Buerk, R. (2010). “Ringtone Therapy Sweeping Mobile Phone-Mad Japan.” Retrieved 23. August, 2010: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8591845.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8591845.stm Summary: Buerk lets the world in on a new craze sweeping across Japan—a country known for being on the frontier of technological innovation. What’s the craze? Ring-tone therapy! The Japan Ring Tone Laboratory run by Matsumi Suzuki is producing ring-tones which they claim have therapeutic uses. One such tone touts the ability to dislodge pollen from a user’s nose by holding the handset to the nose while the ring-tone plays, another can help one lose weight, and another helps insomniacs fall asleep. Index, Japan’s mobile phone content provider acknowledges there is no proof that these therapeutic ring-tones actually work, but they note that people must believe in their effectiveness due to the large amount of downloads. The therapeutic ring-tone works by playing a tone emitted from the handset of the cell-phone. Depending on the ring-tone the therapeutic effect is different. If one has allergy problems, they can download and play a ring tone, place it up to their nose and it will in principle dislodge the pollen from the nose, reducing allergy symptoms. If one is having sleeping problems, another ring-tone once downloaded onto the cell…
Tag Archive for mobile phone
Conceptual Design, Contributor, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Users
Mobile phones expose human habits.
by Georgina •
Article: Fildes, J. (2008). “Mobile phones expose human habits.” BBC News. Retrieved 4 June, 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7433128.stm Summary: As the title suggests this article concerns the discovery of human mobility habits via the use of mobile phones. In other words over 100, 000 mobile phones were tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements. The study showed, that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again, and that most people move less than 10km on regular basis. The study is seen as important as it can help when assessing the situation during a viral outbreak such as the Avian Flu and in the forecasting of traffic. Previously similar studies had been performed with GPS which proved to expensive, surveys which proved unreliable and dollar bills. Dollar bills were tracked in order to reconstruct human movements however this seemed only to prove random patterns and did not give a complete picture of people s movements. The phone tracking worked differently. Each time a participant made or received a call or text message, the location of the mobile base station relaying the data was recorded. The results showed that people moved around…