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Mobile Computing Apps

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PCQ Bureau
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Many research teams are now displaying prototype applications that bring such concepts to life. For example a team at the University of Arizona has developed Coplink to help detectives solve crimes. Coplink uses statistics-based algorithms to identify relations in case-data, between suspects, victims, locations and cars. A case investigator might have information about the type of getaway car, the appearance of the robber and the area where the crime took place. He could use this information to search the case database for information on similar cases and potentially come up with a list of suspects. The value added here lies in the fact that the system has the potential to reduce to a few hours a job that previously used to take a week.

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Elsewhere, researchers have wired up complete buildings with networks of sensors that can sense the location of every employee in the building. Employees wear special badges that are detected by these sensors. A large number of potential applications are being demonstrated using this. For example your telephone call gets automatically routed to the phone nearest to you. Move to a PC and it automatically configures itself for you. Issue a print command and the document is automatically printed on the printer that is closest to you. Security officers can easily locate employees moving around suspiciously. In fact the technology is a little frightening, and in the worst case it might make George Orwell seem an optimist.

Many of these applications might strike you as far-fetched, especially in India. One can imagine wiring up large chunks of a city like Cambridge so that users can use a combination PDA–mobile phone device to log on and get details of tourist attractions near their current location. Or use a service to locate the nearest Chinese restau- rant. It seems unlikely that such services would succeed here. So what will succeed in India? 

I would love to see an application that allows one to register complaints about corrupt utility employees using a mobile device. Log on to a public utility service and key in the name of the employee. The application uses the information input, along with your current location to update a list of complaints, indexed by employee name, on a Web page open to all. Corruption statistics could be compiled and an annual function organized where the winner would receive the Corrupt Employee of the year award.

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Virtual blood banks are another hot idea. Potential donors could register themselves with the blood bank and provide both their normal daytime location and their mobile device ID (if any). People looking for donors could log in to the service and receive contact details of potential donors in their area. You could compile the list of potential donors using the static location information provided by the donor or based upon current location, as indicated by the location of mobile device. Many up market restaurants now page waiting customers through mobile phones. This idea can be extended to managing queues and waiting lists in general. Imagine courts paging you an hour before your case came up for hearing 

The Bottom Line No one knows what the killer mobile computing application will be, specially in India. That shouldn’t stop one from dreaming.

Gautama Ahuja  runs a turnkey software company,

AHC Infotek

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