Regulating Habit-Forming Technology

Tech developers, like slot machine designers, strive to maximize the user’s “time on device.” They do so by designing habit-forming products— products that draw consciously on the same behavioral design strategies that the casino industry pioneered. The predictable result is that most tech users spend more time on device than they would like, about five hours of phone time a day, while a substantial minority develop life-changing behavioral problems similar to problem gambling. Other countries have begun to regulate habit-forming tech, and American jurisdictions may soon follow suit. Several state legislatures today are considering bills to regulate “loot boxes,” a highly addictive slot-machine- like mechanic that is common in online video games. The Federal Trade Commission has also announced an investigation into the practice. As public concern mounts, it is surprisingly easy to envision consumer regulation extending beyond video games to other types of apps. Just as tobacco regulations might prohibit brightly colored packaging and fruity flavors, a social media regulation might limit the use of red notification badges or “streaks” that reward users for daily use. It is unclear how much of this regulation could survive First Amendment scrutiny; software, unlike other consumer products, is widely understood as a form of protected “expression.” But it is also unclear whether well-drawn laws to combat compulsive technology use would seriously threaten First Amendment values. At a very low cost to the expressive interests of tech companies, these laws may well enhance the quality and efficacy of online speech by mitigating distraction and promoting deliberation

Intimate interfaces in action: assessing the usability and subtlety of emg-based motionless gestures

Mobile communication devices, such as mobile phones and networked personal digital assistants (PDAs), allow users to be constantly connected and communicate anywhere and at any time, often resulting in personal and private communication taking place in public spaces. This private -- public contrast can be problematic. As a remedy, we promote intimate interfaces: interfaces that allow subtle and minimal mobile interaction, without disruption of the surrounding environment. In particular, motionless gestures sensed through the electromyographic (EMG) signal have been proposed as a solution to allow subtle input in a mobile context. In this paper we present an expansion of the work on EMG-based motionless gestures including (1) a novel study of their usability in a mobile context for controlling a realistic, multimodal interface and (2) a formal assessment of how noticeable they are to informed observers. Experimental results confirm that subtle gestures can be profitably used within a multimodal interface and that it is difficult for observers to guess when someone is performing a gesture, confirming the hypothesis of subtlety

Saving Energy in Mobile Devices for On-Demand Multimedia Streaming -- A Cross-Layer Approach

This paper proposes a novel energy-efficient multimedia delivery system called EStreamer. First, we study the relationship between buffer size at the client, burst-shaped TCP-based multimedia traffic, and energy consumption of wireless network interfaces in smartphones. Based on the study, we design and implement EStreamer for constant bit rate and rate-adaptive streaming. EStreamer can improve battery lifetime by 3x, 1.5x and 2x while streaming over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G respectively.Comment: Accepted in ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (ACM TOMCCAP), November 201