Context Awareness and Mobile Phones

This paper investigates some aspects of how context-awareness can support users of mobile phones, in particular the calling party. The use of mobile and stationary phones is discussed in relation to situational properties of a phone conversation, especially with regards to who might benefit from context-awareness in this context. An initial hypothesis is that mobile phone users communicate context information to each other (verbally) to a much higher degree than do stationary phone users. Mobile phone users could benefit much from context awareness technology, in particular when about to make a call, if they can receive context information regarding the person they are trying to reach prior to establishing the call. We argue that such technology should require low amounts of explicit user interaction, and could lead to less disrupting calls in inappropriate moments, as well as less frustration for the calling party when a call is not answered.     

Designing Motion Gesture Interfaces in Mobile Phones for Blind People

Despite the existence of advanced functions in smartphones, most blind people are still using old-fashioned phones with familiar layouts and dependence on tactile buttons. Smartphones support accessibility features including vibration, speech and sound feedback, and screen readers. However, these features are only intended to provide feedback to user commands or input. It is still a challenge for blind people to discover functions on the screen and to input the commands. Although voice commands are supported in smartphones, these commands are difficult for a system to recognize in noisy environments. At the same time, smartphones are integrated with sophisticated motion sensors, and motion gestures with device tilt have been gaining attention for eyes-free input. We believe that these motion gesture interactions offer more efficient access to smartphone functions for blind people. However, most blind people are not smartphone users and they are aware of neither the affordances available in smartphones nor the potential for interaction through motion gestures. To investigate the most usable gestures for blind people, we conducted a user-defined study with 13 blind participants. Using the gesture set and design heuristics from the user study, we implemented motion gesture based interfaces with speech and vibration feedback for browsing phone books and making a call. We then conducted a second study to investigate the usability of the motion gesture interface and user experiences using the system. The findings indicated that motion gesture interfaces are more efficient than traditional button interfaces. Through the study results, we provided implications for designing smartphone interfaces.     

基于智能手机的视频共享系统的设计与实现

介绍了一种基于Symbian智能手机的视频共享系统.智能手机将拍摄的视频内容压缩后通过无线信道上传到服务器,其它智能手机可以从该服务器上下载上传的视频内容,或者以流的方式进行实时解码播放.本文阐述了该系统的整体结构,重点介绍了客户端软件的设计与实现,包括Symbian平台上H.264视频编解码器以及视频传输模块的实现;实现了一个原型系统,并给出系统性能的测试结果.该系统的现实意义在于充分利用移动通信优势来满足人们视频应用的需求,使得人们相互间可以方便地共享身边的场景.     

Panoramic video stitching from commodity HDTV cameras

Digital camera and smartphone technologies have made high-quality images and video pervasive and abundant. Combining or stitching collections of images from a variety of viewpoints into an extended panoramic image is a common and popular function for such devices. Extending this functionality to video however, poses many new challenges due to the demand for both spatial and temporal continuity. Multi-view video stitching (also called panoramic video stitching) is an emerging, common research area in computer vision, image/video processing and computer graphics and has wide applications in virtual reality, virtual tourism, surveillance, and human computer interaction. In this paper, we study and solve the major technical and practical problems in the complete process of stitching a high-resolution multi-view video into a high-resolution panoramic video. The challenges addressed include video stabilization, efficient high-definition multi-view video alignment and stitching, color correction, and blurred frame detection and repair. The proposed approaches have been successfully applied in a high-quality virtual reality system—the Virtual Exercise Environment (VEE) system.     

Output-oriented power saving mode for mobile devices

Fast battery discharge is still the most nerve wracking issue for smartphone users. Though many energy saving methods have been studied, still users are not satisfied with their phone’s battery. Power management system provides low power mode when the phone is not in use for a long time. When the user is interacting with the phone, current system assumes the user is interactive and should keep the device in active mode. However, this is not true. After the user’s interaction, the device processes the request and displays the result on the smartphone’s output device. During this period, the user cannot see any meaningful information from the phone. In this paper, we propose a new low power mode where we put smartphone’s output device into low power mode while phone is preparing result for the user. We named this as o-sleep, an output-oriented power saving mode. While a device is processing a user’s request, output from the device may require preparation time. We consider the situation as the device’s output idle time and put the phone’s user interfaces into sleep mode while maintaining other subsystems in active state. To prove our concept, we have applied our technique onto various smartphone applications with varying operation environment. From the experiment, we found that the smartphone entered the o-sleep mode up to 58% of its total usage time in various test scenarios. Usability study supported feasibility of our proposed method.     

I spy with my little eye: Samsung is about to ban camera phones from its factories — why?

The other day I was having lunch with an investigator who received a call on his mobile telephone. As he took the call I noticed he was using the latest video and camera mobile phone technology. As an amateur photographer I was tempted to ridicule the abysmal quality of the picture image that these cameras usually produce. I have seen my own image captured unawares by friends and colleagues using these devices and the picture quality was never good — despite my movie star looks and natural photogenic charm. But as I gently ridiculed this technology, the investigator raised a salient point that I had failed to appreciate — that I had been photographed, yet again completely unawares, this time by him as he answered his call.     

Adapting the mobile phone for task efficiency: the case of predicting outgoing calls using frequency and regularity of historical calls

The set of functionalities provided by advanced mobile phones is significantly increasing. However, the small size of mobile phone user interfaces makes it difficult for the user to deal with this large number of functionalities, which could reflect negatively on user performance and the efficiency of mobile phone functionalities. In this paper, we designed and developed an adaptive task-based functionality called ATF on mobile phones, where the task we focused on was to predict the next contact that the user is most likely to call. Furthermore, we conducted comprehensive evaluation of our approach. We show that our approach can successfully predict contacts that a user will most likely call next. Our results uncover the frequency and pattern of regularity in making mobile phone calls and suggest promising avenues for future work for optimising tasks (beyond phone calls) performed with the mobile phone.     

Helpful-stressful cycle? Psychological links between type of mobile phone user and stress

The profusion of smartphones allows more people to have access to a telephone, a computer and the Internet, all via one device. Despite this convenience, excessive usage and habitual checking can cause significant stress for smartphone users. A helpful-stressful cycle is beginning to emerge as a pattern. With this in mind, we develop a model that examines the differences between smartphone and traditional mobile phone users with regard to the relationships between four psychological factors: locus of control (LOC), social interaction anxiety (SIA), need for touch (NFT) and materialism. Our examination explores this in the context of the level of stress these two types of users experience when using their chosen phone. The results from our empirical study suggest that user type moderates the aforementioned relationships. The effects of LOC, SIA and NFT on ‘technostress’ are stronger for smartphone users than for traditional mobile phone users. In contrast, materialism is positively related to stress for traditional mobile phone users but not for smartphone users.     

Gaze Patterns and the Temporal Organization of Multiple Activities in Mobile Smartphone Uses

We have analyzed the temporal organization of gaze switches (to and away from the mobile screen) of mobile smartphone users in urban environments, and we discuss how such patterns of gaze switches can help us understand how users jointly manage mobile communication as well as other activities in everyday urban settings. More specifically, we report on the findings of an empirical study of smartphone use in transport situations, in which we have combined video recordings made with user-worn camera glasses with mobile screen capture data. First we show how being oriented toward multiactivity appears as a particular form of attunement to the potential sequential implicativeness of events occurring on screen or in the mobility environment. This provides the opportunity to treat them as possible occasions to switch the orientation of one’s gaze from one activity-relevant field of activity to another. Second we discuss how interfaces with a “rugged” sequential texture. We argue that such rugged interfaces offer frequent sequential opportunities that might be especially useful in multiactivity situations in public places, where balancing the demands of two or more activities may constitute a serious moral and/or safety concern.     

Binocular mobile augmented reality based on stereo camera tracking

Mobile augmented reality (AR) applications have become feasible with the evolution of mobile hardware. For example, the advent of the smartphone allowed implementing real-time mobile AR, which triggered the release of various applications. Recently, rapid development of display technology, especially for stereoscopic displays, has encouraged researches to implement more immersive and realistic AR. In this paper, we present a framework of binocular augmented reality based on stereo camera tracking. Our framework was implemented on a smartphone and supports autostereoscopic display and video see-through display in which a smartphone can be docked. We modified edge-based 3-D object tracking in order to estimate poses of left and right cameras jointly; this guarantees consistent registration across left and right views. Then, virtual contents were overlaid onto camera images using estimated poses, and the augmented stereo images were distorted to be shown through a video see-through display. The feasibility of the proposed framework is shown by experiments and demonstrations.     

新课改下中学历史教学与信息技术整合利弊

随着信息技术的发展进步,使得中学教学资源的进一步丰富,多媒体技术应用于中学课堂已成为普遍现象,甚至有替代传统教学手段成为主流的趋势。运用信息技术的利弊被一线教师及教育者广泛讨论,利大于弊,但需要老师结合具体教学内容,这一观点也得到大多数人的认可。本文以中学历史教学为例,简析运用中学信息技术的利弊。     

Using targeted Bayesian network learning for suspect identification in communication networks

This paper proposes a machine learning application to identify mobile phone users suspected of involvement in criminal activities. The application characterizes the behavioral patterns of suspect users versus non-suspect users based on usage metadata such as call duration, call distribution, interaction time preferences and text-to-call ratios while avoiding any access to the content of calls or messages. The application is based on targeted Bayesian network learning method. It generates a graphical network that can be used by domain experts to gain intuitive insights about the key features that can help identify suspect users. The method enables experts to manage the trade-off between model complexity and accuracy using information theory metrics. Unlike other graphical Bayesian classifiers, the proposed application accomplishes the task required of a security company, namely an accurate suspect identification rate (recall) of at least 50% with no more than a 1% false identification rate. The targeted Bayesian network learning method is also used for additional tasks such as anomaly detection, distinction between “relevant” and “irrelevant” anomalies, and for associating anonymous telephone numbers with existing users by matching behavioral patterns.     

Tactful calling: investigating asymmetric social dilemmas in mobile communications

Recipients of phone calls face a constant dilemma between ignoring calls at the possible expense of offending the caller, missing business opportunities or neglecting family members on one hand; and answering them at the expense of interrupting their train of thought or appearing rude and impolite towards others with whom they share a social activity on the other hand. We studied people's attitudes regarding these dilemmas, with emphasis on their social aspects. In a cross-cultural study, conducted in Israel and in Germany, we surveyed both caller and recipient attitudes towards answering mobile phone calls in various circumstances. The study also assessed the aspects of providing contextual information about a call prior to it being answered, including types of information deemed most valuable. The results emphasise the importance of social norms in affecting respondents’ attitudes towards making or accepting phone calls regardless of role (caller or recipient), gender or culture. We also found that the norms in the physical context (e.g. being in a meeting) prevailed over norms in the virtual context (e.g. the phone call). Cultural and gender differences did not affect the degree to which people were frustrated by insufficient information regarding the other party's context. However, these factors did affect the suggested design solutions to this problem. The research provides insight into the social aspects of the problem of interruptive mobile phone calls and towards designing applications that help users maintain politeness while handling the caller–recipient dilemma.     

Utilizing a Bluetooth remote lock system for a smartphone

With the advent of mobile devices and the convergence of wireless technologies and the Internet, both the content and the quality of research in this field are subject to regular change. A variety of state-of-the-art computing devices that are compatible with each other have been produced. These devices have the ability to interact with people. This is also known as pervasive computing. Particularly, as smartphones have recently become one of the most popular devices worldwide, various convenient applications are being released. Smartphones available today not only provide the ordinary internal processes such as dialing or receiving phone calls, sending text messages, and doing mobile banking, but also increasingly control various other devices that are part of our daily lives. In effect, this means that through smartphone applications, we can remotely control a variety of external devices such as televisions, projectors for presentations, computers, and even cars. The research in this paper is based on the evolving technological possibilities of using smartphone applications to control external devices. This paper presents the design and implementation of a remote lock system using wireless communication on a smartphone. In this context, remote lock system refers to a lock system that can be controlled remotely by a dedicated Android application. Every smartphone is equipped with Bluetooth which makes this technology possible. The application proposed in this paper uses the existing Bluetooth function on Android smartphones to open and manage locks. The users’ lock information can be stored and managed in real time in the database via a server that is built and managed by a server manager. Even if users forget the password of the lock, our proposed lock system can guide them to retrieve it easily, and a user manual is included to help users navigate the system. This system also provides a variety of management functions such as adding, deleting, modifying, and purchasing the user’s own locks.     

Dual-Finger 3D Interaction Techniques for mobile devices

Three-dimensional capabilities on mobile devices are increasing, and the interactivity is becoming a key feature of these tools. It is expected that users will actively engage with the 3D content, instead of being passive consumers. Because touch-screens provide a direct means of interaction with 3D content by directly touching and manipulating 3D graphical elements, touch-based interaction is a natural and appealing style of input for 3D applications. However, developing 3D interaction techniques for handheld devices using touch-screens is not a straightforward task. One issue is that when interacting with 3D objects, users occlude the object with their fingers. Furthermore, because the user’s finger covers a large area of the screen, the smallest size of the object users can touch is limited. In this paper, we first inspect existing 3D interaction techniques based on their performance with handheld devices. Then, we present a set of precise Dual-Finger 3D Interaction Techniques for a small display. Finally, we present the results of an experimental study, where we evaluate the usability, performance, and error rate of the proposed and existing 3D interaction techniques.     

Gender differences in mediated communication: Women connect more than do men

Past research in gender differences in the overall Internet use has been contradictory. Some asserted men used it more than women, while others asserted there were no gender difference. Both camps concluded that men and women differed in their motivation and utilization of time spent online. The purpose of the present research was to take a contemporary look at these gender differences. Using an online survey, we asked participants about their experiences with multiple forms of mediated communication: social networking sites, e-mail, video calls, instant messaging, texting, and phone calls. Our results indicated that women, compared to men, are generally more frequent mediated communication users. Compared to men, women prefer and more frequently use text messaging, social media, and online video calls. These results suggest that the nature of mediated social interaction is changing.     

智能手机的病毒攻防

智能手机市场发展蕴含着巨大商机,也给病毒制造者带来了足够的动力。本文对目前主要的智能手机病毒侵入方式及侵害结果进行分类描述,对其发展趋势进行预测,并从普通用户、业务监管、网站监督等角度探讨如何应对智能手机病毒危害。     

A Web-based, Offline-able, and Personalized Runtime Environment for executing applications on mobile devices

An increasing number of people use cell phones daily. Users are not only capable of making phone calls, but can also install applications on their mobile phones. When creating mobile applications, developers usually encounter the cross-platform incompatibility problem (for example, iPhone applications cannot be executed on the Android platform). Moreover, because mobile Web browsers have increasingly supported more and more Web-related standards, Web applications are more possible to be executed on different platforms than mobile applications. However, the problem of Web application is that it cannot be executed in offline mode. This study proposes a Web-based platform for executing applications on mobile devices. This platform provides several services for developers such as offline service, content adaptation service, and synchronization service. With the help of the proposed platform, application developers can develop and publish offline Web applications easily with simplified external Web content and synchronization capability.     

Gesture-based interaction via finger tracking for mobile augmented reality

The goal of this research is to explore new interaction metaphors for augmented reality on mobile phones, i.e. applications where users look at the live image of the device’s video camera and 3D virtual objects enrich the scene that they see. Common interaction concepts for such applications are often limited to pure 2D pointing and clicking on the device’s touch screen. Such an interaction with virtual objects is not only restrictive but also difficult, for example, due to the small form factor. In this article, we investigate the potential of finger tracking for gesture-based interaction. We present two experiments evaluating canonical operations such as translation, rotation, and scaling of virtual objects with respect to performance (time and accuracy) and engagement (subjective user feedback). Our results indicate a high entertainment value, but low accuracy if objects are manipulated in midair, suggesting great possibilities for leisure applications but limited usage for serious tasks.     

Robot teleoperation environments featuring WAP-based wireless devices

This article describes the results of a pilot study investigating the feasibility of building teleoperation systems that use existing wireless infrastructure. In particular, it presents the design and implementation of a WAP-based system for mobile robot teleoperation. The system allows the operator to control the movement of a mobile robot equipped with a video camera through a mobile phone. The user periodically receives in the phone screen video frames from the robot camera that depict the camera input before and after the execution of a motion command by the robot. The article presents results of user trials with the system, describes the limitations of this approach and proposes ways of overcoming these limitations.