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Shoot-'Em-Up Video Games Improve Vision
Tweet Share on Facebook March 30, 2009 CommentA recent study has shown that playing video games can improve vision. And not just any video games. Researchers found the benefit came in action-packed, first-person shooter games like Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 -- in Death Match mode.
Playing Sims 2, well, not so much. Those players were the control group in the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
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Apple iPhone and BlackBerry Users to Get Skype
Tweet Share on Facebook March 30, 2009 Comment (3)iPhone and BlackBerry users will get to end-run charges for cellphone minutes with free software coming from Skype. The popular service already provides millions of users with cheap Internet voice calls over desktop computers and other handsets, including Nokia and Windows Mobile models.
Reports say the Skype software will be available Tuesday at the iPhone App Store. The BlackBerry version is expected in May.
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Google's Cloud is Safer Than My Den
Tweet Share on Facebook March 18, 2009 Comment (2)A privacy group is asking federal regulators to force Google to take down its Web-based storage, including the hugely popular GMail. Google should have to prove the data that it stores is secure, says the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
The privacy group cites several known breaches of Google's security, including one this month that exposed some Google Docs to people without permission to see the files. Google had said the breach only affected a sliver of the documents stored and only among users who had previously shared files.
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Apple iPhone 3.0 Update Looks Underwhelming
Tweet Share on Facebook March 17, 2009 Comment (13)Maybe it's unfair to expect more groundbreaking news from Apple's iPhone. But I'm underwhelmed by the updates coming to the smartphone's software.
Most of the iPhone 3.0 changes will make current users happy by keeping their handset competitive. But there didn't seem to be anything particularly new or trendsetting.
The big additions for consumers include cut-and-paste editing, multimedia messaging, system-wide search, and wireless networking directly between iPhones. Other key changes benefit developers for iPhone apps, which already number more than 25,000. More power for developers will mean more power for the phone.
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Dell Adamo Laptop Ill-Timed in Targeting Stylish Buyers
Tweet Share on Facebook March 17, 2009 CommentFlicking concerns about the economy aside, Dell is launching its high-end Dell Adamo laptop later this month for $2,000. The super-thin notebook is clearly more about style than value, a point driven home by its Italian-sounding name and a Website filled with chic models in moody photos.
The Adamo earns a claim to being the world's thinnest notebook, with the Apple MacBook Air a tenth of an inch thicker at its thickest point. Like the Air, the Adamo's frame is cut from a single piece of aluminum. While the Adamo can claim to be thinner in height, the MacBook Air is smaller in width and length.
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Audio: Windows 7 Looks Like a Winner for Microsoft
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2009 Comment (5)Microsoft has suffered from bad PR, some fair and some unfair, surrounding its last major upgrade to the Windows operating system. Windows Vista was incompatible with some old hardware and software, wouldn't fully run on some hardware touted as "Vista ready," and otherwise left users disappointed and frustrated.
From early testing, many of those problems appear fixed for the next version, Windows 7. I spoke this weekend with WTOP about the promise of Windows 7 from my own experience and the generally upbeat reviews of others.
Windows 7 Looks Like a Winner
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Upgrading an operating system always presents hurdles and unpleasant surprises. Anyone comfortably running Vista, or perhaps even Windows XP, might find nothing compelling about the new system. But perhaps it won't frustrate those who get it pre-installed on a new computer, where it will begin appearing as soon as this fall.
For those who choose to upgrade, this version of Windows 7 may prove value enough to be worth the cost and hassle.
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McCain to Get Interviewed on Twitter
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2009 CommentIn a recent presentation to a conference, Twitter co-founder Evan William noted how President Obama's groundbreaking use of Twitter had fallen off in recent months. And how John McCain's had picked up.
We'll see if McCain truly gets Twitter in an interview to be conducted over the short-form service. He'll answer questions from ABC's George Stephanopoulos for the Sunday morning show, This Week.
Most of McCain's recent Tweets have been about his daily schedule, which amounts to a yawner for most of us. I don't have high hopes for tomorrow, either, recalling my disappointment in another political experiment on Twitter. That debate last summer between Obama and McCain aides hardly left me panting for more.
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Vudu Adds Pandora Music Streaming
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2009 Comment (1)Vudu said that the music-streaming service Pandora is available on its TV set-top box. Vudu customers can create new music channels and personalize them by adding Pandora's genre picks and "thumbing" songs up and down as they play.
Pandora on Vudu also supports multiple accounts. That enables family members to set up their own Pandora stations and control them with Vudu's nifty remote. It's all part of Vudu's effort, launched late last year, to open its box to other Web-based services as Vudu competes in the increasingly crowded field of streaming Internet entertainment.
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Report That Netflix is Throttling Streams Seems Off the Mark
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2009 Comment (2)An analysis suggests that Netflix is throttling its video streams to his PC, says Riyad Kalla at the Break it Down blog. He suggests Netflix has business and technical reasons for throttling PCs and not Xbox 360 users, which is the case in his experiment.
A wave of comments elsewhere suggests it's an isolated glitch. Or maybe Kalla's Internet provider is limiting the streams.
I'll add my voice to the chorus: Netfix is streaming nicely to our PC. An episode of 30 Rock that we played over the weekend hadthe best-looking Netflix stream that we've seen yet.
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How to Kill the Buzz: Say-Nothing Briefings for the Palm Pre
Tweet Share on Facebook March 13, 2009 Comment (2)At best, Sprint and Palm left journalists baffled after a webcast that said virtually nothing new about the Palm Pre. At worst, the companies fueled doubts that the phone will live up to the hype.
The partners revealed that the Pre would work with Sprint's usual service plans. That was about it. Yawn. They did also reiterate that the Pre would arrive sometime before July.
Maybe they felt compelled to do so after recent rumors the phone would be delayed. But those reports had quickly faded, anyway.
