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Posted: 11/12/10 by Mobile Future Team
The FCC held its first open developer day on Monday, November 8th.
Greg Elin, the FCC's Chief Data Officer, presided over the day's sessions attended by more than 100 developers, executives and federal agency personnel.
The focus for the day was accessibility and innovation. The FCC began by outlining its objectives for implementing the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.
Yahoo, AOL and IBM were some of the companies represented. Yahoo presented a set of developer tools (YQL and YUI Libraries) for working with APIs, accessibility components and feeds to prototype apps quickly.
An NCR funded startup, apps4android, demoed a number of applications that improved accessibility for people with disabilities. The apps included readers, magnifiers and scanners.
Befitting the occasion, there was no lack of hacking during the day. Three groups produced applications from FCC, census track and other open source data:
- App 1, led by Yahoo, used geolocation to identify min/max download speeds to display on a web page
- App 2, led by CompuTech, used an input location and latitute/ longitude to return FCC license data in an iPhone app
- App 3 used GIS data and map tiles to build views of broadband and wireless coverage across the world
It was great to see Chairman Genachowski and Managing Director Steven VanRoekel actively participate in the hacking process by probing the teams of developers, contributing to their specs and observing their collaborative work on creating these apps. They listened carefully, asked questions and offered input. Hands on indeed.
A developer wiki was launched at the conference. Visit and contribute here.
Full video proceedings are available here.
We learned at the conference that the FCC, practicing what they preach, will be re-launching its website and XML feeds some time in the new year. Accessibility for all is the goal. Certainly good news.
Congrats FCC on an informative and productive event. May the hacking continue!
Greg Fawcett, Politics-360
Greg Fawcett currently serves as founder and CEO of Politics-360 and was responsible for developing the Mobile Future application. Politics-360 is a Mobile Future coalition member whose mission is to develop mobile applications and social networks for membership organizations, Labor, elected officials, candidates and corporations with a public interest. For more information, click here.
Posted: 11/10/10 by Mobile Future Team
This Veteran’s Day, Mobile Future joins the rest of the country in saluting the men and women throughout history who have fought to protect America’s freedoms. At home and abroad, these dedicated service members continue to demonstrate the highest levels of commitment to their fellow citizens and the global community, and as Americans we could not be more thankful for their sacrifices.
With that, we’re proud to report that mobile innovation has in turn contributed to a greater quality of life among active and retired service members, from technologies that keep vet’s healthy to applications that connect service members to loved ones to wireless initiatives aimed at harnessing the power of mobile to keep our troops safe around the world.
mHealth
Advances in mHealth technologies provide immediate benefits to veterans no matter their physical location. To date, the Department of Veterans Affairs operates the largest telehealth program in the world, with a report out in this month’s Medical Care citing the organization’s widespread usage of information technology as one reason it continues to out-perform the private sector in patient care processes. But with an estimated 3 million veterans living in rural areas, in-house services are not always an option for necessary care. Telehealth and mHealth technologies allow health care professionals to download important data—like vital signs and physiological functions---onto PDAs and smartphones, allowing for remote monitoring of illness and chronic disease.
In addition, specific apps-- like the T2 Mood Tracker, developed by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology, the Hope for One PTSD app, and DOD’s iBreathe set to debut in January 2011-- let service members and veterans use their smartphones to track their emotional health after deployments, monitor trends and behavioral shifts elicited from therapy, medication, and environmental changes, and provide valuable resources for families of those suffering from PTSD.
Connectivity
Mobile technology is especially critical to help deployed service members stay in touch with home no matter where the call of duty takes them. Great applications like Jackson Fish Market’s A Story Before Bed let service members record videos of themselves reading stories that can be accessed anytime through an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch application.
Quality of Life
Mobile applications continue to improve quality of life for veterans and active duty service members around the globe. In July, army.mil profiled the best iPhone apps for a military lifestyle, including US Army News and Information, Skype, BrainWave, USAA banking, and much more. And in August, AmVets released the first app of its kind, aimed at bringing its mission to assist veterans and promote veterans issues into the wireless space.
In addition, AnMarc Travel Technology’s MilitaryToGo application allows service members to use their smartphones to chat live with representatives to make discounted travel reservations and in-flight bookings. And successful competitions like Apps 4 the Army demonstrate developers’ dedication to harnessing the power of mobile to connect our troops around the world.
Philanthropic Efforts
Players across the wireless ecosystem remain committed to raising awareness surrounding veteran’s issues and finding ways to better serve those who have served our country. Initiatives like Cell Phones for Soldiers allow phone users to donate devices they no longer use and turn them into minutes for troops stationed overseas.
We are extremely proud and grateful for our veterans and active duty troops. Please join us in thanking them for their service not just today, but all year long.
Posted: 11/01/10 by Mobile Future Team
“I Voted,” the new data visualization website from Foursquare and JESS3, will track check-ins at polling locations across the US tomorrow-- providing valuable demographic information and acting as a testing ground for how data from the Foursquare system can be used in the 2012 elections.
From the Atlantic:
"This is a big development in political campaigns, in which the two most important concerns have always been getting out the vote and building a community. Allowing users to declare #ivoted via Foursquare and Twitter is the digital version of sporting the classic emblem of civic participation -- the "I Voted" sticker."
Click here to see how many people have checked in at polling locations, broken down by city, neighborhood and gender.
Posted: 10/21/10 by Mobile Future Team
When it comes to the mobile world’s contributions to energy efficiency, we’ve talked before about important initiatives like device recycling and the benefits of telecommuting. But these are just two of the ways phone companies and service providers are working to reduce energy usage. Yesterday, the New York Times profiled “10 Ways Phone Companies are Going Green,” highlighting several laudable efforts popping up across the wireless ecosystem. Take a look!
Posted: 10/18/10 by Mobile Future Team
Calling smartphones a “national obsession,” CNN today unveiled the first of its five-day series about smartphones and their impact on our lives and culture:
“It seems America is getting hooked on the smartphone. We depend on these modern Swiss Army knives for everything from planning our schedules to checking the news, finding entertainment and managing our social networks.”
Posted: 10/15/10 by Mobile Future Team
In yesterday's Open Commission Meeting, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on rules requiring mobile carriers to provide usage alerts and related information. Mobile Future chairman Jonathan Spalter responded to the decision, stating:
"Consumers are clearly driving today's wireless market and we support efforts by the industry, public interest groups and commercial services to provide consumers with meaningful and diverse information about all of the options available to them. We strongly urge the FCC to move forward cautiously with this proceeding and to avoid homogenizing the consumer experience by imposing one size fits all mandates that would limit the rapid evolution in customer care we see in today's highly competitive wireless marketplace."
Posted: 10/12/10 by Mobile Future Team
Let’s say you’re at Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America and you need to get to the North Food Court. Or you’re at O’Hare Airport and need a bookstore. What’s the fastest way?
Easy, just pull out your mobile phone and call up an app that maps the route for you.
Just in time for the holidays, a slew of apps are giving users quick access to maps of shopping malls, airports, convention centers and other major buildings. Sam G. Feuer, chief executive of MindSmack, told the New York Times recently he got the idea when his wife, who was six months pregnant, couldn’t find a restroom.
For most apps, you just punch in your location and where want to go-- the app does the rest. Moreover, as The Times reports, several of these quality apps are free.
It’s the perfect option when your early bird coupon at Banana Republic expires in five minutes and you can’t figure out where the store is.
Posted: 10/01/10 by Mobile Future Team
What’s the next frontier of social networking? The road. Wired.com took a look at new technology unveiled by entrepreneur Mitch Thrower, founder of Bump.com--a new service for drivers to register their vehicles’ license plates to help businesses connect with drivers and drivers connect with one another. The technology should be available in beta by Thanksgiving, just in time for holiday travels.
From Wired.com:
Once it gains ground, Thrower said, the possibilities for Bump are nearly endless. Fleets and cab companies can use Bump to contact their drivers, meter maids can alert you when your car is about to get towed, car manufacturers can send important recall information directly to Bump accounts and eventually drivers will be able to renew their licenses and registrations through the service.
For the complete Wired.com article and more information on the exciting possibilities of Bump technology, click here.
Posted: 09/21/10 by Mobile Future Team
Long gone are hours spent retracing steps and digging through cushions, trying to answer the one question we find ourselves asking far too frequently, “Where is my phone?!”
Thanks to Verizon Wireless’ new mobile application Mobile Recovery-- which works much like Apple’s MobileMe: Find My iPhone service-- the search for your mobile device is over!
Mobile Recovery employs several useful tools to locate, retrieve, and protect a lost phone. For example, the “Sound Alarm” feature triggers an alarm to sound, even if the phone is on silent or vibrate mode. And if we were so forgetful as to leave our phone at a restaurant or in a cab, the “Locate Phone” feature uses GPS to find the address of the phone’s location and provides turn-by-turn directions to retrieve it. You can also remotely lock and erase contacts to secure your privacy.
In addition, MobileMe for iPhone recently has been updated to be accessible via mobile Safari on iPhone and iPod touch. So the next time you have another “uh-oh” moment and can’t find your phone, simply grab your iPod touch or a friend’s BlackBerry and rest assured that your phone is just a click away!
Posted: 09/20/10 by Mobile Future Team
You can already use wireless to start your car, roll down the windows, turn on the air conditioner and find directions. According to a new report, now the real fun is about to start.
The consulting firm iSuppli just came out with a report showing the likely way that wireless apps will revolutionize car entertainment. Start with the basics: Bluetooth is already available more than 90 percent of U.S. model year 2010 vehicles. Now imagine that a car’s operating system (or at least its entertainment system) use the same software as a mobile phone.
The result: There’s a lot less need for expensive in-car electronics. Also, it becomes easy for passengers in the back seat to enjoy movies or gaming on the headrest screen, as data wirelessly connects from their phone. (The downside: You’ll have one less excuse for not doing office work on a long car ride.)
For more information about how wireless is likely to revolutionize your riding experience, click here.
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Tags: Applications, FCC, Genachowski, Mobile Applications, Smartphone, Wireless Innovation