In emerging markets where an internet connection can
sometimes be hard to find, the Cosmos Browser for
Android will be a Godsend. This app will allow you to
browse the web without having connection to an
internet pipeline. Simply punch in the URL, and the app
uses SMS to send you a text-only, image free version of
the website that you requested.
To keep costs down, you need to have have an
unlimited text plan. Also, keep in mind that receiving
websites via SMS is still going to be a slow process
regardless of how barebones the results are.
"After a person inputs a url, our app texts our Twilio
number which forwards the URL as a POST request to
our Node.JS backend. The backend takes the url, gets
the HTML source of the website, minifies it, gets rid of
the css, Javascript, and images, GZIP compresses it,
encodes it in Base64, and sends the data as a series of
SMS's. The phone receives this stream at a rate of 3
messages per second, orders them, decompresses them,
and displays the content"-Cosmos
Cosmos is expected to launch before the end of
September and is actually quite a fascinating way of
getting information into the hands of those who just do
not have the infrastructure in place to maintain an
internet connection. And while images are a no-no for
now as we mentioned, the developers behind the app
are working on a way to include images in future
versions of Cosmos.
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