The Houston Chronicle
recently printed an op-ed from Mobile Future Board Member Art
Contreras. The piece
reviews Mobile Future's latest white paper on mobile broadband
usage in the Hispanic community. Art is a Texas native and Houston local who served in the Houston Police
Department for 36 years and was U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Texas
from 1998 to 2002.
"As a Hispanic-American, I am proud
our community is leading the way in wireless adoption, and I'm excited to see
how this adoption can be applied to bolster the community as a whole - from
entrepreneurial opportunities and health care to education and law
enforcement."
In addition sharing his thoughts on wireless usage in the Hispanic
community, Art also discusses how wireless technology can assist public safety
officials in keeping communities safe. You can read Art's op-ed here.
Not long ago, the wireless rule at many hospitals could be summed up in one word: No. No cell phones. No pagers. No PDAs.
How times have changed. As Telephony Online reports this week, many hospitals are now "wide-open wireless environments, with multiple types of wireless networks co-existing to provide anywhere communications and real-time delivery of medical testing data and telemetry."
Take Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio, where a wireless intranet is going up at six hospitals. As the hospital's CIO told Telephony, "Our doctors and nurses need tools that are wireless.... If a nurse needs to reach a doctor with a question when she is administering some medication and that doctor is walking the halls of the hospital, wireless is the only way to reach him."
Check out Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter's recent op-ed about
the potential of wireless technology for Oklahomans. You can read his insights on the subject at the Oklahoman.
Robert Scoble recently blogged about his take-aways from SXSW 2009. South by Southwest Interactive is a yearly "festival" for tech enthusiasts and bloggers to network, share best practices, and discuss what is hot in the interactive sector. In Scoble's opinion, it was all about SMS and location this year.
Some folks are probably wondering why I'm covering this news or what's the big deal about these perspectives from Austin. Well, two years ago, a little micro-blogging service called Twitter essentially took off after the festival. I was covering a telecom conference shortly after SXSW and all the buzz was about Twitter. Accordingly, I joined the service back then. Fast forward to today and almost everyone's on it and it is the social network with the most impressive acceleration in growth.
With that in mind, I see huge growth opportunities in the mobile space as we move from navigation to awareness. In some cases, some mobile applications are incorporating location into their products. For instance, when I live stream with Qik, I have the immediate option to opt-in my location for other Qik users to know where I am and Google maps has now synced in Latitute. Scoble mentioned Foursquare being the hot product at SXSW but I haven't had the opportunity to demo it. Specifically, Foursquare is an application "that helps you keep up with your friends, but exposes you to new things and challenges you to explore cities in different ways."
In any case, I look forward to exploring more apps and products in this space. I believe that Scoble's insights from Austin are on the mark and this sector is going to get really hot.
"Indeed, our love affair with cellphones is increasingly
being coupled with our love affair with the automobile, spawning applications -
some silly, some sublime - that drivers can download to their mobile handsets
for little or no money."
True enough. To
satisfy your inner Brian O'Conner, there's a program called
Dynolicious, which gauges your 0-to-60 times, supposedly to within 0.08 of a
second. It also measures lateral G-forces.
Speaking of speed traps (we weren't but given the above, it
seemed like a natural segue), some new apps give warnings of oncoming
hazards. For example, an iPhone app
called Njection compiles feedback from subscribers and pinpoints speed traps
along any route you input.
And when you hit a pothole going 80, you'll need a new
struts. But at least with RepairPal, you
can get a quick wireless estimate for parts and labor costs, as well as nearby
repair shops with customer ratings.
And those who are more concerned with reducing their carbon
footprint can turn to greenMeter, Ecorio and other apps that suggest ways to
save on fuel.
Just what we need now that the weather's warmer and Spring
Break is here.
The plan to have a WiFi bubble over the City of Houston has been radically altered. Unfortunately, we have seen this play out in other cities that were encouraged to embark in these initiatives by companies who were either underfunded or lacked the capacity to deliver on contract terms. In this case, the $3.5 million settlement the city received from Earthlink is now being directed to provide wireless accessibility to specific "hot-spots". These include some non-profits, community centers, and schools. Password accessibility will be required. Essentially, the only way to access the system is to be enrolled in a program at the specific site. Commendably, the "hot-spots" are located in the lower socio-economic areas of the city. The new initiative provides for a "Wireless Empowerment Access Network", or WECAN. This will be deployed in 25 super-neighborhoods. There is no doubt that this initiative, even though limited, will have a dramatic impact on the lives of many of the residents in these neighborhoods.
Of course, the ideal would have been to have the initial plan come to fruition. There is no doubt, in this wireless information age, that access to the Internet is critical to fostering a growing economy.
The Junior Community College Student Personnel Association of Texas convened in Houston, Texas on October 16, 2008. I had the honor of being asked to participate on a panel discussion regarding campus security. The clear message I conveyed to the audience is that the demand for due diligence regarding campus security, especially after the Virginia Tech incident, does not leave any room for complacency. The critical mindset to guard against is "that won't happen on my campus." Sadly, it can happen on any campus. Since the tragic death of Jeanne Clery at Lehigh University in 1986, both state and federal legislators have passed statutes and regulations to address this critical issue.
The mandates emanating from every report regarding these tragedies clearly demands that administrators not only report crime but also implement security measures to minimize crime. Struggling with budgetary constraints, in most instances, adding security personnel is typically not possible. The alternative is to utilize technological support systems to augment security personnel. The first step in any security assessment is to conduct a thorough environmental design study and determine what landscaping and structural changes need to be made to minimize crime.
The wireless industry has numerous product applications to help with security demands. Most commonly used are automated notification systems, which enable administrators to send out an alert via email, SMS text message, and updates to university web sites. Also, safety experts agree that the texting alert system should be "just one part of comprehensive notification systems that can include sirens, loudspeakers, security cameras, website announcements and more," according to USA Today.
Regardless of the security any campus has, periodic tests of the system should be made to help identify any security factors that need upgrading or replacement. Additionally, it is of utmost importance for each campus security director, if not already in place, to have a close collaborative working relationship with their local police agencies
For more information, the report I found to be the most comprehensive in addressing campus security is the National Association of Attorneys General (http://naag.org/publications.php) - Task Force On School And Campus Safety (September 2007 Report and Recommendations).
Kevin Roberts, ACU's chief information officer says, "We also are committed to continuing research about how technology can benefit learning and better prepare our students for the future. For their sake, it's not good enough just to keep up; we want to lead." See press release.
How will they use them in the classroom? At ACU's new mobile launch page, students have access to practical information and a host of learning tools, which students and professors will tap into.
English professor Dr. Kyle Dickson, says, "I've got the ability to drag and drop files I need my students to have access to, that can be an image file I want them to analyze in class, or an electronic handout, a PDF (file)," adding that it takes only 30 minutes to prepare.
Read more about this great educational initiative here.
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Tags: Minority Access, Mobile Applications, Mobile Future, Mobile Future Board, Art Contreras, News, Wireless Broadband, TX