Perl
SQL
a little RPG II (very rusty)
Java 1 (also rusty)
S (and R) (rusty)
HTML / DHTML / SGML / CSS / PHP / JavaScript to varying degrees

Languages

Just English (sorry)

Subscriptions/Memberships/etc.

I am on the editorial board of some journals that might publish something from this class. The most relevant ones are: Info and The Information Society.
I am a member of the common ground food co-op (okay, I'm not sure how that helps, actually... )

Thumbnail test

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:48:41 -0600

Hello. Here is my test of adding a thumbnail image to a blog entry. Click it to make it bigger, if this works:

This is a test!

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:11:24 -0600

If this were a real entry, really important things would appear here.