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Online communities – Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Lawrence Lessig. New York: Basic Books, 1999. 230 pp. $21 hbk. Lawrence Lessig's Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace is perhaps the most original book yet written about cyberspace law. With an accessible style that is rich in anecdotes and metaphors and surprisingly low on legal and technical jargon, Lessig, a constitutional law scholar at Harvard and a consultant on the Microsoft antitrust case, writes for a wide scholarly audience. Even more than the recent The Control Revolution (New York: Century Foundation, 1999) by Andrew Shapiro, Lessig has managed to write about a rapidly evolving subject at a level of abstraction and theoretical sophistication that ensures that his contribution will long remain relevant. Central to Lessig's theoretical framework is his breakdown of four modalities of regulation: law, economic markets, norms, and an intriguing category he calls "architecture." Architecture includes constraints that the natural world imposes or that people construct-for example, speed bumps on roads. The architecture in cyberspace is computer code: code constructs the cyber-world. Consider the example of pornography regulation. Lessig contrasts how these four modalities of regulation control access to pornography in "real space" and in cyberspace, vividly demonstrating why a simple translation of existing law from "real space" to cyberspace is often impossible. In real space, pornography is extensively regulated through all four modalities, in ways that limit children's access to it. Laws require that vendors sell pornography only to adults. Markets prevent children from accessing pornography because it costs money. Norms help limit children's access to pornography, both by stigmatizing pornography and stigmatizing dealers who would sell it to children. In the category of real space "architecture," there is the simple matter of how a child is: even if a child attempted to disguise himself as an adult, he would probably notbe successful at fooling a salesperson. These four kinds of constraints may be imperfect, but are reasonably effective in limiting children's access to pornography in real space, Lessig contends. In cyberspace, however, the modalities of regulation of pornography operate differently and less effectively. Law is unsettled. Markets are different in at least two ways: distribution of digital files is much cheaper than distribution of printed material or videos, and though there are plenty of commercial pornography sites, much pornography can be accessed at no cost through newsgroups. Differences in the "architecture" of cyberspace are crucial because they allow faceless transactions. Faceless transactions may make disguising identity and age simple, therefore allowing a child to avoid the restrictions of law and norms. Thus the "real space" regulatory regime is upset, making pornography generally more available to children in cyberspace. Ways of filtering content or zoning the Internet are now extensively debated, but no simple transfer of the offline constraints to cyberspace seems possible. As he applies his theory to pornography regulation and the regulation of intellectual property and privacy, Lessig emphasizes that not only the codes of law but computer codethe "architecture" of cyberspace-an "embed" values and enable government and private actors to control behavior. …

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace

Interactive products designed for children--whether toys, games, educational products, or websites--are increasingly embedded in children's lives and school experiences. Making these products safe, effective, and entertaining requires new methodologies for carrying out sound and unbiased evaluations for these users with unique requirements, environments, and ethical considerations. 

This book directly addresses this need by thoroughly covering the evaluation of all types of interactive technology for children. Based on the authors' workshops, conference courses, and own design experience and research, this highly practical book reads like a handbook, while being thoroughly grounded in the latest research. Throughout, the authors illustrate techniques and principles with numerous mini case studies and highlight practical information in tips and exercises and conclude with three in-depth case studies. Essential reading for usability experts, product developers, and researchers in the field.

* Presents an essential background in child development and child psychology, particularly as they relate to technology. 

* Captures best practices for observing and surveying children, training evaluators, and capturing the child user experience using audio and visual technology.

* Examines ethical and legal issues involved in working with children and offers guidelines for effective risk management.

Evaluating Children's Interactive Products: Principles and Practices for Interaction Designers

A robotic cleaner includes a cleaning assembly for cleaning a surface and a main robot body. The main robot body houses a drive system to cause movement of the robotic cleaner and a microcontroller to control the movement of the robotic cleaner. The cleaning assembly is located in front of the drive system and a width of the cleaning assembly is greater than a width of the main robot body. A robotic cleaning system includes a main robot body and a plurality of cleaning assemblies for cleaning a surface. The main robot body houses a drive system to cause movement of the robotic cleaner and a microcontroller to control the movement of the robotic cleaner. The cleaning assembly is located in front of the drive system and each of the cleaning assemblies is detachable from the main robot body and each of the cleaning assemblies has a unique cleaning function.

Application of localization, positioning & navigation systems for robotic enabled mobile products

The invention is related to methods and apparatus that use a visual sensor and dead reckoning sensors to process Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). These techniques can be used in robot navigation. Advantageously, such visual techniques can be used to autonomously generate and update a map. Unlike with laser rangefinders, the visual techniques are economically practical in a wide range of applications and can be used in relatively dynamic environments, such as environments in which people move. Certain embodiments contemplate improvements to the front-end processing in a SLAM-based system. Particularly, certain of these embodiments contemplate a novel landmark matching process. Certain of these embodiments also contemplate a novel landmark creation process. Certain embodiments contemplate improvements to the back-end processing in a SLAM- based system. Particularly, certain of these embodiments contemplate algorithms for modifying the SLAM graph in real-time to achieve a more efficient structure.

Systems and methods for vslam optimization

Expert evaluation is a widely used method for evaluating the usability of software products. When evaluating games, traditional usability heuristics lack comprehension and cannot be directly applied. In this paper, we introduce playability heuristics that are specifically designed for evaluating mobile games. Heuristics form a core model that can be used in any mobile game evaluation. The model consists of three modules: Game Usability, Mobility, and Gameplay. The mobile context has some unique characteristics, which require special attention during the evaluation. These characteristics are described in mobility heuristics. Mobile devices also set some of their own requirements for general usability and these issues are described along with game usability heuristics. These heuristics have been developed by using an iterative design process of a mobile game. In addition, we have validated the heuristics and evaluated five mobile games by using them with the expert evaluation method. The results indicate that playability problems, which violate game usability or mobility heuristics, are quite easy to identify. Gameplay problems are harder to find, but gameplay heuristics help in evaluation and focus on different aspects of the gameplay.

Playability heuristics for mobile games

In current literature, grief play in Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) refers to play styles where a player intentionally disrupts the gaming experience of other players. In our study, we have discovered that player experiences may be disrupted by others unintentionally, and under certain circumstances, some will believe they have been griefed. This paper explores the meaning of grief play, and suggests that some forms of unintentional grief play be called greed play. The paper suggests that greed play be treated as griefing, but a more subtle form. It also investigates the different types of griefing and establishes a taxonomy of terms in grief play.

Defining grief play in MMORPGs: player and developer perceptions

Multi-player games are engaging because of social interaction and competing with real players. Currently, many digital games are multi-player or have multi-player features. When evaluating the playability of multi-player games, we need to consider player-to-player interaction. In this paper, we introduce and describe playability heuristics for mobile multi-player games that complement the playability heuristic model that we have presented earlier. Multi-player heuristics have been developed by identifying playability problems in game evaluations and comparing these findings to game design guidelines and other studies found in the literature. The results indicate that the presented multi-player heuristics correspond to issues that are addressed to be important in multi-player games.

Playability heuristics for mobile multi-player games

A toy device is provided, which is interoperable with a virtual game application enabling a player for playing in a virtual gaming environment. The virtual game application comprises at least one game object controllable by the player. The game object has game specific characteristics, which are developable during playing. The toy device is provided to the player for playing in a real-world environment. The toy device represents a real-world analog of the game object and has one or more sensors, which are arranged to detect how a player a game plays of the player with the toy device. Sensor information is registered by the means of the one or more sensors. The sensor information is detected in consequence to how a game play of the player plays with the toy device in the real-world environment and is transferred to the game application to adjust the game specific characteristics of the game object in accordance with the game play in the real-world environment.

Interoperation between virtual gaming environment and real-world environments

In this paper, we discuss using various prototyping methods in early game development. We have playtested pervasive game prototypes using agile software prototype development methods and guided paper prototyping methods. We give examples of four pervasive games where both paper-prototyping and software-prototyping methods are used. We also compare results that have been achieved by testing games with the potential end users of the game and with colleagues or other experts. The benefits and disadvantages of the methods are discussed and their use in the game development process is described, i.e. when the methods should be used and what should be considered when using them.

Elina M. I. Koivisto

Papers

Playability heuristics for mobile games

Defining grief play in MMORPGs: player and developer perceptions

Playability heuristics for mobile multi-player games

Interoperation between virtual gaming environment and real-world environments

Using prototypes in early pervasive game development