Exercise 15

1. What is meant by a location based service? Explain using the Web applications found on a late model mobile device.

From the Wiki, A location-based service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device.

LBS services can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, work, personal life, etc. LBS services include services to identify a location of a person or object, such as discovering the nearest banking cash machine or the whereabouts of a friend or employee. LBS services include parcel tracking and vehicle tracking services.

LBS can include mobile commerce when taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at customers based on their current location. They include personalized weather services and even location-based games. They are an example of telecommunication convergence.

2. Describe the purpose of the Open Mobile Alliance Initiative?

According to the home page of the OMA:

"The mission of the Open Mobile Alliance is to facilitate global user adoption of mobile data services by specifying market driven mobile service enablers that ensure service interoperability across devices, geographies, service providers, operators, and networks while allowing businesses to compete through innovation and differentiation."

3. What are the main components of a mobile Web services framework?

In a mobile Web service environment, the limited resources and the lack of bandwidth in its communication network makes it is different from a Web service on a regular size computer. In Mobile devices, Synchronous web services are not feasible. It makes the user wait while each Web service processes requests and returns results. The mechanism of mobile Web service network is called Asynchronous Web services that the invocation solves this performance issue and enhances the end user experience by increasing server efficiency. There are three types of processes and components which are involved in web services.

Firstly, a discovery process which is done through UDDI. When one party (requester) contacts another (provider) to obtain services, the requester must locate an appropriate provider. This process is known as discovery. Different mechanisms can be used in the process, such as finding services listed on a web site, searching a directory or locating the provider through a framework that supports discovery.

Next process is description. When a provider has been located, the requester needs to learn the rules related to contacting the provider (e.g., which protocols to use, how to structure messages, and which security and other policies to observe).

A document which contains a description of web services is called WSDL (Web Services Description Language).

The third process is to communicate with the provider by sending (and possibly receiving) messages. The communication usually takes place using the SOAP protocol together with underlying protocols such as HTTP. The definition of how an underlying protocol is to be used with SOAP is called a SOAP binding. It is required in order to achieve interoperability between SOAP messages and their underlying protocol.

4. Visit an airline Web site and search for information on WAP or SMS or 3G mobile application access to booking airline services. The same services exist in banding. How do both industries compare?

I’ve visited the Cathay Pacific Airways and Bank of America (BoA). The Cathay Pacific introduced the WAP service in year 2000, and was the 1^st airline to introduce this service in Asia. For BoA, the service was introduced in 2007. The mobile features and requirements are listed below.

	Cathay	BoA
Main features	Check-in News & Offers Flight Schedules Flight Status View Latest Flight Bookings The Marco Polo Club Account Airport Information City Guides (Only on CX Mobile Application) Subscribe to notiFLY Subscribe to CXpecials Local Contacts	Custom design unique to your phone's features ATM and banking center locator, using geo-locator –find the nearest location without entering your address or zip code On-the-go management of your accounts to check balances, transfer funds and pay bills
Supported mobile devices	iPhone Blackberry Java-enabled mobile phones such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, etc.	iPhone Blackberry Android
Target users	Frequent Traveler (Quick access to information and booking of flights)	General banking customers (Quickly locate the ATM machine) Funds investor (Quick access to funds information and management)
Benefits to users	Quickly access to the required information and no need to spend time to get to a place or waiting in a queue	Quickly access to the required information and no need to spend time to get to a place or waiting in a queue
Benefits to the company	Increase business volume without increasing number of shops	Increase business volume without increasing number of shops
Can mobile service replace all physical shops?	No It can support most of the transactions (e.g. flights booking, check-in) but there are tasks still need to be done at a physical location. (e.g. check-in luggage)	No It can support most of the transactions (e.g. bill payments, transfer funds) but there are tasks still need to be done at a physical location. (e.g. Withdraw cash, bank-in cheques at ATM)

References

Bank of America. (2010). Mobile Application. Retrieved on15 May 2010 from http://www.bankofamerica.com/onlinebanking/index.cfm?template=mob_applications

Cathay Pacific. (2010). CX Mobile. Retrieved on 15 May 2010 from http://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en_INTL/manageyourtrip/cxmobile

OMA. (2010). Home Page. Retrieved on 14 May 2010 fromhttp://www.openmobilealliance.org/default.aspx

Wiki. (2010). Location-based Service. Retrieved on 14 May 2010 fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location-based_service