Status-Q

An interesting article in this week’s Economist reports on experiments showing that people in a competition, for example in an exam hall, do better when surrounded by fewer competitors. In the 2005 SAT exams in the USA:

The two researchers used data on the number of test-takers in each state of the union and the number of test-taking venues in that state to calculate the average number of test-takers per venue in the state in question. They found that test scores fell as the number of people in the examination hall increased. And they discovered that this pattern was also true for the Cognitive Reflection Test, another analytical exam.

Further experiments suggested that even when factors such as the differing amounts of distraction have been removed, if you know or feel you are competing against a smaller group, you will achieve more.

The article is here – it may require an Economist subscription, though.

Well, I’m a bit late with this story, but I thought it worth repeating as a great example of the ingenuity of artists (and their lawyers)…

ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, is suing AT&T over the phone company’s selling of ringtones. Why, you may ask, would they do that, since they are already paid a share of the download fees?

Well, the download fees are too low, they claim, because they’re based on the idea that the download is for private listening. No, they say, not so! When your phone rings it is a public performance! And the fees should be adjusted accordingly…

More on the story here. Meanwhile, here’s how you can turn any music into an iPhone ringtone using iTunes.

In the past, big corporates who gave shoddy customer service had little to fear: the worst that could happen was was loss of repeat business from a customer who was probably more trouble than he was worth anyway.

Not any more. Imagine what the PR department at United Airlines are feeling about the fact that over half a million people have watched this rather nice little customer complaint:

Here’s the story. Thanks to Mark Littlewood for the tweet.

Google have just announced officially that they are developing an operating system, Google Chrome OS, and, this being 2009, the official announcement is made on the official blog.

Details are sketchy at present, but it sounds as if the emphasis will be lightweight, quick-booting… my guess is that it’ll be the minimum you can get away with to launch a browser and get online fast, ready to use all those lovely Google services, and that things like Gears will be built in to enable you to use them faster. This may mark the point where the PC really is an extension of your online apps and storage, rather than the other way around.

It’ll run on ARM and x86. And it’ll be Open Source too.

This has been predicted for some time, so it won’t surprise anyone at Microsoft, but I bet there’ll be some interesting discussions around the coffee machines in Redmond today.