e-Book reader

[C. Scott Ananian]

On 8/6/07, Ian Bicking <ianb at colorstudy.com> wrote:
> If we want to load up these persistent browser caches using a non-HTTP
> connection (e.g., carrying them around on USB drives), then we'll need a
> file or archive format for that, something that includes both metadata
> like location, ETag, content-type, etc., and the actual file bodies.

Right.  We need a bundle format.  I believe sj et al have already
written something like this for Library data?  The whole 'stick a USB
key in and transparently get content added' mechanism is getting to be
pervasive throughout the XO interface.  I don't really see any
difference between magically discovering a (say)
alice-in-wonderland.zip file on a USB stick and magically acquiring a
link somehow to http://canonical.source/alice-in-wonderland.zip --
both trigger a download of the complete book.  In both cases the
archive format should have enough metadata to indicate its source (and
for some applications, its authenticity).  This gets shoved into the
library cache.

Again, the big picture here is that the whole scheme works even if we
*don't* have all these magic pieces.  The magic each does specific
things: download a bundle at once from a URL, install resources from a
key, etc.  We don't have to reinvent the pieces which already work:
like browsing individual pages from the web and bookmarking them.

Finally: the working assumption for the XO project (repeated in many
places) is that the machines usually *do* spend most of their time
on-line.  That is the point of the pervasive mesh networking and etc.
 --scott
-- 
                         ( http://cscott.net/ )