Watching 3D movies improves brain’s cognitive processing

According to the research by Goldsmiths University neuroscientist Patrick Fagan and Professor Brendan Walker of Thrill Laboratory, participating filmgoers showed a 23% increase in cognitive processing ability after watching a movie in stereoscope. Their reaction times improved by 11%, and they experienced a “brain boost” for up to 20 minutes after viewing. The improvement in reaction time was five times that experienced by participants who had been watching a 2D movie.“These findings are more significant than you might think,” said Fagan. “It is a fact that people are living longer and there is a noticeable decline in cognitive brain function in old age, which can impair future quality of life. There has never been a better time to look at ways to improve brain function. The initial results of this study indicate that 3D films may potentially play a role in slowing this decline.”

Source: Watching 3D movies ‘helps improve brain power’ | Film | The Guardian

Flickr acknowledges – finally – that photo upload has not been working

Flickr has finally acknowledged that their new software update on their web site has broken photo uploads. Flickr Help Forum user comments.

Update: Official Flickr Forum thread on the upload failure. Apparently Flickr released a new “auto upload” feature in their Flickr apps that attempts to upload every picture on your device, by default (even if you do not want it uploaded). It seems this has overloaded the Flickr network (duh!) and Flickr was unprepared for the deluge they themselves unleashed as every device attempted to upload massive numbers of photos.

The symptom is that photo uploads time out – and you are unable to upload photos. Obviously, uploads work for some, but also did not work for many.

There are some neat features in the new software including automatic tag generation (for some of my photos, it did a surprisingly good job), and their new “Magic” album that automatically organizes photos by subjects. (It works really well!)

Guide to 3D and Drones

Coldstreams 3D and Drones