MobiCloud Construction App Challenge

Submit your idea for a mobile application for use in the construction industry and you could win €1,000 in our Construction App Challenge. 

If you go on to enter a team you could help develop the next must-have mobile solution for construction based on the MobiCloud platform.

All ideas submitted will be reviewed by a panel of construction experts who will give feedback and suggestions for improvements. The more notable ideas will feature at the MobiCloud showcase event which is being held at the COMIT & Fiatech IT conference at the Crystal in London on the 31st of October. The idea judged to be the best will be awarded a €1,000 prize.

We will then go on to give teams access to those ideas and provide expert help and assistance in turning them into fully-fledged business concepts using the MobiCloud platform. If any of our construction sponsors are suitably impressed they may even run trials of those solutions on site.

The Construction App Challenge is open to absolutely anybody - individuals, students, established developers or start-ups. For details and information on how to enter please visit our website at www.mobicloudproject.eu

CloudWatch concertation meeting visit report

by Vladimir Bataev, EsperantoXL

On Sep 11, 2014 CloudWatch hosted a concertation event at the EC premises in Brussels to collect feedback from experts on the upcoming work programme 2016-2017 (H2020 LEIT ICT WP2016 -2017).

Traditionally, during this day members from various EC-related projects break into committees to discuss pressing subjects in software & services and cloud computing that should be considered in the work programme. The day is completed by joint review and a series of panels.

MobiCloud project was invited to join the closing panel on how the upcoming work programme can support SMEs and startups, and give additional boost to technology innovation in Europe. I sat in the company of Dalibor Baškovč from EuroCloud Slovenia, Luc Hendrickx from UEAPME and Filip Gluszak from GridPocket. The panel was chaired by Patrice Chazerand from DIGITALEUROPE.

My presentation focused on the upcoming construction app challenge organized by MobiCloud: how it opens opportunities for startups and SMEs to validate new product ideas with experts from larger companies and increase chances of success.

Mssrs. Baškovč and Hendrickx addressed the panel subject from a different angle: they have shared and reviewed the results of a survey wherein a number of startups and SMEs commented on how they use the cloud and how it supports their innovation programmes. An unexpected debate emerged on actual definitions and compositions of a typical SME in Europe, and what needs it might have on security and privacy.

The reaction of the audience was predictable -- many experts firmly believe that software vendors should be further controlled by the government to make sure that breaches are rare and propely punished, and that the burden of enforcing privacy should not be on users.

I challenged this opinion by running a small impromptu poll with the audience. I asked two sets of questions:

1. How many people are using GMail actively? And how many of them enabled two-step authentication and went to check if their account was compromised during the most recent leak of account passwords?
2. How many people are using Facebook Messenger on the phone? And how many did review the end user agreement which grants this app unlimited access to camera and microphone?

In both cases, the amount of raised hands decreased with each question in the set, highlighting the most important conclusion -- the consumer behavior and attitudes to privacy in the cloud have changed. Even the experts who fully understand the risks and possible consequences of breaches, are now less strict about sharing their private information or pursuing maximum available security.

Consequently, if the awareness of the privacy risks does not rise among not-expert users, it will become more and more difficult to prevent scandals like the recent celebrity photo hijacking. More importantly, simplifying the effort needed to ensure good level cloud privacy and safety for end users is a field abound with good business opportunities.

New app development features now available

By Martin Wilson, Appear

Quicker Setup

For the developers creating an app for the first time it is now much easier, with an automated set-up of the environment and basic “Hello World” application ready to go. This enables users to quickly get to know their way around the MobiCloud platform and how to prototype and test apps quickly. 

This helps with the iterative process involved in developing apps in an agile manner - develop - demo - develop more - demo etc.

Build and demonstrate “data sharing apps”

Developers that don't already have a back end system to integrate with their apps needn't worry – the cloud based IA (Integration Adapter) allows them to create applications where the same data sets can be accessed by different apps, different users and devices. This new feature allows the creation of “diary” apps, “note” apps and other data sharing apps without the complexity of having to create a data back end.

Apps for most simple use cases can now be quickly put together and demonstrated, without needing to implement a full backend IA. This starting point can be adaopted and enhanced to create custom integration logic, using the backend integration kit (link to Appear's developer website)

Three illustrations of a ”to do list” app that use the new capabilities are available using any one of three different frameworks (link to actual code samples stored on Github):

1.    To do app using AngularJS 

2.    To do app using BackboneJS,

3.    To do app using SenchaTouch

Appear is developing more tutorials that will explain how to get the most from the new features in the coming days.

The continually evolving appeariq.com developer site explains in detail the AppearIQ technology behind the MobiCloud project. For the full feature list of what’s new in AppearIQ 8.1.1 click here

What the Mozilla EUR 25.00 smartphone means for Enterprise Mobility

By Martin Wilson, Appear

Mozilla has just announced a new smartphone costing just twenty-five euros in India. This is an incredible 1%-2% of the price of a ruggedized windows PDA-type device that is still used in many Enterprise Mobility environments. The device will include up to 4GB memory, includes Bluetooth / Wi-Fi and dual-SIM which should be more than enough to support enterprise applications.

The product is one of the first cheap devices running the Firefox OS and aside from bringing the benefits of smartphone technology to consumers it will also likely offer up a whole new range of opportunities for business applications in the Asia region and beyond that until now have been impossible due to the cost of devices.

Current application developers will be looking at the launch with interest – the Indian market is still relatively untapped and potentially huge. Many current smartphone applications may not easily work with the devices. Firstly many of the applications that have been implemented using native Android or iOS SDKs will need to be re-implemented. Secondly – as the devices are intended for markets that currently are dominated by so-called “featurephones” which only offer limited internet accessibility there is the medium term issue of a lack of internet connectivity in the networks to consider.

If the device and the operating system prove popular it will support the ecosystem of HTML5 developers and container-based Enterprise Mobility solutions - such as those enabled by the AppearIQ mobility platform, which is the technology behind MobiCloud.

The ability of applications to work in offline environments (later synchronizing through the platform when connectivity is available) and in a secure container separate from other consumer applications is a key benefit for developers to consider using the platform.

Appear Launch IQ 8.1

MobiCloud lead partner Appear  Networks just announced the public launch of Appear IQ 8.1 – the latest version of the mobile application enablement technology which is powering the MobiCloud project. 

The Mobicloud platform is now open to all developers, ISVs, Integrators and other software development organisations. ISVs (such as Nettropolis who are delivering their MobiCloud project for the public transit market in Germany) have already been using the platform to deliver professional mobility solutions to their customers - extending their existing software platform or building new propositions. 

Appear IQ enables the creation of professional looking, enterprise-grade mobile apps that are easily integrated with existing B2B/B2E software and distributed to end users. 

Appear IQ 8.1 includes a new Mobile SDK that simplifies the development of hybrid containerized HTML5 apps, a new Integration SDK to enable the apps to integrate to IT systems seamlessly without impacting the existing software, Support for PhoneGap / Cordova apps and a new community website with example code fragments, templates and more.

The new community website is designed around the expectations of developers - providing full documentation for the MobiCloud technology.

To learn more and to sign-up for a free user account development teams are invited to check out the new documentation site at appeariq.com.

MobiCloud Site Diary Development

By Mark Collier

The first version of the site diary application has been available for a while now with over 70 commercial users trailing the app and the platform, across multiple sites and devices.

We have been great feedback about the look and ease of use for the application and some brilliant suggestions for improvements and additional features. Development on Site Diary has continued and it has grown from what was initially a fairly simple application to something much more sophisticated.

The latest release sees the following upgrades and new features - in some cases made possible by improvements to the platform which we are also continuing to develop.

Use it from a PC

We have added a Back Office Event Creation Page which allows users to input events directly from a PC. This can be preferable to using a mobile device when in the office. It also makes it easier for a whole site to reap the benefits of Site Diary when not all users have access to it via a mobile device. Feedback shows this can be the case where an employer is unable to provide all staff with mobile devices and individuals opt to use their own personal devices to access the system.  

System Resilience

We have made improvements to the login and inactivity logout behaviour, especially on Internet Explorer. This should improve the experience for users of the back-office solution.

Android Container Improvements

Site Diary was initially released on iOS and the Android version which was recently made available contained some bugs. These were not with the core application thanks to the hybrid HTLM5 development, but with native Android features. The new release addresses issues with screen orientation and improves the data synchronization.

+7 Days Event Retrieval

One indication of the success of the application has been the large number of events that are being recorded per site. This is much higher than originally expected and has lead to performance issues on some sites where data rates are low, due to the amount of data being downloaded. This has been addressed by automatically syncing events from the last 7 days only onto the device. Older events can still be retrieved on-demand from the cloud as required.

Global Weather Support

Another sign of success for Site Diary is the number of trial signups from outside of the UK. Consequently the automatic weather reporting feature has been modified to be able to access weather information from anywhere in the world - with the added benefit of improved accuracy within the UK. The ability to select local units (Celisius/Fahrenheit and miles per hour/metres per second) has also been added.

Work on the Site Diary continues and we hope to give you more updates soon. In the meantime you can still try the app for free by signing up on the MobiCloud website.

The dream of an agnostic smart device world

By Mark Collier

Given recent news stories rolling around it seems there is an ever increasing demand for device agnostic solutions when it comes to smart devices. As consumers I expect we can all go through our list of devices and count a multitude of things on each device that we wish we could use seamlessly on all of our other devices.

Device agnostic solutions are greener...

Personally I have just upgraded my iPhone and now have the task of ensuring that I carry two charging cables, plus my laptop charger and my work phone charger with me everywhere I go. It’s a good ploy to get me to upgrade my iPad every time I forget one of the cables.

Luckily as far as chargers go, the end is nearly in sight. Back in March the EU overwhelmingly backed a resolution that will make it law for smart phone manufactures to produce devices with a common charger by 2017, hallelujah!  Not only will this make my bag lighter but it is estimated to save around 51,000 tonnes of electronic waste a year. It might also surprise you to know that Apple was one of the original signatories to the agreement with manufactures back in 2009. Unfortunately it would appear that some aspects of technology still change very slowly.

This brings into question whether other things such as App’s will ever become device agnostic, making life easier for app developers and consumers alike. Wouldn't it be great if you could have one device and know all the App’s out there are at your fingertips? Or will we move closer and closer to a world where you pick your device based on the App’s you want to use? -  much like picking a games console because you want to play Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo or  Halo and Race Pro (easy choice on the racing front). 

Postgrad researchers at Columbia University have been trying to overcome the nagging issue of not being able to access flash content on an iOS device or iTunes media on an Android device. The project, named Cider, looked to avoid the usual performance problems associated with virtualization and use a translation to alter iOS instructions to run on an Android device. The video of Cider in action seems to show it working nicely although many of the comments point out some of the flaws around speed and the use of native features.

This does raise the question though; will we ever see a day where Apple and Android work together for the benefit of the consumer? I doubt it, but we may be moving towards a world where at least the consumers don’t have to make a tough decision. For now though it still seems the cleanest, cheapest way to be device agnostic is hybrid development. This means making the most of device agnostic technologies such as HTML5 for App development and only using native code when absolutely necessary - which is the approach that MobiCloud has adopted. Perhaps we should also design a charger...