Feature Phones Research Articles

携帯電話への文字入力が注意，歩行，メンタルワークロードに及ぼす影響－室内実験によるスマートフォンとフィーチャーフォンの比較－

携帯電話への文字入力が注意，歩行，メンタルワークロードに及ぼす影響－室内実験によるスマートフォンとフィーチャーフォンの比較－

A Customer Methodology for Developing Green Cellular Phone: A Case Study of University Malaysia Pahang Students

Economic and environmental eco-design of mobile phones is considered as promising; however in customer marketplace it’s still ineffectual. Inadequate eco-design of green mobile phones determines the lack of consumer voice and participation for product development and design in the marketplace. The main impediment is that, many organizations are asked to formulate and present their designs that support environmental green mobile phone characteristics and features but these organizations are not sufficient enough to recognize their voice in the planning and designing phase of product development. The research proposed in this paper fills the gap between wispy consumer perspective and designer’s approach for developing green mobile phones. To research emphasizes on consumer-influenced criteria and features for green mobiles development by reflecting green mobile phone definition and uses quantitative approach as a tool of analysis performed to prove how customer participation can improve the overall green mobile phone design. The research is performed at University Malaysia Pahang where suggestions from different students and staff and other employees were statistically analyzed to prove that customer voice and involvement is really important and major factor for developing green eco-friendly mobile phones.

Cost Comparison Model: Blended eLearning versus traditional training of community health workers.

Objectives: Another one million community healthcare workers are needed to address the growing global population and increasing demand of health care services. This paper describes a cost comparison between two training approaches to better understand costs implications of training community health workers (CHWs) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: Our team created a prospective model to forecast and compare the costs of two training methods as described in the Dalburge Report - (1) a traditional didactic training approach (“baseline”) and (2) a blended eLearning training approach (“blended”). After running the model for training 100,000 CHWs, we compared the results and scaled up those results to one million CHWs. Results: A substantial difference exists in total costs between the baseline and blended training programs. Results indicate that using a blended eLearning approach for training community health care workers could provide a total cost savings of 42%. Scaling the model to one million CHWs, the blended eLearning training approach reduces total costs by 25%. Discussion: The blended eLearning savings are a result of decreased classroom time, thereby reducing the costs associated with travel, trainers and classroom costs; and using a tablet with WiFi plus a feature phone rather than a smartphone with data plan. Conclusion: The results of this cost analysis indicate significant savings through using a blended eLearning approach in comparison to a traditional didactic method for CHW training by as much as 67%. These results correspond to the Dalberg publication which indicates that using a blended eLearning approach is an opportunity for closing the gap in training community health care workers.

Visualizing market structure through online product reviews: Integrate topic modeling, TOPSIS, and multi-dimensional scaling approaches

Studies have shown that perceptual maps derived from online consumer-generated data are effective for depicting market structure such as demonstrating positioning of competitive brands. However, most text mining algorithms would require manual reading to merge extracted product features with synonyms. In response, Topic modeling is introduced to group synonyms together under a topic automatically, leading to convenient and accurate evaluation of brands based on consumers’ online reviews. To ensure the feasibility of employing Topic modeling in assessing competitive brands, we developed a unique and novel framework named WVAP (Weights from Valid Posterior Probability) based on Scree plot technique. WVAP can filter the noises in posterior distribution obtained from Topic modeling, and improve accuracy in brand evaluation. A case study exploring online reviews of mobile phones is conducted. We extract topics to reflect the features of the cell phones with a qualified validity. In addition to perceptual maps derived by multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) for product positioning, we also rank these products by TOPSIS (Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution) so as to visualize the market structure from different perspectives. Our case study of cell phones shows that the proposed framework is effective in mining online reviews and providing insights into the competitive landscape.

Mobile App Development Ecosystem - Lessons from Four African Countries

This paper presents an assessment of existing mobile application (app) business models that are targeted at people living at the base of the pyramid (BoP) or that are suitable for people living at the BoP. The purpose of the paper is to address specific pain points for app developers and to provide practical, actionable advice. The recommendations of this paper are specific to each of four countries: Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zambia. In assessing the app markets in each of the four countries, it quickly becomes clear that there is a wide range of business models. Part of the business model is unique to the sector and to the business problem that the app is attempting to solve. In order to provide maximum value for app developers, this research focuses on three areas that are common to all business models: *Revenue sources - How to generate revenue is at the heart of any business model. App developers have to choose how to make money from their products and services. The options include in-app advertisement, pay per download of content or app, in-app purchases, upgrade of a free app to a more feature-rich one in exchange for a fee (freemium) and subscriptions. *Distribution channels - The availability of a mobile application is dependent upon its distribution network. Distribution can take place either via an app store, a mobile operator (through USSD services, for example) or through a local distribution network. *Payment facilities - The main payment options for app developers include premium SMS, airtime transfer, mobile money and bank-based payments such as electronic transfers and payment by cheque, or with debit and credit cards. In addition to an analysis of the three common business model areas, there is a brief assessment of the significant role of incubators in in supporting app developers. However, the impact of incubators is only partially realised and the paper has several recommendations. The key findings in each of the three business model areas as well as for app incubators are: *Revenue sources - Multi-sided platforms are an under-exploited business model. Providing a service to consumers that is paid for by businesses - the other side of the platform - means that apps are more likely to make a profit and be sustainable. Of course, the multi-sided model is dependent on addressing a problem or need experienced by both sides of the equation: consumers and businesses. *Payment facility - Premium SMS is the ideal payment facility because it reaches all mobile subscribers regardless of phone type. However, premium SMS is challenging because the MNO revenue share can be very high. Nevertheless, the finding of this report is that rates are negotiable and MNOs are beginning to realise that their high revenue share is slowing market growth. At the same time increasing Smartphone penetration and mobile money adoption rapidly creates alternative payment facilities, outside MNO control. *Distribution platform - MNO stores are ideal distribution channels because of their access to local subscribers, but this is unrealised. As a result, independent distribution is the most common option. For feature phones, the Ovi Store is a viable alternative but this is only an option in Nigeria where the Ovi Store has a local presence. As smartphone adoption increases, Google Play will become dominant, and there is a commercial opportunity for Google in terms of registering developers as merchants. Currently, this is not possible in any African country. *Incubators & hubs - Every hub or incubator visited by the team was staffed by inspiring and motivated personnel. It is clear that the more structured the environment, the more beneficial the process will be for developers in terms of providing specific programs at regular and planned intervals. The target is to better mix the commercial realities of launching a business with the technical skills already available in each of the hubs. This paper identifies business models for mobile applications that target the BOP, i.e., those that live on less than US$2.5 a day and that are revenue generating in in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Mozambique. The key theme informing the analysis was as follows: can an environment be created that would support an explosion of mobile applications such as in Europe and North America? There is clearly an opportunity - in 2012, the mobile application economy was worth US$53 billion and is expected to expand at a 28% compound annual growth rate up to 2016, reaching US$143 billion. In comparison, the app economy in Africa is minuscule, and the likelihood of the number of mobile applications growing explosively is low. GitHub, an online resource for developers to store code, shows that only 0.12% of its users are from Africa out of a developer base of nearly 4 million.

Abstract ED01-01: mHealth and disparities: Can mobile bridge the digital divide?

Abstract Cell phones and mobile technologies are now used by more than 90% of adults in the United States and the rates continue to increase (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2013). Smartphones, such as the iPhone and Android phones, now represent the majority of new phones sold and more than half of all phones currently being used in the US (Smith, 2013). Unlike feature phones that may only allow users to make and receive calls and text messages, smartphones are mobile computers with diverse powerful features. Smartphone users perform many interactive and/or internet-based activities on their device, such as sending or receiving text messages, accessing the internet, sending or receiving email, downloading application programs (apps), using maps or location-based services, listening to music, watching videos, participating in a video call or chat, and checking in at their current location (Smith, 2013). Short message service (SMS), or text messaging, is particular common among all phone users and especially smartphone users, who send and receive an average of 111 messages per week (Acision, 2013). In addition, nearly two-thirds of mobile phone users access the internet from their device (Duggan & Smith, 2013). Although the gaps have narrowed in recent years, African Americans and Spanish-speaking Latinos report lower levels of home broadband access and home internet use than whites (Smith, 2010a). In contrast, blacks and English-speaking Latinos are more likely to own a mobile phone than whites and more likely than whites to use their phone for internet and interactive activities such as text messaging, accessing the internet, recording and watching videos, accessing and social media (Smith, 2010b). In addition, social media usage, such as Facebook and Twitter, is highest among African American and English-speaking Latinos when compared to whites (Smith, 2010a). As a result of the widespread use of mobile technologies among minorities, traditionally “hard to reach” populations are now much easier to reach with mobile health, or mHealth, interventions. mHealth interventions can leverage many technological features of the device to deliver interventions that are highly interactive, personalized, and accessible, and culturally appropriate. For example, Nundy et al (2013) conducted a study to test the feasibility of a text messaging intervention on health failure self-management among urban African Americans patients and found a high rate of acceptability, satisfaction, and preliminary evidence of improvements. Unfortunately, limited research has been conducted to date on the application of mHealth technologies with minority populations despite the great potential for significant research and impact. More research is needed, particularly studies that leverage multiple features of mobile technologies, to fully realize the potential of mHealth to reduce health disparities.

The level of participation during the development of a mobile care data application for home-based healthcare in a developing context: An actor-network theory perspective

The context of this study is home-based healthcare in a South African resource-restricted community. The research case involved the design and development of a mobile care data application, created to assist community caregivers in their professional activities. The development principles of a suitable application for feature phones (limited functionality) in this context are not fully established, however. For the mobile care data application, a participatory design approach was employed. It was observed, conversely, that the level of participation of all stakeholders differed significantly. It was especially observed that the designer and end-users were less involved in the actual development of the prototype. These differences may have an influence on the end product/result. Actor-network theory may provide the mechanism to describe how the human and non-human actors formed relations as they participate in these processes. Considering the alignment of such networks, the coordination, devices and passages during the four translation moments provide valuable insights in the design and development of technology products. This paper will consider these elements in more depth. With a social embeddedness perspective the level of participation was high during the design of the proposed ICT solution with the active participation of the care givers from the developing context. The socio-economic factors of the developing context influenced the development of the mobile application with the complexities of the socio-technical context evident in the difficult translations between the participants

Conventionalists, Connectors, Technoisseurs and Mobilarti: Differential profiles of mobile marketing segments based on phone features and postmodern characteristics of consumers

The high penetration of mobile phones amongst the South African population presents mobile phones as an attractive interactive marketing communication medium. This paper argues that the access and actual use of different phone device features can be productively used as a segmentation approach, which may enable marketers to be more effective in planning interactive marketing communication plans. This study, based on 330 students, developed segments derived from mobile phone usage patterns using cluster analysis. The outcome revealed four clusters that were named: Connectors, Conventionalists, Technoisseurs and Mobilarti. Connectors made daily use of a full range of communication functions. Conventionalists were inclined to limit their use of mobile phone features to talking and texting. Technoisseurs were found to use a whole range of sophisticated mobile phone facilities. Mobilarti were identified as a group of expert users; using the full range of functions available to them on their phones, despite recording the lowest percentage of smartphone ownership when compared to the other groups. These groups were further profiled by analysing attitudinal and behavioural variables pertaining to two newly developed postmodern dimensions, which were introduced in the study as mobile importance as an attitudinal aspect, and social transformation as a behavioural outcome. For marketers, an understanding of the proposed segments, as well as the differences in attitudes towards mobile importance and social transformation behaviours, coupled with typical financial and social realities of these segments, allow targeting strategies that are more clearly actionable.

Cloud-based mobile commerce for grocery purchasing in developing countries

The increased prevalence of mobile devices in developing countries, for example in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC countries), provides a significant opportunity to transform the grocery purchasing experience. In these countries, the grocery buying experience has been a routine chore in which the customer often interacts with a familiar local grocer. The goal of this paper is to propose using feature phones and smartphones for grocery purchasing from small-sized to medium-sized grocers in developing countries. The platform will use a cognitive module to process incomplete or partial shopping lists to provide an assisted shopping experience. The paper proposes using cloud capabilities to deliver such a cost-effective mobile commerce experience for grocery shopping.

Correlating Personality and Actual Phone Usage

In the present study we link self-report-data on personality to behavior recorded on the mobile phone. This new approach from Psychoinformatics collects data from humans in everyday life. It demonstrates the fruitful collaboration between psychology and computer science, combining Big Data with psychological variables. Given the large number of variables, which can be tracked on a smartphone, the present study focuses on the traditional features of mobile phones – namely incoming and outgoing calls and SMS. We observed N = 49 participants with respect to the telephone/SMS usage via our custom developed mobile phone app for 5 weeks. Extraversion was positively associated with nearly all related telephone call variables. In particular, Extraverts directly reach out to their social network via voice calls.

Standing in the Schoolhouse Door: Teacher Perceptions of Mobile Phones in the Classroom

This study examines the perceptions of 1,121 teachers in Kentucky and Tennessee to determine their support for the use of mobile phones in the classroom, as well as their perceptions of the mobile phone features that are beneficial for school-related work and the instructional barriers to mobile phone use. The results indicated that slightly more teachers did not support the use of mobile phones in the classroom than those who did support their use, with approximately half as many teachers reporting uncertainty. The teachers perceived access to the Internet, educational apps, the calculator, the calendar, and the ability to play a podcast as the most beneficial features/functions of mobile phones for classroom use. In addition, they identified cheating, access to inappropriate information on the Internet, cyberbullying, and disruptions as the primary barriers to using mobile phones in the classroom.

The Chemistry of Mobile Phones: A Research Report on the Extent of Usage of the Compact Technology among Students on Nigerian Campuses

When many authors were referring to radio and television as ‘new media’ some years ago, little did they realize thata group of media, will later emerge that will sooner be termed ‘newer’. The new development is about the adoptionof mobile phones. These trends have emerged in many social contexts including participation in social networks,changes in the traditional communication habits and exhibition of unanticipated behaviours resulting from mobilecommunication. Nigeria, like every other nation is not relenting her efforts in moving with time. When mobilephones first came into Nigeria, many felt it will wipe off the telecommunications company which was statutorily onground, today, the technology is making life easy for young and old.This study is an addition to the relevant literatures on media research especially the accommodation of ubiquitoustechnologies on Nigerian campuses. It will draw attention to the ways Nigerian students use mobile phones andinvestigate attitudes about mobile phone usage in public settings. Although, it might look as if nothing new is beendescribed that is not common in other settings, this seem to be the first time that the youth will take the lead in theadoption of an innovation in Nigeria, leaving the trend unexplainable to the adults.It started with a discussion on the features of phones and moves to present some literature relevant to mobile phoneusage. The study found out that students make use of phones everywhere including restricted spaces like bankinghalls, cars and lecture rooms. Some confessed to causing accidents on campus because they were engaging phoneswhile driving. The study however recommends educational discussions on mobile phones to enhance students’positive and moderate usage of the technology.

Service-Oriented Factors Affecting the Adoption of Smartphones

This research investigates the adoption factors of smartphones focusing on the differences of smartphone and feature phone users. We used Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) which incorporates service-oriented and device-oriented functional attributes as exogenous variables for a product-service system such as smartphones. In addition, Decision Tree (DT) and customer surveys were conducted. As a study results, we found that the service-oriented functional attributes - ‘wireless internet’ and ‘mobile applications’ - affect the adoption of smartphones regardless of users. However, the DT results revealed that the more important factor is 'mobile applications' to smartphone users but 'wireless internet' for feature phone users. In conclusion, we discovered that a strategy emphasis on the service-oriented attributes is needed for the adoption of smartphones.

무선통신 시스템의 채널용량 시뮬레이터에 관한 연구

최근 이동통신 시스템은 WCDMA(wideband code division multiple access)를 기반으로 다양한 멀티미디어 서비스를 지원하고 있다. 2013년 11월 통계에 따르면 국내 이동통신 가입자 수는 피처폰과 스마트폰 사용자를 모두 합하여, 5451만4397명으로 분석되었다. 따라서 이동통신 서비스 이용자는 이미 전체 인구수를 400만 명이상을 추월했다. 이동통신 가입자의 급격한 증가로 인해 이동통신 서비스 망의 운용과 분석은 무엇보다 중요하며, 그에 따른 서비스 품질도 다양하게 연구되고 있다. 본 논문에서는 CDMA(code division multiple access)를 기반으로 하는 피처폰과 WCDMA를 기반으로 하는 스마트폰의 안정적인 서비스 지원을 위하여 이동통신망의 채널용량을 산출할 수 있는 시뮬레이터를 구현하고, 시뮬레이터를 이용하여 이동통신 서비스 환경에 따른 다양한 채널용량 특성을 분석하였다. Recently mobile communication systems have supported various multimedia services based on wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA). In November 2013, the statistics reported that the domestic subscriber number of mobile communication systems was totally 54 million 514 thousand 397 in using feature phones and smart phones. Therefore, the user number of mobile communication services has surpassed over 4 million rather than the whole number of population. The sharp increase of the mobile user number has made the network management and analysis for mobile communication services more important than before. Besides, the service quality has been studied in various ways. This paper has implemented the simulator calculating the channel capacity of mobile communication systems to support secure and stable services for both feature phones on CDMA and smart phones on WCDMA. By using the simulator, this paper has analyzed the characteristics of the various channel capacity in mobile communication environments.

안드로이드 환경에서 GPS와 WiFi를 이용한 아동위치 추적 시스템 설계 및 구현

Recently feature phones are being replaced by smartphones. Because smartphones have various sensors, there are many applications and research works that utilize them. Very few feature phones have GPS modules but all smartphones are equipped with a GPS sensor. One of the hot issues for smartphone research and development is point interest research. In this paper, we will develop an application which protects children using GPS and WiFi.. If a child gets out of the interest-area which is established by parents or guardian, our system sends them messages.

Evaluating the use of mobile phone technology to enhance cardiovascular disease screening by community health workers

BackgroundPrimary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD),by identifying individuals at risk is a well-established, but costly strategy when based on measurements that depend on laboratory analyses. A non-laboratory, paper-based CVD risk assessment chart tool has previously been developed to make screening more affordable in developing countries. Task shifting to community health workers (CHWs) is being investigated to further scale CVD risk screening. This study aimed to develop a mobile phone CVD risk assessment application and to evaluate its impact on CHW training and the duration of screening for CVD in the community by CHWs. MethodsA feature phone application was developed using the open source online platform, CommCare©. CHWs (n=24) were trained to use both paper-based and mobile phone CVD risk assessment tools. They were randomly allocated to using one of the risk tools to screen 10–20 community members and then crossed over to screen the same number, using the alternate risk tool. The impact on CHW training time, screening time and margin of error in calculating risk scores was recorded. A focus group discussion evaluated experiences of CHWs using the two tools. ResultsThe training time was 12.3h for the paper-based chart tool and 3h for the mobile phone application. 537 people were screened. The mean screening time was 36min (SD=12.6) using the paper-base chart tool and 21min (SD=8.71) using the mobile phone application, p=<0.0001. Incorrect calculations (4.3% of average systolic BP measurements, 10.4% of BMI and 3.8% of CVD risk score) were found when using the paper-based chart tool while all the mobile phone calculations were correct. Qualitative findings from the focus group discussion corresponded with the findings of the pilot study. ConclusionThe reduction in CHW training time, CVD risk screening time, lack of errors in calculation of a CVD risk score and end user satisfaction when using a mobile phone application, has implications in terms of adoption and sustainability of this primary prevention strategy to identify people with high CVD risk who can be referred for appropriate diagnoses and treatment.

The Contributions of Firm Innovativeness to Customer Value in Purchasing Behavior

The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of firm innovativeness and product innovativeness on the components of customer value mediated by instrumental and symbolic brand benefits.Over the last 10 years, the mobile phone industry in Korea has grown rapidly, with the introduction of several innovative phone features. The research context therefore is mobile phones with Internet access and their users in Korea.A major research finding is that the firm innovativeness affects product innovativeness, and hence, the instrumental brand benefits. A firm's innovativeness also has a significant effect on the symbolic brand benefits and the partnership value.Our key academic contribution is to expand the previous fragmentary studies of customer value, by classifying customer value into four components: expectation, partnership, transaction, and relationship customer values, rather than just focusing on benefits and sacrifices.Implications for managers include the verification that firm innovativeness is a source of ability for mobile phone firms to create value for customers. Instrumental and symbolic brand benefits through innovation should be the focus area for marketers and new product development (NPD) managers in mobile phone firms to communicate with consumers to increase expectation values in the prepurchase step.

Cell phone feature preferences among older adults: A paired comparison study

Cell phone feature preferences among older adults: A paired comparison study

Server implementations for improving the performance of CAR systems based on mobile phones

Collaborative Augmented Reality (CAR) systems allow multiple users to share a real world environment, including computer-generated images in real time. The hardware features of most current mobile phones include wireless network capabilities that offer a natural platform for CAR systems. However, the potential number of clients in CAR systems based on mobile phones is much larger than on CAR systems based on other kind of mobile devices, requiring a system design that takes into account scalability issues. This paper presents the experimental characterization of CAR systems based on mobile phones, providing quantitative results about well-known performance metrics in distributed systems. The results show that the system saturation point depends on the overall percentage of CPU utilization in the computer platform acting as the system server. Also, the results show that it is limited by the server I/O in some cases. Therefore, this paper also shows different server implementations that can improve the system throughput, as well as a comparative study. The results show that the implementation based on UDP messages provides a significant improvement in system throughput with respect to other implementations based on TCP, at the cost of losing a very small percentage of messages. These results validate this implementation as the most efficient one for large scale CAR applications based on mobile phones.

The Usage and Behavior Patterns of Mobile BitTorrent Clients

With the many changes in mobile phone use, it is now common for users to connect to the Internet and share social and multimedia data, and peer-to-peer technology remains one of the most efficient solutions to content sharing. We analysed the lifecycle of content shared using the BitTorrent network, focusing on torrents retrieved by mobile phone clients using our MobTorrent application. MobTorrent, a complete Bit-Torrent client for feature phones, enables anonymous usage statistics to be collected. Based on statistics collected over the last three years, we analyze how mobile BitTorrent clients are being used. We discuss the success of individual sessions by additionally measuring peer connection download and success ratio statistics. This research can be considered as a pioneer work in the field of mobile content sharing solutions.