[LINK] WebSockets

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Fred writes,

> I'm prepared to accept that I can't pay attention to the announcer/
> story and the scroller at the same time because:
> 
> a) I'm old;
> b) I'm a man;
> c) both of the above.


Haha .. just by the way, there's recent(ish) research that finds that
multi-taskers may do more things at once, but they usually do most of
those things badly, or less well than those whom are low multitaskers.
 
For eg: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8219212.stm (and)
http://www.43folders.com/2007/03/26/nyt-multitasking

Quote: A survey defined two groups (high and low multitaskers) ..

In a series of three classic psychology tests for attention and memory, 
the "low multitaskers" consistently outdid their highly multitasking 
counterparts. 

The results are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of 
Sciences. 

The three experiments, undertaken by high and low multitaskers, were 
designed to test three aspects ..

In the first, they were tested for their ability to ignore irrelevant 
information. They were briefly shown a screen with two red rectangles and 
either 0, 2, 4 or 6 blue rectangles. 

The task was to determine whether, when the screen was shown again, one 
of the red rectangles had been rotated. 

Low multitaskers were better at the task, regardless of the number of 
blue rectangles, whereas high multitaskers got worse at it as the number 
of distracting blue rectangles went up. 

In a test of the degree of organisation of working memory, participants 
were presented with a series of letters, one at a time, and told to push 
a button when they saw a letter that they had seen exactly three letters 
previously. 

Again, low multitaskers were significantly better at correctly spotting 
the repeated letters. Not only did the high multitaskers do worse from 
the beginning, they got worse at it as time went on. 

Thirdly came a test of the participants' ability to switch tasks.. Again, 
low multitaskers significantly outperformed their counterparts in 
switching to the new task.
 
> Of course, despite the best efforts of business, the web is not TV
> (yet). So, while I can appreciate why Ivan may find scrollers useful,
> providing I can squelch them I'm happy. Now if only TV would let me do 
> the same..

Yes agreed. I think that some slick US type newscasting is now following
one net example and actually designed to be on all day in the background
with the audio turned down. With so much media available, I suspect they
(news channels) are just hoping for 'some' audience as a 'silent' media?

Also, one agrees with link's feelings that we may need HTML5 off-buttons.

Cheers,
Stephen