In VirTelMed we are researching innovative applications for providing telemedicine services to underserved communities from anywhere in the world. Given the increasing penetration of mobile phones and mobile networks in developing regions, the increasing capabilities of the phones themselves, and the high expressivity of rich audio and visual interfaces, we are currently developing a prototype based on mobile platforms and rich audio-visual interfaces featuring avatars and 2D/3D objects. We believe such an approach has intrinsic advantages as well as challenges that we plan to exploit and address. |