Sigmund Akselsen

Telemedicine and ISDN

The advantages of using integrated services digital networks (SDNs) as an infrastructure for telemedicine applications are discussed. The applications, developed in a Norwegian Telecom Research project, are grouped according to their use in the health services: telediagnosis, distance learning, medical information, and administrative health information. The telemedicine applications are reviewed, and a number of ideas for further development of such applications based on ISDN technology are proposed.<<ETX>>

Impacts of Home-Based Telework on Quality of Life for Employees and Their Partners. Quantitative and Qualitative Results From a European Survey

The study investigates the effects of home-based telework on quality of life (QoL). Four dimensions of QoL were analysed; overall satisfaction with life, sense of belonging, sense of becoming and sense of being. Through cross-national survey data (from 217 job holders and 112 partners) and by means of structural equation modeling, a positive association was found between home-based telework to a workers sense of belonging (beta = 0.30, p < 0.001). On the other hand, a negative path was detected from the job holders home-based telework to his or her partners overall satisfaction with life (beta = −0.27, p < 0.05). After controlling for subdimensions of life quality, home-based work did not affect the job holders overall life satisfaction. Moreover, the more concentration the job holder reported, the lower the sense of belonging was reported by his or her partner (beta = −0.28, p < 0.05). No simple explanation for the negative effects were found, but our interviews with the group of workers and their families leave us the impression that the problem of overworking and withdrawal was most relevant to the cases, in combination with negative spill-over effects and unclear boundary settings in the home.

MICTS: Municipal ICT Schools – A Means for Bridging the Digital Divide Between Rural and Urban Communities

There is a substantial difference in use and development of information and communication technologies and services between and within countries. Some denote this phenomenon as the digital divide.This paper addresses the competence aspect of the digital divide. It proposes municipal ICT schools as one model aimed to bridge this gap and provides an assessment of the model based on the results from a field trial in three rural municipalities in Norway. The model brings the benefits of increased competence of ICT in the communities but in addition have a potential with regard to stimulating talent development, serving as a resource for local business and offering meeting places in the communities for building social capital. The model may be successfully implemented within reasonable economic limitations but is also challenging in several ways, for instance on how teaching resources are recruited and supported.The purpose of the paper is to bring forward the discussion about how to bring all people, also those in rural areas, to be participators in the information technology age.

User acceptance of digital tourist guides lessons learnt from two field studies

Two digital tourist guides have been developed and tested in real settings. They are both outdoor guides adapted to mobile phones, - targeting attractions and tourist services within a region and a specific attraction respectively. Aspects related to simplicity in use, installation procedures, content quality, co-visiting mechanisms, and mechanisms that support links between physical object and digital content should be accentuated in future digital guides.

Towards a general purpose, scaleable workstation for remote medical consultations. Experiences from use of VIDA–a still image system for the provision of low-cost telemedicine

Telemedicine is a way of providing medical services to patients, no matter where the patient or relevant information is located. A low-cost still image system for the provision of telemedicine services has been implemented and has been subject to field trials within several medical disciplines. The objective has been two-fold. Through our work we have aimed to bring forward a tool for remote medical consultations. Furthermore, we have earned experiences from these trials relative to the long-term task of designing a general-purpose, telemedicine workstation. We describe the objective for the work, the VIDA still image system, experiences from user trials, and discuss how these should influence the design and technical requirements for such a workstation.

“I Expect Smart Services!” User Feedback on NFC Based Services Addressing Everyday Routines

Smartphones are central to everyday activities. Paired with short distance radio technologies the range of smartphone application is extended and development of “smarter” services is enabled. A trial, including 60 pilot users, shows that the smartphone itself and its capability to emulate transaction and access cards are highly valued. In order to meet expectations adaptive and personalized features/services should be added, based on knowledge of the individual users’ activities and communicated needs, as well as their curiosity for new adventures.

Two-factor authentication for android host card emulated contactless cards

With the introduction of Host Card Emulation (HCE) in Android 4.4 KitKat the Near Field Communication (NFC) card emulation mode took a twist. On one side, HCE allows for easier development and a shorter deployment path for contactless card services on the mobile phone (e.g. payment, ticketing, loyalty cards etc.). On the other side, it introduces new security issues since it does not intrinsically involve a secure element on the mobile phone. As an example, the Cipurse open ticketing standard for public transportation, published by OSPT, implies usage of a secure element for the authentication mechanism and key storage. How can Cipurse benefit from the advantages of HCE and still provide secure authentication and encryption of transferred data? We have designed a two-factor authentication mechanism that involves usage of the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (also known as the SIM card) as the secure second-factor that allows for the implementation of the Cipurse specification as a secure HCE application. The benefit is faster execution of the Cipurse emulated card but still with feasible security for many application areas.

Customer Managed Security Domain on Mobile Network Operators’ SIM Cards: Opportunities to Enable New Business Models

Mobile Network Operators’ (MNOs) role as keystone players in the smartphone business ecosystem is challenged by other actors and technologies that could reduce the importance of the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC, aka the SIM card). Modern UICC are Java Cards that include a Global Platform conformant Secure Element currently under the MNOs control. We argue that there is an opportunity in the smartphone business ecosystem to offer easy access for customers and service providers to the Secure Element on the UICC for storing data and for installing and executing applications with high demands for security. The MNOs could let the customers own and manage their private Global Platform specified Supplementary Security Domain on the Secure Element, thereby enabling new business models for services using this asset. We have designed and implemented SecurePlay, a client side, proxy based “lightweight” Trusted Service Manager (TSM) prototype and have successfully used it to manage Secure Elements on UICC in the Telenor operated mobile phone network in Norway. SecurePlay is a novel technical approach to management of the Secure Element, which allows operators to cost efficiently enable end-user ownership and operation of their own private security. A proof-of-concept prototype of the proxy based TSM is presented and business aspects are discussed.

The Impacts of Telework on Quality of Life: A Revised Model for Research

Teleworking appears as one major area where new technology has a potential to change the way people are ‘doing things’ (in this case working) and thereby bring about a better life for the individual. This potential has raised interest in using telework among European decision-makers, employers and employees. The Quality of Life (QoL) issue has in particular been put on many employers’ agenda, as the individual employees’ well-being seems to be decisive for their professional contributions. In a knowledge-based economy, the knowledge and creativity of employees are companies’ main capital. Thus, these companies are especially vulnerable to human malfunctioning. Knowledge workers, who feel miserable due to personal problems or poor living conditions, are not able to cope with their jobs (even if they could have managed doing simple routine tasks or hard physical labour tasks under the same circumstances). Increased QoL will have a great impact on productivity in knowledge-based activities, while a corresponding reduction may lead to dramatically negative effects. This motivates employers to take more responsibility for the individual employee’s QoL. A telework arrangement is in this connection regarded as one of several possible ways to increase workers’ (and families) QoL, and the arrangement also appear to be used as an attractor for recruiting and retaining workers with key skills.

Succeeding with contactless service innovations - strategic recommendations based on a comparative analysis of mobile business ecosystems in Norway

Contactless communication technology in mobile phones (e.g., near field communication) has a potential to simplify our everyday life by enabling services like mobile payment, ticketing and information sharing services. The recommendations in this paper are based on a comparative case study of previous mobile service ecosystems used in Norway. The findings of this study add insights into key success factors for the mobile network operator during the different business ecosystem evolutionary stages. The recommendations include the fact that mobile network operators can succeed in kick-starting contactless mobile payment services by taking a role as a trusted service manager, focusing on establishing the ecosystem and contactless payment service together with partners in the bank sector. Furthermore, in an expansion phase the mobile network operator must open up for collaboration and connect with a portfolio of aggregators, merchants and third party niche players offering secure and high quality services and applications.