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In the context of uncertain economic environments urban agglomerations play a crucial role in economic development, reshaping industrial chains and fostering inter-city cooperation. This study employs the Global Production Network (GPN) theory to enhance our understanding of how cities integrate into regions, emphasizing the often-overlooked governmental influence in strategic coupling processes. In examining the evolution of China's smartphone industry within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) this research categorizes 19,599 smartphone companies into five distinct groups. Through analyzing their spatial distribution and geographical linkage the study identifies four strategic coupling modes based on the localization of assets, considering spatial influence and technological complexity along horizontal and vertical dimensions. Structural and institutional elements within these modes are also explored. The research uncovers unique integration patterns among nine cities in the GBA's mobile industry, revealing distinct spatial clusters rooted in technological, resource and innovation factors. Crucially, local policies play a pivotal role. Cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan emerge as technology hubs, contrasting with Foshan and Zhongshan, which leverage resource advantages. The spatial impact, contingent on specific assets, underscores the necessity for nuanced top-down coupling methods in regional development. Moreover, the study emphasizes the significance of nurturing innovation links, not only between leading companies but also among midstream and downstream enterprises, enhancing cities' strategic coupling capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unprecedented growth and prevalent adoption of the Android Operating System (OS) have triggered a substantial transformation, not only within the smartphone industry but across various categories of intelligent devices. These intelligent devices store a wealth of sensitive data, making them enticing targets for malicious individuals who create harmful Android applications to steal this data for malicious purposes. While numerous Android malware detection methods have been proposed, the exponential growth in sophisticated and malicious Android apps presents an unprecedented challenge to existing detection techniques. Some of the researchers have attempted to classify malicious Android applications into families through static analysis of applications but most of them are evaluated on applications of previous API levels. This paper introduces a novel dataset compromising of 2019 to 2021 applications and proposes a Deep Learning based Malware Detection and Family Classification method (DeepMDFC) to detect and classify emerging malicious Android applications through static analysis and deep Artificial Neural Networks. Experimental findings indicate that DeepMDFC surpasses standard machine learning algorithms, achieving accuracy rates of 99.3% and 96.7% for Android malware detection and classification, respectively, with a limited size feature set. The performance of DeepMDFC is also assessed using the benchmark dataset (DREBIN) and results showed that DeepMDFC surpasses these methods in terms of performance. Furthermore, it leverages the proposed dataset to construct a prediction model that adeptly identifies malicious Android applications from both the years 2022 and 2023. This process the potency and resilience of DeepMDFC against emerging Android applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a comprehensive overview of the smartphone charging technology evolution from its inception to the present day and its future trends. It also examines the impacts of government regulations and industry standards on smartphone technology development. This review also focuses on topology and architecture comparisons. The suitability of each solution is closely examined based on the complexity, size, efficiency, and flexibility of the system. This review provides a valuable framework for the development of next-generation power architectures and topologies for mobile devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the direct and mediated impacts of customers' perception of purchase budget (BGT) on purchase intention (PIT) through perceived quality (PPQ), perceived price (PPR), and perceived benefit (PB) in a cross-country setting to understand BGT's role in predicting customer purchase intention in smartphone selling through international online shopping platforms. An online survey was conducted in Kenya, France, and the United States to gather data from 429 consumers who had recently purchased one or more smartphones through international online shopping platforms. SmartPLS-4 was used to test the hypotheses. Results for the entire sample showed a significantly positive mediating role of PPR and PPQ between BGT and PIT. However, the mediating roles of PPQ and PB were not significant in the samples from Kenya, France, and the United States. The results also showed that PPR plays a significant and positive mediating role between BGT and PIT in samples from Kenya, France, the United States, and overall. However, the direct relationships between BGT and PPQ, PPR, and PB are shown to be negatively significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing impact of smartphone use on countries' economies, the literature has rarely investigated the link between economic context and smartphone purchase trends. Based on 20,556 smartphones sold from a Cross-Border E-Commerce (CBEC) platform, the study reveals that relationships between GDP per capita and Smartphone Choice Preferences (SCP) as well as Purchase Quantities (PUR) are direct and partially mediated by Price (PRI), Read-Only Memory (ROM), and Random-Access Memory (RAM). That means that the economic context highlighted by the GDP plays a substantial role in smartphone choices and purchases. The study suggests that e-sellers and smartphone brands should adapt their marketing and manufacturing strategies to the countries' economic contexts to leverage the fearless competition in the smartphone industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth in the technological advancements of the smartphone industry has classified contemporary smartphones as a low-cost and high quality indoor positioning tools requiring no additional infrastructure or equipment. In recent years, the fine time measurement (FTM) protocol, achieved through the Wi-Fi round trip time (RTT) observable, available in the most recent models, has gained the interest of many research teams worldwide, especially those concerned with indoor localization problems. However, as the Wi-Fi RTT technology is still new, there is a limited number of studies addressing its potential and limitations relative to the positioning problem. This paper presents an investigation and performance evaluation of Wi-Fi RTT capability with a focus on range quality assessment. A set of experimental tests was carried out, considering 1D and 2D space, operating different smartphone devices at various operational settings and observation conditions. Furthermore, in order to address device-dependent and other type of biases in the raw ranges, alternative correction models were developed and tested. The obtained results indicate that Wi-Fi RTT is a promising technology capable of achieving a meter-level accuracy for ranges both in line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions, subject to suitable corrections identification and adaptation. From 1D ranging tests, an average mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.85 m and 1.24 m is achieved, for LOS and NLOS conditions, respectively, for 80% of the validation sample data. In 2D-space ranging tests, an average root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.1m is accomplished across the different devices. Furthermore, the analysis has shown that the selection of the bandwidth and the initiator–responder pair are crucial for the correction model selection, whilst knowledge of the type of operating environment (LOS and/or NLOS) can further contribute to Wi-Fi RTT range performance enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation generates significant benefits for business, the economy, and society as a whole. An innovative product brings significant benefits and improved features to the market. This study aims to explore the effect of innovation characteristics on consumer resistance to innovation in the Smartphone industry. The data have been collected from 310 university students in Pakistan. The findings revealed that factors of innovation characteristics (relative advantage, perceived risk, and e‐word of mouth) have significant relationships with consumer resistance to innovation. Consumer innovativeness has shown the moderating effect on the relationships between innovation characteristics and consumer resistance to innovation. Limitations of the study, implications for theory and practice, and future research directions have been discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development and popularization of the internet and smartphone industry for ordering and delivery, the consumption of takeaway food is increasing globally, especially in China. However, there is little information about microplastics in takeaway food containers, so their potential risks to human health remain unknown. This study explored the possibility of using focal plane array (FPA)-based micro-FT-IR imaging to detect microplastics released from food containers and evaluated their contents using an automated database matching analysis method. We investigated microplastics in seven types of food containers widely used in China. The most common plastic types observed were polyamide (PA), polyurethane (PU) and polystyrene (PS), which were found to comprise 22.8%, 18.2%, and 8.5% (number of particles) of all microplastics, respectively. Microplastics were found in all seven types of food containers, and the content excluding cellulose was 29–552 items/container. Our research shows that microplastics in takeaway food containers might originate from atmospheric sediment or flakes from the inside surface of the container. According to the content of microplastics in takeaway food containers, people who order takeaway food 5–10 times a month might consume 145–5520 microplastic pieces from food containers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic purpose of this study is to understand the impact of brand experience, brand reputation, and brand love on electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in the Smartphone industry. The primary data includes 312 valid responses collected through a survey conducted in Bahawalpur city of Punjab Province, Pakistan. Findings have shown that Smartphone brand reputation and brand experience is positively associated with consumers' brand love and eWOM. Moreover, consumers' brand love has been found as a mediator in the relationships between (a) brand reputation and eWOM and (b) brand experience and eWOM. This study will increase awareness among the managers and other policy makers about the importance of brand love and other factors in getting eWOM particularly in Smartphone industry and generally in others. Limitations of the study, directions for future research, and policy guidelines are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores conventional assumptions on U.S. patent law and policy. Topics discussed include the challenges to theories of patent holdup and royalty stacking on standard-essential patents in the smartphone and electronics markets, increasing concern of the Supreme Court on the lack of procedural protections of patentees in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) reexamination process, and the challenge to the role of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in patent application.

The smartphone industry has become the focal point of the world economy with increasing competition every day and its constantly renewed product range. In this market where giant firms compete, the strategic action of firms is of great importance. The study aims to analyze the competition between the top three brands of the smartphone market, Samsung, iPhone and Huawei as a strategy. In this regard, in the study where the game theory of zero-sum and non-zero-sum game methods was used, it was determined that iPhone was better against its rivals in terms of technique, and Samsung and Huawei in terms of appearance feature strategy. On the other hand, the server with the most advantageous brand in terms of price and campaign strategy is Huawei and the weakest brand is the iPhone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies have changed human behavior, especially the characteristics of products and their functionalities related to interface and interaction. Smartphone users had to accept touchscreen interfaces without sufficient evidence of the effectiveness of these digital interfaces over physical analog interfaces. Moreover, smartphone gaming industries have introduced mobile games with touch-based interfaces that may or may not be effective for game users. This study aims to find empirical evidence for the effectiveness between analog and digital interfaces for smartphone game controls through two usability tests: (a) a pilot study to compare the data values between direct and indirect input control with six participants and (b) a main study to investigate the effects of tap-only afford between digital and analog input control from the results of the pilot study. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used to analyze the usability test. A total of 81 participants were enrolled in the main study and divided into two large groups to compare one-handed and two-handed input controls. Nine participants in each group played smartphone games that were based on different input control tasks. This study found that direct touchscreen interaction was more effective for two-handed input control tasks and indirect physical input control was more effective for one-handed input control tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to accelerate the discovery of product innovation ideas is critical for manufacturers with short life cycles, such as smartphones. Companies with short product lifespans require innovative strategies to improve their products based on customer needs. Three-dimensional concurrent engineering (3DCE) has the potential to speed up the process of developing new products. On the other side, the availability of online data, such as social media and intellectual property, has the potential to identify and prioritize product, technology, and supplier opportunities in a cost-effective, quick, and real-time manner. This study proposes an online data-driven concurrent product, process, and supply chain design (3DCE) for linking customer requirements to potential technology and supplier opportunities in early-stage new product development. Three case studies on the leading smartphone industry demonstrate the proposed method's feasibility and effectiveness. To identify customer requirements, opinions from social media data are collected. Product opportunities are developed using latent Dirichlet allocation to identify product topics and sentiment analysis to assess satisfaction levels. Then, a novel approach by association rule mining is developed to mine specific customer requirements for each promising topic. In the 3DCE approach, the potential technology and supplier opportunities are tailored to specific customer requirements based on intellectual property mining. Finally, this study discovers improvement ideas and potential alternative solutions for product development with an unsupervised approach. The proposed method has also been validated and aligns with successful innovation products by Apple, Samsung, and Huawei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Servitization is a rising trend as companies look for new revenue streams. This paper presents a study of customer care business model evolution in the smartphone industry. The paper identifies key changes in the business models during recent years and their implications for companies seeking after-sales service excellence and new revenue sources. Design/methodology/approach: The research approach is built on the literature of product-service offerings, servitization, and business models. The empirical part is based on a case study of former Nokia mobile phone business, the Apple iPhone, and Google Android. Findings: Three different customer care business models and an analysis of the changes in the smartphone industry are presented. This paper demonstrates how after-sales services have become increasingly important in generating new revenue. Moreover, the nature of after-sales services has fundamentally changed in the industry. Research limitations/implications: Due to the careful selection of the cases that represent the studied industry well, the results provide valuable insights for practitioners and researchers involved in developing after-sales service offerings in the mobile industry. However, a case study research approach may not offer a generalized picture of this phenomenon in other industries. Originality/value: A novel analysis of customer care evolution in the smartphone industry is presented. In addition, the study demonstrates that applying the concept of business models to after-sales services provides new insights into these services and their roles in business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • EVAPO is the state-of-the-art app applied in agricultural or hydrological problems. • EVAPO is an app ready-to-use in practical situations where there is a scarcity of water. • EVAPO app is reliable because uses Penman-Monteith method to estimate potential evapotranspiration worldwide. Abstract In this study a new android app for smartphones to estimate potential evapotranspuration (PET) in real time, using gridded data from NASA-POWER, to any location in the world, would result in a more efficient irrigation and increase irrigation water conservation. The smartphone app called EVAPO uses meteorological data to calculate PET using the Penman–Monteith (FAO56) method. To evaluate performance of the proposed method, we compared PET estimated by the EVAPO with that estimated from climatic data from conventional surface meteorological stations. The accuracy, tendency and precision of the models were determined using the Willmott et al. (1985) concordance index (d), systematic root mean square error (RMSEs) and determination index (R2), respectively. The results obtained were satisfactory for all studied locations whit mean values of 0.67, 0.95 (mm) and 0.72 for d, RMSEs and R2, respectively. The app can be accessed in the Play Store (free): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.com.maldonado.instantet0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wide functionality and the vast range of attributes offered by smartphones has led to a substantial increase in the average amount of time these devices are used per day. An excessive use of these tools has been shown to result in symptomatology similar to psychological disorders caused by substance addiction. In Spain, smartphone use has risen exponentially but the effects of this increase remain unclear. Therefore, an instrument is required to help determine the extent of smartphone addiction in the Spanish population. The Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI) is a valid and reliable mean to identify and measure smartphone addiction and so, the aim of this research is the translation and adaptation of SPAI to Spanish, as well as the analysis of its psychometric properties in a Spanish adult population of 2,958 adults, at the University of Valencia. A multiphase-interactive model has been used, based on classical translation–back-translation methods to translate and adapt the SPAI. Moreover, a confirmatory factor analysis to verify that the inventory showed acceptable goodness of fit indices (χ2293 = 4795.909, Comparative Fit Index = 0.927, Tucker–Lewis Index = 0.919, Root Mean Square Error of approximation = 0.072, and Standardised Root Mean square Residual = 0.051) has been carried out. Also good reliability has been found for the global inventory (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.949), and each of its corresponding factors: compulsive behaviour, functional impairment, abstinence, and tolerance (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.856, 0.888, 0.855, and 0.712, respectively). Hence, the SPAI has been adequately translated and adapted for its use in Spain and therefore it is a useful tool for evaluating the degree of smartphone addiction in the Spanish adult population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Round-the-clock use of smartphones holds a potential for awakenings and/or shorter sleep duration, which may have adverse health consequences. We aim to describe overnight smartphone activity among young adults and to characterize those with smartphone interrupted sleep in terms of sleep impairment and mental and physical health indicators. Methods: We use unique objective high-resolution information on timing of smartphone activity (based on >250,000 phone actions) continuously monitored over a four-week period among 815 young adults combined with indicators of mental and physical health. Results: We find substantial overnight smartphone activity. More than 12% had smartphone activity in the middle of the night (3 to 5 hours after self-reported bedtime) and 41% had smartphone interrupted sleep on at least one weekday during a 4-week period. Those with frequent smartphone interrupted sleep had on average 48 minutes shorter self-reported sleep duration and higher body mass index, whereas there were no differences in physical or mental health symptoms. Conclusions: The substantial smartphone activity during bed hours among young adults may pose a public health challenge and especially the relation to overweight warrants close attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Revenge porn’ is conceptualised as a modern phenomenon which the law is not equipped to deal with. The advent of smartphone technology has allowed sexually explicit material to be created easily and disseminated quickly. An increasing number of individuals have fallen victim to this phenomenon in recent years. This paper submits that victims of revenge porn ought to be held due monetary redress in the civil law, while acknowledging that the damage done by revenge porn need not necessarily involve a loss. Victims of revenge porn are likely to suffer from severe emotional distress and upset, but these injuries are non-patrimonial. This can consequently make it difficult to frame an action for damages. This paper asks if the delict iniuria might offer appropriate remedy in instances of revenge porn. The actio iniuriarum was, in Roman law, a delict which served to protect the non-patrimonial aspects of a person's existence – ‘who a person is rather than what a person has’. As the propagation of sexually explicit images of an individual without their consent is clearly an affront to the esteem of that individual, it is argued that instances of revenge porn ought to be considered actionable as iniuria in modern Scottish law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research work studies a two-member supply chain (that deals in smart phones) consisting of the manufacturer (positioned upstream) and the telecom service provider (positioned downstream). Customers can purchase smart phone handset and service either separately from the two members (free channel) or as a package (bundled channel) from either of the members. The smart phone manufacturer invests in the greening improvement of the product and the customers are sensitive to the greening improvement level. The study considers three power structures for the bundled channel (Manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader - MS, Telecom Service Provider is the Stackelberg leader – TS, and where both the players possess equal power i.e. Vertical Nash- VN) to characterize the optimal decisions of the manufacturer – the smart phone handset unit retail price, the greening improvement level and the optimal decision of the telecom service provider – the amount of subsidy to pay to the handset manufacturer. The novelty of this study comes from the insights derived from the analysis of the green smart phone supply chain. The supply chain player with superior power earns more profit but is dependent on a condition that is a function of greening investment by the manufacturer, customer sensitivity to greening improvement level and customer sensitivity to prices. Also under similar conditions, the study shows that the balanced power structure (VN) is best for the supply chain i.e. supply chain profits are the highest. The insights derived from analysing the impact of greening investment and customer sensitivity to greening on the optimal subsidy amount are new and have not been studied before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User acceptance of technology is essential to determine its success. The current paper incorporates the main properties of the technology acceptance models (TAMs) developed by management scholars into a pre-commitment signaling duopolistic framework, where two competing firms must decide the level of technological improvement of the products being introduced. As a result, the corresponding equilibria of the duopolistic technological games will be determined by demand-based factors, providing a novel approach and complementing the current supply-based economic and operational research models developed in the literature. The proposed model will be simulated numerically to illustrate the strategic optimality of the update process of smartphone and tablet characteristics defined by Apple and Samsung as the market developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare the evolution of the mobile phone and electric two-wheeler sectors in China. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Chinese firms have used technologies bundled into platforms to meet the needs of low-income Chinese consumers. The possibilities of downstream innovation opened up by platforms were not pursued. This paper shows how changes in Chinese consumer demand led to pressures for greater product differentiation and innovation, and how businesses responded to this through investing in research and development, developing their value chain linkages and mobilising local and national innovation resources. We highlight sectoral differences, particularly with respect to the speed of technological change in the mobile phone industry and its consequences for value chain linkages and inter-firm learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a system level description of a cavity-enhanced millimeter-wave spectrometer that is the first in its class to combine source and detection electronics constructed from architectures commonly deployed in the mobile phone industry and traditional pulsed Fourier transform techniques to realize a compact device capable of sensitive and specific in situ gas detections. The instrument, which has an operational bandwidth of 90–102 GHz, employs several unique components, including a custom-designed pair of millimeter-wave transmitter and heterodyne receiver integrated circuit chips constructed with 65 nm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) techniques. These elements are directly mated to a hybrid coupling structure that enables free-space interaction of the electronics with a small gas volume while also acting as a cavity end mirror. Instrument performance for sensing of volatile compounds is highlighted with experimental trials taken in bulk gas flows and seeded molecular beam environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents an evaluation framework to measure the various operations to acquire the optimal core operation (CO) when financier provides the supply chain finance (SCF) services in smartphone industry supply chain (SC). The proposed model applies the modify Delphi method and analytic network process (ANP). First, the evaluation model establishes a network with three criteria, eleven sub-criteria and four operations. Next, the ANP is utilized to the framework to obtain the relative weights of the criteria. Finally, the application of the multi-criteria decision making process will list the optimal CO on the basis of their rankings in the framework. The proposed model and the relevant research results can provide academic support to the decision-makers on finance sector with a valuable objective guide for assessing the CO of smartphone industry SC programs to determine the optimal solution in their actual administration of SCF service practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, concerns are increasingly being expressed about the threats of side-channel attacks that exploit acoustic emanations from electronic as well as mechanical devices of daily use. With the increased level of sophistication in both hardware and applications that run on mobile phones, the number of possible ways in which their vulnerabilities can be exploited is also on the rise. In this article, we demonstrate a novel attack which uses the sound emanating from a tap made on the touchscreen of a smartphone to decipher the text being typed. The audio signal captured by the pair of microphones typically embedded in a smartphone is first processed to determine a candidate set of keys. Filters are employed to make this step robust against ambient noise. Natural language processing techniques are then used to estimate the most probable words and sentences that can be constructed from a sequence of taps. It is shown that using even off-the-shelf tools, the typed text including passwords can be guessed with reasonably high accuracy. Besides raising awareness about this potential side-channel attack, we identify the causes that allow it to succeed and suggest countermeasures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Understand the issues in Supply chain designs and to create and develop an Efficient and Responsive supply chain network. Results: Since its inception by management stalwarts in the early 1980's Supply chain focus lies with the integration of various activities and processes both within and between organizations. The generic conceptualization of the 'Supply chain" is concerned much of the ways throughout business is an upshot of fragmented/disintegrated supply chain configurations. Nevertheless there exists enough evidence to support the notion that higher levels of achievement of intra and inter firm integration presents an array of managerial hurdles. The need for innovation is the call of today's robust SCM. Given the pivotal role played by supplier within SCM, any meaning innovation must concentrate heavily on this issue. This research outlines some of the hurdles and challenges encountered by existing supply chain in business context. It goes on to relate Supplier significance in Supply chain by the widely cited Kraljic's Matrix (Harvard business 1983).The core of this study gives a detailed account of supply chain management based on wide variety of literature. It does so with certain reference to the obstacles in having in implementing and integrated chain of business paradigm with a view of identifying the range of possible innovative and robust solutions. The adoption of more complex and integrated Supply Chain poses questions regarding the nature of customer/supplier relationship both internally and externally. The efficient and effective management of such relationships is, hence given peculiar focus. Applications: developing an efficient and responsive supply chain, reducing bullwhip effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An influential literature claims that standard setting for high-technology interoperable products potentially creates monopoly power for the owners of standard-essential patents. Moreover, because there are many owners of standard-essential patents, and each may independently exercise monopoly power (a phenomenon called royalty stacking), an anticommons tragedy may ensue. With actual data from the canonical case of the smartphone industry, this Article shows that royalty stacking theory predicts a cumulative royalty yield of nearly eighty percent. That is, it predicts that four-fifths of the price of a smartphone will accrue to patent holders. Even if all patent holders would combine to eliminate the tragedy of the anticommons and behave as a single monopolist, theory predicts a cumulative royalty yield of nearly sixty-seven percent. That is, it predicts that two-thirds of the price of a smartphone will accrue to patent holders. This Article then uses actual data from licensors in the smartphone value chain to estimate the actual cumulative royalty yield. It finds that in 2016, the cumulative royalty yield in the world smartphone value chain was only 3.4 percent of the average selling price of a smartphone. This suggests that patent holders do not exercise any meaningful monopoly power to increase prices in the world smartphone market, much less that there is an anticommons tragedy in the smartphone industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile crowdsourcing networks (MCNs) are a promising method of data collecting and processing by leveraging the mobile devices' sensing and computing capabilities. However, because of the selfish characteristics of the service provider (SP) and mobile users (MUs), crowdsourcing participants only aim to maximize their own benefits. This paper investigates the incentive mechanism between the above two parties to create mutual benefits. By modeling MCNs as a labor market, a contract-based crowdsourcing model with moral hazard is proposed under the asymmetric information scenario. In order to incentivize the potential MUs to participate in crowdsourcing tasks, the optimization problem is formulated to maximize the SP's utility by jointly examining the crowdsourcing participants' risk preferences. The impact of crowdsourcing participants' attitudes of risks on the incentive mechanism has been studied analytically and experimentally. Numerical simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed contract design scheme for the crowdsourcing incentive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide an economic rationalization for concerns that restrictions in the contracts between Google and manufacturers of mobile devices based on the Android operating system have anti-competitive effects. We extend recent insights on tying in two-sided markets (by Choi and Jeon), showing that tying of Google’s app store with its search app (and revenue sharing agreements which compensate manufacturers for exclusivity) can protect and increase Google’s profits from search advertising, and help it outbid or marginalize other search engines. Two-sidedness with some pricing constraint on the Google suite can “break” the “One Monopoly Profit” paradigm – even with linear pricing for the Google Suite under heterogeneous consumers. While it is not possible for Google to extract all consumer surplus from the app store as a standalone product, part of this surplus can be extracted through the tying strategy, which shifts additional profits towards the dominant firm and reduces consumer welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management for high-tech products, based on innovative product architectures and components, is a critical issue for market satisfaction. Scientific research has widely investigated the competitive advantage that product knowledge owned by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) has on product innovation. Nonetheless, the linkage between OEMs' accumulated knowledge on single modules and customer satisfaction is less explored. The article aims at identifying what level of knowledge OEMs should have on both the single modules and the whole product architecture to achieve better customer satisfaction. The research method uses text mining techniques on patent documents to detect associations of modules and product knowledge with patented technologies. Regression analyses are thereafter performed to test the linkage of such a knowledge with customer satisfaction using SPSS. The explorative analysis of the smartphone industry demonstrates that an effect on the final market is found for specific modules, such as application processor, camera and touchscreen controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life is nothing less than a hell without any entertainment in it. Thanks to mobile phones that let us entertain ourselves on the go. Mobile phones that are being launched nowadays, come with super impressive features that revolve around entertainment. Mobile manufacturers know it pretty well that entertainment has become an indispensable part of human life in the current era. This is the reason why mobile phones are nothing but a complete portable entertainment package. The main source of portable entertainment is music. A very common but irritating problem faced by the youngsters of this era is missing their favorite beat, or pausing a song frequently while conversing with someone. This seems to be negligible, but irritates most as they have to rewind the song or even restart it from beginning for the single beat. So think about a system that stops playing when the buds are taken off, and automatically continues when it is placed back. This seems to be simple but it is not so. This will change the whole experience of enjoying media, making a new mile stone in the entertainment world. This system will bring a new generation of media players that not only allows us to listen to our favorite music whenever we want but also allows automatic access without having to unlock our phones every now and then for the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]