A growing body of research is examining the way that virtual reality (VR) technology might enrich the lives of older adults. However, no studies have yet examined how this technology-combining head mounted displays, motion tracking, avatars, and virtual environments-might contribute to older adult wellbeing by facilitating greater social participation (social VR). To address this gap, we conducted three workshops in which 25 older adults aged 70 to 81 explored the utility of social VR as a medium for communicating with other older adults. Participants first created embodied avatars that were controlled through natural gestures, and subsequently used these avatars in two high-fidelity social VR prototypes. Findings from the workshops provide insight into older adults' design motivations when creating embodied avatars for social VR; their acceptance of social VR as a communication tool; and their views on how social VR might play a beneficial role in their lives. Outcomes from the workshops also illustrate the critical importance our participants placed on behavioural anthropomorphism-the embodied avatars' ability to speak, move, and act in a human-like manner-alongside translational factors, which encapsulate issues relating to the way physical movements are mapped to the embodied avatar and the way in which errors in these mappings may invoke ageing stereotypes. Findings demonstrate the critical role that these characteristics might play in the success of future social VR applications targeting older users. We translate our findings into a set of design considerations for developing social VR systems for older adults, and we reflect on how our participants' experiences can inform future research on social virtual reality. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Virtual reality; Collaborative and social computing; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing.

Background Regular mindfulness practice has been demonstrated to be beneficial for mental health, but mindfulness can be challenging to adopt, with environmental and personal distractors often cited as challenges. Virtual reality (VR) may address these challenges by providing an immersive environment for practicing mindfulness and by supporting the user to orient attention to the present moment within a tailored virtual setting. However, there is currently a limited understanding of the ways in which VR can support or hinder mindfulness practice. Such an understanding is required to design effective VR apps while ensuring that VR-supported mindfulness is acceptable to end users. Objective This study aimed to explore how VR can support mindfulness practice and to understand user experience issues that may affect the acceptability and efficacy of VR mindfulness for users in the general population. Methods A sample of 37 participants from the general population trialed a VR mindfulness app in a controlled laboratory setting. The VR app presented users with an omnidirectional video of a peaceful forest environment with a guided mindfulness voiceover that was delivered by a male narrator. Scores on the State Mindfulness Scale, Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, and single-item measures of positive and negative emotion and arousal were measured pre- and post-VR for all participants. Qualitative feedback was collected through interviews with a subset of 19 participants. The interviews sought to understand the user experience of mindfulness practice in VR. Results State mindfulness (P<.001; Cohen d=1.80) and positive affect (P=.006; r=.45) significantly increased after using the VR mindfulness app. No notable changes in negative emotion, subjective arousal, or symptoms of simulator sickness were observed across the sample. Participants described the user experience as relaxing, calming, and peaceful. Participants suggested that the use of VR helped them to focus on the present moment by using visual and auditory elements of VR as attentional anchors. The sense of presence in the virtual environment (VE) was identified by participants as being helpful to practicing mindfulness. Interruptions to presence acted as distractors. Some uncomfortable experiences were discussed, primarily in relation to video fidelity and the weight of the VR headset, although these were infrequent and minor. Conclusions This study suggests that an appropriately designed VR app can support mindfulness practice by enhancing state mindfulness and inducing positive affect. VR may help address the challenges of practicing mindfulness by creating a sense of presence in a tailored VE; by allowing users to attend to visual and auditory anchors of their choice; and by reducing the scope of the content in users’ mind-wandering. VR has the unique capability to combine guided mindfulness practice with tailored VEs that lend themselves to support individuals to focus attention on the present moment.

BackgroundThe recent proliferation of self-tracking technologies has allowed individuals to generate significant quantities of data about their lifestyle. These data can be used to support health interventions and monitor outcomes. However, these data are often stored and processed by vendors who have commercial motivations, and thus, they may not be treated with the sensitivity with which other medical data are treated. As sensors and apps that enable self-tracking continue to become more sophisticated, the privacy implications become more severe in turn. However, methods for systematically identifying privacy issues in such apps are currently lacking.ObjectiveThe objective of our study was to understand how current mass-market apps perform with respect to privacy. We did this by introducing a set of heuristics for evaluating privacy characteristics of self-tracking services.MethodsUsing our heuristics, we conducted an analysis of 64 popular self-tracking services to determine the extent to which the services satisfy various dimensions of privacy. We then used descriptive statistics and statistical models to explore whether any particular categories of an app perform better than others in terms of privacy.ResultsWe found that the majority of services examined failed to provide users with full access to their own data, did not acquire sufficient consent for the use of the data, or inadequately extended controls over disclosures to third parties. Furthermore, the type of app, in terms of the category of data collected, was not a useful predictor of its privacy. However, we found that apps that collected health-related data (eg, exercise and weight) performed worse for privacy than those designed for other types of self-tracking.ConclusionsOur study draws attention to the poor performance of current self-tracking technologies in terms of privacy, motivating the need for standards that can ensure that future self-tracking apps are stronger with respect to upholding users’ privacy. Our heuristic evaluation method supports the retrospective evaluation of privacy in self-tracking apps and can be used as a prescriptive framework to achieve privacy-by-design in future apps.

The encapsulated pathogenic yeast Cryptococcus neoformans is poorly recognized by phagocytic cells in the absence of opsonins. Macrophages will bind and internalize complement-or antibody-opsonized C. neoformans; however, less is known about the role of opsonins in dendritic cell (DC)-mediated recognition of the organism. Thus, we studied the opsonic requirements for binding to C. neoformans by cultured human monocyte-derived and murine bone marrow-derived DCs and whether binding leads to antifungal activity and cytokine release. Binding of unopsonized C. neoformans to human and murine DCs was negligible. Opsonization with pooled human serum (PHS) increased binding, while heat treatment of PHS virtually abolished this binding, thus suggesting a role for heat-labile complement components. PHS plus a monoclonal anticapsular antibody, 3C2, had an additive effect on binding for most cryptococcal strains. Human and murine DCs exhibited pronounced anticryptococcal activity in the presence of the antibody at early (2-h) and late (24-h) time points; however, PHS opsonization did not supplement this anticryptococcal activity. Antifungal activity against C. neoformans opsonized in PHS and/or antibody was partially reduced in the presence of inhibitors of the respiratory burst response. Human, but not murine, DCs released modest amounts of tumor necrosis factor alpha when stimulated with C. neoformans opsonized in PHS and/or antibody. However, opsonized C. neoformans failed to stimulate detectable release of interleukin 10 (IL-10) or IL-12p70 from either DC population. Thus, human and murine DCs show maximal binding to and antifungal activity against C. neoformans via a process highly dependent on opsonization.