I have been playing with a OLPC XO and I am intrigued by the idea of mesh networking.

Is anybody (Nokia?) doing anything about 802.11s mesh networks for the tablets?

I wouldn't wait up on Nokia. But you're in luck, it looks like mud-builder has package files for olsrd so get yourself a scratchbox and get building!

-John

I'm sure something could be done quite easily using plain old ad-hoc wireless mode.

Problem is you need sufficient density of devices to make it work. The other problem is that the tablet only has one network interface, generally, without bluetooth PAN.

Thinking out loud.
We all set our tablets up to be in ad-hoc mode, with essid to "nokia_tablet_mesh", and use the network 10.0.0.0/8 - every one gets a unique address which we'd have to set up.

Each tablet pings the broadcast address every minute to see whether any other tablet is around. The payload of the ping request or response carries a message to say if it has a gateway to the internet (using a 3G/gprs phone, or PAN). So, the tablet without internet access simply changes its route to the one with access (using the one with the strongest signal).

You could use the avahi setup with the 169.x.x.x addresses (and fit into Bonjour).

If it could do Master mode or WDS it would make it easier.

What is more likely is a series of WDS like units (the OLPC has something that attaches to USB via a long cable and is only a mesh link). They would link with each other via dynamic mesh and to the tablet or whatever else via standard wifi. Note that the Cradlepoint Router is smaller than a tablet and does WDS (I use it with my EVDO modem)

Ok thanks to all, I am going to have to research your replies as I don't understand half of the acronyms.

Mesh networking to gain Internet access through a gateway is of interest, but what intrigues me more is the possibility of using mesh networks that are not necessarily connected to the web. Just little casual networks that are geographically dense. What sort of live, collaborative applications could that lead to?

Any ideas? Chat, video calling/conferencing, multi-person games, neighborhood watch, virtual town hall meetings ???

(Most of the applications on the OLPC allow for sharing, but without a second OLPC nearby I am not sure what this really means).

Isn't it what bonjour is all about ?

(After a bit of googling about bonjour). Yes, I guess so, but I am more interested in what shared apps might be possible on top of something like this.

I have been told that I can set up an OLPC XO emulator on a PC that can connect and share with a real XO so I can explore the shared applications in Sugar. I will try that soon.

In general, what APIs would an application use to access these network capabilities? Is it tcp/ip plus something? Is there anything available for Python?

I believe that a lot of the OLPC code is python.

bump.

I think this is really interesting unexplored territory. Two tablets near each other? User can advertise his tablet is willing to 'talk' ad-hoc with others

- share a directory
- play a game
- chat
- collaborate on a document
- publish / share personal info / 'bluetooth flirt'
- publish / share a radio or media stream
- publish / share an internet connection

hmm, bluetooth flirting, i swear i have read about that before...

ah yes:
http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quark...uetooth-a.html