5 ms·

Here comes the relevance from an earlier discussion of mine http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2623722 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2623722 - "Nobody in

Here comes the relevance from an earlier discussion of mine http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2623722 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2623722 - "Nobody in India uses computers in Indian languages". This tablet can revolutionize rural education, especially since the Indian govt mandates rural connectivity as a pre-requisite to handing out telecom wireless licenses. But you cannot teach village kids in English - especially, if in a few years they have to go and read the land records, inheritance documents, local newspapers which are in regional vernacular. But the system is running Android - guess what is the top request on the Android bug list? (http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?sort=-stars http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?sort=-stars) Arabic language support. Same problem as Indic fonts. Same problem on all Linuxes.

lallysingh 15y ago
.. but Arabic isn't terribly huge in India. Hindi is. Edit: Ah, thanks for the clarification.
- jimbobimbo 15y ago
  OP: "Same problem as Indic fonts."
nrbafna 15y ago
Android 2.3 did bring in support for Hindi and Arabic. <http://www.talkandroid.com/22956-android-2-3-gingerbread-doubles-language-support-from-2-2-froyo/&#62 http://www.talkandroid.com/22956-android-2-3-gingerbread-dou...; Though, I doubt if the tablet would be able to run Gingerbread.
- sandGorgon 15y ago
  not sure if that is entirely true - this bug is still open http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1618 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1618 Again, if they still used a non-smartfont technology for compound scripts (I think that's what they call when two alphabets join together to form a new alphabet), it wont really solve the problem.
  - zem 15y ago
    they could simply use a glyph to indicate that this letter and the next are to be joined. not the prettiest, but eminently usable.
w1ntermute 15y ago
> But you cannot teach village kids in English - especially, if in a few years they have to go and read the land records, inheritance documents, local newspapers which are in regional vernacular. As the person you quoted, I felt obligated to respond ;) Why not educate them in English, if the resources (i.e., teachers) and demand exist? As for reading legal documents, bilinguality isn't exactly that difficult to achieve, especially when the language of concern is your native one.

lallysingh 15y ago

.. but Arabic isn't terribly huge in India. Hindi is. Edit: Ah, thanks for the clarification.

jimbobimbo 15y ago
OP: "Same problem as Indic fonts."

nrbafna 15y ago

Android 2.3 did bring in support for Hindi and Arabic. <http://www.talkandroid.com/22956-android-2-3-gingerbread-doubles-language-support-from-2-2-froyo/&#62 http://www.talkandroid.com/22956-android-2-3-gingerbread-dou...; Though, I doubt if the tablet would be able to run Gingerbread.

sandGorgon 15y ago
not sure if that is entirely true - this bug is still open http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1618 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1618 Again, if they still used a non-smartfont technology for compound scripts (I think that's what they call when two alphabets join together to form a new alphabet), it wont really solve the problem.
- zem 15y ago
  they could simply use a glyph to indicate that this letter and the next are to be joined. not the prettiest, but eminently usable.

w1ntermute 15y ago

> But you cannot teach village kids in English - especially, if in a few years they have to go and read the land records, inheritance documents, local newspapers which are in regional vernacular. As the person you quoted, I felt obligated to respond ;) Why not educate them in English, if the resources (i.e., teachers) and demand exist? As for reading legal documents, bilinguality isn't exactly that difficult to achieve, especially when the language of concern is your native one.