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The world's poor could benefit from a system that is blanketing half Earth's surface with a signal that provides free access to Wikipedia and other useful websites.
What do you get if you cross a satellite TV receiver with the Internet? According to startup Outernet, a way to bring billions more people the benefit of online information.
By renting communications satellites, Outernet is currently blanketing about half Earth's surface with a signal that transmits data including much of Wikipedia, open-source software, health resources from the Centers for Disease Control, and international news coverage. Cheap devices based on regular satellite TV receivers store the data that the signal gradually transfers and create a local Wi-Fi network to let nearby computers, phones, or tablets access the downloaded content.
Outernet is putting together the first 100 prototypes of those devices, code-named "Pillars," and starting to test them in the field. One is up and running in a village in western Kenya. Another is in the Dominican Republic, and a third will soon be installed at a Detroit anarchist community attempting to live off the grid. Outernet's current signal broadcasts about 200 megabytes of data over the course of a day, making it possible to update content such as daily news and weather forecasts periodically. It covers North and Central America, all of sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and parts of Asia and the Middle East.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by toygeek on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:29AM
Getting information out freely is a very good thing, and just because its read-only and slow doesn't mean much. Newspapers are still that way, so are books. Yes, it limits folks to being consumers of information only, but that's what most are anyway. Selfies don't count. If you look at it from the perspective of "Hey, everyone in Kenya gets current news and a library of books in their house" it's a great thing. If you look at it as "Everyone in Kenya gets crippled Internet" then you're going to be missing the point.
There is no Sig. Okay, maybe a short one. http://miscdotgeek.com
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:35AM
What's a newspaper? What's a book?
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Sunday May 17 2015, @05:22AM
At this point, wouldn't it be easier to just give them access to the real Internet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @05:33AM
> At this point, wouldn't it be easier to just give them access to the real Internet?
No.
Any more stupid questions?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Sunday May 17 2015, @08:11AM
wouldn't it be easier to just give them access to the real Internet?
If we are talking about Africa, the answer is no they already have it.
If you have cellphones, you have Internet, in Africa, or anywhere else.
And if you ask, what about Rural areas where the cellphone don't reach? the answer is they will haver cellphones too pretty soon. Where there are people, someone wants to advertise. Where there are new cellphones, there are old hand-me-downs. African secondary school kids are complaining because their primary school siblings now have cellphones - OK, not Flagship Samsungs, I admit Even the secondary school kids mostly only have Blackberrys and Chinese Android kit - but Wikipedia works fine on them. If google doesn't eat their entire data allowance downloading adverts they don't want.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!