study

James Cameron's solo dive to the ocean's deepest spot

James Cameron is a man who clearly likes to collect records. Already, the famous film director has twice broken the record for highest-grossing movie of all time, first with "Titanic," and later with "Avatar." But in 2012, he went for a very different kind of mark: the deepest solo sea dive in history.

On March 25, Cameron piloted a submersible known as the Deepsea Challenger to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, fully 35,756 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. He was not the first to make that dive -- Navy Lt. Don … Read more

Singles go for smartphones, while couples like tablets?

Now singles can look at what device someone is using to decide whether they're married and if it's safe to hit on them.

Singles seem to prefer smartphones while married folks go for tablets, according to a new study released today by marketing firms The Search Agency and Harris Interactive.

"Married people are often older, have more disposable income and can more easily justify superfluous pieces of technology, such as tablets," The Search Agency's marketing strategy vice president Mike Solomon said in a statement. "At the same time, baby boomers are often more tech-literate … Read more

iPads once again the top holiday gadget among kids, study says

Kids in the U.S. sure do like Apple gear, says a new study.

According to a recent poll of children ages 6 to 12 in the U.S. by research firm Nielsen, Apple's tablet once again came in first as the most-wanted gadget this holiday season, followed closely by iPods and iPhones. Of those polled, 48 percent said they wanted an iPad.

This is actually the third year in a row Apple's tablet has topped the list. Since 2010, the gadget has beat out computers, and Apple's own iPod Touch. This year's list also includes … Read more

GOP flip-flops over supporting digital copyright reforms

In an bizarre policy flip-flop, a group of more than 160 House Republicans appeared to endorse extensive digital copyright reform on Friday, then disavowed its position the next day.

The House Republican Study Committee, an influential collection of conservatives that tends to pull the House leadership to the right, published a set of recommendations that could have been penned by Larry Lessig and the Electronic Frontier Foundation: expanded fair use rights, lower penalties for "willful" infringement, and dramatically abbreviated copyright terms.

That seemed to be more evidence that Republicans had become copyright skeptics, especially since most of the … Read more

Teens grab up smartphones faster than other age groups

Even though it doesn't really come as a surprise to hear that teenagers love smartphones, there's now new data to back up all previous assumptions.

Young adults aged 25 to 34 own smartphones more than any other age group with 74 percent of the market, according to a new study by Nielsen, which included interviews with 20,000 mobile users in July. However, teens aged 13 to 17 are grabbing up smartphones at a much quicker rate than young adults.

"Interestingly, teenagers between 13 and 17 years old demonstrated the most dramatic increases in smartphone adoption, with … Read more

Android, iOS growing 10 times faster than PCs did in the 1980s

The Android and iOS operating systems may be even more popular than you think.

Research firm Flurry Analytics today announced that iOS and Android adoption is ten times greater than PC adoption at that technology's rapid-growth phase in the 1980s. The mobile platforms have amassed users twice as quickly as the Web during its go-go period in the 1990s, and three times faster than recent social networks. The company is basing those figures on the first five years of widespread adoption across all of these technologies.

According to Flurry, 640 million iOS or Android-based devices were in use last … Read more

iPad still a destination for fun and games, study finds

Apple's iPad can do an awful lot. But most iPad owners would prefer to stick to Web surfing and entertainment, according to a new study.

Research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners today released the results of a study it conducted of more than 1,000 iPad buyers between December 2011 and April 2012. CIRP asked those recent buyers what they're most likely to do with their slate and found that 40 percent of respondents indicated they surf the Web on the iPad, leading all possible activities.

Watching video, looking at photos, or listening to music, lumped together as &… Read more

Tech layoffs hit 3-year high of 51,529 in first half of 2012

Though there's talk of the economy slowly but surely making a comeback, layoffs in the tech sector hit their highest level in three years during the first half of 2012, according to a report released today by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

During the first half of the year, 51,529 planned job cuts were announced across the tech sector, representing a 260 percent increase over the 14,308 layoffs planned during the first half of 2011. Things are so bad so far this year that the figure is 39 percent higher than all the job cuts recorded … Read more

Apple's reputation untarnished by tax issue, study says

Apple's use of various tax loopholes to save money, as chronicled in a recent New York Times story, has not damaged the company's reputation, according to a new study.

Polling firm YouGov -- which we've previously mentioned in relation to one of Facebook's early privacy flaps -- says perceptions of Apple are back to where they were before the publication of the Times story, which focused on the company's tactics to save money by setting up businesses in tax-friendly locations.

The firm says Apple's reputation is "virtually Teflon," when compared to the tax story … Read more