Hasta La Gadget!

TV viewers are a famously fickle bunch, which tends to drive TV advertisers crazy. The prevalent theory remains that skipping past ads using a pesky DVR is the biggest enemy of marketers, but new research has once again contradicted that received wisdom. The IPG Media Lab in Los Angeles pulled together a representative group of 48 TV and online video viewers and asked them to sit through some programming while equipped with the usual “devices or distractions” that accompany their viewing habits. Central to the study was the measurement of time each person spent facing the screen and how engaged they were with the content. The first thing noted was that 94 percent of TV viewers and 73 percent of online video consumers used some other form of media to augment their visual entertainment. Smartphones were the most common, with 60 percent of test subjects resorting to their handset while gawking at the TV. That’s resulted in a mediocre 52 percent attention level during actual programs and 37 percent during ads. In other words, two thirds of the time, commercials are being ignored and smartphones are helping people with that heinous behavior. Ironically, fast-forwarding adverts using a DVR garnered attention levels that were 12 percent higher, mostly because people were trying to make sure they didn’t skip too far ahead. Damn, why does reality have to be all complex and stuff?

Smartphones, not DVRs, are the biggest threat to TV adverts originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 May 2011 08:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gadgets need to be rounded up and thrown in a cell right alongside meat glue, child pageants and other notorious public enemies. The crime? Stressing people out, according to researchers at Ipsos Mendelsohn. The evidence? A survey of affluent Americans with a household income over $100,000 who moaned that their lives are more “complicated” than they were a decade ago. Damningly, the vast majority of these respondents also admitted that their lives are more “technology-infused” than a decade ago. The researchers also highlighted evidence from a separate poll of affluents, showing the growing prevalence of certain gadgets that add to the “complex calculus” of our lives: E-reader ownership has doubled over the last eight months, smartphone ownership is up to 52 per cent, and a third of affluents either own a tablet or expect to buy one soon. Sufficient proof, it seems, to send these poor devices down for life — especially if we disregard all the other things that have stressed out rich Americans over the past decade (recessions, deficits, bad TV serials) and the possibility that busier people might actually need more technology to help them cope.

Gadgets convicted of making us miserable, dodgy stats used as evidence originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 09:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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E-readers may not be good enough for Princeton’s hallowed halls, but students and professors at Oklahoma State University seem to have fallen head over heels for their iPads. Last fall, the school introduced the tablets in a handful of lecture halls and classrooms, as part of its iPad Pilot Program. Teachers involved in the study said they benefited from all the educational software available on Apple’s App Store, while students appreciated not having to spend their life savings on traditional textbooks. At the end of the pilot program, a full 75-percent of collegians said the iPad “greatly enhanced” their classroom experience, though we’re guessing that much of that enhancement came from their newfound ability to check TweetDeck between lecture notes. Opinion was noticeably more divided, however, on the device’s value as an e-reader. Some enjoyed having all their books in one place, whereas others were a bit disappointed with the experience, saying they didn’t use it to read as often as they expected to. Our former undergrad-slacker selves can totally relate. Video and PR await you, after the break.

Continue reading Shocker! College kids like having iPads in the classroom

Shocker! College kids like having iPads in the classroom originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 14:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you haven’t heard of Dr. Amar Bose directly, you’ve surely heard of his eponymous audio equipment company. Late last week, the 81-year old founder and chairman of Bose Corporation announced that he’s donating the majority of shares in the privately held company to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A member of that college’s graduating class of 1951 and its electrical engineering faculty all the way until 2001, Bose felt compelled to give something back and he’s opted for the most grandiose of gestures. MIT won’t be able to sell its shares in Bose Corp. nor have any say in the way it is run, but it’ll receive dividends as and when they’re paid out, which will then be reinvested in its research and education programs. In making this perpetual endowment public, Amar Bose took the time to credit Professors Y. W. Lee, Norbert Wiener and Jerome Wiesner as his mentors — in the image above, you can see him pictured with Lee (left) and Wiener (right) back in 1955. Chalkboards, that’s where it all began.

Amar Bose donates majority of Bose Corporation shares to MIT, says thanks for the education originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 05:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wondering which carrier you should buy your iPhone on? There’s a survey for that. ChangeWave Research has released the results of a poll that hit 4,068 users distributed across Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. Among those four, VZW came out ahead when it comes to dropped calls, with 1.4 percent of respondents indicating they’d received one in the past three months. AT&T, meanwhile, came in last with 4.6 percent. If you look only at the iPhone 4 users the numbers change a little, 1.8 percent vs. 4.8, but the conclusion stays the same. No, this conclusion sadly will not get you around your ETF, but maybe making a pouty face at the AT&T store will help.

Update: AT&T let us know it has some doubts about these results. We’re not statisticians but we will, out of fairness, link over to this GWS survey from last year that showed 98.59 percent success rate for non-dropped calls. How do your numbers compare?

Survey says AT&T drops more calls than Verizon, these bar charts don’t lie originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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