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Americans think it's rude to stay glued to your phone, do it anyway
You're no doubt astute enough to know that you should stop using your cellphone in some social situations, but how good are you at heeding your own advice? If Pew's latest study is any indication, the answer is "not very." The research center found that 82 percent of American survey respondents see cellphone use as a bane to social interaction, but that 89 percent of phone owners used their devices during their most recent gatherings. And they weren't just checking for notifications, either -- more than half of those surveyed were messaging, taking photos and answering calls.
BBC's license fee study muddies the debate it tries to solve
WIth the BBC's funding firmly in the government's sights, the broadcaster has published a new study attempting to highlight its value. With help from research agency MTM, the Beeb removed access to its TV and radio broadcasts, as well as its websites, from 70 households in order to find out whether they would be missed and whether British families would still be prepared to pay for a licence fee after a brief hiatus. While some are claiming the report is a victory for the BBC, its findings aren't as simple as they initially look.
Cute Nao robot exhibits a moment of self-awareness
See that Nao robot waving its hand up there? It's not starting a dance routine: it just had a light-bulb moment, so it's trying to catch a human's attention. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Selmer Bringsjord programmed the three robots to think that two of them were given a "dumbing pill." In reality, that pill's a button on top of their heads that can be pressed by the tester. When the tester asked the robots which pill they received, their processors crunched data in order to provide the right answer. Since two of them were unable to talk, only one answered out loud. "I don't know," the third robot replied, realizing the truth a short while later.
Taking walks with this leg brace can power an artificial heart
Someday, folks with artificial hearts might have to take long, daily walks to stay alive -- not because exercise is good for their health, but because those walks literally power their synthetic organ. A team of students from Rice University called "Farmers" are developing a device that can generate energy and feed it back into the body to be used by an artificial heart. Their creation? A modified medical leg brace with a motor attached right on the joint, so it can produce energy every time the user bends his knee. An earlier prototype for the same project -- it's a multi-year endeavor, and the current model is the brainchild of the third batch of students -- could also generate power by walking. However, that wasn't a brace, but a shoe with a pedal attached to the sole.
Here's a look at iPhone usage rates by states
The online advertising network Chitika has released the results of a recent study breaking down iPhone usage rates by state across the United States. To obtain their data, they simply looked at their own ad network. To quantify this study, Chitika Insights analyzed a sample of hundreds of millions of U.S.-based iPhone ad impressions accessed via Chitika's Cidewalk mobile ad platform. The data were drawn from a date range of December 25 through 31, 2014, thus including traffic from devices given as gifts during the most recent Christmas holiday. Top honors for iPhone usage go to Montana, Kansas, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Vermont. According to a white paper released along with the study, iPhone usage rates are less correlative to geography or raw population numbers than they are education level and population density. You can read that here. You can view details from the Chitika research below, and read more about the study here.
Researchers can profile Facebook users to a 'T' with just their likes
Remember the time you liked a beer pong video on Facebook and thought nothing more of it? That may have said more about you than your friends and family ever knew, according to researchers at Cambridge and Stanford. They created a computer program that sifted through the Facebook likes of over 85,000 users to see if a person's preferences could rat out their true persona. The team used certain associations that seem fairly obvious; for instance, liking tattoos means you're more likely to drink alcohol. Others were more bizarre: apparently, people who like curly fries tend to be intelligent. Who knew?
NASA wants to build airship cities in the Venus sky
Since Venus is closer to Earth than Mars -- both in size and distance -- it would be a much more convenient candidate for manned exploration. There's just a slight hitch: the average temperature is 850 degrees F, and the atmosphere is 90 times denser than ours. In other words, you'd die in the opposite way that Quaid nearly did in Total Recall. Probes have been sent to the planet's surface, but the Russian Venera 13 survived the longest at just 127 minutes in 1982. As it does, NASA has figured a way around all that. In IEEE Spectrum, it outlined a study called HAVOC to build a floating "city" of astronaut-manned zeppelins that would hover 30 miles above the planet.
Fewer Brits are using social media, but those who do can't put down their phone
While you might access your Facebook feed or Twitter timeline numerous times a day, as a general rule, social media use in Britain has actually fallen over the last year. In a new research report, UK regulator Ofcom found that the number of people signing on to their favourite social networking sites each week dropped from 65 percent in September 2013 to 56 percent in October 2014. In fact, the UK saw the biggest drop across the nine countries compared in Ofcom's study, which polled 9,000 people across the US, Japan, China and most of the big European nations. As part of its research, the watchdog looked into how Britain ranks against other countries in terms of communication, which includes how many people access social media services, how often they log on and what they want from them. Unsurprisingly, it's the younger users that are driving social in the UK and they're using smartphones to get their fix. According to Ofcom, almost three-quarters of 18 to 24 year-olds used social networks at least once a week, while only just under half of 55 to 64 year-olds did the same (the second biggest difference between age groups in Europe). Those younger users have also helped the UK remain second only to the US for most active mobile social networkers: 40 percent of internet users admitted they open social apps on their phone every day, matching last year's figures. Overall, 64 percent of internet users accessed social networks using their mobile, while 62 percent of respondents admitted they did so on their desktop. But what sites are they accessing? Facebook leads the pack by a significant margin, with 68 percent reach, followed by Twitter's 25 percent share and LinkedIn and Google+ trailing slightly behind with 20 percent.
For science! The relationship between shyness and online game friendships
It's a common stereotype that shy people flock to the internet to socialize without fear of rejection. But is it true? German researchers from the University of Münster have tackled that question. In a paper published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking this past summer, the scientists sought to determine the relationship between online video games and friendship. They surveyed German video game enthusiasts to measure their involvement with online games, their web of friendships online and off, and their emotional sensitivity -- a behavioral marker for shyness. After controlling for confounders like age and gender, they found that those subjects with high emotional sensitivity reported more online friends than offline when compared to those with low emotional sensitivity. High emotional sensitivity also correlated with online friendships that transformed into offline friendships. In other words, the shier you are, the more likely you are to make more of your friends in cyberspace than meatspace, at least if you're a self-identified gamer. As Gamasutra put it, "emotionally sensitive users are using the online gaming environment differently from their counterparts. As they are shy in face-to-face interactions which translated to fewer friends, but they were able to make more friends through online videogames which its affordances (i.e., asynchronicity, visual anonymity, etc.) paved a way for them to compensate or overcome their shyness." The full paper is behind an academic paywall, but the Gamasutra summary is worth a read.
Study claims 47% of app downloads come from search results, but I'm not so sure
How do you normally find new app to download? According to data from analytics firm TUNE, you're more likely to find new apps to download in the App Store search results than anywhere else, and the competition isn't even close. The percentage of people who claimed their most recently downloaded app was discovered in search results stands at 47%, while the next most popular response -- "My friends/family told me about it" -- accounts for just 15%. Other responses that were less common included reading about the app online, and finding it in one of Apple's featured sections. The numbers are pretty bold, and fall roughly in line with those of studies by other analytics companies, but what exactly does it mean? The suggestion here is that search optimization is a key factor in the success or failure of an app, as half of an apps sales are likely to come from user search results. However, the idea that half of app downloads come from users who didn't even know the app existed to begin with may be a bit far-fetched, so there's obviously factors not being taken into account here. Yes, the customer might have found the app's page using the search function, but how did they know to search for it to begin with? Things like weather apps and other essentials can be search for with generic terms, but the App Store is filled with specialized apps with extremely unique names, and countless numbers of those are getting plenty of attention as well. Perhaps these surveys need a bit more specificity, or maybe respondents are simply confused by the question itself. If you heard about an app from a website or a friend, but then use the search function on the App Store in order to actually locate it, which answer fits the best? [via TechCrunch]
Study: Social networks are making you distrustful and unhappy
Facebook's 2012 experiment, while controversial, showed that what other people post on social media can alter moods. Apparently, though, that's not the only thing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others of their ilk can do: according to a study by two European researchers, social media could also affect how satisfied people are with their lives. Fabio Sabatini from the Sapienza University in Rome and Francesco Sarracino from STATEC, the government statistics agency of Luxembourg, paired up to crunch data from a huge survey (seriously, there were 50,000 responders) conducted in Italy. That survey asked participants how satisfied they are with their current lives, how often they meet with friends, whether they trust people and what they typically do on the internet.
Women are more prone to spending cash on in-app purchases
Ladies, I'm not blaming you for the fact that Kim Kardashian's obnoxious celebrity simulator is raking in huge mounds of cash, but a new study says you're more likely to embrace in-app purchases if you lack a Y chromosome. The data -- gathered by analytics firm Flurry -- shows that women make 31% more in-app transactions than men, and spend 35% more time with mobile games overall. The study, which sampled games on over a million devices, also showed trends within specific game genres. Men were more likely to spend time on strategy and competitive card games, while women played more solitaire, and simulation titles -- like Kim Kardashian's new game. Women were also found to be more "loyal" to the games they played, showing more dedication over a 7-day period than men. This makes sense of course because men hunt and women nest... right?
CNN wants to prove that drones are safe for news reporting
Stunning video footage like that from a recent tornado in Arkansas (see below) shows the potential for drones to radically change journalism. However, it's illegal to operate them in the US, especially near a disaster or accident scene -- which has prompted a new research project from CNN and the Georgia Institute of Technology. The aim is to figure out which type of equipment, personnel and safety measures would be needed to safely operate news-gathering drones in US airspace. While such UAVs would no doubt give media outlets like CNN improved coverage, they'd often end up in close proximity to crowds, emergency personnel and even rescue aircraft. That means US regulators might be reluctant to approve them for reporting -- even though they've already authorized lower-risk activities like pipeline inspection. CNN's group hopes to show the FAA that it can be made safe for journalism, likely so that it won't be frozen out when new drone regulations are finally announced. [Image credit: Brian Emfinger via YouTube]
Want to hijack people's PCs? Pay them a few cents
Apparently, hackers wanting to control PCs are wasting their time with elaborate botnets and vulnerability exploits -- all they may really need is some pocket change. A study found that between 22 to 43 percent of people were willing to install unknown software on their PCs in return for payments ranging from a penny to a dollar, even when their OS flagged the app as a potential threat that required permission to run. While you might think that respondents would naturally be a bit suspicious, that wasn't usually the case. As researcher Nicolas Christin notes, just 17 people out of 965 were running virtual machines that limited the possible damage; only one person went in fully expecting trouble, according to exit surveys.
Apple is becoming an increasingly major player in enterprise
The sun has long since set on the days of enterprise users walking around with BlackBerry smartphones on their hips, but what is taking the place of those keyboard-clad handsets? According to a new report soon to be released by Apple-focused IT management app maker JAMF Software (publisher of Casper Suite), the number of businesses answering that question with "Apple" is larger than ever before. The small-sample study polled 309 IT professionals about Apple device usage within their walls. Their findings show that Apple is making huge gains in enterprise adoption, with over 90% of businesses polled supporting one or more Apple devices for employees. A full 98% expect the use of Apple devices in their businesses to grow even more over the next three years. The data points to a huge spike in Apple enterprise usage, with use of devices like the iPhone and iPad more than doubling in the past three years. The appeal of Apple's gadgets is a huge factor in this upswing, with 78% of respondents stating user preference was a factor in their company choosing to support Apple hardware. On the other side of the coin, the majority of IT professionals polled say that they're not very confident in the tools they have to manage Apple devices in their companies. This is of course great news for JAMF, as the company is in the business of helping organizations adopt Apple devices for business use, but it also shows that the desire for shiny new Apple gadgets is outpacing many companies' ability to adapt to the changing tide. Other players in the cross-platform IT management space like Absolute, IBM Tivoli, Cisco Meraki, VMware's AirWatch and HP OpenView are also supporting the increased demand for Apple in the enterprise -- and Apple's MDM hooks are improving to make the job easier. It's clear at this point that the iPhone and iPad aren't going anywhere, so Apple's growing role in enterprise doesn't seem to be at risk of being a flash in the pan. At the same time, companies looking to fit Apple devices into their systems run the risk of being unprepared for the venture, which isn't ideal for anyone involved. The real takeaway here -- aside from Apple continuing to gain important traction with businesses -- is that a great end-user experience is dependent on IT experts having a handle on Apple's devices and management tools before their company springs for thousands of company-owned iPhones. It seems like a no brainer, but the numbers show that it's a problem yet to be adequately addressed by many businesses. [Photo credit: Cristiano Betta]
Fans watched 2.4 billion hours of eSports in 2013
Got some spare time on your hands? Apparently so, according to a recently-unveiled report from IHS Technology, which claims that people tuned into eSports-themed video programming for a total of 2.4 billion hours in 2013. Just in case that slipped by, that's billion. With a B. Which is roughly 273,973 years.IHS expects this trend to continue, predicting that we'll watch a combined 6.6 billion hours in 2018. Another number on the rise: advertising dollars. According to the report, eSports generated more than $32.8 million in online advertising revenue in 2013, and IHS expects that number to grow by more than 250 percent over the next four years. League of Legends was the most-watched competitive game in 2013, followed by Dota 2 and StarCraft 2. The largest audiences for top competitive games were found in China, with silver and bronze for number of spectators going to the USA and South Korea. [Image: Riot Games]
Study claims that virtual drug dealing cuts back on real violence
Few would say the FBI was doing something wrong by shutting down Silk Road's online black market, but new research suggests that there may have been a silver lining to the service's dark cloud. Researchers Judith Aldridge and David Decary-Hetu claim in a recent study that Silk Road was cutting back on violence. Since many of the sales were dealer-to-dealer rather than to customers, that supposedly reduced the chances for real-world confrontations -- you can't start a gun battle over prices when you're on the other side of the country.
Can't I help you? Shoppers are shunning store assistants in favor of smartphones
Although it often feels like you're stealing, being able to walk into an store, pay for a product with your phone and leave without any employee interaction can be liberating. It's an experience that an increasing number of consumers are starting to enjoy too, as evidenced by a new report from Deloitte that suggests shoppers would rather pull out their smartphone or tablet inside a store than speak to an associate. More than half of the people surveyed admitted they prefer using a mobile device to compare prices, gather more information or check availability, while just under half of respondents said they'd rather use complete a mobile payment than head to a cash register. Even unmanned kiosks (think touch displays or tables full of tablets) outranked small talk with a retail employee.
ESA study: 59% of Americans play games, 68% on consoles
Ladies. Gentlemen. Look to your left. Now look to your right. Data from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) suggests that nearly 2 out of 3 Americans - 59 percent, to be exact - play games. That's right. One of you is a non-believer. Shuuuuuuuuuuuuun. Yes, the ESA's data for 2014 has been released, and there's plenty more numbers to be read, analyzed and scrutinized. For example, 68 percent of respondents reported they they play games on consoles, making them the most-played dedicated gaming device. Smartphones are catching up, however. The ESA's data reports that 53 percent of Americans play games on their smartphones, an increase of 22 percent since 2012. While, according to the ESA, 95 percent of parents pay attention to the content of the games their children play, only 56 percent of parents found video games to be a positive part of their child's life. That may not be too big of an issue however, as the average gamer is 31 years old, and has been playing games for 14 years. There's plenty more data to be found in the ESA's full report, if you're feeling so inclined. [Image: Entertainment Software Association]
First UK Google Glass trial gives Parkinson's sufferers more independence
Before Glass becomes a publicly available product, Google's quietly embarked on a campaign to get its iconic eyewear into the hands of those who can use it to tackle complex issues. After it gifted five pairs to researchers at Newcastle University, Google's allowed its wearable to undergo its first UK medical trial, where it's being used to support people suffering from Parkinson's disease. Researchers want to help patients live more independently, and they're already seeing results.
