Exploring Low-Cost, Internet-Free Information Access for Resource-Constrained Communities

Rural developing regions are often defined in terms of their resource constraints, including limited technology exposure, lack of power, and low access to data connections (leading to an inability to access information from digital or physical sources), as well as being amongst the most socio-economically disadvantaged and least literate in their countries’ populations. This article is focused around information access in such regions, aiming to build upon and extend the audio-based services that are already widely used in order to provide access to further types of media. In this article, then, we present an extended exploration of AudioCanvas —an interactive telephone-based audio information system that allows cameraphone users to interact directly with their own photos of physical media to receive narration or description. Our novel approach requires no specialist hardware, literacy, or data connectivity, making it far more likely to be a suitable solution for users in such regions. </jats:p

Vibration and loads in hingeless rotors. Volume 2: Experimental data

Descriptions, geometry, and technical data covering three rotor systems are presented. Tables of experimental data gathered during wind tunnel testing of two of the systems are included. Both analyzed experimental data, ready for comparison with theory, and the basic reduced data from which they were obtained are reported

WikiTUI: Leaving Digital Traces in Physical Books

This article describes the design of WikiTUI, a tangible user interface system that allows readers to manipulate multimedia information tied to page-level locations in common books. This system will also facilitate the exchange of information with other readers using wiki technology. While other projects have coupled the dual worlds of atoms and bits, few have combined the idea of collaborative and distributed authoring with tangible interfaces. WikiTUI not only bridges the real and digital worlds, but facilitates multiple contributions to a reference base spanning across these worlds. The goal of our work is to apply the paradigm of coupling atoms and bits in order to extend the collaborative annotation and authoring possibilities of wiki media