Internet Access in Rural Areas: Brake or Stimulus as Post-Covid-19 Opportunity?

The lack of internet access in most rural areas has become a challenge worldwide. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted trends such as teleworking and e-commerce, meaning an opportunity for the local economy of these areas, but with serious difficulties in carrying it out. This paper aims to detect this lack of internet in inland areas of the region of Valencia through local actors, in order to identify clear priorities and real needs through an explorative and replicable approach based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC). The main findings suggest that there are different patterns in the rural internet access related to adequate infrastructure and planned actions by local councils. In this way, a multitude of contextual elements have emerged that influence the importance of efficient access to the internet in rural areas. It is essential to know the real needs and demands of the population before implementing plans and programs that may not be relevant for the actors involved in territorial development

Touch Screen Avatar English Learning System For University Students Learning Simplicity

This paper discusses on touch screen avatar for an English language learning application system. The system would be a combination of avatar as Animated Pedagogical Agent (APA) and a touch screen application that adapt the up to date gesture-based computing which is found as having potential to change the way how we learn as it could reduce the amount of Information Communication Technology (ICT) devices used during teaching and learning process. The key here is interaction between university students and touch screen avatar intelligent application system as well as learning resources that could be learned anytime anywhere twenty four hours in seven days 24/7 based on their study time preference where they could learn at their own comfort out of the tradition. The students would be provided with a learning tool that could help them learn interactively with the current trend which they might be interested with based on their own personalization. Apart from that, their performance shall be monitored from a distance and evaluated to avoid disturbing their learning process from working smoothly and getting rid of feeling of being controlled. Thus, the students are expected to have lower affective filter level that may enhance the way they learn unconsciously. Keywords: Gesture-Based Computing, Avatar, Portable Learning Tool, Interactivity, Language Learnin

Using UNII-3 (Wi-Fi) Frequencies to Establish Long Distance Point-to-Point Links Capable of Providing Broadband Internet Access to Rural Areas: Experimental Validation

This paper demonstrates use of UNII-3 (Wi-Fi) frequencies, 5.725 - 5.825GHz in setting up long distance point-to-point links, capable of providing broadband internet in rural areas. Although this frequency band was intended for indoor wireless local area networks, its lack of licensing and inexpensive off-shelf networking devices has prompted many researchers and technology enthusiasts to extend its use to outdoor settings. This paper presents a long distance point-to-point test-bed model that uses high-gain directional antennas that may be replicated to provide broadband internet access in rural areas particularly in developing countries. Six long-distance point-to-point links have been set up. A link distance of 24.3kilometers, the longest so far, has been achieved. A peak throughput of 98.4Mbps has been observed on all of the links set up, irrespective of their link lengths. This test-bed model is easy and inexpensive to implement and it may be replicated to provide broadband internet access in the rural areas. This paper validates the use of these unlicensed frequencies and proves that as long as a clear line of sight between the nodes is achievable, high bandwidth link may be achieved capable of serving 1000+ simultaneous users each utilizing at least 100kbps. Keywords: Point-to-point links, long distance Wi-Fi, broadband for rural areas, directional antenna

UNDERSTANDING THE RURAL - URBAN DIGITAL DIVIDE

This paper explains the current "digital divide" in internet use between rural and urban areas using a Logit adoption model with data collected from the August 2000 Current Population Survey. A non-linear decomposition shows that rural urban household attribute differences account for 66 percent of the digital divide, while place based differences account for the remaining 34 percent of the divide.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Changes and Evolution of Romanian Media Market from 2013 to 2015

The present paper refers to changes and evolution of the Romanian media market from 2013 to 2015 due to the financial crisis, political implication in the news, famous publications and TV stations insolvency cases and new consumption habits for media content. The objective is to highlight the direction of media in past years and how this is influencing the future of all types of press (print, radio, television, online). The paper is trying to emphasize the fact that new trends are arising, that traditional media has no longer the same power and dominant position on the market, and that internet and mobile platforms are the direction for years to come. The fundaments for this paper are FreeEx Report “Press Freedom in Romania 2014-2015”, published by Active Watch - member of Reporters Without Borders International Networks and IFEX, Transmedia Romanian Audit Bureau (BRAT) - Study on Internet Consumption in Urban and Rural Areas of Romania, the survey “Public trust in the media in Romania”, conducted by Market Links for Kas & Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and Gemius Knowledge Study, “Online Landscape – South-East Europe”. According to above mentioned sources, 2014 was a hectic year for the Romanian media market – continuing the previous year trend - transforming media institutions into leading news topics, many media moguls being arrested due to legal issues. Moreover, local elections transformed media into a manipulation tool for political parties. All this had a big influence on Romanian media market also in 2015. The paper puts together a number of trustful sources, stating that traditional media are no longer the way we used to know them, that are struggling to adjust to new realities and that audience is loyal to brands no matter the channels they are using to put content into the public eye. Internet is claiming its way up, and gives access to information also to less educated people or/and from poor environments. This is a valuable subject because Romanian media is going through fundamental changes. Print is no longer the main source of information, and Internet is becoming a threat to television. The market transformations have to translate also into academic work, so that the new generation of journalist can adapt to new conditions, knowing where they’re audience is and how to address it