Android

 

Thanks to a generous donation from Google, several Android development projects have been under way.

  • Emily Adams, Mehool Intwala, Apu Kapadia: The Android application is a proof of concept medical record access control implementation that focuses on providing the patient finite control over what type of medical record information is shared with a medical practitioner. We are not implementing the actual http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AacZJIAG2hC2ZGR0MmQ4Z2RfMTA4ZHhrY3E4NWs&hl=entransmission of the data, rather focusing on data management and user approach to protect/sharing sensitive data.
  • Geoff Chirgwin: We developed an experimental system for online recognition of the handwritten music notation. This was an HTML5 implementation, so only the browser was used for testing. Most of the Android API documentation is geared towards native applications, and it was not easy to find documentation for Android-specific extensions to Webkit. I also advised students on their research projects. The idea here was to stay one step ahead in knowledge department.
  • Kay Connelly: The phones are being used for two participants of a six participant NSF-funded study examining privacy attitudes of elders. The two elders using the phones are a control group for the study which will be used as a comparison with a few variables from the research.
  • Jessica Kinser: Buddy Blocker is a cell phone application that runs on the Android operating system. The application for the Android platform will block all relative information associated with a user defined list of contacts including contact information, previous texts, and calls. The application was built using the Android application builder software and developer tools found on the Android developer website. Buddy Blocker uses different user defined profiles to prevent certain contacts from being accessible in regards to the user specified security settings. These settings include a timer, password lock, and a sobriety check of which can be used simultaneously or individually to protect the user from contacting or being contacted by others. The goal of Buddy Blocker is to help individuals prevent “drunk dialing and/or texting”, as well as aid parents in controlling the times children are able to use their phones and who they are able to call at certain times. Our solution addresses the problem of “drunk texting” by hiding the contact information for people that the user should not be in contact with at a given time, thus eliminating the possibility to make inappropriate communication. The final goal is to place the application on the Android Marketplace for users to download and use at their own will.
  • Nathaniel Husted: The Android phone is being used for use in our research on inadvertent wireless tracking networks. One usage is to provide a data recording tool for research experiments. This includes recording signal strength (RSSI) values for specific GPS locations to determine the RSSI attenuation at different positions in our building. The second usage is to provide a test platform for enabling wireless devices to be added in to a tracking network.
  • Varun Khandua: Two android phones would be used for development of a prototype and user experience. IRB study # 0910000722 titled”understanding diet and physical activities of children aged between 6 to 12 at home”. The phones will help in prototype of a design arrived as a part of user research.
  • Zhou Li: We tested the security of Android phone. Specifically, we built a sound trojan which can eavesdrop user’s conversation and identify sensitive information like credit card number. A research paper describing our work is submitted to this year’s CCS.