Tag Archives: Study

After some deliberation, the highly respected Consumer Reports magazine has stripped its ‘recommended’ badge from Microsoft’s entire lineup of Surface PCs, finding that the hardware is “significantly less reliable” than other brands. Consumer Reports came to this conclusion after surveying around 90,000 laptop and tablet owners, finding that around 25 …

As silly as it might seem, violence in video games and its effect on players has been the subject of much debate over the years but this week, the psychologists over at Frontiers published a study to try and come to a conclusion once and for all. This team used …

The first results of a study into the effect space has on the human body, using twins Scott and Mark Kelley, have now been released. Thanks to their shared DNA, the studies show that space has effects on human gene expression, DNA methylation and “other biological markers.” The Kelley twins …

Nobody likes being injected, especially not children, but it turns out that distraction and setting can play a big part in how traumatic the experience is. Having kids put on a virtual reality headset and view relaxing scenes can help reduce the amount of pain felt while receiving the injections. …

The radio frequency resonant cavity thruster, otherwise known as the electromagnetic drive, or EM Drive, that so flummoxed scientists around the world over the past couple of years, is set to have its first test in space in the coming months. It's creator has booked a flight aboard a CubeSat …

A study that lasted a whole year to see how astronauts might deal with the difficulties of living in confined conditions with each other to simulate a round trip to Mars, has concluded in Hawaii. The study saw six scientists living together inside a specially built habitat for the full …

As much as car companies are touting automated features like autonomous emergency braking, lane assist and smart cruise control as important safety systems that could severely cut back on road collisions, they aren't as big a focus for consumers as you might expect. Drivers are more interested in dashboard cameras …

Laughing out loud, or “lol”, has been the go to phrase to communicate amusement online (no matter how small) forever. However according to new statistics, that may no longer be the case, with many Facebook users rarely, if ever using the acronym any more, preferring more speech-like “haha” and “hehe,” as …

Although there is a lot of research and effort going into figuring out Mars' future and how we might fit into that, many people (and a few rovers) are trying to figure out its past as well. Something that's become apparent about it recently, is that it has large deposits …

One of the fallacies often pushed forward by marketers and policy makers, is that consumers don't mind data being gathered on them; whether that information is the meta data for their phone calls – “if you don't have anything to hide” – or personal data used for advertising purposes. However …

Considering mobile data was almost non-existent a decade ago, it seems amazing to think how far it's come in just a few short years. But it's set to go even further in a few more, as new research suggests that by 2019, annual mobile data usage around the world could …

Even though we love a good opportunity to rail against mass data collection, there is some interesting information that can come out of it. Take Spotify's look at the habits of its millions of users, which has pointed out that age seems to be a big factor in a user's …

When companies as big and as technologically proficient as Sony get hacked, like it was last year, many people wonder just how exactly that could happen. Surely it knows how to protect itself? Well of course certain parts of it do, but firms like Sony are enormous, with many thousands of …

Despite Microsoft introducing the technology in the early '00s, it's only in the past few years that tablets have become a mainstream technology, with some 42 per cent of US under 18's now said to have one of their own. However, while many more of us may be tapping a …

One of the oldest arguments on the internet, is whether the illegal download of movies negatively affects sales numbers, especially when it comes to downloads during the film's theatrical run. Movie studios understandably claim that there's a direct correlation between a download and a lost sale, while pirates argue that illegal …

Who said studying had to be boring? A university in Baltimore is offering a new course called ‘Media Genres: Media Marvels', in which participants will watch and study Marvel comic book movies like Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man and Captain America in an effort to spot key insights in …

Facebook is finding itself under attack this morning, after news emerged that it had conducted a psychological experiment on just under 690,000 of its users without their permission. In conjunction with two universities, it manipulated the news feeds of individuals to see if it affected their regular posting habits. The …

Despite the efforts of the media and government officials to tout online drugs marketplaces as the new frontier in the “war on drugs,” fraught with hackers, scammers and other dangerous individuals, it looks like switching trading cash for drugs in a car park to doing so from the comfort of …

Piracy is often cited as the main detractor for album sales around the world, but a new study from the University of Colorado and Fairfield University has found evidence to suggest that even legitimate Youtube videos could cause a drop in album sales. The study is called Online Music, Sales …

Anyone that's been reading TorrentFreak for some time, or indeed our own news stories on the matter, will know that despite all the bluster from the media industry and its copyright lobbyists, file sharing looks like it helps media sales rather than hampering them. This idea is further backed up …

The MPAA has released what it describes as a ‘debunking' of the recent London School of Economics study that suggested piracy wasn't having anywhere near the negative impact that media lobbyists have been saying for years. The LSE's response? This is all par for the course. The study was “debunked” …

British broadcasting watchdog, OfCom, has conducted a study of piracy and online activity without interference from the media industry or its lobby groups and has found that piracy isn't perpetrated by large numbers of people and should be of little concern to the government or content producing companies. The research …

Game addiction is a dangerous thing according a new study from Cardiff, Derby and Nottingham Trent universities, with some players of popular MMOs spending upwards of 90 hours per session playing the games, and the researchers want developers to do something about it. According to e study, the problem with MMOs, …

Well who'd have thunk it? The average gamer isn't a young homophobic teen, but someone in their mid 30s, with a job and a steady relationship. It wasn't long ago that the world was shocked to learn that the average gamer was 31 years old, now they're 35. What's going …

Google makes the bulk of its revenue from advertising, almost £30 billion a year in fact. However that foundation of income could be threatened, as Ebay has just produced a new study that claims the adverts people are paying for, have almost no effect on sales. “Results show that brand-keyword …

While this might be something a lot of people have known about for a long time, it's not what you'd hear trumpeted by most big music labels. The claims often made by these corporations is that without album sales, musicians starve – it's why they go after pirates so much. …