By Adriana Lee |
Less than 10 years ago, most mobile users couldn’t even conceive of the computing power they’d eventually have in their hands. Imagine — the primary use for cell phones was actually talking back then. And now that our mobiles are more advanced than many desktop computers…
By Adriana Lee |
We’ve reached a tipping point for mobile usage: According to Pew Internet & American Life Project, a majority of Americans are now rocking smartphones — although there seems to be a slight disparity over how users define smartphone. Pew got slightly different numbers when it rephrased…
By Adriana Lee |
If something happens and you don’t share it online, did it really happen? You might not think so, judging by Mary Meeker’s renowned Internet Trends Report. This year’s edition corroborates what most of us already knew: Today’s world is more obsessed than ever with sharing photos,…
By Adriana Lee |
Is Facebook beginning to flatline among teenagers? Last month, a Piper Jaffray survey suggested that teens are growing weary of the social network, and now Pew Internet & American Life Project has published a report casting the social network as yesterday’s news. In terms of…
By Adriana Lee |
Bryan Gionfriddo knew something was horribly wrong. He and his wife, April, were at a restaurant when they noticed that their 6-month-old baby, Kaiba, suddenly couldn’t breath. He was turning blue. Panic set in, as his father pumped the baby’s little chest. The doctors said…
By Adriana Lee |
Imagine what driverless cars could do for society. Distracted and drunk driving accidents could be a thing of the past. The elderly would have built-in chauffeurs to shuttle them to doctors appointments. And no one would ever have to slap or blast chill themselves late…
By Adriana Lee |
Global warming has been a hot-button controversy for years, but there’s a new app that could end the discussion once and for all. Novim, a research group from UC Santa Barbara, took on the daunting task of wrangling data from more than two centuries of research…
By Adriana Lee |
Smartphone saturation has reached an all-time high. These days everyone, rich or poor, teens to grandparents, are rocking these advanced handsets. But are they so attached to these devices that they’d actually forego sex for a week before giving them up? If they’re young women,…
By Adriana Lee |
Is there anything about social media that researchers haven’t yet zoomed in on? This time, the study (.pdf) comes from a Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student and a Facebook staffer, who reveal that most Facebook users tend to self-censor their comments at the last minute before posting.…
By Adriana Lee |
Can you imagine data transfer speeds as fast as the speed of light? British researchers can. In fact, they’re almost there. Researcher Francesco Poletti and his team at the University of Southampton in England have created optical fibers that can transfer data at a jaw-dropping speed…
By Adriana Lee |
We all know trolls have a penchant for derailing comment threads. Who among us hasn’t witnessed an intelligent discourse devolve into name-calling, errantly accusing cesspools of time-sucking drivel? That may sound harsh, but there’s clear science to back up the detrimental effects of this particular…
By Adriana Lee |
If the race for innovation in mobile batteries hasn’t yet begun, it sure should. Writer Matthew Panzarino said it well (though, for some reason, he targeted the iPhone specifically): “Do you know why Apple doesn’t do ‘full on’ multitasking? Why it is so incredibly strict…
By Adriana Lee |
Although Facebook may be the darling of the social webs, number two ain’t so bad. Twitter’s rise to prominence has made it a fundamental component of strategic promotions for advertisers, financial institutions, entertainment companies, journalists, and plenty of others. But it shouldn’t get too smug…
By Adriana Lee |
“I love you more than this” letterpressed card from paperwheel via Etsy Happy Valentine’s Day, Buffalo-land. In honor of the day of love, why not put that smartphone, tablet, handheld game or laptop down and focus on that significant other instead? (Unless your idea of…
By Adriana Lee |
I remember 2007, when the first iPhone came out. No one but my richest friends had one, thanks to that wallet-gouging $500 (4GB) – $600 (8GB) price point. It took a special kind of consumer to happily cough up that much dough and contend with…
By Adriana Lee |
When little Adriana Lee used to do research for a term paper, she’d sling a massive bookbag onto her back, hoof it over to the local library and spend hours eyeball-deep in dusty card catalogues, microfiches, books, notes and Xerox copies. I loathe to admit…
By Adriana Lee |
There is no doubt that mobile app usage is growing. In fact, U.S. consumers spend 35 percent more time with mobile apps than they did last year, at 127 minutes per day. That’s more than two hours daily. Compared to traditional desktop web usage, which…
By Adriana Lee |
Device manufacturers and PR reps dedicate huge resources to making us want their products. They do studies, gauge metrics and still, many of them can’t figure out why one device is considered lustworthy by the masses, while others can’t even be given away. Google may…
By Adriana Lee |
You may already know that checking Facebook and email, and surfing the web are incredibly tempting. But did you realize that these activities are actually more irresistible than sex? Those are the findings of a new German study that used a smartphone-based system to survey…
By Adriana Lee |
According to a new report from Pew Internet & American Life Project, people are doing more than just placing calls on their mobile phones. But of course, we knew that. Most of us are snap-happy, photo-taking mobile users as well as texting fiends, after all.…
By Brandon Russell |
That big earth shattering announcement researchers teased last week isn’t going to be anything special, according to NASA. Maybe the Red Planet is a lot less interesting than we initially thought. Maybe there aren’t any buried human (or alien) remains waiting to be found. Or…
By Adriana Lee |
Experts once predicted that the rise of legitimate, legal avenues for online content would seriously undercut BitTorrent downloads. Indeed, the torrenting’s total share of Internet traffic has decreased — from 17.3 percent of all Internet traffic two years ago, to 11.3 percent six months ago, to…
By Adriana Lee |
Facebook. For many people it’s either a reason for living or the most colossal waste of time. (Sometimes, it’s both.) But if the latest research holds true, it could also be something else — a driver for obesity and poverty. These are the findings of…
By Todd Haselton |
Samsung, Apple and Nokia are the world’s three largest mobile phone makers, but Samsung and Apple alone are responsible for a stunning 46.5% of all smartphone sales around the globe. The two firms were followed by RIM and HTC. The news is from a report…
