TransparentHMD: Revealing the HMD User's Face to Bystanders

While the eyes are very important in human communication, once a user puts on a head mounted display (HMD), the face is obscured from the outside world's perspective. This leads to communication problems when bystanders approach or collaborate with an HMD user. We introduce transparentHMD, which employs a head-coupled perspective technique to produce an illusion of a transparent HMD to bystanders. We created a self contained system, based on a mobile device mounted on the HMD with the screen facing bystanders. By tracking the relative position of the bystander using the smartphone's camera, we render an adapting perspective view in realtime that creates the illusion of a transparent HMD. By revealing the user's face to bystanders, our easy to implement system allows for opportunities to investigate a plethora of research questions particularly related to collaborative VR systems

Privacy Invasion Experiences and Perceptions: a Comparison Between Germany and the Arab World

Similar to research in behavioral psychology, research in privacy and usable security has focused mainly on Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. This excludes a large portion of the population affected by privacy implications of technology. In this work, we report on a survey (N=117) in which we studied technology-related privacy concerns of users from different countries, including developing countries such as Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and developed countries such as Germany. By comparing results from those countries, and relating our findings to previous work, we brought forth multiple novel insights that are specific to privacy of users from under-investigated countries. We discuss the implications of our findings on the design of privacy protection mechanisms

Beliefs About Mathematics And Mathematics Instruction Among Basic Education Mathematics Teachers In Al-Batinah South, Oman

Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk mengenal pasti kepercayaan tentang matematik dan pengajaran matematik dalam kalangan guru matematik pendidikan asas fasa pertama serta untuk menentukan sama ada terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan dalam kepercayaan mereka tentang matematik dan pengajaran matematik dari segi kelayakan akademik, bidang pengkhususan, pengalaman mengajar dan lokasi sekolah di daerah Al-Batinah Selatan, Oman The objectives of this study were to identify Omani basic education first phase mathematics teachers' beliefs about mathematics and mathematics instruction and to determine whether there is a significant difference in their beliefs about mathematics and mathematics instruction in terms of academic qualification, field of specialization, teaching experience and school location in the Al-Batinah South county of Oma

Lunchocracy: Improving Eating Dynamics in the Workplace Using a Bot-Based Anonymous Voting System

Previous studies have shown that when individuals join groups for lunch, they tend to conform to the decision of the group. As result, people do not always have the chance to pick the food they wish for, which in turn may have negative consequences, such as not abiding to healthy diets. To address this problem, we created Lunchocracy, an anonymous decision support tool for lunch spots in a workplace based on feedback from a focus group with 7 participants. The tool implements a conversational skype-bot, Lunchbot, that allows users to express interest in joining lunch and to vote for diners to eat at. We deployed the tool for four weeks with 14 participants from the same university department. Post-interviews with 5 participants revealed an overall satisfaction with Lunchocracy, in particular due to it structuring the lunch decision-making and saving time. We discuss how the use of Lunchocracy can positively influence the group's eating dynamics

Which One is Me?: Identifying Oneself on Public Displays

While user representations are extensively used on public displays, it remains unclear how well users can recognize their own representation among those of surrounding users. We study the most widely used representations: abstract objects, skeletons, silhouettes and mirrors. In a prestudy (N=12), we identify five strategies that users follow to recognize themselves on public displays. In a second study (N=19), we quantify the users' recognition time and accuracy with respect to each representation type. Our findings suggest that there is a significant effect of (1) the representation type, (2) the strategies performed by users, and (3) the combination of both on recognition time and accuracy. We discuss the suitability of each representation for different settings and provide specific recommendations as to how user representations should be applied in multi-user scenarios. These recommendations guide practitioners and researchers in selecting the representation that optimizes the most for the deployment's requirements, and for the user strategies that are feasible in that environment

US STRATEGY BETWEEN THE TWO FALLS: FROM THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL TO BAGHDAD

This study argues that American foreign policy (AFP) represented continuity rather than change from the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. During this time, the US pursued a hegemonic strategy that aimed to preserve its unipolar moment in the new American century. However, this argument is challenged by two sets of AFP literature. The first sees the 1990s as a period of inconsistency in AFP strategy, and the second identifies post-9/11 policy as a revolutionary change in AFP. This study‘s analysis goes below the surface of AFP‘s to its deep structure (hidden agendas). In contrast to the majority of AFP literature, it argues the 1990s were not a fragmented era but that AFP showed continuity rather than change, and the strategy of hegemony was already in operation. Likewise, putting aside the rhetoric of the Bush II administration, post-9/11 policy cannot be understood except in the context of AFP‘s hegemonic strategy of the post-Cold War (CW) era and 9/11 was no more than a terrorist attack carried out by a terrorist group. However, to serve US hegemonic agenda that was on hold from the early 1990s, the attack was deliberately exaggerated and portrayed as an existential threat to the US. The study does not deny the political fragmentation in the 1990s or ignore the effects of 9/11 on AFP strategy. Therefore, to critique the two sets of literature, the research assesses the impact of domestic politics on the ability of US officials‘ to build on America‘s unipolar moment. In doing so, this study highlights several aspects of US domestic division that curtailed the ability of bureaucrats to handle FP issues. This also demonstrates that AFP‘s failure in the 1990s was not on the strategic planning level but in its domestic context. Congress emerged as a counterweight to the leadership of the president. Societal groups gained unprecedented influence over policy-making as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. This status changed after 9/11 when a new external enemy appeared. The president regained his supreme role and Congress‘s role retreated. Under these circumstances, the study concludes that an unchanging AFP strategy gave the basis for the emergence of an explicit American hegemony

EyeSpot: leveraging gaze to protect private text content on mobile devices from shoulder surfing

As mobile devices allow access to an increasing amount of private data, using them in public can potentially leak sensitive information through shoulder surfing. This includes personal private data (e.g., in chat conversations) and business-related content (e.g., in emails). Leaking the former might infringe on users’ privacy, while leaking the latter is considered a breach of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation as of May 2018. This creates a need for systems that protect sensitive data in public. We introduce EyeSpot, a technique that displays content through a spot that follows the user’s gaze while hiding the rest of the screen from an observer’s view through overlaid masks. We explore different configurations for EyeSpot in a user study in terms of users’ reading speed, text comprehension, and perceived workload. While our system is a proof of concept, we identify crystallized masks as a promising design candidate for further evaluation with regard to the security of the system in a shoulder surfing scenario

GTmoPass: Two-factor Authentication on Public Displays Using Gaze-touch Passwords and Personal Mobile Devices

As public displays continue to deliver increasingly private and personalized content, there is a need to ensure that only the legitimate users can access private information in sensitive contexts. While public displays can adopt similar authentication concepts like those used on public terminals (e.g., ATMs), authentication in public is subject to a number of risks. Namely, adversaries can uncover a user's password through (1) shoulder surfing, (2) thermal attacks, or (3) smudge attacks. To address this problem we propose GTmoPass, an authentication architecture that enables Multi-factor user authentication on public displays. The first factor is a knowledge-factor: we employ a shoulder-surfing resilient multimodal scheme that combines gaze and touch input for password entry. The second factor is a possession-factor: users utilize their personal mobile devices, on which they enter the password. Credentials are securely transmitted to a server via Bluetooth beacons. We describe the implementation of GTmoPass and report on an evaluation of its usability and security, which shows that although authentication using GTmoPass is slightly slower than traditional methods, it protects against the three aforementioned threats

Exploring Participatory Design Methods to Engage with Arab Communities

ArabHCI is an initiative inaugurated in CHI17 SIG Meeting that brought together 45+ HCI Arab and non-Arab researchers/practitioners who are conducting/interested in HCI within Arab communities. The goal of this workshop is to start dialogs that leverage our "insider" understanding of HCI research in the Arab context and assert our culture identity in design in order to explore challenges and opportunities for future research. In this workshop, we focus on one of the themes that derived our community discussions in most of the held events. We explore the extent to which participatory approaches in the Arab context are culturally and methodologically challenged. Our goal is to bring researchers/practitioners with success and failure stories while designing with Arab communities to discuss methods, share experiences and learned lessons. We plan to share the results of our discussions and research agenda with the wider CHI community through different social and scholarly channels