Re: After Access – Challenges Facing Mobile-OnlyInternet Users in the Developing World

Fonts problem is already appropriately solved in HTML5. All major browsers
accept TrueType and OpenType fonts in their last releases. My Android phone
(samsung galaxy spica) has a stripped down browser, but I expect Nexus one
to handle it correctly already.

You can try it here : http://alixsys.com (white on black titles should
display in a stencil font)

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Prabhas Pokharel
<prabhas@mobileactive.org>wrote:

> Shwetank,
> I got super excited when I heard that, but I just tried browsing those
> sites on Opera Mini 5 beta on my Android phone (Nexus One, running Froyo,
> bought in the US), and the unicode fonts at aajtak.com (or a few other
> sites I tried) don't display properly. If it will after configuration, that
> could be huge!
>
> Let me know,
> Prabhas
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 6:16 AM, Shwetank Dixit <shwetankd@opera.com>wrote:
>
>> This has at least *partly* have to do with the way developers include
>> fonts in web pages. If the page uses Unicode, then at least in Opera Mini
>> and Mobile (and most probably, most other major mobile browsers), there
>> shouldn't be a problem (for example, aajtak.com uses unicode to display
>> hindi fonts, works fine)
>>
>> However, many people use .EOT fonts to display regional indian language
>> text in web pages. The problem with that is that .EOT fonts only work with
>> Internet Explorer, and thus can't be displayed properly even by other
>> desktop browsers, let alone mobile ones.
>>
>> Prashant: I don't know whether the local indian language fonts on
>> mobisitegalore use unicode or not. If it does, and it still doesn't display
>> properly on Opera Mini/mobile, then please let me know off-list, and I'll
>> investigate the issue further.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:20:27 +0530, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>  Hi Prashanth,
>>>
>>> This is a very good point. I believe that there is not much attention
>>> from the I18N community on the support of languages in mobile browser. This
>>> is something that i've on my agenda. As a first step i discussed recently
>>> with a colleague and we will develop a doc around the key elements to
>>> deliver content in a specific languages.
>>>
>>> Steph
>>>
>>> Le 06/07/2010 04:42, Prashanth a écrit :
>>>
>>>> Dear Stephane,
>>>>
>>>> As far as India is concerned the biggest issue is rendering of local
>>>> language fonts in the mobile browsers. Note that I am not even pointing
>>>> to user having to key in text in local languages, but very unfortunately
>>>> the Indian fonts do not even get displayed in the mobile browser.
>>>> Today we have over 80,000 mobile websites created using our tool
>>>> www.mobisitegalore.com and over 50% come from India, but there is no
>>>> way
>>>> that they can created a mobile website in Hindi or Tamil because the
>>>> fonts would just not render in the mobile browser.
>>>> This is an important missing link as most people in India cannot read
>>>> English.
>>>>
>>>> Warm regards
>>>> S.Prashanth
>>>> CEO
>>>> www.akmin.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 05-Jul-2010 5:17 PM, Stephane Boyera wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear All,
>>>>> i want to share with you a very good paper from S. Gitau, J. Donner
>>>>> and G. Marsden.
>>>>> The paper is attached
>>>>> References are:
>>>>> Gitau, Shikoh, Marsden, Gary, & Donner, Jonathan. (2010). After access
>>>>> - Challenges facing mobile-only internet users in the developing
>>>>> world. Proceedings of the 28th international conference on human
>>>>> factors in computing systems (CHI 2010) (pp. 2603-2606). New York: ACM.
>>>>>
>>>>> One of the first papers i see focusing on the barriers of using mobile
>>>>> web in developing countries by people without PC access and experience.
>>>>> Some good suggestions for operators and other players.
>>>>>
>>>>> Steph
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Shwetank Dixit
>> Web Evangelist,
>> Site Compatibility / Developer Relations / Consumer Products Group
>> Member - W3C Mobile Web for Social Development (MW4D) Group
>> Member - Web Standards Project (WaSP) - International Liaison Group
>> Opera Software - www.opera.com
>>
>> Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Prabhas Pokharel
>
> MobileActive.org
> prabhas@mobileactive.org
> +1 347 948 7654
> skype/twitter: prabhasp
>
> http://mobileactive.org -- A global network of people using mobile
> technology for social impact.
>



-- 
Slim Amamou | سليم عمامو
http://alixsys.com