Here at Scout we work with a lot of open tabs - sites to annotate, reviews of those sites, various searches, historical references, all while answering emails, updating social media, and looking for the latest news stories. So sometimes the proliferation of open tabs can be a little overwhelming. OneTab is designed to address this problem with an elegant trick. When the reader finds too many tabs...

Are there other worlds out there? What can science tell us about American history? These are but a few of the important questions asked by the people at the Smithsonian's Online Conference on problem solving. The conference was convened twice during April 2010, and it was sponsored in part by the Microsoft Partners in Learning organization. The experts asking and answering these questions are all...

Are you interested in improving civic culture and knowledge with apps? If so, you will be delighted to learn about the Open City site. The Open City folks are a group of programmers, citizen activists, and policy types that create apps with open data in order "to improve transparency and understanding of our government." Chicagoans can stop by the Merchandise Mart to meet up and work with Open...

Communication is key these days as people are using all different types of outlets. Instant Messaging is a great cheap way to communicate over all distances, however not everyone can easily express their ideas by pounding on the keyboard. If this is you then you may like PalTalk. PalTalk offers the ability to use audio and video instead of a keyboard, or you can drop back to the keyboard for old...

Somewhere you might have a treasured store of old family photos and letters left from your parents or grandparents. We treasure these memories of loved ones, which are often passed down through generations. But increasingly, we rely on digital tools and resources to safe keep our memories on a blog, our photos on a smart phone, or our correspondence in email. How can we ensure that these memories...

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has compiled these infographics for use by journalists, scholars, and members of the general public. These visualizations represent the fruits of their substantial research into topics such as Internet usage, cell phone ownership, and social media. The site contains over 60 infographics and the materials here are culled from the Project's past reports,...

How many people are reading e-books? How often do they read them? These are but a few of the queries that animated this recent research study by a team of five staff members at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The 68-page report was released in April 2012, and visitors can read the document in its entirety, or peruse the overview offered here. Based on their polling, the authors found...

Parents and caregivers know that technology use and screen time limits are highly debated topics. As many schools and services move online in light of COVID-19, readers may find themselves modifying their children's technology policy. This report, Parenting Children in the Age of Screens, may provide insights (and comfort in knowing many others are considering the challenges of technology and...

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has created this terrific site which brings together many of their data sets, charts, and graphs in one convenient location. Here visitors can look over several different data sets. Some of these data sets are available as Excel files, and they will be of tremendous benefit to journalists, educators, and public policy scholars. Visitors are encouraged to...

In May 2017, the Pew Research Center released a study examining the technology habits of U.S. adults ages 65 and older. This report was based on the results of a telephone survey of 3,015 individuals. The major findings? In general, older adults are using technologies including the internet and smartphones at a much higher rate than in the past. For example, 67 percent of senior citizens surveyed...