Using Mobile Phones for Secure, Distributed Document Processing in the Developing World

Although paper plays an essential role in many information ecologies in the developing world, paper-based record keeping can be inefficient and inflexible. The CAM document-processing framework, so called because the phoneýs built-in digital camera plays a key role in the user interface, exploits smart mobile phonesý utility, usability, and growing ubiquity to link paper with modern information tools. The CAM interface consists of CamForm augmented documents, which users interact with; the CamBrowser mobile phone application, which interprets these documents; and the CamShell scripting language, which ties the two together. CAM is a cost effective and accessible way of providing information services to remote rural areas.