The excessive use of cellphones cause anxiety in college students

Researchers at the University of Kent, Ohio, USA, found that the constant use of mobile phones by university can increase your anxiety levels and reduce their school performance.

In a study of 500 young people at the University of Kent, scientists Jacob Barkley, Aryn Karpinski and Andrew Lepp concluded that indicators of happiness and satisfaction of participants often connected were smaller than those of students who did not use the device so regularity.

Barkley, Karpinski and Lepp believe that such negative conditions resulting from stress, as some students have trouble disconnecting and feel obligated to stay in touch with your friends.

Over a year, the college students not only to researchers reported daily use of cell phones and their levels of anxiety and life satisfaction, but also allowed their official records, such as bulletins, were accessed.

Scientists found that the scores of students who used their phones were much lower than those of their less connected because the frequent use also implied concentration problems.

Thought

The research at the University of Kent goes against other recent studies that say that mobile can improve social interactions and reduce the sense of isolation. "These results suggest that students should be encouraged to monitor how they use their phone and think about it critically, so that it is not harmful to their academic performance, their physical and mental health and their well-being or happiness , "the researchers emphasized.

28 years of the first MS Windows

We are so used to Microsoft Windows equipped in more than 80% of the desktops and laptops computers that we can barely imagine when it was released the first edition of the Windows operating system, but it was exactly 28 years ago, in November 20th in 1985.

I couldn't even imagine how this release was at that time because my first computer was equipped already with Windows 3.11 in 1996. But thanks to the jsmachines.net website we can have see how the MS Windows version 1.01 was running at time ( click here to access ) using your web-browser to load without any installation in your computer.

To give you more technical details, the Windows was running over the MS-DOS operating system, which means the Windows couldn't be able to run by itself, it was required the MS-DOS version 2.0 installed first in order to launch, plus 256 KB of RAM memory and a hard disk. Initially, it was delivered in 4 floppy disks of 5.25 inches with 360KB each - and this version came with Reversi (game), a calendar, notepad, calculator, clock, command prompt (direct window to DOS), Write, Control Panel, Paint and communication programs.

The MS Windows 1.01 was no a big success compared to his successors in the 1990s, due to the hardware limitation available at that time. However it was the beginning of a new era with graphical interface using the keyboard and a mouse. Nowadays, the latest version of the operating system is the Windows 8 with the introduction of a new concept with touch screen.

The Future of the Present

Every time we see people or company predicting the future of the technology, it's pretty common. However, in mid-2000' a company called Microsoft, at that time the most valued IT company in the world, created a movie showing how a family could use interconnected set of Web services that could serve up relevant information across multiple devices and let them share with everything in a matter of clicks.

Many of the cases came truth nowadays, such as voice commands, cloud file sharing, video conferencing, integration among devices, tablets, smartphones and more. After watching it, we can't understand why Microsoft didn't follow it's own predictions!!!!

Were you able to see yourself using the mentioned services and devices?

The communication tool called e-mail

It's hard to see someone on the internet that still doesn't have an e-mail address. But actually the e-mails is older than the internet, it has been created in 70s and it was purposed to be a digital evolution of the traditional mail that we know. More than this, nowadays the e-mail represents a professional and personal tool so important even though the telephone itself. Proof of this is the fact that in a recent survey conducted by Ipsos revealed that 85% of the Internet users point the electronic mail (e-mail) as their preferred means of communication. But in the same way that this environment has become popular for exchanging information and conducting transactions, also became one of the favorite targets of attacks by cyber-criminals.

One of the most known malwares using emails as a mean of attack was detected more than 13 years ago. In 2000 May, a worm known as 'I Love You' which used a supposed romantic message, spread by email and affected more than 50 million computers worldwide. It is estimated that it has generated more than $ 5.5 million in financial losses.

With a huge problem like this that affects millions of people, the I Love You worm served to change people's behavior regarding the use of e-mail. As a consequence, IT departments and end users reinforced the use of this technology for protection, such as antivirus and security policies aimed at preventing attacks via email.

Since from there has been more awareness of users, but on the other hand, there was a sophistication of attacks aimed to e-mails. Thanks to the social engineering - technique the that attempts to deceive or exploit the trust of the user to obtain sensitive information or important - the email scams have become increasingly difficult to identify and therefore continue to offer a potential danger to companies and people in general.

So below are some tips on how you can identify malicious e-mails:

- E-mails in another language - avoid clicking on links embedded in emails in another language, the content of which is unknown. This is because many of the attacks carried out by electronic mail are directed to different countries and seek to take advantage of the curiosity of the user to do it click that direct addresses to sites with malicious content.

- Spam - ​​not always mass emails contain some form of malware. However, many viruses invade the user's machine and send the malicious messages to all recipients that are in the contact list of the victim. So, always be wary of spam.

- Tempting job offers - one of the decoys to instigate victims into clicking on malicious links is sending messages with false offers of employment. Thus, even if the opportunity seems very attractive, avoid entering links in this kind of message, or even do not send personal information by e-mail for a possible contractor.

- False news - the cyber criminals exploit popular news to propagate malwares, especially in promising unpublished images or videos on certain events that actually are nothing more than a way for the victim to be infected.

- Messages on behalf of trusted institutions - another blow in Brazil is quite common to use fake messages on behalf of banks or government agencies such as Receita Federal. In general, the action induces the user to click on a given link to check or update an urgent information, directing you to a page with malicious content.

Following these basic recommendations, the user reduces the likelihood of being a victim of attacks by email. Moreover, it is always important to keep an updated antivirus on your computer, or any device used to access the e-mail. Another tip and be careful not to become a victim of scams that use electronic mail is clicking only on reliable links and do not open attachments, not sure of their origin.

What is the resolution in megapixels of human eye?

Before we get this answer, it's important to understand how a human eye works!

Manuel Menezes de Oliveira Neto, PhD in Computer Science and a professor at UFRGS explains that thought the fast movements the eye scans the scene continuously and sends this information to the brain, which matches and composes the images.

For each degree field of vision, the eye makes 77 "cycles". According to the methodology of a study published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, two pixels are needed to define a cycle, totaling - the complicated mathematics of vision - 154 pixels for each degree field of view. Thus, for example, if we consider the image perceived by one who observes a scene with a visual field of 120 degrees both horizontally and vertically, there would be: 120 x 154 x 120 x 154 = 341.5 megapixels.

So if we compare this capacity with the latest camera models in the market, it's by far a huge difference that will take a couple years to have a similar power. Interesting, isn't it?

Source in PT: Super Interessante Magazine

Smartphones becoming more and more popular among Brazilians

There is no doubt that smartphones will become more and more popular along the years around the world, even tough here in Brazil by default the electronics are very expensive mostly by the taxes. However a new research done by Nielsen called "O consumidor móvel" that means The Mobile Customer shows that 3 in each 10 brazilians already have a smartphone (considering only the people that own a cellphone).

Another interesting fact shows about the brazilian profile - 43% of the smartphone users are men, on the other hand 27% are women. The predominant age group are formed by people between 16 to 24 years old (41%), followed by people between 25 and 34 years old.

Good relationship between cost and benefit and ease of use were mentioned by 16% of users. Other criteria mentioned by 15% of interviewees is the wide choice of apps that the operating system provides.

Most Brazilians take advantage their first mobile to send text messages (85%), accessing social networks (75%), using apps (74%) or reading emails (66%). With regard to apps, favorite apps of the three users are, respectively, gaming, social networking and geolocation apps and search.

But this percentage, 44% is about people who still use basic appliances such as mobile phones without touch screen, QWERTY keyboard and advanced operating system.

According to the consultant, the main factor that makes the Brazilians follow acquiring the basic cell is called the infrastructure of networks, which need to go beyond the major urban centers and into rural areas.

Of course if we compare those numbers to developed countries, it is good but represents a small part of the populating compared to the market of cellphone users that Brazil has. Moreover this is just the beginning of a huge step that is about to come. One big reason is coming from the Brazilian government, giving up part of the taxes for electronics such as smartphones and tablets in order to make affordable prices. Another fact, economists see that Brazilians are having much purchasing power, in especial for the classes D and E which recently moved to C class, with the economy growing and the government make huge efforts in order to reduce the poverty.

Back to the IT subjects

After a long time without changes in this blog, starting from this month I will try to get back to the articles and write at least once per week. It will be a mix of news with personal opinion, always related to IT subjects.

As a few friends already know, this year I've being dedicated myself on mobile development - initially as a hobby only. And for this to happen I had to dip into books and courses to rewind how to program after being away of programming for more than 10 years.
To start with, I had an idea of developing a simple app to put in practice the concepts studied and make myself more confident. So after analyzing the possibilities, I got the idea of developing and app for the newspaper Curitiba in English (CIE) where I am contributor.

An an important instrument of communication, the CIE could take the advantage of having an app to bring readers closer to the subjects for discussion, boost page views but mainly make it easier for sharing - by social networks, email or even sms. The idea is pretty simple, no big features implemented but its expected to have many other great features still to be implemented for the further versions.

Feel free to comment and rate.
Click here and go to the iTunes App Store.

Brazil leads time use of tablets and smartphones

Brazil leads the time use of smartphones and tablets in the world, says a survey conducted jointly by CONNECT and the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research (WIN).

According to the survey, the Brazilian spends on average 84 minutes per day on smartphone against a global average of 74 minutes. Despite the larger screens, the tablets do not attract people for longer: the Brazilian is 79 minutes per day on gadgets with screens from 7 inches while the world average recorded by the study is 71 minutes.

Even with these numbers and with smartphone penetration doubled between 2011 and 2012, going from 9% to 18%, Brazil is still far from the world average recorded last year with 48%.

So far with few options in the market, Amazon arrived in Brazil with its virtual store and the Kindle in December 2012, e-readers are still very shy presence in the country. According to the survey, only 1% of Brazilians have such a device, the global average is 12%.

The survey interviewed a total of 1,000 Internet users over 16 years in Brazil, through the panel CONECTAí conducted between November and December 2012. Moreover, the survey had a total of 54.000 interviews in 54 countries around the world.