Title: Dynamic Participatory Game Design with Local AI: From Interviews to Trauma-Aware Interactive Narratives

Authors: Kseniia Harshina, Tom Tucek, Mathias Lux

Location: TextStory 2026 – Delft, The Netherlands, March 2026

Abstract: We present a work-in-progress, trauma-aware participatory storytelling pipeline that uses a locally hosted large language model (LLM) as a neutral chatbot interviewer. The system supports self-paced narration without cloud processing, prioritizing privacy, data sovereignty, and participant control. Interview transcripts are transformed into a structured scene representation (extracted fields and dialogue prompts), which is then replayed through a lightweight prototype interface as an initial step toward interactive memory-based experiences. We report a small formative expert evaluation (n=2) focusing on perceived comfort, emotional safety, and usability. Participants described the interviewer as low-pressure and reflective, while highlighting limitations such as weak acknowledgement of long answers and occasional “forced turns.” We discuss design implications for narrative extraction, turn-taking, and staged evaluation in sensitive contexts, and outline next steps for community-informed studies with participants who have lived experience of displacement.

On Thursday, February 26, 2026. Kurt successfully defended his PhD thesis (Service Discovery in the Computing Continuum) under the supervision of  Prof. Radu Prodan and Dr. Dragi Kimovski. The defense was chaired by Assoc.-Prof. DI Dr Klaus Schöffmann and the examiners were Prof. Valeria Cardellini (online) and Prof. Karin Anna Hummel (on-site). 

We are pleased to congratulate Dr. Kurt Horvath on successfully passing his Ph.D. examination!

On 27 February, Sabrina Größing and Dr Felix Schniz welcomed a delegation from the University of Vienna’s Game Lab to Klagenfurt. After exchanging origin stories, concepts and objectives, the warm‑hearted meeting quickly revealed shared ambitions and core values. The participants agreed to schedule follow‑up visits to both Vienna and Klagenfurt, deepening the partnership with the Klagenfurt Critical Game Lab and laying the groundwork for a burgeoning network of game labs across Austria.

 

On 29 January, Dr Felix Schniz held an interview on the topic of Spirituality and Video Games for Deutschlandfunk Kultur. The interviews discussed his las publications and offered an insight into how technology, first and foremost video games, can help with the contemporary crisis of faith.

Title: Lightweight WebAssembly-Based Intrusion Detection for Zero Trust Edge Networks

Authors: Jonathan Weber (TU Wien, Austria), Ilir Murturi (University of Prishtina, Kosova), Xhevahir Bajrami (University of Prishtina, Kosova), Reza Farahani (University of Klagenfurt, Austria), Praveen Kumar Donta (Stockholm University, Sweden), Schahram Dustdar (TU Wien, Austria)

Venue: IEEE Access

Abstract: IoT devices deployed across computing continuum infrastructures present significant security challenges due to resource constraints and decentralization. Traditional centralized intrusion detection systems struggle in such environments because of limited connectivity, high latency, and single points of failure. To address these challenges, this article extends a learning-driven Zero Trust framework tailored to resource-constrained edge environments and proposes an approach for evaluating lightweight intrusion detection models in such environments. Our extended approach enables systematic evaluation of lightweight machine learning models for localized intrusion detection, comprising three layers: (i) compilation, (ii) execution, and (iii) measurement. The proposed approach is implemented using Rust and WebAssembly to ensure portable, efficient, and isolated execution across heterogeneous devices. Using this framework, seven representative intrusion detection models (i.e., Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), k-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Logistic Regression (LR), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) variants) were implemented and evaluated on the UNSW-NB15 dataset. Results show that RF achieved the best trade-off between detection accuracy and efficiency, while simpler models (DT and LR) offered near-instant inference with minimal resource usage, making them ideal for highly constrained devices. In contrast, more complex models such as deep neural networks and KNN introduced significant overhead for only modest accuracy gains. These findings underscore the need to balance accuracy and resource efficiency for effective Zero Trust edge security.

Title: Performance Evaluation of Privacy Models for Data Streams on the Edge

Authors: Ilir Murturi, Boris Sedlak, Reza Farahani, Schahram Dustdar

Venue: Internet Technology Letter

Abstract: Recent advances in edge computing enable data stream privacy enforcement directly on resource‐constrained devices, reducing latency and the exposure of sensitive information. In this paper, we extend and validate our previously proposed privacy‐enforcing framework, which allows high‐level privacy policies to be expressed as chains of triggers and transformations, executed at the edge. To assess its practical viability, we conduct a comprehensive performance profiling of multiple privacy models across heterogeneous edge hardware platforms. Six privacy‐model chains, ranging from basic face detection to combined face‐and‐person anonymization, are evaluated across three representative edge devices. Key performance metrics (i.e., execution time, CPU utilization, memory usage, and power consumption) are measured to inform optimal placement of privacy transformations. Our evaluation offers critical insights into the effectiveness of the privacy‐enforcing framework on resource‐constrained devices, thereby guiding practitioners in selecting suitable deployment targets for privacy‐preserving data stream analytics on the edge.

Priv.-Doz. Farzad Tashtarian has been elevated to IEEE Senior Member in recognition of his contributions to multimedia streaming systems.

19 February 2026

Vicor engineer Chris Swartz achieves senior member status at IEEE

ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications

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Authors: Christian Timmerer (AAU, Austria), Maria Martini (Kingston University London, UK), Ali C. Begen (Ozyegin University, Türkiye), Luca De Cicco (Politecnico di Bari, Italy)

Abstract: This special issue presents recent advances in multimedia systems research showcased at ACM Multimedia Systems 2024 and its co-located workshops. The selected papers span adaptive and immersive video streaming, low-latency and scalable delivery architectures, and innovations in video coding and processing. Together, they illustrate the rapid progress and broad impact of emerging techniques across the multimedia stack.

Paper title: AI-Assisted Energy-Efficient Multimedia Systems

Authors: Zoha Azimi

Venue:  (Doctoral Symposium) MMSys’26, The 17th ACM Multimedia System Conference, Hong Kong SAR, 4th – 8th April 2026

Abstract: Video streaming constitutes the majority of today’s Internet traffic and is expected to continue growing in scale, complexity, and environmental impact. As video systems, from encoding to delivery, consume substantial computational resources, their energy footprint has emerged as a critical challenge for both industry and research communities. At the same time, recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI have improved video quality and adaptive streaming performance, yet often at the cost of increased computational load and higher energy consumption. This increase creates a growing need for streaming systems that not only deliver high Quality of Experience (QoE) but also minimize energy usage across heterogeneous devices and network infrastructures. The scope of this doctoral study is within the end-to-end video ecosystem, focusing on balancing the trade-off between energy consumption and user experience. It aims to investigate and develop intelligent frameworks that treat sustainability as a primary metric alongside performance, improving energy efficiency across the video lifecycle without compromising the viewer’s experience. We present three fundamental research questions to target the related challenges in the domain of sustainable multimedia systems.

Ttitle: Tell Your Story Through Games (TYS):  Preliminary Guidelines for Mixed-Migrant Participatory Game Jams

Conference: The 3rd Geogames Symposium (3GGS) – Iowa, USA

Authors: Kseniia Harshina

Abstract: Migration-themed games are often framed as “empathy machines,” inviting outsiders to temporarily inhabit another’s hardship. This framing can slide into identity tourism and reinforce the trope of the “helpless refugee”. This short paper presents Tell Your Story Through Games (TYS) as a participatory game jam method that centers agency, and self-expression in mixed-migrant communities. We contribute preliminary methodological guidelines for running participatory story game jams with mixed-migrant communities. Participants with lived experience of migration and/or displacement create place-based story games, choosing how personal or fictional they want the story to be. One pilot iteration has been completed; future iterations will refine the method and evaluate its support for narrative agency and community-building.