Tony Morelli

VI-Tennis: a vibrotactile/audio exergame for players who are visually impaired

Lack of physical activity is a serious health concern for individuals who are visually impaired as they have fewer opportunities and incentives to engage in physical activities that provide the amounts and kinds of stimulation sufficient to maintain adequate fitness and to support a healthy standard of living. Exergames are video games that use physical activity as input and which have the potential to change sedentary lifestyles and associated health problems such as obesity. We identify that exergames have a number properties that could overcome the barriers to physical activity that individuals with visual impairments face. However, exergames rely upon being able to perceive visual cues that indicate to the player what input to provide. This paper presents VI Tennis, a modified version of a popular motion sensing exergame that explores the use of vibrotactile and audio cues. The effectiveness of providing multimodal (tactile/audio) versus unimodal (audio) cues was evaluated with a user study with 13 children who are blind. Children achieved moderate to vigorous levels of physical activity- the amount required to yield health benefits. No significant difference in active energy expenditure was found between both versions, though children scored significantly better with the tactile/audio version and also enjoyed playing this version more, which emphasizes the potential of tactile/audio feedback for engaging players for longer periods of time.

Vi-bowling: a tactile spatial exergame for individuals with visual impairments

Lack of sight forms a significant barrier to participate in physical activity. Consequently, individuals with visual impairments are at greater risk for developing serious health problems, such as obesity. Exergames are video games that provide physical exercise. For individuals with visual impairments, exergames have the potential to reduce health disparities as they may be safer to play and can be played without the help of others. This paper presents VI Bowling, a tactile/audio exergame that can be played using an inexpensive motion-sensing controller. VI Bowling explores tactile dowsing: a novel technique for performing spatial sensorimotor challenges, which can be used for motor learning. VI Bowling was evaluated with six blind adults. All players enjoyed VI Bowling and the challenge tactile dowsing provided. Players could throw their ball with an average error of 9.76 degrees using tactile dowsing. Participants achieved an average active energy expenditure of 4.61 kJ/Min while playing VI Bowling, which is comparable to walking.

Real-time sensory substitution to enable players who are blind to play video games using whole body gestures ☆

Abstract Gesture-based interaction adds a new level of immersion to video games, but players who are blind are unable to play them as these games use visual cues to indicate what gesture to provide and when. Though visual cues can be substituted with audio or haptic cues, this often requires access to the source code, which is not attainable for commercial games. We present a solution that uses real-time video analysis to detect the presence of a particular visual cue, which is then substituted with a vibrotactile cue that is provided with an external controller. A user study with 28 sighted participants with a popular commercial gesture based game showed no significant difference in performance between visual and vibrotactile feedback. A follow up study with seven visually impaired participants revealed no significant difference in performance between both groups of users. Both studies demonstrate the feasibility of real-time sensory substitution as a cost-effective approach for making gesture-based video games accessible to players who are blind.

Spatial gestures using a tactile-proprioceptive display

Proprioception --the human ability to sense the orientation of limbs without vision or hearing-- is one of the main drivers of motor operations and plays a significant role in input modalities such as touch and gestures. As an output modality proprioception has remained largely unexplored --though it can convey information to a user using their own body. Spatial interaction requires users to visually acquire the location of an object, which can then be manipulated using a touch or gesture. This is challenging if you are unable to see or in mobile contexts where the use of a display may be undesirable. This paper evaluates a tactile-proprioceptive display for eye and ear free 2D target acquisition and spatial interaction.

Real-time sensory substitution to enable players who are blind to play video games using whole body gestures

Gesture-based interaction adds a new level of immersion to video games, but players who are blind are unable to play them as games use visual cues to indicate what gesture to provide and when. Though visual cues can be substituted with audio or haptic cues, this often requires access to the source code, which is not attainable for commercial games. We present a solution that uses real-time video analysis to detect the presence of a particular visual cue, which is then substituted with a vibrotactile cue that is provided with an external controller. A user study with 28 sighted participants with a popular commercial gesture based game showed no significant difference between visual and vibro-tactile cues, which demonstrates the feasibility of real-time sensory substitution as a cost-effective approach for making gesture-based video games accessible to players who are blind.

TWuiST: A discrete tactile-proprioceptive display for eye and ear free output on mobile devices

Proprioception -the human ability to sense the orientation of limbs without vision or hearing- is one of the main drivers of complex motor operations, which is something mobile interfaces may be able to exploit to achieve robust eye and ear free forms of interaction. This paper explores the use of proprioception as an output modality by combining kinesthetic information of a mobile device with vibrotactile feedback. A user study with 16 users explored the temporal resolution of proprioceptive displays for two different spatial resolutions with orientations (o) either defined in a space (o=6) or in a plane (o = 8). Users were able to find target orientations in 2;652 (space) and 2;638 (plane) milliseconds. The performance of discrete proprioceptive displays is comparable with more advanced forms of tactile feedback provision -but unlike these- proprioceptive displays can be facilitated using features already present in current mobile devices. Our experiences elicited a number of guidelines and tradeoffs for the design of discrete proprioceptive displays.

Presenting a standard slot machine as an interactive racing game

Although the gambling industry brings in over one billion dollars in yearly revenue, it may need to introduce new styles of games in order to entice a younger audience. Slot machines in particular have changed very little throughout the last century. Better graphics, more sounds, and slightly more complex math models have been introduced, however the core experience remains the same. This paper presents a new take on video gambling by integrating real money gambling into a standard kart racing game. A user study shows that players spend more money and significantly more time playing this new style game when compared to a standard slot machine. Subjective interviews also revealed that most players prefer playing the kart style gambling game as opposed to a standard slot machine.

Video Game Industry as a Social Network

The video game market is a complex system where the relationships between game titles and publishers is convoluted. While some publishers are responsible for a large number of titles others seem to be less successful. In an attempt to understand the characteristics and evolution of the video game industry, we analyze the market using social network analysis. For this purpose, we build a heterogenous network of the video game industry at different levels. Moreover, to interpret the behavior of the generations of game consoles, we build these networks for each console, i.e., PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, and analyze the three generations they went through. We perform a comparative temporal analysis of the evolution of the industry by investigating 14 video game consoles as five generations. Finally, we try to provide insights and future directions regarding the video game market.

Dynamic Keypad - Digit Shuffling for Secure PIN Entry in a Virtual World.

As virtual reality becomes more mainstream there is a need to investigate the security of user level authentication while in the virtual world. In order for authentication methods to be useful, they must be secure, not allow for any external observers to determine the secure data being entered by the user, and also not break the immersion that the virtual world provides. Using head mounted virtual reality displays, users can interact with the world by using gaze, that is selecting objects by what the user is focusing on. This paper analyzes the security issues involved with utilizing gaze detection for secure password entry. A user study finds security issues with standard gaze based PIN input, and as a result a solution to this problem is presented. The solution shuffles the numbers on the PIN pad and finds that method to be more secure while maintaining accuracy and speed.

A four-layer wireless sensor network framework for IoT applications

With the development of Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies, a wide range of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) will be adopted in a variety of application environments. Given the fact that most of these WSNs are constrained by limitations in energy resources, processing capability, storage capacity, and communication range, their deployment must satisfy the real-time constraints based on the type of applications. This paper proposes a real-time IoT-based WSN with configurable nodes with multiple sensors. The nodes can collect data from the surrounding environment, and present it on the cloud for universal accessibility by the users. With this system, users can easily access and analyze various data, such as temperature, humidity, motion detection, illuminance, CO gas, air quality, etc. and take necessary actions upon that information. The feasibility of proposed WSN IoT framework has been verified through real-time hardware implementation.