Today's Mobile Minute brings you news about Apple's profit share, the Atlantic Magazine's case for texting, the launch of free SMS in Zimbabwe, a look at how mobile device users choose video apps, and a report on malware in Android's marketplace.
PC Mag reports that Apple's iOS, despite being only 20% of the world's smartphone market, receives roughly two-thirds of mobile phone profits. The magazine breaks down the data in several charts, showing operating profits across quarters, and how operating shares have changed between 2007 and now (in Q2 2007, Apple had 1% of the market and the most popular vendor, Nokia, had 55%; by Q2 2011, Apple has 66% of the market).
Curious about why SMS matters? Check out The Atlantic's "Why Texting is the Most Important Information Service in the World." The article pulls together a lot of statistics and real-world examples to demonstrate how SMS is used around the world. From government initiatives in the Philippines (the article reports "87 percent of Filipinos prefer communicating with the government via SMS, compared to 11 percent with an Internet-preference"), to mobile payments in Afghanistan, to agricultural info and help lines in Uganda, the piece looks at how SMS is changing the way people use their phones to interact with the world around them.
In other SMS news, the company Free SMS Zimbabwe has launched a new initiative that combines advertising with texting. Users of the service can send an SMS with a maximum of 100 characters and the other 60 will be an advertisement; users can send 100 character SMSs for free as the company subsidizes the cost through the ads.
When choosing mobile video apps, a Nielsen Wire survey reveals that the most important factor is "free/low subscription rates." Roughly 63% of respondents chose cost as a very important factor when choosing a mobile video application, more than other factors like video selection, presence of advertisements, or the ability to sync multiple devices.
The 2011 Mobile Threat Report, a new study from Lookout Mobile Security, found some big security threats to Android users. eWeek reports that "Android handset users are 2.5 times more likely to be affected by malware today than they were 6 months ago, as anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million users were impacted by malware on their smartphone or tablet computer."
[Mobile Minute Disclaimer: The Mobile Minute is a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds to keep you informed of the rapid pace of innovation. Read them and enjoy them, but know that we have not deeply investigated these news items. For more in-depth information about the ever-growing field of mobile tech for social change, check out our blog posts, white papers and research, how-tos, and case studies.]
The Mobile Minute is back with the latest mobile news. What's happening today? Nielsen Wire looks at smartphone penetration in Asia, RIM lays off 11% of its worldwide workforce, CGAP investigates how network operators can incorporate mobile financial services into their operations, [x]Cube Labs turns Android's history into an infographic, and Read Write Web looks into the latest developments in the use of near field communication technology for mobile payments.
Curious about the smartphone market in Asia? Nielsen Wire looks at the rapid growth of smartphones in Asia. Although current smartphone penetration in the region is less than 20%, a Nielsen survey of consumers revealed that nearly half of respondents plan to buy a smartphone within the next year. Nielsen Wire investigates what the anticipated increase in smartphone ownership will mean for how people access the Internet, how network operators will price their data plans, and how mobile advertising will adjust to a new market.
Wired reports that RIM (the makers of BlackBerry devices) announced on July 25th their plans to lay off 2000 employees, roughly 11% of its worldwide workforce. The move comes as RIM has lost market share to the growing popularity of newer operating systems like Apple's iOS and Google's Android.
CGAP's "How to Run with Mobile Money and Not Fall" article examines how mobile network operators can incorporate mobile financial services into their current business models. Some of the advice for successfully incorporating mobile money services includes using multiple distribution methods (such as both on-phone purchases and traditional street airtime sellers) and getting support from/sharing knowledge among multiple departments.
If you like charts and graphs, check out this history of the Android operating system. Covering everything from its founding date (2003), to the Google buyout (2005), to the launch of the first Android device (2008), to present day releases, the infographic maps out each update in Android's development.
Near field communication (NFC) technology allows smartphone users to transmit information to nearby contacts. Read Write Web recently investigated some of the new developments in the NFC field for turning smartphones into credit cards. The first article looks at how the company Isis partnered with four major American credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover) to develop wireless payments. The second article looks at the Jumio payment company's launch of Netswipe, which "turns any webcam into a credit card reader, both on the desktop and on mobile."
[Mobile Minute Disclaimer: The Mobile Minute is a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds to keep you informed of the rapid pace of innovation. Read them and enjoy them, but know that we have not deeply investigated these news items. For more in-depth information about the ever-growing field of mobile tech for social change, check out our blog posts, white papers and research, how-tos, and case studies.
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Huzzah for my Thing: Evaluating a Pilot of a Mobile Service in Kenya data sheet 2710 Views
Author:
Ledlie, Jonathan
Publication Date:
Jan 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Deploying and evaluating a new technology is a major challenge in ICTD research. Introducing new technologies can be hampered by a lack of cultural insight, poor or delayed feedback, and limited evaluation procedures, among other factors.
This short paper offers a model for introducing technology in developing regions that mitigates these factors. We call these steps the “Huzzah method,” inspired by a quotation that rightly derides technology that is introduced from afar and poorly evaluated.
The paper also includes selected portions from other work on Tangaza, whose design, implementation, and analysis followed the Huzzah method.
Cell vs. Internet: The Impact on Democratization in Africa data sheet 3696 Views
Author:
Patience Akpan-Obong, Ph.D., Nicholas O. Alozie, William Foster, Ph.D.Ph.D.,
Publication Date:
Jan 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
This paper presents an empirical assessment of the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on political development in sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis, based on the Mo Ibrahim indicators of democracy in Africa for 2008, reveals a close alignment between ICTs in Sub-Saharan Africa and democratization – or political development broadly defined.
Our examination of the data demonstrates that elevated levels of phone, computer, and Internet diffusion are associated with political development, although only the effect of the phone remains once other variables are specified. The phone is the most robust of all individual factors explaining variations in political development. This may be explained by the fact that all strata of society can use cell phones, while the Internet is primarily used by the elite.
A Note on the Availability (and Importance) of Pre-Paid Mobile Data in Africa data sheet 2780 Views
Author:
Donovan, Kevin; Donner, Jonathan.
Publication Date:
Jun 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
We argue that access to prepay data will be as essential to the widespread adoption and use of the mobile internet in developing countries as access to prepay airtime is/was to the adoption of the mobile telephone. In late 2009, we conducted a desk assessment of the availability of pre-pay (payas-you-go) data from the major operators in 53 African countries. In 36 cases we were able to identify at least one operator in each country which offered pre-pay data, and in 3 cases we could determine that no prepay data was available.
Information available from operators was vague, incomplete, and hard to obtain, suggesting a threshold in general awareness and enthusiasm on the part of operators may not yet have been crossed. We describe an ongoing follow-up “crowdsourcing” activity underway to fill in information from the remaining 14 countries, and suggest topics for further research, both on the demand and supply sides of the prepaid data equation.
HTTP, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, is the data communication protocol you use when you broswe the web - as you probably know if you've noticed that website addresses usually begin with http://. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, which you might have seen being used for sensitive transactions like online banking and online shopping. When you are using the secure part of a site, the web address will begin with https://.
When using your mobile phone for sensitive communications, it is important to ensure that your online activities - whether researching or reading about an issue, sending an email, writing a blog post or uploading photos - are done over a secure connection. There are three elements of secure web browsing:
The Role of Technology and Citizen Media in Promoting Transparency, Accountability and Civic Participation data sheet 3101 Views
Author:
David Sasaki; Renata Avila; Sopheap Chak; Jakub Górnicki; Rebekah Heacock; Victor Kaonga; Sylwia Presley; Manuella Maia Ribeiro; Namita Singh; Carrie Yang
Publication Date:
Jan 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
This report is structured in three sections. The introduction examines the differing aspects between traditional watchdog journalism and online media that rely on raw data sources, often directly from government websites. The introduction also aims to contextualize the benefits of transparency, accountability and civic engagement from a grassroots, networked perspective.
The second section of the report consists of regional overviews authored by each of our eight researchers. These overviews document the history of the good governance movement in each region, the role of technology in promoting transparency and accountability, and summaries of the case studies they documented. The concluding section groups case studies thematically in order draw out trends, conclusions and recommendations that apply across a number of projects.
Four Billion Little Brothers? Privacy, Mobile Phones, and Ubiquitous Data Collection. data sheet 2628 Views
Author:
Shilton,Katie.
Publication Date:
Aug 2009
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Participatory sensing technologies could improve our lives and our communities, but at what cost to our privacy? They place calls, surf the Internet, and there are close to 4 billion of them in the world. Their built-in microphones, cameras, and location awareness can collect images, sound, and GPS data. Beyond chatting and texting, these features could make phones ubiquitous, familiar tools for quantifying personal patterns and habits. They could also be platforms for thousands to document a neighborhood, gather evidence to make a case, or study mobility and health. This data could help you understand your daily carbon footprint, exposure to air pollution, exercise habits, and frequency of interactions with family and friends.
Despite the smartphone craze of the past 5 years, featurephones are still king in much of the world. From the perspective of activists, rights defenders, and journalists, they cannot be ignored. And feature phones have plenty of built-in capability to help users stay safer. During the course of our research, we've uncovered valuable features that even the most experienced users may not be aware of.
As a part of SaferMobile, a project of MobileActive.org, we've focused on documenting the most important ways that a user can lock down a mobile handsets. No external apps or special tools are required, just a charged battery. We've condensed these tips into single-page, device-specific reference guides for a variety of makes & models that get straight to the point. And yes, we made sure to cover smartphones and featurephones.
A discussion on mobile application security must address the current issues facing mobile devices and the best way to mitigate them. This chapter aims to provide content on the following subjects:
Top issues facing mobile devices
Tips for secure mobile application development
The issues covered in this chapter are not exhaustive and appear in no particular order; however, they can be used to begin the conversation on mobile application security in your organization.
SMS Uprising:Mobile Phone Activism in Africa data sheet 1992 Views
Author:
Ekine,Sokari, Nathan Eagle, Christian Kreutz, Ken Banks, Tanya Notley, Becky Faith, Redante Asuncion-Reed, Anil Naidoo, Amanda Atwood, Berna Ngolobe, Christiana Charles-Iyoha Joshua Goldstein, Juliana Rotich, Bukeni Waruzi.
ISSN/ISBN Number:
2147483647
Publication Date:
Jan 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
This compendium of articles (available at a cost) attempts to critically investigate the use and utility of mobile phones in Africa. Contributors include Nathan Eagle who writes about ‘Economics and power within the African telecommunication industry’, Amanda Atwood’s report on Kubatana’s experiences in Zimbabwe setting up mobiles as a means of sharing news outside of government propaganda, to Bukeni Waruzi’s essay on collecting data on children’s rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2004. SMS Uprising is published by Fahamu, a British-based organization with a focus on information services for Africa. For a critique of the book see our aticle here.
Have you ever had a problem with your neighborhood and wanted to rally your community around finding a solution? Commons, a mobile mapping and reporting game, does just that. Commons is an iPhone app that allows players to locate their position on a map and then guides the players through a series of challenges to report and comment on their neighborhood. Reports can be voted on, so users who submit the best reports or images can win badges that show their involvement. The first real-world gameplay happened lower Manhattan in New York City on June 19th at the Come Out and Play Festival.
When it comes to water, every drop counts. When a local waterpoint malfunctions or dries up, it’s important to get the problem resolved as quickly as possible. That’s where Maji Matone, a water monitoring and civic participation project in Tanzania, comes in.
Run by Daraja, a Tanzania-based NGO, Maji Matone asks villagers to report outages in their water systems via SMS. Daraja employees read through the SMSs, then pass along the information to the local district engineer. The project is currently being piloted in three different districts. Each district has a local engineer responsible for the water infrastructure. If reports continue to come in and no action has been taken, Maji Matone turns to its media partners in order to publicize the lack of action.
A Guide to Mobile Security Risk Assessment data sheet 6086 Views
Author:
SaferMobile
Abstract:
You are an activist, rights defender, or journalist. You use a mobile device. And you work in sometimes risky situations in your country. This guide will help you implement mobile security practices in your work. It will help you assess the particular risks that face you and then assist you in developing a plan to mitigate those risks.
You are an activist, rights defender, or journalist. You use a mobile device. And you work in sometimes risky situations in your country.
This guide will help you implement mobile security practices in your work. It will help you assess the particular risks that face you and then assist you in developing a plan to mitigate those risks. First, we'll cover some of basic concepts. Then, in the second part of this guide, we'll take you through developing your own risk assessment in 5 steps.
We have previously published a Mobile Risk Primer that describes general security vulnerabilities associated with mobile technology and communication. Read it!
Throughout this guide, we'll also highlight the fictitious case of Asima, a blogger and activist in Egypt. Examples of how Asima might complete the assessment worksheet and create a security plan for her work are highlighted in this guide.
Asima lives in Cairo, Egypt and is a blogger and an activist. She used to maintain a blog on Blogspot, but now mostly uses Facebook and Twitter to follow current events, to share information, and to communicate with colleagues. She tweets from her mobile phone while in traffic and at cafes and protests and from her computer when she is at work or at home.
We've heard much recently about information that is being tracked by mobile phone companies (see our recent post) and app developers. However, there are more overt security threats that are potentially more dangerous.
One of these threats is referred to as either a “roving bug” or a “remote listening” application. It is essentially the same concept as a conventional audio bug, except that it requires no hardware other than a smartphone. Once installed, remote listening software enables a 3rd party to call a phone, activate its speakerphone capabilities, and secretly transmit any sounds picked by its microphone to another phone number, where it can be monitored and recorded.
[This post was written by Robert Goodier and originally appeared on Engineering for Change. It is reposted here with permission.]
Three men who believe that cellphone service should be cheap and accessible to everyone have found a way to make it happen. The creators of OpenBTS, the open-source cellphone network, launched a startup and have delivered cheap cellphone networks to the world's biggest mobile tech corporations, governments and other clients on every continent. (Yes, even Atarctica—the Australian base is connected via OpenBTS.)
As we reported last year, OpenBTS is a network built on open-source software and hardware that works seamlessly with the average cellphone. With smart coding and decentralized call processing, the system has reduced the hardware needed and cuts the cost of installing and running a cellphone network to about one-tenth that of a traditional setup.
And, importantly for developing countries, the base tranceivers (the gear in the cell towers) are energy sippers that can run on PV cells. The bottom line: The whole network can reduce the cost of service to about $2-3 per month for subscribers.
We spoke with Glenn Edens, a co-founder of Range Networks, with a resume that includes such titles as former head of Sun Lab at Sun Microsystems, former president of AT&T Strategic Ventures, Chief of Strategic Technology at Hewlett-Packard and others. Edens summed up the last six months at Range Networks and told us what lies ahead for the startup.
Citizens in @ction: Collaboration, Participatory Democracy and Freedom of Information data sheet 1703 Views
Author:
Nugroho, Yanuar
Publication Date:
Mar 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The purpose of this research is to empirically examine the ways in which Indonesian civil society organisations and groups engage in civic activism by means of the use of Mobile phones, Internet and social media; and how this civic engagement impacts upon the shaping of civil society in Indonesia.
With technology and its use continuously shifting and being shaped, the appropriation of the Internet and social media in Indonesian civil society is more about process than outcome. The technologies are continuously modified and adapted to bring them into alignment with the organisations’ routines. ‘Citizens in action’ are therefore never fixed in format, but rather ‘constituted and reconstituted’ through the everyday practices of the civil society groups and communities involving citizens and activists alike in ongoing actions – where technology serves as a convivial means.
[Updated with audio recording: If you'd like to hear this Mobile Minute in audio form, check out this podcast recorded by Ashiyan Rahmani-Shirazi @ashiyan]
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on Egypt's ruling against former president Mubarak for cutting Internet and mobile services, the rise of online phone calls, the operating system with the most data downloads, an effort to crowdsource citizen reports from the upcoming Turkish elections, and a look at mobile web content and access in East Africa.
Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has been fined $34 million by an Egyptian court for cutting access to Internet and mobile phone networks during protests earlier this year. Other Egyptian officials (former interior minister Habib al-Adly and former prime minister Ahmed Nazif) were fined as well, for a total of $90 million in fines among the three former leaders.
A new report from the Pew Research Center reveals that online phone calls are becoming much more common. The center reports that 5% of Internet users go online to make a phone call each day, and 24% of adult American Internet users have used the Internet to make a phone call.
Curious about which operating system users download the most data? Wonder no more – Android owners use roughly 582 MB of data each month, compared to Apple users who came next with 492 MB of data. The information, compiled by Nielsen, also found that although Android users use more data, iPhone owners downloaded more apps.
Turkey's elections are coming up on June 12th, and students at the Istanbul Bilgi University have launched a crowd-sourcing website in order to report on the election. Called CrowdMap, the site maps reports from SMS, email, Twitter, and other Internet sources to provide instant updates about the election outside of the mainstream media.
It's a brand new month, and June is bursting with tons of mobile-themed events around the world! From hackathons for developers and coders to in-depth discussions about mobiles for social change and development, this month's events cover a wide range of topics and sectors. Check them out below:
1-2 June AppsWorld Africa 2011 (Cape Town, South Africa) How can mobile apps be used for development in Africa? This two-day conference uses workshops and exhibitions to explore the potential of apps in sectors ranging from health and agriculture to business and banking.
4-5 June Random Hacks of Kindness (global) This Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon will focus on both disaster risk and climate change. Experts in disaster risk and climate change submit challenges they've faced in their work, and developers and coders gather together to build solutions.
6-9 June Mobile Health Summit(Cape Town, South Africa) Co-hosted by the GSMA and the mHealth Alliance, this three-day event is the go-to place for leaders in the mobile and health fields to learn how mobile technology can improve on global health practices.
8 June Mobile Applications for Development Workshop (Washington, D.C., USA) Hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank, this workshop focuses on the role of mobile and Internet technologies in fostering social development.
8-9 June Open Mobile Summit (London, UK) For businesses looking to create a mobile presence, the Open Mobile Summit covers all the bases. From workshops on monetizing apps to targeting audiences through social media, panel leaders discuss how to mobilize your business.
8-9 June AITEC Banking and Mobile Money: West Africa (Accra, Ghana) The theme of this two-day event is how mobile banking can drive trade and investment in West Africa. The event looks at how traditional banks can use mobile banking, and the benefits of providing mobile banking options for people at the bottom of the pyramid.
14-15 June PIVOT25 (Nairobi, Kenya) PIVOT25 is an mLAB dedicated to supporting the growth of mobile entrepreneurs in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Somalia and Southern Sudan. Discussion topics at the event include the role of women in ICTs and the use of mobile applications in government, health, banking, and games.
Fu Chi: A Mobile Civic Platform for Philadelphia’s Chinatown data sheet 2382 Views
Philly's Chinatown has struggled in recent years to maintain its geographic integrity with development encroaching its boundaries. There are internal challenges as well with frequent brak-ins and trash littering the streets. There is an imperative to coordinate residents, businesses and organizations to unite to address problems and prevent further encroachment. Yet, coordination and cooperation have been difficult to attain. For these reasons we wanted to design a communication system accessible via mobile phone specifically for Philadelphia’s Chinatown, to help its citizens and organizations address themselves, each other, and the greater Philadelphia community.
The range of dialects and cultural backgrounds in Chinatown make face-to-face communication rare for many residents. We wanted to create a social media system for our project that could potentially help forge social ties and build the essential element of trust in a new way. The system we envisioned would have features that address what we have identified as needs in the neighborhood:
There are plenty of anecdotal stories of seemingly random delays lasting multiple hours or even days in many countries where we work. While network congestion and growing infrastructure are often to blame for SMS unreliability, there are also legitimate concern that delays may be an indication of deliberate message filtering and monitoring.
What has emerged is an environment in which activists and human rights defenders are unable to clearly understand what networks - and what behavior - is safe or hazardous for themselves or their contacts. The end goal of this research, put simply, is to change this paradigm. Rumors of keyword filtering are not helpful; what is helpful is any evidence of surveillance.
SMSTester is a simple Android app that allows a user create a set of keywords to be sent as SMS messages. This allows the user to explore differences in latency for any type of message - from basic, everyday text like ‘milk’ or ‘newspaper’ to politically inflammatory text such as ‘revolution.’
We then set up a logging mechanism to timestamp and record each SMS as it is sent (from the sender side) or received (on the receipt side). By comparing the sent and received timestamps, we’re very easily able to calculate message latency from one SIM to another.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Key Features :
The application is designed to be installed on both sides of a single SMS conversation: a sender uses the app to automatically transmit a series of messages to the receiver, where incoming messages are logged upon receipt. Diagnostic data from the send side can be optionally included in the message payload itself such that the receive side can parse, analyze and display test results without needing access to data from the send side. This feature drastically improves flexibility and enables effective testing without requiring physical co-location.
Each message sent is coded with a unique GUID by the application so that data sets from both sides can be later combined if necessary. The output of the data is stored on the device SDCard in comma separated value (CSV) format, which makes it easy to import and parse in any office spreadsheet application.
Main Services:
Other
Display tool in profile:
Yes
Tool Maturity:
Currently deployed
Release Date:
2011-04
Platforms:
Android
Program/Code Language:
Java
Organizations Using the Tool:
MobileActive.org
Support Forums:
https://lab.safermobile.org/wiki/SMSTester
Languages supported:
Any
Handsets/devices supported:
SMSTester is currently availble as an Android application only. However, as the application itself does not require a large amount of computational power or high-end hardware, it can be deployed on virtually any Android handset with SMS capabilities, including low-cost options.
One of the main goals of the SaferMobile project is to release software tools that allow activists and rights defenders to use their mobile phones as network monitors and sensors. The goal is to help them, and the mobile developers, human rights organizations and people on the street they work with, to monitor network performance and proactively detect blocking, filtering and censorship. SMSTester is the first tool we are publicly releasing within this category, and it is free, freely licensed and open-source. Our first trial run with Short Message Service Tester (SMSTester) was completed in April 2011. The results are written up here.
Mobile Tactics for Participants in Peaceful Assemblies data sheet 11798 Views
Author:
Ramy Raoof
Abstract:
If you are participating in a peaceful assembly as a journalist, rights defender, or activist, your mobile phone is an invaluable asset to communicate with allies, to document the event, and bear witness to what is happening around you. At the same time, you should take certain precautions in your mobile use and communications.
The following guide can help you to utilize your mobile phone during peaceful assemblies effectively and, at the same time, better protect yourself.
If you are participating in a peaceful assembly as a journalist, rights defender, or activist, your mobile phone is an invaluable asset. It allows you to communicate with allies, to document the event, and bear witness to what is happening around you. At the same time, you should take certain precautions in your mobile use and communications. The following Guide can help you to utilize your mobile phone during peaceful assemblies effectively and, at the same time, better protect yourself.
In most public assemblies, you face risks from:
Loss and seizure of your mobile phone;
Disruptions to service from hardware or network failures;
Surveillance of your communications.
Each of these risks can be mitigated to some extent so long as you plan ahead, know your phone, and the basics of how mobile communications works. Remember though, that every situation is different and that mobile phones are inherently insecure communication devices. We urge you to review this Primer on Mobile Risks for more guidance in assessing your mobile risks.
