Digital Gifts and Tourism Mementos: A Sustainable Approach

Touristic destinations all around the world are struggling to digitally transform the touristic experience and the touristic products they offer and to capitalize a good experience with new tourists and returning ones. There is a lot of research on digital solutions assisting tourism, but it does not provide a follow-up digital product, therefore depending only on physical gifts, postcards and mementos. In this work, we propose a novel platform that can provide a personalized digital memento or digital gift for every route or tourist destination that can become the digital point of reference of visitors’ experience giving new dimensions for commercialization to the existing physical mementos at the gift shops. The purpose of this study is to analyze what comprises a memorable touristic experience and to design and, finally, present a total solution that builds and offers a personal e-souvenir of a touristic experience to the tourist for him to hold, sport and share just using his mobile phone. We propose a digital memento-building platform that includes the personalized experience in visits taking place while in vacations. The visitors are usually taking pictures along routes they follow that later need further organization and processing and that in no way substitutes the physical mementos. In our approach, we propose a solution that generates a unique and personalized e-souvenir through a collage of the selfies and photos creating the digital equivalent of the touristic postcards but in our case personalized with the visitor photos with minimum amount of effort and produced real-time. Our approach is also providing a platform to the photographers and designers of touristic destinations to build and graphically generated memento artifacts—templates specific for one or more destinations or routes. In this way, the approach serves the tourism industry vertically, covering all aspects, i.e., the tourist-visitor, the tourism professional players such as photographers, designers of physical mementos and, of course, the touristic destination providing a digital footprint to server marketing of the destination through sharing on social media and word-of-mouth, of course. To support our approach, we have built and run a fully working prototype in the touristic center of Athens, Greece, with real users and designers for several weeks during summer vacations. The results have been greatly encouraging from end-users and professionals. The study shows that it is possible for various lines of business to come together and work along one another for an improve touristic experience using mobile technologies in a personalized, targeted approach. The touristic destination, graphic designers, photographers, tourist agent specialists, software developers and visitors can all now have a digital personalized memorable gift from the visit.

The Machine-to-Everything (M2X) Economy: Business Enactments, Collaborations, and e-Governance

Nowadays, business enactments almost exclusively focus on human-to-human business transactions. However, the ubiquitousness of smart devices enables business enactments among autonomously acting machines, thereby providing the foundation for the machine-driven Machine-to-Everything (M2X) Economy. Human-to-human business is governed by enforceable contracts either in the form of oral, or written agreements. Still, a machine-driven ecosystem requires a digital equivalent that is accessible to all stakeholders. Additionally, an electronic contract platform enables fact-tracking, non-repudiation, auditability and tamper-resistant storage of information in a distributed multi-stakeholder setting. A suitable approach for M2X enactments are electronic smart contracts that allow to govern business transactions using a computerized transaction protocol such as a blockchain. In this position paper, we argue in favor of an open, decentralized and distributed smart contract-based M2X Economy that supports the corresponding multi-stakeholder ecosystem and facilitates M2X value exchange, collaborations, and business enactments. Finally, it allows for a distributed e-governance model that fosters open platforms and interoperability. Thus, serving as a foundation for the ubiquitous M2X Economy and its ecosystem.

EXPRESS: Preference Reversals Between Digital and Physical Goods

The proliferation of digital goods has led to an increased interest in how the digitization of products and services affects consumer behavior. In this paper, the authors show that although consumers are willing to pay more for physical than digital goods, this difference attenuates—and even reverses—when consumers are asked to make a choice between the two product formats. This effect is explained by a contingent weighting principle: In willingness to pay, a quantitative task, consumers anchor on quantitative information (e.g., market beliefs). On the other hand, in choice, a qualitative task, consumers anchor on qualitative information (e.g., which good dominates on the most important attribute). These differences in contingent weighting result in physical goods being preferred in willingness to pay, but their digital equivalent being preferred relatively more in choice. The authors draw conclusions from ten pre-registered experiments and six supplemental studies using a variety of goods in hypothetical and incentive-compatible contexts, as well as within- and between-subjects designs. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for the marketing of digital goods.

Technology readiness and UTAUT2 in e-wallet adoption in a developing country

Background: An e-wallet is a digital equivalent of a physical wallet which plays an essential role in payment system transformation. To embrace the concept of a cashless society, the Malaysian Government and central bank have taken various steps to encourage the adoption of e-wallets. Despite the seamless services offered by the e-wallet, it is yet to reach high-scale adoption in Malaysia. This study aims to investigate Malaysians’ readiness towards the e-wallet and their perceptions of it by employing the UTAUT2 model. Methods: A total of 309 valid data were gathered and analysed with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Results: The findings revealed that the respondents were confident about the new technology and tended to believe that e-wallet was somehow useful for them. The results also disclosed that e-wallet adoption intention was significantly influenced by performance expectancy, price value, facilitating conditions, and followed closely by social influence. Nonetheless, insecurity did not present significant impact on both performance expectancy and effort expectancy of e-wallet. Conclusions: This study provides a substantial contribution to the knowledge domain by combining system-specific and individual-specific models in an e-wallet context. The outcomes of this study would also benefit e-wallet service providers and policymakers by delivering holistic insight into Malaysians’ readiness and adoption behaviour of the e-wallet.

From Language Brokering to Digital Brokering: Refugee Settlement in a Smartphone Age

Many young people in migrant families perform language-brokering tasks for their parents to help them overcome their everyday challenges of communicating in a new language. Such informal brokering is typically the result of younger people being more exposed to, and becoming more familiar with, the dominant language of their new country. This article argues that such brokering has a digital equivalent in a migrant setting, in which transnational family communication increasingly relies on a grasp of the dominant “language” of smartphones and social media. Using data drawn from a study of Karen humanitarian migrants who have settled in Australia, younger migrants are shown to have had a greater exposure to, and familiarity with, digital technology than their parents, leading to significant communicative differences between two generations. Such differences, I explain, have created conditions conducive to the performance of a new type of intergenerational support in a migrant context: “digital” brokering. This is demonstrated through young people helping their parents use smartphones, social media, and video-calling apps to maintain transnational relationships after settlement.

Microcontroller Based Multichannel Data Acquisition System using LabVIEW

Microcontroller based Multichannel Data acquisition system (DAS) using LabVIEW is presented. This system is facilitated by using the built-in 10-bit ADCs and digital I/Os of the microcontroller. In a typical setup for analogue voltage measurement, under program control, this system keeps on monitoring the voltage on analogue inputs and makes the digital equivalent and transfer to PC through USB port. It also allows to read digital inputs and to write digital outputs under program control by PC. The controlling program on PC was developed by LabVIEW which is used to read this input at pre-decided time intervals. The controlling program reads these values and process accordingly. Microcontroller programs are also developed and tested successfully. The DAS was successfully used to monitor analog voltage during the laboratory experiments. It is also used for reading data from a temperature sensor. The results reveal that the DAS is suitable and easy method for real time data acquisition. It is expected that this developed system may contribute in the field of automation.

TOKEN AS A NEW CIVIL RIGHTS OBJECT: ISSUES OF LEGAL CLASSIFICATION OF DIGITAL LAW

The paper is devoted to the study of the new object of civil rights — the token (digital law). The question of the legal nature, civil law regime of digital rights is explored. The norms of the law on the concept and content of digital rights are analyzed. Consideration of a token as a digital method of fixing property rights makes it possible to consider it as a certain property value, the legal regime of which is similar to the «valuable rights» (Wertrechte) distinguished in the European continental law of the German type. It is concluded that the token performs several functions in the information system: 1) recognition of the authorized person; 2) a digital unit of the price of the share of a person’s participation in a business project, in construction investment; 3) a digital unit of the asset balance of the property of a legal entity; 4) digital equivalent of non-documentary securities; 5) the fulfillment of monetary obligations in digital form; 6) digital means of payment. Existing in the form of a digital entry in the register on the blockchain platform and performing various functions, the token as a fairly flexible digital (primarily financial) tool allows digital civilian turnover participants to perform digital «transactions» in cyberspace. The question of the possibility of qualifying the actions of users of the information system for making tokens as civil law transactions is analyzed.

Design and Implementation of Decoupled IoT Application Store: A Novel Prototype for Virtual Objects Sharing and Discovery

The internet of things (IoT) has been growing towards the conception of a cyber-physical space in which physical things could be discovered, examined, activated, interlinked, and updated, for the realization of possible interactions in both virtual and physical space. The fundamental idea of IoT is the concept of a virtual object, which is regarded as the digital equivalent of a physical entity. Currently, in every IoT platform, the use of virtual objects has become a vital component. These virtual objects form building blocks of IoT applications, support the discovery of services, nurture the production of complex applications, foster the objects’ energy and power management efficiency, as well as address heterogeneity and scalability issues. Idea sharing and reusing are widesplread, and different solutions are built for this purpose to share applications or their components with similar domains to avoid duplication of efforts. In this paper, we design and implement a cloud-centric IoT application store that serves a purpose for hosting virtual objects of different IoT domains so that technology tinkerers can consume them and integrate them to build IoT applications. The proposed system is different than existing IoT marketplaces in the sense that they provide full-fledged IoT applications which include software and hardware that users can plug and play. The application store is aimed to be decoupled and can expose virtual objects of different IoT domains so that similar areas can use them with little or no modification. Moreover, it is also aimed to be modular, scalable, secure and support heterogeneity, which are considered vital attributes of IoT applications. An IoT testbed client application is developed to reuse some of the virtual objects from the proposed application store and to share specialized virtual objects to the proposed system for the use of other clients applications with similar goals. The performance and load of the platform are tested and found to be within an acceptable response time for up to 40 simultaneous users.

DIGITAL TWINS AS A MODERN APPROACH TO DESIGN OF INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES

The objective of the paper was to describe the concept of a virtual, digital equivalent to a physical process. The basic idea of the virtual counterpart for the process called a digital twin is described first. Following this the hybrid computer system dedicated to the design of the optimal manufacturing technology for thin steel strips is presented. The models used in the system and the database are described. Numerical tests showing capabilities of the system recapitulate the work. 1.

The Summers and Winters of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science whose aim is to make computers intelligent. These “intelligent” activities include thinking, reasoning, receiving stimuli from the environment and responding to them, solving puzzles, speaking and understanding language, etc. It was John McCarthy who coined the word artificial intelligence at the conference on computers in Dartmouth in 1954, indicating that its goal was to achieve a digital equivalent of human-level intelligence. In the 1970s, AI entered a low-productive period known as the AI winter. During this period, scientific and notably commercial activities in AI dropped dramatically. The victory of IBM's Deep Blue AI program over the reigning world chess champion in 1997 is probably hailed as the biggest achievement of AI. Yet another great AI achievement is the victory of IBM's Watson over the world Jeopardy champions in 2011. This chapter is a brief outline of how, through numerous ups and downs, AI has come to be where it currently is, and where we might expect it to be heading in the next couple of decades.