research
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Your Need To Sleep (Or Not) Might Be Hard-Wired
9:30PM Kevin Purdy | 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 »
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Yahoo Search Pad Streamlines Your Online Research
3:30AM Adam Pash | 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 »
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WebNotes Highlights, Sticky-Notes And Organises Web Research
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | 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 »
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Yahoo Search Pad Looks Like An Online Researcher’s Dream
3:30AM Adam Pash | 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] More »
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List.It Synchronises Text Notes In Firefox
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): list.it combines the keyboard-tap availability of Firefox’s sidebar with the helpfulness of always-there, synchronized text notes. After installing the extension and setting up your shortcuts for the sidebar, note searching, and the quick-input bar (the defaults are, unfortunately, Mac-specific), you’re pretty much set up to start tapping away. If you’re frantically browsing and searching for gift ideas or last-minute work research, being able to quickly enter notes that get automatically backed up across Firefox browsers is no small help. If you’re feeling generous and non-private, you can opt to let MIT’s Haystack research team examine your notes and timing in their studies of productivity, memory, and the like. list.it is a free download, works wherever Firefox does. list.it [MIT Haystack Group] More »
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Mahalo Answers Offers Cash ‘Tips’ For Best Answers
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Human-powered search site Mahalo launches a familiar-seeming group Q&A forum, Mahalo Answers, with a Google-like twist—having the best answer might just earn you a few bucks from the question-asker. In other words, it’s intended to be a cross between the pay-for-answers seriousness of Google’s now-shuttered Answers tool, which tilted toward researchers and super-specific questions, and Yahoo’s own wide-open Answers. Mahalo is seeding a few hundred thousand “Mahalo Bucks” (worth $0.75 in real dollars, cash-able after accumulating $40) to current Mahalo members and testers for spending on answers. And to prevent fraud and cheap-skating, askers will have four days to pick an answer before other users choose it for them, and rating systems are intended to kill off spammers and griefers. If Yahoo just isn’t cutting it for you, or you’re looking for a semi-serious answer to a question you’re willing to spend a few on, Mahalo Answers might be the place to sound off. Mahalo Answers [via Wired] More »
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Google Buys 20 Million Archived Newspaper Pages
12:40AM Kevin Purdy | Google has upped its commitment to bringing newspaper archives online, first announced in September, by buying 20 million historical pages from Paper of Record, covering the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe. Good news for scholars, students, and “Day you were born” print-out.gifts. More »
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Get Around Academic Paper Restrictions
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | The Google Operating System blog points out that Google’s integration of Scholar results means that students and researchers have to settle for “subscription required” firewalls when trying to pull up a paper. Hit the “All (x) versions” link, and you’ll often find a readable copy on Google’s servers. More »
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Juice Researches Web Items In The Background
1:05AM Kevin Purdy | Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Free search and research add-on Juice seems to be aimed directly at web browsers who are easily distracted by following links, viewing web videos, and other hey-look-here devices. The Firefox add-on creates a pop-out sidebar, and whenever you select and drag text, pictures, or videos every so slightly, Juice adds those items to its tracking list, then runs them through what the developers call an “intelligent discovery engine,” searching Google, blogs, Wikipedia, or other sources, depending on what you grabbed, and showing them in the sidebar. Unlike other web clipping tools like Snipd or Google Notebook, Juice only stores your items in that particular Firefox browser, and there’s no option (yet) to move the results pane off the right side. Still, for those looking to do some run-and-gun reading, Juice might just fit the bill. Juice is a free beta download, works wherever Firefox 3 does. Check out a video demonstration of Juice’s deeper features below. More »
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