Would you let a startup track your social media accounts and credit-card transactions in exchange for cash?

A startup called Datacoup is far from the only tech company hoping to get rich by selling insights mined from your personal data. But it may be the only one offering to give you money for that information.

By Ms. Katarzyna Wac

Abstract Increasingly, we use mobile applications and services in our daily life activities, to support our needs for information, communication, leisure, or even health and care needs. However, user acceptance of a mobile application depends on at least two conditions: the application's perceived experience, and the appropriateness of the application to the user's context and needs. However, we have a weak understanding of a mobile user's quality of experience (QoE) and the factors influencing it. In my talk i discuss a 4-week-long 29-Android-phone-user study, where we collected both QoE and the underlying network's quality of service measurements through a combination of user, application, and network data on the user's phones. We aimed to derive and improve the understanding of users' QoE for a set of widely used mobile applications in users' natural environments and different daily contexts. I present data acquired in the study and discuss implications for mobile applications design, especially those in mobile health domain. I propose a framework for assuring the user's experience for these applications.

Bio: Ms. Katarzyna Wac is a senior scientist (fr. "MER") at the Institute of Services Science (ISS) of University of Geneva (UniGE) and leader of the Quality of Life (QoL) research area since 2010. She holds a BSc and MSc degree in Computer Science from Wroclaw University of Technology (WUT, Poland), an MSc in Telematics from University of Twente (UT, the Netherlands), as well as a PhD in Information Systems from University of Geneva (Switzerland). In 2003-2004, Ms. Wac was a research staff member at University of Twente. In 2005 she joined University of Geneva as a research and teaching assistant, while keeping her affiliation with the University of Twente. In 2007-2010, Ms. Wac was also affiliated with the MobiHealth BV start-up company. In 2009-2010, Ms. Wac was on leave for a one-year Swiss NSF Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU, USA), Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). Along the summer 2013, Ms. Wac was supported by Swiss NSF International Visits program to research at Stanford University (Stanford, USA), and particularly at the Stanford Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute (H-STAR). Ms. Wac's research interests include Quality of Service-aware mobile systems and services with special emphasis on support of adaptive multimedia protocols and Quality of Service mechanisms, especially in the mobile healthcare (i.e., mHealth) domain. Ms. Wac strives towards effective and efficient pervasive mobile computing and communication - meeting the end-user Quality of Service requirements and Quality of Experience expectations. Ms. Wac is since 2012 an Associate Expert of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) European Regional Initiative for mHealth.

It’s Tuesday which means that the Treehouse Show is back! In episode 77 of The Treehouse Show, Nick and Jason (@jseifer) talk about Sass mixins, JavaScript coding, git tips, and much more.

This Week’s Links

• Z63 | 8 Sass mixins you must have in your toolbox

• Firefox Notes – Desktop

• Sass: Mixin or Placeholder?

• A re-introduction to JavaScript (JS Tutorial) – JavaScript | MDN

• carrot/share-button

• Git tips from the trenches

• A List Apart Pattern Library

The post Sass Mixins, JavaScript Coding, Git Tips | The Treehouse Show Episode 77 appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

Here’s a tricky one for you…can genetic guys use girls’ bathrooms?

This very question was recently contested in the courts of Maine, where the highest court ruled that a biological male, who has identified as a female for most of her life, may use the women’s restroom instead of the men’s.

The court further held that preventing her from using the women’s bathroom was discrimination, and a violation of her rights.

 Critics have complained that this move is impossible to enforce. Can a guy suddenly decide to “identify” as a girl just to get into the girls’ restroom?

Where do schools draw the line between who is, and who is not, allowed in a restroom? While the court stressed that males should not be “casually” granted access to women’s facilities, the question of who can use the women’s bathroom is still very unclear.

Maybe your thoughts on this are clearer… What do you think about this new commotion in the commodes?

Hey Everyone, thanks for coming to the first GBM yesterday and hope you had a great time at Vegas Night!! 

If you had not already done so, join our myUMBC group page and make sure you are the mailing list! Email Angie Norton, to sign up!!

Good luck to everyone to the rest of this spring semester!