Talk:End-user application software

VOIP

Availability of a well-working SIP-based VOIP client on this device could prove popular (when when always-on connectivity and sufficient bandwidth is available through the set up of some satellite IP link in a remote region) Vorburger

Totally transparent gif files

The following web page has some totally transparent gif files available.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/spec0001.htm

The idea is that such a gif file may be included in a web page without disrupting the display, yet the ALT tag for the gif within an HTML page may include information useful to a speech synthesiser system. The totally transparent gif files could perhaps be helpful in making the content of web pages more easily accesible to students with visual problems.

William Overington

16 March 2006

-- is it not better to just use text on a webpage? -- ssam

Well, the idea is that the text included in the ALT tag would be information which would be obvious to a sighted user, yet which could be very helpful to a student with visual problems. For example, with the picture to the right. The picture could have an ordinary caption displayed on the web page. In addition, the ALT tag could include information such as the following. The image shows a styling design for a laptop computer. There is a base which includes a keyboard and in front of the keyboard a touchpad. Above the keyboard is a screen. The keyboard keys, the touchpad, the casing of the laptop and the casing of the screen are all light blue in colour.

A design for a laptop computer with keyboard and touchpad

Video-On-Demand (torrent RSS aggregator)

For subscribing to feeds of video from the internet, as well as amoung students and teachers to be able to send videos to each other, and have all students be able to watch the latest recorded lessons, video-messages from the teacher, video-messages from other students (using a webcam).. There should be a Torrent RSS aggregator software like http://getdemocracy.com so users can browse a channel guide and they can download video from channels, and they can start their own channel and easilly publish videos to channels.

Video Conferencing

With a 10$ usb webcam add-on, the student attach it onto his 100$ laptop, that can be used with video conferencing software over mesh-WiFi and over the internet.

Rotating Screen-Image

(Reader Contribution) I thought it would be nice if the screens of the laptops would have a way of rotating the image on the screen. For example, there might be a command you type on the keyboard (ctrl + right), that rotates the image displayed on the screen 90 degrees for each time you press ctrl + right. this adds the possibility of reading on the laptop, in e-book mode, similarly to a real book. This would allow one to see en entire page of text on the screen.

The OLPC does allow the user to rotate the screen image.

Accessibility by disabled children

There are two sides to this. First of all, the laptop should be accessible to all children; we need to create magnifiers, use appropriate color schemes, text-to-sound software, and so forth so that visually impaired children can use it, and have the option of "subtitling" sound with written text on the screen for hearing impaired children, etc.

Things go the other way around as well. This laptop could be a huge boon to handicapped children, a tool that lets them access information and a world where they don't have to be seen as "disabled." I've been hearing-impaired since age 2, and my world changed entirely when my family got a computer with dialup internet when I was 10. I could read information and news I would otherwise have missed hearing, but best of all I could write to people without a communication barrier; it was the first chance I'd ever gotten to interact in a community where people didn't automatically know I was "disabled," and didn't treat me differently because of it. Without that computer, and without the internet, I probably wouldn't have started programming, ended up as an electrical engineering student, or been nearly as comfortable talking with technically-minded adults from all across the globe (hi!). It's my hope that the OLPC project will bring the same experience to kids that wouldn't otherwise have the chance at it.

I'd love to see OLPC software for children with disabilities. They wouldn't have to be loaded onto all laptops, but if they could be installed for children with special needs, that would be wonderful. Speech-to-text translation, using mesh networking in a classroom for collaborative notetaking (what one child misses, the others will probably catch), a program that could lead children through basic physical therapy exercises, and I'm sure others can think of more ideas. What can be done to make this happen?

--mchua

Design / Drafting (CAD)

Since the OLPC will be used by children of all ages, perhaps our simple and powerful wire-frame CAD software (multi-lingual )would be a fit on this machine. Who do we contact to get started with porting and (free) distribution plans. -- Robert Bou, President, www.ashlar-vellum.com - robert.bou@ashlar.com (moved from main page).

Robert. Can your software:

• run on linux?
• be supplied with source code under a free or open source license so students can modify the program?
• be distributed with the laptops without the need for phoning home for licensing?
• Be used on the laptop by pupils after they leave school (or even before) for commercial purposes.

81.187.181.168 07:44, 20 August 2006 (EDT)

A few answers:

• We are very close to having a linux version and would like to know who to work with on this as that the version for theOLPC machines will probalby be our only linux versions.
• We could do partial source. The software is written in two languages, fe (like postscript) and C. We could provide the fe source. We do have to make a living, so we need to keep selling the Windows and MAC versions.
• No licenseing would be needed for the OLPC version.
• No restrictions would be requied for the OLPC version.