Video games improve cognitive ability in the elderly

The improvement in multi-tasking was so great that the amount of cognitive effort required by the oldies after their training was no more than if they were in their 20s and playing the game for the first time. Furthermore, the changes seemed to last for some time. After a six-month break from playing, the older participants were still nimble-minded.

Read more at the Economist

Internet users whinge about passwords but are none too keen on the alternatives

Some of the new ideas involve biometric data—in theory unique to each user. Apple may have a fingerprint reader in its latest iPhone, which is due to go on sale later this month. On September 3rd Bionym, a Canadian firm, launched Nymi, a bracelet which detects the wearer’s heartbeat. The Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology in Tokyo has developed a chair which detects—with 99% accuracy—the unique shape of a user’s bottom.

One answer is to supplement passwords (and gadgets) with something else.. A British start-up called PixelPin asks users to select some objects, in a preset order, from an image they have uploaded. Barclays, a bank, sets multiple-choice questions which require detailed knowledge of the customers’ past life and times.

Read more at the Economist

A Quest to Save AM Before It’s Lost in the Static

In 1978.. half of all radio listening was on the AM dial. By 2011 AM listenership had fallen to 15 percent, or an average of 3.1 million people, according to a survey by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private investment firm. While the number of FM listeners has declined, too, they still averaged 18 million in 2011.

Although five of the top 10 radio stations in the country, as measured by advertising dollars, are AM — among them WCBS in New York and KFI in Los Angeles — the wealth drops rapidly after that.

Read more at the New York Times