Wireless – Page 102 – Digital-Lifestyles

QUICPay Using RFID in Tokyo Taxi Payment Trial

News reaches us that a Japanese credit card company, JCB International, is starting a two-month trial in November of a contactless payment system using mobile phones. It’s called QUICPay and the guinea pigs will be taxi drivers in one of the world’s busiest cities, Tokyo. The exercise makes sense in Japan where it has been found that people use cell phones more than they use credit cards, and the Kanachu Hire taxi company will make contactless payment history.

QUICPay will be tested with NTT DoCoMo mobile wallet service handsets that are embedded with Sony’s FeliCa IC chip. When the phone is presented within ten centimetres of the QUICPAY RFID (Radio Frequency ID) reader, it will determine the balance stored on the customer’s chip, automatically deduct the fare and reset the chip’s balance. The QUICPay (“Quick and Useful IC Payment”) amount will then be billed to their existing credit card just like any other card purchase.

QUICPay can skip the authorisation process because it can instantly determine the balance that is available on the chip. The great thing about this system is its immediacy. How often have the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes multiplied while you waited for the shop assistant to move heaven and earth to finalise your card transaction? In contrast to this a QUICPay offline payment transaction can be done in seconds and what’s more, no signature is required.

While this trial is using only phones, it will be possible to embed the chip in a credit or other plastic cards in the future. If the experiment is successful JCB hopes to introduce the technology to convenience stores by 2006.

As far as we’re aware, there is no ‘keep the change’ option on QUICPay, so if the system becomes universal and moves us ever closer to a cashless society we’d better find another way of tipping.

Other mobile phone-based payment systems such as SimPay are being actively pursued. What isn’t clear is what transaction fees the handler will remove. Given it is all electronic, one would hope they would be negligible.

JCB International

Clothing Mounted Computer Sensors Discussed by MIT

How would you like some magic fabric that you could use to make, and remake useful objects depending upon the job you neededon a given day? A wallet might inform you that you have run out of money, a belt might tell you that the pollen count is low, or a hat might tell you that the sunburn index if high. The wallet, the belt and the hat will be the same set of patches used in different ways on different occasions.

The New Scientist Magazine reports on a system of computerised fabric patches developed by engineers Adrian Cable, Gauri Nanda and Michael Bove at MIT’s Media Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Each patch contains a functional unit of the system – a microprocessor and memory plus either a radio transceiver, a sensor, a microphone, batteries or a display. It’s like intelligent Lego or transformers – you can put the patches together in different ways to create a variety of information-providing or environment-sensing objects. You can then pull it apart and put it together again to perform an entirely different function.

In order to remain waterproof, the circuit board inside each patch is first coated with a hard transparent resin and then padded with a thin layer of foam before being housed in the chosen fabric. It can be populated with a variety of components, from Bluetooth transmitters to a cut-down PC motherboard, reports the New Scientist.

The dressmaking exercise continues as the patches, which can be square or triangular, are joined using Velcro. Wires from the circuit board are attached to silver-coated contacts in the Velcro so that data and power can flow from between modules.

To make a bag that prevents people forgetting things, Nanda and Cable have incorporated a sensor module in the bag’s handle that detects when the bag has been picked up, indicating that the owner might be leaving, says the New Scientist. This triggers the reader to check through the objects the computer module has been programmed to look for, and it uses a voice synthesiser module to warn the owner if items are missing.

All Grandparents should get this bag for Christmas!

New Scientist – Smart fabrics make for enhanced living

Diagnosis of Patients in Transit via Video Link Trailed in Japan.

Imagine the advantages of being able to send high-definition video of a patient from an ambulance to a hospital via cell phone. It will happen nation-wide in Japan from next April.

A collaborative project by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the Tsukuba Medical Centre Hospital, and the Tsukuba Fire Headquarters has developed such a system that can do just this. Simply at the flick of a switch, paramedics will activate the system to enable a hospital doctor to examine a patient via remote control video camera using the new technology that has made it possible to compress high-definition image data sufficiently to allow its transmission via cell phone.

According to national statistics in Japan, it takes an average of 21 minutes to transport an emergency patient to hospital. These high-definition images though, will make it possible for doctors at the receiving hospital to give critical, timesaving and appropriate advice to paramedics, with obvious positive implications for the survival prospects of the patient.

To implement the system, ambulances will need to be modified to carry a video camera, laptop computer and special antenna, and AIST say the system will be tested in the city by the end of the year and will go on sale nation-wide in April.

This is the first time we have heard of video from a moving vehicle being used for medical diagnosis and treatment. Fixed-location use of video is now becoming common place, in deed a story in News.com this summer highlighted the importance of being able to avail of expert instructions remotely, when cardiac surgery on a patient in Guam was led by physician, Dr. Benjamin Berg in front of a computer screen 3,500 miles away at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. He dictated the procedure to a less experienced colleague, monitoring every move with a high-resolution video camera.

AIST already has a track record in using technology to advance medical practice, having developed a therapeutic robot seal called PARO in collaboration with Microjenics. In February 2002, the Guinness Book of Records acknowledged the PARO robot as the most therapeutic robot in the world. AIST has licensed all PARO’s intellectual property rights to its affiliated venture company Intelligent System (ISC), who plan to introduce the robot to nursing homes for the elderly.

News.com – Digital Agenda Broadband (24 page PDF)
JCN – AIST Develops Therapeutic Robot Seal

Pocket Streets 2005 Now for Smartphones and Pocket PC’s

Microsoft Pocket Streets 2005 Microsoft recently announced Pocket Streets 2005 as a stand-alone product, although it still remains a component of their Streets and Trips 2005 package. There are two separate stand-alone versions ¯ Pocket Streets 2005 for Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs, and Pocket Streets 2005 for Windows Mobile-based Smartphones.

If you own a Smartphone, you can toss away the compass since the Smartphone version now has GPS support. Previous versions of Pocket Streets only had GPS functionality in the Pocket PC version. If you are looking for routing and driving directions though you will still need to consult Microsoft Streets & Trips or Microsoft MapPoint.

You can generate directions and maps for Pocket Streets using the 2004 or later versions of MapPoint, Microsoft Streets & Trips, and AutoRoute, or you can download Microsoft’s maps of major cities. Pocket Streets 2005 includes more than 300 maps of North America and more than 275 maps of Western Europe, as well as Microsoft ActiveSync 3.7. New maps are available for Australia, Brazil, and Greece, but these will only be compatible with Pocket Streets 2005.

This is an ideal companion for any tourist visiting a city for the first time. You can locate the nearest ATM or service garage, in fact Pocket Streets has an extensive in-built list of bank ATMs and public transportation sites. You can customize maps with personal points of interest, and a new measurement scale feature is expected to determine the distance between locations more accurately.

Two useful features will help the more absent-minded traveller. Pocket Streets 2005 opens with the most recently used map already loaded, and you can search for destinations and addresses by using only partial names.

Pocket Streets is currently only available in English, but you can download maps that are in any language. It will sell for an estimated retail price of $24.95 (~€19.63).

Pocket Streets 2005

BBC Spooks Dares to Combine Drama and Interactivity

As more people take up digital television, whether through Freeview, Sky or other means, the enhanced viewing experience becomes the norm rather than the exception. For instance enhanced sport broadcasts, such as BBC coverage of both Wimbledon and the Olympics, offer viewers the opportunity to tailor the broadcast programming to their interests by enabling them to watch events that would not otherwise be available. Likewise Sky’s fenhanced football allows viewers to choose the commentators and camera angles. News multi-screen offers similar flexibility in navigating news content. Yet interactive drama programmes are often regarded as the holy grail of enhanced television. The scripted linear narrative is seen as a barrier to interactivity. So when producers of the Five soap Family Affairs announced that they planned to broadcast an interactive episode in May 2004, pundits were intrigued. Theirs was the Big Brother version of interactivity – viewers were asked to vote, by phone, on the outcome of a love triangle. The phone vote generated extra income for the broadcaster and new viewers for the programme. On the record, the producers were delighted to offer a television first. However, when asked about the interactive episode off the record, a very senior executive involved at all stages of development and production said at the time, “Never again”. It turns out that accommodating even such a limited element of uncertainty in the narrative posed great difficulty for future storylining and production schedules.

BBC Spooks Interactive More recently the BBC has claimed to offer yet another enhanced drama first with interactive Spooks. The third series of this successful spy drama began transmission on BBC1 Monday 11 October. Unlike Family Affairs’ tentative foray into interactivity, viewers will not be voting on Spooks storylines. (If they could, they’d most certainly vote to keep Tom Quinn, the main character played by Matthew Macfadyen who exits the show in Episode 3.) Instead immediately after the programme, digital viewers are invited to find out if they have what it takes to make it as a spy. Led by Harry Pearce (a crossover character from the television series portrayed by Peter Firth), participants take a series of scored tests that examine essential espionage skills such as memory, reaction and observation. From Episode 6 viewers will be able to participate in a mission that was written by Steve Bailie, an experienced writer of television drama. “The aim,” Sophie Walpole BBC’s Head of Interactive Drama & Entertainment told us, “is to offer fans a deeper relationship with both the programme and its characters.” In addition, Walpole pointed out, “fans will get something back – they’ll get to know a little about themselves.”

According to the BBC, the number of unique users for the Spooks Website during the second series “ran into the hundreds of thousands.” The decision to develop and produce the interactive platform was taken because the producers had such a strong proposal. According to Walpole, “ The BBC is always looking at ways to develop its content. But Spooks was not singled out for development in this way. The producers had a really good proposition.” She continued, “ The inspiration and vision of Andrew Whitehouse (the producer of Spooks’ interactive content) was incredible. We had a great producer with a great idea.” The enhanced TV elements are intended to complement the revamped Website so that, although the site also offers a spy training academy, the experiences are completely different. “The Spooks superfan who goes to both the Website and the interactive elements will not feel like they’ve had a similar experience,” said Walpole. Figures for new users of the Website or users of the enhanced television platform after transmission of the first episode are not yet available.

When asked how technology affected the development of enhanced television in general, Walpole stated that while it is technically possible, the BBC opted not to transmit enhanced Spooks via broadband because they wanted it to be seen by as many viewers as possible. “Although they continue to grow, broadband audiences are still small.” Looking to the future Walpole said she was certain that the BBC would make this type of rich content available to broadband users, possibly as soon as next year.

From what I’ve seen so far, the BBC has reason to be proud of interactive Spooks. By recognising that interactive drama doesn’t necessarily infer gimmicky phone votes (aka viewer extortion) or ceding control of the narrative to the audience, they deftly avoided the traps that frustrated at least one Family Affairs executive. The production values on Spooks are really very high indeed. And the spy training modules transmitted after Episode 1 were good fun. Most importantly, they lend themselves quite nicely to a shared experience – an element of the interactive experience that is essential for television audiences. The aim of providing a way for fans to develop a closer relationship with the programme is definitely achieved. If the enhanced Spooks disappoints at all, it is that the enhancements are extremely limited. The spy training takes approximately 30 minutes to complete – that’s a bit too long. Unfortunately, there’s no way to navigate through the game; participants must start at the beginning and move through to the end to get scores. Also, the training modules will be repeated after Episodes 2 through 5 and the narrative mission transmitted after Episode 6 will be repeated after Episodes 7 through 10. While this offers viewers the opportunity to practice their skills it means that, in effect, there are only 2 unique enhancements throughout the 10-week run. That’s a great shame because they’ve done such a good job of creating enhanced Spooks that I really would have liked more!

In the UK, Episodes 3 – 10 of Spooks will be broadcast Mondays at 21.00 on BBC1. Episodes are repeated on Saturdays at 21.10 on BBC3 followed by an advance transmission of the next episode at 22.10. The interactive elements are broadcast immediately after transmission on both channels.

BBC Sppoks site

Mobile vs Web gaming

Games on mobiles are not new, neither are multiplayer games, but Macrospace have teamed up with Certus to go a step further, by allowing players to compete in real-time using their mobile phones with not only other mobile users, but also PC users via their web browser.

Global mobile to mobile, Web to mobile gaming creates a whole new multiplayer dynamic. Designed for the more casual gamers, Macrospace hopes to attract a broad range of people who are already familiar with web-based games, but who may not yet appreciate the gaming potential of their mobile phone. The new games, developed in partnership with Denmark’s Certus, use powerful server-side technologies to create a robust multiplayer platform that is simple for even novice users, and three have been launched for openers.

Multiplayer Four-in-a-row challenges you to get four counters in a row before your opponent, while the multiplayer version of the timeless game of strategy, Multiplayer Reversi, allows you to challenge your friends anytime, anywhere in real-time. Finally, Multiplayer Battle Ocean encourages you to sink your opponents’ fleet of ships before he sinks yours. Players can also chat to each other seamlessly between mobile and Web.

The games can be played across any Java-enabled mobile or Web platform, and they have been specifically designed to work across 2G, 2.5G and 3G technology, using turn-based gameplay that suits the technical limitations of existing handsets and networks.

Most importantly, for player kudos, Macrospace multiplayer games utilise global ranking and high scores, allowing users to view other players’ scores and select opponents of a similar skill level. They can also create a permanent username, circumventing the need to create a new one for every game they purchase. It’s a real virtual community affair as Certus’ technology allows operators and portals to run tournaments and create competition leagues.

People used to miss bus and train stops because they fell asleep or were engrossed in a good book, now it will be because they are preoccupied with multiplayer global intrigue on the tiny screen.

Macrospace
Certus

TI to put DVB-H in Single Chip

Texas Instruments have just announced they will be building a single chip that will that will allow cell phones to receive digital television broadcasts over a wireless network.

Currently if a mobile phone manufacturer wanted to do this they would have to include three separate chips – a TV tuner, a signal demodulator and a channel decoder, but the TI chip, codenamed “Hollywood”, includes all this functionality already. “Hollywood” will support two emerging digital and open TV standards for the wireless industry – the European, DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld); and the Japanese Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting – Terrestrial (ISDB-T).

Texas Instruments say that the chip will be able to receive a live TV broadcast at up to 30 frames per second, twice the rate that some of today’s top notch phones display video clips.

While the chip is already being trialled, manufacturers probably won’t receive samples until 2006, pushing commercial deployment to 2007.

It’s unclear if users will watch TV on a tiny mobile screen. Furthermore, it is not yet known which mobile phone manufacturers will provide the phones, although Nokia, who announced last year that they are going to put television tuners into all their cellphones, (having already done so with the 7700) could be a contender.

A time might come when we forget what the mobile phone is really for. We’ll be so busy playing music and video games, taking photographs, or watching TV that receiving a call will become an irritating nuisance.

Texas Instruments

SCH-250 5Mpx Phone from Samsung Released

Samsung, the world’s third-largest handset maker has today released the world’s first camera phone with 5-megapixel resolution in Korea. In conjunction with Japan-based camera specialist Asahi Pentax, Samsung have devised a camera module specifically for the mobile phone. Poor quality mobile pictures will soon be a thing of the past – a mere grainy memory. Besides the incredible resolution, the SCH-S250 also includes the first QVGA display (240×320)) in a mobile phone that supports 16.7 million colours.

Your average mobile-wielding sulky teenager considers built-in cameras with picture resolutions of less than one megapixel passé, but the SCH-S250 will raise their little technical antennae. The 5-megapixel camera features a high-quality CCD sensor, 1/1000-second shutter speed, and QVGA (Quarter VGA)video recording. The unique “stretch” design protects the display and camera lens when not in use. 92 MB of built-in memory can store up to 100 minutes of high-quality video, but less than 18 still photos at full resolution. Additional storage can be added and a 32MB auxiliary memory is included as standard. And the people at Samsung and Asahi Pentax didn’t stop here – an MP3 player and TV output round out the features.

This little phone could be used as your portable office as it also includes a text-to-speech function allowing the phone to “speak” to-do lists and incoming text messages.

Furthermore, South Korea’s top mobile carrier, SK Telecom, has said it will introduce 10-megapixel camera phones produced by Samsung by the end of this year. The SCH-S250 price will be announced next week, so it is hard to predict yet how soon the kids will be fighting over it in the schoolyard.

Mobile operators love high resolution photos, as transferring them takes lots of bandwidth and there for cost the user considerably more than low res pictures.

Samsung

WiFi – it’s Everywhere … and Now With Voice

My local coffee shop and corporate America have one thing in common – they are adopting wireless. WLAN hotspots today are as exciting as the record store of the 1950’s.

There are lots of players in the market and already some of them are joining forces to increase their chances of success, small operators needing the resources of bigger players. The enterprise community needs wireless for its notebook wielding road warriors, and consultants Frost & Sullivan expects total subscription revenues in the European WLAN hotspots market to rise from around € 18 million (~$22,664,522) in 2002 to in excess of € 1 billion by the end of 2006.

Frost & Sullivan’s study indicates that the key to success lies in selecting the locations most frequented by business travellers, and it would seem that a marriage of convenience between WiFi and VoIP would be very beneficial.

Boingo Wireless, a CA-based Wi-Fi hot spot operator and aggregator, have just done deals with KPN HotSpots in The Netherlands and The Public Network (TPN) in Switzerland, adding 290 Wi-Fi hot spots in key travel locations in these countries to the Boingo Roaming System. With these new additions, Boingo’s worldwide network includes more than 11,000 hot spots with 5,600 locations in Europe.

Boingo have also set up shop with Vonage Holdings Corp., a leading broadband telephony (VoIP) provider in North America, in an effort to simplify voice over Wi-Fi services and make them more accessible to customers. This move is the first phase of their VoIP strategy, whereby mobile travellers using the Xpro from Xten, can access the Vonage service from almost any Internet connected personal computer.

Boingo and Vonage will conduct a trial before the end of the year and the proposed bundle will include a Xpro SoftPhone from Xten and a headset that will allow the user to communicate over the Internet from any of the Boingo hot spots.

Frost & Sullivan
Boingo
Vonage

Collapse-to-Zoom Could Aid Mobile Browsing

It’s the same old problem – a Web page is simply shrunk to fit a handheld screen and you waste time playing ‘blind man’s buff’ with the screen contents because you can’t tell the relevant from the irrelevant tiles.

Browsing large pictures, or simply navigating the Web on a mobile device is as unsatisfactory as trying to watch “The Return of the King” on a portable TV.

Opera have what they call Small-Screen Rendering technology to counter this but Patrick Baudisch and Xing Xie from Microsoft Research, Wei-Ying Ma from Microsoft Research Asia, and Chong Wang of Tsinghua University have provided a workaround to this limitation that will automate the scrolling and navigation of a large picture with a single pen stroke.

It’s called Collapse-to-zoom and offers an alternative exploration strategy. In addition to enabling users to zoom into relevant areas, Collapse-to-zoom allows users to collapse areas deemed irrelevant, such as archive material, or advertising. When you collapse the irrelevant content all remaining material expands to display more detail, thus increasing your chance of finding what you want. Collapse-to-zoom navigation, explain the researchers, is based on a hybrid between a marquee selection tool and a marking menu, that they’re naming “marquee menu”. There are four commands for collapsing content areas at different granularities and switching to a full-size view of what’s left on screen.

The system is controlled with pen gestures and are fully detailed in the Technology Review (linked below). Dragging the pen diagonally downwards from right to left collapses all page content in the rectangular area covered by the pen, and replaces it with a thin placeholder that can be restored by clicking if required. Dragging the pen diagonally upwards from left to right zooms that area into a 100-percent-scale reading mode and collapses everything around the area.

Baudisch, Xie, Ma and Wang will present their work at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2004) next week.

Microsoft Collapse To Zoom paper (PDF)

Technology Review article

Opera for Mobiles