Mobile Systems

Leveraging Mobile Technology To Achieve Teaching Goals

Mobile Innovations, Mobile Marketing/Apps, Mobile Systems, Telephone/Mobile Lead Generators

Leveraging Mobile Technology to Achieve Teaching Goals

The sudden move to remote online instruction, coupled with social justice issues plaguing the United States, has forced college and university instructors to grapple with what it means to be a good teacher in socially distanced, unpredictable, and emotionally charged circumstances.

As instructional designers, we have noticed an undercurrent in our interactions with new and experienced university instructors that indicates they are doubting their teaching skills, confronting uncomfortable questions about their roles, making pedagogical decisions on the fly, and trying to use technologies that were once only written into science fiction novels.

While the move to remote teaching has been challenging, it has also provided an opportunity to reenvision pedagogy. As colleges and universities have collectively moved online, teaching and learning professionals can leverage mobile learning (m-learning) to inform and facilitate effective teaching in a virtual environment.

Mobile learning: Using portable computing devices (such as iPads, laptops, tablet PCs, personal digital assistants [PDAs], and smartphones) with wireless networks enables mobility and mobile learning, allowing teaching and learning to extend to spaces beyond the traditional classroom. Within the classroom, mobile learning gives instructors and learners increased flexibility and new opportunities for interaction.^Footnote1

Contemporary m-learning definitions and discourse focus on using technologies that support the mobility of learners and teachers and that are based on constructivist and learner-centered pedagogies that promote individualization, flexibility, and communal engagement with content regardless of whether a course is online or face-to-face. To benefit from affordances like these, Yu (Aimee) Zhang, CEO of WEMOSOFT in Wollongong, Australia, recommends using m-learning in formal higher education to supplement face-to-face or online classes.^Footnote2 Near-ubiquitous mobile-device ownership and a stable combination of agile technological infrastructure and widespread internet connectivity offer opportunities for the key affordances and strategies of m-learning to take center stage during the coronavirus pandemic.^Footnote3 That is not to say that all students (or instructors) have fully equitable opportunities to access tertiary education through mobile devices—as the pandemic has revealed—but it does emphasize the current collective ability among colleges and universities to maintain a somewhat reasonable level of instructional continuity—something that would not have been possible just ten years ago.^Footnote4

Amid the challenges of emergency remote teaching and learning, college and university instructors confront a complex set of pedagogical decisions as they try to balance the affordances and constraints of technologies with student access, learning outcomes, and the instructor’s teaching goals.

Our Mobile Learning Special Interest Research Group has been investigating this pedagogical balancing act for a few years, and although our participants were teaching face-to-face classes before the pandemic, our findings about the ability of instructors to achieve their teaching goals via m-learning remain applicable—and possibly more relevant—today.^Footnote5

Teaching Goals: Prevalent Themes

As instructional designers, part of our work focuses on supporting instructors as they integrate technologies to improve their teaching. Understanding instructors’ experiences provides invaluable insight into the benefits of m-learning. This article presents findings from interviews with nineteen instructors (at four University of California [UC] campuses) who were using m-learning strategies in their teaching before the pandemic.

We examined the instructors’ perceptions of how m-learning supported or helped them to achieve their teaching goals. During the interviews, instructors told us that integrating m-learning in their courses supported their teaching goals by increasing student engagement, allowing students to learn specific skills, enabling the creation and use of analytics in class, and boosting instructor efficiency.

The Most Prevalent Themes Related to Teaching Goals

Student engagement (n=11): Using m-learning helped to increase student participation by stimulating their interest, creating a safe environment, building a class community, and/or providing multiple opportunities for and means of participation.^Footnote6
Teaching specific skills and concepts (n=14): Using m-learning made it easier to teach complex concepts and skills related to future professional careers.
Analytics for and about learning (n=11): Using m-learning helped to inform the teaching that is going on, whether it is students collecting and analyzing data or teachers collecting data as a formative assessment.
Efficiency (n=6): Using m-learning helped students to get through content faster and/or allowed students time to think more deeply.

Student Engagement

The instructors noted that the use of m-learning helped to increase student engagement by stimulating their interest, creating a safe environment, building a class community, and providing multiple opportunities for and means of participation.

First, the instructors we interviewed for our study said that they used mobile strategies in ways they felt would stimulate student interest and motivation. For example, Ozcan Gulacar, a member of the chemistry faculty at UC Davis, found that student engagement occurred by heightening students’ ownership of their learning.

Giving students a chance to share their answers via proper technology increases their ownership of the material, and they become more engaged in discussions. They pay more attention to the explanations. Basically, their interest in learning the right answer increases immensely.^Footnote7

Similarly, our interviews showed the importance of student ownership when they were collecting and generating data as part of their learning experiences; students’ agency in that process kept them motivated and engaged (see “Analytics for and about Learning” below).

Second, instructors felt that using m-learning increased student engagement by creating a safe environment in the course. Interestingly, this safe environment was created in one of two opposing ways: Some students appreciated that mobile devices lowered communication barriers so they could get to know their peers better, while other students liked that using personal-response systems allowed them to participate anonymously in discussions, thus encouraging their engagement.

As Heather Macias, now an education faculty member at California State University, Long Beach, explained, “The anonymity and low stakes make [students] more willing to [share their ideas] because nobody knows what” any individual student responded.^Footnote8

Third, m-learning allowed instructors to create a sense of community because the familiarity bred through the use of m-learning strategies helped to make large classrooms feel smaller. Emma Levine, now a member of the music faculty at California Polytechnic State University, reported that when her class uses Slack for instant messaging, “[students] don’t feel anonymous. They come to [class] because I know who they are, and other people know who they are. Having that sense of belonging, wanting to come, and [having] some type of accountability” encourages them to attend.^Footnote9

Finally, students could engage more often during the course, as they had multiple opportunities and means to participate. As Macias said, “[Using mobile technology] gives me more . . . ways to get students hooked into a lesson or participate. I like it because it gives all the students the chance to participate, assuming they all have . . . access to a device, without the pressure of [having] to raise [their] hand.”^Footnote10

When their teaching goals centered around increasing student engagement, instructors appeared to feel that mobile technologies helped to stimulate student interest and motivation, create a safe environment and a sense of community, and provide students with multiple opportunities and ways to participate. It is interesting to note that these four benefits of m-learning occurred in overlapping and intersecting ways, not in isolation.

Specific Skills and Concepts

Instructor comments indicated that m-learning facilitated improved student mastery of specific skills and concepts in two important ways. First, instructors felt that m-learning helped them to teach students specific digital skill sets that they needed for their future careers. Nic Barth, a member of the geology faculty at UC Riverside, said that m-learning skills help to provide students with a competitive advantage:

The motivation [for using iPads] was to not use [them] as a replacement for teaching students how to map with pencil and paper but to extend it to the next skill level, where okay now you know how to do that, now we can train you how to do this digitally. And that’s something that is a highly sought-after, marketable skill that they can then take and make themselves more competitive either in grad school or in the job pool.^Footnote11

Second, instructors indicated that integrating mobile learning allowed them to more easily create rich learning environments in which to teach complex concepts. For example, Ashish Sood, a business faculty member at UC Riverside, uses a fully online, game-based approach to teach his students about empathy in a business setting. He describes how students learn about risk tolerance by completing a pricing strategy simulation:

In a standard case analysis, you [try to] put yourself in the shoes of a company or a manager and [consider why a manager chose a particular strategy]. But when you are actually playing a simulation game . . . it changes the perspective to, “How should I decide? What is the best way to think about this issue?” and that’s when the learning and the understanding of the concept really sinks in.^Footnote12

Whether making use of simulations, visual representations, or demonstrations, instructors who used mobile technologies to illustrate or expand concepts in a more concrete way found that students could more easily understand and apply those concepts, skills, and methods. Often, the application of the technology was taught for future professional careers, and skills or concepts were made relevant by providing opportunities to apply twenty-first-century digital skills to authentic, real-world problems or contexts.

Analytics for and about Learning

Instructors noted that m-learning gave students the opportunity to practice collecting and analyzing data, contribute data to course content, and demonstrate understanding in formative assessments.

Randall Long, who is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Ohio, wanted to provide more robust opportunities for his students to fully develop sampling methods and data-analysis skills. His teaching goal was to have students create a large dataset from their fieldwork to complete their final group paper.

Long asked students to play Pokémon Go and systematically collect Pokémon data in a Google Sheet over a few weeks. After students used Pokémon Go to practice sampling concepts and methods, Long was impressed by the obvious improvement in the substance and overall quality of the group papers compared to those from previous years.^Footnote13

Student-generated data can also help to facilitate meaningful class discussions. Bob Blake, a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Davis, noted that using mobile technologies in his linguistics class helped to fuel discussions about course content because students themselves were represented in the data. He said that he uses mobile technology to get students to talk and share with each other.

Nobody wants to talk or share very much about their language. It’s a very personal thing. . . . So, we try to use technology to kind of give us a screen to look through. . . . They’ll type in [a word or phrase from their language in response to a scenario], and then suddenly I have all of that data right there. . . . So, we just analyze it, and it provides me the raw data for the types of points I’m trying to make [about language use].^Footnote14

These student-generated examples became the data that was used to teach course content. Drawing from real-life examples prompted meaningful discussions.

Finally, data collected from students in formative assessments provided an invaluable opportunity for some instructors to gauge student understanding. Shane Jimerson, a professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara, described how he uses data collection to gauge student comprehension in real time:

During the class, I tend to use [Kahoot] as a way of seeing what folks are knowledgeable of, and then that informs me in the moment that “we already know about this,” based on the readings and discussions and other resources. But then there seems to be a few [questions] where there is more variation in the responses. So then I can provide further discussion and exploration to try to make that clear.^Footnote15

In Jimerson’s case, using Kahoot to formatively assess students’ learning provided an opportunity in which he could immediately address any confusion students were having or move on to more difficult concepts.

These examples highlight how instructors leveraged m-learning strategies—in which students collected or generated data—for teaching and learning. These techniques invited students to be active participants and make important contributions to the exchange of ideas. Additionally, real-time learning analytics for formative assessment immediately informed instructors about students’ knowledge gaps.

Efficiency

Instructors also noted that m-learning allowed them to get through content more quickly or deeply and improve the speed of the feedback cycle.

Barth distributed “geo pads,” iPads equipped with GIS software, to teach skills and concepts needed for field mapping. He said that this integration of mobile technology resulted in “surprise” time-saving affordances, allowing students time to dig into the more meaningful aspects of the content.

[The use of iPads] simplifies and makes a lot of things more efficient, such [as] the more mundane task [of] locating yourself on a map, for example. It could take a minute, but if you have a tablet that has built-in GPS, it’s a second. Or, if you’re taking a measurement with the tablet, that’s like two or three seconds versus like a minute of playing around with the compass to take that same measurement. And so it’s making things a lot more efficient. [Students] can then focus more of that time on actually understanding what’s going on around them using more critical-thinking skills.^Footnote16

Jim Burnette, an academic coordinator at UC Riverside, noted that using e-notebooks made the feedback cycle more efficient:

The paper notebooks took a little while to grade, and so the feedback cycle was a little too slow. So [students] didn’t improve very much in their notebook skills. I think having gone to the e-notebook made the feedback cycle much faster; [students] are actually keeping better notebooks.^Footnote17

In these cases, mobile technologies made teaching more efficient and provided students the opportunity to spend more time digging into the more meaningful aspects of the course content. In addition, mobile technologies also provided the instructor the opportunity to give students feedback more quickly, resulting in improvements in students’ work.

Takeaways

While the use cases in this study are all unique, span disciplines, and largely represent m-learning within face-to-face courses, m-learning strategies could also help to guide instructors’ pedagogical balancing act during emergency remote teaching and beyond. This study demonstrates the variety of ways that m-learning technologies can help instructors in their ongoing efforts to become better teachers:

Build and maintain classroom community by creating safe spaces that allow for peer interaction as well as anonymity.
Increase student interest and motivation by providing multiple means and opportunities for participation.
Illustrate concepts or topics more clearly.
Develop students’ emotional, cognitive, and technology-based skills for their future careers.
Increase engagement by having students use their mobile devices to generate, collect, and analyze data.
Identify and adapt to gaps in student learning.
Facilitate a more efficient feedback cycle for student learning.
Get through basic concepts more quickly, allowing students more time to engage deeply with complex concepts.

Although our study focused on faculty members’ experiences, research on student perspectives demonstrates that m-learning benefits students in similar ways (by creating safe spaces for peer interaction, increasing student interest by offering multiple opportunities to participate, and supporting students who increasingly rely on mobile technology).^Footnote18

As instructors and instructional designers, it is essential that we understand the innovative ways in which using m-learning helps us to achieve our teaching goals during this time of instructional upheaval. As a majority of students use mobile devices to complete online coursework, and almost all students have more than one mobile device, designing with m-learning in mind is essential to support student learning, provide more equitable access, and improve instructors’ confidence in their ability to grapple with pedagogical issues in new ways.^Footnote19

By: Mindy Colin, Samantha Eastman, Margaret Merrill and Alex Rockey

Source: Leveraging Mobile Technology to Achieve Teaching Goals | EDUCAUSE

Notes

“Mobile Learning,” EDUCAUSE (website), n.d., accessed January 19, 2021. Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.
Yu (Aimee) Zhang, “Characteristics of Mobile Teaching and Learning,” in Handbook of Mobile Teaching and Learning, eds. Yu (Aimee) Zhang and Dean Cristol (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2019), 1–21. Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.
Michael M. Grant, “Difficulties in Defining Mobile Learning: Analysis, Design Characteristics, and Implications,” Educational Technology Research and Development 67 no. 2 (January 2019): 361–388. Jump back to footnote 3 in the text.
Nate Ralph, “Perspectives: COVID-19, and the Future of Higher Education,” Bay View Analytics (website), 2020. Jump back to footnote 4 in the text.
Alex Rockey, et al., “Spotlighting Innovative Use Cases of Mobile Learning,” The Emerging Learning Design Journal 6 no. 1 (2019); Mindy Colin, et al., “M-Learning at UC: Practices, Affordances, and Teaching Styles,” (poster presented at ELI Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA, February 19, 2019). Jump back to footnote 5 in the text.
N refers to number of participants. Jump back to footnote 6 in the text.
Ozcan Gulacar, interview by authors, audio recording, Davis, November 20, 2017. Jump back to footnote 7 in the text.
Heather Macias, interview by authors, audio recording, Santa Barbara, February 16, 2018. Jump back to footnote 8 in the text.
Emma Levine, interview by authors, audio recording, Santa Barbara, February 2, 2018. Jump back to footnote 9 in the text.
Macias, interview, February 16, 2018. Jump back to footnote 10 in the text.
Nic Barth, interview by authors, video recording, Riverside, December 14, 2017. Jump back to footnote 11 in the text.
Ashish Sood, interview by authors, video recording, Riverside, March 16, 2018. Jump back to footnote 12 in the text.
Randall Long, interviews by authors, Santa Barbara, February 16, 2018; October 26, 2018. Jump back to footnote 13 in the text.
Bob Blake, interview by authors, audio recording, Davis, November 30, 2017. Jump back to footnote 14 in the text.
Shane Jimerson, interview by authors, audio recording, December 1, 2017. Jump back to footnote 15 in the text.
Nic Barth, interview by authors, video recording, Riverside, December 14, 2017. Jump back to footnote 16 in the text.
Jim Burnette, interview by authors, video recording, Riverside, February 13, 2018. Jump back to footnote 17 in the text.
See, for example: Enrique Alvarez Vazquez, Manoel Cortes-Mendez, Ryan Striker, Lauren Singelmann, et al., “Lessons Learned Using Slack in Engineering Education: An Innovation-Based Learning Approach,” (presentation, 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference, Virtual Online, June 22, 2020); Jorge Fonseca Cacho, “Using Discord to Improve Student Communication, Engagement, and Performance,” (poster presentation, UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo, University of Nevada Las Vegas, January 23, 2020). Jump back to footnote 18 in the text.
David L. Clinefelter, Carol B. Aslanian, Andrew J. Magda, Online College Students 2019: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences, research report, (Louisville, KY: Wiley edu, LLC, June 2019); “Mobile Fact Sheet,” PEW Research Center, Internet & Technology, June 12, 2019. Jump back to footnote 19 in the text.

Mindy Colin is an Instructional Consultant at UC Santa Barbara.

Samantha Eastman is an Instructional Design Consultant at UC Riverside.

Margaret Merrill is a Senior Instructional Design Consultant at UC Davis.

Alex Rockey is an Instructional Technologist Instructor at Bakersfield College.

COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps Could Be Turned Into Tools For Domestic Abuse

Content Marketing, Covid19 News, Mobile Apps, Mobile Marketing/Apps, Mobile Systems

If governments don’t focus on strong privacy protections in their COVID-19 contact tracking tools, it could exacerbate domestic abuse and endanger survivors, according to a warning from women’s support charities.

They’ve urged the U.K. government to include domestic abuse and violence against women and girls (VAWG) experts in the development of such initiatives.

Though the U.K. doesn’t yet have a widely available track and trace app, the charities – including Women’s Aid and Refuge – are already anxious enough about the current tracing program, where infected people are called up and asked to register themselves online as someone who has contracted COVID-19. They’re then asked to share details on people with whom they’ve been in contact so they too can be informed.

In a joint whitepaper, the nonprofits said they were anxious about contact tracing staff inadvertently leaking contact details of survivors to perpetrators. They also raised fears the program could be turned into a “tool for abuse.”

“For example, perpetrators may make fraudulent claims that they have been in contact with survivors in order for them to be asked to self-isolate unnecessarily, and in these circumstances survivors will have no means to identify the perpetrator as the original source,” they warned. “Perpetrators or associates may also pose as contact tracing staff and make contact with victims [or] survivors requesting they self-isolate or requesting personal information.”

The paper also claims abusers are already using the coronavirus pandemic for “coercive control,” in some cases deliberately breathing, spitting and coughing in survivors’ faces. As Forbes previously reported, the sharing of child abuse material has also spiked during global COVID-19 lockdowns.

As for apps, the report warned they required location services to be switched on. “While the NHS app itself doesn’t collect location data, if a perpetrator has installed spyware onto a survivor’s phone or is able to hack into it, then turning on location services will expose their location.”

Problems with Palantir?

The charities also raised concerns about a number of companies who’d partnered with the U.K. on the contact tracing initiatives. They said Serco, which is handling recruiting for contact tracing staff, “has a significant track record of failings and human rights violations, including running a controversial women’s immigration detention centre where staff have been accused of sexual misconduct and involvement in unlawful evictions of asylum seekers.” Serco also recently had to apologize for leaking email addresses of contact tracer staff.

Serco denies that it has any kind of significant track record of failing and human rights violations and that the evictions to which the charities are referring were in Scotland and were ruled legal. It also said that in seven years there had been no substantiated complaints about any sexual wrongdoing at the Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, where reports had revealed allegations.

“We are proud to be supporting the government’s test and trace programme with our Tier 3 contact centre team working from pre-approved Public Health England scripts. This is important work and we would like to thank all our teams who have stepped forward. In just four week we mobilised many thousands of people, which is a huge achievement, and we are focussed on ensuring that all our people are able to support the government’s programme going forwards,” a Serco spokesperson said.

Palantir, the $20 billion big data crunching business, also raised an eyebrow. The company, which has secured millions of dollars in contracts to help health agencies manage the outbreak, has come in for criticism for assisting U.S. immigration authorities on finding and rejecting illegal aliens.

Palantir hadn’t responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

UK’s delayed COVID-19 app

The charities’ warning comes as the U.K. announced its contact tracing app would be shifting to the Apple and Google models, which promise stronger privacy protections than the app being tested by the government. The main difference is in where user information goes. In the government’s app, anonymized phone IDs of both the infected person and the people they’ve been near are sent to a centralized server, which determines who to warn about possible COVID-19 infection.

In the Apple and Google model, only the phone ID of the infected person is sent to a centralized database. The phone then downloads the database and decides where to send alerts. The latter means the government has access to far less data on people’s phones, pleasing some critics but aggravating the government.

Health secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday that Apple’s restrictions on third-party apps’ use of Bluetooth may’ve been one reason the government’s own app wasn’t as successful as hoped. Bluetooth is being used to determine whether an infected person has been in close proximity with another person’s phone.

Earlier this week, Amnesty International cybersecurity researcher Claudio Guarnieri warned that global rollouts of contact tracing apps were a privacy “trash fire.” After analyzing 11 apps, he found many contained privacy shortcomings. So concerned was Norway that it suspended its tool.

Even with lockdowns easing, those who’re infected are still being advised to isolate. However, the NHS guidance says that “the household isolation instruction as a result of Coronavirus (COVID-19) does not apply if you need to leave your home to escape domestic abuse.” That message may not have been amplified as much as it should’ve been.

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Thomas Brewster

I’m associate editor for Forbes, covering security, surveillance and privacy. I’ve been breaking news and writing features on these topics for major publications since 2010. As a freelancer, I worked for The Guardian, Vice Motherboard, Wired and BBC.com, amongst many others. I was named BT Security Journalist of the year in 2012 and 2013 for a range of exclusive articles, and in 2014 was handed Best News Story for a feature on US government harassment of security professionals. I like to hear from hackers who are breaking things for either fun or profit and researchers who’ve uncovered nasty things on the web. Tip me on Signal at 447837496820. I use WhatsApp and Treema too. Or you can email me at TBrewster@forbes.com, or tbthomasbrewster@gmail.com.

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Can Bluetooth tech really get us back to some resemblance of a normal life? Bridget Carey explains the big challenges around contact tracing apps and what it will take for the apps to make a difference.

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Exclusive: Warning Over Chinese Mobile Giant Xiaomi Recording Millions Of People’s ‘Private’ Web And Phone Use

Mobile Innovations, Mobile Systems, Privacy/Internet, Privacy/Strategies

“It’s a backdoor with phone functionality,” quips Gabi Cirlig about his new Xiaomi phone. He’s only half-joking.

Cirlig is speaking with Forbes after discovering that his Redmi Note 8 smartphone was watching much of what he was doing on the phone. That data was then being sent to remote servers hosted by another Chinese tech giant, Alibaba, which were ostensibly rented by Xiaomi.

The seasoned cybersecurity researcher found a worrying amount of his behavior was being tracked, whilst various kinds of device data were also being harvested, leaving Cirlig spooked that his identity and his private life was being exposed to the Chinese company.

When he looked around the Web on the device’s default Xiaomi browser, it recorded all the websites he visited, including search engine queries whether with Google or the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo, and every item viewed on a news feed feature of the Xiaomi software. That tracking appeared to be happening even if he used the supposedly private “incognito” mode.

The device was also recording what folders he opened and to which screens he swiped, including the status bar and the settings page. All of the data was being packaged up and sent to remote servers in Singapore and Russia, though the Web domains they hosted were registered in Beijing.

Meanwhile, at Forbes’ request, cybersecurity researcher Andrew Tierney investigated further. He also found browsers shipped by Xiaomi on Google Play—Mi Browser Pro and the Mint Browser—were collecting the same data. Together, they have more than 15 million downloads, according to Google Play statistics.

Many more millions are likely to be affected by what Cirlig described as a serious privacy issue, though Xiaomi denied there was a problem. Valued at $50 billion, Xiaomi is one of the top four smartphone makers in the world by market share, behind Apple, Samsung and Huawei. Xiaomi’s big sell is cheap devices that have many of the same qualities as higher-end smartphones. But for customers, that low cost could come with a hefty price: their privacy.

Cirlig thinks that the problems affect many more models than the one he tested. He downloaded firmware for other Xiaomi phones—including the Xiaomi MI 10, Xiaomi Redmi K20 and Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 devices. He then confirmed they had the same browser code, leading him to suspect they had the same privacy issues.

And there appear to be issues with how Xiaomi is transferring the data to its servers. Though the Chinese company claimed the data was being encrypted when transferred in an attempt to protect user privacy, Cirlig found he was able to quickly see just what was being taken from his device by decoding a chunk of information that was hidden with a form of easily crackable encoding, known as base64. It took Cirlig just a few seconds to change the garbled data into readable chunks of information.

“My main concern for privacy is that the data sent to their servers can be very easily correlated with a specific user,” warned Cirlig.

Xiaomi’s response

In response to the findings, Xiaomi said, “The research claims are untrue,” and “Privacy and security is of top concern,” adding that it “strictly follows and is fully compliant with local laws and regulations on user data privacy matters.” But a spokesperson confirmed it was collecting browsing data, claiming the information was anonymized so wasn’t tied to any identity. They said that users had consented to such tracking.

But, as pointed out by Cirlig and Tierney, it wasn’t just the website or Web search that was sent to the server. Xiaomi was also collecting data about the phone, including unique numbers for identifying the specific device and Android version. Cirlig said such “metadata” could “easily be correlated with an actual human behind the screen.”

Xiaomi’s spokesperson also denied that browsing data was being recorded under incognito mode. Both Cirlig and Tierney, however, found in their independent tests that their web habits were sent off to remote servers regardless of what mode the browser was set to, providing both photos and videos as proof.

When Forbes provided Xiaomi with a video made by Cirlig showing how his Google search for “porn” and a visit to the site PornHub were sent to remote servers, even when in incognito mode, the company spokesperson continued to deny that the information was being recorded. “This video shows the collection of anonymous browsing data, which is one of the most common solutions adopted by internet companies to improve the overall browser product experience through analyzing non-personally identifiable information,” they added.

Both Cirlig and Tierney said Xiaomi’s behavior was more invasive than other browsers like Google Chrome or Apple Safari. “It’s a lot worse than any of the mainstream browsers I have seen,” Tierney said. “Many of them take analytics, but it’s about usage and crashing. Taking browser behavior, including URLs, without explicit consent and in private browsing mode, is about as bad as it gets.”

Cirlig also suspected that his app use was being monitored by Xiaomi, as every time he opened an app, a chunk of information would be sent to a remote server. Another researcher who’d tested Xiaomi devices, though was under an NDA to discuss the matter openly, said he’d seen the manufacturer’s phone collect such data. Xiaomi didn’t respond to questions on that issue.

‘Behavioral Analytics’

Xiaomi appears to have another reason for collecting the data: to better understand its users’ behavior. It’s using the services of a behavioral analytics company called Sensors Analytics. The Chinese startup, also known as Sensors Data, has raised $60 million since its founding in 2015, most recently taking $44 million in a round led by New York private equity firm Warburg Pincus, which also featured funding from Sequoia Capital China. As described in Pitchbook, a tracker of company funding, Sensors Analytics is a “provider of an in-depth user behavior analysis platform and professional consulting services.” Its tools help its clients in “exploring the hidden stories behind the indicators in exploring the key behaviors of different businesses.”

Both Cirlig and Tierney found their Xiaomi apps were sending data to domains that appeared to reference Sensors Analytics, including the repeated use of SA. When clicking on one of the domains, the page contained one sentence: “Sensors Analytics is ready to receive your data!” There was an API called SensorDataAPI—an API (application programming interface) being the software that allows third parties access to app data. Xiaomi is also listed as a customer on Sensors Data’s website.

The founder and CEO of Sensors Data, Sang Wenfeng, has a long history in tracking users. At Chinese internet giant Baidu he built a big data platform for Baidu user logs, according to his company bio.

Xiaomi’s spokesperson confirmed the relationship with the startup: “While Sensors Analytics provides a data analysis solution for Xiaomi, the collected anonymous data are stored on Xiaomi’s own servers and will not be shared with Sensors Analytics, or any other third-party companies.”

It’s the second time in two months that a huge Chinese tech company has been seen watching over users’ phone habits. A security app with a “private” browser made by Cheetah Mobile, a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, was seen collecting information on Web use, Wi-Fi access point names and more granular data like how a user scrolled on visited Web pages. Cheetah argued it needed to collect the information to protect users and improve their experience.

Late in his research, Cirlig also discovered that Xiaomi’s music player app on his phone was collecting information on his listening habits: what songs were played and when.

One message was clear to the researcher: when you’re listening, Xiaomi is listening, too.

UPDATE: Xiaomi posted a blog in which it delineated how and when it collects visited URLs visited by its users. Read it in full here.

The company reiterated that the data transferred from Xiaomi devices and browsers was anonymized and not attached to any identity.

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Thomas Brewster

Source: Exclusive: Warning Over Chinese Mobile Giant Xiaomi Recording Millions Of People’s ‘Private’ Web And Phone Use

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What can you do with 5G? Everything

Mobile Apps, Mobile Marketing/Apps, Mobile Systems

With all the buzz around 5G, many companies are wondering: “What will we be able to do with it?”

Businesses of all sizes believe 5G will bring them competitive advantages but aren’t entirely clear about its practical applications. Telecommunications service providers know there’s a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity up for grabs, but aren’t sure how to turn faster speeds and increased network intelligence into a share of that potential market.

Part of the challenge is that traditional network services have been determined by the limits of the technology. With 5G, those technical limitations are no longer a barrier, making it possible to do pretty much anything. Which means it’s up to service providers and their business customers to pick the use cases that will be most important and profitable for them.

The many things you can do with 5G

By partnering with companies who want to embed 5G’s capabilities into their own digital offerings, service providers can turn the network into a shared “fabric” for value creation. That requires smart planning, though–which is why Nokia Bell Labs has identified more than 100 consumer and business 5G use cases, grouped into eight broad categories:

Fixed wireless access (FWA)

FWA within homes and businesses will deliver broadband-like speed and reliability in more places, including those with no existing wired infrastructure or where it would be too costly to deploy.

Video surveillance and analytics

5G’s low latency and high capacity will help create smarter spaces through enhanced video surveillance and analytics. Wireless cameras mounted on drones or in hard-to-reach places will improve safety and security while providing footage that can improve decision-making in nearly any industry.

Immersive experiences

5G will support new, immersive experiences, both real and virtual. 360-degree virtual reality (VR) will let people enjoy events and play interactive games like they’re really there. In the workplace, augmented reality (AR) can train workers to handle hazardous situations without putting them in harm’s way.

Smart stadiums

In stadiums and concert halls, venue operators will use AR and VR to take fans “backstage,” provide real-time overlays of sports stats and replays, and deliver other immersive experiences.

Cloud robotics and automation

Manufacturers are looking to automation and the cloud to simplify processes and eliminate human errors. Wireless human-machine interfaces, powered by high-bandwidth 5G connectivity, will remove the constraints of today’s static assembly lines and speed up the reconfiguration of production environments.

Machine remote control

Cranes, robot arms and other remotely controlled machinery can boost operational efficiency and increase worker safety. From drones making deliveries to robots doing dangerous tasks like bomb disposal, these machines require reliable wireless connectivity, often over long distances, with low latency for accurate, responsive control.

Connected vehicles

5G will help make road travel easier, safer and more enjoyable. In-car entertainment and information–using vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communications to tell drivers about upcoming traffic jams, for instance–may be early applications, followed by assisted driving and autonomous vehicles.

eHealth

Hospitals can use 5G to enhance care delivery, including eHealth services. Guaranteed uplink speeds will allow ambulances to transmit critical data to hospitals so doctors can diagnose problems before patients arrive. 5G’s low latency will also support remote surgeries and other innovative applications.

From here to there

While there are many potential 5G use cases, some will be ready to implement sooner than others. With early standards focused on enhancing mobile broadband, options like FWA will be more feasible in the near-term while others, like autonomous vehicles, are still a few years away. In every case, by looking at 5G in terms of real-world applications and not just as a mechanism for connectivity, service providers and enterprises will give themselves the best chance of building a strong, profitable 5G plan.

By Jai Thattil Head of Marketing, 5G Services, Nokia

@JThattil

Source: What can you do with 5G? Everything.

IEEE Spectrum

104K subscribers

Millimeter waves, massive MIMO, full duplex, beamforming, and small cells are just a few of the technologies that could enable ultrafast 5G networks. Read more: http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/teleco… Today’s mobile users want faster data speeds and more reliable service. The next generation of wireless networks—5G—promises to deliver that, and much more. With 5G, users should be able to download a high-definition film in under a second (a task that could take 10 minutes on 4G LTE). And wireless engineers say these networks will boost the development of other new technologies, too, such as autonomous vehicles, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things. If all goes well, telecommunications companies hope to debut the first commercial 5G networks in the early 2020s. Right now, though, 5G is still in the planning stages, and companies and industry groups are working together to figure out exactly what it will be. But they all agree on one matter: As the number of mobile users and their demand for data rises, 5G must handle far more traffic at much higher speeds than the base stations that make up today’s cellular networks. Read more: http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/teleco…

Is Huawei’s Worst Google Nightmare Coming True?

Mobile Innovations, Mobile Marketing/Apps, Mobile Systems, Telephone/Mobile Lead Generators

The soap opera that is Huawei’s loss of Google software and services from its new smartphones has taken twist after turn in recent weeks. We had been warned (by Google) that the new flagship Mate 30 Series would launch without full-fat Android, but we had also been promised (by Huawei’s consumer boss Richard Yu) that workarounds would be found. To cut a long story short, the device did launch without Google, workarounds were then found, but then those workarounds were taken away.

All of which kind of leaves us back where we expected to be—Huawei continues to launch great devices, those great devices don’t carry Google, most analysts expect sales outside China to take a massive hit as a consequence. But, in reality, it’s not that simple. And what has actually happened could be even worse than it seems for Huawei, with the consequences not yet fully understood.

The Mate 30 has become the focal point for this on/off Google apps story. But what happens to the Mate 30 will impact the forthcoming Mate X and anything else after that until the U.S. blacklist changes. Just ahead of the Mate 30’s September launch, Android Authority reported that Yu had told the media Huawei “might have a workaround on-hand” to recover Google functionality, that the process would be “quite easy,” that “the open-source nature of Android enables ‘a lot of possibilities’, and that third-party developers had worked on workarounds for some time, given that “Huawei is unable to provide Google Mobile Services on new products due to the ban.”

Today In: Innovation

I asked Huawei for an official statement at the time, regarding Yu’s comments, to be told that the official word from the Consumer Business Group is “we can’t comment on that.” In private, it seemed there was internal nervousness at being seen to flaunt the ban, enabling workarounds to be publicly applied to the devices.

And, sure enough, despite Huawei confirming on launch the lack of Google Mobile Services, essentially the framework to which Google apps attach, the internet was soon abuzz with videos and tutorials on the use of a Chinese app to sideload all those familiar Google apps back onto the device. Notwithstanding the security concerns in giving a Chinese language app of uncertain origin access to a phone’s core system, the workaround was widely welcomed and we seemed to be back to business as usual.

Meanwhile, reports from China, where the Mate 30 first launched, suggested the devices were flying from the shelves. Helped by a steep price cut and domestic pride in a national champion, a million devices quickly shipped and Huawei’s plan to shore up any hit to international sales with strong demand at home seemed fine.

But then, quite suddenly, everything changed.

The app that was being used to enable the after-market Google load on Mate 30s is LZPlay—available on some app stores and from LZPlay.net. On loading, it seeks permission to access hidden system settings, opening up Google “stubs” deep within Huawei’s version of the Android open-source core to enable apps and services to be installed. With some exceptions—notably Google Pay—everything seemed normal.

But then came the inevitable deep-dive into that app—what was actually happening under the phone’s covers. Cue John Wu’s Medium post. It transpired, according to Wu, that for LZPlay to work required “undocumented Huawei specific MDM APIs,” implying that the use of such APIs were “signed with a special certificate from Huawei, granted privileges nowhere to be found on standard Android systems.”

In essence, the implication was that Huawei was sanctioning or overlooking the app restoring banned Google apps and services onto Huawei devices. “Wait a minute,” Wu asked in his post, “does that mean either Google is sneaking the stubs to Huawei, or Huawei is blatantly stealing Google’s stub binaries?”

And Wu’s answer? “It is pretty obvious that Huawei is well aware of this LZPlay app, and explicitly allows its existence. The developer of this app has to somehow be aware of these undocumented APIs, sign the legal agreements, go through several stages of reviews, and eventually have the app signed by Huawei. The sole purpose of the app is to install Google Services on a non licensed device, and it sounds very sketchy to me, but I’m no lawyer so I have absolutely no idea of its legality.”

All of which has resulted in the workaround being withdrawn from the market. LZPlay is no longer available. Any installs from before it was pulled no longer work. And, more intriguingly, “devices that used LZPlay to install GMS no longer pass ‘SafetyNet Attestation,’ rendering many apps and services unusable.”

And so to the real issue for Huawei that will start to become clear when the dust settles on this on/off story. Whether Huawei was aware or unaware, whether Google was involved or uninvolved, the fact is that the addition of Google Mobile Services will now fail to pass a security and verification test on the device—unsurprising, given the device is unlicensed. And that suggests no other workaround will be forthcoming.

And that will be a major issue for the future of Huawei’s smartphone business outside China. It will also make it impossible for users inside China to deploy the Google workaround that was designed for their market—because if the Mate 30 can’t be after-market updated outside China because of the U.S. blacklist, then it cannot be after-market updated in China either. The restriction on Huawei is not geography-specific. Chinese consumers who would otherwise buy Huawei devices and then add Google, deploying VPNs to use the restricted services, will not be able to do so.

This story is moving all over the place right now—albeit it’s becoming more difficult to see significant changes without U.S. approval. What we do know is that Google has apparently slammed the backdoor to the Mate 30 shut, enforcing its lack of license, ensuring that even if the GMS stubs remain they cannot be enabled. And it’s a safe bet that those stubs may well be pulled altogether.

Huawei confirmed to me that the “latest Mate 30 series is not pre-installed with GMS, and Huawei has had no involvement with http://www.lzplay.net.” But the implications of this latest twist could be devastating. It’s too soon to get a read on what might happen next, and there are no comments from Shenzhen, but we will know soon enough.

In the meantime, anyone who had planned to buy a dazzling Mate 30 and apply the “easy workaround” is now faced with a very different set of options.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Zak Doffman

As the Founder/CEO of Digital Barriers, a developer of disruptive AI surveillance solutions for defense, security and commercial organizations in the US, EMEA and Asia, I work with those responsible for national security, counter-terrorism and critical infrastructure protection. I have been in tech for 25 years, with the last 15 of those years in video surveillance, analytics, cybersecurity and AI. I write about the real-world challenges, opportunities and threats from technology advances that impact the defense and security sectors as well as cybersecurity more broadly. I also focus on the appropriate use of those technologies and the balance of privacy and public safety. Contact me at zakd@me.com.

Source: Is Huawei’s Worst Google Nightmare Coming True?

Android Central

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Oh dear. 😬 https://www.androidcentral.com/what-l… Please subscribe so you see more videos like this one! http://phon.es/acsub And follow us on social media: Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/mobilenations Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/androidcentral Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/androidcentral Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/androidcentral Google+: http://google.com/+androidcentral

Huawei Mate 30 Pro Leak Shows Stunning Design And Cool Features

Content Marketing, Mobile Apps, Mobile Innovations, Mobile Systems

Now the latest iPhones have been revealed, attention turns to Huawei. Its Mate 30 series is now the most highly-anticipated launch, for several reasons.

The unveiling takes place in Munich on Thursday, September 18, but a series of press renders have leaked, according to the ever-dependable Evan Blass.

There will be four phones in the series, the Mate 30 Lite, Mate 30 and the one we’re. concerned with here: the Huawei Mate 30 Pro. The fourth will be the Mate 30 Pro Porsche Design, which is more of a niche model.

There have already been reports of exactly what the new Pro will look like, but the new images from Blass show greater detail of what could be Huawei’s most handsome phone yet.

Today In: Innovation

Here’s what to expect at the Munich launch.

Front and rear of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, it's claimed.

Front and rear of the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, it’s claimed.

@evleaks

This is the bit we’ve seen before but the latest images look splendid. The circular bezel around the four cameras evokes a camera lens itself, so it’s a particularly satisfying piece of design.

And note that the cameras don’t seem to protrude very far at all, unlike almost every other smartphone out there apart from the Nokia 9 PureView.

The notch isn’t small – room for a second camera

The front-facing camera and other tech are sitting in a bigger cut-out than on the Huawei P30 Pro, for instance. This suggests that the new phone will have two cameras, designed to make face unlocking faster and more secure than on current Huawei phones. Perhaps secure enough to authorize payments? We’ll see, though remember the current Huawei flagships include a fingerprint sensor under the display so that’s likely here as well.

Is this the sumptuous waterfall edge to the Huawei Mate 30 Pro?

@evleaks

The display design is sumptuous

This is what’s called a waterfall display. No, there’s no actual water involved, it means the way the display cascades over the edges like, you’ve guessed it, a waterfall. It’s one of the things that makes the phone looks so gorgeous and appealing.

Only one button – so where’s the volume control?

There’s a simplicity to design with fewer buttons, especially since there’s no visible fingerprint sensor, too. But the only previous phone with barely any buttons, from LG, had big volume rockers either side of the fingerprint/power button. This doesn’t seem to, seeming to confirm a previous rumor that the volume controls, like the fingerprint sensor, will be buried under the display. Cool, huh?

And one big unanswered question

This kind of leak can’t answer the biggest question of all: what software will the Mate 30 Pro use? Unless something changes in the U.S.-China trade negotiations, it seems Huawei can’t use the full Google Mobile Services Android on its next phones.

Now, things are changing very quickly in this situation but I doubt there’ll be any movement before this week’s reveal.

So, don’t be surprised if there’s a gap between announcement and release or even if Huawei play things close to their chest.

It could choose to put its own Harmony OS onboard but it’s made clear that’s a back-up, not the first choice.

It could put open-source Android on the phone and find some way to make it easy for customers to add apps like Google Maps, Gmail and so on. That’s possible, too.

That may not be answered this week, but for everything else, not long until we know.

__________

Follow me on Instagram by clicking here: davidphelantech and Twitter: @davidphelan2009

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Huawei Mate 30 Pro Leaked Images Show Jaw-Dropping Design

Huawei announced today that it had shipped 118 million phones globally (a figure that includes Honor devices) in the first half of 2019, a 34% jump from the same period last year. The phone sales accounted for more than 55% of Huawei’s total revenue of 401.3 billion yuan ($58.3 billion) for the first half of the year.

But Huawei’s Chairman Liang Hua concedes that the company’s strong performance was mostly supported by the momentum it had built over the past year (when it released a series of critically acclaimed phones), and that the second half may bring challenges.

“Our consumer business was growing rapidly before May 16, and since that day there has been some slowdown,” Liang told a group of reporters at the company’s Shenzhen headquarters. “And objectively speaking, we will face some challenges in the coming half.”

May 16 refers to the day the U.S. government officially added Huawei to its “Entity List,” which effectively banned U.S. companies from doing business with Huawei. This was considered a death blow to Huawei’s overseas phone business, as the company’s phones are reliant on Google’s Android operating system and other U.S. components.

The Trump Administration has since given Huawei a reprieve in the form of a less restrictive sales ban, and Liang confirms that suppliers are beginning to resume talks with Huawei.

But when asked if future Huawei smartphones will ship with Google OS with full support, Liang said that while the 5G Huawei Mate 20X is good to go because it had been in development since before May 16, “whether or not other upcoming phones can use Android will be up to the U.S. government.”

A Huawei staff member presents the company’s first 5G smartphone, the Mate 20X, at a Huawei Store on July 27, 2019, in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province of China.

Zhang Yun/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images

Liang added that he remains confident the issues “will be resolved positively on all sides,” but that in the worst case scenario, the company is ready and will “keep fighting for the consumer business group’s survival.”

This includes an operating system that Huawei have been developing in-house in case it can no longer use Android.

I asked Liang specifically if the company’s next flagship phone, the Mate 30, will ship with Google, and if the phone will ship with the alternative OS if not. To which Liang responded: “If the U.S. government allows us to use Android, we will use Android. But if the U.S. doesn’t allow us, then we will turn to alternatives. As for how ready our OS is, you’ll just have to see with your own eyes.”

Liang spent the hourlong press conference mostly talking about the U.S. issues, but despite admitting that the blacklist has hurt Huawei’s phone sales internationally, he said internally, the company remained more united than ever.

“To the outside, this has been a tumultuous six months, but inside the company we see things as quite calm. In a way, the U.S. government’s pressure on us has helped us understand our objectives better and enhanced our cooperating internally.”

This united front seems to have been the attitude in the overall China market, too. While Trump’s attack on Huawei has dampened the company’s phone prospect internationally, in China, consumers seem to have united in support of Huawei. According to research firm Canalys, Huawei shipped 37.3 million phones in China in the second quarter of this year, up 31% over last year, and the only major brand among China’s top five to grow in sales. Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Apple all saw declining sales in the second quarter.

Still, Liang said the company’s strategy for the global market remains unchanged. The company will continue to seek open cooperation with global partners, and invest heavily into its own R&D. Liang said Huawei will invest 120 billion yuan in R&D this year.

“Our strategy with the global smartphone business remains unchanged,” said Liang. “We will continue to serve our smartphones to a global consumers. And we will continue to invest heavily in R&D.”

Attendees visit Huawei’s booth at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Shanghai 2019 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center on June 26, 2019.

Wang Gang/VCG via Getty Images

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Ben Sin

I’m a Chinese-American journalist in Hong Kong, covering consumer tech in Asia. Before focusing on this exciting beat, I was a general culture writer and editor with bylines in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, New York Magazine, among others. Feel free to email me at bencsin@gmail.com

Source: Huawei Can’t Guarantee Mate 30 Will Ship With Android, But Will Be ‘Ready’ With Alternative OS

Teaching Goals: Prevalent Themes

Student Engagement

Specific Skills and Concepts

Analytics for and about Learning

Efficiency

Takeaways

Notes

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UK’s delayed COVID-19 app

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Xiaomi’s response

‘Behavioral Analytics’

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The many things you can do with 5G

Fixed wireless access (FWA)

Video surveillance and analytics

Immersive experiences

Smart stadiums

Cloud robotics and automation

Machine remote control

Connected vehicles

eHealth

From here to there

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