Web usability guidelines for smartphones : a synergic approach

The mobile phones that we carry with us all the time have started becoming increasingly sophisticated and consequently are referred to as “Smartphones”. Smartphones today are extremely powerful and, in addition to making phone calls, are capable of performing a variety of other functions. One very important function is the ability to access the Internet for a wide number of purposes. An obstacle that these users face is that access to the Internet is through a tiny interface, which is in sharp contrast to the typically large, flat-screen monitor. Unfortunately, many websites are neither designed for nor suitable to be accessed from these small devices. With relatively little effort, however, the developers of the websites can make the web interfaces more appropriate for Smartphones and hence accessible to a much larger audience. In this paper, we focus on “web usability”, a term essentially concerned with the ease of accessing and entering information on websites. We compile and synergize several different guidelines with the intent of increasing the web usability of Smartphones.

Patient use of smartphones to communicate subjective data in clinical trials

Purpose. Various methods have been used in clinical trials to collect time-sensitive subjective responses, including study diaries, telephone interviews, and use of text messaging. However, all of these methods are limited by the uncertainty of when the participants enrolled in the study actually record their responses. This technical note reports on the utility of the BlackBerry smartphone to collect such data and why such a system provides advantages over other methods to report subjective ratings in clinical studies.

Methods. The Centre for Contact Lens Research developed an on-line web-enabled system that permits participants to record and immediately transmit subjective rating scores in numerical form directly into a web-enabled database. This, combined with the utility of BlackBerrys, enabled time-specific e-mail requests to be sent to the study participants and then for that data to be simultaneously transmitted to the web-enabled database. This system has been used in several clinical trials conducted at the Centre for Contact Lens Research, in which data were collected at various times and in several specific locations or environments.

Results. In the clinical trials conducted using this system, participants provided responses on 97.5% of occasions to the requests for data generated by the automated system. When the request was for data on a set date, this method resulted in responses of 84.1% of the time.

Conclusions. The series of clinical trials reported here show the benefits of the utilization of the BlackBerry to collect time- or environment-sensitive data via a web-enabled system.

An analysis of tracking settings in blackberry 10 and windows phone 8 smartphones

The use of tracking settings in smartphones facilitates the provision of tailored services to users by allowing service providers access to unique identifiers stored on the smartphones. In this paper, we investigate the 'tracking off' settings on the Blackberry 10 and Windows Phone 8 platforms. To determine if they work as claimed, we set up a test bed suitable for both operating systems to capture traffic between the smartphone and external servers. We dynamically execute a set of similar Blackberry 10 and Windows Phone 8 applications, downloaded from their respective official markets. Our results indicate that even if users turn off tracking settings in their smartphones, some applications leak unique identifiers without their knowledge. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.

Security and privacy of users' personal Information on smartphones

 This research investigated the proliferation of malicious applications on smartphones and a framework that can efficiently detect and classify such applications based on behavioural patterns was proposed. Additionally the causes and impact of unauthorised disclosure of personal information by clean applications were examined and countermeasures to protect smartphone users’ privacy were proposed.

A privacy-preserving location tracking system for smartphones based on cloud storage

With the widespread use of smartphones, the loss of a device is a critical problem, which results both in disrupting daily communications and losing valuable property. As a result, tracking systems have been developed to track mobile devices. Previous tracking systems focus on recovering the device's locations after it goes missing, with security methods implemented on the clients. However, users' locations are stored in untrusted third-party services, which may be attacked or eavesdropped. In this paper, we propose a system, named Android Cloud Tracker, to provide a privacy-preserving tracking client and safe storing of user's locations. We use cloud storage controlled by users themselves as storage facilities, and they do not need to worry about any untrusted third party. We implement Android Cloud Tracker prototype on Android phones, and the evaluation shows that it is both practical and lightweight: it generates a small amount of data flow and its distributed architecture provides strong guarantees of location privacy while preserving the ability to efficiently track missing devices.

Using smartphones for accountable care and evidence-based decision making in managing gestational diabetes : an Australian case study

Better managing diabetes has become a global priority, especially given the exponential increase in the number of diabetes patients and the financial implications of treating this silent epidemic. In this paper, we focus on how it might be possible to use a mobile technology solution to support and enable superior diabetes monitoring and management. To test this solution, we examined the context of gestational diabetes and adopted a non-blinded randomized control trial with two-arm cross over applied to a private hospital in Victoria, Australia. Further, we use an accountable care system as the theoretical lens and, from this, develop a conceptual framework to bridge evidence-based management with technologies. Theoretically, we unpack McCleallan, McKethan, Lewis, Roski, and Fisher’s (2010) study with our conceptual framework that comprises providers for information (evidence-based management) and technology (smartphone). We enhance Muhlestein, Croshaw, Merrill, Pena, and James’ (2013) accountable care paradigm with three concepts: 1) quality of life, 2) evidence-based management, and 3) affordable care. From the perspective of practice, far-reaching implications have arisen particularly for hospital management pertaining to the cost and quality of care issues. In particular, it appears that adapting mobile technology solutions such as smartphones to support various aspects of care and patient-clinician interactions is a prudent choice to minimize costs and yet provide highquality care.

Radio interview

Host says Catholic Brothers College in St Kilda lifted a classroom mobile phone ban which is an indication of technology being embraced in the classroom.Host also mentions iPads are being used in classrooms as well.. Dr Debra Bateman, Deakin University, says iPhones, Flip Cams, Zip Recorders and Web 2 [sic] technology are increasingly being used in schools. Bateman says the technologies give students more ways to display their knowledge, and find the knowledge they need. Bateman also mentions is involved in a project ot look at preparing teachers to go into schools with adequate knowledge of technologies. Bateman says smartphones give the opportunity to do creative work in the classrooms. Interviewees: Dr Debra Bateman, Deakin University

Software developer policies : economics and s 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010

This article considers the impact of developer policies that hinder or restrict cross platform application development. We suggest that policies that hinder or restrict cross platform development have the potential to erode competition within the market for smartphones. The article also considers the relevance of dominance measures in software markets, arguing that conventional economic approaches may not be applicable. Furthermore, while most monitoring activities tend to focus primarily on protection of consumers, the article points out that modern electronic/information technology markets are multi-sided and there is a need for monitoring of practices designed to attract and retain the favour of developers. While the article is written in the context and application of the applicable Australian legislation, this being s 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), our findings are equally relevant to other jurisdictions.

Smartphone malware based on synchronisation vulnerabilities

Smartphones are mobile phones that offer processing power and features like personal computers (PC) with the aim of improving user productivity as they allow users to access and manipulate data over networks and Internet, through various mobile applications. However, with such anywhere and anytime functionality, new security threats and risks of sensitive and personal data are envisaged to evolve. With the emergence of open mobile platforms that enable mobile users to install applications on their own, it opens up new avenues for propagating malware among various mobile users very quickly. In particular, they become crossover targets of PC malware through the synchronization function between smartphones and computers. Literature lacks detailed analysis of smartphones malware and synchronization vulnerabilities. This paper addresses these gaps in literature, by first identifying the similarities and differences between smartphone malware and PC malware, and then by investigating how hackers exploit synchronization vulnerabilities to launch their attacks.

Information security governance: the art of detecting hidden malware

Detecting malicious software or malware is one of the major concerns in information security governance as malware authors pose a major challenge to digital forensics by using a variety of highly sophisticated stealth techniques to hide malicious code in computing systems, including smartphones. The current detection techniques are futile, as forensic analysis of infected devices is unable to identify all the hidden malware, thereby resulting in zero day attacks. This chapter takes a key step forward to address this issue and lays foundation for deeper investigations in digital forensics. The goal of this chapter is, firstly, to unearth the recent obfuscation strategies employed to hide malware. Secondly, this chapter proposes innovative techniques that are implemented as a fully-automated tool, and experimentally tested to exhaustively detect hidden malware that leverage on system vulnerabilities. Based on these research investigations, the chapter also arrives at an information security governance plan that would aid in addressing the current and future cybercrime situations.

Dynamic path determination policy for distributed multimedia content adaptation

Multimedia content adaptation allows the ever increasing variety of handheld devices such as Smartphones to access distributed rich media resources available on the Internet today. Path planning and determination is a fundamental problem in enhancing performance of distributed multimedia content adaptation systems. Most of the existing path determination mechanisms use static path determination criteria based solely on associating a path with a single behavior aggregate score. However, some criteria such as availability are best represented using different functionality rather than being accumulated into the aggregate score. Moreover, since selection criteria have different behavior towards the score, this principle need to be considered. In this paper, we propose a dynamic multi-criteria path determination policy that selects an optimal path to the content adaptation services that best meet the user preferences and QoS requirements. The performance of the proposed approach is studied in terms of score’s fairness and reliability under different variations. The results indicate that the proposed policy performs substantially better than the baseline policy.