Study Finds Kids Who Surf Internet Are Better Readers

"Parents might label it a waste of time but the hours spent surfing the internet, chatting online, and even on the dreaded Facebook appear to improve children's reading skills, The Australian reported Wednesday."

Survey Says 80 Percent of Faculty Use Social Media in Their Teaching

"More than 80 percent of college faculty use some form of social media in their teaching, with online video by far the most popular application, according to a new survey from the Babson Survey Research Group and Pearson."

As Mobile Devices Multiply, Some Colleges Turn Away From Building Campus Apps

"Technology officials are shifting their attention from stand-alone applications to mobile-optimized versions of their Web sites."

Study: 12 Percent of US Households Own e-Reader

"A study finds that 12 percent of U.S. households now own a reading device for electronic books, such as Amazon's Kindle. That's three times the number of households that owned an e-reader just a year ago, pointing to rapid acceptance."

Google Gets 1 Billion 'Unique' Visitors

"The market research firm ComScore says that with its search page, Gmail and YouTube, this is the first time any web company's user base has hit 10 digits. Actually, the number was 1 billion, 9 million, 699 thousand."

Survey: Data Breaches Have Almost Become 'A Statistical Certainty'

"In a survey of 583 U.S. companies, 90 percent of them said they had been hacked in the past year."

LinkedIn Study: Men Are Better at Social Networking than Women

"According to a new study by the career networking site, there are more men than women on LinkedIn, and the women that are on there have fewer connections then their male counterparts."

Medicine on the Move

"Mobile-health technology is booming. In the words of one doctor, smartphone apps, wireless sensors and other innovative tools hold 'transformative potential.'"

U. of Michigan Offering Digital Access to Some 'Orphan' Books

"After failing to find copyright owners for certain books, known as “orphans,” the library will add them to its digital collection for campus users."

Mobile Ads to be $4B Industry by 2015

"The mobile advertising industry is projected to reach $4 billion in revenues in 2015 according to a report from research firm BIA/Kelsey."

Demand for Video Driving Mobile Data Traffic-Report

"Up to 60 percent of mobile data traffic is generated by consumers watching video, with owners of Apple's iPhone driving the demand, according to a company that specialises in traffic management."

Google Signs up British Library to Books Project

"Google plans to digitize a quarter of a million books from the British Library's collections covering a period from the French Revolution to the end of slavery as part of its ambitious books project."

Tablets Make Digital Textbooks Cool on Campus

"Students with tablets overwhelmingly prefer digital texts, one study shows, a sign students are now embracing e-books."

Average YouTube User Watches Five Hours of Video Per Month

"On average, a YouTube user will spend five hours out of each month watching videos."

Consumer Reports Prefers Nook Over Kindle

"Consumer Reports announced that recent testing showed the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch Reader to be 'more than merely a worthy competitor to the Kindle.'"

Google Launches Tool for Online Reputation Management

"The tool, 'Me on the Web,' is now included on the Google dashboard in between account information and analytics. It is not intended to be another privacy setting."

Report: Facebook Users More Trusting, Engaged

"A new survey is countering views that social networks isolate people."

Speaking Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media

"A small but growing cadre of educators is trying to exploit Twitter-like technology to enhance classroom discussion and get students to shed inhibitions about voicing opinions."

Myspace Users are More Open-Minded, Study Says

"People who regularly visit Myspace tend to be more open-minded, according to a study released Thursday."

Library E-Book Checkouts Get a Major Boost

"OverDrive says it will become platform agnostic and 'eliminate the need for librarians and readers to deal with various e-book file formats.' In addition to supporting multiple file formats, OverDrive says that it's launching 'Open E-Book,' a DRM-free collection. These formatting options will make it much easier for libraries and for patrons to be able to access content across devices and platforms."

MIT’s Goal: Reach 1 Billion With Open Courseware

"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s free course content has reached 100 million people worldwide, and as U.S. campuses experiment with open class material to varying degrees, MIT hopes to increase OpenCourseWare’s reach to 1 billion learners by 2021."

Most Tumors Not Within Cell Phone Radiation Range

"Brain tumors among cell phone users are not clustered within range of most of the radiation emitted from the devices, a new report finds - suggesting that mobile phones do not cause cancer."

Internet Calls to Generate $40 Billion by 2015: Report

"The market for making phone calls over the Internet is set to more than double to $40 billion within five years, researchers said."

Google Announces Host of Search Improvements

"Google held a special search event in San Francisco this morning to discuss several improvements to its Web and mobile search products."

Google Finds Ways to Search Faster and Without Typing

"Google announced ways to search by voice or image and said it would save two to five seconds loading Web pages."

Entertainment, Media Spending Hits $433B in 2010

"Advances in digital entertainment and advertising helped push U.S. entertainment and media spending in 2010 to $433 billion, up 3% from 2009, says a PricewaterhouseCoopers report out today. That's the first increase in three years."

Wiping Away Whistle-Blowers' Online Fingerprints

"In the post-WikiLeaks era, news organizations and other groups are launching spinoff websites in hopes a catching the next big scoop."

UJam: Be a Composer, No Musical Skills Required

"What if you could turn that tune in your head into a studio-quality piece of music, without any musical training, skills or even talent? Enter UJam, a startup that wants to give everyday people that opportunity."

Cellphones 'Possibly Carcinogenic,' Report Suggests

"An international panel of experts says cellphones are possibly carcinogenic to humans after reviewing details from dozens of published studies."

College Library Directors on Libraries' Digital Direction

"Most college library directors would order print books removed from the library if there was a robust and trustworthy way to provide access to electronic versions, according to a new study released today by the nonprofit Ithaka S+R."

4 Globally Oriented Tips on Using Social Media

Here is social media guidance with a global focus.

A Hole Lot of Books

"The University of Chicago library, running out of shelf space, devises a solution that doesn't involve shipping books off campus."

Digital Textbooks Slow to Catch On

"While autobiographies and murder mysteries, romance novels and self-help books have enjoyed a smooth transition from print to pixels, the college textbook has met resistance in its digital form."

Twitter CEO: 80% of Advertisers Renew

"More than 80 percent of the companies that advertise on Twitter renew their marketing efforts on the microblogging service, the company's chief executive said on Wednesday."

Most Twitter Users Access Service From Their Phones, Study Says

"Among U.S. adults who go online, 13% use Twitter -- and more than half (54%) of these people access the popular social media service with their mobile phone, according to new research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project."