For retailers, these games and apps offer a new form of mobile marketing that goes well beyond a minibanner ad by rewarding consumers, individually, for their loyalty. And unlike paper cards, stores can use the data they collect from people’s cellphones to learn more about who their customers are and how they behave.

No one in advertising has ever been able to figure out how to do “one-to-one, real-time marketing,” said Drew Sievers, a former advertising executive who is now co-founder and chief executive of mFoundry. “The mobile phone is where that will actually probably happen. It’s the only thing connected and always with you.”

M. Somasekhar’s piece on Hindu Business Line on mobile payments says:

Experts from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kenya, Thailand, the Philippines, Bhutan and Bangladesh among other nations met in Islamabad recently to discuss their experiences in providing mobile phone services for the BoP segment in their respective countries. They agreed that a beginning has been made and the road ahead appeared daunting, but technological progress promised quick results.

Don Sambandaraksa’s  piece “Mobile phones offer hope to ‘bottom of the pyramid” to Bangkok Post focuses on mobile use in farming, transport and banking. Says he:

“ICTs cannot solve all problems, chief of which is land reform, but when it comes to making decisions, lowering transaction costs and going to market and selling, information can make a big difference.

The researched categorised the decision-making process and information value in each from decisions to seed, planting, growing to harvesting and selling.

Information search costs are highest at the beginning of the cycle. Information on deciding what to grow are three times all other costs, and this is where ICTs have a potential role to play.

Sriganesh Lokanathan said that ideally he wanted to change the decision-making chain into a cycle where the decision on what the farmer wants to grow is based on the price when he expects to harvest. For this to happen, prices and supply and demand needed to be predicted and farmers need to get into forward sales contracts which does not often happen in this part of the world.”

Meanwhile we see Pakistan Telecom Authority, the co-organiser takes the message forward. ‘PTA Focuses on Value-Added Services Including E-Commerce, E-Agriculture & E-Education’ was the title of a report from Pakistan Telecom News Bulletin. It says:

Chairman, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Dr. Mohammed Yaseen has said that PTA’s focus is on value added services and with a high penetration level of mobile and low penetration of internet we have to explore the available possibilities which could be gained via mobile 2.0 theories. I very much foresee the further development of presently available technologies and those coming ahead through value added services and content. He was addressing to Connect 2010 ICT Forum – Telecom Session at Expo Centre Karachi and talking to media men on the occasion. He said that our emphasis is on e-commerce, e-agriculture and e-education, it is the time to open doors of opportunities to our young innovative minds and to bridge the unseen gaps between all potentials players of ICT proliferation.

For the full media coverage and presentations,  please see here.

‘Mobile phone calls death’. The ominous title, in Lankadeepa online, is not too uncommon in Sri Lankan media. The story is about the latest victim, who apparently met his death by lighting when talking to his mobile on the bund of a tank. According to Daily Mirror, deaths by lightning in Sri Lanka has increased with 18 people been killed since March 1, 2010, against ten such deaths for entire 2009. Daily Mirror also advices against, inter alia, the use of mobile phones even indoors.

BBC quotes a British Medical Journal letter to the editor that tells about a 15-year-old girl struck by lightning while talking on her phone in a large park in London during stormy weather.

Why mobile phones increase the lighting hit risk? This is the explanation by Swinda Esprit, senior house officer in otorhinolaryngology, an author of the BMJ letter: When a person is hit by lightning, the high resistance of human skin causes the lightning charge to flow over the body – often known as an ‘external flashover’. But some of the current can flow through the body. The more that flows through, the more internal damage it causes. Conductive materials in direct contact with the skin such as liquid or metal objects increase the risk that the current will flow through the body and therefore cause internal injury.

Still it is controversial whether mobile phone is the culprit. Please note both victims were standing on flat lands with no taller objects in the neighborhood. They bodies would have attracted the lightning even without the mobiles in their hands.

So, is it fair to blame mobiles?

Let us wait for the expert opinion.

75% of passenger transport is via public transport and of that 93% by bus and 7% by train. Roughly 5500 SLCTB and 18000 private buses. The fare is regulated by National Transport Commission (NTC). They also have timetables which are n0t implemented.

Shortest distance (~2KM) LKR 6:00.

Longest distance 260 KM – LKR 655.00.

Most of the BOP uses bus transport. 36% of the BOP use mobile and fixed phones.

SLTB buses use both ticket books and manual ticket machines to issue tickets to commuters

Private buses primarily use digital ticketing machines that prints out tickets. Can store data, process memory. Can even tell you how may people have to get off at the next bus stop.  The one in use now is also lighter in weight.

These are mainly used in the Western Province and on a few inter provincial buses.  Manual ticket machines are used in other areas.

Issues with the current ticketting system:

Money lost in Transit. Bus conductors and Drivers take the money, or tickets are not issued, or passengers do not buy the tickets. CTB estimates a 15% loss of revenue and private bus owners 25%.

Chanuka: How is the estimates done?

RS: through Load share.

HdS: Bus owners want to reduce leakage.  They wold like to issue a e-bus tickets. So the solution is either a card system or a mobile. So from the suply side there is a need but what about the demand side?

A  simple survey was done at the Fort railway station. Not a Sample survey but to get an idea. 2/3: 1/3 male: female. There maybe selection bias as it is a starting point.

What is the real cost of a ticket? Do the passengers receive the balance after getting a ticket? only 5% said that they always get there balance. Most people carry exact change. And only 50% of the people receive a bus ticket. Ticket checkers are used both in public and private sector. Some private companies have their own people to check for tickets.

So because of these issues, there is a need.

Possible benefits of e-tickets:

For Bus operators

• reduce leakage
• Offer loyalty plans etc.

For Commuters

• Cost only actual fare
• Can better schedule travel; save on transport expenditure

State [local government]

• Tax collection
• Target subsidies

What are the options?

Contactless smart cards: Oyster, ez link. Delhi is running a pilot, minimum reload INR 25.

Mobile phones: either through SMS or Near field Communication (NFC) merging mobile phones with a contactless smart card (Innovation).

NFC mobile phones: Nokia introduced the first in 2005 (3220). Break through innovation is instead of a NFC  phone, what about an NFC SIM. China Telecom has come p with a NON NFC standard RF SIM.  Nokia 6216: First NFC standard SIM compatible. Operator can load application.

Japan is leader with NTT DoComo Osaifu-Keitai e-wallet phones. Spain, Netherlands, France and Germany, mobile bus and rail ticket system are being piloted.  China has started.  UK to start by 2015 and fully switch to NFC by 2020.

Etisalat’s new Sri Lankan mobile subsidiary is in talks with banks to offer financial services on mobile phones, such as money transfers for migrant workers in the Middle East, a senior company official said.

Riyaaz Rasheed deputy chief executive of Etisalat Lanka said the mobile operator is seeking to tie-up with banks to offer the financial services. “We’re already talking to two of the biggest banks in Sri Lanka,” he told LBO. Rasheed declined to identify the banks, citing non-disclosure agreements signed with them.

Etisalat, the United Arab Emirates-based telecom firm, acquired 100 percent of the Sri Lanka operation called Tigo from Millicom International in October 2009 and has renamed it Etisalat Lanka.

Full story.

The Internet has become the third most popular news platform for American adults, trailing only local and national television stations, according to a survey released on Monday.

Seventy-eight percent of the 2,259 adults surveyed for the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism said that on a typical day they get news from a local TV station.

Seventy-three percent said they get news from a national TV network such as CBS or a cable TV news station such as CNN or Fox.

Sixty-one percent said that on a typical day they get news online while 54 percent said they listen to a radio news program at home or in the car.

Fifty percent said they read news in a local newspaper and 17 percent said they read news in a national newspaper such as The New York Times or USA Today.

The Gold Coast authorities used SMS for 10,000 people. How did they know these were the phones belonging to the people in the high-risk areas? Is it not common that people who are found on beaches, do not necessarily live nearby? So how did they pick the 10000 numbers? And how come they missed the head of the local disaster management group?

“Not everyone keeps their radio on.

“We need a system to make sure the low ground gets priority warning.”

Dr Wilson said a siren system, doorknocking and use of modern media such as Facebook were needed.

Emergency Management Queensland regional director Eddie Bennet said 10,000 text messages were sent to residents in seven suburbs identified as at greatest risk of flooding.

He said a blanket text message to the whole Gold Coast was not deemed as necessary.

The message that was sent directed Lakeview, Boykambil, Woongoolba, Currumbin, Cabbage Tree, Budds Beach and Paradise Point residents to seek further advice.

Mr Bennet said he believed the state’s first formal emergency alert had been successful.

“There was absolutely no confusion. There was a sound reason for this and valid purpose for sending them out.”

Local Disaster Management Group deputy chairman Councillor Ted Shepherd was not aware the texts had been sent and said he believed the level of threat did not warrant the service.

“It attracts too many spectators,” he said.

The main way they plan to do it is by turning people’s mobile phones into information displays and ordering devices. Can’t find the flour at the grocery store? Grocers will offer phone applications that tell shoppers exactly where to go. Is the department store out of size 8 jeans? Retailers want to make it simple to punch a couple of buttons and have the desired size shipped home.

Some supermarkets intend to offer real-time coupons while people shop. For example, a promotion for milk may be sent to a shopper’s mobile phone the moment her cart rolls into the dairy aisle. Drugstores will offer loyalty programs on cellphones, not on plastic cards. And specialty chains will allow shoppers to breeze through the aisles compiling a wedding registry, just by pointing at merchandise.

Of course, this stuff makes even more sense in the developing world, where there are phones aplenty (even if not all smartphones) and shortcoming in the alternative mechanisms for making shopping more efficient.

1. Mobile Video Conferencing
   I’m still waiting for a little camera to appear on the front of my mobile phone so I can video chat while I’m on the go. Some mobile phone companies, specifically Nokia, have tried this in the past. However, it worked on a very small scale and only allowed Nokia-specific phone chats. For this to work correctly, mobile handset makers will need to allow video chats with computer users and across mobile handsets.
2. Biometric Sensors
   Some of the current biometric sensors used by high-level security companies could easily fit into your mobile phone and add a needed level of security. Adding iris scanning biometrics, for example, could enable higher protection when making purchases on mobile phones and would eliminate the need for current password authentication. It would also deter theft of mobile devices.
3. Common Awareness Between Devices
   Why can’t my phone talk to my computer and share information, including documents I’m reading? Why can’t I start watching a baseball game on my television and then finish it on my phone while I sit on the subway? Some of these features are available with a U.S.B. cable and a lot of dragging, dropping and waiting, but so far, devices can’t talk to one another and seamlessly share content.
4. Green Battery Power
   We’ve come a long way from cellphone battery packs that were as large and heavy as a phone book, but why not add some green to the current batteries? Apple filed a patent two years ago for technology that would integrate a solar cell into the iPhone’s LCD display, allowing the phone to charge when sitting in direct light. This feature would be environmentally friendly, and could avoid cumbersome plugs and a constant need to recharge. (In his article, Mr. Vance noted that NTT DoCoMo showed off a solar-panel phone at the Mobile World Congress.)
5. The End of Wires
   Speaking of self-charging devices, as many of us spend most of our online time in the cloud, why do we still need U.S.B. cables and headphone jacks? I wish that mobile phones could simple share all of our information, including videos, music and documents, wirelessly over Wi-Fi or 3G.
6. Mobile Projectors
   Over the last couple of years, a few phones have entered the marketplace, specifically in China, that include a pico projector. The technology is still in an early stage, but these projectors are extremely small and enable projection of movies, photos and presentations directly from a mobile phone.

The inaugural Mobile World Cup, hosted by the South Korean cellphone maker LG Electronics, brought together two-person teams from 13 countries who had clinched their national titles by beating a total of six million contestants. Marching behind their national flags, they gathered in New York on Jan. 14 for what was billed as an international clash of dexterous digits.

To ensure a level playing field, LG handed out identical mobile phones — one with a numeric keypad and the other with a keyboardlike QWERTY pad — weeks in advance for practice. The basic rule of the competition: copy phrases streaming across a monitor correctly, with the required capitalization and punctuation, as quickly as possible. Whichever language players chose, words were selected so that each would type the same number of characters.

As people increasingly rely on powerful mobile phones instead of PCs to access the Web, their surfing habits are bound to change. What’s more, online advertising could lose its role as the Web’s primary economic engine, putting Google’s leadership role into question.

“The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “That has the potential to change the economics of the Internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”

In recent decades, the power of industry giants like I.B.M. and Microsoft, which once seemed unassailable, waned as computing shifted from big mainframes to PCs, and from PCs to the Internet. Many analysts say it is now Google that is faced with a less certain future in the face of another shift.

While there is no separate data on the number of female subscribers in the country, according to a recent Lirneasia Teleuse Survey (a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank), mobile phone ownership is far lower among females than males in South Asia.

Statistical analysis shows that gender has a significant impact on mobile phone adoption at the bottom of the pyramid in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Consequently, in this segment, 12 males have access to mobile phones in comparison to five females.

Since the ownership of mobile phones is lower among females than males, women are less likely to have access to the phones unless the government intervenes through policies such as subsidies or free-phone programmes.

What puzzles us is the policy recommendation that handsets be subsidized or given free.

If anyone looks at our research they will find that the male-female gap has been closed in the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka, and that the gap has narrowed in the countries referred to. Does this not suggest that time will close the gap?

Why jump to the conclusion that subsidies are required? The normal lifetime of a mobile is 3 years. Even if mobiles were given free, will the government continue to provide free phones when the old ones die? Will the women sell the phones? And, most importantly, where will the money for subsidy come from? General taxation? Mobile levies?

Poor people in Bangladesh are more likely to own mobile phones and televisions than the same group in India, but the availability of computers in poor Bangladeshi households is almost zero, according to a recent study.

The survey by LIRNEasia – a Sri Lanka-based information and communication technology (ICT) policy and regulation think tank dealing with the Asia-Pacific – also revealed a comparative reluctance among poor Bangladeshis to buy radios.

China’s productivity has been lifted by a massive expansion of private enterprise, and a shift of labour out of agricultural work and into more productive jobs in industry. China’s average return on physical capital is now well above the global average, according to Goldman Sachs. A decade ago it was less than half the world average.

Why have the Asian economies led the pack? The most important determinants of longer-term productivity growth are the rate of adoption of existing and new technologies, the pace of domestic scientific innovation and changes in the organisation of production. These, in turn, depend on factors such as the openness of an economy to foreign direct investment and trade, education and the flexibility of labour markets.

Using a composite index of technology penetration and innovation (including, for instance, computers and mobile phones per head), Mr Cates finds a strong link between the rate of increase in an economy’s technological progress and its productivity growth. China’s level of technology is still well behind that in America, but it has seen by far the fastest rate of improvement over the past decade. This is not just because China started from such a low base but also because it is more open to foreign investment than many other emerging economies, including Japan and South Korea when they were at similar stages of development. China’s TFP growth is almost twice as fast as that of Japan and South Korea during their periods of peak economic growth.

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2009/11/productivity-driving-growth-in-china-and-asia/feed/ 0 http://lirneasia.net/2009/10/rtbp-cert-exer-young-old/ http://lirneasia.net/2009/10/rtbp-cert-exer-young-old/#comments Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:19:04 +0000 Nuwan Waidyanatha http://lirneasia.net/?p=5626 A m-HealthSurvey Certification Exercise was carried out as part of the m-Health Real-Time Biosurveillance Program (RTBP) to measure the usability and adoptability of the m-HealthSurvey mobile application. The exercise was conducted with health workers in Sivagangai District, Tamil Nadu, India and in Kurunegala District, Sri Lanka. The final results of the exercise will be published in the near future.

m-HealthSurvey is a mobile application developed by indian Institute of technology Madras’s Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI) for collecting near real-time patient disease, syndrome, and demographic data for rapid detection of disease outbreaks. It is a J2ME midlet that allows users to select categorical data as well as type information to generate patient clinical records to be submitted via GPRS to a central database. The pilot is going on in India and Sri Lanka now.

Observations from the exercise revealed a disparity in the usage and adoption between the age groups of the health workers using the m-HealthSurvey for RTBP data submission – younger Sarvodaya Suwadana Center health workers, between the age of 18 – 35 in Sri Lanka, were able to complete the exercise easily in the allotted time by themselves without any help. While the older Tamil Nadu Health Department Village Health Nurses, between the age of 30 – 50, but with 10 – 20 years field experience, were unable to complete the exercise in time and, except for one or two of them, all others required guidance and assistance. This, adoption and usability, disparity of mobile phone applications between older and younger generations is also evident from LIRNEasia’s BOP findings; where “youngsters are more likely than older to adopt mobile phones beyond voice” (De Silva et al, 2009).

The health workers in Sivagangai and Kurunegala began using the m-HealthSurvey mobile application immediately after the training in June 2009; see blogs -  Village Health Nurse training and Suwadana Center Health Worker training.

View link for field report -

Sivagangai District Field report by Dr. Ganesan Muthaiya (India)

Kurunegala District Field report by Ms. Pubuduni Weerakoon (Sri Lanka)

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2009/10/rtbp-cert-exer-young-old/feed/ 0