Intel: Use A Smartphone, Live Longer

Intel sponsored a study that suggests that we could use smartphones to extend our life span.

This particular example relates to healthy sleep: The researchers found that smartphones can make us aware of poor quality sleep, which is generally tied to cases of common cold or, in more pro-longed scenarios, premature death.

"People who get poor quality sleep have higher rates of cardiac disease," said Jared Bauer, a member of the research group at the University of Washington. Sleep is about as important as anything, but it's one of the few biological functions where you would see people actively try to resist it. As a culture, we resist it."

Bauer and his team designed a research app for Android phones, which tells the user when it is time to take a nap, when it would be good idea to go for a jog, or when the user could have a coffee or a beer. The application assumes that an activity at the wrong time of the day could impact healthy sleep at night.  Bauer hopes that the app can impact users and make them think twice about certain activities: "Based on our literature, we found that caffeine can affect your sleep up to 14 hours before you go to sleep," Bauer said. "So if you have caffeine 2 hours after you're awake, you start getting to the edge of what could affect your next sleep."

There was no information whether ShutEye will become available to general users.    

Google Accuses Microsoft Bing of Stealing Search

Let's get ready to rumble!

Uh oh, this could be the clash of the titans here with Google and Microsoft going head to head over the issue of stolen search engine results.

A report on Search Engine Land, which was published with help input from Google, details what the search giant believes to be Microsoft's Bing copying some of the search results turned up by Google.

Google Chrome Surges Past 10% Market Share

For January, Net Applications estimates that Chrome now holds 10.7% of the market, up 0.72 points over December. Over the past year, chrome more than doubled its share once again (up from 5.22% in January 2009). IE, on the other hand, is surrendering share on an even faster pace and was down 1.08 points to 56.0% compared to December.

Motorola XOOM Super Bowl Ad Jabs At Apple

Motorola jabs at Apple's famous Macintosh ad shown during the Super Bowl back in 1984.

This week Motorola released a sneak peak of its Super Bowl trailer promoting the upcoming Android-based XOOM tablet. The new clip is more than likely just a simple teaser for the actual trailer airing during the game next weekend. Nevertheless, the message is clear: it's time for more choices.

Microsoft Has Sold 300 Million Windows 7 Licences

We already know that Windows 7 has seen a much more positive reception than its predecessor, Windows Vista. Last summer Microsoft announced that it had shipped an impressive 175 million Windows 7 licenses. So how are sales now that the OS has been available for more than a year?

As part of its quarterly earnings call yesterday, Microsoft revealed that the company has now sold 300 million Windows 7 licenses. 

“To put that in perspective, 300 million is roughly the combined number of households in North American and in Europe!” writes Brandon LeBlanc on the Windows blo. “Or, to put it another way, if you lined up 300 million Windows 7 product boxes, they would stretch nearly 1.5 times around the Earth,” he said.