Spiral Arm News

Mobile app use rising for blue collar workers and small businesses.

The report in The Register, also picked up at TheFeature, found "that over 30 per cent of companies had deployed specialised mobile devices for their blue-collar workers to use in the field, and about 20 per cent are planning significant wireless projects in 2005."

The benefits: "Now with mobile data devices in the hands of plumbers, maintenance staff, engineers and craft workers, customer service can be moved from the call centres to the doorstep allowing workers in the field to have access to the most up to date information and services helping to provide an overall better service for customers."

Businesses are spending more on mobile technology.

Gartner analysis, reporting in
Computer Weekly, shows that "Mobile workforce enablement" is the third most important technical priorities for 2005, and is expected to be the second most important by 2008. Mobile technology spending is the fastest growing area of an IT director's budget.

Gartner research fellow Nick Jones "said 'Everyone is experimenting with mobile network access and e-mail, but these applications do not change the way you work.' He said businesses can use mobile technology in a more radical way to drive new business opportunities."

One of the problems, picked up by a
TheFeature article, is that operators are focussed on consumer mobile usage, rather than business needs.

Gartner note that "operators wanted to offer higher value services such as providing SalesForce.com pay-per-use customer relationship management as part of their mobile service. However, such services do not represent good value for money because businesses would normally be using their own CRM system".

Mobile gaming ruled by casual, simple, quick games.

The BBC report on a survey of the top selling games from March 2004 to February 2005. Ports of console games, or big title film related games, sell poorly. Tetris was found to be the top game for 8 months.

"Many big games makers see mobile gaming as a way to attract more people into its more serious gaming titles on consoles. Casual gamers include a large proportion of women, and the games industry is keen to tap into that potential market too."

Ericsson offers enterprise applications.

The Ericsson Enterprise web site currently has four applications on offer, as reported in Computing. Many of the applications have been licensed from other vendors, which is in-line with Ericsson's "plans to become a one-stop shop for businesses wanting mobile access to data."

SMS reminders reduce no-shows by 30%.

Computer Weekly
reports on the experiences of outpatient appointments at hospitals. The summary of the report, Mobile and Wireless Services For Outpatients, notes that the improvement was achieved "even though less than 20% of patients chose to use the service".

The Observer reports on why the camera phones has come of age.

"There's a saying, the best camera is the one you have on you, not the one at home." The article reports on how celebrities reacted to the camera phone, how royalty and some establishments have banned it, and how publishers have taken to the device.

University cuts support response time using mobile devices.

Liverpool John Moores University support engineers now use PDAs, saving 8 to 10 hours in the time taken to respond to requests. The PDA roll out is in pilot stage, and is part of an overall upgrade to the support department, which is saving the university GBP22k per year. Reported in Computing, 31 March 2005, p. 12.

Parking attendants check cars using Nokia handset.

Computing (31 March 2005, p. 6) reports that Bristol Parkway Station allows passengers to pay for car parking via SMS. Customers register for the service and receive an RFID card to place in their car. Parking attendants use Nokia 5140 phones to read the smartcards to confirm that the vehicle has been paid for.

Recognizing real-world objects using mobile phones.

There are a number of efforts on-going to make it possible to use the camera on a mobile phone to interact with the real world.

For example, OMRON have announced face recognition software for mobile phones. Regardless of the applications dreamed up for this technology, and regardless of any problems with those applications, it is impressive that this kind of computation can now be carried out on a mobile device.

The Economist reports (Technology Quarterly, 12 March h 2005, p. 7) on other directions, such as the Samsung phone that allows users to take photos of business cards. Recognition software on the handset then pulls the details into the phone's address book.

The same article also comments on the other end of the scale: adding mobile-friendly bar codes to physical objects. Two dimensional bar codes, called quick response (QR) codes, are "quite common" in Japan, where they are seen on business cards, ticket sales and on CDs and posters to access music samples. They have recently been added to bus stops New York and Florida. Travellers take a picture of the bar code on the bus stop, and software on the phone then calls up a web page giving information on when the bus is due.