English-language editions of Wikipedia will be offline for 24 hours from 4pm Wednesday January 18 (Australian Eastern daylight saving time) to protest the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the US. If you urgently need Wikipedia content during that period, what can you do? Here are a few emergency alternatives. More »
Those friends who claim they “only need” five or six hours of sleep, as compared to your lazy eight? Researchers suggest their lowered slumber needs are a genetic mutation, and that the rest of us shouldn’t fight our instincts. More »
When we first saw Yahoo’s new online research tool Search Pad, we noted that it looked like an online researchers dream. Now the previously closed-to-most-of-the-public tool is available to all comers. More »
WebNotes, a research tool developed by, and for, serious researchers, allows anyone to highlight and add sticky notes to web pages and have those notes instantly added to a web-based research file. For anyone flying through HTML pages like so much paper, it could be really handy. More »
Yahoo has announced a new feature in the works called Search Pad, a tool designed to organise online research—like all that work you did researching a new HDTV—through a smart and simple interface. The video walkthrough demonstrates how the service works, and since Search Pad is “currently only in testing and is not visible to all users,” that may be all the closer you can look for now (especially in Oz). Search Pad automatically detects when you start researching a topic and keeps track of the sites you’ve visited. You can add to and edit the items in your Search Pad within your Yahoo search results, and when you’ve finished your research, Search Pad can save the results to your Yahoo account, email them to someone else, or print them off. If the service is available to you (it’s not to us), let’s hear what you think in the comments.
Search Pad: Making Online Research Easier [Yahoo Search Blog]
