Conception vs Perception

Firefox OS is coming! With the announcement of the $25 phone at MWC, there is much excitement and wait for the launch of Firefox OS phones in India. But the software is far from feature-complete for the complex Indian market. A major task for the platform to be a "People's phone" is to know their languages! Localisation of Firefox OS is a very big task up ahead. One of the tasks is user input in Native Indian languages. Support for most Indian languages are already present on platforms like Android. I've recently been experimenting with Language Computing using a few SMC projects. So I thought why not build an Indian Language IME for Firefox OS. I also proposed the idea to SMC for the GSoC program. The idea was welcomed by the mentors and one of the mentors, Anivar, asked me to do a feasibility study on the use of jquery.ime library. The jquery.ime is an input method editor library supporting more than 135 input methods across more than 62 languages. While ...

One of the major disadvantage of not being brought-up in my native place that I'm facing is that I don't know how to read and write in my mother toungue! It may sound strange to you, but there are a lot of people like me, who are unable to do so. To make up for it, I decided to learn it, but learning the "A,B,C's" of malayalam isn't easy it seems, or so it is for me. I just can't get the variety of "double alphabets" in the language. But, I have a problem, being part of the Mozilla Kerala community here, the facebook groups are often flooded with comments written in Malayalam, and I do want to read them, really! Now, how to solve this problem? While brainstorming for a quick solution to this, I remembered about Volunteers from SMC whom I had met in  the Wiki event at Alappuzha . I remember looking up for SMC's projects and found an interesting one : Silpa , an Indic language computing platform. While I couldn't think up a use for...

OK, so my Firefox OS device is with a friend of mine, and I want to control my bot with gestures. Thankfully I've got an (ageing) Android v2.3 phone. So, what can I do? Ok, let us analyse the situation, I do not know Java. (So native development is a no-no) I am a web enthusiast. (So HTML5 / JS is in). I like Python because of its simplicity. I'm too lazy to start from scratch. :p Now combining all these points, I went ahead in search of suitable solutions, with the following constraints. Constraint 1 : Use Web Sockets for transfer of sensor data. Constraint 2 : Write as less code as possible. Now with these points in mind, I surfed all around the net to find out about Web Sockets and their implementations in different languages, and stumbled upon this beauty : ws4py After going through the github code of the WebSocket for Python implementation, I found another beauty that saved the day completely! They had an Android example code for ws4py! With ...

I've come a long way with Mozilla now, immediately after after participating in the app days in June, I joined the Mozilla Kerala Community and it has been a roller-coaster ride since then. Recently, I went to the Wiki Sangamotsav 2013 in Alappuzha representing the Mozilla Kerala Community along with a few colleagues from the community. The event was more than what I had expected and even though it was aimed at promoting the Malayalam Wiki, it was very nice to see Wikimedians from all over India participating with great enthusiasm. The three day event started off on 21st December, with the first day focusing on talks and sessions about Wiki for School children. The Mozilla stall was a hit with the children and we almost ran out of swags on the first day itself! Here's me explaining the new Firefox OS    to the children.(on the Keon which Mozilla gifted me for the " Phones for App Ports to Firefox OS "  contest ) I was eagerly waiting for the next day, o...

My first try at mobile app development : A unit converter app for the Firefox OS. It is a basic app, which lets you convert basic quantities like Length, Weight, Volume, Temperature, Speed and Time into the units of your choice. I built the interface using jQuery Mobile . Jquery Mobile documentation is not the usual type, its just a collection of examples. This helped me to get on terms with the framework very quickly. For source code visit : https://github.com/psbots/FxOS-unit-converter I submitted the app to the Firefox Marketplace yesterday. It would get published on the Marketplace after it gets approved by Mozilla. But since i'm too impatient, I went ahead and hosted the app using Github pages at http://psbots.github.io/FxOS-unit-converter/ Note: The buttons may appear "extra long" on a desktop browser. Why? Because jQuery Mobile is Responsive and adapts to the screen size! The app can also be installed by visiting the above link in the simulator add...

June 22nd was quite an eventful day. I had been waiting for it since the day I registered for the Firefox OS App Days . I consider myself lucky to have got an invite for the event considering that it was meant for web developers and I am just a beginner to web development. The venue was filled with tech geeks, so i felt right at home from the beginning! The first session was about the nitty-gritties of the Firefox OS platform by Nick Desaulniers. via a live webcast from California. He gave a good overview of the platform and a briefed us on app development. Sessions that followed focused on Mozilla-based products and services like WebFWD, Firefox Flicks etc. Then another session on app development by Jai Pradeesh . With never ending description of sessions, by now I bet you feel like closing this tab and continuing with your facebook updates. But wait! Next comes the App Hacking session! Enough of talk! Enough of Drama! Lets get straight to the code! This is what I bui...

Note: If you feel sleepy at any point of reading the following, feel free to skip to the end which has in store the "good news". :) One of my friends Fregil mentioned about an organisation named AIESEC . A quick google search revealed that AIESEC is an International not-for-profit organisation, run entirely by students. It focuses on imparting Global Entrepreneurial Leadership skills to the youth and also acts as a platform that bridges cultural differences by providing International Internship opportunities. I liked the concept and decided to join AIESEC. The AIESEC Kochi Coordinator, Varun gave a brief overview of the functioning of the organisation and how it came into existence. This was followed by the selection procedure (GD & PI). Then a few days later, Varun called me up to inform me that I was now part of AIESEC Kochi!!!! IF you're still reading this!!! The boring part is over!!! So I was now part of AIESEC Kochi. Till now I didn't know the real...