Thanks to George Lessard for this... FN ---------- Forwarded message ----------
World's poor to get own search engine By Alfred Hermida BBC News Online technology editor RELATED INTERNET LINKS: TEK project http://cag.lcs.mit.edu/tek/ Comments/Questions? Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] The goal of the TEK project is to build a low-connectivity search engine for use by people at the far side of a bad telephone connection. People in poor countries could soon have a new and cheap way to get hold of the wealth of information on the internet. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing a search engine designed for people with a slow net connection. Someone using the software would e-mail a query to a central server in Boston. The program would search the net, choose the most suitable webpages, compress them and e-mail the results a day later. "More and more we are creating an information divide in the world and this can help narrow that divide and have a huge benefit in that sense," said Professor Saman Amarasinghe of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science in Boston. The thinking behind the TEK search engine is that people in poor countries are short of money but have time on their hands, whereas people in the West are cash-rich but time-poor. "The idea is that developing countries are willing to pay in time for knowledge," explained Prof Amarasinghe. "In the West when we surf we want the information in the next two seconds. We are not willing to wait." Filtered results The researchers say current web technology such as search engines is focused on the needs of the West. When the students arrive, they can browse through those pages the way they would if they had full internet connectivity By contrast, people in poor countries face problems such as the speed and cost of an internet connection, let alone the huge amount of webpages thrown up by search engines. "Let us assume you are in Malawi," explained Prof Amarasinghe, "and the computer lab does not have access to the telephone line all the time." "If you want to find some new information about malaria, you are prompted with a message that says 'we are going to send a query through e-mail, it is OK?'. "At night, when the phone line is available, the teacher can dial out and send the queries." The request is sent to computers at MIT in Boston, which then search the internet and gather webpages. To avoid a glut of information, the software then filters the results and chooses the most relevant. These are then sent back to the computer in Malawi so that they can be stored in the machine's internet cache. "Next morning the teacher can connect, download that e-mail and when the students arrive, they can browse through those pages the way they would if they had full internet connectivity," said Prof Amarasinghe. The program keeps a record of all the information sent to avoid wasting bandwidth by re-sending the same webpages. CDs in libraries So far the program is in its early stages, with a small number of people trying it out. But the researchers aim to have a beta version ready to be tested in the next three to four months. Once they have sorted out any bugs, they intend to make it freely available to anyone. However, the team realise the program is too big to download over a slow and poor net connection. Instead they are thinking of sending CDs to libraries so that people can borrow and install the software on their machines. They are also considering trying to persuade computer sellers in developing countries to install the program on machines. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3065063.stm Published: 2003/07/15 07:42:08 GMT © BBC MMIII Download TEK! See http://cag.lcs.mit.edu/tek/TEKdownload.html Version 1.1.4 of the TEK Client was released on May 13, 2003. This is still an Alpha version that has some known bugs and is intended primarily for experienced users to help test and evaluate the software, rather than for large scale distribution to rural communities. We look forward to undertaking a more widespread distribution as bugs are fixed and the product becomes more robust. There are versions of TEK available for both Linux and Windows. If the files below are too big for you to download, please send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and we will gladly mail you a CD with the installers. Linux installation. Download this file (1.3 MB) and install it according to the directions in the release notes for Linux. Windows installation. There are two options: ÝÝ 1. Includes a Java VM: Ý Download (10.8 MB) ÝÝ 2. Without a Java VM: Ý Download (2.0 MB) You should only use option #2 if you have a Java VM (version 1.3 or higher) already installed on your system. After downloading the installer, double-click on "install.exe" to start the installation process. Additional installation instructions, system requirements, and usage tips can be found in the release notes for Windows, which are available online as well as in the downloads above. Reporting Bugs This release contains several known bugs, and a large wish-list of items that we hope to implement in the future. The most recent bug list is available from our Bugzilla bug database. If you encounter a bug, please send it to us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that we can incorporate it into our list and give you credit for discovering it. If possible, please include with each bug report the version of your operating system, web browser, and email program, along with the sequence of steps necessary to reproduce the bug. Alternatively, if you are familiar with Bugzilla, you can contribute directly to the database. Helping to Develop TEK For those of you who are interested in helping to fix bugs, implement additional functionality, or contribute in other ways to the TEK project, we are very interested in hearing from you - please email us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] We are sharing our source code (under the Lesser GNU Public License) so that everyone can help in developing and deploying the software. ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. 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