surveys
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Facebook's Viewpoints research app pays you to take surveys
Facebook is once again offering a market research app, but this one appears to avoid some of the privacy concerns from before. The social media behemoth has introduced a Viewpoints app that pays you for completing surveys, research and other tasks that will help refine its products. Unlike Google's Opinion Rewards, you don't get the goods straight away -- instead, you earn points and automatically receive PayPal contributions whenever you reach point milestones. You don't have to worry about your rewards expiring, at least.
NASA: Amino acids in Apollo-era lunar samples are from Earth
The mystery of where amino acids found in lunar soil samples from the Apollo missions has stumped scientists for decades. They certainly didn't come from the moon, which is completely inhospitable to life. But with help from the Goddard Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory, NASA researchers have finally tracked down the source of the contamination.
The Repopulation looks back at its July test updates
The end of the month means a new update for those on the outside looking in at The Repopulation, and July brought with it some sizable changes. For example, the game introduced 27 new areas, with several existing areas seeing new improvements and a lot of extra paths opening up. Any explorer has plenty of new stuff to see throughout the game, from new ways to see old regions to old regions just filled with new things. July also saw the inclusion of the training mechanic, which allows players to spend training points to improve various abilities. Pharmaceuticals, equipment fittings, and music also saw large-scale overhauls for players, and the development team launched a survey to get a better idea of the player types watching the game closely. You can see the full list of patch changes with the official update, along with more details on the overhauls and plans moving forward.
Square Enix polling Kingdom Hearts fans about series past, future
Kingdom Hearts 3 will conclude the decade-long battle of Sora and his friends, but it won't mark the end of the series. Future plans include the eventual release of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix, but a recent post from Square Enix on the series' Facebook page suggests new games beyond the HD remakes and the numerical sequel. The survey polls fans on their preferred gaming platforms and their general thoughts on the series, including preferred pre-order incentives and their favorite overall game. Fans can chip in their thoughts until March 14, when the survey will presumably "die" before revealing its second, third and fourth final forms. If you'd prefer to see Disney worlds that have yet to be featured in the series or to retain Donald as your sidekick mage in all future games, now's your chance to be heard by Square Enix. [Image: Square Enix]
Safari tops Fixya mobile browser usability scores
Fixya is a Q&A website that compiles fix-it requests for a variety of items from cars and chainsaws to routers and monitors. Recently, the site turned its attention to mobile browsers, looking through a total of 61,582 different help requests for the category to determine which browser had the best usability score. The winner? Apple Safari for iOS. The company combined and analyzed data from the problem impressions on its site, mixed it in with market share data from NetMarketShare, and came up with a usability score. The higher the score, the fewer problem impressions Fixya saw in relation to total market share for a browser. Safari came in at 1.31, with the stock Android browser falling well behind at 0.87, Opera coming in at 0.70, Chrome at 0.64 and Internet Explorer dropping the ball at 0.28. When it came to Safari, most of the so-called issues dealt with the lack of Flash support in the mobile browser, along with the UI. However, it should be noted that most of the numbers were gathered prior to the release of iOS 7, so many of the UI issues (e.g., lack of screen real estate) have been addressed. The full report is available on the Fixya blog, and goes into tremendous detail about the pros and cons of every mobile browser.
Polar polls show high user acceptance of iOS 7 UI and icons
iOS 7 is now in its fifth beta incarnation and going through intense scrutiny by developers as the release date for the new mobile OS nears. Several iOS 7 beta testers have apparently decided to break NDA and conduct polls to judge the public's opinion on both the user interface and specific app icons when compared to the iOS 6 versions. Polar user LukeW went through the various iOS interface elements such as switches, the date picker, status bar, navigation bar, etc. and asked the public to vote on whether they preferred the iOS 6 or iOS 7 version. In every case, the iOS 7 versions were the winner. While I won't go through every result, here are some vote results for important iOS 7 UI elements: Date Picker -- iOS 7: 1,365 votes, iOS 6: 404 votes Status Bar -- iOS 7: 1,199 votes, iOS 6: 543 votes Share Sheet -- iOS 7: 1,022 votes, iOS 6: 261 votes Lock Screen -- iOS 7: 1,054 votes, iOS 6: 254 votes Notification -- iOS 7: 1,087 votes, iOS 6: 200 votes Of course, there were certain commenters who hated all of the iOS 7 elements in this decidedly unscientific poll (we're looking at you, autumn...). Not to be outdone, Polar user Giantsquid looked at side-by-side comparisons of app icons. The results weren't as grossly tilted towards iOS 7 as they were in the UI elements poll: Contacts icon -- iOS 7: 19,702 votes, iOS 6: 8,979 votes Siri icon -- iOS 7: 6,914 votes, iOS 6: 8,243 votes Passbook icon -- iOS 7: 16,096 votes, iOS 6: 14,233 votes Maps icon -- iOS 7: 10,904 votes, iOS 6: 4,195 votes Safari icon -- iOS 7: 10,597 votes, iOS 6: 17,593 votes The results of both of these polls are subject to scrutiny; the votes represent only a tiny sample of the millions of iOS users around the world. But it's interesting to see how people are reacting to the look and feel of iOS 7 -- mostly in a positive light. [via 9to5Mac]
Daily Update for March 21, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Apple falls in customer satisfaction survey
Analytics firm ForeSee says Apple slipped 3 percentage points in a holiday customer satisfaction survey, garnering 80 points, according to AllThingsD. That's still an excellent number. The data comes from a survey of 24,000 customers that was conducted between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The drop is one of the biggest Foresee has seen, and Apple's lowest score in four years. There doesn't seem to be a simple explanation. Apple went through some drama earlier this year when it fired John Browett as head of retail, but it's hard to see how that might have had much of an effect on customers. AllThingsDigital quotes Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSee, as saying, "The luster of Apple is fading a bit, and keeping up with consumer's rising expectations is no easy task." The ForeSee survey measures four things that are believed to add up to customer satisfaction: merchandise appeal, price competitiveness, website functionality and website content. ForeSee adds that website functionality should be a top priority for Apple. Amazon tops the list this holiday season at 88 percent customer satisfaction. JCPenney and Dell also dropped in the ForeSee survey.
SkyDrive adds recycle bin, Excel surveys for the chronically indecisive
For all of the talk of cloud backups and sync, there isn't always a safety net when working from the cloud itself -- delete a file online and it might be gone forever. With that in mind, Microsoft just brought Windows' recycle bin concept to SkyDrive through a low-key update. You can now delete anything immediately, knowing that you can change your mind within three days -- and longer still, should the recycle bin occupy less than 10 percent of the storage limit. If you're just as uncertain about creating content as scrapping it, SkyDrive has also received support for creating and sharing Excel surveys to narrow down the scope of a project. The recycle bin should slide into your SkyDrive account within the next day; Excel surveys aren't yet polished enough, but they should be ready "soon."
Siri's novelty is wearing off ... for some
New York Times technology writer Nick Bilton may be breaking up with Siri, per his post on the NYT Bits blog. Bilton's on-again, off-again love affair with Apple's intelligent assistant seems to be familiar territory for some other iPhone 4S users. He notes that "Many people I have spoken to have switched Siri off and reverted to the iPhone's voice dictation service, which is more reliable because it doesn't use Siri's artificial intelligence software." According to Bilton, Gene Munster -- our favorite securities analyst from Piper Jaffray -- ran a series of 1,600 voice tests with Siri. It could hear requests fairly well, understanding 89 percent of requests made in a quiet room and 83 percent of those made on a noisy city street. But Siri's understanding isn't that great; Munster said that it could only accurately answer a question 68 percent of the time in a quiet room or 62 percent of the time on the street. Munster gave Siri a "D" and says that the beta service needs to sharply improve. Bilton has spurned Siri for another sexy voice, that of Google Voice Search on Android phones. He may not realize he can already use that same technology via the free Google Search app on his iPhone 4S. The public seems to still have a fondness for Siri. A survey by John Barrett of Parks Associates cited in Bilton's article showing that 55 percent of respondents gave Siri a high rating, 21 percent said it was "satisfactory," and only 10 percent completely dissatisfied with it. For me, I've found that the more I use Siri, the better my success with her. Maybe Siri likes me just because I used her as the lead character in a book, but I still find her enchanting, helpful, and sometimes mysterious. Don't worry about that breakup with Nick Bilton, Siri; you'll always have me, even if my love is a bit one-sided...
MapleStory gets political, players respond with bewilderment
It's an election year in the United States, and that means that it's time to start polling for opinions across the country. If the country goes the path of MapleStory, the incumbent President has nothing to worry about. A survey of 1,655 random MapleStory players was conducted this past weekend, with 47.79% claiming that Barack Obama had made the most positive impact out of the current candidates. The runner-up? Abject confusion. More than 20% of respondents did not recognize any of the names involved. The respondents were also polled on the most important issue facing the presidential candidates, with unemployment taking the top spot (40%) and the gap between rich and poor taking second place (28%). It's not necessarily indicative of much, but even though it's an informal poll conducted by Nexon America of a fairly random playerbase, there's a staggering degree of confusion at work. Or MapleStory players really like President Obama, one or the other.
Daily Update for March 13, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Appcelerator developers warm to Windows Phone, give BlackBerry the cold shoulder
As the year winds to a close, it seems that developer sentiments have shifted since we last checked in with Appcelerator and its opinionated community of coders. In a survey performed in conjunction with IDC, the results suggest a steady interest to develop for smartphones and tablets of the iOS and Android variety, but also reveal a punctuated surge in enthusiasm for Windows Phone. The platform experienced an eight percent uptick since last quarter, with developers citing Nokia's involvement as a primary motivating factor. While Microsoft's OS still lags significantly behind the front-runners, it has significantly separated itself from other competitors. For instance, interest in BlackBerry smartphones fell by seven percent, to roughly half that of Windows Phone. It should be noted that this survey doesn't reflect the development community as a whole, but merely of Appcelerator Titanium users -- if you're curious, the product is a cross-platform development environment for mobile apps. While the 2,160 respondents may not perfectly represent reality, we wouldn't be surprised if they were darn close.
Wings Over Atreia: Too much of a good thing
Seriously NCsoft, enough is enough! Now, I know that in the not-even-too-distant past, I openly admitted how much I liked the shiny surveys that popped up occasionally in Aion. Whether they were during events or just out of the blue, the surveys were like a random present just because. And who doesn't like presents? Sometimes you would know what you were getting; other times it would be a complete surprise. I love clicking that little icon and being rewarded with dyes, pets, emotion cards, and other assorted relatively harmless fluff. Yes, I also hoarded the platinum medals and ancient crowns that sprang up infrequently with a near maniacal glee. But there reaches a point when you really can have too much of a good thing (sadly, much like decadent cheesecake) and actually encounter negative repercussions. Last week I mentioned that the leveling rewards, at least under level 25, got to be a little much. But that doesn't compare to the glut of goods available to every player who logged in during the month of October. I was initially appreciative of getting a few of the "October Special" (stacks of multiple scrolls and power shards). However, the surveys got out of hand before long. Click past the cut for (no, not a free gift!) Wings over Atreia's look at how over-gifting can actually be damaging to Aion.
The Classifieds: Surveys for great science
The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable. This is survey week on WoW Insider. We have a quick player wealth survey below, and then Nick Yee needs your help behind the cut. What's the point of having a multimillion-player community if it can't be exploited for science? This is what Xsinthis of Shadowmoon (US-A) had to say: I'm looking for more people to complete my World of Warcraft Wealth Survey. Using this quick, painless 4 question survey I hope to answer questions about wealth in the World of Warcraft. The survey can be found here: http://www.xsinthis.net/survey Everyone is encourage to take the survey, data is needed from all walks of digital life, from the copperless lvl 50, to the players who need guild banks to hold all their gold, the more data collected the more accurate the results will be!
Apple is second "coolest brand" in UK survey
A new survey from CoolBrands finds that Aston Martin is the "coolest" brand in the UK, with Apple in second place. You can't really compete with James Bonds's car, can you? How does one define "cool," especially in a survey? The BBC explains the researchers' definition: "Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the CoolBrands Expert Council, said: 'Cool is subjective and personal. But being identified as a Cool Brand by the British public and a panel of influential opinion formers implies it is a brand that most Brits wish to own. 'Votes are based on a wide criteria of factors but these brands are clearly delivering cool in the eyes of consumers and influencers alike,' he said." Other tech brands in the top ten were Bang & Olufsen, BlackBerry, Google and YouTube. Harley-Davidson was in the third spot, just behind Apple.
GamersFirst teams up with Adknowledge for virtual currency offers
Free-to-play gamers seem to have no problems paying real-world money for virtual items in their favorite MMORPGs. GamersFirst hopes that its customers will feel similarly about its new partnership with Adknowledge. Who, or what, is Adknowledge? It's the largest privately owned advertising network on the internet, and it's also the parent company of Super Rewards (and you may remember that name in connection with the infamous "offer wall" faux pas attached to Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online MMO). Adknowledge's AdStation program allows gamers to earn in-game currency by completing extra-game tasks including watching videos, taking surveys, and subscribing to various online services. This generates advertising leads for Adknowledge clients, and a new GamersFirst press release calls it "a great opportunity for us to get our titles in front of their vast global network." Said titles include APB Reloaded and Fallen Earth, but thus far GamersFirst has not released details on how the games will be affected. [Source: GamersFirst press release]
Pew: Smartphone owners increasingly ignoring other devices to get online
Some more fun phone facts from the folks at Pew: 83 percent of American adults own a cellphone, 35 percent have a smartphone, and 87 of percent smartphone owners use their handset to browse the internet and read email, apparently having decided that the things are good for more than just making phone calls and keeping papers from blowing away. Also of interest is the fact that 28 percent of the 2,277 people surveyed actually use their small screen devices as their primary method for accessing the internet. It's worth noting that it's not a huge sample size we're working with here, so maybe hold off on declaring the PC dead -- still, it may be a sign of lots of squinting to come.
Nielsen: smartphones dominate among new subscribers; Android leads, iOS surges, RIM falters
Visit any mobile retailer and you're likely to notice that smartphones are becoming mighty popular. In fact, Nielsen now reports that these wondrous creations now account for more than half of all mobile phone sales -- 55 percent, to be exact -- compared to 34 percent one year ago. The study, which consists of data from March through May of 2011, suggests that while smartphones continue to be outnumbered by feature phones, penetration has risen from 29.7 to 38 percent in a matter of months. Nielsen further states that while Android remains the dominant platform (with 38 percent market share), its growth appears only steady, despite Andy Rubin's recent assertion. Meanwhile, iOS (with a 27 percent stake) is experiencing quite the growth and now accounts for 17 percent of all new activations. Unlike the folks in Mountain View and Cupertino, the crew in Waterloo have reason to worry: RIM's market share has fallen from 27.4 to 21 percent in a few short months, and the platform now accounts for only six percent of new activations. If you're interested in finding out more, just follow the break for another snapshot of the mobile world. And if you're feeling generous, you might consider sending Sirs Lazaridis and Balsillie a get well soon card.
Researchers reveal initial Wizard101 findings
"The stereotype of the dysfunctional, male teen gamer no longer holds," say the researchers behind an extensive new study based on Wizard101. "At any time during the game, your teammate could be a kid, a neighbor, or a grandparent." Trinity University academics recently partnered with KingsIsle Entertainment to survey more than 30,000 Wizard101 players regarding online habits, inter-generational play, and family gaming. The findings are the result of one of the largest studies of online game players to date and were collected via an anonymous survey in March 2011. The results speak to a diverse playerbase that spans multiple generations and that also invests a portion of its out-of-game time in creative projects directly related to the game. Twenty percent of adult respondents indicated extra-game activity focused on Wizard101 (usually blogging), while 54% of children engaged in game-related activities including blogging, artwork, video production, and creative writing. Check out the full press release after the cut.
