Week 5 [27.11-03.12.17] Dark patterns in UX design

Hello,
Black Friday is behind us, so I would like to propose a discussion about dark patterns in user experience design.

Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you buy or sign up for things that you didn't mean to.

One of the examples could be booking.com website, which is constantly using this kind of tricks to push the leverage in our mind that is responsible for making decisions.

https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2017/09/21/booking-com-uses-stress-rush-decisions/

More of dark patterns websites are also listed at
https://darkpatterns.org/

Do you have some insights on this kind of tricks being used in shops where you were the customer? If yes, could you provide an example?

Do you know any other marketing tricks (that sometimes could be on the border of legality) which are being used in sales websites?

Maybe you have some experience with shopping during Black Friday / Cyber Monday, where the price was artificially inflated?

Regards,
Artur

Week 5 [27.11-03.12.17] Globalization, Open Access, and the Democratization of Knowledge

Hello,

We are starting the next week of our course. Because of different interests and fields of research, I would like to present an article which theme is quite universal and related to the global democratization of knowledge. I also encourage you to visit SHARE, FORCE11 and OpenAIRE to increase knowledge availability. Internet development gives an excellent opportunity to participate in the global gathering of knowledge. Lifting access barriers of the researchers’ results contributes to faster learning but it also denies the commodification of knowledge.

1. Have you heard of SHARE, FORCE11, or OpenAIRE? 
2. Which websites do you use for searching publications?
3. What portals (apart from ResearchGate) science integration and collaboration portals do you know?
4. Knowledge should be treated as a commodity or should it be free and accessible to all regardless of their financial status?

Week 5 [27.11-03.12.17] Serverless — the Future of Software Architecture?

Hello! I have an interesting article about serverless technology.

link: https://read.acloud.guru/serverless-the-future-of-software-architecture-d4473ffed864

There are many scientific articles that describe the use of a cloud for a variety of tasks, from data storage to gigantic computing. The Serverless architecture is quite new even for the reality of the IT world.

The article shows the differences between standard and serverless approaches.

My questions:

1.Have you heard about this paradigm?

2. Do you think this is the future of some kind of application?

3. What is your idea for applying this technology?

Week 4 [20-26.11.17] BitCoin's and Russia ??

Hello;
Read this http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38755584
In my professional life I often have to deal with cybercrime. Often my acquaintances become victims of these criminals. I personally monitored the illegal Internet "TOR" trying to answer difficult questions about the identity of cybercriminals. It is not easy and often not feasible. Only in reference to the article in the former Soviet Union happens so badly I doubt it but maybe I'm wrong. To sum up, I would like you to answer some simple questions:
- Have you contacted cybercrime?
- Have you been a victim of online criminals?
- Did any of your friends fall victim to online criminals?
- How much has he lost through internet crime, if you know?
- Do you plan to participate in cybercrime campaigns?
- Have you paid anything for BitCoin's?
- Do you think that the only true Russians are Tor and other dark internet sites users?

Week 4 [20-26.11.17] Clip-Air: How pod planes could change travel forever

I would like to introduce to you a new concept in transport industry. Researchers from Switzerland offer a solution of combining few means of transport during one journey.

1 Do you think this idea will interest transport industry?

2 How long can last the realization of this idea?
3 Would you take advantage of such a means of transport?

http://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/clip-air-pod-airplane-concept/index.html

 

Week 4 [20-26.11.17] Capsule Networks

Hello everybody,

Today I would like to present you the next "big thing" in Artificial Neural Network. Paper was released in October 2017 and after this date everybody involved in ANNs field are talking about it.

Paper was made by "grandfather" of deep learning Geoffrey E Hinton in colaboration with two grad students.

https://www.wired.com/story/googles-ai-wizard-unveils-a-new-twist-on-neural-networks/
https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09829


More on Youtube (about what is wrong with today's approach)



Questions:

1. Do you think that Capsule Networks can be the next "big thing" in Neural Networks field? Why?
2. What is wrong with today's approach (with CNN - Convolutional neural network)?
3. In this article Hinton said "I think the way we’re doing computer vision is just wrong.". You know what he had on his mind?
4. Can you give some examples where CNNs (Convolutional neural network) are used? If not maybe you can think of some examples in which you could use them?

Week 3 [13-19.11.17] HONcode: trustworthy online health information

Some time ago I was at the conference on healthcare IT Systems. One of the presentations caught my attention more than the others. The presenter showed and explained a HONcode project [1][2]. It's purpose is to verify and certify trustworthy websites with health and medical information. As there is many false or outdated information on the Internet and people tend to treat themselves without consultation with a doctor I think the HONcode idea seems to be very interesting.

Have you heard about HONcode before?
Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?

[1] http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Patients/Visitor/visitor.html
[2] http://www.hon.ch/Global/pdf/TrustworthyOct2006.pdf

Week 3 [13-19.11.17] Using Blockchain to Protect Personal Data

Hello everyone,

I would like to present you an article about blockchain:

https://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~ghosh/blockchain.pdf

Cryptographic techniques draw on the science of cryptography and allow for the protection of sensitive information (organizational, institutional or personal), either in storage or in communication. Initially devised for information security systems, they are now moving into other use spaces.

Blockchain technology ensures the elimination of the double-spend problem, with the help of public-key cryptography, whereby each agent is assigned a private key (kept secret like a password) and a public key shared with all other agents. A transaction is initiated when the future owner of the coins (or digital tokens) sends his/her public key to the original owner. The coins are transferred by the digital signature of a hash. Public keys are cryptographically generated addresses stored in the blockchain. Every coin is associated with an address, and a transaction in the crypto-economy is simply a trade of coins from one address to another.

The first distributed blockchain was implemented in 2008 as a core component of the digital currency Bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions. It turns out that blockchain technology can be used in many other areas of life rather than finance.

Questions are:

1. Do you think that blockchain is a breakthrough in cyber privacy?
2. What are possible future extensions to blockchain technology? Where does it have the potential to be used?
3. Does data decentralisation have a chance in computer science?

Week 3 [13-19.11.17] Wearable Sensors Could Translate Sign Language Into English - Communication Interpreter

Dear all,

This week I would like to present my thoughts on wearable technologies. We are all familiar with that subject and many articles were presented before, but it seems to me that so many possibilities of usage are still undiscovered.

In recent years there have been an increase in the number of researches on potential usage of wearable technologies in facilitating life of those facing challenges in everyday life. One of such groups are deaf people and their's communication with people who does not know sign language. They want to achieve it with the idea of developing glove-based communicating aid in mobile environment. Gloves using flex sensor, accelerometer and EMG sensors possibly could read the hand muscles movements and ascribe adequate word in english language. Scientists believe that they can use similar technology for development of innovative user interfaces between humans and computers. Below I present few links to scientific articles on developments made in last 2 years.

Sources:

https://www.ripublication.com/ijaer16/ijaerv11n1_43.pdf

http://www.sersc.org/journals/IJUNESST/vol8_no1/12.pdf

https://www.ijircce.com/upload/2014/nsci14/29_prabha-paper.pdf

Questions to answer:

1. Do you think such technology could be used on daily basis? Isn’t it too uncomfortable to wear glove with many cables and tell people to use mobile app to translate their’s gestures?
2. Do you have any better idea of solving problem of communication between deaf people and those who does not know sign language?
3. Is there any chance that such glove one day may lead to development of user interfaces between humans and computers?

Best Regards,

Cezary

Week 3 [13-19.11.17] Bubble Sort: An Archaeological Algorithmic Analysis

Hello everyone,

most of presented articles are about empirical and applied computer science. This time I want to referto the theoretical field of computer science - algorithms! Don't worry it's just about bubble sort :) It was one of the first algorithms I've learnt years before going to university so it is definitely my sentimental one. The article below presents it's history and pros and cons of using and teaching this algorithm. I think that similar reasoning can be applied to other algorithms and topics.

Link:
http://cygnus-x1.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps182s/compsci342s/cps182s/fall03/latex/checkout/bubble182.pdf


1. Do you find learning algorithms important? Why?
2. What algorithms do you remember from university? How often do you use algorithms? Have you ever participate in any competition?
3. Do you agree that bubble sort achives popularity due to its name? Do you know any other algorithms with funny names?

Week 2 [06-12.11.17] IT Security - do you take it seriously?

Hi everyone!

Statistics and reports are alarming!:

Since the turn of the millennium, there’s been an incredible uptick in cyber crime. Whereas the total reported damage was only $17.8 million in 2001, the number rose to $800.49 million in 2014. A large portion of that increase has occurred over the course of the last three or four years. From 2011 to 2014, the increase in cyber crime damages well-exceeded $300 million.

We all know that. And at work we apply the best methods and practices.

But I'm wondering whether: same? less? harder? We take care of safety on a daily basis. If you do not want to admit, you can give an example to a colleague.

For example, I remember that I saw the terminal at the university. man logged in to the bank. Terrible.

What do you think? Do you follow the rules shown in the article?

http://www.computer.org/web/computingnow/security/content?g=53319&type=article&urlTitle=practical-strategies-for-enhancing-your-company-s-cyber-security

Week 2 [06-12.11.17] - Genetic Algorithms (GA) in business

Hello,

I would like to discuss with you about Genetic Algorithms (GA) and their role in real-world problems solving. Everyone who has been involved in a project (where the main goal was to optimize something) knows how difficult continuous improvement is.

This short article presents possibilities of GA in a floorplanning use case. Every shop has  its own strategy how to route client to increase content of clients' shopping carts. The Authors describe model that manage to shelves layout optimization in a shop.

Questions:

1. Do you know any other case, where AI helps to manipulate human behaviours?
2. What can we do to protect us from commercial trics?
3. Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) replace human experts responsible for business strategy / advertisement / entertainment? (In my opinion this areas require special let's say talents)

Maybe it can be an extra tool “only” that supports a human?

link: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.06016.pdf