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, [...]
Also known as Flash-SMS, the Silent SMS uses an invisible return signal, or “ping”. Developers from the Silent Services company, who created some of the first software for sending this type of SMS, explain: Sending a Silent SMS is like sending a normal SMS, except that the mobile does not see the message it has [...]
Jobs are now just a phone away! A placement agency in Japan is using phone handsets’ global positioning system to quickly match workers to temporary jobs, doing away with interviews and other formalities. Read the article economictimes
Sweden is racing to become the first developed country whose people regularly pay for things with their mobile phones. The country’s four leading mobile phone companies will soon launch a combined mobile wallet service, which will allow payments at shops, between users, and to vending and parking machines. The scheme uses “near field communications” to [...]
Two suspects have been charged for the roles they played in a $1 million [U.S. $774,594.06] ATM skimming scheme that hit some 700 DBS Bank customers in Singapore. In response to the attacks, DBS, one of the largest retail banks in South East Asia, last week announced plans to launch a real-time SMS/text alert service. [...]
The average auto refractor–that clunky-looking device eye doctors use to pinpoint your prescription–weighs about 40 pounds, costs $10,000, and is virtually impossible to find in a rural village in the developing world. As a result, some half a billion people are living with vision problems, which make it tough to read and work. Ramesh Raskar [...]
Suman, a rural woman living in Gaura village, today uses mobile phone for twin purposes — for communication and enhancing learning skill. Not only Suman but many other rural women, like Jyoti and Sunita of Chiraigaon and Urmila of Prahaladpur, are also using mobile phones as a tool for learning alphabets and calculation. “I was [...]
Mobile health platforms are fast emerging in Kenya, where one startup’s newly launched mobile health platform is attracting nearly 1,000 downloads daily, and the dominant telecom, Safaricom, has forged a partnership that will give its 18 million subscribers access to doctors. A World Bank official sees significant promise from such efforts, pointing to the [...]
Text-messaging might be an effective way for health care providers to help young adults reduce heavy drinking, according to a study funded by a research grant by the Emergency Medicine Foundation. The findings will be published in the March 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and are now available online. “When we used [...]
Global events in 2011 demonstrated the impact that technology plays in driving social change movements. A new Walden University survey of 11 countries shows that most adults in countries around the world (89%, on average) agree that technology can turn a cause into a movement faster than anything else can. These views were particularly prevalent in Spain (93%), Canada(91%), Brazil (91%), Great Britain (91%) [...]
