Author: Kim Mellin

Studying Policy Behind Augmented Reality

Posted on by Kim Mellin

Augmented reality is the enhancement of human perception through overlaying technologies that can expand, annotate and even record the user’s moment-to-moment experience.

Those designing coming augmented reality systems should make them adaptable to change, resistant to hacking and responsive to the needs of diverse users, according to a white paper by an interdisciplinary group of researchers at the University of Washington’s Tech Policy Lab.

Though still in its relative infancy, augmented reality promises systems that can aid people with mobility or other limitations, providing real-time information about their immediate environment as well as hands-free obstacle avoidance, language translation, instruction and much more. From enhanced eyewear like Google Glass to Microsoft’s wearable HoloLens system, tech, gaming and advertisement industries are already investing in and deploying augmented reality devices and systems.

But augmented reality will also bring challenges for law, public policy and privacy, especially pertaining to how information is collected and displayed. Issues regarding surveillance and privacy, free speech, safety, intellectual property and distraction — as well as potential discrimination — are bound to follow.

The Tech Policy Lab brings together faculty and students from the School of Law, Information School and Computer Science & Engineering Department and other campus units to think through issues of technology policy. “Augmented Reality: A Technology and Policy Primer” is the lab’s first official white paper aimed at a policy audience. The paper is based in part on research presented at the 2015 International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, or UbiComp conference.

Ryan Calo, assistant professor of law and Tech Policy Lab co-director, is lead author together with Batya Friedman of the Information School and Tadayoshi Kohno and Franziska Roesner of computer science and engineering. Other co-authors are Emily McReynolds, UW Tech Policy Lab associate director; Tamara Denning, who graduated from the UW in computer science and engineering and is now an assistant professor at the University of Utah; Bryce Newell, who graduated from the UW Information School and is now a postdoctoral researcher the University of Tilburg; Information School doctoral student Lassana Magassa and School of Law alumnus Jesse Woo.

Read more from UW TDOAY.

DIGITAL DEFENSE: Fighting Back Against Cyber-crime

Posted on by Kim Mellin

For the general public, the term “hacker” often conjures Hollywood-style images of socially awkward misanthropes bathed in the soft blue light of their tricked-out laptops. The truth of the matter is that computer hacking, data theft and other cyber-crimes have made their way out of the basement and into everyday life online. In the past decade, cyber-crime has become a lucrative industry that is very attractive to a more organized breed of criminal. In 2014, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center calculated that cyber-crime accounted for over $800 million in losses. As more and more of our lives and professions are transitioning to the virtual world, cyber-criminals are constantly looking for ways to exploit that relationship for their own gain.

 

“With spear phishing, the adversary might look at social profiles and friend networks. Maybe they learn that their target has a conference coming up, so they send them information about their registration,” says Tamara Denning, associate professor at the University of Utah’s School of Computing.

Read more at Utah Busines.