Wireless Devices and
Applications
Summarized from: Turban, Efraim, Leidner, Dorothy,
Mclean, Ephraim, Wetherbe, James, Information
Technology For Management - Transforming
Organizations in the Digital Economy, John Wiley & Sons,
6th Edition, 2009.
FOOD LION EXCELS WITH
WIRELESS INNOVATIONS

The Problem

Food Lion grocer decided to distinguish
itself from the competitor(A major competitor
is Wal-Mart.)
FOOD LION EXCELS WITH
WIRELESS INNOVATIONS(2)

The Solution

Company decided to use wireless technology.

Mobile checkstand



Personal scanner





Mobile check-out POS terminal equipped with wheels that can be
moved to any location.
Ability to expedite checkout time.
Handheld device that is a POS terminal emulating the IBM checkout
system.
The device show the price of the item and the running $ subtotal of
all items bagged.
Enables sending messages to the customers while shopping,
including special marketing offers.
The final bill is downloaded to the cash register.
Employee handheld devices

Execute inventory counts , enter customers to check prices and get
product location and information while pushing their carts.
FOOD LION EXCELS WITH
WIRELESS INNOVATIONS(3)

The Results

Speedier checkout is the main benefit since
all the customer has to do is to pay.
MOBILE BANKING AND STOCK
TRADING
Merita Bank on Sweeden pioneered
many services(Sadeh,2002), and
Citibank in the United States has a
diversified mobile banking service.
 Customer in such banks can use their
mobile handsets to access account
balances, pay bills, and transfer funds
using SMS.
 Many banks in Japan allow for all
banking transactions to be done via cell
phone.

WIRELESS ELECTRONIC
PAYMENT SYSTEMS

Micropayments



In Frankfurt ,Germany, for example, and took a taxi
ride, you could pay the taxi driver using your cell
phone.
Billing can be made to the customer’s bank or
credit card account or to the mobile phone bill.
Micropayment technology has wide-ranging
applications , such as making payments to parking
garages, restaurants, grocery stores, and public
transportation.
Wireless Bill Payments

A number of companies are now providing their
customers with the option of paying their bills
directly from a cell phone. HDFC Bank of India
(hdfcbank.com),for example, allows customers to
pay their utility bills using SMS.
SHOPPING FROM WIRELESS
DEVICES
Customers who use Internet-ready cell
phones can shop at certain sites such as
mobile.yahoo.com or amazon.com.
 Restaurant food shopping from wireless
devices between Motorola and
Food.com.
 The companies offer restaurant chains
an infrastructure that enables consumers
to place an order for pickup or delivery
virtually any time, anywhere.

MOBILE PORTALS

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


A mobile portal is a customer channel, optimized for
mobility, that aggregates and provides content and services
for mobile users.
The world’s best-known mobile portal, with over 45 million
members, mostly in Japan, is i-mode from DoCoMo.
The service provided by mobile portals include news,
sports, e-mail, entertainment and travel information;
restaurants and event information; leisure-related services
(e.g. games, TV and movie listings); community services;
and stock trading.
a sizeable percentage of the portals also provide
downloads and messaging , music related services, and
health, dating, and job information. Mobile portals
frequently charge for their services.
The fields of mobile portals is being dominated by few big
companies. The big player in Europe, for instance, are
companies like Vodafone, Orange, O2, and T-Mobile; in
United States the big players are Cingular, Verizon, and
Mobile Application for Sports


In May 2006, Nike and apple introduce an
iPod shoe called Nano that can provide
real-time feedback on distance, time, and
calories burned during a workout. A sensor
and receiver embedded in the shoe provide
a wireless connection to the iPod, with
workout information stored on the device
and displayed on the screen.
Levi Strauss introduced a new line of jeans
specially geared toward iPod users. The
$200 trousers com complete with
headphones, a joystick, and even a docking
cradle.
A Superb Customer Service

The solution
San Francisco bus riders carrying an
Internet enabled wireless device, such as a
cell phone or PDA, can quickly find out
when a bus is likely to arrive at a particular
bus stop.
 NextBus (nextbus.com) dynamically
calculates the estimated arrival time of the
bus to each bus stop on the route.

TELEMATICS AND TELEMETRY
APPLICATIONS

Telematics refers to the integration of computers
and wireless communications in order to
improver information flow. It uses the principles
of telemetry, the science that measures physical
remoteness by means of wireless transmission
from a remote source (such as a vehicle) to a
receiving station.
 Using mobile telemetry, technicians can distance
maintenance diagnosis and preventive
maintenance. Finally, doctors can monitor
patients and control medical equipment from a
distance.
BARRIERS TO L-COMMERCE

What a holding back the widespread use of locationbased commerce? Several factors come into play:
 Accuracy

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The cost-benefit justification


Benefits of l-commerce do not justify the cost of the
hardware.
The bandwidth of GSM networks

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Not as accurate as people expect them to be.
GSM bandwidth is currently limited.
Invasion of privacy

When “always-on” cell phones are a reality, many
people will be hesitant to have their whereabouts and
movements tracked throughout the day , even if they
have nothing to hide.
Illustrative Examples of RFID
Use

Tracking people


In some Japanese schools, tags in back-packs or
clothes track student’ entry and departure from
school buildings. In Denmark, the Legoland
amusement park offers parents a child-tracking
system that combines RFID and Wi-Fi. Beginning in
2006, all news U.S. passports will contain an RFID
tag, scanned upon entry and departure from the
United States.
Other Uses

RFID embedded in cell phones will soon replace
credit cards, cash, train passes, keys to your car
and home, business cards, and more. DoCoMo of
Japan introduced such a cell phone in 2004.
RFID and Privacy and Other
Risks

A major privacy concern is that when individual items are
tagged, and they are taken by customers out of stores, it
might be possible to track the movements of the customer
(remote surveillance). Therefore, some recommend that the
tags be removed before a sale is recorded. This increase
the cost to the store. Tracking customers is currently very
difficult since the readers have a very limited range from
which they can be read.
 Tags may be counterfeited, duplicated, swapped, damaged ,
intentionally, disabled, or otherwise misused. The
encryption protocols may be weak.
 Database can be misused, providing an opportunity for
identity theft , fraud, harassment, and blackmail.
 Other risks are possible interferences of metals and fluids
with the radio signals, tag quality may be uneven, cost if
attaching the tags can be too high , and the cost of the tags
is too high.