Gone are the days of writing your notes during lectures on paper. According to Presda Electronics, seven out of ten students in the US now take notes on keyboards.

But just how important is technology to a student’s academic life? Very, according to recent findings and it is not long before the UK follows if it hasn’t already.

Over 90 percent of US students use emails to communicate with their lecturers and 73 percent said they cannot study without technology. A staggering 98 percent of students now own an ereader to read textbooks on and nearly all use digital tools to help them prepare for a presentation.

Students depend on technology

It seems students now have a heavy dependency on technology, where 38 percent of individuals can’t go longer than ten minutes without checking their smartphone.

According to Presda Electronics, US students spent a whopping $13 billion on electronics in 2009 and this figure will no doubt rise in the future.

Internet is an education gateway

The report states that community college students are not as digitally connected as students who are at a four-year school, but more individuals are using the internet as their education gateway.

Interestingly, 12 million students now take at least one class online and in five years that figure is expected to reach 22 million. By 2014, industry analysts predict over 3.5 million students will take all of their classes online.

Gone are the days of textbooks, writing pads and Dictaphones. It’s all about the iPads, smartphones and ebooks. Have a look at the infographic below, there are some interesting findings!

Infographic created by: Presta Electronics

London Underground has announced a deal with Virgin Media that will see 80 tube stations installed with free Wi-Fi during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The number of tube stations will be increased to 120 by the end of the year, but once the Olympics are over the Wi-Fi service will become pay-as-you-go.

With technology moving quickly, people’s expectation is to be able to work and communicate successfully while they are on the move. Access to the internet is no longer limited to home or the work place.

London Overground to follow free Wi-Fi idea

London Overground passengers will soon be able to check their emails and surf the internet for free whilst waiting for a train on any of city’s 56 train stations.

Once the hotspots are up and running, London Overground passengers can access 60 minutes of free Wi-Fi per day, with the first 12 stations being installed by the end of 2012.

Users will only need to register once to access the service and will remain free to use at all times, unlike the London Underground service.

London will become a leading connected city

The free Wi-Fi plans will start in July and are expected to be a huge success, placing London as one of the leading connected cities in the world.

The capital will be playing host to millions of people at the London 2012 Olympic Games and the news has shown the city is keeping up with the fast moving digital industry.

Facebook has surprised the business world after buying Instagram for an impressive $1 billion. Instead of waiting for its first public offering that was due to take place next month, Facebook offered the huge sum to get their hands on the photosharing app.

Instagram was launched only 18 months ago and only has 13 employees, that’s a cool $77 million a head making it one of the most expensive business deals in history.

This is Facebook’s largest purchase to date, where previous acquisitions have been less than $100 million. The Instagram app is free and offers users the chance to apply 17 filters to their photos to give them a different effect before uploading them.

Popular with mobile users

The photosharing app has become very popular with mobile users and is Apple’s top selling app with more than 30 million users uploading five million images every day.

Facebook has always focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with family and friends. Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he will be working closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing photos based on interests.

A great week for Instagram

Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom has stated he is looking forward to working with the new parent company and using Facebook’s resources and talent.

In the space of a week, Instagram closed a $50 million financing round with several top investors that valued the app at $500 million. Then Facebook purchased the photosharing app resulting in the investment doubling in value.

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when the Instagram employees found out the Facebook deal had gone through, the buzz in the office must have been amazing!

Foursquare is a location-sharing social network that has been a huge hit in the US. The recommendation engine allows you to check-in to places and take advantage of offers available whether it is a restaurant, bar or hotel.

Individuals can also just use the app to see what is around them and they can discover new experiences from what their friends have liked. The aim of the social network is to map out the world for its users.

1.5 billion ‘check-ins’ so far

The New York based social network has already recorded an impressive 1.5 billion ‘check-ins’ and has over 20 million users. Co-founder and chief executive Dennis Crowley has recently hired Foursquare’s first UK employee, Omid Ashtari, who previously worked at Google.

The new director of business development will promote Foursquare to British brands and really bring the location-sharing network to life according to Crowley.

Will the UK take to Foursquare?

The UK is slightly behind the US in terms of getting on board with Foursquare but Crowley thinks that will soon change and the recommendation engine will be a big hit in the UK like it is in the US.

The co-founder is looking at expanding the UK team which will make a huge difference in turning the location service into a success in the UK.

Crowley also believes that Foursquare has created a well-carved niche in location services. He stated people use Facebook for status updates, to look at photos and share information with their friends. People who use Foursquare want to discover more about the location they are in and what deals are on offer.

Have you ever wondered how augmented reality will leap from being interesting to being practical and functional? Well Google has given us an insight into the future by providing this video showing examples of how this may work with their Project Glass: Augmented reality glasses.

14 months ago Google released an algorithm update that was to change the face of SEO forever. The plan was to improve the quality of the results for a given search by pushing low-quality sites further down the results page.

For years Google’s results outstripped its competitors, earning it a market share of over 65%. However, other searches such as Yahoo and Bing were beginning to catch up, and webmasters had become wise as to how they could manipulate Google’s existing PageRank algorithm  - practices such as link selling were becoming widespread.

The Panda update was Google’s answer, and gave them a whole new way to analyze websites. This new approach demanded better quality results , and gave less weight to the votes of confidence from other websites (links), choosing instead to listen to what users thought about websites. Not only did it start to consider user opinion on websites we visited, but it did this without even having to ask us for a review!

The idea was to compare a wide variety of signals, such as time on site, bounce rate and social media likes/shares, which gave Google a strong indicator as to the quality of the site. If searchers were only spending 10 seconds on the website they were directed to, clearly it wasn’t what they were looking for. Similarly, if they noticed that many users were reaching a site (and staying there) by searching for a  brand name, Google’s algorithm would make a note of this and bump it up the rankings accordingly.

Needless to say, when Panda went global in April 2011 it caused a stir. CNET reported a surge in the ranking of news and social networking sites, whilst advertising-heavy sites plummeted down the list, simply because the quality of the content just didn’t warrant them having a top spot. Panda started to consider the semantic nature of a website; not just how many links it received and how many keywords could be crammed in to every orifice presented.

What has the new 3.4 update changed?

The original Panda update was probably the most dramatic change to SEO in the last decade. But, ever determined to deliver the best search results available, the boffins at Google have been toiling away in the background since then, working on an update that would encourage more high-quality sites, and together with the recent Venice “Freshness” update, level the SEO playing field for the future.

Now, it’s worth pointing out that search engines such as Bing & Google don’t really like old fashioned SEO; in truth it’s just cheating the system, trying to trick them into giving our site a high ranking by looking at what ranks well, listening to what they say they want from websites, and optimizing accordingly. If you have a site with weak content, don’t panic!  A good link building campaign, well optimized anchor text profiles, and keywords all over the show can make up for it. Some people would say this is a good thing, I mean, Mr Pen’s Online Pen Store isn’t trying to provide fascinating information about pens for its users, its trying to sell them pens.  However this approach has left search engines being open to exploitation, and when your company is worth 190 billion dollars you don’t tend to put up with it…

So how do you stop people doing too much old fashioned SEO on a site? Simple. You penalize it, and that’s exactly what Google have done. Sites with great content and user value are going to get all the love, whilst ones with duplication or too much optimization are going to the get the cold shoulder as Google dumps them to go and “find itself”.

I should mention at this point that the update doesn’t mean the SEO isn’t important any more – if anything now is the time for site owners to review their strategy, particularly those who have been affected by the recent changes. What it does mean is that it needs to be done carefully; cowboy approaches to SEO just won’t work any more.

As ever, no one except Matt Cutts and the rest of Google’s spam squad actually knows what makes a site overly optimized. It’s generally believed that link exchanges and keyword stuffing are already picked up by the algorithm in use, so either they’re going to crank up the punishment they deal out to the guilty parties, or they have some new ideas about what an over-optimized site looks like. This presents a challenge for sites that have undergone a lot of search tuning, but will level the playing field, allowing pages which have not been rigorously SEO’d to rank on the basis of their content, rather than the old fashioned signals – great news for webmasters who have only just set out on their online experience.  The latest Panda 3.4 update will also have a big effect on websites with a lot of duplicate content because, after all, what good is providing a list of results that all say the same thing – having unique and interesting content is what will put you at the top. Dealing with duplication already on your site can be quite easily done with some SEO work, but it’s providing that great content that keeps people engaged that will really put you in a competitive position.

Exactly what is being punished and how isn’t entirely certain at this point, but what we do know is that it’s going to have an impact on sites that rely on their link popularity to get in the top listings for a search phrase, rather than the quality of a user’s experience. One thing is for sure, Google are pulling our attention towards the one thing they’ve always wanted us to do – build sites for users, not Googlebots.

A New Yorker has impressed audiences all over the world by performing traditional magic tricks using the latest technology gadgets.

The cyber-illusionist believes magic is a very broad field and magicians should use what they love. In Tempest’s case that love is technology and these videos on his website shows how he performs tricks using iPhones and other technology products.

Inspiration came from special effects in films

People have called his art form “sustained magic” because instead of building up to a big moment of revelation to make audiences gasp, he tries to keep a constant state of amazement throughout his performance.

He states movies were outperforming magicians with their special effects and that was his inspiration to start performing illusions with technologies that are used in movies.

Illusionist reveals software tools

To create illusions Tempest uses computer vision, pattern recognition, high speed photography, thermal imaging and robotics to name a few. He states he uses these tools to tell stories and create his own magical experiences.

Tempest describes himself as a practitioner of “open sorcery” due to him sharing all the software tools necessary to perform his latest tricks through various portals including his website.

It is unusual for magicians to reveal how they perform their tricks, so it is an interesting insight into how he creates the illusions.

Watch the videos on his website and see Tempest perform some impressive tricks!

New app Draw Something has been downloaded 50 million times in just 50 days, according to the game’s owner Zynga.

Zynga bought the game’s developer OMGPOP last month and has reported the figures have made the app the fastest growing mobile game of all time.

What makes this story even more exciting is the drama behind game’s developer. The company was facing bankruptcy with only $3,000 in the bank until it was bought for a cool $180 million.

Similar concept to Pictionary

Draw Something is a simple game that involves players drawing pictures in order to guess words. It has a similar concept to the game Pictionary. The game has become so popular that at peak times players create over 3,000 drawings per second.

Whilst Apple does not disclose download figures for specific titles, Draw Something is at the top of the iPhone app charts beating the sequel to Angry Birds, Angry Birds Space.

Six million drawings created so far

Zynga has stated more than six billion drawings have been created on the app so far.  In the game, players are given words they can try to illustrate by drawing on a smartphone or tablet’s touchscreen. If the friend guesses the answer correctly, coins are earned to purchase more items such as new colours.

The app has certainly been a web sensation and is expected to grow even further. It currently has 8.1 million daily active users and the game is certainly addictive.

Purchasing Draw Something has been a wise move from Zynga because the company can now promote its other games to the new, vibrant user base. That could certainly extend the value of the game beyond its cycle.

Tech billionaire Sean Parker made headlines this week by claiming that the music streaming service Spotify will overtake Apple’s iTunes store in two years.

The bold statement has resulted in technology blogs gossiping about whether the social network investor is right.

Parker claims music companies will earn more through Spotify and if it continues to grow at its current rate, it will take over iTunes in the near future.

Spotify subscribers growing fast

Spotify’s subscribers and users are growing at a fast rate and Parker believes the company will overtake iTunes in terms of the amount of revenue it contributes to the music labels.

The controversial character, who became famous from the film ‘The Social Network ‘, has even poked fun at Apple’s iTunes store stating, “The iTunes store, to this day, is so slow. I’m amazed.”

Parker must truly believe in his recent statement as he has invested $15 million into the music streaming company, which is currently the number two music service in Europe after iTunes.

He also knows the industry well. He set up the music-sharing community Napster in the Nineties, which made a huge impact in the internet music market.

So is he right?

He has certainly made a bold statement and Spotify is growing at an incredibly fast rate. The company recently hit 10 million users after a partnership with Facebook that allows users to access Spotify via their Facebook log-in.

The music site now has three million paying subscribers that pay around £10 per month to access the service via phones and desktops.

Parker isn’t nervous about making the headlines and he certainly has the talent for spotting a good business opportunity when he sees one. He did after all see Facebook’s potential resulting in him becoming the first president at the social network.

Is he right? We will have to wait two years to find out!

According to the latest research by Experian Hitwise 2.2 billion Internet users in the UK visited search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, resulting in a rise of 174 million compared to last year in February.

Google came out top with 91.57 percent of all searches conducted in the UK last month, which was up by 0.93 percent from January 2012.

Microsoft sites fell by 0.48 percent from January 2012, where Yahoo! saw a 0.39 percent fall from the same month. Ask maintained its market share for January and the research found it had a yearly increase of 0.37 percent.

Users reliant on search engines

With the figures out of the way, the research has shown how people have become reliant on search engines to help us navigate around the Internet. An increase of 174 million is certainly impressive and is a huge jump in the space of one year.

It is becoming more and more critical for companies to understand how people are using search engines and what keywords they are using. Monitoring how successful those searches are has become crucial for companies as it helps them to market their brand online.

The power of search engines

It certainly shows how powerful search engines are and the fact that more people are turning to them to find out information quickly. It makes you wonder how on earth we searched for information before the Internet came along!