Google spice brings out open source aroma

David M Williams
Sunday, 22 June 2008 20:53

Opinion and Analysis

Let’s begin with the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. It’s certainly noteworthy in itself and I believe its ideals are something which we would all share. OLPC put forth a large number of project ideas. Some of these focused on the unique method of networking the project’s devices (the OLPC XO) use, namely its mesh network where physically close laptops communicate with each other to share resources and enable collaboration.

This mesh networking has worked well on the scales out in the open so far, but it is evident the project are looking toward far greater numbers of devices in the mesh. Project ideas they conceived included the construction of tools to remotely control, configure and analyse logs from experimental devices making up a large mesh test environment. Another suggestion was to consider ways of visualising the mesh.

Four projects have been taken up. The first integrates speech synthesis in the OLPC XO’s Sugar environment. This has potential to open up the XO to children with vision impairments as well as aid pre-schoolers in reading and spelling activities. To achieve it, the Sugar environment needs a system-wide speech synthesis framework. This can then be invoked from within any of the individual activities provided by the system.

The second project is also focused on speech but with a specific application in mind, namely a “listen and spell” game. The goals are to help children improve their vocabulary and pronunciation of words. Achieving this isn’t as simple as it may sound; part of the system will read out words the user has entered meaning the software has to be grammatically astute enough to correctly pronounce arbitrary words. I’d also expect it permit localisation to lend itself to non-English speaking regions or even to English-speaking regions that have their own distinctive accents.

Turning from the written word, the third OLPC sponsored project is to exploit the XO’s built-in web camera with the intention of processing and deciphering the mage it sees. As this is pointed at the user, there is potential for new ways of interacting with a computer. Instead of taking static photographs, the project aims to let software track where the user’s eyes are focused, or to read sign language, or to detect the motions a user makes. Each of these can replace the mouse and keyboard and provide a natural way of controlling the system.

The other sponsored project is a software tool to assist children with learning handwriting on tablet PCs or touch screen devices. The intentions are that the application helps children learn the shape of letters and improve their fine motor skills. Feedback will be given letting students know if they are applying the wrong amount of pressure (and it will be interesting to see how this is measured, perhaps by the thickness of the letter’s drawings) or writing the wrong direction or other varied problems. Teachers will also receive feedback on how any individual student is progressing.

Now, OLPC is a worthy project but let’s see what’s coming up for something we’re definitely all interested in.

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