Health care reform may be a particularly American concern, but mobile technology may offer improvements to patients’ lives that everyone could appreciate. In a new Issue Brief, the firm Deloitte says mobile devices like smart phones can help consumers enhance their own, taking certain costs out of the health care system.

Using electronic health records, and collecting information therein via cell phones or other personal portable devices, it may become possible to “analyze aggregate data to activate mobile, patient-specific output such as medication reminders, healthy habit tips and medical bill reminders,” according to Deloitte.

“The personal health record embedded in mobile communication devices (which Deloitte dubs “mPHR”) is the ‘killer app’ that may change the game for providers, consumers and payers,” Paul Keckley, Ph.D., executive director, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, said in a release.  ”Considering that treating chronic disease accounts for more than 70 percent… of the total $2.4 trillion in health care spending in the United States, the business case for (health records in mobile phones) is solid for helping to reduce costs for managing chronic conditions, such as diabetes and obesity.”

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A Chinese mobile security solutions provider warned today that the proliferation of apps now available in the Android Market means that increasingly more malicious software–viruses, spyware, malware, and the like–now threaten Android phones.

NetQin Mobile said in July that it found the program  called “Carrot App,” a tip calculator, will read all of a phone’s SMS messages and send them hourly to a designated email address; another version of the app can also “overhear” voice conversations on the phone. Today the company noted the 11-fold growth in the number of apps made available in in July 2010: 18,600 as opposed to the 1,669 apps in July 2009. Considering that one in five apps are able to access personal information, that’s a lot of potential for attacks against Android phones, NetQin said.

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With iAd a lengthy one-week old at this point, Apple is already gearing up to utilize the treasure chest of user-data its acquired through the roughly 150M iTunes accounts it has full access to.

More specifically, Apple has commissioned a thorough study of the purchasing patterns of its users in terms of apps, music and video content to better target its key demographics and give more power to the advertisers using iAd.  Robust targeting capability is the true value with iAd, and Apple is going to do everything it can to give its advertisers the most bang for their buck.

A good example of which is Unilever, which together with Apple, has created an iAd campaign to target married men with children who are in their late 30s to market Dove men’s soap.  Analyzing iTunes purchasing and profile data, Unilever was able to create a highly relevant and targeted campaign that goes directly after the preferred demographic.

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Minors and mobile phones seem the perfect mix. But while kids are more adept at manipulating devices than their parents, adults are still responsible for their safety and smart usage. This week, two events addressed issues of mobile technology, marketing, and child safety.

These endeavors prove, hopefully to the relief of Mom and Dad, that the marketing industry shares their concerns. It also should soothe individual marketers who are wary about offending consumers: They have safety tools and best practices that they can use to create marketing campaigns that take the privacy of minors very seriously.

In Illinois, which  has rigorous laws protecting the privacy of children’s contact information, CTIA-The Wireless Association and The Wireless Foundation brought together child safety advocates, policymakers and industry experts to talk about safe, responsible cell phone usage, particularly online mobile use, among youngsters. The confab reiterated the “Be Smart” wireless safety campaign, whose website offers useful tips like parental control features and filters that are offered by CTIA’s members; lesson plans for students in grades 6 through 12; and industry-wide content guidelines and best practices. “The wireless industry believes it has a responsibility to educate parents and kids on the numerous tools and information that it offers to help create a safe online wireless environment,” said Steve Largent, president of The Wireless Foundation and president and CEO of CTIA-The Wireless Association.

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User’s are rushing to update their iPhones and iPod Touches to iOS 4 today, but in addition, users have been greeted with new terms to their iTunes account which include the option to opt-out of iAd data collection.

Users have been greeted with a screen informing them of changes to the iTunes Store terms and conditions, and while users are required to accept the changes before continuing, the summary of changes simply indicates that the company has made “material” changes to its privacy agreement.  Since iAd is based around the serving of interactive ads based heavily on the data Apple collects on its users, the new privacy terms explain what’s going on and allows an explicit, albeit indirect, means to opt-out.

Here’s what apple’s states in its new terms; “Apple and its partners use cookies and other technologies in mobile advertising services to control the number of times you see a given ad, deliver ads that relate to your interests, and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns,” the text says. “If you do not want to receive ads with this level of relevance on your mobile device, you can opt out by accessing the following link on your device: http://oo.apple.com. If you opt out, you will continue to receive the same number of mobile ads, but they may be less relevant because they will not be based on your interests. You may still see ads related to the contrent on a web page or in an application or based on other non-personal information. This opt-out applies only to Apple advertising services and does not affect interest-based advertising from other advertising networks.”

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With Facebook ramping up its geolocation efforts to combat pressure from the likes of Gowalla, Foursquare and many others, the company announced today that it’s working with McDonalds to create a campaign to reward customers for “checking in” at locations using Facebook’s new geolocation functionality.

The two companies are working together to build an app that will let users check in at a restaurant and receive rewards such as coupons for featured products a few days later.  With Facebook betting its future on geolocation, McDonalds wants to be first on the list to take full advantage, for good reason.

Facebook has more than 450 million users worldwide, and around 100 million of them update their status from mobile devices.  Flipping the switch on geolocation positions Facebook well ahead of competitors in the space that have been facilitating geolocation for a while now.  With a built-in user-base of over 100 million active users, Facebook is definitely on to something.

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Things are getting tricky in the world of SMS campaigns in relation to the TCPA, now that courts are upholding the fact that SMS is considered a “call” as defined by the TCPA and therefore subject to the same strict guidelines as phone solicitations.

We’ve already covered a few cases whereby the sender of so-called “unsolicited SMS” has been found in violation of the TCPA even though a certain amount of ambiguity surrounds the situations, and now it seems Twentieth Century Fox is facing the same scrutiny with an SMS campaign sent almost five years ago.

Back in October of 2005, Twentieth Century Fox sent text messages to various consumers advertising the release of its “Robots” movie on DVD.  One recipient of which, Victor Lozano, received the SMS without having signed up for  it, and  over the next several months, Mr. Lozano said he received additional unsolicited SMS messages from Twentieth Century Fox as well.

Mr Lozano subsequently filed suit against the studio for the “unlawful sending of unsolicited SMS advertisements,” and the court agreed.  The studio initially fought the case on the grounds that SMS messages aren’t “calls” as defined by the TCPA, but as we’ve already seen before, they in fact are.

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