Bridget Carey: The Digital Dish

UF tests if video games help grandma's mental sharpness

The University of Florida is testing if mental sharpness is improved for seniors that play video games. I've heard of this idea before. Plus, Nintendo DS's Brain Age -- a game with short mental puzzles -- targets commercials to older adults, implying that playing games makes you less forgetful.

I'm sure playing Halo may keep granny mentally fit, but do all seniors have the patience to play these games? I think simple, short puzzle games like Brain Age are great for keeping the mind sharp, but I doubt doctors are going to start saying, "Play two hours of Guitar Hero and call me in the morning." Because it's a generation that might not have the patience to learn how to play.

However, my generation learned to walk with a controller in one hand and a sippy cup in the other. We'll probably be having Mario Kart tournaments at our nursing homes. So if video games help the mind, then I suppose our generation will have less forgetful moments in our senior years, theoretically speaking.

The University of Central Florida has a broader study going on now to see if video games help people with alcohol and substance abuse problems.

My colleague John Dorschner has the full story, which you can read here: 2 Fla. schools to test video games' health effects.

GasPrices.com sold for $225K at Moniker's domain name auction

More than $2.5 million in domain names were bought during Moniker's T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East live auction last week in Orlando. The Pompano Beach domain-name registrar sold 105 domain names during the four-hour event.

One of the top-selling names was GasPrices.com at $225,000. Other top sells included:

• Insurancerates.com for $225,000
• Rainbow.com for $170,000
• Athlete.com for $122,000
• ow.com for $120,000
• Ringtones.org for $120,000
• Track.com for $92,500
• Computerparts.com for $80,000
• Grass.com for $70,000

I didn't attend the Orlando auction, but I have been to Moniker's previous auctions in Hollywood. The Orlando auction seems pretty tame in comparison.

In October 2007, Computer.com went for $2.2 million in Hollywood. At Hollywood's 2006 auction, Cameras.com sold for $1.5 million and bidders spent more than $4.7 million in total.

To see a full list of all the purchases at the Orlando auction go here: Results for T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East in Orlando

Telecommuting can be a deal-making perk for tech employees

Gas is more than $4 a gallon in many parts of South Florida, so it's not surprising that employees are wanting to telecommute more than ever before.

ProTech, an information technology search and staffing firm, surveyed 544 IT professionals in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties regarding work incentives. The option for flex-time and telecommuting tied total compensation as deciding factors in accepting a job offer from a prospective employer.

Twenty-three percent of technology workers -- the largest piece of the pie -- said flex-time and telecommuting were the best perks offered to them by a past or present employer, edging out bonus and paid expenses (each at 18 percent). Work/life balance came in second after salary as the most important consideration when weighing a job offer. That was followed by stability and career growth.

Other findings from the ProTech survey of South Florida technology workers:

• IT workers reported an average salary increase of 12 percent over the previous year
• 38 percent said the downturn in the housing market and mortgage crisis had affected them
• 49 percent said they had seriously considered leaving Florida in the last year (which is down 3 percent from last year). They cited cost-of-living (39 percent) and lack of job opportunities (35 percent) as the major reasons for wanting to leave the state.
• 83 percent said they would leave their current company for a better opportunity -- a decrease of 4 percent from last year

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Moli.com social network targets small businesses

When it comes to integrating business and social networking, most sites I've come across tend to revolve around professional contacts and resumes, like LinkedIn.

But Moli.com -- a social network based in West Palm Beach -- is targeting small businesses by offering them a resource center and the ability to connect with other businesses.

When it first launched, the site was marketed as a place to manage multiple profiles for your social and professional life, but separates them with different privacy settings. The small business center is just another addition to encourage the busy start-up entrepreneur to manage their life and work on one network.

A free account comes with a URL and search engine optimization abilities. Of course these sites are not super professional. The target user is someone with 10 or less employees who doesn't have the resources to make a site from scratch. The idea is to get started on a site like this, use the resources, connect with others, and eventually take your business to the next stage.

You can read my full story here.

Which one gadget would you bring with you on vacation?

When I'm on vacation, I bring the phone, camera, car GPS (if driving is involved), mp3 player... but Best Buy asked people if they could just bring one device with them on vacation, what would it be?

I'd have to say my cellphone, since it's also a camera, mp3 player and has GPS. And 47 percent of people agree with me on that.

A digital camera was the answer for 28 percent of respondents. No technology came in third with 10 percent of the vote (what?!?). Six percent of people picked an mp3 player, four percent said a Blackberry or smartphone, three percent said a GPS unit, and two percent would bring a portable DVD player.

The findings are from 1,000 interviews of people ages 18 and up, conducted in April by GfK Roper.

Are you guilty of texting while driving? Study reveals texting habits.

Curious about the popularity of texting? Vlingo, a company that provides mobile applications that translate voice to text, has released a study on consumer text messaging habits. The survey was administered independently by Common Knowledge Research Services and sent to 4,820 people living in the U.S.

Here are some of the key points in the findings:

• Teens and 20-somethings are the biggest texting age groups, with 85 percent of each group reporting that they text. Across all generations, 55 percent of mobile phone users said they send text messages. The more interesting fact: 42 percent of all respondents said they make just as many text messages (or more) as they do phone calls.
• 34 percent of teenagers ages 13 to 19 said they send 500+ text messages a month.
• About 28 percent of mobile phone users admit to driving while texting. When you look at people in their 20s, that number jumps to 52 percent. Teenagers aren't that much better, with 50 percent saying they text while driving.
• In Florida, 25 percent of respondents admitted to texting while driving. South Carolina scored the highest, with 40 percent of people admitting to texting while driving.
• Of the 45 percent on consumers who said they don't use phones to send texts, 30 percent said it was because it was too difficult to type on a phone. Forty percent said it was because it takes too long to send a text, and 44 percent said it was too expensive.

Since Vlingo is behind this study, they also asked people if they would be interested in using a service where you could speak into the phone and have the words translated into text. About 48 percent said they would send more text messages if they could just speak the message, and 64 percent said they were willing to pay for that service.

I don't think I'd use a service like that since I have a full QWERTY keyboard on my phone. Only 10.7 percent of respondents said they had a full QWERTY keypad, and 88.9 percent said they had 12 numeric keys. Touch screen keyboards made up 2.8 percent of those surveyed.

Click here to download the full PDF report.

Boost Mobile opens store in Hialeah

Boost Mobile, a provider of pay-as-you-go wireless products and services, has opened a store in Hialeah. It's one of Boost's first three stores -- the others are in Huntington Park, Cali. and Houston, Texas.

The Hialeah store is located at West Park Center, 1905 West 35th St.

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"[The stores] are centered right where our demographic is at," said John Torres, Boost's sales operation manager for direct and retail sales. "It's extremely important for Boost to be in that hub."

He said the company could have located the store in a highly trafficked mall in an area like South Beach, but instead choose to do the opposite. Boost wanted to put the stores in areas that centered around communities with their top demographic: minorities under 26 years old.

Boost devices are already available at retail stores like Best Buy and RadioShack, but the success of Boost's three new retail stores will be the deciding factor if the company will add more stores, Torres said. The company will examine how the Hialeah store does over next 12 months to see if it is worth opening up more Boost-exclusive retail shops.

There are also plans to turn the shops into a repair service center for Boost devices, Torres said.

Boost Mobile is a division of Sprint, but Torres explained that they didn't want to just put Boost items in Sprint stores.

"If you really look at the product, we're completely polar opposites," Torres said. "Our customer base would not think of going into a Sprint store."

The goal for each store is to also support the community by partnering with local municipalities and getting involved with community events, he said. For starters, Boost Mobile is working with the Bucky Dent Gymnasium and Youth Center in Hialeah by paying to refurbish the floor.

Is American Idol to thank for the popularity of texting?

Think back to 2003. How much were you texting? Did you have a plan that included text messages, or were you paying per text since you rarely texted people?

In 2003, AT&T began its sponsorship with American Idol, and thus began encouraging viewers to text message their votes.

AT&T sent me some interesting stats. At the end of Season 2, AT&T wireless customers sent more than 7.5 million American Idol-related text messages (which includes polls, sweepstakes entries, trivia as well as votes).

The following year, there were 13.5 million Idol-related text messages. In 2005 there were 41.5 million Idol-related texts, which was the first season after the AT&T Wireless and Cingular merger.

In 2006, that number jumped to 64.5 million.

AT&T also shared these points from 2003 customer data:

• More than one-third of all voting participants had never sent a text message as an AT&T customer before American Idol
• The number of text votes received increased by nearly 5,000 percent from the first voting episode to the last voting episodes
• Approximately 70 percent of text voters voted more than once

AT&T said they were not able to disclose the 2007 numbers, and they won't know this season's text stats until the show ends.

But have reality voting shows helped Americans embrace texting? Obviously American Idol is not the only show you can text your vote. I remember Verizon sponsored the texting in the CBS show Rock Star. And now every reality show has some texting element. Heck, even Bravo's reality shows like Top Chef have instant texting polls that serve no point other than to entertain. But there's no question - people are texting more now than ever before. I don't think Ryan Seacrest deserves all the thanks -- it probably also has to do with the increase of cheaper data plans from wireless providers.

But what about you? Did a television show motivate you to start texting? Or were you texting long before Kelly Clarkson hit the stage?

AT&T continues to expand 3G network in South Florida

This month AT&T has been very busy activating 3G cell sites around South Florida. If you're not familiar with 3G, it's AT&T's fastest wireless connection speed. It's available on select phones and allows users to access services like AT&T Video Share.

Today the company announced it activated 3G cell sites in Delray Beach and Fort Lauderdale. Last week, a 3G cell site was activated at the Port of Miami, which provides coverage north to the MacArthur Causeway and west o Biscayne Boulevard. And before that, AT&T also put cell sites in the following areas of Miami-Dade County:

• Along the Palmetto Expressway between 1-95 and 17th Avenue
• On 12th Avenue between 173rd Street and 156th Street
• Along U.S. 1 between N.E. 190th Street and 180th Street
• On Miami Gardens Drive in Miami, between U.S. 1 and N.E. 22nd Avenue
• Along Krome Avenue between S.W. 8th Street and Okeechobee Road
• In the Medley area of Miami, along N.W. 114th Street to the north, N.W. 89th Avenue to the east, N.W. 89th Street to the south and N.W. 107th Avenue to the west
• In the Redland area of southwestern Miami-Dade, along S.W. 184th Street to the north, S.W. 162nd Avenue to the east, S.W. 220 Street to the south and S.W. 177th Avenue to the west
• In Hialeah, along Okeechobee Road, west of the Turnpike, and north into Broward County
• In southwestern Homestead, from S.W. 360th Street to the north, S.W. 192nd Avenue to the east and S.W. 237th Avenue to the west
• Along S.W. 264th Street to the north, S.W. 140th Avenue to the east, S.W. 284th Street to the south and S.W. 157th Avenue to the west in Homestead

Does your company allow more teleworking in the summer?

I've been seeing more e-mails lately about teleworking, especially since summer is around the corner. And then there are companies who allow for "summer Fridays" where employees can have off on Friday or have a partial day with teleworking.

Is teleworking something that you think could work at your business? Of course not all tasks can be done away from the office, but maybe one day of work can be done from home. The Telework Association and Council reports about 28 million people telework.

And with advances in mobile communication, you can stay connected to the office while at the beach. Is that really efficient for getting work done? Sounds like "summer Fridays" are just buzz words people throw around to get out of work. Of course everyone wants more work/life balance... but are businesses going for it?

What's your take on teleworking?