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Brain Overloads: A Daily Dose of 34Gb Shortens Attention Span, study says

man getting mentally stressed with information overload
man getting mentally stressed with information overload

The human brain is capable of processing as much as 34 gigabytes of information a day. That’s about 100,500 words a day, equivalent to 23 words per second, University of San Diego researchers estimate.

Brains are bombarded with so much information through email, the internet, TV, radios, cell phones and other media forms. According to Edward Hallowell, a New York psychiatrist and author specializing in attention deficit disorder,

“Never before in human history have our brains had to process as much information as they do today. They (people) are so busy processing information from all directions they are losing the tendency to think and to feel.”

Studies have found that our daily intake of information is enough to overload a laptop in week! Imagine, how our brain works. Furthermore, neuro-experts believe that this is revolutionizing the way neurons behave causing new nerve cells to be born.

Click here to read more about Brain Overload, Brains Super-Processing Power, and Effect of Brain Overload to Memory Retention

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Facebook To Change Its Privacy Settings, CEO confirmed

facebook

Facebook have been around for more than 5 years making and sharing with friends from all over the world. Yet as the number of uses grew to about 350 million, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg states in his letter (below) that it needs to simplify its network settings in order to better protect users from theft and impose a better and more secure privacy settings.

Here is a quote of Mr. Zuckerberg’s open letter regarding the matter:

“Facebook’s current privacy model revolves around “networks” —

“… as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we’ve concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.

The plan we’ve come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.”

Click here to read the full report.

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Search Engines Are Sources of Learning

Google, an example of a search engines that provides assistance to narrow query patterns
Google, an example of a search engines that provides assistance to narrow query patterns

Search engines are integral parts of the whole web experience. They do not only provide us with all the information we need, but satisfy our cravings for the latest trends in cool stuffs as well. The use of search engines have become essential in the evolution of our everyday learning.

According to a study conducted by Penn State researchers on 72 respondents, “search engines are primarily used for fact checking users’ own internal knowledge, meaning that they are part of the learning process rather than simply a source for information”. They found out that users use simple keywords to support their needs for higher learning. It is suggested that search engines should be improved and tailored according to the users’ learning in the future.

Consequently, this study has guided Jim Jansen, associate professor in science and technology, to analyze almost 1 million web searches to determine query patterns and develop models that will predict future search reformulations.

“Given that users can predict future query reformulations, one can design information systems that provide query reformulation assistance, automated searching assistance systems, search recommender systems and others,” Jansen said.

Click here to read the full story.

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Semantic Search Tool: A Shift To An Integrated Keyword Search

Semantic search integrates all the metada in keyword search
Semantic search integrates all the metada in keyword search

The World Wide Web search engines like Google and Yahoo are very valuable tools in information gathering. These tools provide all the relevant information of the entered keyword in text, video and audio formats arbitrarily. You can can’t get all these information unanimously using the same keywords, except that, you have to look for these items separately.

In Europe, an improved search technology has been developed in order to change the way we use keywords for search engines. Semantic search represents an emerging paradigm shift in search technology by integrating all the meta data, like text, audio and video files into one search. Using the same keyword, semantic search platform can provide all the related information in all formats. Say, you want to look for information about a famous singer, all information about him will be displayed on your screen. You can listen, watch and read everything about him with just one keyword search.

This search technology uses the concept of Ontology, which is the “collections of agreed metadata terms for a particular field or task, like medicine or accounting”. Semantic search adds more value to your search in that every bit of information is defined by potentially dozens of meaningful concepts.

Click here to read the full story.

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Find Out How Much Google Knows About You

google

Over the past four years, Google has been issued with several complaints from various individuals or groups who claimed to have been stripped-off of their privacy.

Google, being a giant in the internet industry aims “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, Google’s mission statement reads. However, the “information” (including personal information of users), that was collected caused a controversy in terms of intellectual property, internet privacy, and censorship.

As a proactive response to its critics, Google launched Google Dashboard. The page contains all the accounts you have created with Google and displays how much personal information have been provided. It is a new service that shows a summary of the data stored with a Google account. Soon you’ll find a link to Google Dashboard in the “personal settings” of the “my account” page. You can edit your profile and adjust your privacy settings or delete contents.

Although the Google team was not happy about this, says Google spokesman Anthony Houseit, Google was compelled to do so in order to address the growing concerns in personal privacy.

Click here to read the full story.

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