Now showing items 1-20 of 89

    • Abstractions for designing and evaluating communication bridges for people in developing regions 

      Tucker, William David; Blake, Edwin H. (ACM, 2010)
      This paper describes two novel abstractions that help soft- ware engineers work in developing regions to align social and technical factors when building communication systems. The abstractions extend two concepts familiar ...
    • Adapting x264 to asynchronous video telephony for the Deaf 

      Ma, Zhen Yu; Tucker, William David (Telkom, 2008)
      Deaf people want to communicate remotely with sign language. Sign language requires sufficient video quality to be intelligible. Internet-based real-time video tools do not provide that quality. Our approach is to use ...
    • Affective gesture feedback Instant Messaging on handhelds 

      Adesemowo, A. Kayode; Tucker, William David (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 2004)
      Mobile devices and mobile networks are becoming more data-centric (evident in Japanese I-mode) even as mobile network voice Average Revenue Per User are declining, new stream of data services are required which must take ...
    • Amplifying positive deviance with ICT enabling community development and interdependence 

      Tucker, William David (Springer, 2017)
      Positive deviance is a social mechanism whereby a beneficial practice that is not considered as normal gets taken up and spread within a community. This enables a community to solve its own problems aided by mentorship and ...
    • An analysis of voice over Internet Protocol in wireless mesh networks 

      Meeran, Mohammed Tariq; Tucker, William David (IEEE, 2014)
      The paper focuses on analyzing the affects of wireless mesh networks with some mobile nodes on Voice over Internet Protocol service quality. Our interest is to examine this in simulation to learn how to better deploy voice ...
    • Asynchronous video telephony for the Deaf 

      Ma, Zhen Yu; Tucker, William David (Telkom, 2007)
      The South African Deaf community has very limited telephony options. They prefer to communicate in sign language, a visual medium. Realtime video over Internet Protocol is a promising option, but in reality, the quality ...
    • Automatic voice relay with open source Kiara 

      Yi, Long; Tucker, William David (Telkom, 2009)
      One way for Deaf people to communicate with hearing people over the telephone is to use a voice relay. The service is often provided with a human relay operator that relays text into voice, and vice versa, on behalf of the ...
    • Battery and data drain of over-the-top applications on low-end smartphones 

      Om, Shree; Tucker, William David (IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2018)
      Low-end smartphones with sub $50 price tags provide affordable device ownership to low-income populations. However, their limited capacity, when combined with the need for multimodal connectivity, raises usage concerns in ...
    • Beyond traditional ethics when developing assistive technology for and with deaf people in developing regions 

      Tucker, William David (Springer, 2015)
      There are limitations to traditional ethical approaches and procedures when engaged in assistive technology (AT) research for Deaf people in a developing region. Non-traditional issues arise as a consequence of employing ...
    • Bridging communications across the digital divide 

      Blake, Edwin H.; Tucker, William David (CTIT, 2004)
      Connecting people across the Digital Divide is as much a social effort as a technological one. We are developing a community-centered approach to learn how interaction techniques can compensate for poor communication across ...
    • Browser-based sign language communication 

      Wang, Yuan Yuan; Tucker, William David (Telkom, 2010)
      This paper describes the design and evaluation of two browser-based video communication prototypes that support sign language communication between Deaf people. The research explores combinations of technologies, protocols ...
    • Browser-based video communication for deaf people 

      Wang, Yuan Yuan; Tucker, William David (Telkom, 2009)
      This paper describes work in progress to to provide browser-based sign language communication for deaf users. The paper introduces the communication requirements for a disadvantaged Deaf community in Cape Town, describes ...
    • Call capacity for voice over Internet Protocol on wireless mesh networks 

      Zulu, Docas Dudu; Tucker, William David (Telkom, 2010)
      This paper describes work in progress on call capacity optimization for voice over Internet Protocol on wireless mesh networks. In a developing country such as South Africa, evidence has shown that rural inhabitants find ...
    • Cell phone notification via bluetooth for Web 2.0 applications 

      Mutemwa, Muyowa; Tucker, William David; Norman, Michael (Telkom, 2009)
      This paper discusses how an Instant Messaging application on a computer can use Bluetooth in order to provide vibration notification on a mobile phone. The initial motivation was to aid Deaf1 office workers to know when ...
    • Clustered Multi-layer Multi-protocol Wireless Mesh Networks 

      Abdalla, Taha; Rey-Moreno, Carlos; Tucker, William David; Bagula, Antoine (Telkom, 2015)
      Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have emerged as an alternative option to the wired networks in areas where wired deployment is unfeasible and/or costly. They have been widely adopted in community networks as these networks ...
    • Co-designing a billing system for voice services in rural South Africa: Lessons learned 

      Rey-Moreno, Carlos; Ufitamahoro, Marie Josee; Venter, Isabella; Tucker, William David (ACM, 2014)
      Access to information and communication technologies re- mains una ordable for many in rural areas despite recent progress in providing voice services to remote communities. The sustainability of alternative technical ...
    • Communicating in designing an oral repository for rural African villages 

      Reitmaier, Thomas; Bidwell, Nicola J.; Siya, Masbulele Jay; Marsden, Gary; Tucker, William David (IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2012)
      We describe designing an asynchronous, oral repository and sharing system that we intend to suit the needs and practices of rural residents in South Africa. We aim to enable users without access to personal computers to ...
    • Community-based solar power revenue alternative to improve sustainability of a rural wireless mesh network 

      Rey-Moreno, Carlos; Roro, Zukile; Tucker, William David; Siya, Masbulele Jay (ACM, 2013)
      Given the needs for a clean and easy way to maintain and secure powering wireless networks in rural areas and to gen- erate revenue to guarantee the sustainability of its intended goals, an innovative approach to leverage ...
    • Connecting bridges across the digital divide 

      Tucker, William David (ACM, 2004)
      Connecting people across the Digital Divide is as much a social effort as a technological one. We are developing a community-centered approach to learn how interaction techniques can compensate for poor communication across ...
    • Deaf telephony: community-based co-design 

      Blake, Edwin H.; Tucker, William David; Glaser, Meryl; Freudenthal, Adinda (Wiley, 2011)
      The process of community-based co-design is one that explores various solution configurations in a multi-dimensional design space whose axes are the different dimensions of requirements and the various dimensions of designer ...