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

Hi Prashant,

Let me investigate the issue...and I'll get back to you. Many mobile  
browsers, including Opera Mini/Mobile, support unicode and thus, regional  
fonts...but this is dependent on font support in the phone which many  
times limited.

I'll get back to you on how to get it working with your sites, and could  
be something of use to add to this group as well.

Cheers,

On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:37:06 +0530, 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/
>>
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
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/

Received on Tuesday, 6 July 2010 14:19:27 UTC