<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Archiving and Interchange DTD v1.0 20120330//EN" "JATS-archivearticle1.dtd">
<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <front>
    <journal-meta />
    <article-meta>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>cosy:sonics - A Mobile App to Explore Technology Reflection Among Students</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Oliver H o¨dl</string-name>
          <email>oliver.hoedl@univie.ac.at</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Peter Oberhauser</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Peter Reichl</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <aff id="aff0">
          <label>0</label>
          <institution>Cooperative Systems Research Group, Faculty of Computer Science, University of Vienna</institution>
          ,
          <country country="AT">Austria</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff1">
          <label>1</label>
          <institution>VRVis Center for Virtual Reality and Visualization Vienna</institution>
          ,
          <country country="AT">Austria</country>
        </aff>
      </contrib-group>
      <fpage>17</fpage>
      <lpage>24</lpage>
      <abstract>
        <p>-This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of the mobile application cosy:sonics to explore technology reflection. To this end, three different approaches have been combined: (1) a cryptocurrency parody called EatCoin aiming at a direct experience of the useless resource consumption caused by Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work concept, (2) an ultrasonic communication channel circumventing the protection barriers normally provided by a smartphone's flight mode, and (3) a Turing test variant demonstrating the current state of AI-based music composition. The resulting prototype has been tested during a live demo in a scenario triggering intuitive user interest in using the app and has additionally been reviewed by a group of experts from different domains. While it turns out that the application successfully prompted discussion and reflection among the participants, also some weaknesses could be identified during the trials that are considered in future work.</p>
      </abstract>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
  <body>
    <sec id="sec-1">
      <title>-</title>
      <p>I. INTRODUCTION</p>
      <p>
        While the so-called “Digital Revolution” is rapidly
progressing, critical reflection of the related upcoming technologies is
becoming more and more important. Consider, for instance,
the Cambridge Analytica scandal which has led to personal
data of millions of Facebook users being harvested to analyse
political views and use this intelligence for political elections
and votes [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref>
        ]. Contrary to all expectations, people nevertheless
still “appear to relate well to Facebook both as a technology (in
terms of functionality, reliability, and helpfulness beliefs) and
as a ‘person’ (in terms of competence, integrity, and
benevolence beliefs)”[
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">2</xref>
        ], despite of the fact that experts recommend
to simply delete all social media accounts right away [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
        ].
      </p>
      <p>To explore ways for further triggering technology
reflection, we focus on two principles: Firstly, we believe that,
for the purpose of such discussions, potential dangers and
consequences, which are inherent to future technology, need
to be made as tangible as possible and strictly driven by direct
user experience. Secondly, we believe that emphasis needs to
be made to trained experts, i.e. mainly computer scientists
themselves, as those are the people which eventually are in a
position to change technology in a way that is more compatible
with a human-centric perspective on the world of tomorrow.</p>
      <p>
        Thus, we study the phenomenon of critical technology
awareness among students using a mobile app that combines
three recent technologies in a carefully crafted joint way. We
address the application level, the content level and the level
of underlying communication technology at the same time:
First of all, our app named cosy:sonics closely resembles a
cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, and targets especially its
Proofof-Work concept. However, instead of consuming enormous
amounts of electrical energy for basically no purpose like
Bitcoin does [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref>
        ], our app consumes time, more specifically, the
precious time of people attending a social get together event.
To do so, we have implemented a puzzle which forces users to
compare different pieces of classical music and decide whether
each of these pieces has been created by a human composer
or by an AI-based algorithm. Finally, we use the concept of
ultrasonic communication, which is some sort of near field
communication, that uses inaudible sound to transfer data. In
contrast to Bitcoin, we anticipate that many people have not
heard about this technology and are not aware of the privacy
issues they are confronted with when using smartphones,
for instance [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5</xref>
        ]. We chose the concept of Bitcoin mining
and ultrasound communication deliberately to explore two
different examples and different views on a critical reflection
of technology.
      </p>
      <p>To stimulate an intuitive incentive for using the app, we
have chosen a get together event as basic scenario where
participants are required to solve the mentioned AI puzzles to
get some food. While in the original scenario, using the app
and successfully solving the puzzle has been a requirement to
attend the event at all, in our trial successful users have been
awarded a so-called EatCoin, i.e. some piece of chocolate. The
target group to study critical technology awareness are mainly
computer science students. We expect them to have an
aboveaverage interest and knowledge concerning new technologies.
Furthermore, we consider them the future experts within the
domain. The study itself was embedded at a faculty event
where students could participate voluntarily by using an app.
Additionally, the app prototype was presented and discussed
in a focus group with experts from the Austrian Federal
Ministry for Transport, Technology and Innovation, considered
as the actual experts who advise the government and work for
political decision makers in relation to new technologies.</p>
      <p>The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: After
summarising the State of the Art in Section II, we describe our
design and development methodology in Section III. Section
IV presents the final prototype, while Section V is devoted to
the user trials. We discuss results in Section VI, and finally
Section VII provides our conclusions and possibe further work.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-2">
      <title>II. STATE OF THE ART</title>
      <p>Our work encompasses issues from various different fields.
We start to examine studies in the field of technology
awareness and critical reflection. Then we review related work in
the area of ultrasonic communication and Bitcoin. Both fields
have potential issues that concern the awareness and critical
reflection of these technologies.</p>
      <sec id="sec-2-1">
        <title>A. Technology Awareness and Critical Reflection</title>
        <p>
          Reflection is a process of learning, that ideally leads to a
deeper understanding of an issue and more complex
knowledge about it. Kori et al. [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
          ] argue that technology can be
used to enhance the effectiveness of reflection processes while
Slovak et al. [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
          ] underline the importance of design for the
process of reflection.
        </p>
        <p>
          Lin et al. [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref8">8</xref>
          ] identified four characteristics of design features
in technology that can help supporting student reflection: (1)
process displays which explicitly show and explain issues
and procedures to learners. (2) process prompts which prompt
students to develop, explain and evaluate their own solutions.
This could be achieved by posing the right questions and
leading the learners towards answers. (3) process models
which provide support to the learner in establishing own
knowledge by providing model processes of how an expert
would approach solving a similar problem. (4) forum for
reflective social discourse which incentivises reflection as a
social activity among students. The main goal is to trigger
meaningful discussions that lead to new insights among the
participants.
        </p>
        <p>
          How people can be mislead or how long they are not aware
of a certain dangerous technology, has been demonstrated with
the Cambridge Analytica scandal [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref>
          ]. During Facebook’s early
days of growth and gaining popularity in 2008, most people
trusted the platform blindly [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref9">9</xref>
          ]. Ten years later, in 2018,
the Cambridge Analytica scandal initiated an exodus of users
deleting their Facebook accounts but the majority of the users
still remain on the platform [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref10">10</xref>
          ].
        </p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-2">
        <title>B. Ultrasonic Communication</title>
        <p>
          An example of a powerful new technology many people
have not even heard about, is ultrasonic communication.
Deshotels [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref11">11</xref>
          ] analysed the general suitability of inaudible
sound as communication channel to transmit data. Humans
with ideal hearing can hear frequencies approximately ranging
from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The range reduces noticeably with
the age of the person. Smartphones can produce and detect
a significant amount of (for humans) inaudible sounds that
can potentially be used for the transmission of information.
However, a precise range of by smartphones detectable sounds
cannot be determined due to the lack of standards among
manufacturers [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref12">12</xref>
          ].
        </p>
        <p>
          Due to the unorthodox nature of transmitting data
acoustically, safety precautions implemented in most operating
systems do not target inauble communication. Deshotels [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref11">11</xref>
          ]
experimented in his study with methods to bypass security
mechanisms on an Android smartphone. In his scenario he
wanted to send sensitive data from a software-protected phone
to a receiver. He secured the phone with standard Android
measures and various versions of third-party software.
However, he found out that most tools do not prevent sensitive
data being exfiltrated acoustically, i.e. via inaudible sound,
because access to the phone’s speaker is usually not considered
dangerous or privacy sensitive. There is no way to regulate
permissions on which applications are allowed or prohibited
of using the phone’s speakers.
        </p>
        <p>
          In a study published in 2017, the authors revealed that a
small number of retail stores in two European cities already
use ultrasonic beacons, as they call it, for location tracking
[
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref13">13</xref>
          ]. Mavroudis et al. [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref14">14</xref>
          ] studied the privacy and security of
such ultrasound ecosystems. They critique the lack of security
and privacy measures in mobile operating systems which
allow severe “proximity marketing and advanced cross-device
tracking techniques” mostly unknown and not recognisable by
users.
        </p>
        <p>
          Among the early approaches to counter these privacy and
security issues with inaudible sound communication are
Zeppelzauer et al. [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5</xref>
          ]. They implemented and presented,
SoniControl, the first ultrasonic firewall app to detect different kinds
of ultrasonic signals in real-time.
        </p>
        <p>
          Two interactive music performances, Sense of Space [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref15">15</xref>
          ]
and Poe`me Nume´rique [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref16">16</xref>
          ], use ultrasound communication to
realise audience participation with smartphones. Both studies,
however, focus on audience participation itself, the audience’s
experience and technological issues with ultrasound. They
do not study or discuss privacy and security issues. Poe`me
Nume´rique uses an open source app developed by Bartmann
[
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
          ]. His work and the app itself provide detailed information
and insight which is publicly available on how inaudible
communication technology is realised.
        </p>
        <p>
          Apart from security and privacy issues, it is not entirely
clear how inaudible sound affects the human body. However,
it is reported that, especially the lower spectrum of high
frequency sound (that can, at least partially, be heard by
humans) causes symptoms like annoyance, headache, tinnitus,
fatigue and nausea. Moreover, ultrasonic signals with high
sound pressure may cause hearing damage [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
          ]. These adverse
effects were observed only when people were exposed to high
frequency noise at the workplace continuously, over a longer
period of time. Exposing subjects to low pressure sound only
for a short period of time should therefore be harmless.
        </p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-3">
        <title>C. Cryptocurrencies</title>
        <p>In contrast to ultrasonic communication, cryptocurrencies
are publicly well-known. Their gaining popularity, and in
particular those of Bitcoin, and their developments according
to market prices initiated a broad media coverage recently.</p>
        <p>
          Our focus is not Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency
itself, but the fact, that Bitcoin mining causes an increasing
energy consumption. The energy needed worldwide for the
underlying Proof-of-Work concept is nearly as high as the
power needed of the country of Denmark [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref19">19</xref>
          ]. This seems
to be problematic in two ways. First, the Bitcoin mining
process, which uses blockchain technology to solve complex
mathematic equations, is more or less useless for anything else
than the Proof-of-Work awarded with Bitcoins [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref20">20</xref>
          ]. Second
comes the problem with the increasing energy consumption
which is aggravated by the fact that primarily carbon is used
to power Bitcoin mining. This is a contradiction to the global
commitment to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref21">21</xref>
          ].
        </p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-3">
      <title>III. DESIGN ASPECTS AND DEVELOPMENT</title>
      <p>
        We used the open source app Poe`me Nume´rique as basis for
our prototype app [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
        ]. As the original app realised an
avantgarde music performance with audience participation [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref16">16</xref>
        ],
we only use the basic app structure and the implementation
of the ultrasonic communication technology, but completely
re-designed the interaction design and the user interface for
our study purposes. Contentwise we adapted the audience
participation concept as well, but not for a music performance
and with a complete different content.
      </p>
      <p>The focus of our prototype was to develop an aesthetically
pleasing user interface that is intuitively to use and
provides enough information to explain the underlying ultrasonic
communication technology. However, at the same time we
try to keep it as simple and plain as possible to avoid any
unnecessary content.</p>
      <sec id="sec-3-1">
        <title>A. User Interface Design</title>
        <p>
          For the design of the prototype, we followed the
fundamental design principles of Norman [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref22">22</xref>
          ]. In the following, we
describe how our app design incorporates these guidelines. In
general, every view of the interface has very limited options
for the user to interact. That way, it is unlikely for the user to
get confused. This approach complies with the design principle
of constraints.
        </p>
        <p>Due to the unorthodox ultrasound communication
technology, we implemented an introduction. These introductory
pages appears when the user starts the application. The top
screenshots in Figure 1 show two views of this introduction.
These pages, designed as a carousel, give a brief overview
of the ultrasound communication technology. For usability
reasons, we added appropriate signifiers as dots beneath the
tab indicating the active page.</p>
        <p>To ensure discoverabilty, all possible functionalities must
be visible to the user and the current status of the application
apparent. All points of interactions were realised with native
Android controls (i.e. buttons) to quickly access them.
Furthermore, the status of the application is indicated by a monkey
icon prominently placed in the center of the main screen as
illustrated in the two bottom screenshots in Figure 1. This
monkey icon shows to the user clearly if the app is listening
for ultrasound triggers and is ready to execute actions or not.</p>
        <p>It is important, that the user has constant knowledge about
the state of the application. Aside of that, the underlying
ultrasonic communication technology should be transparent.
Thus, the app provides clear feedback and shows a conclusive
message whenever it detects an ultrasound trigger (see Figure
1, bottom right). This helps shaping a conceptual model of
how a user thinks the application works which is critical to
initiate technology reflection.</p>
        <p>The EatCoin mining views have more content and therefore
a higher density of objects. Figure 4 (bottom) shows the views
of the EatCoin mining module. The controls in these views are
grouped in blocks to resemble their affiliation and relationships
(see Figure 2). The first view is the introduction to this module
where the user can start the mining process (see Figure 4,
bottom left). The upper half of the second screen enables
interaction with the media player (see Figure 4, bottom center).
The user may start, pause or rewind the track as necessary.
The bottom set of controls provides options to answer the
puzzle. Upon finishing the puzzle, a voucher of the mined
EatCoin with a hash- and QR-code of the user’s performance
will appear (see Figure 4, bottom right). The user may save
or dismiss this voucher. Saved EatCoins will be visible on the
main screen and can be fetched at any time.
media controls
quiz controls
! ?</p>
        <p>
          The major part we re-used from the open source app Poe`me
Nume´rique [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
          ] concerns the development platform itself and
the ultrasound communication technology. As development
platform we also used Xamarin Forms [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref23">23</xref>
          ] which provides
a framework to develop cross-platform applications for the
major mobile operating systems.
        </p>
        <p>Concering the ultrasound technology we adapted, the
available implementation offers 17 distinguishable sound IDs to
trigger certain events on nearby smartphones. One ID
consists of two simultaneously played high frequency sounds in
the range between 18 kHz and 20.7 kHz. Thus, a separate
computer with a stereo sound system is required to transmit
ultrasound triggers targeting nearby smartphones. If a mono
system with one speaker is used, the two high frequency sine
waves can interfere on a single speaker membrane resulting
in different, not detectable sound IDs.</p>
        <p>
          Figure 3 illustrates a schematic overview of the
communication. Furthermore, the original implementation uses
a synchronization ID to reduce false positives. A detailed
documentation of this ultrasound technology is available in
the work of Bartmann [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
          ].
        </p>
        <p>IV. THE FINAL PROTOTYPE</p>
        <p>
          The final app is a fully functional prototype to be used in
a demo show case in various ways. The main objective is to
highlight the rather unorthodox technology of communicating
via high frequency sound and the vast amount of energy
consumption used for Bitcoin mining. We distributed the
cosy:sonics1 prototype in the Google Play Store [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref24">24</xref>
          ] to ensure
that participants at the test events are able to quickly download
and easily install the application. We did not publish an iOS
1Note that the name of the application is a fusion between COSY
indicating the responsible research group “Cooperative Systems” at the University
of Vienna, and sonics to highlight the ultrasonic communication approach.
app for the evaluation within this study. It would habe been
possible due to the cross-platform development of Xamarin,
but we could not test the iOS version thouroughly for these
public trials.
        </p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-2">
        <title>A. Startup Screens</title>
        <p>At startup, the cosy:sonics app provides a short overview of
how the app works, information about the event it is used in,
and a recommendation to switch the smartphone to flight mode
for the best experience (see Figure 4, upper section ‘startup and
introduction’). The latter hint with the flight mode intends to
make users aware of the fact that their phones are disconnected
from all networks but still ‘reachable’ through ultrasound.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-3">
        <title>B. The Main Screen and Triggerable Events</title>
        <p>The centerpiece of the main screen is the monkey icon that
indicates the current status of the app (see Figure 4, middle
section ‘main screen and triggerable events’). If the monkey
covers his ears, cosy:sonics is not listening for sound triggers.
However, if the app is actively recording and listening for
sound triggers, the monkey smiles with his ears uncovered. A
text label underneath the monkey provides additional
information about the status. The user can control the status of the
app by pressing the Start/Stop Listening button. On startup,
this button is highlighted in orange to not overlook it.</p>
        <p>The app incorporates nine events to be triggered by
receiving the respective ultrasonic frequencies. Figure 4 illustrates
these nine triggerable events in the middle section on the right.
In particular, these are four different screens with combinations
of blinking in different colors and vibrating: (1) plain blinking,
(2) blinking in the colors of the rainbow, (3) plain vibrating or
(4) vibrating in the rhythm of a heartbeat. Additionally, the app
provides two information slides to be triggered and shown on
the users smartphone. These slides aim to raise awareness for
the substantial energy consumption of Bitcoin mining. Figure
4 shows such an information slide at the bottom on the left.
Finally, the EatCoin module opens as described next, when
the respective sound ID is received.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-4">
        <title>C. The EatCoin Module</title>
        <p>In the process of Bitcoin mining, miners have to show a
Proof-of-Work by using computational power to solve specific
tasks that can only be solved in a brute-force manner. This
process uses substantial amounts of energy and its
reasonableness is controversial. As an analogy to that, we introduce
EatCoin mining, that consumes various amounts of the user’s
time instead of computational power. Three ultrasound IDs
can trigger this module to start a different puzzle. Any puzzle
includes a different amount of questions and therefore take
varying amounts of time to solve.</p>
        <p>
          For the puzzle the user listens to a number of samples of
classical music pieces and has to decide, whether the piece was
composed by a human composer or by artificial intelligence.
The music examples are based on Kulitta, a framework for
automated music composition [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref25">25</xref>
          ]. At the end of the puzzle,
the user receives an EatCoin as reward, regardless of the
startup &amp;
introduction
main screen
&amp; triggerable
events
plain blinking ID 1
        </p>
        <p>pride ID 2
plain vibrating ID 3
heart beat ID 4
i
i</p>
        <p>Information Slide</p>
        <p>proof of work ID 13
Information Slide</p>
        <p>bitcoin energy consumption ID 14
EatCoin Module</p>
        <p>EatCoin module with 2 questions ID 17
EatCoin Module</p>
        <p>EatCoin module with 3 questions ID 18
EatCoin Module</p>
        <p>EatCoin module with 6 questions ID 19
i information slide</p>
        <p>EatCoin module
Modell-No
Samsung Galaxy S3 (GT-I9300)
Samsung Galaxy A3 (SM-A310F)
Samsung Galaxy S6
OnePlus 6</p>
        <p>OS
Android 6.0.1
Android 5.1
Android 7.0
Android 8.1
performance at the puzzle. Crucial to the process of mining
EatCoins is to consume the users time and not whether
answers are correct or incorrect.</p>
        <p>After completing the quiz, the user will see a voucher
for one EatCoin with a summary of his performance and
a QR-Code for verification. If the user chooses to save the
EatCoin, this voucher is saved persistently within the app.
Saved EatCoins will appear on the main screen. The voucher
can be reopend by clicking on the button.</p>
        <p>V. EVALUATION</p>
        <p>For evaluation, we conducted functional tests, an in-situ
evaluation, and a focus group with experts. Right after the
app development, we tested the prototype’s functionality on
different smartphone devices. For an in-situ evaluation, we
demonstrated and used cosy:sonics during a get together event
for students and faculty members at the University of Vienna.
Finally, we discussed the prototype with an expert group of
the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Technology and
Innovation.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-5">
        <title>A. Functional Tests</title>
        <p>The functional tests included installing and testing the
prototype on four different smartphones. Acoustic triggering
was executed with off-the-shelf speakers (Logitech Z323) in
a quiet, 20 square meter sized room. The smartphones were
positioned approximately 2 meters away from the speakers.
Varying acoustical features of other rooms were not considered
in this test. For the actual test, all implemented sound IDs were
triggered consecutively. All devices successfully detected the
correct ultrasound IDs. We tested cosy:sonics on four different
Android-based smartphones as listed in Table I. The app
worked without any noticeable problems on all test devices.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-6">
        <title>B. In-situ Evaluation</title>
        <p>We conducted an in-situ evaluation to explore the potential
of the cosy:sonics app prototype and to collect basic data
from useres. The evaluation took place during the annual</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-7">
        <title>Wiener Usability Research Symposium in Telecommunications</title>
        <p>(WURSTel) at the computer science faculty of the University
of Vienna on 29th June 2018. We did the live demo after the
official lectures and presentations in a casual lobby
environment. Interested students were invited to join in an adjacent
but separate room and were asked to install the prototype.
Figure 5 shows the setting and students using the app.</p>
        <p>We demonstrated all available functionalities by triggering
all nine ultrasonic sound IDs. For each triggered ID, we
gave users enough time to understand the content and explore
the functionality. By doing so, we wanted to ensure that
all participants had enought time to fully experience the
functionalities and understand the content of cosy:sonics. The
information slide components within the app were used to give
information about the Proof-of-Work concept of Bitcoin and
the vast energy consumption that comes with it. The EatCoin
mining module was used as an analogy to that, using time of
the user instead of energy for the mining process.</p>
        <p>After the live demo, all participants were asked to fill out
a short questionnaire. Table II lists the six questions and
summarises the results of this survey. Finally, every user could
trade the EatCoin mined with cosy:sonics for a piece of
chocolate, i.e. a so-called Mozarttaler, a traditional Austrian
tourist gift.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-8">
        <title>C. Expert Focus Group</title>
        <p>In addition to the in-situ evaluation of cosy:sonics, we
presented and discussed the prototype in an expert focus group
consisting of officials from the Austrian Federal Ministry for
Transport, Innovation and Technology as well as researchers
from the University of Vienna. The presentation started with
of a brief theoretical introduction and a short talk about
the context and idea behind cosy:sonics. The presentation
concluded with a live demonstration where the participants
could experience the app with their own smartphones.
Survey
No</p>
        <p>Question
I am a computer science student.</p>
        <p>I knew that high-frequency sound can be used as a
medium of communication.</p>
        <p>If so, which applications do you know?
Excerpt of answers:
advertising, tracking, bats, therapeutical
applications, medicinical diagnostics, short range
communication
I was aware of the fact that bitcoin mining consumes
a lot of energy.
cosy:sonics worked without problems on my
device.</p>
        <p>If it didnt, please provide a short description of the
problem and the device you used.</p>
        <p>Some phones had troubles detecting the sound
triggers. Most participants were able to sort the
problem out by getting closer to the speakers or
position themselves more centrally in the room,
respectively.</p>
        <p>In the aftermath, we openly and informally discussed the
suitability of cosy:sonics to be used as social event access
control mechanism at a big IT event to be held in Vienna
later in 2018. Several members of the group were concerned
about the fact that potential users have to download and
install the app to participate in the experiment. They were
sceptical, if enough visitors of the conference were willing to
overcome that barrier. Another point of criticism was the fact
that the app combined too many different topics concerning
new technologies. The experts were afraid this could lead to
confusion for the users and that it would likely be better to
focus entirely on one issue.</p>
        <p>VI. DISCUSSION</p>
        <p>The subsequent discussion of the findings and how they
relate to the literature referenced earlier is structured across
the three main points of criticism that evolved.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-9">
        <title>A. Ultrasonic Communication</title>
        <p>
          The communication technology did not work flawlessly for
one third of the subject group. While it was not possible
to perform a definite analysis of the cause of the problems,
it likely has to do with the participants’ positioning in the
room. To detect an ultrasound trigger, two distinct ultrasounds
played by two different speakers must be heard by the
smartphone. Being out of the range of one of the speakers could
lead to problems. According to our observations and user
feedback, it helped them to receive ultrasound triggers when
they moved closer to the speakers or positioned themselves
more centrally in the room. Aside of that, local conditions
may influence room acoustics and lead to further problems
rendering the communication technology flaky. The authors
of Poe`me Nume´rique observed similar problems when using
ultrasound communication [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref16">16</xref>
          ], [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
          ].
        </p>
        <p>
          Another problem concering the reliability is the lack of
general standards for smartphone microphones. Different
manufacturers use diverse hardware and software, making results
of audio processing vary. Kardous et al. [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref12">12</xref>
          ] conducted
extensive experiments comparing the performance of several
sound measurement applications on smartphones and found
that results very much depend on the manufacturer of the
phone aside of the used software.
        </p>
        <p>
          Furthermore, it may be possible that smartphone
manufacturers will limit the range of frequencies that can be detected
by their phone’s microphones in future [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref11">11</xref>
          ] or that users utilise
software to prevent undetected communication [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5</xref>
          ]. This could
interfere with ultrasound communication technology in general
independent from the use case and even when people are fully
aware of the fact that there smartphones are triggered remotely
using ultrasound as in our demo scenario.
        </p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-10">
        <title>B. Native versus Web App</title>
        <p>
          A conceptual point of criticism was that cosy:sonics is a
native application. Experts from the ministry for transport,
technology and innovation feared that download and
installation of the app posed too big of an obstacle for many of
the visitors of their conference. Indeed, today’s users tend to
install fewer native apps and spend less time using them than
a couple of years ago [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref26">26</xref>
          ]. We could not ask all participants of
our event. But given the fact that we just had 15 participants
and there were over hundred at the event overall indicates, that
the installation of the app could have been a barrier for many
of them.
        </p>
        <p>
          Another solution would have been using a web app. We
could not realise cosy:sonics as a web-based application,
however, due to the lack of access to native sensor APIs.
Aside of that, we wanted to create an application that could
be downloaded in advance and that works entirely without the
need of internet access, even with the phone put to flight mode.
While the possibilities of web-based apps have considerably
improved over the last few years, apps that require direct
access to certain sensor APIs still have to be implemented
natively [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref27">27</xref>
          ]. Thus, we implemented cosy:sonics as native app
in the need to access the microphone API to detect ultrasonic
sound triggers. With our insights, we contribute to an ongoing
discussion within mobile development research to re-think the
taxonomy of web, native and hybrid mobile development [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref28">28</xref>
          ].
        </p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-11">
        <title>C. Critical Technology Reflection</title>
        <p>With cosy:sonics, we aimed to study and raise critical
technology reflection for two independent topics: (1) the
possibilities of inaudible communication through ultrasound
and (2) the vast energy consumption of Bitcoin mining. The
experts reviewing the application noted, that this could lead
to confusing or overwhelming the user. They recommended to
define and focus on one key topic. However, the participants
of the live demo at the in-situ study did not appear to be
overwhelmed by the mix of two different topics according to
the results of the survey.</p>
        <p>
          It is rather striking to see the results of asking our
participants about the technology awareness. One third of our
study participants did not knew about the possibiliy to use
ultrasound as medium for communication. Even more, nearly
half of them did not know about the vast energy consumption
Bitcoin mining produces. This underlines the importance to
foster critical technology reflection and raise awareness for
unknown possibilities of new technologies. However, we do
not know on the basis of our results whether our immersive
technology-centred approach enhances the effectiveness of
reflection processes among students [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
          ].
        </p>
        <p>VII. CONCLUSION</p>
        <p>We developed cosy:sonics, a mobile app to trigger
technology reflection and raise awareness for both, inaudible
ultrasound communication and the vast energy consumption
of Bitcoin mining. For evaluation, we tested the application
in-situ at a live demo with students and discussed it with
experts from the domain. The results show, that there are
accumulated needs to foster critical reflection among students.
A considerable amount of students did not know about the
possibilities of ultrasound communication and the sideeffects
of cryptocurrency mining. The experts were mainly concerned
about overwhelming people when confronting them with more
than one challenging topic and the problems with native
mobile apps preventing people from using them.</p>
        <p>Future work has to be done to improve the ultrasonic
communication technology within the app itself. It needs
improvement especially regarding its reliability. Aside of that,
possibilities to create a web-based application should be
analysed. For the technology reflection part, we could further
measure if and how the cosy:sonics app concept prompts
the users to reflect on technology. Finally, a study with a
larger audience and a sample aside from students could bring
valuable insights.</p>
        <p>ACKNOWLEDGMENT</p>
        <p>This work was realised in collaboration with the VRVis
Competence Center. VRVis is funded by BMVIT, BMWFW,
Styria, SFG and Vienna Business Agency in the scope of
COMET - Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies
(854174) which is managed by FFG.</p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
  </body>
  <back>
    <ref-list>
      <ref id="ref1">
        <mixed-citation>
          [1]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>N.</given-names>
            <surname>Confessore</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “Cambridge Analytica and Facebook:
          <source>The Scandal and the Fallout So Far,” [Accessed 14. September</source>
          <year>2018</year>
          ]. [Online]. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/
          <year>2018</year>
          /04/04/us/politics/cambridgeanalytica-scandal-fallout.html
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref2">
        <mixed-citation>
          [2]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>N. K.</given-names>
            <surname>Lankton</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>D. H.</given-names>
            <surname>McKnight</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>What does it mean to trust facebook?” ACM SIGMIS Database</article-title>
          , vol.
          <volume>42</volume>
          , no.
          <issue>2</issue>
          , p.
          <fpage>32</fpage>
          ,
          <year>2011</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref3">
        <mixed-citation>
          [3]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>J.</given-names>
            <surname>Lanier</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <article-title>Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now</article-title>
          .
          <source>Bodley Head</source>
          ,
          <year>2018</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref4">
        <mixed-citation>
          [4]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>D.</given-names>
            <surname>Malone</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <surname>K. O'Dwyer</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Bitcoin Mining and its Energy Footprint,”</article-title>
          <source>in 25th IET Irish Signals &amp; Systems Conference 2014 and 2014 ChinaIreland International Conference on Information and Communities Technologies (ISSC</source>
          <year>2014</year>
          /CIICT 2014),
          <year>2014</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>280</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>285</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref5">
        <mixed-citation>
          [5]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>M.</given-names>
            <surname>Zeppelzauer</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>A.</given-names>
            <surname>Ringot</surname>
          </string-name>
          , and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>F.</given-names>
            <surname>Taurer</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <surname>“SoniControl - A Mobile Ultrasonic</surname>
            <given-names>Firewall</given-names>
          </string-name>
          ,” in MM '
          <volume>18</volume>
          , Seoul, Rep. of Korea,
          <year>2018</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>1</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>3</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref6">
        <mixed-citation>
          [6]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>K.</given-names>
            <surname>Kori</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>M.</given-names>
            <surname>Pedaste</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <surname>A</surname>
          </string-name>
          ¨. Leijen, and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>M.</given-names>
            <surname>Meots</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Supporting reflection in technology-enhanced learning</article-title>
          ,
          <source>” Educational Research Review</source>
          , vol.
          <volume>11</volume>
          , pp.
          <fpage>45</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>55</lpage>
          ,
          <year>2014</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref7">
        <mixed-citation>
          [7]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>P.</given-names>
            <surname>Slova</surname>
          </string-name>
          <article-title>´k, C</article-title>
          . Frauenberger, and G. Fitzpatrick, “
          <article-title>Reflective Practicum: A Framework of Sensitising Concepts to Design for Transformative Reflection</article-title>
          ,”
          <source>in Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '17</source>
          ,
          <year>2017</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>2696</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>2707</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref8">
        <mixed-citation>
          [8]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>X.</given-names>
            <surname>Lin</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C.</given-names>
            <surname>Hmelo</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C.</given-names>
            <surname>Kinzer</surname>
          </string-name>
          , and T. Secules, “
          <article-title>Designing technology to support reflection,”</article-title>
          <source>Educational Technology Research and Development</source>
          ,
          <year>1999</year>
          , Vol.
          <volume>47</volume>
          (
          <issue>3</issue>
          ), pp.
          <fpage>43</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>62</lpage>
          ,
          <year>1999</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref9">
        <mixed-citation>
          [9]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>N. K.</given-names>
            <surname>Lankton</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>D. H.</given-names>
            <surname>McKnight</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Do People Trust Facebook as a Technology or as a ”Person”? Distinguishing Technology Trust from Interpersonal Trust,” in Conference: Learning from the past &amp; charting the future of the discipline</article-title>
          .
          <source>14th Americas Conference on Information Systems, AMCIS</source>
          <year>2008</year>
          , Toronto, Ontario,
          <year>2008</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref10">
        <mixed-citation>
          [10]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>T.</given-names>
            <surname>Hsu</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>For Many Facebook Users, a Last Straw' That Led Them to Quit</article-title>
          ,”
          <year>2018</year>
          , [Accessed 14.
          <year>September 2018</year>
          ]. [Online]. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/
          <year>2018</year>
          /03/21/technology/ users-abandon-facebook.html
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref11">
        <mixed-citation>
          [11]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>L.</given-names>
            <surname>Deshotels</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Inaudible sound as a covert channel in mobile devices,” in Proceedings of the 8th USENIX Conference on Offensive Technologies, ser</article-title>
          .
          <source>WOOT'14</source>
          , Berkeley, CA, USA,
          <year>2014</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>16</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>16</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref12">
        <mixed-citation>
          [12]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C. A.</given-names>
            <surname>Kardous and P. B. Shaw</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Evaluation of smartphone sound measurement applications,”</article-title>
          <source>The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America</source>
          , vol.
          <volume>135</volume>
          , no.
          <issue>4</issue>
          , pp.
          <fpage>EL186</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>EL192</lpage>
          ,
          <year>2014</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref13">
        <mixed-citation>
          [13]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>D.</given-names>
            <surname>Arp</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>E.</given-names>
            <surname>Quiring</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C.</given-names>
            <surname>Wressnegger</surname>
          </string-name>
          , and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>K.</given-names>
            <surname>Rieck</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Privacy Threats through Ultrasonic Side Channels on Mobile Devices,”</article-title>
          <source>in Proceedings - 2nd IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy</source>
          ,
          <year>2017</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>35</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>47</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref14">
        <mixed-citation>
          [14]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>V.</given-names>
            <surname>Mavroudis</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>S.</given-names>
            <surname>Hao</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>Y.</given-names>
            <surname>Fratantonio</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>F.</given-names>
            <surname>Maggi</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C.</given-names>
            <surname>Kruegel</surname>
          </string-name>
          , and G. Vigna, “
          <article-title>On the Privacy and Security of the Ultrasound Ecosystem</article-title>
          ,”
          <source>in Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, no. 2</source>
          ,
          <issue>2017</issue>
          , pp.
          <fpage>95</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>112</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref15">
        <mixed-citation>
          [15]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>M.</given-names>
            <surname>Hirabayashi</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>K.</given-names>
            <surname>Eshima</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Sense of Space : The Audience Participation Music Performance with High-Frequency Sound ID,”</article-title>
          <source>in Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression</source>
          ,
          <year>2015</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>58</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>60</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref16">
        <mixed-citation>
          [16]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>F.</given-names>
            <surname>Kayali</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C.</given-names>
            <surname>Bartmann</surname>
          </string-name>
          , O. Ho¨dl, R. Mateus-Berr, and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>M.</given-names>
            <surname>Pichlmair</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Po e`me Nume´rique: Technology-Mediated Audience Participation (TMAP) Using Smartphones</article-title>
          and
          <string-name>
            <surname>High-Frequency Sound</surname>
            <given-names>IDs</given-names>
          </string-name>
          ,” in
          <source>INTETAIN</source>
          <year>2016</year>
          ,
          <year>2017</year>
          , vol.
          <source>LNICST 178</source>
          , pp.
          <fpage>254</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>258</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref17">
        <mixed-citation>
          [17]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>C.</given-names>
            <surname>Bartmann</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Exploring audience participation in live music with a mobile application</article-title>
          ,”
          <source>Master Thesis</source>
          , Vienna University of Technology,
          <year>2016</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref18">
        <mixed-citation>
          [18]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>B.</given-names>
            <surname>Smagowska</surname>
          </string-name>
          and
          <string-name>
            <surname>M.</surname>
          </string-name>
          <article-title>Pawlaczyk-uszczyska, “Effects of ultrasonic noise on the human bodya bibliographic review</article-title>
          ,”
          <source>International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics</source>
          , vol.
          <volume>19</volume>
          , no.
          <issue>2</issue>
          , pp.
          <fpage>195</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>202</lpage>
          ,
          <year>2013</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref19">
        <mixed-citation>
          [19]
          <string-name>
            <surname>Digiconomist</surname>
          </string-name>
          .net, “Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index,”
          <year>2018</year>
          , [Accessed 14.
          <year>September 2018</year>
          ]. [Online]. Available: https: //digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref20">
        <mixed-citation>
          [20]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>L.</given-names>
            <surname>Kugler</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Why cryptocurrencies use so much energy,” Communications of the ACM</article-title>
          , vol.
          <volume>61</volume>
          , no.
          <issue>7</issue>
          , pp.
          <fpage>15</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>17</lpage>
          ,
          <year>2018</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref21">
        <mixed-citation>
          [21]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>J.</given-names>
            <surname>Truby</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “Decarbonizing Bitcoin:
          <article-title>Law and policy choices for reducing the energy consumption of Blockchain technologies and digital currencies</article-title>
          ,” Energy Research &amp; Social Science, no.
          <source>June</source>
          , pp.
          <fpage>0</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>1</lpage>
          ,
          <year>2018</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref22">
        <mixed-citation>
          [22]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>D. A.</given-names>
            <surname>Norman</surname>
          </string-name>
          , The Design of Everyday Things, 1st ed. New York: Basic Books,
          <year>2002</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref23">
        <mixed-citation>
          [23]
          <string-name>
            <surname>Microsoft</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “Xamarin forms documentation,” https://docs.microsoft.com/ en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/,
          <source>[Accessed 14. September</source>
          <year>2018</year>
          ].
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref24">
        <mixed-citation>
          [24]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>P.</given-names>
            <surname>Oberhauser</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>cosy:sonics in the google play store</article-title>
          ,” https://play. google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.companyname.
          <source>CosySonics, [Accessed 14. September</source>
          <year>2018</year>
          ].
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref25">
        <mixed-citation>
          [25]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>D.</given-names>
            <surname>Quick</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “Kulitta,”
          <source>[Accessed 14. September</source>
          <year>2018</year>
          ]. [Online]. Available: http://donyaquick.com/kulitta/
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref26">
        <mixed-citation>
          [26]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>T.</given-names>
            <surname>Ater</surname>
          </string-name>
          , Building Progressive Web Apps:
          <article-title>Bringing the Power of Native to the Browser</article-title>
          .
          <source>O'Reilly</source>
          ,
          <year>2017</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>3</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>6</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref27">
        <mixed-citation>
          [27]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>A.</given-names>
            <surname>Puder</surname>
          </string-name>
          ,
          <string-name>
            <given-names>N.</given-names>
            <surname>Tillmann</surname>
          </string-name>
          , and
          <string-name>
            <given-names>M.</given-names>
            <surname>Moskal</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “
          <article-title>Exposing native device apis to web apps,”</article-title>
          <source>in Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems</source>
          , ser.
          <source>MOBILESoft</source>
          <year>2014</year>
          . New York, NY, USA: ACM,
          <year>2014</year>
          , pp.
          <fpage>18</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>26</lpage>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
      <ref id="ref28">
        <mixed-citation>
          [28]
          <string-name>
            <given-names>R.</given-names>
            <surname>Nunkesser</surname>
          </string-name>
          , “Beyond Web / Native / Hybrid : A New Taxonomy for Mobile App Development,” pp.
          <fpage>214</fpage>
          -
          <lpage>218</lpage>
          ,
          <year>2018</year>
          .
        </mixed-citation>
      </ref>
    </ref-list>
  </back>
</article>