I understand your need to keep it vague, but if the data owner loses his card/token/barcode (his copy of the data) and the motorbike rider meets a grizzly end, is a whole village going to be very upset - or will regular paper bookkeeping be trusted enough as a backup. Having endusers with no proof of a transaction or ability to read their own data I would have thought has the potential for a lot of social issues, and potential non acceptance of the technology.
You may have already considered this though - it all comes down to the data value. Presumably if the cost of storage has to be <$1 then the value of the data might only be $100 or less (by my reckoning) On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:36 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 15/04/2008, Robert Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 14:18 +1000, Martin Visser wrote: > > > Also do they actually need to carry the data with them? It would seem > > > if the ratio of data owners to intelligent devices/readers is so high, > > > you really come back to simply needing a card number ala Medicare - or > > > maybe even something like a "tinyurl" only a little more human > > > rememberable.The client then just needs to recite their number/tinurl. > > > > > > This assumes that the reader device has real-time (or maybe near > > > real-time is good enough, access to the data storage. (And near real > > > -time may be good enough - 1 000 000 users with 10 K data each is > > > "only" 10G - easily replicated on all your reader devices - assuming > > > the data doesn't change all that often. > > > > > > I'm inferring that the scheme being developed is something like the > > following: > > > > * At each village/town there is a single low-capability but functional > > pc. It has no reliable network. > > Not quite. A person will arrive by motorcycle, probably once per week, > with a laptop in tow. They'll have about an hour to sort out the > people there before departing to the next settlement. At the end of > the day/week, they'll return to base and synchronise their laptop with > the central system. > > > > * The data owners want to be able to track e.g. taxes, accounts, small > > personal data. > > Mostly simple financial data, like a passbook. > > > > * They want to be able to use this data where *they* are, not where a > > specific reader device is. > > As mentioned above, the reader comes to them. > > As mentioned previously, this is for the developing world. The current > system is very manual: paper and pen. It's very laborious, and open to > errors and even fraud. We're looking for a simple and reliable digital > replacement. > -- > > > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ > Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html > -- Regards, Martin Martin Visser -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
