new product, Equator, to layer on top of Jigsaw

Hi all,

We are starting to develop a freeware offline browser, called Equator,
which will layer on top of Jigsaw.  Equator will allow people with
only email access to the Internet to browse the Web through the
graphical, easy-to-use interface of their favorite browser.  This will
be of special benefit to those in the developing world who cannot
afford direct internet access.

Anyone interested in learning more can join one of the Equator
conferences below, or email me directly.  Appended is the original
announcement.

Regards,

-Rolf


------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 23:26:14 GMT
From: Rolf Nelson <rolf@usa.healthnet.org>
Subject: SatelLife is developing offline browser for Web access through email
Reply-to: rolf@usa.healthnet.org

We at SatelLife are developing a freeware tool, Equator Offline, to
allow users without direct internet access to browse the World Wide
Web using simple email messages.

Ordinarily, browsers download pages through direct connections to the
Web.  These direct connections can be very expensive, especially in
developing countries.

Equator will allow any Web browser to download documents through any
store-and-forward email account.  Users will gain the graphic
interface, the ease-of-use, and the access to millions of documents
which make the Web a valuable information resource, without having to
pay the price of direct access.

SatelLife previously developed GetWeb, which provides plain-text Web
access through email.  Equator will extend GetWeb to allow use of the
graphic, easy-to-use browser interface which made the Web popular.
Equator will also allow users to save bandwidth through cacheing.

Implementation
--------------

Equator will be an offline proxy, able to turn any Web browser into an
offline browser.  Because it will layer on top of W3C's free Jigsaw
server, Equator will be a fast, extensible Java application capable of
running on Windows 95 and Unix.  Both the program and the source code
will be freely available to the Internet community.


For further information
-----------------------

See the Equator home-page:

    http://www.healthnet.org/dist/equator/

Those without direct Web access can download this page through email
by sending a message to getweb@usa.healthnet.org with the following
line in the message body:

    GET http://www.healthnet.org/dist/equator/

Anyone interested in receiving further announcements (for example,
announcements of beta software availability) should send this message
to majordomo@usa.healthnet.org:

    SUBSCRIBE equator-announce

Anyone interested in participating in a technical discussion on the
new software should instead send this message to
majordomo@usa.healthnet.org:

    SUBSCRIBE equator-dev

Anyone interested in requesting functionalities can also contact me
directly as rolf@usa.healthnet.org.

SatelLife (http://www.healthnet.org) is a non-profit organization
which provides internet connectivity and information services to
health-care workers in the developing world.

-- 
| Rolf Nelson (rolf@usa.healthnet.org), Systems Engineer, SatelLife
|   "Try to learn something about everything
|             and everything about something."  --Huxley

Received on Wednesday, 19 March 1997 04:57:07 UTC