Creating and sharing multi-media packages using large situated public displays and mobile phones

This paper will describe a novel interaction technique that allows mobile phone users to create and share contextualised media packages between their personal, BlueTooth enabled camera phones, and situated public displays. Unlike other solutions to this problem, the one presented in this paper does not require any specialist software or hardware on the user’s handset. We believe this technique has the potential to revolutionise how people donate and retrieve digital media files without incurring any direct cost

SnapAndGrab: accessing and sharing contextual multi-media content using bluetooth enabled camera phones and large situated displays

In this paper we describe a novel interaction technique that allows users to access and share rich multi-media content via a large, situated public display and their own Bluetooth enabled camera phone. The proposed system differs from other solutions in that it does not require any client software to be installed on the user's device. We believe that our solution provides a practical and holistic approach for device-based interactions with a public multi-media information system

Analyzing the impact of mobile technology on mobile-centric youth in South Africa

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.Our research documents the successful development of a system for stakeholders in the low-income urban environment, to facilitate the dissemination of information through enhanced mobile technology. The research project took place in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Before beginning the formal study we entered the environment to better understand mobile technology practices amongst low-income urban teenagers and how we could supplement these practices by providing a means of media dissemination to the relevant stakeholders in the environment. We allied ourselves with two local stakeholders, the Ikamva Youth NGO and the Nazeema Isaacs local library staff. These organizations would provide us with access to low-income urban teenagers, and they were interested in adopting alternative technology to disseminate media to these youth

Mobile Learning: location, collaboration and scaffolding inquiry

Critiques of mobile learning pedagogy are concerned with whether such approaches are technology led. This chapter discusses how the particular features of mobile learning can be harnessed to provide new learning opportunities in relation to collaboration, inquiry and location-based learning. Technology supported inquiry learning is a situation rich with possibilities for collaboration. In particular, mobile learning offers new possibilities for scaffolding collaboration together with its other better-known features such as scaffolding the transfer between settings and making learning relevant by making use of the possibilities of location-based learning. These features are considered as part of mobile learning models, in particular mobile collaborative learning models

Adapting a novel public display system for an educational context

Includes bibliographical references (leaves [116]-119).Universities in developing nations are viewed as gateways to global knowledge and as the source of human capital for their countries' economies (Juma, 2008). However, these universities face challenges in accessing educational information over the Internet due to high bandwidth costs, low literacy rates and the difficulty of setting up expensive computer labs. For example, at the University of Cape Town, labs are often overcrowded and fewer learners gaining access to information. One innovative solution to this problem has been realized through the adoption of mobile phones as PC terminal replacements in developing countries. There has been a steady increase in the adoption of mobile phones due to their ease of use and affordability (Juma, 2008). By harnessing this technology's potential, we believe a sustainable and cost-effective solution to support student needs can be developed for universities in developing countries

Image Recognition Techniques for in a Mobile Public Interactive Display

This paper describes a system which runs on a mobile phone that allows for the distribution of media packages to users with Bluetooth enabled camera phones. Users take photographss of specially designed posters and send them, using Bluetooth, to the system. An algorithm that enables the system to recognize the user images is developed, evaluated and modified using two rounds of user experiments. The final algorithm is found to correctly recognize the image photographed 87% of the time