1. Innovation on Localized Information Exchange: the
Services and their Implementation
Fang Yu, Tim Chen, Edward Hsiao, Shian-Yao Chen, Yuan-Chieh Lee,
and Hao-Wen Sheng
Dept. of Management Information Systems
National Chengchi University
yuf@nccu.edu.tw
Abstract
We investigate innovative mobile services that take advantage of localized information exchange, and
present a new service development platform on which programmers can deveolop services that enable
users sharing localized and on-time information with friends, neighbors, or even strangers from
anywhere to everywhere. By combining geographic information with information in various formats,
users can create and aceess both dynamic and static information effevitley through their mobile devices.
We provide a general service platform on abstract objects, with which specific purpose systems such as
weather report systems, emergency report systems, restaurant recommendation systems, dynamic
social networks, transportation systems, traffic report systems, which take advantage on localized and
on-time infromation exchange can be effectively developed. As for practical example apps, we have
developed iRain and iQ two apps based on the presented platform. The details are also discussed in this
work.
Keywords: Location based services, service innovation, mobile applications.
I. Introduction
Mobile devices grow in rapid speed these years; as shown in Figure 1, more than 5.6
billion mobile phones were sold up to the 3th quarter of 2011[1]. Besides that, Smart
device (Smart phones, tablets) has become the majority in the market of mobile
devices [2]. Besides making phone calls or traditional functionalities like SMS of
feature devices, smart devices provide lots of convenient functionalities trough the
mobile applications running on it, such as communication, entertainment, internet

2. browsing, social networking and so on.
Rank Country or region
Number of
mobile phones
Population
Percentage of
population
Last updated
— World Over 5.6 billion 7,012,000,000 79.86 July 2011
1 China 951,600,000 1,341,000,000 71.0 Oct 2011
2 India 884,371,296 1,210,193,422 73.44 Nov 2011
3 United States 327,577,529 310,866,000 103.9 June 2011
4 Indonesia 250,100,000 237,556,363 105.28 May 2009
5 Brazil 242,200,000 192,376,496 125.79 Dec 2011
Figure 1. The amounts of mobile phones [13]
With the growth of mobile device sales and improves on functionalities of
mobile apps, the amount of mobile applications has been stimulated efficiently. As
shown in Figure 3, during the entire year of 2011, the number of applications for
iPhone has increased by 150,000 approximately. The increasing popularity of mobile
devices enable localized information being distributed from everywhere to anywhere,
initiating and facilitating all kinds of innovative services that are not ale to be
delivered prior this mobile era.
In this work, we are particularly interested in innovative mobile services that
take advantage of localized information exchange. Specifically, we present and
develop a new service development platform on which programmers can develop
services that enable users sharing localized and on-time information with friends,
neighbors, or even strangers from anywhere to everywhere. By combining geographic
information with information in various formats, users can create and access both
dynamic and static information effectively through their mobile devices. We provide
a general service platform on abstract objects, with which specific purpose systems
such as weather report systems, emergency report systems, restaurant
recommendation systems, dynamic social networks, transportation systems, traffic
report systems, which take advantage on localized and on-time information exchange
can be effectively developed. As for practical example apps, we have developed iQ
T
h
T
h
T
T
h

3. and iWeather based on the presented platform. The details are also discussed in this
work.
Figure 2. Smartphones to Overtake Feature Phones in U.S [14]
Figure 3. Operating system share of smartphone sales [15]
II. Localized Information Exchange and Services
Taking advantage of the popularity of mobile devices, the platform is aimed to tackle
these problems by exchanging “instant” and “precise” information. Considering its
location, we preliminary classify information into two types. Static information refers
to information that is associated with a static location. It can be a question, an
announcement, a piece of news or even a commercial that is stationary and statically
presented on the map. Users can select a static location to associate with contents that

4. they post on the map. Users can scale the impact of the content by marking its region
on the map. The information will be pushed to users who are (or walk into) the region
of the content. Users can then give responses to the contents that push to them. Under
this mechanism, users and contents are grouped by their positions and their associated
locations.
In addition to static information, we are also interested in dynamic information.
Dynamic information refers to information that is associated with a moving object
that could be an online user, a bus, or a moving spot that may change its location all
the time. Users can select a moving object to associate the location with the contents
and scale its impact region. The contents will appear in different locations based on
where the object is at that moment. This kind of information provides users new
services such as tracing a moving object, checking the real-time traffic flow, or seeing
a dynamic scene via augment reality. On top of our service platform, users can create,
access and exchange both static and dynamic localized information easily in various
formats such as text, audios, images or videos.
Related Work
It has appeared in many (commericalized) applications the idea of exchanging
localized information. Meet friend [1] is an app aimed at making friends. The main
idea is showing users that are nearby, and enable them to chat with each other by
pushing information to users who might attract each other and happened to appear in
the same region. iPeen 2.0 [2] is an app aimed at sharing articles about restaurants or
scenic spots. It enables users to post articles on the Google map, and other users can
respond under the article. iPeen emphasizes the locations of articles that makes users
to access localized information to find the suitable nearby restaurant. Dove [3] is
similar to iPeen, but focuses not only on the restaurant but also travel information.
Users post their comments and ranks on stores, restaurants, accommodations or other
travel-related information on the map so others nearby can be advised. Both location-
based services simplify the way for users accessing or sharing specific localized
information on a trip. Another kind of app that takes advantage on localized
information exchange is the bus transportation system, such as i-Bus Taipei [4], i84
[5], citybus [6]. These apps provide dynamic and instant information such as location
of buses and estimated arrival time to users. All of the above apps provide the service

5. based on the localized information exchange, and can be effectively developed using
our platform. Compared to specific app development, we provide a general service
platform on top of which information providers and users can exchange localized
information effectively in various formats. We abstract away the contents but system
functionality and architecture, together to make a strong and flexible platform.
III. System Design and Architecture
Figure
4.
The
architecture
of
the
service
platform
To increase the system flexibility and extendibility, this project applied the three-tier
system architecture as shown in Figure 4. In the backend Data Access Layer, PHP
script played the vital role as a controller, which was responsible for determining
which functionality should be performed, and how the SQL command was
constructed based on the input requirements and executed in the MySQL database.
The database schema and the object attributes were carefully designed and highly
abstracted via use-case analysis procedure so that all data records could be
accommodated by the unique database regardless of which frontend application they
came from. Furthermore, the data source of our platform could extend to public
databases such as Natural Environment Database Group from Ministry of Economics
Affairs and Typhoon Database from Central Weather Bureau.
In addition to the database management, the controller acted as an adaptor at
the same time. Every record fetched from the database would be transformed into an

6. object, which could be serialized and de-serialized before and after the delivering
through network respectively.
To stimulate the circulation and exchange of localized information, in
Business Logic Layer, we built the unified service platform, which was developed in
Objective-C programming language within Xcode integrated development
environment, to access the backend database. Since object-oriented design would
make it simpler and more comprehensible of object manipulation, the service
platform was designed to be an object-oriented system and wrapped into a framework,
which would be open to other developers for further creative implementations. The
framework only defined the fundamental object types. For example, every user in the
system could be an information listener, publisher or both; and every piece of
information could be categorized into either static or dynamic information. The latter
implementers could define new data types on their own by subclassing the generic
types. Bus is a nice example for information publisher, which keeps publishing its
varying location. Since bus holds the characteristics of dynamic information,
implementers could simply specify the path and the framework would accomplish the
moving animation. In sum, adopting the framework help developers achieve the basic
map operation, animation, and database interaction and so on. In this case, abundant
time could be saved and information could be shared between different application
forms.
In the frontend User Interface Layer, taking advantages of the functionalities that
mobile devices offered would be much helpful to increase the user experiences and
motivate users to share useful or interesting information around them. Xcode has
provided the following frameworks for developers:
• MapKit: By embedding Google Map into the applications, the location-based
services could be performed more completely. For instances, the framework
enables developers to specify how the map would respond to the user
interaction events like swipe, drag, and pinch. In addition, putting annotations
and drawing graphs onto the map would help visualize the information so that
users could find the specific information they were looking for more easily.
Based on Google Maps API, we can access user location in Xcode:
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7. 1
#import
<MapKit/MapKit.h>
2
-­‐(void)mapView:(MKMapView
*)mapView
didUpdateUserLocation:(MKUserLocation
*)userLocation{
3
NSLog(userLocation.coordinate.latitude);
4
NSLog(userLocation.coordinate.longitude);
}
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MapKit in line 1 is the framework that let the app access the whole Google
Maps API, including user location. Once you import MapKit framework, you
can implement the method in line 2. Line 3 and 4 show how the app get the
user’s coordinate.
As for annotation, the following function demonstrates how programmers deal
with annotations.
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1
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(MKAnnotationView
*)mapView:(MKMapView
*)mapView
viewForAnnotation:(id
<MKAnnotation>)annotation
{
2
static
NSString
*identifier
=
@"OneInformation";
3
if
([annotation
isKindOfClass:[StaticInformation
class]])
{
4
MKPinAnnotationView
*annotationView
=[[MKPinAnnotationViewalloc]
initWithAnnotation:annotation
reuseIdentifier:identifier];
5
annotationView.autoDrop
=
YES;
6
annotationView.enabled
=
YES;
7
annotationView.pinColor
=
MKPinColorRed;
}
}
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For each annotation, which is equivalent to a piece of information, would be
handled through this function. As mentioned before, information in this
project can be categorized into two dynamic and static types. In line 3, we
classify the type of the annotation. In this example, we only show static
information onto the map, so we create an MKPinAnnotationView, which is a
visualized component, in line 4. Then from line 5 to 7, we set the properties of
the annotation with dropping animation, user-interaction enabled and red color.
• CoreLocation: Because every piece of the information in the system was
connected to a specific location or area, to achieve the localized information
exchange, retrieving users’ location is the pre-requirement for posting any

8. information. The CoreLocation framework would automatically ask for
permission to access the user location and obtain the coordinate via either GPS
or Wi-Fi positioning. In practice, the following snippet of code would be
executed right after the application launched to attain the current location of
the mobile devices, which could be easily achieved by instantiating a
CLLocationManager in line 1 and requesting it to start updating the
coordinate in line 3. Objective-C features its delegation mechanism, which in
line 2 we assigned the manager’s delegation toward the current controller, so
every time the manager updates the location, the current controller would be
notified as well.
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1
CLLocationManager
*manager
=
[[CLLocationManager
alloc]
init];
2
manager.delegate
=
self;
3
[manager
startUpdatingLocation];
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• MediaPlayer: Under many situations we found out that photos and videos tell
much more than words. In this case, the localized information should be
delivered regardless of its forms, such as texts, images, and videos.
MediaPlayer framework offered sufficient functionalities including recording
and playing the videos. The section below demonstrated the implementation of
playing a video. We firstly imported the framework needed in line 1 and
specified a URL, which could be either a web link or a file path on the device.
Then playing videos could be nothing more than instantiating the
MPMoviePlayerController, setting its playing property, and triggering the
play function from line 3 to 5. This breakthrough captured the real world
unlimited to texts, and increased the accuracy and variety of the information.
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1
#import
<MediaPlayer/MediaPlayer.h>
2
NSURL
*fileURL
=
[NSURL
fileURLWithPath:filepath];
3
MPMoviePlayerController
*player
=
[[MPMoviePlayerController
alloc]
initWithContentURL:fileURL];
4
player.fullscreen
=
YES;
5
[player
play];
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9. • SystemConfiguration: For instant information exchange purpose, the
applications should update the dataset from the backend server. We used
SystemConfiguration framework to detect the current network reachability
status of the mobile devices and determine the information to be presented.
IV. Innovative Services and Apps
In this section, we present developed apps as examples in practice to illustrate the
innovative services and apps that are based on localized information exchange. As we
have mentioned, for services that are based on the idea of localized information
exchange can be developed on top of our platform. We detail two services that have
been implemented by ourselves in this section. “iQ” is a social-networking app with
which people help each other by sharing localized and instant information to other
mobile users through their devices. iWeather standing on “How’s the Weather There”
is an app dedicated tousers who look for instant localized weather information. The
app enables people to share local weather information with others.
1. iQ - A New Information and Question Exchanging Platform on
Maps
Our first developed app iQ was designed to facilitate the needs of users to exchange
information on a map. Through iQ, you can post questions to whom might have
answers. You can check not only useful messages but also people who are around
you. The main idea of iQ is to make the information comes to people who might need
it, as well as who can provide it. For example, a driver may receive a notification
when there’s a traffic jam nearby or possibly on the direction of his way posted by a
user who might be suffering from the jam. Our app iQ provides location-aware
information which is particularly useful to users who look for instant location-based
information. With iQ, you will be able to ask other users for help by sending a request
to them; while users receiving or viewing questions, they most likely happen to be the
place with information that you are looking for. With posting information, people
expose what’s happening at the moment at a particular place.
iQ - The Core Techniques Common platforms such as Facebook or Twitter let you

10. share information with your Friends, but iQ changes this situation with a whole new
definition of information exchanging, which cares more about location. We use
immediate transmission like audios and videos to present information. We receive
information from mobile devices and send it to our server through the Internet.
The core techniques of iQ include:
• An integrated framework that provides developers to build related applications
based on localization.
• A platform to present the information from all extended applications that are
developed based on our framework.
• Combining APIs which government provides and is open for any APIs based on
localization.
• Our system can automatically find out the information that users need or they
tend to be interested in.
Figure 5. A snapshot of iQ post
iQ - Applications on mobile devices In order to achieve the goal of iQ, to fully provide
the geo-information to users, our first task is the use of mobile device-assisted global

11. positioning system and Core-Location built-in library to obtain the latitude and
longitude of the mobile device location. The information and contents we get will be
determined by location and browser preferences of users, and users’ permissions will
also be a slight restriction of the location.
Figure 6. Push the post to people nearby
We provide various ways to users to share their information. In addition to the
narrative of the most basic emoticons or words, we also make good use of the supply
of the mobile device itself with the functions of auxiliary information:
• The use of camera: By images through the mobile device's camera for users to
record information. Taking into consideration that in some cases, images can
describe more than text descriptions, such as real-time weather information
exchange applications, which publish outdoor photos, can effectively deduct
subjective factors of the estimated rain probability.
• The recording function: We make the use of mobile devices lens to catch
information by the surrounding circumstances, such as real-time traffic
information exchange platform, publish a short road traffic video, which can
deliver traffic conditions more clearly to users.

12. In addition, to increase the variety and users’ interests in the operation of the
application, we also use the equipment on the mobile device to accomplish this goal,
such as the use of the mobile device built-in gyroscope somatosensory function, so
that users can receive the information by slightly shake their iPhones. Besides, we
applied push technology to our project system, because we have to make users pay
more attention to this information exchange platform.
Figure 7. A snapshot of entering reply
iQ – Features Our app iQ brings differences to the society. It makes a strong
combination between the virtual world and the real world. We preserve the precious
relationship between people, putting great emphasis on the interaction and assistance
between all users and also enable users to get more precise information of life in
faster way. Users can acquire instant information or local opinions from the local
people. We have created a whole new idea of helping each other.
We also develop a game model, which is based on the real world. In iQ, We
gain virtual money and experiences through the system by posting, helping people,
making friends, etc. We can use this virtual money in the real world to have discounts
or gifts, and we can even make real money from it. We create a game model and a

13. business model.
iQ – Contribution Before the Internet being widely used, the actual distance in the
world restricted the interchange of information. People had to make face-to-face
conversation in order to receive information, but also brought warm and familiarity to
people. As the Internet and cell phone developed, people are getting into habit to
search information through the Internet for efficiency and convenience. This
phenomenon brings disregard and unfamiliarity to people.
The greatest contribution of iQ is that it provides a wide and instant platform of
the exchange of the information, which emphasize the helps between people. It let us
feel like we are interacting with a real person when obtaining precise and instant
information.
2. iWeather - How’s the weather there
Our second app “How is the weather there” addresses the distributions of weather
information. If you have chance to live in Taiwan, you might have noticed that while
you need on-time weather condition in a particular place, the local weather
information provided by Central Weather Bureau is most likely what you get online,
but unfortunately in many cases not that useful to what you are looking for. As an
example, consider that you paln to bring your kids to a farm located at the other side
of some mountain in your city. Then, as usual, you google the weather of your city.
The result is like, Taipei, 20~25, cloudy, 50% chance of rain. Well, this might be
helpful in general, but for cases that you want to know whether it’s raining in a small
specific place, with these statistical data, you can just guess with chances may be
similar to rolling a dice. You need the precise and instant information from the lcoal
people in the local area, ideally people from the other side of the mountain. That is,
the online weather results are measured by fixed and previous set up machine
periodically; however, the best information comes from the observation provided by
people who happen to be right there at that moment.
This motivates us to develop the application that enables people uploading and

14. viewing localized weather information. By observing human behavior, we found that
people tend to trust human feeling rather than machine data. Then we started imagine
a world in which people can easily tell their feeling, provide their vision to others no
matter the distance between them. Thanks to wireless technology and advances of
mobile device, it’s no longer an impossible mission. Nowadays, people can use their
mobile devices to share text, photo, audio or even video via the Internet, delivering
their feeling or what they have seen to others. By taking this advantage, we decided to
develop an app celled “How’s the Weather There” to let people share their feeling on
weather.
iWeather – Features “How’s the Weather There” allows people exchange local
weather information with others on a map. You would see lot kinds of weather
information displayed in different objects. For example, there would be many
annotations with different images on the map. Each annotation represents a single
report from users.
Figure 8. A snapshot of iWeather post
Also, you will see some annotations with a question mark on it. This is a
question asked by people who want to get the weather information in a specific area.

15. Sometimes, there’s a big circle on the sea. It indicates where a typhoon is located in
right now.
You can choose an icon to give other users a quick impression how the weather
condition that you want to share can possibly be. At the current implementation, we
provide 20+ user-friendly informative weather icons including: clear sky, cloudy,
windy, raining, snow, thunderstorm, etc., which can describe the weather condition in
a very detail way. In addition, you can take a photo or write something to provide
more information.
Figure 9. A snapshot of inquiry
You can share your report to other social-networking media like Facebook or
Twitter simultaneously if you want. You can not only share, but also ask the weather
in a specific area. By dropping a question pin onto the map, people around it would
get notified. They will answer the question, telling you the weather condition there.
• Geographical demonstration of information
As we have mentioned above, you can see many kinds of weather information on
the map. When you share a weather report, a pin is dropped onto the map. It
shows where your report is located. The pin image depends on what kind of

16. weather condition you have choose, so it’s very clear to know the weather
condition at each place when you scroll the map. Furthermore, a report might
contain not only a weather condition but also a photo or some texts provided by
the composer. If you want to see them, simply tap the button on the pin. Then you
can watch the report in detail. Also, there are some weather forecast pins and
some typhoon pins.
The map might become crowded because of the amount of pins dropped by
people. To give users a comfortable screen, we spent a lot of time figuring an
available method out. The way is to group the pins together when they are too
close. If you zoom-out the map, you will see the pins gathering. They won’t
disappear. You can still watch them in a single page by tapping the button on a
grouped pin.
• Easy to Use
This is a very user-friendly app. You don’t need to learn to use. Before releasing,
we did a lot of usability test to make everything easy to understand. For example,
there are only three steps to report weather, only four steps to ask a question, two
steps for searching things in this app. You are able to access any information
quickly. The reason we do this is that we believe good user experience makes an
app better than others.
• Social-Networking
We added a lot of fun factors in this app. You can not only share weather but also
get some feedback from other users. If they like your report, they could comment
on it and send a “like” to you. Users from everywhere can have a discussion about
weather at a specific location. Interactions between users prompt them to keep
sharing weather information. On the other hand, you have a choice to share your
report to Facebook or Twitter simultaneously when you share. We connect this
app with other existing social-networking services so users can also interact with
their friends. This feature makes some users bring their friends to our app.

17. Figure 10. A snapshot of icon selection
• Scoring system
Every user has some points, which is similar to wealth of a person. Every time a
user gets a positive feedback, such as receiving a “like” from another user or
getting an “agree” on an answer, he/she gets some points. Another feature is
scoring system. Users are available to express “agree” or “disagree” on every
single answer. In other words, there would be a score on an answer. The scoring
system let user judge if an answer is believable or not. Furthermore, users are
ranked according to their points and the scores they’ve got. This ranking system
brings our app so much fun because people feel like they are playing a game when
competing.
iWeather – The Status and its Feedback “How’s the Weather There” was released on
July 14th
, 2012 and has been brought into vogue. After the release day, many
discussions occurred on the Internet. This app appeared on many websites and was
even reported in news on television. Until today, there are already 21,067 downloads
on App Store. “How’s the Weather There” was ranked as the thirty-first places of top
free apps, 1st place of top weather apps in Taiwan. Besides, it has won the title of “the

18. best iPhone app of the year” in the competition of App Next 2012 held by Business
Next Publishing Corporation.
Figure 11. A snapshot of weather information reported around Taipei
iWeather - Future development Over 300 reports are shared and 1,500 requests for
downloading reports are sent in this app every single day and the numbers are still
growing. Because of the increasing use rate, we will be able to add more features into
the app. For example, some local stores, restaurants or traveling spots could join us to
share weather report. We will charge them some fees and make the view of their
reports more special than others so common users will be attracted and able to get
further information about the provider. By combining advertisement and location, we
provide a better chance for commercial provider to expose their stores and products.
This might become one of our business models in the future.
As one of the applications developed on our localized information exchange
platform, “How’s the Weather There” has already became a stable and reliable service
for common users. It gave us a strong support to prove that the idea of establishing
this platform is necessary. Without the platform, we could not be able to focus on

19. improving the app and designing so many special features mentioned above. Our
localized information exchange platform brought us a huge advantage when
managing location-based information. This is the reason why “How’s the Weather
There” becomes successful.
Figure 12. A snapshot of picture post
V. Conclusion and Ongoing Work
In sum, we present a new localized information exchange platform and its
implementation. On top of it, innovative services that take advantage of localized
information can be effectively developed. We also present two apps that we have
developed and published online to illustrate and realize the idea in practice. This is
just the beginning about the line of innovative services on localized information
exchange. Based on the presented idea and platform, our ongoing work includes the
following apps, representing various innovation services on localized information
exchange. All these apps can be effectively developed on top of our platform. (1)
iCare: It is known that the population in Taiwan is undergoing a structural change,
facing an elder generation dominates the population int eh near future. It becomes

20. essential to have apps that provide on-time senior care services. The need motivates
us developing the new app: iCare. We associate information with senior people to
track their real-time location and physical and health conditions, providing on time
and needed care services. (2) iTraffic/iCulture/iToilet: Similar to iWeather, in these
apps, we collect and report traffic/culture events/available restroom information from
local users and websites, and give alarms/advices/notices to users for their interests.
(3) iOrder: We provide an easy way for users to order online in addition to finding
nearby restaurants. (4) iRFM: A virtualized version of the TV game (run for money)
that allows participants to run away from hunters. Hunters or participants can work
together when they are close to each other. Other games include: iFight - users grow
and train their own pets who fight with others when nearby. iBomb - users set up
bombs in a specific location and compete who bomb most participants (physically
pass the location at some moment). These games combine social networks with
physical activities, teasing strangers based on locations. (5) iSpy: Similar to iQ, users
can post and view what users observe at their location via picturing and video-taping
what they have seen at their location. The information has broad span on people
interests and curiosity. As for an instance, the information can be Jay Chou just gets
into Jolin’s apartment. President Ma is eating at the breakfast restaurant that is for
students at NCCU. An item that is sold at a famous supermarket is date-expired.
Through iSpy, everyone can be a reporter, simple because you happen to be there at
that moment for witness interesting things happening.
As the final remark, we envision that apps will dominant the software in the
near feature. The services based on apps will play the most significant role in software
development. All the above apps again are just the beginning of the innovative
services on localized information exchange. We believe there are much more services
coming up. We plan to proved the platform as well as the source code and APIs to the
public to make things much easy for future development.
References
[1] Meet friends. http://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/yu-jian-mo-sheng-ren-yue-hui/id468944728?mt=8
[2] ipeen 2.0. http://itunes.apple.com/hk/app//id366479443?mt=8
[3] Dove. http://itunes.apple.com/tw/app/mobile01-dove/id376505726?mt=8
[4] i-Bus Taipei http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/i-bus-taipei-free/id309566937?mt=8

21. [5] i84 http://itunes.apple.com/hk/app/i84tai-zhongbus/id420237711?mt=8
[6] citybus nwfb http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id472242340?mt=8
[7] MaPost http://itunes.apple.com/hk/app/mapost/id468624451?mt=8
[8] Geolocation API http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source.html
[9] Google Gears http://gears.google.com/intl/zh-TW/
[10] Google Latitude http://code.google.com/intl/zh-TW/apis/latitude/
[11] facebook http://facebook.com
[12] twitter http://twitter.com
[13] WIKIPEDIA, List of countries by number of mobile phones in use,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use
[14] NIELSENWIRE, Smartphones to Overtake Feature Phones in U.S. by 2011,
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/smartphones-to-overtake-feature-phones-in-u-s-by-
2011/
[15] Distimo, Number of apps in the markets. http://www.distimo.com