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Internet in a Box

internet-in-a-box.org

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Re: Internet in a Box

#81

Post by brador »

ivansavz wrote: post #56

To clarify, the "box" is any UNIX computer (very well suited for Raspberry PI devices, since the wifi can act as a hotspot), and the "internet" consists of all the best FOSS apps and open content that get served from localhost, see full list here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_services_.28IIAB_app... The use case is to make apps/content/tools normally requiring internet accessed work offline (either on loca…

Surely an old android smartphone can do all this better than a hard to replace/repair UNIX "internet-in-a-box"?

Old Android phone:

1. Has screen - (strong, tested, replaceable).

2. All the Android apps.

3. Wifi hotspot functionality + FTP + server hotspot.

4. MicroSD slot for massive and switchable data store.

5. Solar powerable, with removable and replaceable battery.

6. Touch friendly, kid friendly, low IQ requirement UI/UX.

7. Easy to code to extend functionality any way you like.

Any old Samsung would be great, S4 was good and less than $50 a shot used with an OLED 1080p screen.

Re: Internet in a Box

#84

Post by laumars »

sgt wrote: post #46
londons_explore wrote: post #24

Does this solve real people's actual problems? Selling the 32 gig SD card together with an Android app to browse the data seems far better. The majority of the world either has an Android phone (possibly a decade old), or a family member with one. Have the android app available in the app store and the data downloadable for those who occasionally have internet connectivity (for example visiting a big city), but don't…

If you think a smart phone lasts 10 years in the hands of poor people, you are extremely optimistic. From what I can tell, even here in South Africa's townships they are using fairly new Samsung, Huawei etc smart phones (always with a broken screen - this happens without exception), albeit cheap ones. Even my gardener has a Samsung 10 something. Not entirely sure how he can afford it, but I suspect he borrowed a lot…

There’s a lot of African countries where that isn’t the case. I recently did some work for a mobile based game targeting a number of African countries and we had to support WAP and SMS.

India is another country where poorer regions wouldn’t have good cell coverage with most people without phones (let alone smart phones).

If you live in a region that can have luxuries like a gardener, then you’re likely already more affluent than those who this project is targeting.

Re: Internet in a Box

#85

Post by batch12 »

Ensorceled wrote: post #49

The complaints about the name for a free product, created by a charity, that aims to help the deeply poor and remote because it "conflicts" with an inside joke from a cult BBC comedy that wrapped up 8 years ago are, at best, a bit silly.

I saw one complaint and a few jokes. The fact that the top comment is a complaint about a complaint is sillier. Why not reply to that single person?

Re: Internet in a Box

#86

Post by Scoundreller »

mysterydip wrote: post #68
myself248 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the use-case I set mine up for, just for fun. Unplug my cable modem and see how long I can still be productive. With a local copy of most StackOverflow sites and Wikipedia, I'm pretty well equipped for a certain set of problems. Next up, I need to figure out how to wield the various github-mirror-an-entire-org scripts I've found, to keep a local copy of Adafruit's github, since their code and libraries power a…

How much disk space does wikipedia and SO take for you?

On Kiwix, the entire english Wikipedia with images but not videos is 90gb. 6.3m articles.

You can pick and choose categories to some degree (e.g. I’m downloading some to get the videos as well), but I think this leads to some redundancy.

134gb for stackoverflow, but it's from 2019. This guy does sql files, but viewing is another story: https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2015/10/how-to-download-th...

There are torrent links here: https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages but I think in iOS, you're stuck downloading over http.

Re: Internet in a Box

#87

Post by culopatin »

Ensorceled wrote: post #49

The complaints about the name for a free product, created by a charity, that aims to help the deeply poor and remote because it "conflicts" with an inside joke from a cult BBC comedy that wrapped up 8 years ago are, at best, a bit silly.

I thought of “It’s a d** in a box!”.

https://youtu.be/Rt0spqQtMKg

Re: Internet in a Box

#88

Post by mdorazio »

brador wrote: post #81
ivansavz wrote: post #56

To clarify, the "box" is any UNIX computer (very well suited for Raspberry PI devices, since the wifi can act as a hotspot), and the "internet" consists of all the best FOSS apps and open content that get served from localhost, see full list here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_services_.28IIAB_app... The use case is to make apps/content/tools normally requiring internet accessed work offline (either on loca…

Surely an old android smartphone can do all this better than a hard to replace/repair UNIX "internet-in-a-box"? Old Android phone: 1. Has screen - (strong, tested, replaceable). 2. All the Android apps. 3. Wifi hotspot functionality + FTP + server hotspot. 4. MicroSD slot for massive and switchable data store. 5. Solar powerable, with removable and replaceable battery. 6. Touch friendly, kid friendly, low IQ requirem…

I think you're misunderstanding the point of this. It's not meant to be a device that people directly interact with. It's meant to be a local server that anyone nearby with a wi-fi connection can tap into regardless of broader internet availability. In that way it's likely to last much longer since it can be placed somewhere safe and not run the risk of being stolen/fought over/dropped/smashed/etc. and the end point used by the local population doesn't matter - a chromebook, second-hand android phone, whatever.

Re: Internet in a Box

#90

Post by smoldesu »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #17

What? No one has mentioned Moss' "This is the Internet"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg

I hope the advent of machine learning will afford us a way to filter out 50-95% of the laugh tracks in The IT Crowd. I'd love to be able to watch it for more than 5 minutes at a time again.
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