Love and Electronic Affection: A Design Primer brings together thought leadership in romance and affection games to explain the past, present, and possible future of affection play in games. The authors apply a combination of game analysis and design experience in affection play for both digital and analog games. The research and recommendations are intersectional in nature, considering how love and affection in games is a product of both player and designer age, race, class, gender, and more. The book combines game studies with game design to offer a foundation for incorporating affection into playable experiences. The text is organized into two sections. The first section covers the patterns and practice of love and affection in games, explaining the patterns and practice. The second section offers case studies from which designers can learn through example. Love and Electronic Affection: A Design Primer is a resource for exploring how digital relationships are offered and how to convey emotion and depth in a variety of virtual worlds. This book provides: * A catalog of existing digital and analog games for which love and affection are a primary or secondary focus. * A catalog of the uses of affection in games, to add depth and investment in both human-computer and player-to-player engagement. * Perspective on affection game analyses and design, using case studies that consider the relationship of culture and affection as portrayed in games from large scale studios to single author independent games. * Analysis and design recommendations for incorporating affection in games beyond romance, toward parental love, affection between friends, and other relationships. * Analysis of the moral and philosophical considerations for historical and planned development of love and affection in human-computer interaction. * An intersectionality informed set of scholarly perspectives from the Americas, Eurasia, and Oceania. Editor Bio: Lindsay D. Grace is Knight Chair of Interactive Media and an Associate Professor at the University of Miami School of Communication. He is Vice President for the Higher Education Video Game Alliance and the 2019 recipient of the Games for Change Vanguard award. Lindsay is author of Doing Things with Games, Social Impact through Design and more than fifty peer-reviewed papers on games and related research. He has given talks at the Game Developers Conference, SXSW, Games for Change Festival, the Online News Association, the Society for News Design, and many other industry events. He was the founding director of the American University Game Lab and Studio and the designer-developer behind several award winning games, including two affection games. He served as Vice President and on the board of directors for the Global Game Jam (TM) non-profit between 2014 and 2019. From 2009 to 2013 he was the Armstrong Professor at Miami University's School of Art. Lindsay also served on the board for the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) between 2013 and 2015.

Set up Skype on Windows, Mac OS® X, or PocketPC

See how to use Skype for secure chats and to connect using SkypeIn and SkypeOut

Here's the "fun and easy way" to understand all the hype about Skype and make this cool alternative communication system work for you! You'll get great advice about hardware, directions for downloading and installing Skype, ideas for using Skype in your business, and the lowdown on making Skype calls to people with old-fashioned phones.

Discover how to Install Skype and start making calls Create a contacts list Set up voicemail and call forwarding Use Skype for worldwide conference calls and Skypecasting Enhance Skype with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi wireless, and video

In this original and highly useful resource, Colin Rule— a pioneer in the field of online dispute resolution (ODR)— shows how ODR can be used to resolve conflicts which inevitably arise both online and offline in business and commerce. Based on exclusive research and up-to-date best practices, Online Dispute Resolution for Business presents expert advice on how ODR can save time and money, offering timely suggestions and proven approaches for resolving business related conflicts online.

Producing New and Digital Media is your essential guide to understanding new media, taking a deep dive into such topics as the cultural and social impacts of the web, the importance of digital literacy, and creating in an online environment. This cutting edge text provides an introductory, hands-on approach to creating user-generated content, coding, cultivating an online brand, and storytelling in new and digital media. In showing you how to navigate the world of digital media and complete digital tasks, this book not only teaches you how to use the web, but also helps you understand why you use it. Key features for the second edition include: Coverage of up-to-date forms of communication on the web: memes, viral videos, social media, and more pervasive types of online languages. New chapters on YouTube influencers and on-demand subscription television. Each chapter has media literacy sidebars, sample assignments, and activities. Updates to the companion website additional materials for students and instructors Thoughtful, entertaining, and enlightening, this is the fundamental textbook for students of new and digital media, digital culture and media literacy, as well as a useful resource for anyone wanting to understand and develop their presence in our digital world.

This book offers comparative insights into the challenges and opportunities surrounding emerging technology and the internet as it is used and perceived throughout the world, providing students with cross-cultural and cross-national perspectives. The United Arab Emirates has a national goal of colonizing Mars by 2117, and China seeks to modernize its entire manufacturing process to produce cutting-edge technologies and research advances by 2025. How are other countries using the internet and emerging technologies to their advantage? This volume in the Global Viewpoints series examines 10 issues pertaining to the internet and technology, including access and censorship, alternative energy technologies, artificial intelligence, autonomous robots, cyberbullying, cybercrime, e-learning, GMOs, online privacy, and virtual and augmented reality. For each topic, the volume features eight country-level perspectives that span the world to allow for comparisons of different nations' specific approaches to the technology or issue. This encyclopedia takes a new direction in understanding the importance and impact of emerging technologies on the world, showing that even when experiencing similar technologically related challenges or advances, these technologies do not form one-size-fits-all solutions for every nation and population. Even when nations develop similar technologies, human dimensions-from policy to social norms to culture-influence people and society across the world differently. Shows the similarities and differences of emerging issues and successes surrounding technology development through perspectives from different world regions, allowing readers to make comparisons among the featured countries in each section Provides a brief primer on each technology- and internet-related issue that functions as a baseline for each section Highlights that different countries and populations having similar societal needs often need to make dissimilar technology-related choices, usually due to varying internal and external pressures ranging from social values and political systems to economic needs and developmental goals Includes photographs that help to illuminate the text

What do search engines do? And what should they do? These questions seem relatively simple but are actually urgent social and ethical issues. The influence of Google's search engine is enormous. It does not only shape how Internet users find pages on the World Wide Web, but how we think as individuals, how we collectively remember the past, and how we communicate with one another. This book explores the impact of search engines within contemporary digital culture, focusing on the social, cultural, and philosophical influence of Google. Using case studies like Google's role in the rise of fake news, instances of sexist and misogynistic Autocomplete suggestions, and search queries relating to LGBTQ+ values, it offers original evidence to intervene practically in existing debates. It also addresses other understudied aspects of Google's influence, including the profound implications of its revenue generation for wider society. In doing this, this important book helps to evaluate the real cost of search engines on an individual and global scale.

From the moment it was published almost ten years ago, "Elements of User Experience" became a vital reference for web and interaction designers the world over, and has come to define the core principles of the practice. Now, in this updated, expanded, and full-color new edition, Jesse James Garrett has refined his thinking about the Web, going "beyond "the desktop to include information that also applies to the sudden proliferation of mobile devices and applications.
Successful interaction design requires more than just creating clean code and sharp graphics. You must also fulfill your strategic objectives while meeting the needs of your users. Even the best content and the most sophisticated technology won't help you balance those goals without a cohesive, consistent user experience to support it. With so many issues involved--usability, brand identity, information architecture, interaction design-- creating the user experience can be overwhelmingly complex. This new edition of "The Elements of User Experience" cuts through that complexity with clear explanations and vivid illustrations that focus on ideas rather than tools or techniques. Garrett gives readers the big picture of user experience development, from strategy and requirements to information architecture and visual design.

Many people believe that Amazon s success is the direct result of a strong user shopping experience. This however is only part of the reason shy Amazon is the number one ecommerce company on the world for almost two decades. The real reason behind Amazon s success is that they have mastered the art of getting other people to market and sell for them. From affiliate partners that drive traffic, to online reviews and ratings where customers tell other customers why they should buy a product, to getting free publicity from shows like Oprah or 60 Minutes, Amazon is the online company to emulate. Amazon s Dirty Little Secrets" will show you how you can accomplish this for your company.

"Amazon s Dirty Little Secret" is getting others to do their marketing and sales for them. This is so powerful that Greg created an acronym using the word POWER+.

P Plenty of traffic

O Offer something for free

W Win their trust

E Engaging experience

R Request an action

+ additional tips & secrets

Anyone engaged in Internet sales and marketing will benefit from the specific examples in this book."

As Web-based systems and e-commerce carry businesses into the 21st century, databases are becoming workhorses that shoulder each and every online transaction. For organizations to have effective 24/7 Web operations, they need powerhouse databases that deliver at peak performance-all the time. High Performance Web Databases: Design, Development, and Deployment arms you with every essential technique from design and modeling to advanced topics such as data conversion, performance tuning, Web access and interfacing legacy systems, and security

Geographic Information has an important role to play in linking and combining datasets through shared location, but the potential is still far from fully realized because the data is not well organized and the technology to aid this process has not been available. Developments in the Semantic Web and Linked Data, however, are making it possible to integrate data based on Geographic Information in a way that is more accessible to users. Drawing on the industry experience of a geographer and a computer scientist, Linked Data: A Geographic Perspective is a practical guide to implementing Geographic Information as Linked Data. Combine Geographic Information from Multiple Sources Using Linked Data After an introduction to the building blocks of Geographic Information, the Semantic Web, and Linked Data, the book explores how Geographic Information can become part of the Semantic Web as Linked Data. In easy-to-understand terms, the authors explain the complexities of modeling Geographic Information using Semantic Web technologies and publishing it as Linked Data. They review the software tools currently available for publishing and modeling Linked Data and provide a framework to help you evaluate new tools in a rapidly developing market. They also give an overview of the important languages and syntaxes you will need to master. Throughout, extensive examples demonstrate why and how you can use ontologies and Linked Data to manipulate and integrate real-world Geographic Information data from multiple sources. A Practical, Readable Guide for Geographers, Software Engineers, and Laypersons A coherent, readable introduction to a complex subject, this book supplies the durable knowledge and insight you need to think about Geographic Information through the lens of the Semantic Web. It provides a window to Linked Data for geographers, as well as a geographic perspective for so

Information is a key factor in business today, and data warehousing has become a major activity in the development and management of information systems to support the proper flow of information. Unfortunately, the majority of information systems are based on structured information stored in organizational databases, which means that the company is isolated from the business environment by concentrating on their internal data sources only. It is therefore vital that organizations take advantage of external business information, which can be retrieved from Internet services and mechanically organized within the existing information structures. Such a continuously extending integrated collection of documents and data could facilitate decision-making processes in the organization. Filtering the Web to Feed Data Warehouses discusses areas such as:- how to use data warehouse for filtering Web content- how to retrieve relevant information from diverse sources on the Web - how to handle the time aspect - how to mechanically establish links among data warehouse structures and documents filtered from external sources - how to use collected information to increase corporate knowledge and gives a comprehensive example, illustrating the idea of supplying data warehouses with relevant information filtered from the Web.

It's a bargain! The definitive guide to buying and selling success on eBay - fully updated for 2020 Want to know the best way to get rid of some of that clutter laying around the house and make some cash? Or sell that beautiful jewelry you made recently? It might be time to take a quick trip to a market with more than 175 million buyers and start a global bidding war. eBay remains the easiest way to sell to hungry consumers worldwide and to uncover incredible bargains and unique items for yourself in the process. Marsha Collier, longtime eBay business owner and one of their first elite PowerSellers, shares 20+ years of expertise to fast-track you to becoming a trusted buyer and seller on the site. You'll find out how to set up your account, market effectively, and master shipping and payment, as well as how to find the best bargains for yourself and close those sweet, sweet deals. Establish your eBay store Find techniques to make your listings stand out Make money and friends with social media Bid or buy outright Whether you're a bargain hunter or bargain seller, declutterer or aspiring eBay tycoon, eBay for Dummies has what you need. Put your bid on it right now!

Ubiquitous and pervasive technologies such as RFID and smart computing promise a world of networked and interconnected devices. Everything from tires to toothbrushes could soon be in communications range, heralding the dawn of an era in which today's Internet of People gives way to tomorrow's Internet of Things - where billions of objects will have the ability to report their location, identity, and history over wireless connections. Connectivity and Communication - Anything, Anywhere, and Anytime An examination of the exciting expansion period in this research, The Internet of Things: From RFID to the Next-Generation Pervasive Networked Systems provides comprehensive, technical, and practical deploying policy guidance that covers fundamentals and recent advances in pervasive networked systems. The book addresses the conceptual and technical issues that influence the technology roadmap and gives an in-depth introduction to the Internet of Things and its effect on businesses and individuals. Discussing case studies, experience reports, and best practice, it contains information on emerging technologies, market opportunities, and policy implications. Practical Guidance and Balanced Coverage The first book of its kind to address major new technological developments and define the Internet of Things, this text provides balanced coverage of theory and practical issues. Reflecting research trends and industry needs, itis a comprehensive technical and practical guide to recent advances in pervasive networked systems.

Intellectual property owners must continually exploit new ways of reproducing, distributing, and marketing their products. However, the threat of piracy looms as a major problem with digital distribution and storage technologies. Multimedia Encryption and Authentication Techniques and Applications covers current and future trends in the design of modern systems that use encryption and authentication to protect multimedia content. Containing the works of contributing authors who are worldwide experts in their fields, this volume is intended for researchers and practitioners, as well as for those who want a broad understanding of multimedia security. In the wake of the explosive growth of digital entertainment and Internet applications, this book is a definitive resource for scientists, researchers, programmers, engineers, business managers, entrepreneurs, and investors. Features Describes and evaluates the state of the art in multimedia encryption and authentication techniques and related technologies, architectures, standards, and applications Includes advanced topics, such as chaotic encryption techniques for digital images and video, as well as streaming media encryption Focuses on digital rights management issues for video and for consumer devices Covers key management and protection for IP multimedia, digital media fingerprinting, and signature-based media authentication

.NET represents a new and improved way of developing software for the Windows platform. Given the chance, youd probably rewrite all of your existing code in the newer managed code environment that .NET provides. But it is difficult or impossible to throw out all existing legacy code and start over when a new technology arrives. Instead, you need to find a way to move forward with new .NET development while reusing existing pieces of tested, working code. You need a way to interoperate with the existing code until you have a chance to finally rewrite all of it in .NET.

The only recipe-style book on the subject,,"NET 2.0 Interoperability Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach" guides Windows developers who are transitioning from native Windows code to .NET managed code. The book Explains new interop features in .NET 2.0 and VS .NET 2005 Covers PInvoke, COM, and COM+ (other books dont cover all three areas) Features most of its example code in C# and VB .NET, and also includes some managed C++/CLI Is written by a working developer with first-hand experience

.NET tools will allow you to interoperate with existing code. But finding the appropriate tool for the task at hand can sometimes be a frustrating experience. So this book will guide you past myriad infrequently used interop options to focus on those youll use most often.

Much of the e-commerce and IT research in small and medium sized enterprises (SME) indicates that these smaller businesses are lagging behind in implementing technological advances. This raises concerns for these SME's success as the Information Age becomes ever more of a reality. e-Business, e-Government & Small and Medium-Size Enterprises: Opportunities and Challenges offers a collection of chapters highlighting successful policy and practices which encourage SME's success in numerous different countries. Such a collection of international experiences and expertise offers policymakers, legislators, researchers, and to professionals insight into addressing the significant issues that are importance to the small business sector and ultimately will lead to the depiction of a more effective regulatory frameworks that will lead to the long-term success of EC in SMEs in countries around the world.

The New Economy Handbook will primarily serve reference users in business schools, economics departments, public and university libraries, special libraries, and institutions/agencies concerned with finance, trade, e-commerce, banking, and other regulatory, trade, and commercial activities. Secondary users will be business professionals and managers, as well as entrepreneurs, bankers, and others who need traditional economic information and data about new technology firms. Because of the scope of its table of contents, the book might well be used as a supplement to many courses.
The revolutions that brought about the New Economy are quietly embedded in familiar, old products, not necessarily ringing, beeping, and vibrating next to our skins. Why is the bulky, battery-operated e-book the new economy, while Lockheed-Martin's swooping F-16 is consigned to the Old Economy?
The information technology boom of the 1990s stoked a New Economy characterized by surging output per worker but with hard-to-measure and vulnerable underpinnings. Faster productivity is, of course, the key to higher living standards. The most important aspect of the New Economy might not, therefore, be the shift to high-tech industries, but the way that Information Technology improves the efficiency of all parts of the economy.
This collection of original essays offers the first thorough investigation of the New Economy. Its poignancy is even more apparent in the wake of the 1990s technology bubble. Articles share a format that encourages accessibilty, including an outline, glossary, and summary, and an extensive index adds utility. Written for students and scholars seeking authoritative data and perspectives.

The new virtual era is already here. We use the internet every day, to retrieve information, to purchase merchandise, and to connect with others. But do we really understand the psychology of the internet and how it affects our lives?In this book, the author looks at cyberspace from a group analytic perspective, conceptualizing internet forums as l

A rapidly growing number of services and applications along with a dramatic shift in users' consumption models have made media networks an area of increasing importance. Do you know all that you need to know? Supplying you with a clear understanding of the technical and deployment challenges, Media Networks: Architectures, Applications, and Standards covers media networks basics, architectures, protocols, standards, specifications, advanced audiovisual and multimedia services, and future directions. Focusing on video and audio-visual services, it provides wide-scale reference on media networks and the audiovisual domain. The book investigates the different network architectures along with their related protocols and standards. It examines the different digital TV technologies as well as their deployment architectures. Illustrating the role of network operators, service providers, content providers, and manufacturers, this timely reference is divided into three parts: Presents digital TV technologies, including Open IPTV, Mobile TV, 3D video, and content delivery networks Covers media content delivery and quality of experience (QoE) Examines user-centricity and immersive technologies that take into account advanced services personalization, immersive technologies architectures and applications, e-health, and societal challenges The book considers emerging media content delivery architectures including Future Internet, CDN (Content Delivery Networks) architectures and Content Centric Networks (CCN) approaches, while examining the technical challenges and standardization efforts related to such issues. It presents the Quality of Experience (QoE) in Future Internet/ Next Generation Mobile Networks and also covers the management of media (audio/video) information in Future Internet, including transport protocols and compression technologies. The book concludes by describing pressing s

Even though the semantic Web is a relatively new and dynamic area of research, a whole suite of components, standards, and tools have already been developed around it. Using a concrete approach, Introduction to the Semantic Web and Semantic Web Services builds a firm foundation in the concept of the semantic Web, its principal technologies, its real-world applications, and its relevant coding examples. This introductory yet comprehensive book covers every facet of this exciting technology. After an introduction to the semantic Web concept, it discusses its major technical enablers and the relationships among these components. The author then presents several applications of the semantic Web, including Swoogle, FOAF, and a detailed design of a semantic Web search engine. The book concludes with discussions on how to add semantics to traditional Web service descriptions and how to develop a search engine for semantic Web services. Covering the building blocks of an advanced Web technology, this practical resource equips you with the tools to further explore the world of the semantic Web on your own.

Aggressively being adopted by organizations in all markets, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a framework enabling business process improvement for gaining competitive advantage. Service-Oriented Architecture:SOA Strategy, Methodology, and Technology guides you through the challenges of deploying SOA. It demonstrates conclusively that strategy and methodology are the keys to implementing SOA and provides the methodology needed for SOA success. The book examines the role of both non-agile and agile project management techniques for deploying SOA. Its methodology applies frameworks of governance, communications, product realization, project management, architecture, data management, service management, human resource management and post implementation processes. Filled with case studies, the book shows the methodology in action. This reference benefits business managers, business analysts, and technology project managers who are serious about adopting SOA as a long-term strategy. It is also benefits those new to business process management, enterprise architecture, and information systems and need to understand SOA, its business drivers, and its methodology.

Scalable and Secure Internet Services and Architecture provides an in-depth analysis of many key scaling technologies. Topics include: server clusters and load balancing; QoS-aware resource management; server capacity planning; Web caching and prefetching; P2P overlay network; mobile code and security; and mobility support for adaptive grid computing. The author discusses each topic by first defining a problem, then reviewing current representative approaches for solving it. He then describes in detail the underlying principles of the technologies and the application of these principles, along with balanced coverage of concepts and engineering trade-offs. The book demonstrates the effectiveness of the technologies via rigorous mathematical modeling and analysis, simulation, and practical implementations. It blends technologies in a unified framework for scalable and secure Internet services, delivering a systematic treatment based upon the author's cutting-edge research experience. This volume describes in breadth and depth advanced scaling technologies that support media streaming, e-commerce, grid computing, personalized content delivery, distributed file sharing, network management, and other Internet applications.

Over the past years, a considerable amount of effort has been devoted, both in industry and academia, towards the development of basic technology as well as innovative applications for the Internet of Things. Adaptive Middleware for the Internet of Things introduces a scalable, interoperable and privacy-preserving approach to realize IoT applications and discusses abstractions and mechanisms at the middleware level that simplify the realization of services that can adapt autonomously to the behavior of their users. Technical topics discussed in the book include: - Behavior-driven Autonomous Services - GAMBAS Middleware Architecture - Generic and Efficient Data Acquisition - Interoperable and Scalable Data Processing - Automated Privacy Preservation Adaptive Middleware for the Internet of Things summarizes the results of the GAMBAS research project funded by the European Commission under Framework Programme 7. It provides an in-depth description of the middleware system developed by the project consortium. In addition, the book describes several innovative mobility and monitoring applications that have been built, deployed and operated to evaluate the middleware under realistic conditions with a large number of users. Adaptive Middleware for the Internet of Things is ideal for personnel in the computer and communication industries as well as academic staff and research students in computer science interested in the development of systems and applications for the Internet of Things.

This volume offers unique insights into the mutually constitutive nature of social media practices and religious change. Part 1 examines how social media operate in conjunction with mass media in the construction of discourses of religion and spirituality. It includes: a longitudinal study of British news media coverage of Christianity, secularism and religious diversity (Knott et al.); an analysis of responses to two documentaries 'The Monastery' and 'The Convent' (Thomas); an evaluation of theories of the sacred in studies of religion and media within the 'strong program' in cultural sociology in the US (Lynch); and a study of the consequences of mass and social media synergies for public perceptions of Islam in the Netherlands (Herbert). Part 2 examines the role of social media in the construction of contemporary martyrs and media celebrities (e.g., Michael Jackson) using mixed and mobile methods to analyse fan sites (Bennett & Campbell) and jihadi websites and YouTube (Nauta). Part 3 examines how certain bounded religious communities negotiate the challenges of social media: Judaism in Second Life (Abrams & Baker); Bah'ai regulation of web use among members (Campbell & Fulton); YouTube evangelists (Pihlaja); and public expressions of bereavement (Greenhill & Fletcher). The book provides theoretically informed empirical case studies and presents an intriguing, complex picture of the aesthetic and ethical, demographic and discursive aspects of new spaces of communication and their implications for religious institutions, beliefs and practices.