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Researchers are tapping into the brain's signals to ease the downsides of multitasking and information overload, a worsening problem in digital lifestyles.

A group of researchers at MIT, Indiana University, and Tufts University last week presented the Brainput computer interface device at last week's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2012) which explores new human-machine interface designs.

Brainput seeks to address the problem of people getting overloaded when working on machines and to improve people's ability to multitask. It's geared primarily at complex control systems, but its makers say the technique could eventually spill … Read more

Twitter today decided to reveal some information about users in the U.K.

According to the company, 10 million people across the U.K. are actively using Twitter, placing it in fourth place behind the U.S., Brazil, and Japan. In addition, the company revealed that 80 percent of those users are active on mobile devices, easily outpacing the global average of 55 percent.

Twitter is notoriously tight-lipped about its userbase and growth, making today's announcement somewhat notable. Twitter defines an active user as someone who has logged into its service at least once in the past 30 days.… Read more

Apple's iPad could one day get support for multiple user accounts if an e-mail purportedly sent to a developer from Apple's Worldwide Developer Relations group is to be believed.

Apple Insider on Monday posted a reply an unnamed developer received from Apple after requesting that the company add support for multiple user accounts on the iPad.

"After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering," the reply read.

That reply doesn't go so far as to say such a feature is coming, but comes … Read more

Researchers have developed a way to take the multitouch interface of tablets and smartphones to a whole new level and set of objects.

Disney Research in Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University yesterday announced a touch interface technology called Touche that brings a new set of gestures to existing touch screens and can make anything from table tops to body parts computer input devices.

It could lead to a "smart doorknob" that unlocks when grasped a certain way, or a couch that turns on the TV when a person sits down and turns off when the person falls asleep. … Read more

In the computing world right now, there are two general ways to show windows on a screen: with the window taking up the entire screen, as on smartphones and tablets; or with resizable, overlapping windows, as on personal computer OSes.

Until yesterday, Google's browser-based operating system, Chrome OS, fell into the former camp. Users had no choice but to see browser pages and run browser apps at the full size of the screen. That changed with a new window manager that debuted with Chrome OS 19.0.1048.17, released in a developer build.

With the Chromebook notebooks that … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions about the best way to move data from an old user account to a new one, the purpose for the key given to you when you enable FileVault, and how to add new menu extras to the menu bar. Others asked how to manage exceptionally large virtual memory used by programs, and how best to move an OS installation to a new partition. We welcome alternative approaches and views from readers, so if you have any suggestions, post … Read more

If you're not already a pro at using the command line, OnyX is a solid choice for conducting routine maintenance and tweaking the interface on your Mac. This free utility shares much of the functionality of applications like Cocktail (which its help files suspiciously resemble), and it can help you with everything from checking SMART status on your disks to configuring the Dock, Finder, and Dashboard and Expose to your liking.

OnyX can even help you run Unix utilities, change your desktop to an animated background, and unlock hidden functions in apps like Safari and iTunes. As with all … Read more

Often when troubleshooting odd application or system behavior in OS X you will access the preferences folder in your user account to remove or manually edit settings for a program. While in most cases you will find the preferences file for an application directly in the Preferences folder, sometimes they will be in subfolders within the Preferences folder itself.

Usually this sequestering of preferences files is done by developers such as Microsoft or Adobe for their various applications or application suites; however, in addition to those from developers you will see a folder called ByHost that contains a number of … Read more

Adobe Systems has published a glimpse of the forthcoming Photoshop CS6, an update that brings the dark workspace and raw-image editing tools from the new beta of its sister program, Lightroom 4.

Bryan O'Neil Hughes, an Adobe senior product manager, showed off a bit of the new software in a YouTube video published yesterday. Photoshop CS6 is set to debut along with the sixth version of Adobe's Creative Suite in the first half of 2012.

Darker photo backgrounds are all the rage for photo software since they make photos stand out nicely; the darker interface used in Lightroom … Read more