Soon, fishermen venturing to sea near chennai Coast bay of Bengal can have smart mobile phones that help track the next big shoal of fish, tell which market is offering the best price, or warn of hostile high tides.
Thanks to a joint research initiative, fishermen will get to surf the big technology wave when a range of satellite-sourced data gets condensed into a hand-held communication device.
They could, for instance, get a real-time gauge on wave heights and wind velocity as well as access information on market linkages or a shortlisting of the `best price' ports in their vicinity.
Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL), which piloted the project, will use the wireless platform `BREW' (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) developed by technology innovator Qualcomm and scientific leads from M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai.
The formal nation-wide launch of Tata's Fish Intelligent Navigation Gear (FISHING) is scheduled for early August.
A TTSL spokesman said the project was conceived as a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. Pilot trials have been successfully completed in 2006 in select coastal hamlets, including Veerampattinam near Puducherry.
A research team has put together a dynamic and real-time database that derived from agencies such as the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services. The BREW application downloads data from satellites onto servers installed at the MSSRF. The data is then uplinked using the TTSL network and can be accessed with an enabled handset. For instance, data downloads from satellites that map chlorophyll in the sea — a sure-fire pointer to a concentration of fish. The networking of 22 major and 220 small fish landing centres across a coastline running over 7,500 km will provide pricing inputs.
A CSR spokesman for TTSL said the application, in one stroke, could boost productivity, reduce time at sea and optimise value, while enhancing safety. TTSL does not foresee connectivity issues as the target segment is constituted by traditional fishermen, whose operations fall in an offshore range of seven to eight kilometers.
According to a TTSL official, the company will make available the BREW platform in very low-end handsets, keeping the affordability of target users firmly in focus. Adopted from The HINDU daily news paper.
Thanks to a joint research initiative, fishermen will get to surf the big technology wave when a range of satellite-sourced data gets condensed into a hand-held communication device.
They could, for instance, get a real-time gauge on wave heights and wind velocity as well as access information on market linkages or a shortlisting of the `best price' ports in their vicinity.
Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL), which piloted the project, will use the wireless platform `BREW' (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) developed by technology innovator Qualcomm and scientific leads from M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai.
The formal nation-wide launch of Tata's Fish Intelligent Navigation Gear (FISHING) is scheduled for early August.
A TTSL spokesman said the project was conceived as a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. Pilot trials have been successfully completed in 2006 in select coastal hamlets, including Veerampattinam near Puducherry.
A research team has put together a dynamic and real-time database that derived from agencies such as the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services. The BREW application downloads data from satellites onto servers installed at the MSSRF. The data is then uplinked using the TTSL network and can be accessed with an enabled handset. For instance, data downloads from satellites that map chlorophyll in the sea — a sure-fire pointer to a concentration of fish. The networking of 22 major and 220 small fish landing centres across a coastline running over 7,500 km will provide pricing inputs.
A CSR spokesman for TTSL said the application, in one stroke, could boost productivity, reduce time at sea and optimise value, while enhancing safety. TTSL does not foresee connectivity issues as the target segment is constituted by traditional fishermen, whose operations fall in an offshore range of seven to eight kilometers.
According to a TTSL official, the company will make available the BREW platform in very low-end handsets, keeping the affordability of target users firmly in focus. Adopted from The HINDU daily news paper.
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