The rapid integration of Internet of Things (loT) systems in public infrastructure like smart campuses has ex-panded the attack surface through edge devices, amplifying the risk of insider attacks. Traditional defense tools use centralized systems, typically located off-campus, for log monitoring to facilitate intrusion detection and security protocol enforcement in smart infrastructures. The limited real-time data access and observability provided to on-site staff in smart buildings under this traditional approach presents an advantage to intruders with physical access to exploit vulnerabilities in the loT sensing and perception layers. In this study, we explore the integration of Augmented Reality (AR) technology to facilitate real-time monitoring of various sensors and loT devices to provide an application for actionable insights for security and maintenance in a smart campus environment. The proposed application aims to enable key non -expert personnel, such as security guards and maintenance staff, to actively participate in cybersecurity defense by providing immediate data access and connectivity between dispersed endpoints throughout the campus. The paper further investigates the potential benefits and challenges of using AR interfaces to visualize complex sensor networks. In addition, we discuss the implications of our findings on the future design and management of smart campuses, emphasising improving the efficiency and effectiveness of operations and maintenance activities.

Observing blending of realities, daily life and gameplay in location-based mobile games is challenging. This study aims at observing this blending by targeting a vast number of images (N = 2432), which have been taken during gameplay of a well-known game, Pokémon GO. Images were collected from social media communities of Pokémon GO players in Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and analysed using visual and online ethnography. To keep the sample size manageable for analysis, the images were collected only from Nordic Pokémon GO player communities in eight cities during 2016–2018. The findings show that the blending of daily life and gameplay is observable from the shared photos especially from the augmented reality screenshots which is why in this article the context of gameplay, both outdoors and indoors, in Pokémon GO is described in more detail than in previous studies.

The surge of COVID-19 has introduced a new threat surface as malevolent actors are trying to benefit from the pandemic. Because of this, new information sources and visualization tools about COVID-19 have been introduced into the workflow of frontline practitioners. As a result, analysts are increasingly required to shift their focus between different visual displays to monitor pandemic related data, security threats, and incidents. Augmented reality (AR) smart glasses can overlay digital data to the physical environment in a comprehensible manner. However, the real-life use situations are often complex and require fast knowledge acquisition from multiple sources. In this study we report results from an experiment with six subjects using an AR overlaid information interface coupled with traditional computer monitors. Our goal was to evaluate a multi tasking setup with traditional monitors and an AR headset where notifications from the new COVID-19 MISP instance were visualized. Our results indicate that better situational awareness does translate to increased task performance, but at the cost of a gender gap that requires further attention.

Revitalizing endangered minority languages is important from the perspective of preserving cultural diversity. Games and gamified application can provide ways to support learning minority languages and their dialects. We present user experience insights from a small-scale user study conducted for a selection of freely available Karelian language and culture related games. By sharing our findings, we want to raise discussion about how gamification and serious games can help in revitalizing minority languages such as Karelian language. It is important to find out different ways for co-creation and cooperation in minority language also from the perspective of game development. For this study we recruited five participants, whose age varied between 4 to 72. The reception of games depended on the previous experiences of Karelian language and personal history. We noticed that the expectations for learning games vary with different aged participants.

As the COVID-19 storms the globe, there are many efforts to battle it. This paper looks at the development of one such an effort in a form of a mobile game. The game is a 2D arcade game called Unus Terra. It is intended to be entertaining but aims to influence people to partake in social distancing through several mechanics. An early version of the game is evaluated by five usability and user experience experts using heuristics and a few other selected methods. In this paper, we present the results from these evaluations along with our findings from using this type of evaluation method. The use of heuristics is considered from the perspectives of academics and practitioners.

Realistic 3D virtual environments, such as existing city models, have the potential to be used in pervasive games as a passageway between physical and virtual. Smooth attention displacement and transitions between these two realities are largely unexplored in the context of pervasive gameplay. We conducted two field trials using a pervasive live action role playing game to study the effect moving between the virtual and the physical has on co-presence and memorability. Although differences in co-presence during gameplay were small, they highlight the subtleties in the social structuring of pervasive gameplay. Spatial similarity between the physical and virtual environments made the 3D virtual environments more memorable. We identify two important issues to consider in embedding virtual environments into pervasive games: structuring of social interactions and the spatial realism of the VEs.

Go-along interviewing is an emerging qualitative research method for eliciting contextualised perspectives in which informants and observers conduct mobile interviews while navigating in real or imagined sites. This paper describes results of a pilot study that use virtual reality (VR) go-along interviews to explore university community members' (N=6) contextualized perceptions of urban habitat fragmentation due to new transportation infrastructure. Participants were immersed into the popular Google Street View and asked to navigate from the University campus to the city center. Along that route, construction sites featured in 360° images acted as prompts for discussing ecological change. Preliminary results indicate that VR go-along interviews are able to evoke emotions and inform a broad range of research questions with regards to both verbal and non-verbal feedback received from the informants.

Living labs are environments for acquiring user feedback on new products and services. Virtual environments can complement living labs by providing dynamic immersive setup for depicting change. This paper describes implementation of Virtual and Augmented Reality clients as an extension to a user involvement tool for an existing living lab. We conducted a user experience study with 14 participants to compare the clients. According to our study, the virtual reality client was experienced as innovative, easy to use, entertaining and fun. Whereas the augmented reality client was perceived playful and empowering.

We present an immersive VR interface for a public library where a mirror-world like virtual copy of the physical library is blended with imaginary virtual fantasy layers into a hybrid space for library content. The design of the system was guided by multi-stakeholder Participatory Design process involving library staff, library customers and researchers. The findings of the qualitative user evaluation of the prototype suggest that this kind of a VR interface is an exciting extension to a physical library, indicating the unlimited possibilities offered by the VR's ability to send the user into imaginary places.

We describe an interactive digital art application deployed at a university campus with the goal of investigating participants' initial experiences of bridging two realities through 3D artwork in a hybrid reality space. The underlying purpose of the installation is to bring liveliness and increased social interaction to both the virtual and the physical world. We used the HTC Vive and a 3D painting program (Google Tilt Brush) for the creation of the artwork. After creation, the artworks were transferred to an immersive virtual mirror world, in our case a version of our university campus, using an export tool. Results from an initial user study with 32 participants suggest that people found our system attractive, and there was only slight difference in how much they enjoyed seeing their work in the Tilt Brush view versus the virtual campus gallery view.

Most location based mobile games use some form of automated locationing, GPS or A-GPS. Some classic pervasive location based games explored the possibilities of self-reported locationing, but this approach has been somewhat abandoned. In this paper, we present a game concept and a prototype based on the idea of allowing the players fake, multiply and generate their reported location data in addition to using an automated location data. We believe this prototype will reveal new issues and possibilities in designing game mechanics for location based mobile games.

This paper presents the current status of work-in-progress in developing Ghost Hunters that is targeted to explore the possibilities of incorporating gesture control and ambient lighting in a mobile augmented reality game played with smart glasses. We present the design and implementation of the current prototype, together with a small feasibility evaluation of battery consumption and gesture control.

Pervasive games take advantage of ubiquitous infrastructure of our urban environment. Their architecture can be complex. We have begun to develop a platform that makes it possible to create pervasive games from a simple location based mobile game to a complex pervasive live action role playing game. In this paper, we present the concept and current architecture of our platform and briefly describe the games that have been developed on top of it.

We present a location based mixed reality game called Street Art Gangs that we have developed to explore the playful appropriation of the hybrid reality comprising of a city center and its detailed virtual replica represented as a 3D virtual model. In the real streets SAG is played with a mobile phone app that allows tagging predefined locations around the city to claim their ownership and busting nearby players of competing gangs. The virtual game world is viewed with a PC app that allows observing the current owners of taggable locations, the locations of other players, and the locations of patrolling virtual policemen busting players. We have developed two incremental versions of SAG that have been evaluated with tournaments in the wild. We conceptualize the findings of the tournaments with de Souza e Silva's theoretical framework for hybrid reality games. Our findings suggest that players preferred to play the game on real city streets while the added value of the virtual game world remained marginal. The size of the game both in terms of area and the number of taggable locations turned out to have a major impact on gameplay.