Hasta La Gadget!

Pleated pants get a bad rap. Favored by lawyers, golfers and otherwise corporate types, they rarely end up on the best-dressed list. A friend of mine once referred to two lawyers as having “16 pleats between them.”

But recently, our beauty editor walked in and changed the whole game. She was wearing a new pair of black, cropped trousers that showcased her cute flats. I was floored and quickly Googled “pleated pants” faster than you can say “credit card limit.” Her pleated pants were subtle enough to not scream “I love Lexis-Nexis!” and the slight volume complemented her tiny waist.

The best part? Pleated pants are flattering on most body types. The trick is in choosing high-waisted styles that show off your trim mid-section (that’s for you hourglass and pear-shaped gals), and making sure that look for small pleats to add just a little volume around your waist (which is nicely balanced by the cropped hems to show off fancy footwear). Ruler-shaped ladies, enjoy the curves that the pleats add to your lean frame, and consider going for wide-legged styles that play nicely with proportions.

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Google just sent out invites for an October 29th Android event in NYC. The festivities start at 10:00 and the event will also be live streamed on YouTube, seemingly indicating this is a big announcement. The invite sheds little light on the subject matter, but that’s the date long-rumored for the launch of LG Nexus smartphone.

There have been rumblings for several weeks now concerning the next Nexus smartphone. It’s reported to be an LG handset and several product shots have leaked out. Very little is known about the hardware, though, besides that it has a backside that appears to have been bedazzled by a 12-year old. There have also been rumors about a Nexus flagship made by Sony.

There’s also a chance that Google will announce a new range of Nexus 7 tablets, perhaps with a model costing as low as $100 and another with 64GB of storage.

The event happens the Monday after Apple’s iPad mini event and the launch of Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface. Intentional timing? You bet. With every announcement, Google is pushing its own branded hardware more than ever before.

No matter what’s announced, we’ll be there in force, ready to liveblog the action no matter how boring or dull it might be.

Google just sent out a mysteriously cute invitation about an Android event happening on October 29th in New York. All the invitation says is ‘the playground is open’. What does that mean? More »

For the first time ever, a Forrester survey on Internet usage found that users report spending less time online than they did in 2011, nearly back to the average duration reported in 2009. According to Forrester, this data likely doesn’t demonstrate a true drop in Internet usage, however, instead representing a change in the notion of what it means to be online. The information comes from a survey of 58,000 US adults.

Forrester had this to say on the subject:

“Our analysis revealed that “being online” is becoming a fluid concept. Consumers no longer consider some of the online activities they perform to be activities related to “using the Internet.” … The Internet has become such a normal part of their lives that consumers don’t register that they are using the Internet when they’re on Facebook, for example. It’s only when they are actively doing a specific task, like search, that they consider this to be time that they’re spending online.”

Not only does the data show a decline in reported Internet usage, it also demonstrates a decline in the number of (US-based) consumers who own a laptop, netbook, or desktop. The data shows that smartphones and tablets are primarily used (in relation to the Internet) to access social networking websites, while consumers still prefer either a laptop or a desktop for performing other, more “serious” tasks. This delineation between PC and mobile device usage may indicate that Internet users don’t consider the times they pull out a smartphone or tablet as “being online,” but rather only when they sit down and perform a specific Internet-related activity on the computer.

According to the survey, the average number of hours a US adult spent online dropped from 21.9 in 2011 to 19.6 in 2012. In addition, the data shows a steady drop since 2009 in reported hours spent listening to traditional radio, a three-year decline in reading non-online newspapers, a slow drop since 2009 in watching TV, and the first drop since 2009 in the number of hours spent reading magazines. All activities in the survey were of the non-Internet variety, meaning that listening to the radio, for example, did not factor in time spent listening to Internet radio.

[via AllThingsD]

Forrester survey shows first ever “decline” in Internet usage is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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I like this visualization, perhaps because its crude, almost childish look contrasts with the horror it depicts in such a simple way: Worldwide dictators ordered by the number of killings, one drop, one million dead. More »