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Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

UK service providers must notify customers when they connect to a different network

New rules from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will protect customers when they use their mobile phone on a foreign network. In addition, customers will be alerted if they are inadvertently roaming, perhaps because they're near an international border.
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Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
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Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
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UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
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Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
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Opinion Articles

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Physician uses cell phones to bring health care to the poor

Natalia Ardanza of voanews.com writes:

Epidemiologist Joel Selanikio has used the explosion in mobile phone technology and the World Wide Web to deliver more effective public health services throughout the developing world. Dr Selanikio and his organization DataDyne.org are making a difference by improving the medical information available to public health programs in under-served areas of the world. VOA's Natalia Ardanza has a profile for this week's "Making a Difference" series.

In Africa there is another use for mobile phones. Public Health workers in Kenya are now using mobile phones to gather health information from patients in remote areas and upload it to the internet for instant analysis at distant centers.

And it is all happening thanks to Dr Joel Selanikio. "You can really make a difference using just common modern information technologies," he said.

Dr Selanikio first noticed the need to better use information technology for health care while working as a disease outbrake investigator for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I began to take the first steps toward using things like pocket computers or PDAs [i.e., personal digital assistants] for doing field work," Selanikio said.

Dr Selanikio left his position five years ago to co-found DataDyne.org with partner Rosa Donna - as a non-profit organization dedicated to providing sustainable information technologies in poor areas. And with financial support from the United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation, Selanikio developed EpiSurveyor -- a free, mobile, Web-based and open-source data collection tool that is transforming the way public health is practiced in under-served areas of the world.

EpiSurveyor replaces cumbersome and costly paper-based data collection that can take months, and sometimes years to produce results.

"Instead of collecting data today to plan for a campaign next year, changing from that to collecting data today to plan for what we do tomorrow," Selanikio explained. "That is a pretty radical change."

Public health relies on the rapid collection of accurate data to track disease outbreaks, monitor vaccine supplies and other similar functions.

"The issue of flexibility, we need that," Data Manager Yusuf Ajack Ibrahim said. Ajack is with Kenya's Health and Sanitation Ministry and saw EpiSurveyor at work when a polio outbreak in 2006 was quickly contained, saving the lives of perhaps hundreds of children. "If you are to respond to an outbreak, I cannot wait for somebody to come all the way from the United States," he said.

This year, Joel Selanikio received the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability in recognition of these innovations. EpiSurveyor is being used by more than 500 organizations in more than 100 countries, and it is being adopted for use in areas such as agriculture and public opinion polling.

Originally published on voanews.com

 

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