Investigation Questions Mobile Technology And Sensors Workbook 2 Assignment 8 Answer

Mobile Technology and Sensors

Smart phones often include a lot of different sensors inside them (e.g. GPS, accelerometer, camera) which allow us to interact with the smart phone in interesting ways. Pick a sensor on a smart phone and provide a brief explanation of what it does.

Answer – The Smartphone sensor we chosen for our assignment is GPS. A navigation system developed by Ivan A. Getting, Roger L. Easton and Bradford Parkinson, which uses satellites to classify the device's location, velocity, distance and altitude, is a global positioning system or GPS. It is a system of 24 satellites moving at a speed of 14,000 km/h travelling 20,000 km above the earth. The 24 satellites are divided into pairs of 4 satellites, 3 of which are used for position identification and the fourth is used for validation of data from three satellites ("What Is GPS? | Geotab", 2017).

GPS is now an important part of our lives and is used by all, from the manufacturing sector to military applications and many others. It can be categorized into five key categories, namely: navigation, monitoring, timing, mapping, and location. In each case, the system operates to measure the distance of individuals from all four satellites. GPS is used to locate the distance, their current location and even the best path for their destination by pilots, sailors, athletes, drivers and regular people, making their performance better, simpler and safer ("Uses of GPS: What are GPS Systems used for? - NovAtel Blog", 2016).

Find a smart phone application that use this sensor and provide an overview.

Answer – One of the mobile apps that utilize GPS is Google Maps. It is an application that provides data based on many geographical regions, such as maps, road side views, including data on shops, hospitals, restaurants in that area and other location-based services. It provides the best and shortest route for our destination along with the condition of traffic in that area, also give voice commands for the direction ("What is Google Maps? - Definition from WhatIs.com", 2018).  

Internet of Things

Describe a technology which specifically supports the Internet of Things and discuss why the new technology is needed. (Note the technology should be general e.g. an IoT focused service, and not a specific device e.g. WiFi lightbulb.)

Answer – One of the technologies which specifically support Internet of Things is LTE. LTE is a networking system used to communicate and share information between two or more devices; it provides numerous new business possibilities by allowing connectivity between devices that have never been connected to IoT before and is more reliable and cost-effective than previous link technologies at the same time. It also gave birth to a new mobile network technology called Narrow Band IoT that has more energy-saving capabilities and is used for devices that transmit less data, but for a longer period of time, as well as for devices located in hard-to-reach areas (Flynn, 2019).

Exploring Services on the Cloud

Investigate either an application or storage service that uses cloud computing, example services include: Dropbox, Office 365, Google Docs, Windows OneDrive, Apple iCloud. Answer the following questions:

Write a short overview of the service. What is it? How would you use it? How long has it been around for? etc.

Answer – Google Docs: It is a free web-based application used to create, store, and manage Files and other data. It can work on various platforms like Microsoft edge, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and as an application in mobile devices. It is very easy to access and run this application for e.g. In a smart phone we can directly install the application and start using it for either creating a new document or editing the existing file. It was started as an experimental programme in August 2005 and running under beta testing till 2009 and finally in year 2012 Google Docs become a fully functioned application ("What is Google Docs? - Definition from WhatIs.com", 2017).

Subscription costs (or if it’s free, how they make their money)

Answer – the google docs service is available for free for normal or home users. One can access its free trial version and also access its business version with minimal cost. It will cost $5 per user per month for business purpose but with limited storage (docs, 2021). 

What are the advantages of this service being provided on cloud computing architecture?

Answer – there are some advantages of using the google doc service through the cloud architecture. These are ("Top 10 Advantages of Cloud Computing – Blog | Idexcel", 2019) –

• One can access this service with no cost or minimum cost.
• It is available for 24x7 basis and can be access anywhere through internet.
• It is more flexible in capacity with all over functionality.
• Updates are managed automatically by the cloud service provider.
• A level of security will be provided by the cloud service provider.
• It also offers enhanced collaboration and use carbon footprint.

List any disadvantages of offering the service through the cloud.

Answer – there are some disadvantages of using the google doc service through the cloud. These are ("5 Cloud Computing Disadvantages", 2021) – 

• It is depending up on network speed and access of cloud platform on which the service is running. 
• It has limited features as compared to the regular applications.
• One has limited pr lack of control over the resources
• Security of the documents is also at risk, sometimes
• Some technical issues may result of loss of control or some documents from the cloud platform.