“Meyer says all the lights go dim because there just isn't enough power to go around.” Doing several things at once can feel so productive. But scientists say switching rapidly between tasks can actually slow us down. Even though modern technology allows people to perform more tasks at the same time, juggling tasks can make our brains lose connections to important information. Which means, in the end, it takes longer because we have to remind our brains what we were working on .. David Meyer at the University of Michigan has spent the past few decades studying multitasking — mostly in adults. "For tasks that are at all complicated, no matter how good you have become at multitasking, you're still going to suffer hits against your performance. You will be worse compared to if you were actually concentrating from start to finish on the task," Meyer says. Multitasking causes a kind of brownout in the brain. Meyer says all the lights go dim because there just isn't enough power to go around. So, the brain starts shutting things down — things like neural connections to important information. Scientists say she has reason to be worried — although there's not much data yet on teens. Think you can be Top Gun?

No need to fret - turns out all that time spent trawling the search engines for the latest and greatest gossip...er...important news items is in no way detrimental to your brain functionality. On the contrary, a recent study shows that this activity among seasoned internet users actually promotes brain activity. Check out the full article at USA Today.

I love this modern design take on Little Red Riding Hood. Originally developed as a class project by Tomas Nilsson, a design student at Sweden’s Linköping University. Little Red Riding Hood

Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit, gives a great 3-minute rundown on the power of social media. Check it out at TED here.

This morning I came across a really fascinating article covering the debate over inexpensive online logo & "branding" companies by Doug Bartow (id29) via the Under Consideration design discussion blog Speak Up.

It highlights the ongoing debate of accessibility of design for all (income brackets) versus "...the devaluation of the design process altogether, particularly in brand development and identity design, which many consider the pinnacle of our field." – by cheapening the proverbial playing field.

In his field study of this issue, Doug commissions 4 different online companies to come up with logo options for a fictitious project and then analyzes and critiques the results. It is a good exploration of what you really get from these types of logo chop shops.

The Challenge: Hire four online logo design companies, give them the same visual identity problem to solve, then critique the results.

Take a look here.

An 86 year old Japanese Buddhist nun is focused on the forefront of mobile technology by writing a cellphone novel. Cellphone novels are a growing trend in Japan, where subscribers (usually young women) sign up to receive short fiction via text messages. The story, called "Tomorrow's Rainbow" focuses on a young girl who meets the love of her life after the trauma of her parents' divorce.

Read More about it here.

Looks like the much talked-about new Facebook interface has launched. Check it out here.

On first glance, it seems pretty great. Much cleaner in general, especially with a streamlined top navigation (and no more annoyingly cluttered left nav). And I really love the new profile view, so that I can actually see a person's information without having to scroll through a million Bumper Sticker or Scrabulous boxes first. Very nice!

I love stumbling across creative applications of Google Maps, and TripWolf incorporates one of the coolest. It combines the GMap with Q&As (think Yahoo Answers), social networking (integrated with Facebook), and a wide breadth of information to create one of the coolest travel advisor sites out there. Just a quick look around gets great suggestions from users on sites all over the world, including tips from a destination's primary user (or "guru"). Check it out here.

(from CNN) Ever wonder what information Google knows about you? With a click or two, now you can find out. Google released a feature Thursday that lets users see and control data that the Web giant has collected about them. Called Google Dashboard, the service provides an online summary of a user's Google files -- Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa photos and so on -- by collecting pre-existing privacy controls in one place. More »

Yesterday, Twitter launched a redesigned homepage, which shows a shift in focus towards search (rather than specific users, as the old homepage highlighted). It seems that this new homepage could be a recognition, on Twitter’s part, of how users have shaped the microblogging platform - it’s now the place where you can find up-to-the-minute information on what’s happening NOW (rather than depending on search engines that are increasingly appearing to post more dated content, dependant on the slower nature of crawling the web and indexing content). Just look at the trends to see what people are talking about right this second (um…M&Ms and William Shatner? Really?). So does this poise Twitter to take on the search behemoths of Google and bing? Only time will tell…

A wise man once said, "Wherever you go, there you are," and now with Geode, announced today from Mozilla Labs, your web browser will know where you are as well. Geode will be available in the upcoming beta releases of Firefox 3.1, and will allow users to fire up their computers from any location, direct their browser to their favorite review site (like Yelp, Citysearch, etc.), and have customized location-specific information surfaced. But the potential expands beyond just fun - imagine an RSS reader that knows the difference between Home and Work, or a news website that is truly local. Read more at the Mozilla Labs blog.

"Even the smallest changes can make a huge difference in performance!" 10 Best Practices: 1. Use Headlines, Subheadings and Breadcrumb navigation to show shoppers where they are. 2. Make sure contact information and a phone number are visible above the fold and easy for shoppers to see. 3. Keep the site search function above the fold and in plain view so shoppers can query the catalog anytime. 4. Consider adding a search by category refinement into the site search for easier access to site sections. 5. Allow shoppers to show a designated number of items per page anytime with a “show per page” sort option. 6. Show related products and cross sell before the checkout process and after items have been added to the cart. 7. Allow shoppers to add items to their cart before making them register for an account. 8. Make sure shoppers can easily access their cart contents and that it can easily be modified or adjusted. 9. Use “add to cart buttons” with larger font, that are easy to see and consider different wording like “proceed to checkout.” 10. Allow shoppers to add items to a wishlist using appropriate wording like “add to wishlist” rather than “buy now.” We could actually go on and on, but we will save that for the next entry. Cheers