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

Paper plays an essential role in many information ecologies in the developing world, but it can be inefficient and inflexible. We've developed an information services architecture that uses a smart phone equipped with a built-in digital camera to process augmented paper documents. The CAM document-processing framework exploits smart mobile phones' utility, usability, and growing ubiquity to link paper with modern information tools. CAM, so called because the phone's camera plays a key role in the user interface, is a three-tiered, document-based architecture for providing remote rural information services. The CAM framework comprises four components: CamForms, CamShell, CamBrowser, and CamServer.