Mobile Phone

Introduction

The main aim of this essay is to investigate the impact of technology on contemporary art. In a more detail, this essay will exploref the impact of mobile phones and the Internet on contemporary art. This essay will include theoretical foundation, backed up with examples. Firstly, a brief overview of the art world in the context of a general technology’s impact, will be presented. Following this,, this study will look into the effect of mobile phones and Internet in contemporary artistic creation and perception. Therefore, this essay will focus on the identification of main technological features that have impacted the art movement and the process of its production. The changes in the modern, individual perception of art are going to be investigated as well.

Background of Issue

Recent research suggests that we as human beings and also consumers, live in the information and digitalisation age. Internet and mobile phones have become the main sources of information and, therefore, the primary mediums of communication with other individuals (Burnham, 1970). In the cultural context, the individuals have started to focus more on the innovation acquisition and creation. The main reason behind it is the constantly changing environment, which triggers the changes in the individual perception. In the context of art, the artists have acquired the tools that facilitate the process of art creation (Shanken, 2009). On the other hand, the people have received the ability to share, what they perceive as art via more exposed and facilitated channels, namely, the Internet and mobile phones. Currently, every person may take a photo of a scene, which is perceived to be artistic and share it with others (Huffington Post, 2012). This, in turn, would be claimed as art. The concept of art has lost its complexity, thus becoming more technology – driven and adhering to the new cultural and artistic frameworks and concepts. As a result, it is crucial to identify the pattern and direction of the contemporary art movement in order to define its future implications.

Impact of technology on the Contemporary art

As it has already been estimated, technology, as part of the environmental dynamics has had a large influence on contemporary art. The internet has provided a more facilitated, digital access to a wide amount of information (Shanken, 2009). The individuals have acquired the possibility to access more enhanced amount of information, which affects the creation and production of art. This includes not only the information, itself, but also the new design programs and mobile applications (Huffington Post, 2012).

Emergence of photography

As part of the technological advancement, photography has become a popular form of contemporary art (Janson and Janson, 2004). To date, there are still debates as to if the significance of photography in contemporary art market is reasoned enough. This suggests that the majority of artists state that the emergence of photography as a form of art has anchored an element of shallowness to the whole concept of contemporary art (Janson and Janson, 2004). This shows that any persona can take a camera in order to make a picture, which would be considered as art. These debates have been present, however, to a lesser degree, in times of black and white film photos. At the moment, the majority of academics still tend to criticize the colour photography as it fails to deliver the beauty of the nuances and moments (Phillips, 2006).

Expanding on this subject, there is also a lot of debates over the subject of the mobile phones and mobile applications. Given that photography is quite a popular form of art at the moment, there have been a lot of applications developed for photography sharing. One of the most popular mobile phone applications is Instagram (Huffington Post, 2012). There is a lot of criticism in relation to this application, since it allows the amateurs to take any picture and share it as a form of art by means of the integrated filters. However, on the other hand, mobile applications have increased the exposure of art works of less known artists (Pew Internet and American Life Project Artists Callback Survey, November/December, 2003). This is supported by the findings of the recent survey, which has been maintained among young artists. The results have demonstrated that the majority of the artists have estimated that the Internet has helped them to promote their works, and to increase the amount of networking connections. The minority of the surveyed population has stated that the Internet exposure has hurt them and their reputation (Pew Internet and American Life Project Artists Callback Survey, November/December, 2003).

Change from form to perspective

It is necessary to note that a change has been reported in the concept of art. This implies that, in the Modernism era, the main focus has been placed on the form in the context of art production (Bersson, 2004). Along with the rise in popularity of technology and the Internet, the main focus has shifted towards context. This implies that the originality has been framed within the boundaries of the ability to re – represent already produced art works. This adds the ironic feature to the whole concept of post-modernism art (Bersson, 2004). Content has also become quite valuable in the post-modernist era. This has been driven by the digitalisation of the art, thus placing a large focus on the content of artistic work.

The context of the artworks is intensified in the light of the absence of the actual truths and facts (Prior, 2005). This implies that only the opinions and perspectives matter whereas the truths and facts have become subjective, thus changing along the dynamics of the daily lives. Post-modernists suggest that knowledge is facilitated by means of culture and language (Prior, 2005). Given the fact that the general culture and language are unified by the globalization and digitization, the knowledge is defined by the technology and internationalisation, in the context of art. Additionally, the production of artworks has become more facilitated, therefore, the artists start to be more focused on the content of the artwork in order to deliver value.

Impact on production

Along with the global advancement and the significance of the innovative product solutions, at the moment, the artists have all the necessary tools in order to produce art. However, the importance of handmade paintings has been diminished over the past decade (CNN, 2006). This implies that the paintings have been linked to more aesthetic and esoteric works of art. Photography, on the other hand, has become a true form of art (Bersson, 2004). This implies that the handmade paintings evolved into a computerized form of art, namely photography. The technology, namely PC, Internet and Smartphones have allowed producing and exposing the photographs by the click of the mouse, via specialized applications and programs. The supportive production-related technological appliances still fall into the specializing category, thus being quite expensive (Poole and Ho, 2011). As the result, the majority of artists tend to rent the editing technology in order to produce qualitative pieces of works. In this case, the main focus is placed on the quality and value of the work and this attracts the artists to use more expensive appliances at the high end. Given this desire, the artists still need a specialized knowledge and skills in order to utilize editing applications and technological solutions (Poole and Ho, 2011). Only the minority of artists tend to utilize the computer based programs for the entire art production process. Normally, the artists would make the sketches and then finish them by means of computerized programs, namely for colouring purposes.

Even though, it has been suggested that the production of art via PC-based programs is more facilitated, it is well arguable. This suggests that a number of artists claim that the process of art production still, requires the same amount of skills while utilizing specialized computer programs, as in the hand-made art production (Poole and Ho, 2011). The only difference applies to the specifics of the required techniques and abilities, however, not to the degree.

There is a high concern over the security and privacy of the shared creative content. Even though, Pew Internet and American Life Project Artists Callback Survey, (2003) demonstrated that the artists have not experienced any negative consequences of high visibility of their works over Internet, there is still high risk associated with this. Recent research suggests that the privacy and security are regarded to be the main issues that may arise on the Internet (Kim et al., 2004). However, these are attributed to the degree of the perceived security in relation to interactive platform. This implies that older users of computer – based programs do not perceive Internet-based platform as highly risky in terms of privacy and security.

Therefore, the studies suggest that the increase in confidence in utilizing the Internet is correlated to the less perceived risk in relation to the possibility of the private content share.

Impact on Perception of Art

It has been estimated that, after the Modernism era, the line between the high art and popular art has become more unclear. This implies that the concepts of popular and high types of art have become mixed up as the result of a large impact of technology, globalization, and ideas (Bertozzi and Jenkins, 2007). This has started with the rise in popularity of Andy Warhol’s art works (CNN, 2006). Modern art is defined by the ability of the artists to become popular in small, niche groups, rather than on a more global scale. This suggests that art has become more scattered, however, also more unified in terms of categorization. This implies that there are a lot of different types of artworks and movements; however, there is no clear focus on any of those movements (Bertozzi, 2007). Contemporary art is defined by the ability to express the views and opinions with others. And this is easier to do in the modern age of interactive, social media. Therefore, people have a more enhanced access to the artworks, which results in the emergence of inspiration to produce art. It has been stated that the whole social networking share platform increases the chance for plagiarism. It is especially intensified since in the modern age, the majority of artists, tend to transform and re-produce the current media content (Bertozzi and Jenkins, 2007). These actions are linked to the features of plagiarism. However, this should be regarded more as evolution of art, rather than plagiarism. In details, this suggests that the artists utilize the raw materials, which are found in the existing artworks, in order to re-produce the new creations (Bertozzi and Jenkins, 2007). For example, the fact that jazz music has evolved from creative improvisations of the popular music melodies proves this suggestion. This implies that it has not been labelled as plagiarism. Therefore, the main question arises as to how people should perceive the modern digital art – shallow and/or the evolution of the post-modernism art movement. It is suggested by a number of academics that, in general, digital communication is regarded to be shallow (Chomsky in Salon, 2011). It is mainly associated with the need to put the thought in a short sentence so that it would fit in 140 characters on Twitter. This may be assumed to be shallow since shortening modifications are made in order to share the thought on Twitter. These modifications tend to include the utilization of urban language and abbreviations, which result in the shallowness of the language (Chomsky in Salon, 2011) The same applies to art, where the individual may take any picture of any object and share it with others whilst claiming that it is an artwork. On the other hand, post – modernism art movement is defined by the ability to share the views and perceptions of the ways one sees the world, which is innovative by definition. This suggests that different people view the world differently. On the other hand, the picture that is shared via social networking website may be just need to practice the skills in the production of the artworks, in order to grow as an artist. And in this evolution, some people might find the new art movement, that may be appreciated. Additionally, as it turns out, the artworks have to be either aesthetic or deliver some message to the people. As Pablo Picasso once stated, – “Art is a lie that makes you realize the truth” (Gardner and Kleiner, 2010, p.699). Therefore, the content is highly crucial in the context of the ability to tell the truth. This, in turn, expands individual perception and their way of thinking (Costache, 2000). As the result, if the artwork reaches the person and its cognition than it has been worth producing.

Conclusion

This paper was designed in order to demonstrate the exploration of the role of mobile phones and Internet in art perception and production. It has been estimated that recently, the technological advancement has driven the majority of the population to utilize the Internet and mobile phones for communication purposes. This has also affected the art industry. This implies that the artists have started to utilize digitalised tools for art production. This has been perceived as a facilitated way to produce art. However, it has been further stated that the utilization of the specialized computer based equipment requires highly developed skills. Another problem with the technological integration in art production has been attributed to the ability of to make the work artistic by means of mobile applications. This adds the element of shallowness to the actual art production and further perception. As with the digital communication, the majority of critics tend to perceive it as being a not serious form of art. However, given the general shift from the form to the context and content, this may be regarded as the evolution of art, in general. This implies that people do not focus entirely on the significance form in the artworks; however, they tend to acknowledge the message it has to deliver. This is directly interrelated with the key aim to share the perspective of the world and situations with others. In general, it has been found out that the majority of artists tend to benefit from the integration of technology. It has been estimated that the main benefit is attributed to the ability to generate and expand the networking connections by means of social networking. Furthermore, the Internet is a medium that allows reaching more customers thus adding exposure to the artist and his works.

References

Bersson R. (2004). Responding to art: form, content, and context, p.67, McGraw – Hill: USA

Bertozzi H., Jenkins V. (2007). 7 Artistic Expression in the Age of Participatory Culture: How and Why Young People Create. Routledge: UK. Available: http://www.artsjournal.com/league/bertozzi.pdf (Accessed on 21st Nov. 2012)

Burnham, J. (1970). The Aesthetics of Intelligent Systems. On the Future of Art, p.119, New York: Viking

Chomsky in Salon. (2012). Why Chomsky is wrong about Twitter. Available: http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/why_chomsky_is_wrong_about_twitter/ (Accessed on 21st Nov. 2012)

Costache I. (2000). “The Truth in Painting” Or in TextThe Dialogue Between Studio Art and Theory in Education. Available: http://www.aesthetics-online.org/articles/index.php?articles_id=9 (Accessed on 21st Nov. 2012)

CNN, (2006). Globalization, technology changing the art world. Available: http://articles.cnn.com/2006-11-26/entertainment/art.globalization_1_high-art-curators-and-museum-directors-art-boom?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ (Accessed on 21st Nov. 2012)

Gardner H., Kleiner F., (2010). Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective, Volume 2, p. 699, Cengage: USA

Huffington Post, (2012). Instagram: Photography’s Antichrist, Savior, Or Something In Between?. Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/18/instagram-photography_n_1893230.html?utm_hp_ref=design#slide=1536224 (Accessed on 21st Nov. 2012)

Janson H., Janson A. (2004). History of Art: The Western Tradition, 6th ed., Pearson: USA

Kim S.S., Malhotra K.N., Agarwal J., (2004). Internet Users’ Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC): The Construct, the Scale, and a Causal Model. Information Systems Research, Vol.15, Iss. 4, pp. 336 -355

Shanken E.A. (2009). Art in the Information Age:Technology and Conceptual Art. Leonardo, Vol.35, Iss. 4, pp. 433-438

Phillips R. (2006). Modeling Life: Art Models Speak About Nudity, Sexuality, And the Creative Process, p.24, New York Press: New York

Poole D. and Ho S. (2011). Digital Transitions and the Impact of New Technology On the Arts. Available: http://www.cpaf-opsac.org/en/themes/documents/DigitalTransitionsReport-FINAL-EN.pdf (Accessed on 21st Nov. 2012)

Prior N. (2005). A Question of Perception: Bourdieu, Art and the Postmodern. The British Journal of Sociology, Vol.56, Iss.1, 123-139

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Unska 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia (2) Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service, Gri 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia (3) Pliva d. d. , Vukovarska 49, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia mario. zagar@fer. hr ABSTRACT: The paper presents a new method of weather forecast presentation, which was developed as a project during the course of postgraduate study.

So far, the use of mobile phones in the presentation of weather forecasts was limited and noninteractive. This application provides an interactive access to meteorological products in Croatia. It has been developed in the MicroJava programming language and successfully tested in an emulator and on real mobile devices. The rapid development of mobile technologies will allow for intensive application of such products. Key words: Java, weather forecast, MIDlet, J2ME, MicroJava, mobile device, wireless, GPRS 1.Introduction This paper describes a new method of weather forecast presentation based on modern mobile communication technologies – at the moment the fastest-growing industry in the world. Recent studies show that every fifth person in the world owns a mobile device, and in Croatia more than 80 percent of households have at least one; at the same time, only 37 percent have a personal computer (GFK, 2003).

2. Technology In June 1999, Sun Microsystems announced a new edition of the Java 2 platform: the Java 2 Micro Edition -J2ME (Muchow, 2002).The purpose of the Micro Edition is to enable Java applications to run on computing devices with limited computer power, memory and display, such as mobile phones, PDAs, pagers, etc. It is based on the popular Java programming language, and the application is called MIDlet. MIDlet is an abbreviation composed of two words: MID for Mobile Information Device, and “let” is the suffix of “applet”, which means mobile application (Piroumann, 2002). Over time, this technology has become standard with the new generation mobile devices, so that almost all new models support it, independently of who produces them.Thanks to the Java technology, mobile phone features can be enhanced through interactive, dynamic applications which can be downloaded and stored in a mobile phone.

And when a user does not need them any more, they can be easily erased. Examples of different Java applications include interactive games, utilities, organisation and travel programmes, etc. 3. Application in weather forecast In Croatia, as well as abroad, current technologies (radio, TV, newspaper) have been exploiting weather forecast presentations for a long time already so that there are limited possibilities left of further development (specialised TV-stations etc. In the last decade, the rapid development of mobile technology has introduced a significantly new way of communication and living. So far, the weather forecast in mobile devices was mainly presented through SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia message service), WAP pages etc. The disadvantage of such an approach is that the user always gets the same product.

The Java technology, on the other hand, allows the building of software that provides interactive access through the intuitive interface, at any desired time and in every place.Besides weather forecasts, users can also retrieve real-time information, such as data from automatic synop stations, radar and satellite images (every 15 and 30 minutes, respectively), special warnings, nowcastings etc. As the application uses data from the Internet, independently of the mobile provider, users can access the desired information no matter where they are, whether in Croatia or abroad. 4. Presentation A MIDlet, named CroWeather, with a complete weather forecast, has been created as a University project.Forecasts are given for the present and the following day, textually and in picture format. As for actual data, besides satellite and radar images, this MIDlet also provides textual data on current weather conditions as temperature, pressure, humidity etc.

Users can choose among different Croatian cities and the main regions. The programme is a so-called MIDlet application. It should be installed on Javaenabled mobile devices, and is written in the MicroJava programming language. The server side scripts providing files and data are written partly in PHP and Fortran 90, mainly in a Unix environment.The application was developed using Sun’s Wireless Toolkit (-, Java 2 Micro Edition, 2000) that emulates Java-enabled mobile devices, and was successfully tested on several mobile phones (Nokia 7650, Nokia 3650) In 2001, mobile phones of the 2,5 generation were just being introduced to the Croatian market. At first, it was difficult to find a mobile phone that would comply with the features required (Java-enabled, GPRS, colour display desirable), so that at the time only one type actually matched our criteria.Although the application worked successfully on the emulator, we experienced some difficulties when testing it on a real device.

Insufficient implementation of Java in the actual device (during http requests the application would stop and would not work in a single thread, so we used multithreading), and the mobile provider did not support the transfer of data files larger than 5 kB. As every other, this Java MIDLet also consists of two files. One with a . jar extension (Java archive), which is the actual MIDlet, and another with a . ad extension (Java application description), a plain text file that contains some general data about the application, version, authors, producer etc. The total size of the files is cca 30 kB, so they can be easily downloaded to a mobile phone via an IR (infrared) or Bluetooth connection, or otherwise directly from the WAP pages (OTA – over the air). Once the files are downloaded, users can simply install the MIDlet through the Java application manager, depending on the mobile device type (Topley, 2002).

The following presentation consists of screenshots taken on the Nokia 7650 mobile phone. Features: Figure 1. Textual information about current weather conditions in 32 Croatian continental and coastal cities (weather description, temperature, humidity, pressure, time change of pressure, wind, sea temperature, snow height – all updated hourly) Figure 2. Textual forecasts for Croatia and the city of Zagreb for the present and the following day Figure 3. Textual forecasts for the Adriatic for the next 12 hours in 4 languages: English, German, Italian and Croatian, updated at 6. 0 and 13. 00 hours Figure 4.

Radar image – current picture, last 4 animated pictures, last 8 animated pictures Figure 5. Satellite image – current picture, last 4 animated pictures, last 8 animated pictures Figure 6. Graphic forecasts for 6 Croatian regions for the present and the following day. Figure 7. About box. Besides general information about the application, authors etc, users can check if there is a new version of the programme and download it 5. Conclusion CroWeather for Java-enabled mobile devices has been successfully tested on several types of devices.

The application is small and is not computer-expensive, which makes installation and usage relatively easy. Modern wireless technology combined with Java technology provides advanced usage of products such as weather forecasts, so that the user can selectively and interactively access the desired data, no matter where he is. The authors believe that this and similar solutions, and their applications, will play a dominant role in modern weather forecast presentation, especially with regard to the newcoming generations of mobile devices.References -, Java 2 Micro Edition, Wireless Toolkit User’ Guide, Release 1. 0. Palo Alto, CA: Sun s Microsystems, November 2000. ukman, T.

, 1997: Java. Alfej, Zagreb, 520 pp. GFK, 2003 – http://www. gfk. hr/press/hitech. htm Muchow, J. V, 2002: Core J2ME Technology and MIDP.

Prentice Hall PTR, NJ (The Sun Microsystem Press, Palo Alto), 710 pp. Piroumann, V. , 2002: Wireless J2ME Platform Programming, Prentice Hall PTR, NJ, 400 pp Susanj, D. , 1997: Java: Programiranje za Internet i World Wide Web. Znak, Zagreb, 722 pp. Topley, K. , 2002: J2ME in a Nutshell, O’ Reilly, 478 pp

1. Preface The contemporary school of thought in service science is currently dominated by the notion of service-centric services (Lusch & Vargo, 2008), whereby it is believed that the end users are the determinant of value of a given service and co-producing a service with the end users would enhance the value of the service. A main assumption made by this school of thought is that all aspect of services, from creation to delivery process, is the domain of the service providers.

However, the emergence of disruptive technologies such as the internet, social media, etc has reduced the operational barriers, empowering the end users to become services provider themselves. This empowerment has led to the creation of what is known as user generated services. Such services potentially challenge the complementary notion of service-centric services. Hence, in my term paper, I shall examine how user generated services has affected the service dynamic between the service providers and the end users, using the mobile phone service industry as a backdrop.

Firstly, I would define what is exactly is user generated services. Then, I will discuss about user generated services in the mobile phone service industry. Last but not least, I would explore how mobile phone service providers can leverage user generated services, regardless of the service model that the service providers adopt. 2. User generated services 2. 1 Background Contemporary services are usually designed around integration within the scope of provider’s business process.

However, advancement in information technology has allowed for the development of solutions that facilitates information exchange and collaboration between individuals. With the increased ease in information exchange and collaboration from multiple sources, the end user now has the access and capability to generate user-generated content (UGC) that suits their needs. But consequently, the rise in user-generated content generation has introduced the demand for more specialized services and processes that uses user-generated contents. This present a limitation for service producers who might lack the ability or will to do so. . 2 Introduction Contrary to the suggestion of its name, user generated services are the result of re-composing existing service into newer form of services by the end users, who might play no part in the original services that comprised the new service. (Zhao & Laga & Crespi, 2009). Hence, instead of having a front stage and back stage controlled by the service providers (regardless the end user’s level of participation in the co-creation of the service), end users, not the service providers, serves as the main providers of the services 2. The unique taxonomies of user generated services a) Multi-tier service stage model As mentioned, user generated services generally follows the principles of service composition, where basic services are integrated together to form a unique service offering. Figure 1 show the translation service process of a written article into Russian language and the publication of the Russian language version of the article. However, the final product is the result of engaging two independent services from two different services provider, namely the article writer and translation engine.

Thus, user generated service follows a multi-tier services model that grant user the flexibility to choose their intermediaries. An advantage is that user can restructure the final service product without need to meddle the upstream parties’ service stage. Back Stage – Document article process Back Stage – Translation process Article writer Translation Engine Front Stage – Translation Interface Front Stage – Create Article Line of Visibility Translation of Article Back Stage – Translation of article into Russian Line of Interaction Front Stage – Published Translated Article

Fig 1. An example of the service configuration of a user generated service b) The presence of a Facilitating platform In user generated services, the user creation process is facilitated through a platform that allows them access to necessary service enablers required to generate customized services. An example would be Yahoo! Pipes, a platform that provides a GUI frontend for creating Web-based apps that aggregates web feeds, web pages. (Nikolaos & Vassilios & Konstantino, 2009). The necessity of such a platform boils down to two reasons.

Firstly, it enables and ensures interoperability between the various services. Therefore, the user needs not worry about the compatibility of the services components in the service creation process. Secondly, it reduces the complexity of creating new services for the user, who might have differing technical capabilities, as the implementation details are encapsulated by the platform. C) End user as the ultimate service value creator The main value proposition of user generated is that the end user has the final say in creating the service, instead of being service consumers or co-creator.

Correspondingly, the original service providers are reduced to a role of value co-creator or suppliers. This arrangement allows end users to customize the original service, thus enabling the service to serve this group of end users which otherwise the original service would not have served 3. User generated services in the mobile phone service industry For user generated services to exist, the three following conditions must be fulfilled. Firstly, the industry must encourage the generation of UGC.

Secondly, service providers should allow end user access to part of their service channel/process. Lastly, the creation process of UGS should be intuitive for the end users. With that, let us look at how user generated service fits into the mobile phone service industry and some future challenges that awaits user generated services in the mobile phone service industry. a) Background of the mobile phone service industry As recently as a decade ago, the service’s proposition of mobile phone service providers was simple: Providing reliable voice communication for its subscribers.

However, mobile penetration rate is reaching near 100% in Asia-Pacific region as of 2010. Also, a study done by OVUM Inc predicted that voice services revenues generated in the Asia-Pacific will drop to US$176 billion in 2015, from $US182 billion in 2009. The same study also projected that revenue from mobile data services would increasing to US$133 billion in 2015 from $US84 million in 2009, thereby increasingly become the main revenue driver for mobile phone service provider. John, 2007) Hence, mobile phone service providers around the Asia-Pacific region are scrambling to reposition their service proposition around access to the data content and electronic services (E. g SMS, web content, and internet banking services) to take advantage of the likely growth in mobile data services revenues while arresting the effects of the slowing growth in voice services revenues. In the drive to increase the percentage of revenue from data services, mobile service providers have tried facilitating and incorporating various service innovations, one of them being user generated service (UGS). ) The impact of UGS on the service dynamics of the mobile phone service industry The appearance of User generated services in mobile phone service, made possible by the increased convergence of mobile phone and Web 2. 0 technology, are a reflection of the immensely popular collaborative and social networking trends originating from the internet. Hence, USG has redefined the paradigm of some service innovation dimensions in mobile service industry i) Concept/Client Interface Traditional service-oriented service concepts embrace enhancing and extending the value proposition of a service through value co-creation.

For example, services like uploading and sharing of mobile phone made video makes it easy for user to share self-generated content, thus positioning the mobile phone as a lifestyle product instead of a mere communication device. However, user generated service allows end users to define their own service proposition and ultimately, their own service. For example, tourists in Singapore could self initialize their own tour in Singapore by relying on a combination of mobile services such as Google maps, Iris, Singapore Guide, etc without relying on the service provided by a tour operator i) Delivery/Technology The traditional service configuration of service-oriented services is mainly shaped by the concept of service composition, whereby the service providers can combine various per-defined service and technology to deliver a single customized service to its user through its channel. An example would be Google mobile, a mobile portal which primarily offer the same range of services of its web counterpart. However, the service configuration and delivery is limited to company resources, strategy and legal issues.

Facilitating UGS overcomes the problem as the user now can select the technologies that comprised of the services and chose the mode of service delivery, without the limitation of legality, economy of scale, etc. For example, the iPhone Yahoo! Pipes allows property agents to integrate a classified listing service such as Craiglist mobile and a mapping service such Google map to provide a service where user of iPhone can located an area on the map provided by the service and select the area to see what kind of property is listed for sales in the area and the location of each of the property listed. ) Challenge of implementing and sustaining UGS in the mobile phone service industry Despite the potential UGS can offer to the mobile phone service industry, UGS is still an emerging value proposition that still faces teething issues that could slower its ascent into a viable service model for the mobile phone service industry i) Difficulty in implementing User Generated Services Regardless of any service philosophy, service value creation requires the value creator to have the necessary resources and competencies to create and deliver the values of the services.

In the context of the mobile phone service industry, although more service providers have open up access to essential resources like their application programming interface (API), the resources are more geared toward the traditional service providers (E. g Professional mobile application company) as integrating the resource into existing service still requires technical knowledge (E. g Knowledge of Google map Api for an location based web service). Not all end user possesses the knowledge and expertise to customize and integrate the service into their existing services. i) Difficulty in Ensuring Service Quality The end users service providers are at the mercy of the providers of the service components as they do not have actual ownership of the service components that comprised of their customized services. For example, when service components (E. g Google MAP API) are modified at the owner’s (Google) end, mobile location based application which functionalities that depends on Google Map might not be delivered optimally or even be delivered at all as the functionalities might have depend on certain features of the pre-modified Google API.

Thus, end user has less control over the service quality of their service unlike their conventional counterparts. 4. How to take advantage of user generated service: From the prospective of existing service provider It is pretty certain that user generated services to be relevant in the mobile phone industry for the foreseen future. Thus, mobile service provider should evaluate their suitability in adopting the user generated services and adapt the model according to their strategy.

Below are some suggestions that existing mobile service provider can adopt to take advantage of user generated service to drive their existing and future service offerings. i) Simplify the service generation process for the user As discussed earlier, not all end user possesses the necessary knowledge and expertise to customize and integrate a given service into their existing services. Moreover, it is very difficult to simplify the actual user service generating process as service generating tools (MashMaker) aiming at user is still at its infancy and is not exactly user-centric.

Instead leaving it to the user to generate their service, it would be better to simplify the process by facilitating the service creation process. For example, the mobile service provider could provide a list of mobile services and help the customer to mix and match the services together to generate a service that is unique for them ii) Bridging the communication gap between the actual service creator and the end user Currently, mobile service providers engage their end user through indirect communication channel (E. customer relationship management system, user profiling/tracking). Though such arrangements has given service providers valuable information on the end user, the information are often interpreted by the service provider from the service providers’ point of view, thus leading to potential situations where the eventually service value proposition of the service does not match what the end users wants.

This misalignment could drive end-users to drop the given service and replace the existing service component with another competing service. To mitigate the possibility of such misalignment, the service should considering sponsoring a common platform where the end user service providers can directly communicate and contribute to the development of the various services that are the composition of the user often customized service while giving the service provider a channel for them to influence the end users. . Conclusion User generated services is certainly an interesting service proposition in the mobile phone service industry as it allows the end users to develop their own customized mobile services and in the process, serving them with the services they have created themselves It solve the problem of certain customer segments not being served as they might have requirements that the service providers cannot fulfil due to real life business constraints.

However, the existing way of generating user generated service is too cumbersome and uncertain for it to be the golden standard of service delivery. Nevertheless, the service provider should look beyond just co-creating service values with the end users and instead, look at end user as strategic partner in a ecology that mutually sustain the whole hyper network of service-derived services. 6. References Abdallah Namoune, Usman Wajid, Nikolay Mahendjiev. “Composition of Interactive Service-based Applications by End Users”.

ICSOC/ServiceWave Workshops, Stockholm, Sweden, 2009 Christian S. Jensen, Carmen Ruiz Vicente, Rico Wind, “User-Generated Content: The Case for Mobile Services,” Computer, vol. 41, no. 12, pp. 116-118, Dec. 2008, John Delaney , “User-generated content opportunities for wireless operators”, Communicate, Vol 36, 2007. Retrieved from: http://www. huawei. com/file/download. do? f=3056 Nikolaos Loutas, Vassilios Peristeras, Konstantinos A. Tarabanis, “Rethinking the Semantic Annotation of Services. ICSOC/ServiceWave Workshops, Stockholm, Sweden, 2009 Robert F. Lusch, Stephen L. Vargo, G Wessels, “Towards a Conceptual Foundation for Service Science: Contributions from Service-Dominant Logic,” IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2008. Wai Kin Victor Chan, Cheng Hsu , “A Science of Scaling: Service Hyper-Networks”, Service Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009. ZZ. Zhao, N. Laga, N. Crespi, “A Survey Of User Generated Service”, International Conference on Network Infrastructure and Digital Content, Beijing, China, 2009.

1. Motivation

In modern society, environmental pollution is usually a headache for citizens, especially those who live in the urban areas. Many researches have shown that there is a direct link between environmental pollution and health effects. In the last two decades, the overall environment quality has improved. However, there is still a concern about environmental pollution in the urban areas. Citizens, especially the elderly and children, are vulnerable to the effects of environmental pollution.

Nowadays, the latest technologies in the wireless field provide an innovative approach for the citizens to access the information about environmental pollution. With over 3 billion subscriber lines active today, nearly half the world’s population uses mobile phones [1]. Given the right structure, the ubiquitous mobile devices could act as sensor nodes, capable of capturing, classifying, and transmitting environmental data, such as image, acoustic, and temperature. In the foreseeable future, other sensors may be embedded in or connect wirelessly to the mobile phones to gather information about air pollutants, like CO2, NO2 and SO2. Participatory sending can employ a variety of devices to collect data; however, some special characteristics of mobile phones enable them to be an unprecedented tool for engaging participants in sensing their local environment. The sheer ubiquity across the geographic and demographic spectrum and the broad proliferation of cellular infrastructure and mobile phone usage make it possible to collect data over large areas for little incremental cost. Participatory sensing will utilize current wireless network, which consists numerous mobile phones, to form a vast interactive participatory sensor network that enables professional users and lay public to gather, analyze and share environment information [2]. Citizens, especially the elderly, children, urban commuters, urban office workers and students, will benefit from such a revolutionary technology.

2. Background

In virtue of the rosy prospect and importance of participatory sensing, there are more and more research institutes engaging in this field. The concept of PES has been proposed in recent years (Karatzas, 2005; Burke et al., 2006; Goldman et al., 2009), and related projects have been in development around the world, especially in the USA and Europe [3].

PEIR, one of the most successful participatory sensing projects, is research collaboration between CENS, UCLA and Nokia. It makes use of Internet to allow citizens to use their mobile phones to interact with PEIR, and explore and share the impact between environment and the citizens. PEIR senses pollution by using existing infrastructure without user intervention and emphasizes how individual transportation choices simultaneously influence both environmental impact and exposure, which makes it different from other existing carbon footprint calculators [4].

Eye on Earth project of the European Environment Agency is a two-way communication platform on the environment. It has introduced the participation of millions of ordinary people to create the first environmental portal that includes citizens’ observations on air and bathing water quality at present. Eye on Earth aims to gradually include information on many other environmental topics and grow to a global observatory for environmental change [5].

MESSAGE is to provide data collecting through three sensor platforms for the planning, management and control of the environmental impacts of transport activity at urban, regional and national level. Mobile phones are investigated to support a sensing system, in which people play an important role [6].

In addition to the projects introduced above, other participatory sensing projects have also appeared, such as Living Environments, Citysense, Common Sense, Envitori and MIMAQ [3].

A lot of evidences have shown that new intuitive ways of interactions and user friendly context aware service can be introduced by various sensors in mobile phones. Therefore, mostly specialized sensors were applied in participatory sensing. Some projects also suggest that standard sensors already embedded in the mobile phones can be used for this.

Overall, there are a variety of participatory sensing projects, and they can be divided into three categories according to the participation patterns [1]:

Collective Design and Investigation. A group of individuals work together to decide where, what and why to sense. Then a data collection system is collectively designed, and an investigation is conducted. The group interprets the data and acts on the results. An evident feature of this participatory pattern is that the community of participants owns the entire process. Instead of serving merely research subjects, individuals play an active role in the investigative process.

Public contribution. Individuals or organizations define inquiries and then other individuals collect data in respond to such inquiries. In this case, participants actively engage in the data collection and make contributions to an effort they find meaningful. For organizers, they can gather as many data as possible at a scale unachievable by professionals acting alone.

Personal Use and Reflection. Individuals log information about themselves, like images, sounds and so on. Such recorded information may reveal hidden habits and patterns in one’s life after analyzed and visualized. Participants use the results for personal discovery to reflect on, evaluate, and perhaps change patterns that were previously overlooked.

3. Methods

Data collection and interpretation are the heart of participatory sensing which places the emphasis on the involvement of citizens and community groups. In spite of participation patterns, the basic process for every participatory sensing project is similar, and it can be broken down into the following eight steps: coordination, capture, transfer, storage, access, analysis, feedback and visualization [1].

Coordination explains the sensing effort to the participants and provides necessary guidance to them.

Capture is the collection of data on a mobile phone, which is the core step of participatory sensing. Data can be captured by the existing sensors already embedded in the mobile phones or by those specialized sensors connecting wirelessly to the mobile phones. In the course of data collection, the credibility of data must be guaranteed. More significantly, data about geographical position and time must be captured every time.

Transfer is processed automatically by mobile phones via wireless network. Mobile phone software takes the responsibility of uploading data and makes it transparent to the participants. Furthermore, mobile phone software should be tolerant of inevitable network interruptions.

Storage takes place on servers which are distributed remotely in the Internet.

Access is under the control of project organizers and participants according to the privacy policy. Due to the possible disclosure of private information about the participants, it is of vital importance for the participants to determine what information to share and with whom.

Analysis includes various data-processing methods, the calculation of group statistics and the integration of contributed data into statistical and spatial models that can be used to determine patterns in space and time.

Feedback may be required in the event of a project triggering manual or automatic events.

Visualization is closely related to the analysis. It is the step to present the contributed data after analysis. In some sense, well-designed visualization increases the applicability of a participatory sensing project.

The project of Participatory sensing services for smart phones can be divided into two collaborative subprojects based on the Android platform, one focusing on data gathering and the other one dealing with the data processing and visualization. We take the responsibility for presenting data in some friendly and easy-understandable way. Thus the data analysis and visualization are the center of our work.

For the subproject of data processing and visualization, we have to deal with data and services. In the assumption that the contributed data are already available and their credibility has been verified, we get data via a server-based application which acts as a data storage. This server-based application will provide web service interfaces for data access. Thus WSDL language for web services will be utilized to develop an Android-based application with the aid of development environments like Eclipse. There are a wide variety of available solutions to make use of web services via Android, and the solution to use ksoap2 will be suitable for our project.

The data accessed via web services can be classified into two kinds: subjective data and objective data.

Subjective data: a categorization of the quality of the environment. They are feedback commented and reported by the citizens on the air quality. We intend to make use of the EEA categorization for air pollution, which is applicable on http://www.eyeonearth.eu/.

Objective data: in the form of numeric values. They are automatically captured by the sensors or reported manually by the users. Images, sound, location and time are objective data.

All data processed in the frame of participatory sensing project will include the following three categories of information:

Georeference. Geographical position and time is extremely important for participatory sensing, and forms the cornerstone of the follow-up work.

User categories. At the initial stage, our project will serve the urban commuters, office workers, students and the elderly. Other categories of users are possibly added if necessary at the later stage. We allocate every user group a unique ID, which will be used to identify the category which the users belong to. Furthermore, category ID will be used to send a request to the server which involves user category.

Thematic profiling. Our project is to process information about environment and we aim to deal with air pollution, odors, noise, traffic congestion and waste.

In order to present the result of the contributed data to the participants in a user-friendly and easy-understandable way, GMap API may be utilized to map the georeference and thematic profiling, which will provide an interactive feature between our project and participants. Due to the distinct flexibility, Modest Maps API is an alternative to achieve the same goal.

4.Metrics for evaluation

To encourage the handset owners to participate in our project, privacy protection policy has to be taken into account to prevent privacy disclosure. One of the basic rules is that participants cannot access other people’s private information, and such an attempt should be denied.

Furthermore, the data visualization should be easily and readily comprehended or understood not only by the professional users but also by the general public. In some sense, the degree of understandability of data presentation determines the scope of applicability of participatory sensing. Another metric related to the visualization is that the users are able to customize the configuration to present what they want.

With regard to air quality, if the concentration of air pollutants detected does not fall into the scope which is safe and suitable for humankind, the participants should receive a warning, so that they can take actions to avoid being harmed. Due to regional differences, different air pollution standards are applied in different areas.

5. Outputs

The output of our project is an application running on the Android platform. Interested people can download it from the Internet and install it in their Android phones to access the information about environment surrounding them.

6. Workplan

The rough time schedule of our project is listed below, including the milestones and corresponding estimated completion dates. In table 1, some stages may overlap with others. In the course of project development, the time schedule may be changed according to specific situation.

Milestone

Anticipated completion date

Analyze the project and do literary reviewFebruary 28, 2011
Define the project scopeFebruary 28, 2011
Write the research proposalMarch 23, 2011
Study mobile phone programming techniquesMay 27, 2011
Make a plan for the projectMay 28, 2011
Implement the projectJuly 28, 2011
Test the projectAugust 3, 2011
Take field trialsAugust 5, 2011
Deliver the projectAugust 8, 2011
Complete the dissertationAugust 19, 2011

References

J. Goldman, K. Shilton, J. Burke, D. Estrin, M. Hansen, N. Ramanathan, S. Reddy, V. Samanta, M. Srivastava, R. West, “Participatory Sensing: A citizen-powered approach to illuminating the patterns that shape our world”

J. Burke, D. Estrin, M. Hansen, A. Parker, N. Ramanathan, S. Reddy, M. B. Srivastava, “Participatory Sensing”

https://projects.inf.ed.ac.uk/msc/project?number=P165

http://urban.cens.ucla.edu/projects/peir

http://www.eyeonearth.eu/About.aspx?culture=en-GB

http://bioinf.ncl.ac.uk/message/?q=node/5

Testing and driving has become a concern among the many. Across the nation, many accidents were reported to the authorities. The main suspect, Cell Phone! But is the Samsung Galaxy or the phone held responsible for these crashes? Teens, along with adults, have participated in this extreme action without pointing out the consequences. It Just takes a second of distraction to cause a fatal accident. Over the years, technology has Impacted humanity greatly. It has provided the world with faster information access and a swifter communication approach.

Computers and cellophanes have improved many of the communication skills within the military, politics, and many other essential key item throughout the world. Lately, It has spout up a new dilemma Involving the addictiveness of an Individual to some sort of electronic device, mostly cell phones. In 1977, the creation of the first Motorola cell phone was brought to light (Mainstream). Its single purpose was to hold a link with another similar device to conduct conversation wirelessly. Today cellular phones provides the user with addicting forms of entertainment Oinks).

Programs that are most commonly used within a cellophane are games (such as candy crush), internet access, and other tools that we find attractive to the eye. But on top of all these programs, text messaging has become superior as 72 percent of cellophane users have send and receive messages (“Because Testing and Driving Kills “). Messaging has provide a new way of communicating with member of society but when is a text too much? Drivers were given a privilege when granted their drinking’s license, under one circumstance through.

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AAA-Foundation for Traffic Safety, informs that this sort of distraction contributes to 16% of all fatal crashes each year which adds to a total of 5000 victims (“Because Testing and Driving Kills On a research study, It states that the minimal amount of time that someone’s attention is taken of the road due to a cell phone intake would be of five seconds which spikes you possibility for a crash to 23%(Leap ). This is about driving are 6 times more likely to be involved in a crash than drivers that are intoxicated(“Because Testing and Driving Kills Eye opener, huh?

It should be. Cell phones have become useful devices for the masses, providing the world with an easier way to start a conversation with someone miles away or nations apart. Though offering great use, it could serve as a deadly weapon when handled while driving. Many cell phone companies such as AT&T have Joined in to stop testing and driving among cell phone device users. Commercials and other samples of well view propaganda have set out for a common goal in order to stop this madness, asking drivers to turn off such devices in order to avoid that distraction.