Workers who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are more productive, according to a study by researchers at the University of Melbourne.

“People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” said Dr. Brent Coker of the university’s Management and Marketing department.

‘Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing’ (WILB) aids production by improving worker concentration.

It's 11 p.m. Do you know where your neighbors are?
Chances are they're online. According to a study, North Americans have been staying up late to do their Internet surfing this summer, so late that the peak usage for the whole day has been at 11 p.m. Eastern time.

That appears to be a shift from previous years, when most Internet activity was in the daytime.

The new study by Chelmsford, Mass.-based Internet security firm Arbor Networks found that people using the Internet at work and school produce a smaller traffic peak around 4 p.m. Eastern time on weekdays.

Social networking sites may have their benefits, but they’re also creating problems in some relationships.

In the times before the Internet, when a guy met a girl – or vice versa – they only had to worry about their immediate surroundings getting in the way of developing a relationship.

Now it’s 2009, and the world is at our fingertips.

Remember that old boyfriend you were so excited to find on Facebook?

Or that girl you had a crush on for years who sent you a friend request on MySpace?

For every $5 billion invested in U.S. broadband infrastructure, 97,500 new jobs in the telecommunications, computer and IT sectors will be created, according to a study by the Communications Workers of America. The study also found that the U.S. ranks 28th out of all countries surveyed in terms of Internet speed. Broadband connection speed in the U.S. has increased by only 1.6 Mbps -- from 3.5 Mbps in 2007 to 5.1 Mbps in 2009.

The people who engage in media "multitasking" are those least able to do so well, according to researchers.

A survey defined two groups: those who routinely consumed multiple media such as internet, television and mobile phones, and those who did not.

In a series of three classic psychology tests for attention and memory, the "low multitaskers" consistently outdid their highly multitasking counterparts.

The results are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A recent 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education, has a starchy academic title, but a most intriguing conclusion: “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.

According to a recent independent study, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 has been found to be the most secure browser currently available.

The study was conducted by US based security research company NSS Labs, and included testing for Google's Chrome, Firefox 3, the beta of Opera 10, Safari 4, and Internet Explorer 8.

Microsoft have been keen to stress the security features that its latest browser possesses, and this new report reveals that the software excels in blocking various phishing and malware attacks.

Dogs are as intelligent as the average two-year-old child, according to research by animal psychologists.

Researchers have found that dogs are capable of understanding up to 250 words and gestures, can count up to five and can perform simple mathematical calculations.

Using tests originally designed to demonstrate the development of language, pre-language and basic arithmetic in human children, the researchers were able to show that the average dog is far more intelligent than they are given credit for.

Everyone seems to want to harp on malware as the most serious threat to business data and networks. Security vendors are producing a steady stream of evidence to this point. But is this really the worst threat out there?

In the first half of 2009, McAfee detected 1.5 million malware samples in the wild. That’s 300,000 more than in all of 2008 and an increase of 1,800 percent over 2006. Malware creators have produced more viruses, worms and Trojans in the last 18 months than in all of the previous 10 years combined.

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Summer 2009

One day last year a daughter of Earl Spencer (who is therefore a niece of Princess Diana) called a taxi to take her and a friend from her family home at Althorp in Northamptonshire to see Chelsea play Arsenal at football. She told the driver “Stamford Bridge”, the name of Chelsea’s stadium, but he delivered them instead to the village of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, nearly 150 miles in the opposite direction. They missed the game.