Twenty years ago, the term ‘smartphone’ had not yet been coined. Nowadays, not only is it used in everyday conversations, but it also symbolises the huge leaps in technology that have occurred in telephony, programming and design

Phones are now not simply an audial medium, but a visual one too, and we can witness them becoming increasingly aesthetically appealing while allowing huge strides to be taken in terms of detail and quality of applications. Unfortunately, over time this has also led to new hurdles that people with visual disabilities may need to overcome in order to keep up with technology – until now.

Roger Wilson-Hinds and his wife, who are both registered blind, run the non-profit organisation, Screenreader, and have recently designed and developed an application – Georgie – for the visually impaired. Named after Mrs. Wilson-Hinds’ first guide dog, Georgie, - powered by an Android OS - is a revolution in smartphone usability.

Features and Benefits

Using voice controlled software it is activated by simply touching and holding down your finger, and listening to a response and a voice that indicates which function you’re touching. When downloaded, the application interface is designed to take over the smartphone’s original interface, thus preventing the blind person from mistakenly reverting back to the more complicated interface

Georgie gives its users the ability to send text messages via voice assist. By speaking to the device, the phone will recognise and transcribe speech to a text message. “I was able to send my very first text just earlier this year thanks to Georgie,” said Mr. Wilson-Hinds.

When it comes to phone calls, a phone dialler feature is available to help the user, make a call just by speaking the digits, which is then automatically dialled. It will also notify the owner by voice when a call is coming in, and allows an option for redialling. Additional application bundles, namely, the Travel, Lifestyle and Communicate bundles can be bought at €32 each.

The travelling feature can inform users about their current location and what’s around them. It also indicates the direction towards which the user is heading, and, when approaching a bus stop, informs the user at what time the next bus arrives, and when to stop.

So as not to limit a blind person to travelling only by bus, this app can also find local taxi companies and offers the option to call one. It knows where taxi stations are, and exactly where there is a taxi stop. The app features the option of finding public places according to categories and sub-categories, it tells the user the directions and distances required to arrive at a chosen public place.

To promote socialisation and social networking they have even integrated a feature for Twitter that will recognise text in tweets and have a voice relate them out loud. Additionally, the user is able to post tweets by using the same principle used for text messaging.

Another feature offers thousands of audio books and newspapers that can be read out loud, as well as an online blog on which one can share their spoken thoughts. There is also the option to change scanned documents into OCR (Optical Character Recognition – converts scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text) and hear the text or view in large format.

A blind person doesn’t know if someone’s around unless sounds are made, what if the user needs to ask a question and there’s nobody around? This app features the option to accept a question and provide and answer back by speech.

With time we can observe and experience the various changes that technology is undergoing. Georgie and its applications might serve as an inspiration to other developers so that they may continue in their attempts at improving the lives of people with disabilities.

Georgie went on sale in the UK on the 16th of July 2012. It is available from €378 as a basic Android smartphone, and price ranges vary, according to model. It can also be downloaded as an app from Google Play and installed on your phone for €187.

David Galea is currently placed at MITA as part of the Student Placement Programme 2012

The pitfalls of social networking

Gail Buttigieg and Carla Magro

In April of this year, Twitter reported over 500 million registered users. Facebook reported over 900 million. Whether we are willing to admit it or not, social networking has quickly become an integral part of the way we socialise and live - people constantly post photos about where they are, what they’re eating, what job they’ve just started, what results they’ve recently achieved and who they’re going out with. Most importantly, they strive to share the positive aspects of their lives. This has resulted in the dynamics of friendships and relationships taking on new forms.

Similarly, in the family, traditional parental rules are being forced to take on a modern twist. Gone are the days when parents’ biggest concern was the strange man hanging around outside the grocer. Now, with instant access to strangers worldwide, stranger danger has taken on a whole new meaning. Many teens and children need to be constantly reminded of the dangers of adding strangers as friends. While using Facebook and Twitter can be fun, they should be taught to think twice before posting any photos or personal information which might then be seen and used by someone else.

So while social networking sites have become a staple for a lot of teens and children, at the end of the day, could they be doing more harm than good? Tweens and young children are obviously two of the more vulnerable groups when it comes to social networking. A report by the American Academy of Pediatrics encourages paediatricians to talk and give advice to parents and children about the best and safest ways to make use of social media sites. Most children use these websites to stay in touch with friends and family, for entertainment and even for doing homework. They can also encourage children to be creative and help them develop their technical skills.

However, they can also result in incidences of cyber bullying, depression and exposure to inappropriate content. Gwenn O’Keefe, paediatrician and author of ‘CyberSafe’, feels that this isn’t just a technology issue, but rather, a health concern. According to a recent poll, 22% of teens log onto their favourite social media site more than 10 times a day, while over half of adolescents logon to social media sites once a day. In addition, about 75% of teens nowadays own mobile devices. Paediatricians and parents must be aware of the new problems which arise when children spend unsupervised time using technological devices. The study cites a number of problems that adults should be aware of when children make use of such technology:

Facebook depression – this is a new phenomenon which occurs in children who are at risk of social isolation, anxiety or depression, and therefore try to seek connection online. Apart from increasing the risk factor of coming across online strangers, depression may arise if this online connection isn’t found at all.

Cyberbullying – is the spreading of false comments or exposing embarrassing or hostile information about another person over the internet. This may lead to forms of anxiety, depression, and even, in certain drastic cases, suicide.

Exposure to inappropriate information or content – this might negatively affect one’s self-esteem or body image, which may lead to future engagement in risky behaviours such as smoking and substance abuse.

Sexting – the sending, receiving and forwarding of sexually explicit messaging, photos or images via devices such as computers or mobile phones. This can obviously result in misuse or abuse of sensitive information, and have various legal (and other) repercussions.

In addition, new research conducted by the School of Psychology at Flinders University of Australia has found that teenage girls who use social networking websites on a regular basis are more likely to suffer from depression and low self esteem, and that girls who spend long hours on websites like Facebook or Twitter are far more likely to hate their bodies and have weight issues.

“Our findings demonstrate a worrying correlation between excessive media use, particularly social media and the internet, and lower self-esteem, body-esteem and sense of identity and higher depression”, said Dr. Amy Slater who took on the study. The researchers placed most of the blame squarely at the feet of online advertising, which constantly bombards viewers with various attractive, young and thin female models who are setting almost impossibly high standards of beauty and thinness for the average adolescent.

Older adolescents and adults are not immune to the negatives of social networking, either. In another recent study conducted by the University of Salford in the UK, results stated that 51% of the 298 adult participants feel that their use of social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, makes their life worse. They feel that, when they actively compare their own lives to those of their online friends, they tend to experience some forms of anxiety and low self-esteem.

Especially if one is predisposed to anxiety, negative pressures from such technology might just push them over the edge. Therefore, social networking seems to highlight and evoke characteristics which are already present in certain individuals and might lead to the reported rising anxiety levels of our Facebook friends.

Alex Jordan, a PhD student at Stanford University, found in another study that subjects consistently overestimated the fun that their friends were having, while underestimating their negative experiences. “By showcasing the most witty, joyful, bullet-pointed versions of people’s lives, and inviting constant comparisons in which we tend to see ourselves as the losers, Facebook appears to exploit an Achilles’ heel of human nature”.

This goes to show how selective people can be, and are, about what they post on Facebook and Twitter. Most users will confirm that, in reading or seeing such positive things about other people on these sites, they might feel comparatively inadequate. You will be painfully aware of your own flaws while not being able to see everyone else’s, because there will always be someone out there with the better job, car or social life than you.

All Facebook does is highlight these facts and events, while allowing the flaws and bad experiences to fade into the background and go unnoticed. Along with this phenomenon, various social influence scores, such as Klout, measure how much social influence you’ve got across your social network. This means that it measures how likely it is that your Facebook and Twitter friends will read and share or retweet your updates. It may seem like nothing, but, reportedly, these scores have been taken into consideration by employers during interviews, or hotel staff who award instant room upgrades to unsuspecting guests with high Klout scores.

There have also been various cases of employees being fired after posting statuses about their jobs or their bosses, which are then usually followed by long-drawn and highly publicised lawsuits. Similarly, before calling for an interview, employers might take to checking up on their prospective employees on Facebook, and coming upon compromising photos or statuses. As it is with any other object or device which we come into contact to, how social networking is approached and used depends on whether you manage to draw out its benefits or negatives.

Social media should always be thought of as being an extremely useful tool of communication. By treating it as anything more than that, you might be wandering into dangerous virtual territory of time-consuming obsession or disillusionment, under the guise of so-called socialising. Finally, it is important that from a young age, children learn that sometimes the need to unplug from the online world, and experience the real one.

Vodafone Smart II Review

Specifications

Dimensions & Weight:

109 x 58 x 12.4 mm, 120 g

Colour: Black

Display: 3.2 inches, Touchscreen

Operating System: Android OS, v2.3

Battery Life: Talk time up to 6h

Connectivity: Wifi, Bluetooth

Memory:

512MB Internal, Micro SD Card Slot Up to 32GB

Camera: 3.15 MP

Messaging: SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email

GPS: Yes, (Requires Internet)

Radio: Yes

Display: 

Hardware: 

Interface: 

Battery life: 

Overall: 

Introduction

We always dream of purchasing the latest smartphones but they can be quite expensive so we may opt for smartphones in the lower price ranges. Sometimes buying affordable smartphones might mean sacrificing on quality. This is not the case with the Vodafone Smart II, Vodafone’s newly launched affordable smartphone.

Operating System and Display

An important factor for all smartphones is the Operating System (OS) - when purchasing an inexpensive smart phone one would not expect the best OS, but this mobile comes with one of the most successful Android OS, the Gingerbread v2.3.7. The display consists of a 3.2 inch screen with TFT display of 240 by 320 pixels with multi-touching.

Hardware

The phone has quite a solid build providing a corporate feeling to the user weighing just 120grams. One of the drawbacks of this device is that the battery must be removed to access its micro SD storage that can go up to 32 GB including 150 MB internal storage. It is an improvement from the previous Vodafone Smart I which had 130 MB internal storage and 528MHz to 832MHz Broadcom processor.

Apart from the side buttons; volume, camera and power button, it has a touch-sensitive menu like most of the Android phones; with return home, options, go back and search facilities. The camera is 3.15 megapixels, 2048 by 1536 pixels and has an LED flash light.

Interface

Vodafone has created two new widgets that you don’t find on regular Android phones. Even tough Android already offers a widget for weather reporting, Vodafone created a similar one, with more landscape images and the usual Vodafone colours of red and white. It also displays the location of where it’s reporting, the date and time together with weather information of the day.

Vodafone enhanced the phonebook icon to a customised one with the Vodafone theme of white and red which links to the actual Android phonebook and another icon as a shortcut for a new message.

Battery life and connectivity

Battery life has always been a topic of discussion with mobile devices - upgrading processors and screens will consume more battery life. According to Vodafone, the talk time using a 3G network has increased battery life from 4.5 hours to 7.5 hours.

When we tested the battery life we found that by midday the battery was already at 30% only having done an average number of incoming and outgoing calls. We certainly didn’t expect it to last for 24 hours but we were forced to charge the phone half way through the day.

The Vodafone Smart II was made available for review by Vodafone Malta.

The Malta Independent ICT Feature

Social networking has become an essential part of teens and young children’s lives but major concerns have cropped up whether they are doing more harm than good. This week we’ll see how a study by the University of Australia has linked the regular use of social networking sites to instances of depression and low self esteem. Parents must be aware of their child’s use of technology as other problems may stem from the over use of it.

Smartphones have become a must have in today’s society and doing without one may leave you feeling cut-off. This week we’ll look at how a man who is registered blind has created an app specially designed to guide blind people through everyday hurdles they may encounter.

This week we’ll be reviewing the features of the newly launched Vodafone Smart II phone. This phone was made available for review by Vodafone Malta.

Roderick Spiteri is Marketing and Communications Manager at MITA and editor of Malta Independent ICT feature

Joggobot: your robotic fitness companion

How many times have you gone for a jog and took your dog with you as a companion? How often did it stop or pulled you in different directions? And when you got tired and started slowing down, did the dog slow down with you? Probably yes. Wouldn’t it be good if robots could support us whilst exercising? This is what inspired Eberhard Gräther and Floyd Mueller from Exertion Games Lab at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia to develop the Joggobot.

This robotic companion can run in front of you at a constant speed and motivates you to keep on going, or to go that extra mile. Asking a friend or partner to jump on their bike and cycle ahead to help you maintain a consistent speed may be met with a look of disdain, and as for trying to explain the concept of pacing to your dog, well, good luck with that.

The Joggobot, a robotic Quadcopter which looks like a spying drone, is equipped with an integrated camera, sensor, four motors (two on each side) and a device with a tag detection software installed to give orders to its motors to act. It uses its sensor and camera to detect specific colours on a custom t-shirt (of the person exercising) to follow. No matter how fast you will be running, Joggobot will be able to react to your moves and keep a safe distance while flying at about 1.2 meters off the ground. If it loses the sight of the markers on the t-shirt, it will automatically land itself safely. Instructions to and from Joggobot can be sent and received from your smartphone.“With this research we try to investigate the bigger picture of how people [will] exercise in the future, and what role robots will play in it,” Gräther explains.

It also has an option to switch to instructor mode which transforms it into your personal fitness instructor.

Joggobot is still in testing phase and improvements are needed such as the battery life time as well as other features. For example, till now Joggobot can fly and follow in a straight line but researchers are currently improving it by working and testing various algorithms and jogging patterns.

If Joggobot is ever commercialised, it could definitely become a hit with serious runners looking for a reliable way to control their pace.

For more information, visit www.exertiongameslab.org