Unicode compliant browser in Sinhala launched

Posted on April 27, 2007 / 18 Comments

Pasted below is a communication from Harsha Purasinghe of MicroImage that may be of interest to readers of this website.

“We are pleased to inform you all that Dialog Telekom launched the Sinhala & Tamil Mobile Browser and their Content Portal “SINHALANTHAYA” during New Year week. The browser can be downloaded by visiting http://www.dialogwap.com using your mobile and going into Application Download Area. This is the 1st ever launch of most successful Unicode compliant browser application. This application runs on wide range of phones starting from entry level low end Java Hand Sets, High End Java Hand Sets, Microsoft Windows Mobile Hand Sets and Black Berries.”

“The most important thing is the content is 100% Unicode Compliant. So people who have been critics of Sinhala Unicode will get another blow as we easily integrate 3rd Party Unicode Content in this platform. You can access Government News content through the browser which is listed under News.”

“At present content portal is updated every day multiple occasions with many interesting content which includes, News, Exchange Rates, Lottery Results to many more. There will be more and more content coming up soon.”

“Download & Enjoy true localized mobile internet! It’s only GPRS charges which applies other than the initial one time nominal download fee.”

18 Comments

Donald Gaminitillake
April 28, 2007, 9:35 pm
Dear Harsha
Please do not jungle the words

Unicode and Sinhala unicode are two different things

I talk of Sinhala unicode and SLSI 1134
The character set registered in this Sinhala unicode is incomplete.
There are no code points for most of the Sinhala characters.

Therefore the Sinhala TEXT is not compatible across all platforms.

You cannot copy Sinhala TEXT from your Helawadana into any other application

Same way you cannot copy and paste a simple text from the dialog browser into your Helawadana or into other application

If you can please take screen shots and paste it into

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/

Can you name a Sinhala unicode font? Also give an explanation how to identify a Sinhala unicode font?

There are enough screen shots pasted in the above and you can add your comments.

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Harsha Purasinghe
April 29, 2007, 10:52 pm
Donald,

I am sorry, I have given up with you as I simply dont want to waste my time & energy. People like you will rant for next decade failing to understand technology. It’s quite regret to note you are yet to come up with your so called solution for many years now. If you think what’s available and all others who follow the sinhala unicode are wrong, please do something alternative and establish your standard. As I always say, market will decide and will ultimately the best standard will win.

But the sorry state is , your so called “incomplete sinhala” is adopted by all the software vendors, mobile developers, mobile phone manufactuerers and other. As you can see more and more unicode content & applications are emerging now and very soon you will not find anything other than sinhala unicode enabled content on the web. So keep ranting till you find everything around you completely unicode and interoprable without any issue.

In short, cut & paste from our Helawadana unicode version to other unicode applications or platforms is not an issue, as a matter of fact, we easily integrate some of the 3rd party web content in our sinhala unicode compliant browser.

However, I am not insane to waste posting screen shots in your flickr site. I have much more important things to do. Even I replied this, as you can always mislead general public as you are doing whenever a new therad starts like you were born all over again.

Enjoy your “incomplete sinhala life”!

Harsha
Kavantissa
April 30, 2007, 8:49 am
Donald,

This browser is a commercial product. So what it features is or not is important only to a buyer. Others will simply ignore.

Why not let the market decide its worth?

Why a third party like you should worry?
Donald Gaminitillake
April 30, 2007, 9:45 am
I have posted a technical question.
Why cant you answer it giving example images

See No 37 Software Issues in Sri Lanka Part 7

Also please note I am not taking about a feature
I talk of “SIMPLE SINHALA TEXT”

If the TEXT is not compatible across all platforms and on applications there is a serious problem in Sinhala unicode or in SLSI 1134.

I only raise that question so do not jungle the subject and words and fool the public.

Donald Gamintillake
Colombo
Donald Gaminitillake
April 30, 2007, 9:52 am
To Harsha

Quote
But the sorry state is , your so called “incomplete sinhala” is adopted by all the software vendors, mobile developers, mobile phone manufactuerers and other. As you can see more and more unicode content & applications
Unquote

Then why does unicode compatible SINHALA TEXT or SLSI 1134 SINHALA text seen as rubbish on computers?

see
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/
for examples

Like the Latin Script we all should read the same TEXT irrespective to the application or the OS. You can send a Latin Script SMS from Dialog to Mobitel but NOT a SINHALA SMS from Dialog to Mobitel or v.v.

Please do not fool the public Harsha correct the SLSI first

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Mobile user
May 3, 2007, 1:40 pm
The question is what a user gets by purchasing this piece of software.

There are four Sinhala daily e-newspapers in Sri Lanka. Lankadeepa, Lakbima, Divalina and LankaeNews.

None of these sites are Unicode compatible. That means a user cannot read any of daily Sinhala newspapers in this browser.

Even some key government institutes like Central Bank of Sri Lanka do not use Unicode fonts. I do not think any one in the private sector too does.

So instead of limiting himself to boast about the technical features of the browser, it would be really useful for all of us if Mr. Harsha Purasinghe explains what a user gets by purchasing the browser? (Apart from the outdated content of some govt. web sites)
Harsha Purasinghe
May 4, 2007, 10:07 am
To Moile User,

Thanks for finally asking some sensible questions. Well, as per news paper sites, you are right they are yet to move into Unicode. These are nothing due to limitations in unicode but due to internal process changes and other that needs to be sorted out before they move on. In some cases perhaps internal politics. However, the leading papers are planning to move the content to Unicode.

Well all the content has to be in form of “made for mobile”, hence at present since the local mobile content is quite new and as you mentioned above the papers are not available either, we host the content in a made to mobile content portal. And what you get in are below for the moment, but it will have more content as this evolves,

News Content

– Dinamina News Headlinges and Hot News updated daily (Using a content converter the Dinamina news content is converted and hosted in Unicode)

– Government News (News.lk) – This news is 100% Unicode and updated by government news department daily. This is available to access via mobile browser

Further, we are in the process of doing simmilar to Lankadeepa & Divaina and hosting all the news headings and hot news stories, till all of them convert to Unicode.

Lottery Results – All Lottery Reults Updated

Market Prices – All agri goods, fish prices from all main markets. (Pettah, Dambulla, Meegoda)

Weather – Daily Weather update
Daily Thought / Daily Auspicious times / Horsocope
Stock Exchange Summery Daily
Exchange Rates
Movies/Theatre

Apart from above whenever people design made for mobile content will be linked or could be directly accessible. Further, there will be downloadable content such as ring tones, themes etc in future. Also depends on dialog telekom’s content plans many other content will be made available in sinhala & tamil.

Thanks,

Harsha
Donald Gaminitillake
May 4, 2007, 1:33 pm
Dear Harsha

You are not telling the truth again

Dinamina.lk is running on jpg images and pdf files not in text format like this site.

Harsha please do not misguide the public. Sinhala unicode is incorrect and incomplete it is not a solution unless it is corrected.

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Harsha Purasinghe
May 4, 2007, 2:07 pm
Mr. Gaminitilake,

I never thought you are so Stupid!!! What does dinamina.lk web site has to do with the mobile version/content as I clearly said in above we convert the content and upload and ANCL/Microimage/Dialog has an understanding in place to get the content in their own Text format. We convert that using a converter to unicode format. This too will continue till ANCL goes unicode once they sort out their internal procedures.

And also if you dont know you can take the text out of PDF!!! I thought you are tech savy enough to understand that as well, but seems like you are stuck in the stone age.

You can sing your song million times “sinhala unicode incomplete” but things are moving & progressing. Go and search in google.lk which itself is unicode and see what you get in a sinhala search. Oh no it will not work in your computer as it comes as RUBBISH!!! sorry I forgot.

I replied this also because again you will try to fool around others by your stupid arguments. You can sing your INCOMPLETE song to all new bloggers/visitors to this site, but not to people who were there from the begining of the thread.

Harsha
Donald Gaminitillake
May 4, 2007, 2:53 pm
Quote from Harsha
“”ANCL/Microimage/Dialog has an understanding in place to get the content in their own Text format””
Unquote

If Sinhala unicode is correct why do you want to have a special format of TEXT?

So your text in the will not be compatible across any platform. This is not the basis of internet.

see flicker for rubbish newslk sinhala

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/

Donald Gamnitillake
Colombo
Mobile user
May 5, 2007, 1:04 pm
Harsha,

First of all, many thanks for promptly replying my question.

I had this doubt, but before I could ask, you have partially answered it as a response to Donald.

So according to you, whatever the (Sinhala) content a user get through this browser is what you (Dialog/Microimage) provides them. Am I correct?

But is this what a user wants from a browser? Does one purchase Internet Explorer only to read the content provided by Microsoft? I do not think. There was a time like that sometime back- the good old AOL days – people used proprietary browsers to read proprietary content – but today we live in a different world.

We need a browser today to get content from millions and billions of other (third party) content providers.

So let me rephrase my question.

Apart from the content you (Dialog/Microimage) provides, what sort of *third party* content a user can get? Is that still limited to some of the useless and outdated government generated content? Or do we have more?
Harsha Purasinghe
May 6, 2007, 11:09 am
Mobile User,

In short, we are sort of in AOL age for “Made for mobile sinhala content” hence the content aggregated and hosted by Dialog/Microimage. However, this doesnt mean that browser is not capable of accessing any other 3rd party content where you can do so provided that availability of such content in made for mobile format. Unlike English content, localized sinhala unicode content are limited but growing.

At present as you know most of the unicode content are government official sites and government related information where people like you’ll would not find interesting. However, in time to come am sure there will be more 3rd party web content emerging and also media institutions will publish their content in sinhala unicode format.

Further, we are driving few initiatives to enable more and more 3rd party & user generated local content for mobile/internet. However, till all these comes out what we did was to come out with a made for mobile sinhala content portal indexing important content which is listed in my previous post.

Anyway, I am confident that things will evolve time to come. Few years ago we didnt have any Sinhala unicode compliant content / sites or applications. Now there are many including #1 search engine google.lk in sinhala. So this is the begining and am sure it will grow.

Thanks

Harsha
Donald Gaminitillake
May 7, 2007, 9:18 pm
I have posted two images on Flicker

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/

IS this Sinhala unicode Harsha promoting???

This is disgrace to Google and Unicode Consortium.

Google should delete these sites and Unicode Consortium should cancel the membership of ICTA

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Nadeeka
February 28, 2008, 6:12 pm
http://www.dinamina.lk
http://www.dinamina.lk/mobile
Doanld Gaminitillake
February 28, 2008, 8:10 pm
Read as garbage.
If unicode sinhala is correct we should be able to read on any computer and on any platform
Not on selected platforms or with installing additional software

Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
Unicode
March 1, 2008, 7:13 pm
Can someone help us how to write අද්යාපනය correctly in Unicode?
Space for Donald
March 14, 2008, 3:36 pm
i bet “Donald Gaminitillake – I set the standard” will appear here since the other thread is closed.
WA
March 21, 2008, 9:21 am
Another nail in Donald’s solution coffin http://webalochana.blogspot.com/2008/03/sinhala-blog-marathon-prologue-1-why.html