R Evolution Feb05

8/3/2019 R Evolution Feb05

1/8

Newsletter for the Developer Community

Dear Developers,

'I have never allowed my schooling to interfere

with my education,' said Mark Twain,

commenting on the lack of fun in learning in

schools.

Education is serious business but it can be madefun. To approach learning as an onerous task

renders the same dull and dreary. The future

belongs to children and adults who adapt

themselves to the new environment where

creativity is valued. One can learn a lot from

solving problems that are game-like in their

content. That's why interactivity forms an

essential part of the new learning process. The

ubiquitous mobile phone is an ideal platform

where edutainment and interactive applications

can transform serious activity like education to a

fun filled experience.

In our Application of the Month section, readmore about the 'Ncyclopedia' application

developed by Itellix, where a voluminous

encyclopedia is squeezed into your hand phones

for easy and interactive reference.In order to encourage participation of the DADP

member community in R-evolution, by way of

articles, tips, feedback and suggestions, we

welcome you to write in to our 'Interactive'

section.

In our Technology Tips section, we continue with

our articles on Reliance APIs. In this issue, you

will find illustrations for use of the Util APIpackage for creating Reliance specific

applications.

Looking forward to receiving your useful

feedback and valuable suggestions.

For Private Circulation only

Dhirubhai AmbaniDeveloper Programme

Tech TipUtil API

Application of the MonthEncyclopedia

Interview of the MonthNitish Mittersain

Nazara Technologies

QuizInteractive

February 2005R-evolution-evolution

www.dadp.comR-evolution EN/2005-2

- S P Narayanan

Editorial

Blending educationwith entertainment

JDTS
http://www.dadp.com/http://www.dadp.com/


2/8

he tremendous growth of mobile phone usage in India,

Tcoupled with the launch of a variety of dataapplications in the last few years, has led to anunprecedented upsurge of interest among the developer

community. Exploratory efforts are already on to find out

the possibility of creating innovative and useful

applications. One of the areas currently being examined is

mobile edutainment, which is poised for a big boost, thanks

to its useful content and mass-market appeal. The word

'edutainment', coined in early 1990s, is a judicious blend of

education and entertainment. It simply means 'educational

entertainment'. Edutainment applications, as the name

itself suggests, can be classified as applications that impart

some knowledge, information or learning (covering

different areas / topics) in a fun, enjoyable and

entertaining way.

The 'bonding', community-building and interactivity

aspects of mobile entertainment applications find a real

and meaningful extension in the 'edutainment' genre of

applications. Imagine a game that helps children learn

basics of mathematics or increases their knowledge ofgeography and history. Though concepts like these have

already been tried on television, PC, Internet and

CD-ROM based media forms; mobile-based edutainment

is a niche by itself and is producing a significant

change in this domain. What is essential for mobile

edutainment applications to be successful is the quality of

content and skillful designing. Thanks to handset

improvisations

and rapid advancements in mobile

communication technologies arena, which permit faster

and greater quantities of data to flow, edutainment is rapidly

growing.

Learn while you play

Games, which give users a feel and knowledge about

heritage, science, culture etc, are being developed in

- including availability of wider screen

handsets -

Lead Story

www.dadp.com 2R-evolution

entertaining forms of presentation. The best part is that

games have an enormously huge audience and popularity

among all sections of mobile users. Therefore, they are

that much more effective in disseminating information and

knowledge.

In the multimedia and ringtone categories of services,

there are a lot of possibilities of innovation in development

of applications in the form of images and calls of birds and

animals. Even applications dealing with nature, wild life,

adventure, history and culture hold a lot of potential for

success. This is corroborated by a recent report by the

research consultancy Mobile Youth, which has suggested

that the number of under-sixteen in the UK owning mobile

phones has grown to 5.5million, an increase of nearly half a

million over the last year. Interestingly, the report says that

the growth in 2004 was driven by primary school children

(five to ten years old) getting their first phone. If one

imagines this figure for school children in India and the

multilingual challenge they pose for any such application,

then one can understand the enormity of the scope,

demand and possibilities.

There are several instances of brainteasers, quizzes,

puzzles and games that have been launched by mobile

operators across the world to build

an attractive mobile edutainment

bouquet of services for consumers.

T h e b e s t p a r t i s

that these applications allow

people, mainly teenagers, to use

the mobile phone as a smart

learning tool anytime anywhere at

their own pace and convenience.

An example could be an application

like mathematical quiz that would

tes t t he use r s numer i ca l

ability/skills in a fun and entertaining

way. Or even a language-learning

Blending education with entertainment


3/8


tutorial where one can learn different languages in a step by

step manner can be quiet popular in a developing country

like ours.

Initiatives by Reliance

Reliance has already launched a couple of applications in

its R-World suite of data services that fit the 'edutainment'

definition. Two of the most popular of such applications are

Mobile Dictionary and Mobile Encyclopedia. With these

two applications, the RIM user can now boast of a miniature

'pocket dictionary' and a 'pocket encyclopedia' - always

available and anywhere. The Encyclopedia is a digital

archive for information seekers of all ages. Users can do a

search on various topics like science, politics, geography,sports, etc and can find out required information in a jiffy.

The Mobile Dictionary helps a consumer find the meaning

of any English word, with the ability to have the meaning

displayed in English, Hindi, French, German or Spanish.

The reverse is also possible.

Itellix, a mobile application developer from Bangalore with

technical support from DADP, developed both these useful

applications. Both were three-tier, J2ME based

applications, specially designed to handle heavy loads of

over 100 simultaneous requests and more than a million

requests per day. A key feature of the solution is the ability

to display the results in Indian scripts such as Hindi, making

the application accessible to a much larger population in

India. The application design is flexible - making it possible

to support other language dictionaries in future without

change in code.

'Kidzworld' is another such application on R World for kids,which informs in an entertaining way. Features such

as 'FactMonster' in the application provide

information on favorite pastimes like

P o k m o n a n d H a r r y P o t t e r .

Whiz Kid' tests childrens' knack for

math, cartoons, wildlife, and more. To

make it engaging and interactive,

there is a scoring system, which

allows one to see his/her name on the

Whiz Kid Top Scorer List. The 'Word

Wizard' section allows kids to know the

meanings of words.

As a result of the increased use of mobile

communications, it is expected that the use of edutainment

in mobile environment will be very significant in the future.

For developers and operators, the challenge is to gather

sufficient feedback from consumers, in order to

understand their expectations of edutainment content. The

future of providing compelling edutainment services on the

wireless environment depends to a significant extent on

the development of technologies, and consumer's

behavioral patterns.

The propect for edutainment

applications in the coming days

can be best summed up in the

words of Hilmi Quraishi, Chief

Learning Technology Officer, ZMQ

Software Systems, a DADP

developer. Mobile handset is the deviceand edutainment is the style. The blending of the two can

revolutionize education, especially in rural India,

where there is a greater need to train and educate semi-

literate and under-privileged communities. And

R-World is the right channel to disseminate these

edutainment solutions.

Clearly, the potential for educational applications is

huge; and with improvements in technologies,

transmission speeds, advanced mobile devicesand a burgeoning mobile population, it is one

area, which promises 'good times' for mobile developers

in India.

Hilmi Quraishi


4/8

Tech Tip

www.dadp.comR-evolution

he Util package consists of utility classes that can be of use to developers while developing

the client side of any application.TUtil package consists of two classes, namely ResourceBundle and ProgressScrn. Out of these,

ResourceBundle is more important from the functional point of view. This is a utility class, used in

multi-languages to enable an application, while Class ProgressScrn is important from the feature point

of view and is used to display the progress screen on the client when the client is waiting for something to

happen - like getting a response from the server.

ResourceBundle class dynamically determines the language enabled on the device and loads the corresponding

resource class. If the resource class for that language does not exist on the device, it switches to English language and loads the

English resource class. Resource bundles contain locale-specific objects. When the application needs a locale-specific resource, a

String for example, the application can load it from the resource bundle that is appropriate for the current user's locale. In this way, one

can write a program code, which is largely independent of the user's locale, isolating most, if not all, of the locale-specific information in

resource bundles. This class can be said to be a scaled down version of ResourceBundle class available in the java.util package ofJDK (Java development kit). The members of the ResourceBundle share a common base name, but at the same time have additional

components that individually identify them.

ResourceBundle consists of a field named resourceand two methods, namely getBundle() and get(). The Application using resource

bundles can get a ResourceBundle object using the getBundle() method. The Reliance.language property helps the application to

determine the enabled language on the device. The method getBundle() needs two string input parameters, namely resource name

and locale. The method throws up a MissingResourceException, if the resource class does not exist. The method get() is used to get

the value from ResourceBundle for the specified key, which the method takes as input. If a MIDlet does not contain the resource class

for the currently enabled language on the device, the getBundle method returns the ResourceBundle object with the English resource.

If the developer uses resource bundles for enabling languages in his/her applications, then the application jar must contain at least the

English resource class.

ProgressScrn is a class used to display the progress screen when the application is busy in performing some activity that needs time

and the user has to wait for a response. The class extends javax.microedition.lcdui.Canvas and implements java.lang.Runnable. The

class has four methods in it, namely start(), stop(), run() andpaint(). As the name itself signifies, start, stop and run are used to control

the animation and paint is used to paint the screen.

The sample code of the ResourceBundle is given below. Further details can be obtained from the documentation of the APIs available

in the resource section of the DADP website (www.dadp.com).

Util Package of Reliance APIsUtil Package of Reliance APIs

4

String currLanguage = System.getProperty("reliance.language");

try

{rd = com.reliance.util.ResourceBundle.getBundle("com.reliance.someapp.Resource",

currLanguage);

str[0] = rd.get("MSG_ID1"); // option Astr[1] = rd.get("MSG_ID2"); // option B

// add option A, B in a listmain = new List(rd.get("MSG_ID8"),Choice.IMPLICIT,str,null);

}

catch(Exception e ){

e.printStackTrace();}
http://www.dadp.com/http://www.dadp.com/http://www.dadp.com/


5/8

ince information holds the key to the success

of an offering like the R World,

SEncyclopedia is a comprehensive digital archive designedfor both depth of content and simplicity for information

seekers in all age groups. Users of this application can

search for information on varied subjects like science,

politics, geography and sports, as well as learn about

historical events from its vast database. The application

also allows subscribers to make queries in plain English,

and can search a billion words and quickly return with the

requested information.

As the Encyclopedia application had to

p r o v i d e t h e u s e r w i t h

information related to any

particular topic of the

users' interest, the

f o l l o w i n g

requirements were

incorporated.

1. A searchable

encyclopedia that

returns a fixed

number of matches

that can be viewed to

get the detailed text of

an article. For this the

user has to choose the

option and type in the key-word.

The results are fetched from the

database matching the key-word. For example, if the userwants information on Sachin Tendulkar he can key in

Sachin Tendulkar and the required information will be

displayed on the screen.

2. A category based lookup on articles. The menu contains

a fixed number of major categories (Culture, Sciences,

Arts Sciences, Sports, Social Sciences, etc) and a fixed

number of sub-categories for

e a c h c a t e g o r y . T h i s

information helps to refine

the search. Once the userchooses a sub-category

he/she again types in a

Encyclopedia

and Dictionary have always been on the radar

of Reliance.

key-word and the

results are fetched.

3 . A r a n d o m

l i n k f e a t u r e

(link of the day) that

allows for a different entry to

be shown each time a query

is made.

The search mechanism has been refined to the extent that

in case a user in unable to remember the exact name of the

article he wants to find he can still get the same by typing a

few key words. Care was taken to find suitable content toincorporate the database for all categories and sub

categories. This was very important as otherwise the user

could end up with multiple unrelated search results without

finding what he was looking for. A suitable database has

been put in place, courtesy www.wikipedia.org.

As the content size is huge and the

customer can search for any

keyword, which can throw up

numerous results, the logic of

s e a r c h i n g b e c a m e v e r y

complex. This was tackled by

defining the frequently used

categories and subcategories.

Besides, there were several other

challenges. The application size was a

crucial aspect as mobile devices have a limited memory. A

few modifications were incorporated in the screen shots to

increase the performance speed in fetching records from

the huge database. Another challenge was the offshore

development and testing. All these were successfullyaccomplished and managed by both, Reliance and Itellix

teams, whose combined efforts made this application a

success, says Pradnyesh Naik, Product Manager for

the application.

Encyclopedia is one of the popular applications on R World

and receives a good number of hits every month.

Application of the Month


Encyclopedia at your fingertipsEncyclopedia at your fingertips

Pradnyesh Naik


6/8

Interactive


If your query is selected by the DADP technical team, as the most innovative and challenging of all postings in a month, you will win a

surprise gift. And yes, your query along with your photograph will be published in 'R-evolution' as well! So visit www.dadp.com, register (if

not registered already) and start sending in your queries.

2ME is one of the most popular platforms for mobile devices.

All major device manufacturers have embraced this platform

Jto enable developers realize new possibilities in computing.Thanks to Sun Microsystems, this is an open platform, allowing

implementation of J2ME to pervade into these gadgets. To ensure

that standards are maintained in such implementation, Sun has

developed a Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) that has to be

adhered to and validated by developers. As a part of these

initiatives, Sun has also developed a new Java Device Testing

Suite (JDTS), which is a J2ME based device testing tool released

for all network operators and device manufacturers to validate the

quality of services provided to end-users.

Mobiles differ from one another by virtue of their hardware, as well

as their functionality and features. To add to the complexity, the

features of the Operating System running on these mobiles widely

differ. To standardize application development in a diversified

business like this, Sun has introduced the J2ME, which is a mobile

application written in Java and which interacts with the KVM (a

miniature version of JVM). The KVM in turn interacts with OS of the

mobile. Such a program can run on any mobile device that is Java

enabled. These programs can be downloaded on to the handset

from the network service provider.

It may sometimes happen that an end-user buys a Java enabled

mobile device, downloads an application hosted by the Network

Service Provider and finds that the application does not work. To

trace the cause of this problem, it is required to identify the actors

involved in this exercise.

1. End User:

a) The end user might not have established the specific

configuration required to download the application.

2. Network Provider:

a) Failure in network

b) The application may have been removed from the network and

not exist when the user tried to download it.

c)The appl icat ion

might not have beentested for a particular

device before being

hosted on the network.

3. Device Manufacturer:

a) The hardware/software to run the

particular application does not exist

on the device.

4. Device OS Provider:

a) The J2ME implementation for the particular device has not

been completely made, though the TCK has been

satisfied.

JDTS can be used in the scenario mentioned in point 2c, 3a and

4a, as explained below:

In the case of (2c) With a large number of applications getting

ready to get into the network, the overall time to test a particular

application across all the devices is reduced and may cause the

quality to deteriorate. The role of JDTS is vital in such a situation.

JDTS is a conglomeration of around 9000 mobile tests that have

been written to check the functioning of all aspects of a device.

This is a superset of all the J2ME applications that are being

developed in the world. Testing each device with JDTS will clearlydisplay the limitations of the device. This report can be juxtaposed

with the features of the mobile application and can indicate on how

an application would perform with a device, thereby helping

improve its quality.

In the case of (3a) When the device hardware does not support a

feature and the mobile application is trying to use it, it results in an

Application Error, eventually halting the program. Here, JDTS can

be used to get a concise list of all the unsupported hardware

features of the device. Usually the device manufacturers only list

the supported features, whereas this particular report can help

Application Developers by giving a list of devices for which theirapplication is not supported.

In the case of (4a) JDTS can detect unsuccessful J2ME

implementations on a particular device and improve their KVM so

that J2ME implementation can be completed.

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Developer ForumAn Introduction to Java Device Testing SuiteAn Introduction to Java Device Testing Suite

Part - 1

Disclaimer: DADP is not responsible for the validity of

the contents of this article.

This article has been contributed by

Avinash Mangipudi, a DADP developer.

He can be contacted on

[email protected]

(This is the first of the two-part JDTS tool featured in the

Developer Forum. The second part will follow in next issue

of R-evolution.)

By Avinash Mangipudi


7/8

Can you tell us something about your experience on working

with Reliance?

Working with Reliance has been a very fruitful and pleasurable

experience. The Reliance team has provided us with all thesupport that we have needed without fail. Thanks to this kind

of spontaneous cooperation, we have decided to create

further applications for Infocomm. We are in the process of

perfecting these applications and will be launching them on the

Reliance network very soon.

Which games have you developed for Reliance Infocomm?

We have deployed X-Change, Hyper Typer and Magnetron,

which are currently live on the R World platform.

How are these games unique? Any special features?

These games are unique in the sense that they are very simple

to play but are highly addictive. For example, Hyper Typer is an

edutainment game, which involves typing of words. With this

game, the user is gaining in two ways. First, by having fun

playing this game and secondly by improving typing skills on

the handset, which help to SMS, messages faster.

Which other games are you currently developing for RelianceInfocomm?

We are in the process of creating new games like Enigma,

Super Bloc Bloc, Bubbletris, Arrowbot and Ben Chase. These

games are developed from a variety of categories like Action,

Arcade, Adventure, Puzzle, etc.

Any interesting or memorable event during this associationyou would like to share with the readers?

I remember this incident when we were trying to solve some

handset related issues. We visited DAKC to seek the DADP

team's help to address these issues. The DADP team sat with

us till late in the night and ensured that the bugs were ironed

out. This is an example of high standards of commitment and

professionalism and I wish that other carriers would take a leaf

out of the DADP team's book.

What are your views on the mobile gaming / applications

business in India and on future trends in this space?

Mobile gaming has just started to evolve in India. With carriers

like Reliance, who are aggressively pushing contents to their

subscribers, and the availability of high-end handsets at low

prices, one is going to witness a sharp up trend for downloads.

User awareness on handsets and data services is also

increasing day-by-day. Customers are looking to their

handsets for something more than just voice communication.

Handsets are fast becoming entertainment / business devicesand proving to be an integral part of people's daily lives.

Developers like us are recognizing these facts and are

designing applications to take the industry forward.

Interview of the Month


itish Mittersain, 24, the founder and CEO of Nazara Technologies, has been actively involved with the Indian IT industry for

the last several years. He has been a recipient of many awards, including the Young Achievers Award of the

Indo-American Society. Till recently, he was also the Co-Chairman of the National IT Committee of the IndianNMerchants Chamber.As one of India's leading mobile content developer and publisher,

Nazara works with several mobile operators, both in India and

abroad. The company develops mobile entertainment

products, including games based on well-known

brands and distributes them to millions of mobile

phone users nationally and internationally.

In an exclusive interview with

R-evolution, Nitesh talks about his

association with Reliance

Infocomm, as well as mobile

games developed by his

company:

'These games are unique, very simple

to play and highly addictive'

'These games are unique, very simple

to play and highly addictive'

Nitish MittersainNitish Mittersain


8/8

Quiz

Monthly Poser

You can contribute ideas and information to R-evolution at the following e-mail address: [email protected].

Please note that contributions may be edited for clarity, style or length.

Editorial Team : S P Narayanan, Saurabh Chakrabarti, Siddarth Arora, Amit Chandra, Suresh Dabbara,

Nitin Saksena, Vikram Vishwanath, Lakshman S Aiyar, Vijayam Raghunathan

Design By: Jaydeep Gholap

Published by the DADP and Corporate Communications Teams, Reliance Infocomm, DAKC, Navi Mumbai

www.dadp.com 8

Answers to the Monthly Poser should be sent to [email protected] mentioning Monthly Poser - February 2005

as the subject with the senders location stated. The winner will be decided on the basis of a lucky draw and walk away with a prize from DADP.

R-evolution

Answer to last months poser: D) Mumbai

Winner of the last month's poser (through a lucky draw is): Gautam Arora

Winner will receive the prize by courier.

Feedback

1. Which of the following most closely matches the description of a Java Map?

A) A vector of arrays for a 2D geographicrepresentation.

B) A class for containing unique arrayelements.

C) A class for containing uniquevector elements.

D) An interface that ensures that implementingclasses cannot contain duplicate keys.

2. How does the set collection deal with duplicate elements?

A) An exception is thrown if you attempt toadd an element with a duplicate value.

B) The add method returns false if youattempt to add an element with aduplicate value.

C) A set may contain elements thatreturn duplicate values from a call tothe equals method.

D) Duplicate values will cause an errorat compile time.

3. Which of the following statements about threading is true?

A) You can obtain a mutually exclusivelock on any object.

B) A thread can obtain a mutuallyexclusive lock on an object by callinga synchronized method on that object.

C) Thread scheduling algorithms areplatform dependent.

D) All of the above.

4. Why might you define a method as native?

A) To get to access hardware that Javadoes not know about.

B) To write optimized code forperformance in a language such asC/C++

C) To overcome the limitation of the privatescope of a method.

D) 1 and 2.

5. Reliance Infocomm announced a tie-up with which of the following SMS

services in January 2005?

A) 7333 (Rediff)

B) 7827 (Star)

C) 8888 (Indiatimes)

D) All of the above

Which software

company

was instrumental

in creating

the first-ever application for

the blind?

a) ZMQ

b) Tinfo Mobile

c) Dhruva Interactive

d) Daffodil Software

in

association with DADP

Call Minder -

Dear DADP team,

Yours Truly

We should have a Weather Update and Disaster Warning

System which will serve as a useful guide in times of

emergency. No doubt it is a huge task for even after so much

scientiffic efforts it is difficult to predict nature's moods.

Nevertheless, a simple RIM handset backed by its largenetwork would certainly come handy at critical junctures and

save many precious lives.

Pankaj Jha

Sir,

I am a regular reader of the R-evolution.

The support provided to the Developer Community

through the DADP program is very beneficial to

students.

Thanks,

Gautam Arora

Answers:1.D)2.B)3.D)4.D)5.C)

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