According to a report by analysts The Nielsen Co, around 23-percent of US cellphone users have seen advertising on their handset in the past month, and - more surprisingly perhaps - about half of them responded to those adverts.  Surveying 22,000 individuals who actively use mobile data services, Nielsen's researchers found a 38-percent increase in mobile ad recall between Q4 ... continued »

Scandinavian "usability and interaction design company" inUse have taken it upon themselves to examine whether the iPhone lives up to its hype [pdf link], aiming five users of differing skill-sets at Apple's cellphone as well as the Nokia N95, Sony Ericsson W910i and HTC TyTN I and testing how they get on with a number of basic tasks (including dialing ... continued »

Researchers at Stanford University have developed an innovative camera lens that captures depth perception in each shot.  The system, called multi-aperture, uses a 3-megapixel sensor to capture 16x16 pixel squares called subarrays, each slightly overlapping; image processing then analyses the pixel location differences between subarrays to work out the relative distance between objects in the photo.  At present the 3D information ... continued »

Was I too harsh with the Couple-IT concept?  They're design justification, remember, was that people don't necessarily want the ultimate in convergence, and that in fact are better served by task-specific devices; now, research consultancy firm In-Stat have found that yes, users do often prefer multiple gadgets and that the shift to convergence device adoption is unrealistically perceived by manufacturers pushing ... continued »

If you're like me, you've junked your watch and bedside alarm-clock in favour of your omnipresent cellphone - it wakes me in the morning, keeps me on track through the day and warns me when I've read too long at night.  But scientists are concerned that proximity to a powered-on cellphone when sleeping could actually disturb the deeper stages of ... continued »