Exploration of location-based services adoption

As mobile technologies become more ubiquitous in the general population, it is reasonable to assume that individuals will consume services and software to enhance their aspirations and entertainment desires. This paper discusses a controlled experiment to explore aspects of user perceptions of their use of location-based services. This study examines a location-based service prototype experiment and analysis based on the UTAUT model. The results show significant indicators that suggest behavior patterns of early adopters of location-based services are being observed. We discuss these influences and attempt to explain their significance. Moreover, more curiously we discuss why some of our model was unsupported and postulate why

Implicit Smartphone User Authentication with Sensors and Contextual Machine Learning

Authentication of smartphone users is important because a lot of sensitive data is stored in the smartphone and the smartphone is also used to access various cloud data and services. However, smartphones are easily stolen or co-opted by an attacker. Beyond the initial login, it is highly desirable to re-authenticate end-users who are continuing to access security-critical services and data. Hence, this paper proposes a novel authentication system for implicit, continuous authentication of the smartphone user based on behavioral characteristics, by leveraging the sensors already ubiquitously built into smartphones. We propose novel context-based authentication models to differentiate the legitimate smartphone owner versus other users. We systematically show how to achieve high authentication accuracy with different design alternatives in sensor and feature selection, machine learning techniques, context detection and multiple devices. Our system can achieve excellent authentication performance with 98.1% accuracy with negligible system overhead and less than 2.4% battery consumption.Comment: Published on the IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) 2017. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1703.0352

Mobile - First News: How People Use Smartphones to Access Information

This report is based on a research study conducted with Nielsen and commissioned by Knight Foundation to explore how people use mobile platforms for news

Investigating the adoption and use of smartphones in the UK : a silver-surfers perspective

Copyright and all rights therein are retained by the authors. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and conditions invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be re-posted without the explicit permission of the copyright holdersSmart phones are innovations that currently provide immense benefits and convenience to users in society. However, not all members of society are accepting and using smart phones; more specifically, for this research study silver-surfers or older adults (50+) are a demographic group displaying such an attitude. Currently, there is minimal knowledge of the reasons for older adults adopting and using smartphones. Bearing this in mind, this research study aims to investigate the adoption and usage behaviours of silver-surfers. For this purpose, the conceptual framework applied to this research draws factors from the following theories: Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), the Diffusion of Innovations theory (DoI), and TAM3 (Technology Acceptance Model). From the online survey of 204 completed replies it was found that observability, compatibility, social influence, facilitating conditions, effort expectancy and enjoyment are important to the adoption and use of smartphones within silver-surfers. The contributions of this research are an identification and understanding of the factors that encourage or inhibit smartphone use within the older adult population. Second, this research can inform the design of computing devices and applications used for silver-surfers. Finally, this research can enlighten policy makers when forming decisions that encourage adoption and use of smartphones among silver surfersFinal Published versio

Money Walks: A Human-Centric Study on the Economics of Personal Mobile Data

In the context of a myriad of mobile apps which collect personally identifiable information (PII) and a prospective market place of personal data, we investigate a user-centric monetary valuation of mobile PII. During a 6-week long user study in a living lab deployment with 60 participants, we collected their daily valuations of 4 categories of mobile PII (communication, e.g. phonecalls made/received, applications, e.g. time spent on different apps, location and media, photos taken) at three levels of complexity (individual data points, aggregated statistics and processed, i.e. meaningful interpretations of the data). In order to obtain honest valuations, we employ a reverse second price auction mechanism. Our findings show that the most sensitive and valued category of personal information is location. We report statistically significant associations between actual mobile usage, personal dispositions, and bidding behavior. Finally, we outline key implications for the design of mobile services and future markets of personal data.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures. To appear in ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2014

Gender and Posture are Significant Risk Factors to Musculoskeletal Symptoms during Touchscreen Tablet Computer Use

[Purpose] To investigate the prevalence of neck and shoulder symptoms during the use of tablet computer, and to identify the risk factors associated with these symptoms. [Subjects and Methods] A cross-sectional survey was conducted to study tablet computer usage, posture during use, and neck and shoulder symptoms in 412 participants in a school setting. Significant risk factors for musculoskeletal symptoms during tablet computer use were identified. [Results] Overall prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms during tablet computer use was 67.9% with greater prevalence of neck symptoms (neck: 84.6%; shoulder/upper extremity: 65.4%). Significant risk factors associated with symptoms during use were: current musculoskeletal symptoms, gender, roles, and postural factors including: sitting without back support, sitting with device in lap, and lying on the side and on the back during tablet computer use. A multivariate analysis further showed that the odds for females to have symptoms were 2.059 times higher than males. [Conclusion] The findings revealed that female gender and other postural factors were significantly associated with musculoskeletal symptoms during the use of tablet computer. Among all postural factors, sitting without back support was identified as the most important risk factor for having musculoskeletal symptom

The Phone Walkers: A study of human dependence on inactive mobile devices

The development of mobile phones has largely increased human interactions. Whilst the use of these devices for communication has received significant attention, there has been little analysis of more passive interactions. Through census data on casual social groups, this work suggests a clear pattern of mobile phones being carried in people's hands, without the person using it (that is, not looking at it). Moreover, this study suggests that when individuals join members of the opposite sex there is a clear tendency to stop holding mobile phones whilst walking. Although it is not clear why people hold their phones whilst walking in such large proportions (38% of solitary women, and 31% of solitary men), we highlight several possible explanation for holding the device, including the need to advertise status and affluence, to maintain immediate connection with friends and family, and to mitigate feelings related to anxiety and security.Comment: To appear in "Behaviour". 21 pages; 7 figures; Appendix in journal version onl