This year marks its twentieth anniversary, and unlike practically every other technology, it’s hardly changed at all in two decades. To celebrate its astonishing impact upon the world, at Nokia Connects, has unearthed 10 astounding facts about the humble SMS. ONE. The father of SMS is Matti Makkonen, a Finnish engineer. He came up with the [...]
Across many malaria-endemic areas in rural Africa, the communication gap between managers, health workers, and patients is a significant barrier to efficient malaria control. The rapid expansion of mobile network coverage and the widespread availability of basic handsets have the potential to substantively bridge the communication gap. Text messaging, as the least-expensive mobile phone function [...]
Barclays became the first bank to launch such an app for its own customers last week. Now the wider banking industry – in the form of the Payments Council – is in the throes of setting up a database which can link all bank accounts to their owners’ mobile phone numbers. This in turn will [...]
When the administrative chief of this western Kenyan village received an urgent 4 a.m. call that thieves were invading a school teacher’s home, he sent a message on Twitter. Within minutes, residents in this village of stone houses gathered outside the home, and the thugs fled. “My wife and I were terrified,” said teacher Michael [...]
Farmers will from now get fertilisers and seed allocation through their mobile phones, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, has said. Adesina made this known yesterday in Abuja while fielding questions from newsmen forum, where he said the strategy was couched in the new fertilisers voucher scheme. The minister said the [...]
A smart collar which closely monitors the health of cows and sends the results back to farmers using mobile phone technology is being developed as part of a three-year-project co-funded by the Technology Strategy Board. The Technology Strategy Board has given a substantial grant towards the £1.4 million project to develop the technology, which could [...]
The global market for mobile health applications for smartphones is expected to nearly double in 2012, rising to $1.3 billion, according to a new report. While a projected doubling in growth is certainly impressive, it pales in comparison to what the mobile health apps market experienced in 2011, when it grew seven-fold to $718 million, [...]
