Behavior: Napping Can Prime the Brain for Learning

well i couldn't find anything remotely interesting on this topic.. as usual but i do like research on naps.. because lets face it we all love naps. especially the ones that you literally only slept 15 minutes but it feels like hrs and after you wake up you feel well rested.



Behavior: Napping Can Prime the Brain for Learning

It turns out that toddlers are not the only ones who do better after an afternoon nap. New research has found that young adults who slept for 90 minutes after lunch raised their learning power, their memory apparently primed to absorb new facts.

Other studies have indicated that sleep helps consolidate memories after cramming, but the new study suggests that sleep can actually restore the ability to learn.

The findings, which have not yet been published, were presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.

“You need to sleep before learning, to prepare your brain, like a dry sponge, to absorb new information,” said the lead investigator, Matthew P. Walker, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley.

The study recruited 39 healthy young adults and divided them into two groups. All 39 were asked to learn 100 names and faces at noon, and then to learn a different set of names and faces at 6 p.m. But 20 of the volunteers who slept for 90 minutes between the two learning sessions improved their scores by 10 percent on average after sleeping; the scores of those who didn’t nap actually dropped by 10 percent.

original article.

Already! in only 2 days.Spammers already targeting Google Buzz

wow! that was fast this article makes a Good point. it did take twitter a few months i think before it started sending out spam. because i remember i even had to to change My password to prevent it from happening. so yeah that was pretty fast 2 days.

Spammers began targeting Google Buzz just days after it was launched, according to security company Websense, Inc.

The security company issued an alert on Google Buzz late last week noting that the first spam attack, which was about smoking, hit the new social networking hub last Thursday.

Websense noted that its analysts expected spam messages to pop up on Google Buzz, just not so soon.

"When Twitter was launched, it took a while before it was used to send spam and other malicious messages," Websense said in its alert. "In this case, it only took two days. It's clear that the bad guys have learned from their experience using social networks to distribute these type of messages."

Last week, Google added social networking tools to its Gmail e-mail service. Google Buzz is designed to help users more easily and quickly find the most important information contained in their flood of social posts, pictures and videos.

Last Friday, Google rolled out several tweaks to Buzz in an attempt to address privacy concerns. Then over the weekend, Google said that over the next several weeks it will offer up more tweaks to deal with privacy issues.

original article.

Google tweaks Gmail to challenge Facebook, Twitter

GOOGLE! we all love google.pshh at least i know that i do.. I'm always googling things! so yeah lets see what google can now offer us! gotta love them over there at google. great thinkers!

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb 9 (Reuters) - Google Inc (GOOG.O) injected social networking features into its popular Web email product as the world's No. 1 search engine seeks to fend off competition from Facebook and Twitter.

Google introduced a new product dubbed Google Buzz on Tuesday that allows users to quickly share messages, Web links and photos with friends and colleagues directly within Gmail, the company's popular email product.

And the company unveiled a handful of new products designed to make the new social networking features suited to mobile devices, like smartphones based on Google's Android operating system.

Google's new social networking technology mimics some of the key features of popular social networking services like Twitter and Facebook, which are increasingly challenging Google for web surfers' online time.

Gmail is the third most popular Web based email in the world, with 176.5 million unique visitors in December, according to comScore. Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Inc's (YHOO.O) Mail were No. 1 and No. 2, with 369.2 million unique visitors and 303.7 million unique visitors respectively.

In addition to the Buzz features for Gmail, Google said it is launching a special mobile application for Buzz, as well as weaving Buzz technology into the mobile versions of its flagship Web site and its maps products.

Google has tried to ride the social networking wave before, launching the Orkut social network in 2004. But while Orkut is big in certain overseas markets, like Brazil, it has failed to attract as many users as social giants like Facebook and MySpace in the United States.

In building a social network on top of an email product, Google is following in the footsteps of Yahoo, which has taken a similar approach in efforts to keep up with Facebook. (Additional reporting by Ian Sherr, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

Google Chrome

i use Google Chrome at home i love it.. i really think its alot faster then the Internet exploer but i guess there are some new updates i havent read the article yet so i cant really go into detail but i'll post it so you can see for yourself. hope you all have a great weekend,or had a great weekend i should say.

The latest browser market share numbers are out and, judging by the headlines, Google is crushing the competition with the Chrome Web browser. Chrome is "on a roll", or even "skyrocketing" depending on the source.

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•Apple Releases Firmware Update for IMac Screen Flickering 30200484 You may be surprised to find that, behind the hyperbole, Chrome is the third place Web browser with a meager 5.2 percent market share. Chrome has only about one-fifth the market share of second place Firefox, and a miniscule one-tenth of the still-dominant Internet Explorer.

I am not sure that 5.2 percent and "skyrocketing" really go together. Chrome "jumped" almost six-tenths of a percentage point--a whopping six-hundredths of a percentage point more than the drop experienced by Internet Explorer.

Microsoft should just fold up its tent and get out of the browser business now. Its demise is obviously inevitable judging by the sensational assessments being made throughout the media.

Wait. Perhaps that is a tad premature. At the rate of a six-hundredths of a percent gain each month, Chrome will pass Internet Explorer....carry the three...divide by the co-efficient--never mind. It will be a long, long, long time--like after I'm dead and buried.

But, here's the real question: who cares?? Honestly. The browser wars are the technology equivalent of following celebrity stories in the tabloids, or worrying about who will take home the Grammy award for "best female artist". It captures headlines and makes for some passionate debate around the water cooler, yet matters not one iota in the real world.

From the perspective of the vendors making the browsers, the only thing really at stake is bragging rights. The software is distributed for free. There is no profit motive to the browser wars. Winning the browser wars is, at best, a hollow victory.

Google and Microsoft generate revenue from other Web-based ventures, particularly online and search-based advertising, but that revenue is browser-agnostic. Google and Microsoft get paid for the ads no matter which browser is used to surf the Web and view the ads. If Microsoft could capture a dominant share of the Web advertising revenue, but lose the browser wars, that would be an acceptable exchange as far as shareholders are concerned.

As far as users are concerned, the Web browser is really a simple matter of preference. One may be milliseconds faster than another, or include a unique feature or two, but for the most part a browser is a browser is a browser.

The decision between using Firefox, or Chrome, or Internet Explorer is like the decision between buying a Mustang, or an Impala, or a Suburban, or like choosing whether to watch Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother. It's a matter of subjective opinion.

For businesses and IT administrators, there are some other, more practical considerations that go into the browser decision. Businesses have Web-enabled applications that may not work in some browsers, or may work better in one browser than another. Switching browsers could invite a massive undertaking to re-engineer those applications.

IT administrators also need Web browsers that are simple to deploy, configure, and maintain across the network. Web browsers that tie in with Microsoft Active Directory and provide the ability to manage via Group Policy have an advantage in a business-world that tends to be Microsoft-centric.

Aside from that, though, businesses don't really need to care about the browser wars either. As long as the browser works with the applications the business uses, and provides a means for centrally managing and maintaining it, IT administrators aren't going to lose any sleep over whether it comes from Microsoft, or Mozilla, or Google.


original article.