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A smartphone is a mobile phone that has almost the same features as a computer provides. Talking at the phone and text messaging has become crucial since the phone has begun to exist and that's because it's easier with a mobile phone to communicate. But the scientists wanted to transform the mobile phone as a thing you can't live without. So they started to search for ways to improve the phone's services, such that you can use it all the time. So there it is; they have started to implement the MIDI songs, polyphonic ones, then the player for music appeared, then the MP3 support and many other features. So this is how they have discovered the smartphone by implementing features as internet connections, email system, GPS and many others.
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You should ask yourself now: "What roles play smartphones in education?"

Referring to our young generation, we should add that there aren't many teenagers that don't own a mobile phone. More than that, you can see at some of them the most sophisticated phones with unbelievable capabilities.

Sometimes I am thinking about how it feels to return to our classic cell phones again? With fewer competences but, the majority of us have to admit that we use or phones just for having conversations and for writing text messages. But scientists don't agree that and for selling their ideas, they have to give a sense to those functions they are implementing so, now, they are trying to convince us that Smartphones can be useful in our education.

For long time ago, I remember that the only thing we did need in our education was just the big blackboard, the used notebooks and many many pencils to use them when writing your kilometer-length homework. Seems nowadays they don't use anymore those standard notebooks, those cheap pencils and everything became more complicated. Instead of notebooks they are using A4 papers, instead of cheap pencils they are using pencils which must have a cool design or else it can't be used and of course, the homework on math isn't solved by them with hard work and paying lot of attention - they now use the computer to solve equations and many others.

But the job with the PC became somehow complicated because they felt the need to use the computer all the time and there were situations in which they couldn't access the machine. So, their parents started to buy them laptops considering is for their good and education to have one. But as the technology developed, they found out that laptops don't worth anymore. They are heavy and more than this, with a smartphone, you can complete the tasks you did with the help of your computer/laptop and you can also use it as a mobile phone. So, scientists tried to combine the computer features with the ones of the mobile phone and it resulted a big project and of course, and expensive one.

Now let's see how students can now use the smartphones in education?

First of all, with the help of internet feature that the smartphone provides, students can have permanently access to some virtual textbooks - because teachers thought it's less expensive to read a freeware book or courses on internet than to pay for buying or copying them on Xerox.

Then the teachers thought it might be helpful to have a virtual catalog for marks and to fill there the students marks, because students' parents don't have enough time to go on school and to verify the kid's situation in education. So with the help of a smartphone connected to the internet, parents may access a database with their kids' marks and presences.

Of course, another impact of internet in education is the interactive courses. So, instead of using a handout with lots of writing, they can use videos and photos from online sources to share with the students and make them understand better.

Because someone thought the courses are important anytime and not all of use may get every time to the course. So with the help of internet, there can be created online classes with online courses and why not online attendance. So, if you cannot get to a course, you just use your smartphone and connect to the course and they guarantee you an attendance of 100%.

For each class and course, teachers may develop some websites for smartphones that can be useful for their students. On these sites, students can register, logon, and then have access to their courses. Teachers can add there some class notifications, notes and others.

The usage of smartphones in education has no limits. There are several ways in which smartphones can help the education to do its job and nowadays technology is often used by students because their teachers use it too and there is no other way to understand the education than following your teacher's example.

The Smartphone has now become very popular especially in the young generation. Because its technology, more and more people has started to get one and use it because the technology used, implies lots of features and of course, many tools and applications. A smartphone is a kind of a mobile phone with the difference that it implies advanced abilities, abilities associated with PC functions (for example is having its own operating system offering a specific interface just like the computer does).
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A smartphone implies features like e-mail, Internet and e-book reader ability and many of them have their own Office Pack with Word, PowerPoint and others. Some of smartphones have an internal (built-in) keyboard or an external keyboard which can be connected to the smartphone through USB.

Thus, the Smartphone is a minicomputer, offering features just like the normal PC does, with the advantage that the smartphone has also phone mobile abilities.

As the demand for smartphones has grown, specialist started to implement more features like expanded memory, lager screens or powerful processors.

Ok, this is happening in our times. But what about the first Smartphone? Which is the first smartphone created and what features it did imply?

Well, we know that the very very first smartphone created was Simon. Simon was created and designed by IBM since the 1992s. The concept of "smartphone" was revealed and presented to the world, during the COMDEX show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Simon smartphone presented features like world clock (it could show you the time in all the countries in the world and with its help you could synchronize your time with the time of any country), note pad (usually used to take notes), email, calculator, calendar (it wasn't just a simple calendar but it allowed you to also markup events in certain days and to set an alarm for that event), receive and send faxes but also for the gamers, it allowed you to install games and play them.

But one special thing that Simon smartphone had was the distinct keyboard. A special concept was revealed, the concept of "on-screen keyboard".

The On-screen keyboard was a built-in keyboard showed on the screen. For using the phone's keyboard, people should have touched the screen with their fingers because there wasn't anymore a keyboard with physical buttons.

With the past of time and the technology evolution, scientists implemented in all smartphones the touch-screen concept. They didn't use the touch screen just for the dialing keyboard, but also for the writing one. But some people were unsatisfied, because it was kinda hard to write text messages from a completely touch screen phone, as you may touch wrong the screen because its sensivity. So, they created smartphones with both touch screen keypad and also the standard keyboard. Such phones were named QWERTY phones.

The QWERTY Smartphones helped people to write easier, and because it looks like a minicomputer, they can easily use it to surf on the web, use instant messenger and using easily many other features.

The smartphones are perfect if you are a business person or you want/need features that a computer has, but it has the disadvantage of the cost. A smartphone costs at least 159 Euro and not many afford to buy such a phone.

You are participating at a group conversation and suddenly you realize that your friends are just lying because they want to be interesting.
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Aren't you tired of this type of people? Because I am, and I will tell you about an incredible way of really proving who lies or not.

We all know technology evolves rapidly but I have never imagined that it can provide us so many surprises. For example, I have never imagined that if I own a smartphone I can add an application on it, application that is working as a lie detector. Yes, it's true, from now on, you can test anyone if he or she lies.

I didn't know about this method of discovering if someone lies, but I can tell you that for this, it doesn't exist just one smartphone application; there are several ones.

Next, I will give you some examples of lie detector for smartphone.

One example is Agile Lie Detector. It is an application that is working using the Voice Stress Analysis. The Voice Stress Analysis intercepts the verified person's voice and it detects the level of stress that person has, when trying to give wrong answers or lying. When telling a lie, you don't realize that you are under stress pressure and your voice could betray you, but an efficient detector can show you this. The level of stress is displayed in real time represented by graphs.

This kind of technology was in the beginning developed for military purposes and intelligence use, but now you can use this technology to detect whenever someone is trying to lie you or just having fun by showing others that they are liars.

For example, if you are asking a blonde the following question: "Are you blonde?" and her answer will be "no", then the Agile lie Detector will understand some pressure in her voice and it will display the following:

Another example of lie detector for smartphone is Lie Detector Advanced.

Lie Detector Advanced is an application working also as a lie detector. It uses the same technology based on voice analysis who is analyzing human emotions through their voice. It is usually used by CIA and FBI. This application does a great job when testing people, because many of them may have emotions for the possibility of being caught. The emotions are transmitted through voice and the lie detector will surely tell if he or she lies.

But there might be cases in which the detector will fail to catch you lying. This happens when the person interrogated knows how the lie detector works. Because, once again, the detector doesn't have in its memory answers saved to verify if it is correct or not, but it detects the stress in your voice.

For example, if a person is interrogated and it's lying in a relaxing mode (meaning that the person isn't afraid of being caught and it's not nervous), the lie detector will receive this, as being the truth.

You can check this by trying to interrogate yourself and thinking about some answers and you can see how the detector reacts in both situations.

You own a smartphone, at it cost hundreds of dollars, and in time it becomes your best friend because it is intelligent, nice-looking, and sensitive and has all the qualities you ever wanted from a phone. But, we know that getting your phone lost, it will just break your heart, and you can't get over it too easy, because you may not afford to replace it so easy (of course because of its cost)... so what you have to do? You need some ideas of how to find a lost smartphone.
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As we all know, technology is in continuous way of developing and growing. It came up with revolutionary ideas of how to find a lost smartphone. The idea was to implement some application(s) in your smartphone, application that can help you to locate your phone wherever in world it can be in. Ok, I didn't make you curious enough?

I was really surprised to find out that a simple application installed in your phone can help you recover your phone in case of robbery, loosing, or just forgetting where it was "throw". In the beginning it was just an application but now several applications of this type appeared. So, I'm gonna give you just an example of application which can protect your smartphone, because the rest of them are using almost the same features.

An example of such application is SmartPhone Tracker (or SmartTracker). SmartPhone Tracker is a freeware application and can be used by everyone who owns a smartphone and optional the phone has to have an internet connection. So, if for example your smartphone has been stolen, you surely would like to know where the person who stole it is located in at time. So, if you have installed on your smartphone the SmartPhone Tracker application, you can simply send a message to your phone, a message set to activate the application. This message can be understood like a wake-up message for the application. If your phone will receive the text message you set to activate the application, the phone will immediately send you back a text message or an email containing its actual coordinates of location, using the Google Map.

For example, if your message set for application is "where you are?" the application will be activated, and with the help of Google Map application will search for location coordinates, and will send them to you by SMS or Email. Isn't it absolutely wonderful?

The SmartPhone Tracker application uses features like: remote operation by SMS Code and remote image capture; It doesn't support only Google Map but also Yahoo Map and WindowsLive Map; detects SIM replacement and provides notifications; supports Map view; it can send location coordinates by SMS or Email and sends also the display of location on the Map, and works very well both on GSM or CDMA.

But in order to have the application work, you should have installed on your smartphone

Windows Mobile version 5.0 for smartphone, Windows CE .NET version 5.0 and  .NET Compact Framework version 2.0 or higher.

It is in your benefit to have your phone secured, because you never now what can happen and with this freeware application, you have no reasons for not trying the SmartPhone Tracker application.

In our days, everyone has a personal computer, and the majority of us, are using frequently the Internet. But what do you do when you need to find some information, or you work online and you need to submit your work, or you need the internet for something that can't wait and your internet fails to connect? The fixing of the internet connection could take long time, because our internet providers are always busy. But, happily, with the advanced technology, we can use our smartphones to connect to internet.
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Even smartphones are quite small, they can do lots of interesting things and with so many unlimited Internet offers for mobile, we can afford a nice internet connection to our PC using the smartphone. But the question is: "How to use my smartphone as a modem?"

Of course, it is not quite hard and you don't have to have studies in software engineering or be a genius to make this happen. Not all smartphones have the same menus and settings, but they don't differ too much, so, the example of establishing the connection I will give you, should help you.

In order to connect to internet through your smartphone, you should now that you will need the following: Bluetooth or plug-in cable, your computer must operate under Windows XP Service Pack2 or Service Pack3, and an internet connection on your smartphone (you better have an unlimited internet connection).

First of all, you have to verify if your phone is connecting to internet.

On your phone: See if you can find an application named "Modem Link" or a similar application in Programs menu.

Go to Settings in the main menu, then go to Connections-> then choose the type of connection (USB or Bluetooth) and activate your smartphone as Modem.

On your computer: You should disable the application ActiveSync. Then, you have to install the drivers for your phone, in order to get your phone recognized by the computer and to be able to exchange data from phone to PC or vice versa. The drivers are located on a small CD, which came along with the phone in the same pack.

After you have installed the drivers and the phone is yet connected to the PC, go to My Computer->Control Panel->Phone and Modem Options and choose the right modem. If you don't have the connection added on your computer, you should manually add one connection. In order to do this, follow the next directions.

Go again to Control Panel->Network Connections, then, click on Create a new connection. It will appear a window which welcomes you to the new connection wizard like in the next image.

You should click on NEXT> then->Connect to Internet->Setup Connection Manually->and finally Connect Using Dial-up Modem. Continuing, you receive an option list with phones connected to your computer and then you have to select your working smartphone from that list. To recognize rapidly in the future your phone connection, you should name your new connection in the next window appearing on the screen.

Finally, you can now surf on the web using your intelligent and performant smartphone!