杏吧原创

Indian citizens deprived of Internet access in rural areas will soon be getting a rather special service, writes Seema Singh in Bangalore. Engineers are installing wireless Internet transceivers on buses, so villagers can browse the Web and send emails whenever a bus is nearby. The idea was hatched by Media Lab Asia, a joint venture between the Indian government and MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Called PostNet, the project aims to mount small $100 transceivers on buses鈥攂ased on the 鈥渨i-fi鈥� broadband wireless networks used by laptops. The devices link by radio to an Internet Service Provider. ML Asia鈥檚 director Alex Pentland says one of the biggest challenges is remodelling software on the users鈥� computers so that they automatically switch to 鈥渃onnected mode鈥� when a bus is near enough. A chief aim is to give farmers access to agricultural news and weather information at least twice a day.