This volume represents the papers reviewed and accepted for the HOIT2007 conference held at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the city of Chennai, India in August 2007. This volume addresses many of the major themes of current interest in the field, with a particular focus on community-based technologies. This comprehensive book is divided into five different sections reflecting the most up-to-date research on computers and society.

This volume represents the papers reviewed and accepted for the HOIT2007 conference held at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the city of Chennai, India in August 2007. This volume addresses many of the major themes of current interest in the field, with a particular focus on community-based technologies. This comprehensive book is divided into five different sections reflecting the most up-to-date research on computers and society.

International Federation for Information Processing The IFIP series publishes state-of-the-art results in the sciences and technologies of information and communication. The scope of the series includes: foundations of computer science; software theory and practice; education; computer applications in technology; communication systems; systems modeling and optimization; information systems; computers and society; computer systems technology; security and protection in information processing systems; artificial intelligence; and human-computer interaction. Proceedings and post-proceedings of referred international conferences in computer science and interdisciplinary fields are featured. These results often precede journal publication and represent the most current research. The principal aim of the IFIP series is to encourage education and the dissemination and exchange of information about all aspects of computing. For more information about the 300 other books in the IFIP series, please visit www.springer.com. For more information about IFIP, please visit www.ifip.org.

Future technology information technology stands for all of continuously evolving and converging information technologies, including digital convergence, multimedia convergence, intelligent applications, embedded systems, mobile and wireless communications, bio-inspired computing, grid and cloud computing, semantic web, user experience and HCI, security and trust computing and so on, for satisfying our ever-changing needs. In past twenty five years or so, Information Technology (IT) influenced and changed every aspect of our lives and our cultures. These proceedings foster the dissemination of state-of-the-art research in all future IT areas, including their models, services, and novel applications associated with their utilization.

New Technologies and Emerging Spaces of Care provides the latest practice-oriented qualitative research and innovative conceptual discussions of how health and health care systems are currently dealing with complex transformations and varied reforms. Exploring and analysing the social and cultural impact of new technologies, this book examines the societal relevance of new technologies of care and the manner in which technological innovations configure and reconfigure institutionalized spaces of care. It addresses issues of social control, accountability, surveillance and disciplining; diverging patterns of inclusion and exclusion; new relations and subjectivities of patients and care givers; the relation between private and public forms of care and the practices and concerns generated by new technologies at the individual as well as the societal level. Presenting sophisticated theoretical discussions and detailed empirical case studies, New Technologies and Emerging Spaces of Care analyses, compares and evaluates on a transnational level the role and impact of (assistive) technologies for elderly and disabled people on the concepts and practices of spaces of care. A critical understanding of contemporary practices of care, that cuts through the growing conceptual barriers between social and medical models of care studies, this book will be of interest to those interested in new technologies, health care and social space of care. Specifically, it will appeal to scholars of science and technology studies, medical sociology and the sociology of the body, social inequality and exclusion, health and care studies, gerontology and disability studies.

ICTs in Developing Countries is a collection of conceptual and empirical works on the adoption and impacts of ICT use in developing societies. Bringing together a wide range of disciplines and contributors, it offers a rich examination of digital divide and ICT for development both in terms of contextual information and disciplinary perspectives.

Several decades of international aid, predominantly granted by the highly developed world (the haves), for the use of ICT in developing regions (known by several labels, such as the have-nots, bottom of the pyramid, the south, or, some time ago, the third world) have passed, but the holy grail of turning these societies into the ideals defined by the donors is still elusive. Previously the emphasis was on top-down approaches in this endeavour. Now priority is increasingly given to bottom-up approaches, putting the targeted communities first, using methods such as co-creation and living labs. Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) is still a domain in search of a common ground. The many different perspectives from diverse ideologies, paradigms and theoretical perspectives here lead to an interesting debate, but, meanwhile, agents of social change are doing their best to change communities – ostensibly for the better. An ongoing endeavour, this discussion requires further investigation of the complexities of techno-societies. The contributions to this volume range from explorations of theory, models and methods to investigations into the practical implementation of ICT in communities, covering the characteristics of social groups and different generations and gender issues, as well as its applications in education and health. As such, the contributions in this book will inform continuing debates concerning the role of ICT in developing communities on the wrong side of all the technical and social divides in human societies.