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Playing Tetris could help you lose weight, quit alcohol and smoking
- Want to loose weight but cannot resist food cravings? Here is a solution: Play Tetris. According to a research conducted by PhD student Jessica Skorka-Brown, alongside Professors Jackie Andrade and Jon May, from Plymouth university’s Cognition Institute, just three minutes…
Researcher demonstrates how hackers can exploit a Snapchat vulnerability to remotely crash iPhones
- Just a month after Snapchat's database leak, the popular photo-sharing app is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. Jaime Sanchez, a cyber security researcher, who works as a security consultant for Spanish telecommunication giant Telefonica, has discovered…
Facebook fights back, claims Princeton will lose all students by 2021
- Not to be outdone by Princeton’s recent paper predicting the death of Facebook by 2017, the social network’s own “scientists” have applied the school’s same robust methodology to, well, Princeton University. In keeping with the same principle of “correlation equals…
Facebook on the verge of losing 80 percent of its users, say Princeton researchers
- If you’ve ever felt like Facebook is little more than an epidemic spreading through society like a contagious disease, you might not be too far off base. Researchers from Princeton University have ultimately reached the same grim diagnosis, believing that…
Study claims NSA phone data collection is useless in preventing terrorist attacks
- Ahead of President Obama's expected announcement of widespread NSA reform later this month, a new study brings the agency's mass phone data collection operation under fire saying that it has had no positive impact on preventing acts of terrorism. …
MacBook webcams can spy on you without any warning, research shows
- A research done at the Johns Hopkins University has revealed that it is possible to remotely activate a built-in laptop webcam without triggering the warning LED next to it, The Washington Post reports. Though researchers used the 2008-era MacBook and…
Microsoft Research's new tool guesses your password
- Microsoft Research has developed a new tool designed to help prevent people creating weak passwords for themselves. Known as 'Telepathwords', the system takes each character that you type for your desired password and attempts to guess the next one, giving…
Study finds playing video games gives a boost to certain regions of the brain
- I was always told growing up that playing video games was a waste of time. Turns out, those people were wrong. A new study published in Molecular Psychiatry found that video gaming causes increases in the brain regions responsible for…
Research team designs and builds a disk drive that stores data for a million years
- A research team out of the Netherlands has produced a storage medium that can last a million years. Standard magnetic disk drive storage, which was introduced nearly 70 years ago by IBM, has improved significantly over the years in many…
Study highlights stereotypical language used on Facebook
- A newly published study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center takes a look at the different words used by various demographics of Facebook users. Unsurprisingly and perhaps stereotypically, women talked the most about shopping and doing…
World's first carbon nanotube computer emerges after years of work
- A team of researchers from Stanford University have revealed the first-ever computer based on carbon nanotubes, the material that is widely expected to replace silicon as the building block of future computers.
New study finds that 15% of Americans don't use internet
- To most regular TechSpot readers, the thought of having no internet might be a little disconcerting. After all, many of us use the web day in and day out to connect with friends, play online games, conduct research, manage our…
Ivy Bridge hardware trojan is nearly impossible to detect
- A group of researchers hailing from Europe and the US have successfully demonstrated what they are calling a hardware trojan attack on Intel’s third generation Ivy Bridge processor. It’s also very difficult to detect as the exploit is able to…
Google takes you to the Galapagos Islands with Street View
- Darwin discovered the Galapagos Islands some 178 years ago, and through observation of this biodiverse territory he formulated his theory of evolution. Although you might never have the opportunity to recreate Darwin’s historic journey by visiting the islands in person,…
Research reveals Facebook hashtags have zero viral impact
- Back in June, Facebook decided to follow in the footsteps of Twitter and implemented hashtags into news feeds and posts. Like with other social media outlets, each hashtag is clickable and delivers the user to a search page for that…
Researchers conduct first human brain-to-brain communication
- Researchers from the University of Washington have successfully performed the first non-invasive human-to-human brain interface. What would appear to be the scene of a science fiction novel, the breakthrough allows any individual to control the movements of another person using…
Researchers sneak malware onto Apple's App Store, exposing iOS security flaws
- Researchers have been trying to sneak malicious software onto the App Store to expose holes in Apple's iOS security system for a while now. Well, a team at Georgia Tech led by Tielei Wang managed to do just that a…
Windows 8 bests Vista as third-most used OS, gains 5.1% of market
- According to website traffic data collected by Net Applications, Windows 8 has hit a definite if seemingly unimpressive milestone. Windows 8 has finally managed to surpass its ill-liked ancestor, Windows Vista, in becoming the world's third-most used operating system.
Researchers see through walls with Wi-Fi
- MIT researchers have demonstrated the application of using Wi-Fi signals to track the movements, locations and number of people inside buildings. Dubbed Wi-Vi, the inexpensive and portable "through-the-wall" radar system could have practical applications in law enforcement, search and rescue…
Researchers crack iOS-generated hotspot passwords in 24 seconds
- If you're an iPhone or iPad owner who uses hotspot mode but never bothered to change the seemingly-random password suggested by iOS, now is definitely a good time. German researchers have discovered (pdf) the passwords iOS issues can be easily…
Internet access just as important as food and sleep, study finds
- Most of us would agree that Internet access plays a significant role in our day-to-day lives but is it really more important than food or sleep? That apparently appears to be the case based on a recent study released by…
![Noise cancellation technique harnesses magnets to silence CPU fans [video]](http://static.techspot.com/images2/news/thumbs/noctua-heatsink.jpg)
Noise cancellation technique harnesses magnets to silence CPU fans [video]
- Whether they want to be or not, many PC enthusiasts are well-acclimated to noisy fans; however, some choose quiet operation over impressive overclocking. Of course, that's exactly the problem: quietness traditionally comes at the cost of performance. Noctua's "ANC project"…
A third of American adults now own tablets, study finds
- A new report from Pew Research Center released earlier today revealed that a third of American adults now own a tablet, further validating the notion that the portable devices are eating away at market share once owned by traditional computers.…
Google's "Skynet": blimps, balloons deliver Internet to remote, underdeveloped areas
- Bringing a new but literal meaning to the term "Skynet", Google hopes to connect remote and underdeveloped areas of Africa and South East Asia to the web through a network of high-altitude blimps and balloons. The undertaking will be part…
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