Month: December 2016

(credit: Joshua Brown)

For more than a decade, neuroscientists have known that stress impairs memory performance—an effect likely due to the influence of stress-related hormones. A recent article in Science shows that a specific technique—taking practice recall tests—can help people overcome the memory problems associated with stress. And it even works if you aren't told how well you did when practicing.

For this work, 120 participants were asked to study lists of nouns one at a time. After studying the list, half of the participants engaged in a cognitive task known as “study practice” in which they re-studied the list by re-reading it. The other 60 participants engaged in a “retrieval practice” task, in which they tried to recall as many nouns on the list as they could, using practice tests. The retrieval practice participants did not receive feedback on their performance—they didn’t know if they were doing a good job of recalling the nouns or not.

One day after this memory related task, half of the study practice participants and half of the retrieval practice participants were subjected to a high-stress situation known as the Tier Social Stress Test, a procedure that placed them in a situation in which they will be harshly judged. The rest completed a non-stressful task of equal duration. The authors measured their physical state via a wristband that measured interbeat interval (heart rate) and blood volume pulse (arterial translucency) to confirm that the stress experience produced the expected response—which it did.

Enlarge / One of eight images included in the broadcast content patent. (credit: Google)

Every month the Electronic Frontier Foundation issues its "Stupid Patent of the Month." While there may not be enough months left before the apocalypse for EFF to expose every dumb patent, the digital civil rights group's latest find is a doozy.

US Patent No. 8,856,221 is called the "System and method for storing broadcast content in a cloud-based computing environment." In short, the invention claims ownership of a method to deliver media content from remote servers—the cloud, as we now know it—to computers.

"This might have been a somewhat fresh idea in, say the mid-1990s, but the application for this patent was filed in 2011," notes Daniel Nazer, the EFF staff attorney with the distinguished title of the "Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents."

Want a long-range electric vehicle ASAP and don't want to spend $68,000 on the cheapest Tesla Model S? You're in luck! Chevrolet's configurator for the Bolt EV is now live, and the company intends to keep its promise of cars on the road before the end of 2016. (If you live outside California, you might still have a bit of a wait.) We drove a pre-production Bolt at CES in January; now it's the vehicle we're looking forward to spending some time with more than any other in the coming months. In the meantime I amused myself building a Bolt with the specs I'd want in an electric commuter.

The base Bolt starts at $37,495 before any federal or local incentives and rebates, but you need to find another $4,285 to get the Premier trim if you want the various driver assists, some of which are still optional extras even then. An eye-catching paint job will also cost you extra; soothing silvery grays or blues are the default choices. Equipped with a few choice options—OK, the Premium and all its toys, plus DC Fast Charging and some funky red paint—my Bolt would cost me a tenner less than $44,000 before incentives.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. (credit: Microsoft)

At its annual shareholder meeting yesterday, some Microsoft shareholders were more than a little concerned about the company's mobile strategy, or if it even had one, reports GeekWire.

The meeting, which started with a request to "silence all Windows Phones and devices," gives the company's owners a rare opportunity to grill CEO Satya Nadella, and among the audience were some dedicated Windows Phone fans. One such Windows Phone-using shareholder, Dana Vance, expressed his surprise that Microsoft had released apps such as its Pix photo app and Outlook apps for Android and iPhone, but not its own platform. Vance is also an owner of the Band fitness wearable, and he alluded to claims that development of the device has been halted. With Microsoft appearing to downplay these two consumer-facing devices, he asked Nadella to explain the company's plans for consumer devices.

In response, Nadella gave the same kind of reply as he's given a number of times; the kind of reply that arguably prompted these questions in the first place. "When we control things silicon-up, that's how we will integrate those experiences," Nadella said. Microsoft will "build devices that are unique and differentiated with our software capability on top of it—whether it's Surface or Surface Studio or HoloLens or the phone—and also make our software applications available on Android and iOS and other platforms. That's what I think is needed in order for Microsoft to help you as a user get the most out of our innovation." Per Geekwire, Nadella did also say that the Windows camera and mail apps would include features found in the apps for other platforms, but it's not clear when this will happen, or whether Microsoft's Windows apps will persistently trail behind its non-Windows apps.

Enlarge / These are just Nokia/HMD's feature phones, but smartphones are coming in 2017. (credit: Nokia)

Nokia is back! Today the brand's new owners, HMD Global Oy and Nokia, announced the finalization of a 10-year licensing deal that was announced six months ago. HMD Global has also launched a new website introducing itself to the world, and—if we can be uncharacteristically optimistic for a minute—so far things look pretty good.

The new Nokia seems to have more potential than your usual licensed "zombie brand" setup. Typically, when a brand dies (in Noka's case, just the phone division died), it gets snapped up by some no-name company, which proceeds to slap the brand name on everything under the sun. This lovely line of Polaroid Android tablets from brand buyer "PLR IP Holdings, LLC." is a great example.

The new Nokia seems to share a lot of lineage with the old Nokia, though. HMD Global was created six months ago explicitly for the purpose of creating Nokia phones. HMD is still a Finnish company, and 16 of the 17 executives on HMD's "Team" page are former Nokia employees. The plan, according to HMD CEO (and former Nokia vice president) Arto Nummela, is to "deliver on the quality and designs that the Nokia brand has been always known for." The surviving part of Nokia, Nokia Technologies, has a seat on the board of directors of HMD. It's seems like a genuine resurrection attempt, rather than a brand exploitation scheme.