Introducing The Source
Going Grey? Comparing the OCR Accuracy Levels of Bitonal and Greyscale Images / Tracy Powell and Gordon Paynter
From the D-Lib Magazine website
Newspaper collections are the subject of an increasing number of large-scale digitisation projects. In Papers Past, a collection of over a million newspaper pages, the introduction of full-text search has made a wealth of information findable that was previously hidden. The search feature is dependent on text extracted from the newspaper page images with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), so any improvement in OCR accuracy will add value to the collection by improving our users' chances of finding useful information.
Accepted wisdom is that greyscale digitisation produces higher OCR accuracy than bitonal digitisation. To test this assumption, we digitised three reels of microfilmed historic newspapers in both bitonal and greyscale, had them OCRed, and carried out a hand-count of the OCR accuracy on a random set of text samples. The experiment had a clear and surprising outcome: using our existing business processes, there was no evidence of any improvement in OCR accuracy from greyscale digitisation.
Deep Packet Inspection Puts Open Internet at Risk (Note: PDF)
From the Free Press website
The uncertainty surrounding Net Neutrality has given rise to a technology known as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) that offers Internet service providers unprecedented control over Internet content. A recently released paper argues that the use of DPI technology by Internet service providers should raise serious concerns for both users and lawmakers. The paper asserts that the emerging DPI business model, marketed for its ability to monitor, control and ultimately charge subscribers for every use of an Internet connection, poses a major threat to the open Internet. In just one of many examples, DPI manufacturer Allot describes how its DPI product “enables service providers to project potential revenues and profits from setting up a tiered service infrastructure” and allows providers to “reduce the performance of applications with negative influence on revenues (e.g. competitive VoIP services).”
Towards Implementation of Library 2.0 and the e-Framework (TILE) (Note: PDF)
From the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) website
A new briefing paper has just been published by JISC, which informs dialogue around the current and future role of the library in a rapidly changing technological landscape. The paper resulted from JISC’s TILE4 project (Towards the Implementation of Library 2.0 and the eFramework); a programme of work with two key aims. Firstly, TILE investigated how libraries have incorporated web 2.0 applications and services into what they already do. Secondly, it sought to develop a draft conceptual framework (Library Domain Model) based on services it has specified for the international e-Framework. The project also makes recommendations on how the library community could the make the best use of web 2.0 approaches.
On trusting your socks to find each other (Note: PDF)
From the Yahoo! Research website
This articles addresses design issues that may arise as a result of the deployment of networks of devices that will constitute the “Internet of Things”. Addresses issues in particular around the trustworthiness of information exchange and transparency in such networks.
Mashing up research and connecting with learners through social media (Note: Podcast)
From the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) website
Ewan McIntosh, Digital Commissioner for 4iP, talks with Rebecca O’Brien from JISC via Skype about mobile gaming, how thinking from the learner’s perspective is key, and how universities have a vital role in mixing logical thinking with inspiring creativity.
Profiling Social Networks: A Social Tagging Perspective
From the D-Lib Magazine website
The web is rapidly becoming both more open and more social through the provision of technologies that make it easier for end users to access resources and join in social networks. Social networks have pioneered online communities, allowing users to contribute to collective knowledge by tagging online resources. Tagging behaviour increased dramatically between 2005 and 2007. This article reports on an investigation of social tagging using data gathered from Delicious, Flickr and YouTube for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007. Preliminary findings indicate both that it is possible to profile a social network through the analysis of tagging data and that Delicious is a more representative venue for analysing the social tagging behaviour of users than either Flickr or YouTube.
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