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--- mediabox [2007/02/06 09:29]
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+++ mediabox [2013/09/28 16:06] (current)
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 ====== MediaBox project ======
+Wireless Toronto's MediaBox project is a derivative of [[http://ilesansfil.org|Ile Sans Fil]]'s [[http://www.halproject.net|HAL project]].  The two projects may have slightly different goals (or our goals might be the same -- we don't know yet), but we intend to share the same software platform, and similar hardware platform.
 ====== News ======
+**February 28, 2007**: The mediabox project is basically on-hold, except for the case of venues who have their own content which they'd like to make available to users through their WT hotspot.  See the February Hacknight meeting notes below.
 **February**: The February WT hacknight will be to work on the MediaBox.  [[http://upcoming.org/event/146918/]]
@@ Line 7: / Line 11: @@
 **January 2007**: MediaBox was incorrectly called "Mediashop" in the Globe & Mail article about the [[Roach Coach]].
-====== Planning ======
-===== February Hacknight =====
-At the hacknight, we'll work on:
+====== Meeting notes ======
-   * pick up the project again after a few quiet months, reviewing what it is, how it works, why we're doing it, and reviewing the decisions we made in the past about its ongoing development
-   * checking on the status of the three existing MediaBoxen
+===== February hacknight =====
-   * discussing other storage options
-   * discussing and agreeing upon functionality for phase 1 and beyond
+Wireless Toronto February hacknight notes
-   * etc.
+(It's been a while, so I apologize that these notes won't be very detailed.  If you were present, please fill in any gaps I've left, or correct any mistakes I've made.)
+Info/background on the mediabox project:
+http://wiki.wirelesstoronto.ca/mediabox
+---
+We met at InterAccess on February 28th to work on the MediaBox project.  We didn't ultimately get our hands dirty with anything, but we had a great discussion.
+Michael & Andrew each brought the MediaBox unit which they had.  We got these from Ile Sans Fil.
+We opened one up and looked inside, and reviewed the discussions that we'd had to date about how we'd like to deploy these boxes (and how our approach is a little different than ISF's).
+The conversation then turned to strategy: how do we want to use these boxes?  What for?  We had clear answers for certain scenarios: the folks at the Harbourfront Centre would like to use it to make their library of documentation of art shows/performances available.  Venues like the Cameron House or The Drake might like to do something similar.
+We didn't have any clear answers for venues who don't have their own content to share.  We talked about collaborative playlists and open Samba shares, but the use-cases aren't clear -- so it seems hard to justify spending a lot of developer time on these ideas, when there are other things we could be doing.
+So the conversation turned to the portal pages.  Specifically: we *can't* know how people could/would use the mediaboxes until we know how they could/would use the portal pages.
+A great idea came together to get user-contributed data onto the portal pages: each hotspot has an email address, and each portal page features all content which was sent to that email address.  Super-simple.  Chaotic, perhaps, but it might be a great first step to getting people to participate.
+To block spam, we could build a hook: email content will only be posted to the portal page if it's from a valid user's email address.  If that doesn't provide enough security, the email could be rejected if that user isn't currently logged in to that hotspot.
+Patrick indicated that he'd be interested in contributing to the development of this app.
+---
+Conclusion: with the exception of venues who have content that they want to share using the mediabox, the project is essentially on hold, pending two things:
+  - We need a clearer sense of use-cases.
+  - We need to make some progress with portal pages, which is a much higher priority for us.
-====== Meeting notes ======
 ===== early October 2006 =====

Wireless Toronto

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