Geoffrey Challen and Steven Ko are leading the PhoneLab project to improve mobile devices and educate students.

UB researchers are enlisting hundreds of students to build the world’s largest collection of smartphone users assembled for large-scale experiments.

Dubbed PhoneLab, the network will help researchers build more powerful, secure and efficient smartphones and smartphone applications, improve wireless networking and educate students about mobile devices.

While smartphone use is skyrocketing—Forrester Research says 1 billion people will have one by 2016—experimentation on the devices is limited. Researchers either conduct tests in the marketplace, which limits their access to the smartphone, or create their own test group, which is costly and time-consuming.  Continue reading →