Users’ perceptions of key blockchain features in games

Abstract The blockchain is an emerging technology that has the potential to revolutionize the gaming industry among a wide range of different business fields. So far, only a few studies have been conducted about blockchain gaming. This study introduces a mobile game utilizing blockchain asset tokens and smart contracts. It was developed for research purposes and used to demonstrate blockchain-based games using semi-structured interviews. This study follows the exploratory research paradigm, which aims to map research of little-known areas. This study focuses on how participants perceived blockchain attributes such as trust, transparency, and user-generated content and how this affected engagement and their willingness to play the game again. Based on our evaluation, generating blockchain assets positively impacted player retention. According to the results, providing genuine asset ownership through the blockchain contributes to environmental engagement and self-engagement, as well as player retention. Another positive blockchain feature discovered from the interview data is user-generated content implementation into games

Tele-guidance based navigation system for the visually impaired and blind persons

Abstract The design and development of tele-assistance services have taken a great consideration in the domain of healthcare lately. With the growing proportion of dependent people (ageing, disabled users) in the society, tele-assistance and tele-monitoring platforms will play a significant role to provide an efficient and economical remote care. It will allow aged or disabled persons to maintain their independence and lessen the burden and cost of care by caregivers. The concept of proposed tele-guidance system is based on the idea that a blind pedestrian can be assisted by spoken instructions from a remote caregiver who receives a live video stream from a camera carried by the visually impaired persons (VIP). The ICT based assistive tools have acceptance issues by visually impaired persons. It is important while designing navigation tools for the VIP to keep in view the factors that restrain them from the adoption of assistive technology. This paper presents a tele-guidance based navigation assistance system for the VIP and blind persons and reports a qualitative study about attitude of VIP towards technological navigation assistance

Studying the navigation assistance system for the visually impaired and blind persons and ICT use by their caretakers

Abstract Telecare solutions have been seen as a potential means of addressing the future care needs of ageing societies. With the growing proportion of dependent people (ageing, disabled users), tele-assistance and tele-monitoring platforms will play a significant role to provide an efficient and less-costly remote care and support. It will allow aged and disabled persons to maintain their independence and lessen the burden and cost of caregiving. In the case of visually impaired (VIP) and blind persons, guide dog and white cane provide them a fair degree of independence. However, those are very limited in guiding the user towards a specific desired location, especially in an unknown environment. The assistance of other people presents a feasible solution, though it does not improve the idea of autonomous guidance and privacy. This paper presents a tele-guidance based navigation assistance system that is based on the idea that a blind or VIP pedestrian can be assisted by haptics based cues and spoken instructions from a remote caretaker who receives a live video stream from a camera carried by the blind or VIP. Also, we present results of the study conducted in Pakistan with 14 blind and VIP participants for testing haptics user interface concept of proposed teleguidance system. In this study also two caretakers are interviewed. In addition, we present results of the attitude towards assistive technology study conducted with 19 blind and VIP in Finland. Moreover, we introduce the environmental model to aid development of assistive tools for blind and VIP

Conceptualizing blockchain utilization in persuasive systems design

Abstract Blockchain technology has recently spread widely among different business and research domains, it has not yet been fully explored in the field of persuasive technologies. This paper attempts to define how blockchain technologies can be utilized when developing persuasive technologies and to position blockchain research topics in the persuasive technology domain. Data in persuasive systems are often sensitive and can benefit from the security feature blockchain has to offer. However, the immutability of data raises notable issues that impact compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In this paper, we discuss other benefits and challenges that may be of interest to designers, developers, and researchers who are keen on using blockchain to design the persuasive technologies they design