ICT dot You

Indonesia Ponders over RFID, Contactless Smart Card, NFC and Mobile Technology

2008-03-31T03:11:00.001+02:00

The RFID Asia Summit 2008 (http://summit.rfid-Asia.info) held on 12-13 March 2008 in Jakarta, Indonesia, organized by RFID Asia (www.rfidAsia.org), the Prominent RFID Community in Asia, is the prestigious international event to address the potentials and challenges of RFID technology and harness the economic opportunities in various vertical industries in Indonesia and Asia Pacific region.

As the only event in Asia Pacific dedicated for RFID experts and leaders in charge for the development of businesses in the emerging markets, RFID Asia Summit 2008 has presented a line-up of international renowned speakers from Asia Pacific and USA. The event has successfully impressed the international delegates from Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East with intellectually thought-provoking and inspiring conference tracks, exhibitions, demonstrations, business networking and meeting sessions.

The RFID Asia Summit 2008 was officially inaugurated by the Founder of RFID Asia, Adi Tedjasaputra. In his opening remarks, he pointed out how the tremendous advancement in RFID technology and market growth in Asia Pacific has started to add values in different emerging markets. Furthermore, he also detailed the unique role of RFID Asia in contributing to the advancement of RFID technology and market growth in Asia Pacific, while producing a shared practice and collective intelligence as RFID Asia community members engage in a collective process of learning and sharing. Regarding the event itself, he explained how RFID Asia Summit 2008 was crafted to provide delegates with a unique experience and results.

After the opening remarks, Stephen Dolan, the Director of Sybase Australia & New Zealand unveiled how to integrate business logic and processes with RFID and sensor technologies, including mobile devices. One of the most interesting parts in his presentation is his view on the death of RFID Middleware – the software connecting RFID readers with enterprise applications. Enriched with real-life examples and industrial case studies, he concluded his presentation with several key recommendations to integrate sensor data into Enterprise Applications.

The next speaker, Dr. Toni Anwar, the Coordinator Software Systems Engineering of TGGS Thailand introduced the basics of RFID technology and applications with examples in building automation system and smart parking. He closed his presentation with some future RFID trends and the requirements for further development in RFID.

Opening the theme of Near Field Communication (NFC) in RFID Asia Summit 2008, Goh Say Yeow, EVP Sales and Managing Director Asia Pacific of INSIDE presented the market trends and development of contactless payment. From the current contactless payment, he explained the role of NFC technology as an enabler for contactless card and card reader emulation using NFC-enabled mobile phones. Furthermore, he also detailed three NFC use cases that will have impact for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), i.e. pairing/connectivity, proximity service and transactions. Most importantly, he also highlighted that convenience will be the real value proposition of NFC that will drive consumer adoption.

Going further with NFC technology, Jonathon Gould, VP Asia Pacific of ViVOtech reviewed different generations of electronic payment system with contactless payment becoming the latest trend. He further mentioned several cases and trials involving NFC technology for mobile payment and marketing.

After a sumptuous and active networking luncheon, Chua Thian Yee, CEO of CASSIS, focused on the NFC technology used for mobile payment, reviewing the consumer landscape, the fundamentals of NFC technology and several mobile payment cases.

Heru Wahyudi, Sales and Marketing Manager, representing PT. Solusi Periferal and Intermec presented different kind of industrial RFID applications, with some remarks that are open for further discussions, such as: the possibility of having real benefits from RFID implementation without complete process re-engineering, internal benefit with self-implemented RFID and collaboration with suppliers and customers to produce more value.

In late afternoon, Dr. Urachada Ketprom of NECTEC Thailand has captured the attention of RFID Asia Summit 2008 delegates with her well-prepared presentation on animal and food traceability. Her presentation was further enriched with the latest updates on RFID projects, such as chicken farm management, animal transport checkpoint, swine farm management, microchip-implanted pets and shrimp traceability.

Exhibition is one of the highlights in the RFID Asia Summit 2008. International delegates have visited and engaged actively with the exhibitors to explore business opportunities and get the latest information on RFID products and services available in the market . The expressions of contentment were received from both the exhibitors and delegates.

Opening the RFID Demonstration Rally (tm), the RFID Group Research at School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) shared the latest information on RFID technology research and development, as well as the university-industry collaboration that has taken place. The presentation was immediately followed by product demonstration from Intermec/PT Solusi Periferal and Sicurezza, including a short video clip presentation by ViVOtech.

Closing the International Conference on Auto-ID, RFID, Smart Card and Mobile Technology, Adi Tedjasaputra summarized the full day activities and announced the networking events and One-to-One Business Meeting in the next morning following the conference.

Revealing RFID Beyond Tracking at RFID Asia Summit 2008 in Indonesia

2008-02-13T06:48:00.004+02:00

A few years ago, Wal-Mart issued a mandate for suppliers to attach products with RFID tags. Today, only a few suppliers have complied, or in other words, the mandate does not work effectively in retail supply chain. Learning from the failures of early adopters and revealing successful RFID technology and applications beyond tracking, the prestigious RFID Asia Summit 2008 on March 12, 2008 in Jakarta, Indonesia hosted by RFID Asia, recognized as the first and largest global RFID Community in Asia Pacific region, will address the potentials and challenges of RFID technology and harness the economic opportunities in various vertical industries.

5-cent RFID tag is the most demanded RFID product in the world. Unfortunately, the product does not exist. The underlying assumption of large volume purchase to reach the price level of 5-cent has never become reality.

"We quickly determined that if RFID tags were ever going to have a shot at being widely used, a 5-cent price target was important for both psychological and commercial reasons. In return, though, the volumes would have to be very high—for example, more than 5 billion bar codes are scanned daily today. The problem with RFID tags at the time was that the industry was "stuck" in a higher-margin, lower-volume mind-set." wrote Sanjay Sarma, the co-founder of MIT's Auto-ID Center (now Auto-ID Lab), and also the CTO and Director of Oat Systems, in his article “Integrating RFID” several years ago.

Eventhough Wal-Mart has recently started to issue an ultimatum to its suppliers shipping to its Sam's Club warehouse outlet distribution center in Texas, USA with a premium price of $2 per pallet, it is estimated that over 15,000 Wal-Mart suppliers have yet to comply with Wal-Mart's RFID mandate, according to a recent article at Computer Business Review.

While the retail supply chain industry is still waiting for the coming of 5-cent RFID tag, various RFID applications that do not rely on 5-cent price level have mushroomed for the past few years in diverse vertical industries.

RFID and Sensor Technologies
The use of RFID and sensor technologies have become more common nowadays. Active RFID tags with built-in sensors are readily available in the market. Applications such as electronic container seals, intelligent buildings, vital sign measurement of monitored hospital patients are only a few of applications that require cost-effective infrastructure. With the increasing number of nodes and types of sensors in wireless sensor network (WSN), the role of infrastructure has become more critical to manage sensors and intelligent networks.

Stephen Dolan, the Director of Sybase Australia and New Zealand, one of the international speakers in RFID Asia Summit 2008, will unveil how to integrate business logic and processes with RFID and sensor technologies, including mobile devices.

"My expectation is that this summit could create people's awareness of what RFID technology can support to the existing environment, from biology to medical, from telecommunication to material engineering," said Dr. Toni Anwar of TGGS Thailand who will present how to design and implement integrated and intelligent building automation and security with RFID technology. "This event could also be a real summit of people, who then will continue in a good RFID project with another."

Animal and Food Traceability
Predicted as the largest RFID market of all, the use of RFID technology for animals, food and farming will benefit the food supply chain in a huge number of ways, including livestock disease control and merchandising prepared food, according to the latest report "RFID for Animals, Food and Farming 2007-2011" published by IDTechEx.

During the RFID Asia Summit 2008, Dr. Urachada Ketprom of NECTEC, Thailand's National Electronics and Computer Technology Center, will present how Thailand, the world's largest producer of farm-raised shrimp and the fourth biggest poultry exporter, uses RFID technology for animal and food traceability.

"RFID Asia Summit 2008 presents an opportunity to update current RFID trends and connects people in RFID business or academic together to exchange information and new conceptual idea for new application development," said Dr. Urachada Ketprom.

Contactless Smart Card and Near Field Communication (NFC)
From mass transportation to ID cards, contactless smart card has been the choice for micropayment in cashless society. Now that NFC is ready to turn mobile phones into credit cards and personal payment terminals, mobile commerce has also been redefined. Jupiter Research estimates the total of US$22 billion mobile phone payment transaction by 2011.

Jonathon Gould, Vice President of ViVOtech will share his experience and knowledge about the ecosystem for NFC-enabled mobile payment and mobile commerce, including mobile wallet and digital money. Moreover, the transition from EMV to NFC payment, the latest contactless payment technology, applications, projects and market trends presented by international renowned speakers such as Goh Say Yeow, VP & Director Asia of INSIDE Contactless and Chua Thian Yee, CEO of CASSIS International will also become the inspiring and thought-provoking discussion during the RFID Asia Summit 2008.

"I hope this summit will share with the participants the implementation experience and to do the project right the first time," said Chua Thian Yee of CASSIS International, a leading end-to-end security solution and service provider of smart card innovation, technology and services headquartered in Singapore.

Different from other RFID events, the RFID Asia Summit 2008 to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia, will integrate conference presentations by a line up of international renowned speakers, RFID Demonstration Rally™, exhibition and networking sessions, making the RFID Asia Summit 2008 a unique one-stop event to learn from RFID experts and business leaders, experience the latest RFID products and meet prospective partners and clients.

ABOUT RFID ASIA SUMMIT 2008
RFID Asia Summit 2008 aims to address the potentials and challenges of RFID technology and harness the economic opportunities in various vertical industries in Indonesia and Asia Pacific region. As the only event in Asia Pacific dedicated for leaders and RFID experts in charge for the development of businesses in the emerging markets, RFID Asia Summit 2008 is also endeavored to boost business interests in RFID technology within the region.

Catering the demand for invaluable insights on the latest Auto-ID, RFID, Smart Card and Mobile technology, trends and markets, RFID Asia Summit 2008 will present a line-up of international renowned speakers who will lead intellectually thought-provoking and inspiring conference tracks, RFID demonstrations and business networking sessions.

For more information about the RFID Asia Summit 2008, please visit The Official Website of RFID Asia Summit 2008.

Press Release: RFID Asia to Host Prestigious RFID Asia Summit 2008 in Indonesia

2008-01-21T06:35:00.000+02:00

RFID Asia, recognized as the first and largest global RFID Community in Asia Pacific region, will host the prestigious RFID Asia Summit 2008 on March 12, 2008 at InterContinental Midplaza Jakarta, Indonesia. RFID Asia Summit 2008 aims to address the potentials and challenges of RFID technology and harness the economic opportunities in various vertical industries in Indonesia and Asia Pacific region. As the only event in Asia Pacific dedicated for leaders and RFID experts in charge for the development of businesses in the emerging markets, RFID Asia Summit 2008 is also endeavored to boost business interests in RFID technology within the region.

The latest research from International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group shows that more than 80 million of 230 million Indonesians have mobile phone subscriptions. With the estimated spending of more than US$ 2.9 billion in 2007 for telecommunication networks and more for the next few years, Indonesia is expected to become the third largest mobile market in Asia by 2010.

Accompanying the growth of mobile market in Indonesia, services such as Mobile Wallet and Digital Money have demanded the RFID industry in Indonesia to grow beyond the traditional markets of access control and security. In addition, the spending priority of the Indonesian Government on infrastructure projects in telecommunication, power, utilities and transportation sectors during 2008 and the next few years has also driven the increasing demand of RFID technology in diverse vertical industries.

For catering the demand for invaluable insights on the latest Auto-ID, RFID, Smart Card and Mobile technology, trends and markets in Indonesia and other emerging Asia Pacific markets, RFID Asia Summit 2008 will present a line-up of international renowned speakers who will lead intellectually thought-provoking and inspiring conference tracks, RFID demonstrations and business networking sessions.

“I hope this summit will share with the participants the implementation experience and to do the project right the first time,” said one of the international conference speakers, Chua Thian Yee – CEO of CASSIS International, a leading end-to-end security solution and service provider of smart card innovation, technology and services headquartered in Singapore.

The line-up of esteemed speakers include Goh Say Yeow – the Executive Vice President Sales and Managing Director Asia of INSIDE Contactless, Chua Thian Yee - the CEO of CASSIS International, Dr. Toni Anwar – the Coordinator for Software Systems Engineering Programme of Thai-German Graduate School of Engineering and other international renowned speakers, leaders and RFID experts from Asia Pacific region.

Adi Tedjasaputra - the Founder of RFID Asia said, “RFID Asia Summit 2008 is a must-attend event for leaders and RFID experts in Asia Pacific region.”

For more information about the RFID Asia Summit 2008, please visit The Official Website of RFID Asia Summit 2008.

About Indonesia

Indonesia accounts as one of the fastest and vibrantly growing economy in the South East Asia with more than 6% annual economic growth. As one of the next major emerging economies with strong economic growth and commodity trade, Indonesia - the world´s largest archipelagos boasts a growing demand for RFID technology solutions in telecommunication, banking & finance, transportation, logistics, healthcare, oil & gas, mining, building automation, manufacturing, agriculture and security industries. In conjunction with the official Indonesian Government's programme of Visit Indonesia 2008, RFID Asia Summit 2008 will attract both international and local business leaders and RFID experts in the Asia Pacific region.

About RFID Asia

RFID Asia is the Independent Knowledge Centre that helps RFID vendors and end-users making the best investment, leverage competitiveness and market share through Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. As the prominent RFID community in Asia, RFID Asia is the bridge connecting different stakeholders with interest in RFID technology. As an independent venture, RFID Asia helps RFID vendors and end-users alike to achieve their goals. For more information about RFID Asia, please visit www.rfidAsia.org

Singapore's First NFC Public Trial Launched

2007-10-17T23:10:00.002+02:00

After six weeks of internal Near Field Communication (NFC) service trial involving 30 participants, EZ-Link and StarHub today launched a new phase of trial involving pre-selected customers at the Partners Event held at The Arts House in Singapore.

In the next three days, both EZ-Link and Starhub will distribute 1000 NFC-enabled handsets to their pre-selected customers.NFC Demonstration EZ-Link. The trial participants, in the next 6 months, will have an opportunity to use their new iWOW SZ1.0 handsets for contactless payment services as well as to download information from NFC tags and smart posters available at 32 bus stops along Orchard Road, Wisma Atria Shopping Mall, Orchard MRT station's concourse level, 500 ClearChannel bus shelters, 9 Golden Village Cineplexes and Sony Gallery Stores in Singapore.

Using NFC tags and smart posters conforming to the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) X 6319-4 or FeliCa standard protocol, the trial participants in Singapore can expect a similar user experience with i-mode FeliCa services that have been used in Japan since 2003.

Singapore Telecommunication (Singtel) and Network for Electronic Transfers Singapore (NETS) have also announced a plan to embark on similar public NFC service trial early next year in cooperation with Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Mind Map Trend in Asia

2007-08-24T09:49:00.000+02:00

Ten years ago, I learnt about Mind Map during a psycholinguistics course. Asking students to associate the colour of red with anything relevant coming up to their minds, Dr. Mulyani Djojomihardjo, demonstrated a Mind Mapping technique. It was quite interesting to recall that students who used to be silent and passive became curious and actively engaged in the class discussion. At the end, we were all astonished to learn that we could associate the colour with different interpretations. Since then, I have used Mind Maps to generate, organize and visualize my work and research ideas.

Several years ago, I co-designed a board game that use keywords to facilitate design communication among multidisciplinary players. We applied Pair Mind Mapping to generate a set of keyword seeds with potentials users during the development stage. It was interesting to find out that even though we gave the same keyword seeds, each pair produced a different set of keywords. In a Card Sorting session, we categorized the generated keywords and eventually chose some keywords for the board game. We learnt that Mind Mapping was powerful in generating creative ideas.

Today, Mind Mapping seems to become the latest trend in Asia, including Singapore. During the month of September, Tony Buzan, one of the Mind Mapping gurus, will come to Singapore and lead a series of Mind Mapping seminars at SIM University. It is also announced that Tony Buzan will introduce his new Mind Mapping software called iMindMap. It is good to know that the professional community in Asia starts to be interested in Mind Mapping and see how the information technology has become a tool to facilitate the use of Mind Map for professionals.

It is also encouraging to hear that Mind Mapping has started to be introduced widely in many parts of Indonesia through a number of teacher training and student development programs.

Thanks to Victoria Tio and her work as the source of inspiration for this writing.

Will NFC become a killer technology

2007-08-06T12:38:00.000+02:00

While contactless credit card is still a hot issue in the island-country of Singapore, several vendors in the region have started to buzz the concept of contactless mobile payment during a seminar last week.
The keyword is: NFC. The question is: Will it be a killer technology?

Near-Field Communication or NFC is a short-range 13.56 MHz wireless technology that can transfer data up to 424 kbits/s. Using standardized protocols developed by industry-sponsored NFC Forum, inter-device NFC communication is expected to establish two-way link and exchange data among different consumer products, such as mobile phones, televisions, personal computers and digital cameras. Touching and waving are the most common interaction styles that promise convenience as any other contactless technology. Nevertheless, the current usage of NFC technology is still limited to contactless card payment, contactless mobile payment and interactive smart poster.

Thian Yee Chua, the CEO of CASSIS, during a seminar in Singapore last week, emphasized the need to build an NFC ecosystem, an environment for consumer-service, for a wide adoption of NFC technology. Lim Boon Heong, the Marketing and Business Development Director in NFC business of INSIDE Contactless further detailed the importance of NFC handset availability, win-win business models and an open standard.

Contactless mobile payment is one of the applications highlighted during the seminar. Several pilots planned and initiated have involved major credit card companies, banks, merchants, mobile service providers, mobile network operators, such as: VISA, JCB, MasterCard, CCV Holland B.V, KPN, Nokia, PaySquare, Philips and ViVOtech, SK Telecom, Orange, France Telecom, China Fujian Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., Xiamen Branch and Xiamen E-Tong Card Company Ltd, 2-Eleven, Gemplus, CASSIS.

Yet, Bank of America that has conducted an NFC trial in collaboration with Venyon Oy and its 5000 employees at one of its corporate campus in Delaware reported in May 2007 that the NFC portion of the trial has flopped due to variety reasons, including undesirable mobile phone model and problems in downloading payment application to the handsets.

In addition, a security issue in the form of protocol vulnerabilities may become worse if NFC-enabled mobile phones can act as cards or terminals, can be programmed by their users and can communicate with each other (Anderson, Ross. RFID and the Middleman. Retrieved on 06-08-2007).

Visa Wave: Coming to Singapore

2007-07-30T16:17:00.000+02:00

A new contactless credit card offers a convenience of use and an alternative cashless payment to consumers in Singapore. While the current offering may appeal to a limited segment, there is still a room for improvement in the verification mechanism and leverage the appeal of the contactless credit card to other segments.

Last Thursday, United Overseas Bank (UOB) of Singapore launched the first contactless Visa Wave Credit Card in Singapore. Following the trial success in Malaysia and Taiwan during the first quarter of 2007, the launch of UOB One Card in Singapore is not surprising. Susan Williams, the Director of Stakeholder Communications Visa International Asia Pacific, shared with RFID Asia that as the end of March 2007, there are a total of 8.1 million Visa Wave cards issued by the banks in Malaysia, while in Taiwan the number is more staggering: 23.9 million cards, with more than 2,970 merchant locations that accept Visa Wave cards

Similar to the other contactless credit cards like Master Card PayPass and AmEx Express Pay, the UOB One Card only allows a small value of transaction without card holder's signature in about 300 island-wide retail outlets. UOB One Card holders can wave their cards on a reader terminal to pay for a purchase and expect the EMV-based payment system, a payment system built for chip-based transaction, to process a transaction and print a receipt within 4-6 seconds, without any card handover. Based on the study commissioned by Visa, this process is much faster than a signature-based card payment that takes an average of 25 seconds or a cash transaction that takes an average of 14 seconds.

The convenience of such contactless payment is not without a catch. Compared to non-contactless credit cards that require signature authorization or pin numbers from authorized card holders for each transaction, contactless credit card, such as UOB One Card, imposes no verification for any transaction up to $100. There is virtually no verification system in place to make sure that a person making contactless credit card payment is actually the authorized card owner. It will be easier for an unauthorized person who can get access to such contactless credit card to misuse the card. The owner of such contactless credit card can risk $100 multiplied by the number of transactions before the card reported as missing, stolen or misused in such scenario.

During the CommunicAsia 2007 in Singapore, we interviewed a few visitors about Visa Wave. The ages of the interview participants were all above 40. All of the interviewed participants said that they were excited to know about the coming of a new contactless payment technology, but they were still reluctant to use a contactless payment system. The feeling of uncertainty was the main reason of their hesitance, for example: they were still unsure whether they would be double-charged or triple-charged for waving a card several times.

The feeling of uncertainty for the consumers in Singapore is not without a grounded reason. In 1999, the consumers in Singapore saw a total of 400,000 Singapore dollars wrongly debited from their bank accounts through a crash in the country's cashless point-of-sale system. This experience has affected the adoption of any new cashless system in Singapore.

Targeting young professionals (23-34 years old), the launch of UOB One Card is a significant step for Singapore towards a cashless society, a vision backed by the Singapore Government since 1999. Compared to the current cashless payment system using magnetic strip cards, the UOB One cards will introduce a relatively new interaction style in cashless payment for the consumers in Singapore. Consumers and merchants alike using the contactless credit card system may expect a significant portion of learning and teething problems in the upcoming days and months ahead. In addition, UOB One Card may not also be as popular as its predecessors in Taiwan and Malaysia because the credit card will only be appealing to a small segment in the Singapore's aging society.

RFID Asia Goes Mobile

2007-06-16T08:18:00.000+02:00

RFID Asia has released a couple of new mobile services for the RFID community. These new mobile services enable the access to the RFID Asia website content through mobile devices.

After a 9-month successful trial with Widsets, a mobile service that keeps you up-to-date with the latest news, RFID Asia now provides a direct access from the RFID Asia website to the RFID Asia widget available from the WidSets' Widget Library. By adding the widget, you can keep an eye on RFID Asia Journal Entry directly from your mobile devices.

Beside the RFID Asia widget, you can also access the Mobile version of RFID Asia Journal Entry from your mobile devices using the QR Code provided on the RFID Asia website. The QR Code allows you to fetch and display the latest RFID Asia Journal entry on your mobile devices.

Mobile Caching

2007-05-24T06:19:00.000+02:00

One late afternoon, I went to a public administration office in Helsinki and found out that the office has moved to a new address unfamiliar to me. Realising that I only had a very short time to find the new place before the office closed, I took a few pictures of the moving announcement and the map of the new location using my mobile phone camera. To save time, I immediately left the old office and started to walk around and ask people nearby .

The first several people I asked were familiar with the street, but had no clue about the exact location. I remembered that I have taken the map of the new location using my mobile phone, so I started to show the pictures to the next several people I met on the street using my mobile phone.

A lady immediately recognized the building and gave me a direction. "A good start", I thought. After thanking the lady, I walked toward the direction provided and asked another lady with the map from my mobile phone. Looking at the map, she pointed out that the building was located somewhere across the street block. After thanking her, I rushed to cross the street and went around the block where I found a nice young man walking towards me. I told him about the information from the previous two ladies while showing him the map. He directly pointed out the building I was looking for and suggested me to go inside, because the office is located somewhere in the building. Thankfully, I found the new office before it closed that afternoon.

My camera phone has helped me to store and retrieve in-situ information within seconds. It has also become a means of sharing information. The process of knowledge sharing became smoother with the presence of simple visual information. This visual information presented by mobile phone is similar to the context scenarios in Pair Writing. By sharing a chunk of incomplete information, each passerby has helped me to incrementally build and share a new knowledge about the location in a very short time, which would have not been possible without the help of my mobile phone.

Queueing and Civilization

2007-05-19T11:35:00.000+02:00

In a very competitive environment like Singapore, queueing is a custom, rather than a guarantee. As a part of the society, I also have to bear with this custom. Queueing for trains, tickets, dining, groceries, taxis and even for newspapers.

Sometimes, the time spent for queueing is even longer than the time for acquiring the actual goods and services.

A correspondent sent a letter to TODAY newspaper sharing her experience of queueing for the newspaper at Toa Payoh MRT station. She observed that the people behaved so ungraciously and inconsiderate to others when they queued up.

I was also once queueing for newspaper in the station. I came early in the morning around 7.a.m. before the TODAY's newspaper distributor came. The queue was already long when I arrived. Luckily, I still got the paper for that day. The distribution of the papers lasted less than 15 minutes and so did the queue.

Instead of coming to the station early in the morning without a guarantee to get a newspaper, now I go to the TODAY's website and read the paper online. The paper is already published online at 6.a.m. There is no need for me to rush and waste my time in queue without any guarantee to get the paper. By reading the paper online, I can also know the news, special offers and events earlier than the people who queue.

I wonder if those people queueing at the stations know about the possibilities of reading Today online. It would have saved them a lot of time and energy.

In the Singapore information society, the telecommunication infrastructure is good. The cost of having an Internet connection is quite low. However, the gap of Internet literacy is still wide. In addition, the custom of reading is also difficult to be changed. Reading a newspaper on "paper" is still preferable than reading the electronic version.

People in Singapore still prefer to queue for newspaper rather than accessing it from the Internet. After all, queueing is a part of Singapore civilization. Yet, I am still waiting for the time when TODAY is available on my mobile phone.

Mobile RFID 2.0

2007-04-04T00:45:00.000+02:00

This week, I met diverse key people from universities and industries in Singapore and Malaysia. We discussed about Mobile RFID 2.0 and some other mobile technology projects.

Mobile and wireless technology is indeed emerging in Asia at the moment.

There have been some fruitful discussions with stakeholders for various Mobile RFID 2.0 applications, business cases, community development, including their socio-technological impacts for stakeholders.

Happy Lunar New Year

2007-02-18T07:53:00.000+02:00

The lunar new year is the most important holiday in Chinese calender. This celebration is shared among many nations in Asia, such as Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Taiwanese etc.

Not only in Asian cities, but also in many cities around the globe, the Chinese community with the local government arrange a local celebration of the holiday.

Yesterday, we had a quite big Chinese new year event in Lasipalatsi, Helsinki. There were many stalls and attractions related to Chinese culture. The event was not only attracted to Chinese community, but also to Helsinki community in general. It was so crowded that you would not miss the atmosphere of a Chinese market in Asia.

We saw a lot of interesting performances, such as dragon and lion dances. Everyone was so enthusiastic to watch and document the cultural performances. They tried hard to catch the best moments with their digital cameras and videos. Some people may forget to bring their cameras or videos, so they took their camera phones from their pockets and tried to take as much as pictures and videos from that event. What a jungle of devices above your heads.

Camera phones may not give the most satisfactory image or video results, but the devices help people to catch interesting moments that may happen unexpectedly in their daily life. It is more often that people forget their digital camera or video than their mobile phone.

Pilot Plan Discussion

2007-01-18T23:50:00.000+02:00

Finally, it is time for Mobiled developers to finish some mobiled features, which have not yet been ready, such as MMS feature and some new physical phone lines. I hope they are ready for the pilot in February.

Planning the Mobiled pilot in Helsinki, I had a meeting with Teemu Leinonen discussing about Mobiled, my field study in Finnish schools and some Mobiled-related issues.

I suggested to conduct the pilot with the Arabian Comprehensive School because I had previously conducted a series of field work there and found that mobile learning could be interesting and useful for them. In addition to good ICT infrastructure and tools for teaching and learning activities, the school has already adopted ICT for many years. Most of the teachers are ICT-literate people. Some of them are active ICT users, while the others prefer to use non-ICT artefacts in their pedagogical activities. Teachers have been using computers, Internet, smart board, camera projector and online encyclopedia in combination with other creative conventional teaching methods. The students are also generally ICT-literate.

Despite of high ICT literacy among the teachers in the school, they have not yet used mobile phones for teaching and learning. Even though most students and teachers own and bring mobile phones to the school, they cannot use their mobile phones during classes. In the context of education, some teachers use mobile phones only to call or send messages to other teachers and also parents about student problems. One of the teachers enthusiastically said that the application of mobile phone as a teaching and learning tool would be challenging.

During the meeting, Teemu suggested that the pilot does not have to be the same with the previous ones. I agree with him, because each school in each country faces different challenges. I also think that we need to understand the school situations, problems, challenges and potentials before embarking on a pilot.

Having got some inspirations from other mobile learning projects, I think it is a good opportunity to try out the Mobiled outside the physical classrooms because I believe in the idea of mobile learning as a vehicle to support flexible and contextual learning. The African team has previously tried out Mobiled to enhance indoor classroom activities, so I think it would be interesting to try it out for outdoor activities, especially if the students have to listen, record and submit information from the field. One of the main challenges is to make the activities interactive for both the teachers and students.

Inspired by mobile learning projects in Sussex and Maryland, I suggested that students work on some tasks in groups or individually within a limited range of area, where they can retrieve information about their tasks from some posts. For some tasks, Teemu suggested that students can call Mobiled server and retrieve related information using some search terms given on each post. He further suggested that it would be interesting to try out some materials combining science and English in the form of multimedia.

For the group tasks, I suggested to create some collaborative tasks that require information retrieval from Mobiled to accomplish their tasks in the field. I am particularly interested to try out the Mobiled's capacity as Wikipedia. Since the capability of Mobiled to add information is still limited, I suggested the use of available mobile phone services and features for enhancing such activity.

At the end, the active involvement of the school headmaster and teachers is crucial for this pilot, so I plan to arrange a meeting with them and discuss about the feasibility of conducting the pilot in February.

I'll catch you with my "cam" phone

2007-01-08T22:24:00.000+02:00

Recently, I have been observing the use of mobile phones by several children from 4 to 8 years old. They used different kind of phones, such as Nokia N70, Nokia 5140i, Nokia 6630 and Nokia 6680.

All of those children were very fascinated with camera functions of mobile phones. In the beginning, they thought that it was cool to take a picture with a mobile phone. It seemed for them that interacting with a camera phone was easier and safer than a digital camera. Their parents often warned them when they touched and played with digital cameras. Yet, nobody reprimanded them when playing with mobile phones. They could also use one hand to play with them as well as move easily while trying to catch pictures of their friends. Most of them have already got some interaction with phones, either to make a call, send SMS or just playing with them. None of them have used a mobile phone with a camera.

When they were about to take a picture, they faced difficulties because they did not know what to do/press. Some of those children did not yet read or read fluently. The user interface and interaction on the mobile phones were more complicated than a normal digital camera. Compared to one button to press in taking a picture with the digital camera, there are more steps to do with mobile phones. Those steps include defining buttons to press, scrolling down choosing the right function, defining whether they want to take “image” (photo) or video clip, pressing a button to take the image or video. What the children usually did was coming to me and asking what to press and choose, then they tried to remember the steps by hearts executed the actions and repeated the steps .

I also observed how a very young child used SMS to learn alphabets and numbers by pressing the buttons of the mobile phones. The child could also learn some metaphors from user interface of the mobile phones and their applications. During the process of writing an SMS, the child was suddently confused when they could not erase some words because there was no “C” button on Nokia 5140i, because the child had memorised that by using other phones that a mistake in writing SMS could be erased by pressing the C button.

I learn that it is important to design a consistent user interface and interaction of mobile devices and applications for children. A mobile phone usually has limited numbers and possibilities for physical interactions, yet a physical button could conveys multiple functions instead of one-to-one correlation. Young children may not be able to read, but they interact by memorising a set of procedures. Consistent graphical user interface, metaphor, physical and visual interaction are important in reducing cognitive burden of those children and developing more enjoyable experience when using mobile devices. These aspects are also worth to consider when designing a mobile learning system for this group of users.

The “IF” that I missed

2007-01-06T18:50:00.000+02:00

My excitement turned into a frustration this morning. After making a call to an offline Gizmo user, which was directed to a mobile number, I suddenly heard a notification that I only had 30 minutes left for a conversation. I could not believe what I heard and I kept talking with this person until I finally found out that I talked to myself.

I tried to contact this user again as I understood that I had the rights to call for free to landline and mobile numbers of Gizmo user with a qualifying number from one of the 60 countries, who was not online. A Gizmo voice message advised me to buy Gizmo Out credit to call this user's landline and mobile numbers of the person or call this user by PC-to-PC calling method for free. Interestingly, the voice message told me to check Gizmo Free Call Plan. If this user has a qualifying number, I may contact him/her for free.

Having received this confusing message, I checked the Gizmo project website again and found same information as I understood. Yet, I checked further the Gizmo website and found the following “IF” statement in FAQ that I missed before.

Calls between Gizmo Project users on the PC have always been free. The All Calls Free plan extends this "free calls, anytime" concept by allowing Gizmo Project users to make free landline and mobile calls to other fellow Gizmo Project users in 60 countries around the world.

If both parties are logged into Gizmo Project, you should just make a Gizmo-to-Gizmo call, which has always been a free call. If the person you want to call is not currently online or logged into to Gizmo at the time you call, you can then dial the "home phone" or "mobile phone" numbers they have added into their Gizmo Project profile.

That call will be free provided (IF):

(a) You both are active Gizmo Project users, which just means you make a few calls a week using the software and

(b) are calling a qualifying number in one of the 60 countries for which the plan is offered.

Skype and Gizmo

2007-01-05T10:13:00.000+02:00

I have been using Skype and Skype Out extensively to communicate with friends and relatives abroad for the last two years.

Unless my friends and relatives have Skype account and be online, I would not able to call and communicate for them for free. The only possibility in this kind of situation was to call their landline or mobile numbers. Then, I need to have some credits in my Skype Out.

Calling international numbers with Skype Out is indeed cheaper compared to other VoIP services. However, one of the challenges is put the credit in my Skype account. Once, I used my European credit card. The process was fast and easy, but I needed to pay quite a lot of luxury tax. Now, I use my Asian credit card. In the beginning, it took quite a while for Skype to trust a credit card from this particular country, but finally after several time of transactions with the same card, the process becomes easier for a trusted customer :). Using this Asian card does not cost me extra for a luxury tax. Yet, I still have to pay to make a call using Skype Out.

Recently, I found Gizmo that offers similar services as Skype. Gizmo indeed requires my friends and relatives to have Gizmo account. This is indeed a good promotion efforts of Gizmo. Gizmo also has Gizmo Out service that enables you to call landline as well as mobile numbers of non-Gizmo users. Leaving message at Gizmo is also more convenient because the message will be forwarded to your e-mail that you can access anywhere even with your mobile phone.

There is also an attractive service offered by Gizmo Project that makes me think to use Gizmo more often than Skype nowadays. If my friends and relatives are Gizmo users and they put their landline and mobile numbers in their profiles, I can call to these numbers for FREE.
Isn't that wonderful?
(Note: you need to check the list of countries where you can call their landline and/or mobile numbers)

This actually creates a win-win situation for Gizmo as well as its users. They can get our data for free and we can use their call service for free as well.

One thing to remember
When you use Skype, don't ever open your Gizmo or vice versa, because either one of the programs will not work (even in my Apple).

Pilot plans - soon in Helsinki, Finland

2007-01-04T17:03:00.000+02:00

It is planned that there will be school pilots conducted in Helsinki in February 2006.

I am very excited with the plans as we will try out updated version of Mobiled. Hopefully, I will see a significant improvement and better user experience of this mobile learning service through the pilots.

The Finnish schools normally have already got good ICT infrastructure and facilities, so I hope that these technical matters at the school would not be an issue in the pilot.

I am currently going through again the results from several field study that I conducted during spring and autumn 2006 at Arabian and Laajasalo Comprehensive School, which I believe would be useful for planning some pedagogical activities for the pilot.

Mobile TV: a new future trend

2006-12-12T14:03:00.000+02:00

Mobile TV is good news for those who want flexibility of time and place in watching television

Television is undoubtedly a basic need for some people. People can spend hours sitting and staring in front of the television, watching their favourite television programmes: news, football matches, soap operas, you name it. Loyal television audience, the euphemism of television junkies, may well spend more than 8 hours a day watching television. They will raise their eyebrows if you tell them that you do not watch television or do not own one.

For better or worse, there is good news for them: Mobile TV.

Mobile television or Mobile TV is a new way of watching television. You can watch broadcast programmes for information, entertainment and education on your mobile phones by simply subscribing to TV channel packages with your mobile phones.

Responding to the promising market of Mobile TV, several mobile device manufacturers have started to introduce their Mobile TV devices.

Nokia introduced N92 in November 2005 as the first integrated Digital Video Broadcasting for Handheld (DVB-H) mobile device in the Nokia Nseries. Using the mobile device, you can set reminders for your favourite TV programmes and create personal TV channel lists. In addition, the cellular connectivity can also enable you to interact with added-value services, such as voting, blogging, interactive feedback and web services.

Following N92, Nokia later launched N93 as the ultimate mobile device for spontaneous video recording. This device is designed to work with WLAN, 3G (WCDMA 2100 Mhz), EDGE and GSM (900/1800/1900 Mhz) networks to provide broadband Internet access for browsing, uploading content, sending and receiving emails in addition to the Mobile TV over 3G networks.

LG Electronics, one of the early leading global players in Mobile TV from South Korea, which previously worked with Digital Media Broadcasting (DMB) format for the Korean markets, has expanded their market by supporting the DVB-H format as well, through LG-V900 and LG-U900 since early 2006. LG-U900 has a long-life battery that enables people to watch television for more than three hours. In addition, the device also enables high-speed data transmission, various channel services, a high-resolution image and strong mobile broadcasting.

Another important global player from South Korea, Samsung, has shown its authority in Mobile TV by providing diverse handsets that can support any formats, such as Terrestrial DMB (T-DMB) and Satellite DMB (S-DMB) (Asia-Pacific), DVB-H (Europe), and MediaFLO (United States). P900 and P910, which particularly aims to target European market, have successfully been tested during the FIFA World Cup 2006. Only recently, Samsung launches SGH-P930 for the Italian market following the success of the SGH-P920 launch last May. The SGH-P930 combines not only the latest Mobile TV technology, but also HSDPA technology, which enables high-speed data transmission.

RFID-enabled shopping and traveling in Japan

2006-12-10T10:37:00.000+02:00

The ubiquitous emerging application of mobile Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology aims to enhance convenience, effective and efficient life in busy Japanese environment

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is an emerging technology that has started to change the life of the Japanese information society, particularly through mobile payment.

Through the use of Suica, ICOCA and FeliCa, people are now able to pay easier than using cash.

Suica is the abbreviation for Super Urban Intelligent Card. Informally, it is also known as “Suisui ikeru IC card”, which means “IC card that lets you move swiftly”. First issued in November 2001, the cards are currently used in Tokyo and Sendai areas.

While, ICOCA, the IC Operating CArds, is another traveling card issued by West Japan Railway Company. It has been in use since November 2003 in the Kinki Region. In the Kansai dialect, “ikoka” means “Shall we go?”.

Similar to Helsinki Travel Card, Suica and ICOCA can be found about the size of a credit card. Inside the card, a thin integrated circuit that has capabilities to store different kinds of information is embedded. The cards can be used either as a solely prepaid fare card or as double card - commuter pass and prepaid fare card. Since August 2004, the interoperability of the Suica and ICOCA cards have been higher. Their usages were no longer limited to only certain areas defined in the beginning. In the near future, it is expected that anyone in Japan can travel only with one card. It has been claimed during the same year that there were more than 9 million people in Japan using Suica.

In addition to train card, the Suica card also offers possibilities for the users to do shopping as well. Touching your Suica card against Suica reader in kiosks, convenience store, cafes and restaurants enables users to pay for their shoppings, drinks and meal. There are more and more places in Japan, not limited to the ones inside the train stations, where you can go around and pay easily the bills without having to take out your wallet.

One travel and shopping card at the same time is the only beginning toward the efforts of creating convenience, effective and efficient life in busy Japanese environment. Mobile FeliCa, which are known as Osaifu Keitai, the mobile phone digital wallet system, has the answers. Developed by NTT DoCoMo in summer 2004 in Japan, each FeliCa mobile phone users nowadays can do online payment, e-ticketing, identification and normal shopping with a single FeliCa mobile phone. Since January 2006, FeliCa was introduced as the commuter tickets, Mobile Suica, for Japan Rail East customer.

Currently, there are more than 8 million users in Japan using the FeliCa Digital Wallet. Moving around with a single FeliCa phone in Japan makes your life easier.

ICT for tertiary education in Indonesia

2006-08-24T13:50:00.000+02:00

Graduates who can utilise their knowledge and contribute to their community is the result of a successful education. The success requires a combination of several factors, such as active and positive participation from educational staff and students, the organisational maturity of educational institution and the practice of suitable educational methodologies.

In some highly-populated developing countries, such as Indonesia, tertiary, undergraduate and postgraduate education may become an exclusive, and often expensive experience for many people. Public educational institutions, which are usually subsidized by government, often fail to accommodate all prospective students due to insufficient capacity. In addition, the alternative of enrolling in a private educational institution is often hampered by high tuition fees.

From the stand point of educational organisations, the ratio of educational staff to students is often very low, due to the stagnant growth in the number of educational staff. This condition often results in more tasks and responsibilities for the educational staff and less opportunities to update and improve their skills and knowledge.

In Indonesia, the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Universitas terbuka (Open University) has opened up some potential educational opportunities, such as:
● Acquiring, updating and improving skills and knowledge while earning a living
● Distance education
● Cooperation with some other educational institutions
● Multidisciplinary knowledge sharing and building

In developing countries, such as Indonesia, the main prohibitive factors for this approach include the followings:
● Lack of sufficient infrastructure
● Low quality educational materials
● Untrained human resources

Mobile Learning (m-Learning)

2006-07-13T16:17:00.000+02:00

For the past few years, during my work in the field of mobile learning (m-Learning), people frequently asked about the meaning of mobile learning, how it is different from the usual educational practices and also its comparison with e-learning.

The answer has never been simple.

During the Internet boom era, people started to talk about e-Learning. e-Learning is a process of learning, which is not limited to physical places, due to the possibility of having virtual presence. Tutors and students could be present in different physical places while participating in a learning process. Learning materials are usually available in the forms of electronic documents and multimedia.

Nonetheless, e-Learning has never been a hit in developing countries, mostly due to the limited infrastructure for accessing the Internet.

Mobile learning is about to change this state of affairs.

Most people in any part of the world regardless of age, socio-economical status and background are the loyal users of mobile technology, in particular mobile phones. It is often more convenient for people in developing countries, such as Indonesia, to access mobile features than the Internet through fixed and often costly infrastructure.

In mobile learning, mobility is a key aspect. Learning activities are no longer limited to physical classroom interaction. With a high degree of mobility, mobile learning process is more apparent as some socio-cultural activities than a learning process based on text-books and experts (teachers, lecturers or tutors).

Consequently, mobile interaction should support learning activities that are more contextual than the usual classroom or e-Learning practices.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools, such as mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and tablet PCs, should play an important role in a framework that supports learning activities. For example, the use of Push-to-talk (PTT) service could make group communication in learning easier.

With all the mobile learning potentials in the horizon, it is difficult to ignore that mobile telecommunication service cost and mobile usability remain the main barriers of mobile learning.

A closer look at Finnish information society

2006-06-03T12:33:00.000+02:00

Introduction
In the last few years, Finland has been awarded with a numerous prizes of excellence, such as “the most competitive economy”,“the least corrupt country”, “the home base of the most successful mobile phone company”,“the best readers of the world”,“the best students in maths in Europe” (Markkula, 2005). In addition to that, I personally watched the marketing campaign movie at the Foreign Ministry during the visit at their office on the 10th March 2006, which highlights Finland's best areas in Information Communication Technology (ICT), Economy, Research and Education. In this essay, I will describe some of my thoughts about Finland as an information society.

Finland as an information Society
The penetration of technologies, such as mobile phones and Internet, has ranked high in Finland. According to the statistics in December 2004, almost 94% of the households have broadband connection and 30% of them are in use. Among the Internet users within EU, Finns are among the active ones. 61% of 15-74 age group had their own email addresses and 63% of them use their email daily (Nurmela, 2004). People get access to PCs and Internet either from home, workplaces or public access point. Mobile phone subscribers in Finland reach to 87 per 100 inhabitants in Finland at the end of 2002 and by November 2003, 92% of those aged 15-74 had a personal mobile phones and 74% of the population send the text messages weekly (Tuoma, 2004).

Over the last decades, Finland, the seventh largest country with 5.2 million people, has developed from a traditional society into an information society. As the information society, Information Communication Technology (ICT) has played a significant role in improving productivity and changing the way of life of Finns in the terms of production, work, education, distribution channels and habit. Citizens are required to have a high level of ICT literacy and the ability to use and interact with different ICT systems and devices (Fagernäs 2005).

Bank sector is an example how ICT is used in the Finnish public sector. People do not need to queue to pay the bills as most of the bank transaction can be done on-line, for example: Nordea Bank. Even at the Nordea Bank office, it is common that customers are provided with PCs connected to the Internet so they can conduct self-service transaction on the spot.

Not only bank sector, but almost all organizations in Finland have their websites. The websites provide any kind of information and sometimes also online services. In most of Finnish universities, for instance, one can register for a course, take an on-line course, have an on-line learning environment, send inquiry on-line and get their academic credits. In the public library, such as Helsinki Public Library, the citizen can search for a book, read electronic books and journal, borrow and renew books.

ICT has also played a significant role in Finnish education. Instead of being used as an office administrative tool, during my field study at Laajasalo and Arabia comprehensive schools, I observed that the computer and Internet have become a part of everyday learning tools in assisting teachers and students in their educational activities.

The extensive interaction with ICT has formed a unique way of thinking in the Finnish society. The Finnish people is more comfortable to communicate by e-mail regardless their social status. Based on my observation and experience living and having social interactions in several countries in Europe and Asia, the e-mail communication in Finland mostly has the same power as any other ways of communication. Finnish people are usually good in e-mail communication. Furthermore, the ICT literacy of Finnish people is quite high, in a sense, that they face no significant difficulties in accessing and using on-line services or other public services.

ICT has also changed the role of tasks in several some work areas such as customer service. The role of customer service officers in some industries has mainly changed from answering customers' enquiries into the responsibility to guide customers accessing information available on a website.

ICT has also played an important role in empowering the citizens to participate actively in media. A weblog, a web-based publication media, is getting popular in Finland. Individuals and organizations in Finland start to use blogs to publish and share digital information. Many university lecturers, for instance at the Media Lab and ePedagogy department of the University of Art and Design, start to use blog as a media of communication among the students and teachers. Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest newspaper organization in Finland, has now several blog sections. The blog sections can give some opportunities for their readers to comment on their editorials. Blog has opened an opportunity for the society to express their thought publicly.

Beside the computer and Internet, mobile technology also plays an important role in the Finnish information society. Finland is the home of Nokia, one of the biggest and most successful mobile phone company. People from different age groups in Finland use the mobile technology extensively.

They use mobile telephone to carry on various activities from personal communication, entertainment as well as public service usages. Mobile phone is more than a “call and messaging” device, especially for young generation. The multimedia phones have opened up the possibility to use mobile phones as a camera, a video, a music player, etc. There have been many mobile ICT games, applications and services developed using mobile technology.

Helsinki City Transport is a concrete example where mobile technology is being used in daily public services to cater for ticket purchasing services. Using mobile phones, the passengers can buy a bus ticket shortly before getting into the bus. They can simply dial a certain number and receive an SMS containing an electronic code that they can show to the bus driver within a certain period of time as their bus ticket.

Another example is the use of mobile services for laundry payment. At HOAS apartments, the public laundry services use telecommunication services to carry on their activities. The laundry services are automatically charged to mobile phone billing to ease the laundry payment, after dialing a certain phone number and activating a laundry machine.

In summary, ICT has become a significant part of the Finns' way of life. As with any technology, there should be any positive and negative impacts. During my limited observation, I can only reflect some positive impacts of the ICT on the Finnish society. However, a further reflection is still needed to assess the negative impacts of ICT. The readiness of the Finnish society in responding to the challenges resulted from the current use of ICT will determine whether ICT could become a part of the long-term way of life for Finns.

References

Data from Juha Nurmela, Statistics Finland, March 2004.

Markkula, Markku. (2005). How to Get on the Top of PISA Tower...and other enigmas of lifelong learning in engineering education in ICT Cluster Finland Review 2005.

Fagernäs, Leif. (2005). ICT–Essential Tool for the Future in ICT Cluster Finland Review 2005.

Tuomi, Ilka. (2004). Broadband Status. http://www.meaningprocessing.com/personalPages/
tuomi/
articles/FinlandBB.pdf. Accessed 15th May 2006.

Cybrary

2006-05-24T19:50:00.000+02:00

During the International Conference in Multicultural Learning and Media Literacy in the Modern World, Keiso Katsura presented his work on Cybrary entitled “Creating the opening days and hours display systems for multiple cultural facilities.” In his project, he is exploring a mobile application using Perl/CGI script programming to give real-time information about library in the worlds (the opening and closing hours, the websites, the calendars and events).

This application uses color image files and text that can be changed by date, hour and minute. He said that he was preparing to build applications for both PC and mobile version soon. His Cybrary service is currently only available in Japan.

He explained that he was currently updating all data manually and by himself. Considering large amount of data about the libraries in the world that available and necessity to update it on daily basis, he needs an automatic instead of manual system. With only a manual system, he would not be able to accomplish his design goal, which is to provide up-to-date information about libraries and cultural facilities in different regions and countries.

Video Conference with Taganrog State University

2006-04-24T16:52:00.000+02:00

On 24th April 2006, I participated as an observant in a video conference course conducted at Media Lab, UIAH.
The course is a joint project among Taganrog State University of Radio Engineering in Rusia, University of Tampere, University of Art and Design Helsinki and University of Helsinki in Finland. This course is coordinated by Professor Tapio Varis, Gavan Titley, Peter McGrory and Ksenia Avetisova. The main target audience of the course are students from the Linguistic Department of Taganrog State University. Most of the tutors come from several Finnish universities mentioned above.

Today, we had Heikki Maenpaa and Professor Tapio Varis shared their experience how ICT could be used to build communication and facilitate the sharing knowledge and learning process at an international level. They gave an example, how they had used Skype, a real-time web-based ICT application, to introduce Finnish music and songs to Japanese national television audience.

Nowadays, there are many alternatives how teacher can easily pick any tools or use any services available from Internet and use them right away to enhance their teaching activities. However, a common understanding among stakeholders about the goals, philosophy, understanding, literacy about the new tools is necessary before starting to use them, especially in facilitating international collaborative learning process. Teachers and students need to have same passion and speak same language are a couple of important things to be considered in a multicultural distance learning. In addition to that, Heikki emphasized that teachers needed to have creativity to carry out this kind of learning process. Creativity should come from the heart, not a money-oriented matter.

During the lecture, I observed that awareness of using ICT to enhance learning and cultural sharing is different from each country and each person. For example: during the question and answer session, only one out of thirteen student in Taganrog University knows about Skype and other Instant Messaging services. Surprisingly, in Japan, the audience in the television station, were amazed when Tapio in Finland and Heikki in Japan conducted Skype video conference, played music and sang a song together.

The lecture was very interesting. The students in Taganrog University seemed to have a lot of fun, although there were some technical problems there. The electricity was dead and they could not connect the computer to LCD projector and beam the lecture on the wall. With a very small computer in the middle, the students carefully listened to the lecture in a half-circle sitting position. They followed the lecture very seriously. In most of the time, they did not spontaneously ask any questions except they were given a chance by the moderators or speakers. The quality of sound was quite good, but there were difficulties in seeing the faces of the students during the lecture.

Relate this experience to my own research work in ICT for developing countries, such as Indonesia, international collaborative video-conferencing lecture seems to be an good alternative for the teachers and students to expand the horizon and experience new ways of learning. Currently, there are a lot of Indonesians, who wants to pursue their further study abroad, however only few get the opportunity to to time and financial restrictions. Similar video conference technique may be not affordable for most educational institutions, yet using current web-based application, such as Skype and Instant Messaginging, can be more cost-effective and efficient. We only need to know and decide wisely, which tools are appropriate, effective and efficient in facilitating different ways of learning. Teachers and students need to grow their awareness the potentials of the tools and services for learning as well as their literacy in operating them.

RFID and mobile technology in learning

2006-04-19T19:48:00.000+02:00

We have got numerous and various examples of social softwares, groupwares, mobile and digital television medias already available in front of us. Some have been used for learning while others only for fun. I do not think that we should add by creating another similar one, instead we should consider combine or hybrid them into a new one.

Designing a mobile learning system that incorporates RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology, social software and digital television for both formal and informal learning sounds very challenging.

The use of RFID and mobile technology has opened up different possibilities how to make business better and life easier and more comfortable. The potentials for learning are certainly there. Yet, they just need to be investigated further.

In Tokyo, people can use their “wallet phone”, an RFID-enabled mobile phone, as a train pass, as their money to make a transaction, as a means to get updated information and discount coupons from the “bookmarked” local stores in the neighborhood.

In Korea, people have a possibility to read a book in a futuristic apartment without flipping it from a large screen equipped with RFID.

RFID and mobile technology has also been investigated for edutainment in the Museum of Natural History in Denmark.

Nokia has launched its first product that supports Near Field Communication (NFC), an emerging RFID technology, which was claimed to be the first in the world, in 2004. There are nowadays more RFID phone product lines being launched. This fact certainly contributes to a greater worldwide opportunity of new media learning.