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mediabox [2007/02/06 09:24]
gabe created
mediabox [2013/09/28 16:06] (current)
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 ====== MediaBox project ====== ====== 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 ====== ====== 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/​]]
 +
 +**January 2007**: MediaBox was incorrectly called "​Mediashop"​ in the Globe & Mail article about the [[Roach Coach]].
 +
 +
  
 ====== Meeting notes ====== ====== Meeting notes ======
 +
 +===== February hacknight =====
 +
 +Wireless Toronto February hacknight notes
 +
 +(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.
 +
 +
  
 ===== early October 2006 ===== ===== early October 2006 =====
mediabox.1170775469.txt.gz ยท Last modified: 2013/09/28 16:06 (external edit)