SIL Open Font License (OFL)

SIL Open Font License (OFL): "The SIL Open Font License (OFL) is a free and open source license specifically designed for fonts and related software based on our experience in font design and linguistic software engineering."

Intivation's solar powered mobiles

On Saturday, the Telegraph (one of Britain's main broadsheet newspapers) carried an informative article in the technology page by reporter Matt Warman, under the title, "A ray of sunshine for Haiti". You can read the full article online here. It begins,

Dutch mobile phone firm Intivation has donated 1,000 of its solar-powered handset to the earthquake-stricken Caribbean country. Haiti’s prime minister has described the damage done to his country by January 12’s earthquake as “a disaster on a planetary scale”. Earlier this week Jean Max Bellerive spoke of nearly a quarter of a million homes destroyed, 300,000 people injured and 200,000 dead – and nearly a month after the event itself, Port au Prince was still nowhere near resurrecting its power system.

But the Caribbean nation’s mobile phone networks were back up within a few days – most within just 24 hours. In a country where mobile phones are owned by one in three people, and massively outnumber landlines, the crucial issue for many residents was not being unable to communicate, it was being able to keep their phones charged. A number of people were saved because they were able to send text messages while they were trapped underneath the rubble from collapsed buildings.

Some entrepreneurs immediately saw a business opportunity – thousands were prepared to pay for 15 minutes connected to a car battery to recharge their mobiles. Dutch mobile phone firm Intivation, however, has long realised that its solar powered handsets were a solution to the problems of Haiti’s unreliable infrastructure. First launched in the Caribbean nation, the devices have subsequently been sold in seven more countries by 11 operators.

The company’s idea is a simple one: in countries in emerging markets, there’s often enough sun to make the latest solar power technology a viable way of charging phones, even in normal use. Where other companies use a number of solar cells, Intivation’s method of using a single, larger cell and adapting the power output is just one feature that makes their technology, on a cloudy day, more than 20 times as efficient as traditional solar technologies.

more .....

The concept of using solar power for mobile phones in energy starved countries is such a good idea, that I thought it merits having some attention drawn to it in this blog. Visit the main Intivation website to learn more about the business, the technology and their products.

GSM cell phones - statistics of interest

There are a total of 4.3 billion cell phones in general use, 3.5 billion of which are GSM phones. 80 percent of cellular traffic is over GSM.

cf. Total world population (2010) is estimated to be 6.797 billion.

Does anyone doubt the importance of getting the Bible on to GSM cellphones in as many languages as possible?

International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM)

The International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM-Europe) takes place in the Netherlands 10-13 March, 2010.

'Engineering and Theology' matches 'Computing and Mission'.

I have therefore just booked to attend.

I hope to have opportunities to share information about Go Bible for mobile phones.

Go Bible for Android phones

Yesterday I discovered that it is possible to convert any Java ME application to an Android package file APK, using a free online converter called GetAPK.

One of my colleagues has tested this for a few Go Bible applications in a number of different languages, with a considerable degree of success. He wrote,

It's not perfect, it sometimes hangs if you run multiple copies of the program at once, the font is rather cruddy, but it does work. You need to install the J2ME Runner application on the phone but the program prompts you when you don't have it. The small icon compared to the normal sized Android icon is a minor issue.

I have therefore converted the KJV Go Bible to KJV.APK for the benefit of a wider number of potential users. This is a useful interim solution for getting free Bibles onto Android phones.

Depending on further feedback, I hope to convert a few more Go Bibles in the same way, and make them available for download from shared folders in my box.net account. These programs will all be unsupported software, provided on an "as is" basis, as a "stop-gap" measure for Android users. I myself don't yet have an Android mobile phone.

Meanwhile, there is nothing to stop you using GetAPK to convert Go Bible applications by yourself.......

David Haslam
CrossWire Go Bible project leader

About Stephen Denne

Hello,

This post is to introduce myself, Stephen Denne.

I'm a husband, and a father of two young children.

My goal is to increasingly know God and make God known. I've been a software developer for many years, and involved to various degrees in a number of bible software products, helping to make God known. My main areas of software expertise would be in compression, conversion, searching, and catering for small form factor PDAs and mobiles.

2009 has been a year of changes so far for me - moving to Christchurch New Zealand (from Wellington), buying a nice house in Christchurch, moving again, into that house, and finding a church.

In amongst those changes, I've started adapting the GoBible Creator to be able to create GoBible applications from the bible modules of The SWORD Project. After starting that task, I discovered that over five years ago I'd suggested that someone create such an application.

That makes me think that maybe it took me five years to listen to God, regarding the option of helping with GoBible myself, and that having good ideas may be God saying you can be the one to bring that idea into existence.

What good ideas has God given you?

beibl.net announces Welsh Go Bible

I am happy to report today's announcement at beibl.net of the Go Bible application of the colloquial Welsh translation of the New Testament by Arfon Jones. This can be downloaded by visiting this site:

http://www.beibl.net/adre/poced.php

This transation is copyright Gobaith i Gymru / Hope for Wales.

The CrossWire Bible Society has been granted permission to distribute this translation, and it is already available as a SWORD module in the CrossWire beta repository.

Work on translating the Old Testament into modern Welsh is continuing.