Tag: research
Video games CAN be good for you
Twitter predicts winning stocks, study shows
Create a buzz and stocks rise – literally. Investors following tweets about the stock market would have seen an average return rate of 15%, a study from the Technical University of Munich suggested. Researcher Timm Sprenger said there was…
Wireless broadband slows down connection by 30%, research shows
While having wireless access to your broadband at home allows for a significant amount of freedom to roam about the place, this comes at a price. Running your internet connection through a wireless connection will slow you down by…
Slow start for 3D TV sales in Europe
Hailed as the best thing since sliced bread, it's been hard to avoid the buzz generated around 3D TVs over the last 18 months. However, it appears, so far at least, that the massive promotional push behind 3D TV has…
Brain training games do not make you smarter – FACT
Nicole Kidman may have been fooled by its cute brain teasing charms, but Tech Digest were never truly convinced. Now there's proof: new research shows that brain training games do not improve your IQ. A scientific study of 11,430…
Twitter is just a passing fad, claims research
Research from Nielsen Online suggests that Twitter might have problems with ‘stickiness’ – with retaining users that give it a try. Its statistics suggest that more than 60% of Twitter users fail to return a month of using it.
In fact for most of the past twelve months, Twitter has had difficulty keeping more than 30% of its users after a month, though the entry of Oprah Winfrey has helped. Facebook and MySpace, before their explosive growth periods, had nearly double the retention rates that Twitter currently faces.
What would be interesting to see would be how many people come back later on. It’s been my experience of the site that people sign up and bag their name, then ignore it until lots of their friends are using it, at which time they return.
Still, it’s worrying news for the site which needs to start crossing over sooner, rather than later. Intense media coverage in the UK has helped, but it’s still not obvious to many new Tweeters how the site works, or its Twittiquette.
(via Nielsen Wire)
Research claims violent video games are good for you
Research from US and Israeli scientists indicates that playing violent video games might be good for your eyes. The researchers asked two groups of non-gamers to play Call of Duty and The Sims, and then tested their vision.
Turns out that contrast sensitivity increased 43% in the group playing Call of Duty, whereas it only increased 11% in the people playing The Sims. The researchers think this may be because Call of Duty is a little more fast-moving than Maxis’ hit game.
As an avid gamer who had his first eye test over the weekend, I’m not convinced. As a gamer who gets occasionally nagged to play less ‘shooty-loud’ games, I’ve now got an excuse. Guess science is good for something.
(via Metro)
Swiss researchers can steal passwords from 65 feet away
A bunch of Swiss researchers have worked out “a variety” of ways to steal passwords from wired keyboards. That’s right – wired keyboards. It relies on the electromagnetic emanations that happen when you push the keys on the keyboard, and you can see a demonstration in the video above…
Popularity of buying digital goods via mobile phone set to soar
New research suggests that, globally, two billion mobile users will have bought digital goods using their phones by the year 2013.
“Digital goods” means anything that can be delivered directly to the phone over the cellular network or Internet, including ringtones, music, videos, electronic tickets, TV programmes, and games…
Microsoft studies 30bn instant messages and "proves" six degrees of separation theory
The theory that every human being is separated from anyone else by a maximum of six steps may have gained some ground thanks to a study of some thirty billion instant messages by Microsoft’s researchers.
Studying the addresses of messages sent during June 2006 (yes, two years ago — what, were they reading them as well?), the researchers found that any two people were linked by seven or fewer acquaintances — 6.6 steps to be precise, with over three-quarters of the pairs linkable in seven or fewer steps…
