Radio and broadcast

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Broadcast texts over shortwave radio

A major challenge is providing a continuing source of content for the OLPC. Access to the Internet in most of the regions of the world where children will benefit from the OLPC program is severely limited. However, most of these regions can receive shortwave radio signals, even in mountainous areas.

Rationale

The OLPC is (1) a tool for accessing information and (2) a tool for self-driven learning through investigation. A problem with the former role is "from whence cometh the information?". With the limited storage resources, "pre-loading" the information on the machines seems like an untenable approach. The crux of this proposal is that having easy and reliable access to a small library of information will be more useful than having spotty access to the entire Internet, even through mesh networking.

Idea

Continuosly broadcast e-book content over shortwave radio with the same content repeating at different times of the day to work around intermittent reception areas. Have the books broken up into chunks, and all the texts from a library interleaved in time. If possible, transmit different interleaving sequences on a set of different channels. The basic circuitry for a shortwave radio demodulator can be very simple, particularly if the decoding is done in software sitting behind a straightforward RF and analog front-end. When a child wants information on a topic, the implemented system captures fragments of a text relating to the topic off the air, and over time, the whole text is collected.

I wouldn't suggest using software radio on this platform, implementing a hardware radio (which returns either unerrorcorrected binary or even better values between 0 to 255 for a bit is either 0 or 1) is very simple, even for relativly fast data transmission modes over "ordinary" AM amateur radio transmitting equipment. I'll try and post a very basic design for one on a USB port if I find time --Ikarus 00:35, 16 November 2006 (EST)

Example

Purely as an example, let the library of e-books being transmitted consist of

1. Project Gutenberg texts http://www.gutenberg.org
2. mathworld.wolfram.com
3. Wikipedia.

All the content is broken up into packets of some size, encoded, all the packets interleaved according to some scheme, and the entire interleaved stream repeatedly transmitted. The infrastructure for transmitting the data streams need not even be in the nation or on the continent where the recipients are. Let, for example, the entire stream take two months to transmit. 4GB of encoded data at 1200 baud will take ~40 days. 1200 baud for a packet radio seems feasible, though I can't say how complex the hardware would be. Bear in mind we're only talking about receiving, not a full-blown modem. It could be as simple as a shortwave radio with a patch cord between its earphone jack and the microphone input of the OLPC.

Extensions

You can imagine having N different interleavings, which are transmitted on N different channels. When a child wants information on some topic, the request is sent out to at least N other OLPCs, over the mesh wireless network. All the machines start picking up chunks for the text on one of the N different channels. The chunks are sent to the requester over the mesh network. This is similar to the way in which the hosts on a P2P file sharing network cooperate to transfer files from far away into their local area.

Existing technology that can be adapted

There are various existing technologies that could be adopted or adapted to achieve this.

Digital Signal Processing for Ham Radio

The Ham Radio community has a vast amount of experience with weak-signal transmission (and reception of data) beginning with slowscan TV back in the 60's. Phil Karn, the developer of a popular DOS application to run TCP/IP over shortwave, has done some work that could be used. The Geode chipset does have MMX instructions which can be used to do DSP functions.

Digital Radio Mondiale

There is a new standard that is now beginning to be used for international shortwave broadcasting called Digital Radio Mondiale. This already has a subchannel allocated for transmission of data.

An Open Source implementation of a software Digital Radio Mondiale decoder, called DReaM already exists.. It can decode international broadcasts, such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America etc. and can decode single sideband AM. As the decoding for Upper Sideband uses a flip filter, I can't see it being to hard to decode AM, and if FM decoding in software and a simple Superhet front end were added, would be perfect.. The User Interface would require modification as it is aimed at Radio Experimenters, and is too technical for children.

HF radio

The ham radio community has mature technology for sending data over long distances at low speeds over narrow high-frequency (3-30 MHz) channels using PC sound cards as data modems. This technology could be used for e-mail to remote regions.

I think this would be a good idea since some children live a mile or more in there towns and villages. Having data travel over long distances will help them keep in touch with each other through the network. I'm sure thought this will have to be approve by the IEEE as a new networking standard, but I'm sure this can be done.

Another historical note about radio broadcast of programs

Back in the 8-bit era, when floppies were still not cheap enough, some computers had a cassette recorder so you could store your programs in cassette. A local radio used to broadcast Atari programs so you could record them at your radio receiver and then play them on your Atari. It wasn't very reliable, since line noise could spoil the recording, but it was a nice idea back then. .:|you could broadcast boot code, mesh-networking software patches, and links to P2P resources. Just include a standard FM receiver (but why not a programmable transmitter as well!), record and process audio into bits, but don't listen to the noise ... oww! N888-9-AE|:.

Luis González

See Basicode 62.252.0.11 17:02, 17 March 2006 (EST)

12 March 2006

Satellite Broadcast

MIT's Technology Review web site has an article about narrowband (128 Kb/s) satellite broadcasting being used in Africa. This could be used to send updates to schools. http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16786&ch=infotech

Some interesting experiments in using direct satellite broadcasting for education took place in the 1970s using the ATS-6 experimental satellite. http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/artifacts/CS-ATS6.htm

USB addons

Well, first of all, the OLPC has 4 USB ports. There is no reason why someone could not manufacture such a radio system as an accessory for the OLPC, to be used in those countries and those regions where this would be a good idea. This would most definitely be a dumb idea in the capital city of Thailand, for instance. But in mountainous western China it would be a very good idea, indeed.

For an example of how small an simple radio circuitry can be, look at this plan for a 3 penny radio. Note that he refers to using a lemonade battery to power it, i.e. electrodes dangling in a glass of lemonade. To use this as a shortwave receiver you just need to adjust the tuning circuitry to bring in the shortwave bands. Here is a circuit specifically for receiving shortwave bands that uses the same radio IC. A receiver like this could actually feed directly into the OLPC's microphone input, however some extra work could interface it with a USB port. This is an example of a microphone input via USB. If it was built as a USB device, it would be powered from the USB port and receive data in the background while the user reads e-books in monochrome mode.

Decoding the transmission in software is alot more "expensive" in terms of battery use then in hardware. --Ikarus 00:37, 16 November 2006 (EST)

Vertical retrace data channel

One way to mass download info, at least in areas that have TV reception, is to use the vertical retrace interval to send data.

TV signals have a very limited range, using a subchannel on a existing AM radio transmitter (of any carrier frequency) increases the range tremendously, yet requires almost no expense for the organisation doing the transmissions, or the carrier. --Ikarus 00:39, 16 November 2006 (EST)

Miscellaneous

Support for this and mention of telesoftware and of MHP

Yes, good idea.

You might like to consider using telesoftware, that is the unidirectional cyclic broadcasting of software and its selective use, to broadcast software packages for the laptop as well.

The following webspace about the DVB-MHP (Digital Video Broadcasting - Multimedia Home Platform) interactive televison system might be of interest.

http://www.mhp.org

The MHP system broadcasts Java programs to interactive television sets.

The following idea, not implemented as far as I know, might be of interest in relation to digital radio.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/tor00000.htm

William Overington

5 March 2006

There is now a page about the possibility of an MHP to laptop interface

There is now a page about the possibility of an MHP to laptop interface.

[[1]]

One way connection to internet helps nothing. This is passive usage like watching tv. Software distribution with USB is easy.

• Yet in areas of the world where a two-way link is impossible, a one-way system where lots of software and data such as electronic textbooks can be received from direct to school broadcasts from a geosynchronous television broadcasting satellite and stored localy, telesoftware could be very advantageous.

Distance and the Mesh Network

As I understand these laptops will have intergraded wireless with the 802.11 b and g standards. The problem I see is that in some countries, like Africa, the children live sometimes a half mile or so apart from each other. The 802.11 b and g IEEE standard only has a reach of 100 feet or more with out modifications. This means the only time the children will be networked with each other is when they are at school. What needs to be done is the wireless in each laptop needs to reach up to at least a mile so the children’s computers are always connected to the network even in their home. The wireless b and g standard can be mod up to 10 miles of reach but to do that requires either a large antenna or an amplifier that would consume too much power. My suggestion is that you create a new wireless networking standard with low radio frequencies like every one has been suggesting. I would like to see it so the children’s computers are always part of the network when they are at home, because as I see it most of the programs on the laptop except the office programs can’t work with out a network.

• Yeah, Thats true and current problem in commuication field. But i heard a new low-power, long-range communications technology called xMax®[2]. xMax uses single cycle modulation to boost the range of wired and wireless communication devices. Incorporated into products as a new physical layer PHY chipset, xMax also reduces a device's RF output power resulting in improved battery life and high data rate over a distance of about 13 miles.I think sounds like very good and i am request to OLPC team contact the xG Technologyfor using such technology in the OLPC project. If everything is done, The OLPC become a great project in the human era. Reason is good education is best mould of making best community. Muhammad Ismail .H 14:15, 15 July 2006 (IST)

• • WiMax [3] might be suitable for this.

Speeds and data integrity

If I remember my modem hardware correctly, 1200baud is simple FM over half of a telephone channel. This would be more like a FAX channel where the entire frequency width of the channel is available; all normal fax modulations have a baud rate of 2400, with bps of 4800 to 14400.

The processor in this machine would be more than enough to demodulate this in software and decode some serious forward error correction eg par files

Radio distribution of content

The basic suggestion is to adapt existing technology for broadcasting data over the radio and use it as a widespread distribution tool for content to the laptops or, more likely, to some central site in the village. Once in the village it can be distributed further using the built-in wi-fi of the OLPCs. The radio would presumably be similar to existing USB DVB-T receivers available in Europe to receive digital television broadcasts. This could be done in one of two ways. One way is to fill up a shared library in each village. The other way is to constantly repeat the same documents so that villages do not need to have large storage capability.

MHP has been suggested as a possible source of this technology.

Mesh * xMax / MIMO = "The End of Telcos"

Take the automagically connected 'mesh' network, multiply by 'xMax' and divide into 'MIMO'.

Everybody is a node, but needn't be 'near' each other and receives and transmits from and through every other user. The very high speed and the numerous sources could avoid the latency problem when accessing internet servers through many hops.

And the very low power consumption of xMax is an interesting asset indeed.

I back Muhammad Ismail .H 's claim: contact xG Technology, they should be very interested in producing something between 5 and 10 million chips for the OLPC.

(From:general-products) Single cycle AM frequency communications is far easier than people realise, as it can be handled by direct connection to a low speed CPU or equivalent. Im afraid Ive been trying to find someone to consider uses of my single cycle, chaos modulation method since 1997, and have dated notes to prove it, but am no good at all in selling or following up. Anyone who is interested is welcome to the hardware and software block diagrams, under Open Source style ideas. I also apologise for my belief that Bluetooth was deliberatly crippled from its initial form, to prevent it being used in such a Telco replacing Free Mesh network. See BT and South Wales Mesh network tests.(28/04/2007) (From:general-products)

--S112 04:39 16 August 2006 (EST)

Satellite TV Multi-Language Sub-Carriers

Satellite TV systems are able to provide sound to go with their pictures in several languages on separate sub-carrier frequencies. The viewer selects which one to listen to using their set-top box’s on-screen menu. The broadcaster can also provide sub-titles in multiple languages on separate sub-carriers.

It is often the case that a lot of programmes are transmitted with just one or two language sound-tracks, leaving the other language sub-carriers un-used a lot of the time. If the OLPC project could get the co-operation of a satellite company which broadcasts to a developing country, these spare audio-channels could be used to broadcast audio-signals containing eBooks, software, news, web-pages, etc, to schools. The satellite company could also benefit by using the same file-broadcasting system for commercial purposes.

Using Satellite TV means that data would be available to schools over a very large area.

--Ricardo 11:36, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Embedding Data as Hidden-Sounds within a Radio-Station’s Audio-Stream

Overview

One possible method of broadcasting files to schools would be to embed the digital data as hidden sound-signals within an existing radio-station’s music/speech audio-signal. Embedding the data within the audio would allow data-files to be received without any special equipment, using ordinary cheap radios connected to a computer.

Software at the transmitting-station would convert the data into an audio signal representing the binary bits, bytes, data-packets and files. It would then be mixed digitally, or via the radio station’s analogue mixing-desk, with the music or speech to produce the final audio-signal for transmission.

The data would be received by connecting the headphone socket of an ordinary cheap radio to a computer’s audio-in/microphone socket or using a Radio that plugs into a USB socket. Receiving-software would sample the audio stream, extract the data-signal out of the music by digital filtering and convert it back to bits, bytes, data-packets and files.

Comparison with other methods

This method, where data is embedded into the audio signal, allows ordinary radios to be used as receivers. Some alternative systems for sending digital data as part of a radio-broadcast rely on more expensive receivers, which receive data on a separate sub-carrier frequency. For example, the RDS Radio Data System, which sends current programme information on a sub-carrier frequency (see Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System ). In contrast, an embedded-audio system would keep everything within the normal audio-signal.

Data Representation

The signal-format for embedding data into the music/speech could be one of these :-

1. Steganography – Several existing methods for hiding data within audio signals. (See Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography )
2. ‘Digital Watermarking’, as used to embed copyright information into CD-tracks. The fact that digital watermarking is known to work provides a ‘proof of concept’. It shows that data can be embedded into audio and then recovered. Digital-watermarks are quite robust, surviving attempts to remove the copyright information by such measures as recording CD-tracks to tape then re-digitizing the track. However, most existing digital-watermarking systems are proprietary and would require license-fees.
3. An existing non-proprietary way of representing data as tones (public-domain or patent-expired).
4. A new format of our own - so there are no commercial license-fees to pay.

Improvement over time

Initially, to simplify development, the encoding could use a simple signal-format for the data, such as a pair of tones at two different audio-frequencies representing 0s and 1s, for example 10KHz and 11Khz. They would be at a much lower volume than the music or speech, making it inaudible to the human ear, but recoverable by filtering. Later, a more sophisticated format could be used, capable of higher data-rates.

Advantages

Although hiding data in the audio signal wouldn’t achieve such a high data-rate as subcarrier systems or dedicated data channels, this system does have several points in its favour...

Cheap Hardware

No expensive hardware is required for transmission or reception. Most of it would be carried out in software. At the transmission-end, it would use purely software for encoding, embedding and mixing the audio. At the receiving-end, it just requires a cheap radio (which a school may already have), a 3.5mm stereo-to-mono jack lead to connect the radio to the microphone socket (for one stereo channel only, about 2 US Dollars in 2007) and some decoding-software. To avoid using batteries, a radio that plugs into, and is powered by, the USB port may be preferable.

No need for new Radio-licenses

Since it uses existing radio-stations, it wouldn’t require a new expensive radio-licence (for part of the radio-spectrum), as you would require if you set up a brand-new data broadcasting station. It just needs a partnership with one or more radio stations that are prepared to carry the data as a community-service.

Short development time

It can be based on proven, existing techniques for embedding data in audio.

Long distance transmission

It can use the powerful transmitter of a radio-station to transmit data over long distances.

Wide coverage of data transmission

A single short-wave radio-station can cover a wide area (thousands of square miles). In addition, there are thousands of FM stations worldwide which can broadcast data to schools within their local area.

Multiple receivers

Because the hardware is so cheap, a school could have several radios connected to different computers on the mesh-network listening to several radio-stations at the same time which transmit different files. The received files could be passed from each of the receiving computers to the mesh-server and other computers on the network.

Independence from the Transmission-Medium

The system is independent of the underlying transmission-medium. Any transmission-medium with an audio signal can transmit embedded data, including AM/FM radio-stations, terrestrial TV, satellite TV, internet-radio, etc. Internet radio-stations could embed data into their audio signal, so that it can be streamed via the internet to anywhere in the world, then without modification, re-broadcast by radio to a local area or a whole country.

Re-broadcasting Data

Sometimes, local FM stations receive a programme from a national or international radio-station and re-broadcast it on a different wave-band to their local area. For example, the British BBC World Service is transmitted from the UK, received by radio or the internet in many countries and re-broadcast on local FM stations. It allows people without a short-wave radio to receive it on an FM radio.

Embedding data within the music/speech audio-signal means that data from the national/international-station can be passed on without the local FM station having to do anything at all to the audio signal.

In a developing country, data could be embedded into a programme by a national radio station, then received by local stations and re-transmitted on FM in their area.

One variation on this is for local stations to continuously extract just the data from a national broadcast and re-embed it into different local programmes. They are not forced to carry the music or speech content of the national broadcast, just because they use the data.

Multiple data-sets

Perhaps more than one set of data could be embedded into the music/speech audio-signal for national and locally-developed content. This could be on 2 separate hidden sound signals, on the left/right stereo channels or just interleaved in time within one signal.

Developer-skills

Since it’s a software-based system and it uses audio-signals and it is independent of the transmission medium, most of the development work and improvements can be done by software developers, with no special knowledge of radio-equipment or electronics. This provides a larger pool of people with the skills to work on it than a hardware-based solution. Also, a great deal of the development work can be done on computers, without any special radio hardware. Obviously, the team still needs some experienced radio-engineers.

Disadvantages

Slower data-rate than other systems

The amount of data per hour may be quite low compared with a system that uses the full capacity of a radio-channel for transmitting data. However, receiving data from several stations at a time could offset this to some extent. Also, if the maximum data-rate does prove to be very slow, it’s still quick and cheap to develop and could act as a stop-gap until a better system is developed. Since, it is software based, it is capable of constant improvement once it is up and running. There’s no reason why more than one data-broadcasting method shouldn’t operate at the same time. It isn’t necessarily an either/or situation.

The slow data-rate doesn’t necessarily rule this system out. Even with a low data-rate service, a school could still build-up a library of useful eBooks and software over a few weeks or months.

Notes

Verifying the data before transmission

To make sure that each data-packet is transmitted correctly and not obscured by a particularly loud sound at the audio frequencies used by the data, the software would monitor the mixed music + data output signal, check each data-packet is recoverable by filtering and then mix-in another copy of the packet after a short delay, if necessary. In this way, one would know that recoverable data-packets are present in the signal at the point of transmission.

Keeping the Data Inaudible

Some method may be required to avoid transmitting data during periods of silence, such as abandoning a data-packet if the music/speech stops, then re-transmitting it when the music/speech starts again.

Content

The service could be useful, not just for information of long-term value, like eBooks and software, but also for short-term information, such as news. The data transmitted could include a transmission-schedule of files, a range of popular web-pages, news, weather, sports results, farm/market-prices, public-health bulletins, voice-mail files, pictures, text, MP3s, MIDI music files, system maintenance information, OLPC news, etc.

Layered Services

The service is just a platform for data-transmission, like a one-way internet. Any number of services could be built on top, equivalent to one-way versions of email, ftp file-transfer, instant-messaging and the World Wide Web (a selection of popular web-pages). It could send any type of file for any type of service.

Testing

This might be done in 4 stages :-

1. Software-only – Encode some data into an audio-file, then decode it and check it.
2. Cable Loop-back – Transmit the signal from the audio-out socket of a computer to the audio-in socket of another/the same computer via a stereo jack lead.
3. Transmit and receive the signal on FM radio - As a transmitter, we could use one of those cheap transmitters that broadcasts an MP3 Player’s headphone-output as an FM radio signal to a car radio that doesn’t have an input-socket. We would output the signal from the audio-out socket of a computer, broadcast it using the FM transmitter-device, and receive it on an FM radio plugged into the audio-in socket of another computer or the same computer. Alternatively, use a USB FM Radio or laptop PCMCIA radio-card.
4. Transmit and receive data on Short-Wave – Use professional short-wave equipment over various distances, such as across a lab, a university campus and longer distances.

Upgrading the Encoding-Standard

The first encoding standard that is used for the hidden data isn’t fixed forever. A simple, slow encoding method could be used for a start, then upgraded later via software-updates.

Development Partners

Development might be speeded-up if people in the industrialised countries, including radio-stations, advertisers and other high-tech companies, became interested in using and developing the standards and software and services based on them. This type of data-transmission service could provide people with a steady stream of useful information in situations where the internet is unavailable and there is no mobile phone coverage, such as in remote countryside areas, on vacations overseas, on trekking/camping trips, on boats, etc.

Receiving Equipment

Many types of receiving equipment with a built-in radio could make use of it, with suitable software – OLPC laptops, ordinary desktop/laptop computers, hand-held devices/PDAs, mobile-phone handsets with FM radio, FM Radio/MP3 players, games consoles, etc. It could be useful in any situation where people want news, weather, sport, software, eBooks, text-files, popular web-pages, entertainment, radio-station news, stock-market prices, etc, for free.

Two-Way Transmission - Benefits for Radio-Stations and Schools

In addition to a 1-way data broadcasting service, this system of embedding data in radio-station transmissions could provide a 2-way link between nearby radio-stations and whole chains/networks of radio-stations in those parts of the world where there is limited phone or internet access or none at all. Each station transmits its data to the other station within its own music/speech broadcast and receives data in the opposite direction by receiving the other station’s output on a radio + computer, in a similar way to the schools. Since it’s a 2-way system, it can include Acknowledgement and Retry messages for reliable data-delivery, like TCP/IP.

The system could be used by the radio-stations to...

1. Swap news, emails and music-files among themselves, perhaps with automatic file-sharing and synchronisation of file-collections.
2. Receive files for broadcast to the schools from another radio-station, somewhere else on the chain/network with internet-access to an OLPC website or with better reception of international data broadcasts.
3. Accumulate a library of files over several weeks or months, which local schools can pick up in person on an OLPC laptop, CD, DVD or Flash Memory Drive.
4. Send the occasional message from one school to another in a different part of the world, if the sender brings the message in to the station.
5. Upload locally-produced content produced by the schools, to an OLPC file-server or website, for /publishing/broadcasting to other schools (web-pages, eBooks, artwork, music, articles, teaching materials, etc).
6. Send requests on behalf of the schools to the controller of the transmission-schedule, for particular files to be broadcast. This makes the system to some extent ‘interactive’, not just passive.

Higher Data-Rates using Data in TV Pictures

Hiding data in the sound-signal is quite simple, but there is also the possibility that data could be hidden in Terrestrial/Satellite TV pictures, using steganographic techniques, to allow a higher data rate.

It could be done in real-time or by pre-processing each programme’s video file in software. It wouldn’t require any additional hardware at each broadcasting station, which is an advantage compared with schemes which add data using electronic circuitry.

Note that, like the audio-system, the picture-system is independent of the transmission-medium. It doesn’t matter whether the picture is broadcast over digital or analogue, terrestrial or satellite TV. The data is embedded in the picture, not in the TV signals of the particular transmission-standard. The data would still be present, even if the programmes is relayed through several different TV systems, uplinks/downlinks, or recorded onto DVD, Hard Disk or tape.

Wider Use of Data by Radio

In developing countries, many people would ideally like to have 2-way access to the internet, so they can choose what to look at. However, if the internet is unavailable or unaffordable in their area, any of the 1-way data-broadcasting methods on this page could still provide a lot of people with access to a range of free digital information for the first time. One might call it a ‘One-Way Web’, extending the internet in a limited way to thousands more people.

The scheme could benefit people with any type of computer, not just participants in the OLPC project. If a lot of radio-stations were involved in the scheme, large parts of developing countries could be covered. In time, they may get 2-way internet-access in their area.

Options

I think this embedded-audio scheme provides plenty of options for broadcasting data to schools, either by using this scheme as described or by including elements of it in other schemes.

--Ricardo 11:34, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Very long distance Wi-Fi

Very long distance Wi-Fi might be a suitable, cheap technology for connecting schools to the internet.

In April 2007, a group from the Venezuelan APC (Association for Progressive Communications) member EsLaRed, in conjunction with Professor Eric Brewer and his team from the University of California at Berkeley, set a new Wi-Fi Distance Record, transmitting and receiving data over a distance of 382 Kilometres (237 miles). They achieved a data-rate of 3 Megabits Per Second in each direction, first using Professor Brewer’s equipment and again using APC's Linksys Wi-Fi equipment, costing less than 60 US Dollars.

Please see this article on the APC website, which has photos of the equipment they used, including domestic Wi-Fi home-network equipment and parabolic open-lattice dishes.

See also :-

Wired Blog Network - New WiFi Record: 237 Miles

News.com - New Wi-Fi distance record: 382 kilometers

If data can be transmitted over these distances so cheaply, schools could link to a place with internet access directly or use similar relay-stations to get there. In some areas, schools could be linked to the next-nearest one by long-distance Wi-Fi, eventually connecting to a school with internet-access. In this way, only one 60 USD link per school is needed (less than the cost of one OLPC laptop).

--Ricardo 09:59, 20 July 2007 (EDT)