Why Is Facebook Blue? The Science Behind Colors In Marketing

Turns out, something as simple as tweaking the color of a button changes user behavior or endears people to your product.Informative Stuff is going to tell you the scientific truth behind facebook blue look.

Why is Facebook blue? According to The New Yorker, the reason is simple. It’s because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green color blind; blue is the color Mark can see the best.

Not highly scientific, right? That may not be the case for Facebook, but there are some amazing examples of how colors actually affect our purchasing decisions. After all, sight is the strongest developed sense in most human beings. It’s only natural that 90% of an assessment for trying out a product is made by color alone.
So how do colors really affect us, and what is the science of colors in marketing, really? As we strive to make improvements to our product at Buffer, studying this phenomenon is key. Let’s dig into some of the latest, most interesting research on it.
First: Can you recognize the online brands just based on color?

Before we dive into the research, here are some awesome experiments that show you how powerful color alone really is. Based on just the colors of the buttons, can you guess which company belongs to each of them?
Example 1 (easy):

Example 2 (easy):

Example 3 (medium):

Example 4 (hard):

These awesome examples from YouTube designer Marc Hemeon, I think, show the real power of color more than any study could.
How many were you able to guess? (All the answers are at the bottom of this post!)
Which colors trigger which feeling for us?
Being completely conscious about what color triggers us to think in which way isn’t always obvious. The Logo Company has come up with an amazing breakdown that shows which colors are best for which companies and why. Here are 4 great examples:
Black:

Green:

Blue:

Clearly, every one of these companies is seeking to trigger a very specific emotion:

When we feel compelled to buy something, color can play a major role. Analytics company KISSmetrics created an amazing infographic on the science of how colors affect our purchases.
Green stands out to me as the most relaxing color we can use to make buying easier. We didn’t intentionally choose this as the main color for Buffer--although it seems to have worked very well so far.
At second look, I also realized how frequently black is used for luxury products. Here is the full infographic:

How to improve your marketing with better use of colors:
This all might be fairly entertaining, but what are some actual decisions we can apply today to our website or app? The answer comes yet again from some great research done by the good folks over at KISSmetrics.
If you are building an app that mainly targets women, KISSmetrics suggests that women love blue, purple, and green, and dislike orange, brown, and gray.

In case your app is strictly targeting men, the rules of the game are slightly different. Men love blue, green, and black, but can do without brown, orange, and purple.

In another experiment, Performable  wanted to find out whether simply changing the color of a button would make a difference in conversion rates.
They started out by trying to guess the outcome of a simple choice between two colors (green and red) and trying to guess what would happen.
“Green connotes ideas like “natural” and “environment,” and given its wide use in traffic lights, suggests the idea of “go” or forward movement. The color red, on the other hand, is often thought to communicate excitement, passion, blood, and warning. It is also used as the color for stopping at traffic lights. Red is also known to be eye-catching.”
So, clearly an A/B test between green and red would result in green, the more friendly color. At least that was their guess. Here is what their experiment looked like:

So how did that experiment turn out? The answer was surprising: The red button outperformed the green button by 21%.
What’s most important to consider is that nothing else was changed at all: 21% more people clicked on the red button than on the green button. Everything else on the pages was the same, so it was only the button color that made this difference.
This definitely made me wonder: If we were to read all the research before this experiment and ask every researcher which version they would guess would perform better, I’m sure green would be the answer in nearly all cases. Not so much.
At my company, we’ve also conducted dozens of experiments to improve our conversion rates using changes of colors. While the results weren’t as clear, we still saw a huge change. One hypothesis is that for a social media sharing tool, there is less of a barrier to signup, which makes the differences less significant.
Despite all the studies, generalizations are extremely hard to make. Whatever change you make, treat it first as a hypothesis, and see if the actual experiment supports your ideas. Personally, I’m always very prone to go with opinion based on research I’ve come across. Yet, data always beats opinion, no matter what.
Quick last fact: Why are hyperlinks blue?
This is something that always interested me and is actually a fun story. In short, it's offers the highest contrast between the colors used on early websites.

Here is the full explanation: “Tim Berners-Lee, the main inventor of the web, is believed to be the man who first made hyperlinks blue. Mosaic, a very early web browser, displayed webpages with a (ugly) gray background and black text. The darkest color available at the time that was not the same as the black text was that blue color. Therefore, to make links stand apart from plain text, but still be readable, the color blue was selected.”
I think it's fascinating that tweaking something as small as the color can completely change an outcome. What have been your findings in terms of colors and marketing? Tell me about it in the comments.
Source: stumbleupon.com

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Treat a patient 3,000 miles away

Increasing demands on medical health professionals and shortfalls in specialists could be addressed with a surge in new types of “telemedicine” technology that links experts with patients remotely.


 

MaLea Fox was just seven months old when, on a summer’s day in 2011, she woke with a dangerous temperature of 39°C (102.4°F).
Local doctors near her home in the US state of Oregon had earlier diagnosed a common virus. But when MaLea’s mother found her unresponsive, she was rushed to a nearby hospital for a second opinion.
Dr Jennifer Needle, a specialist in paediatric intensive care, was working at a clinic 100 miles (160km) away at the Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, when she made a diagnosis that would save MaLea’s life.
Using a laptop with a fast internet connection and a mobile videoconferencing unit at MaLea’s bedside, Dr Needle spotted a rash that she quickly diagnosed as meningococcemia, a life-threatening bacterial infection known for causing meningitis.
The remote and timely intervention meant MaLea was given the antibiotics that would help save her life. It also meant that Dr Needle could tell nurses to insert a breathing tube – something that became critical when, without warning, the helicopter transporting her to the hospital had to turn back due to fog.
The case was another success for the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Telemedicine Network – a system that electronically connects 10 hospitals across the state with the organisation’s expert neonatologists, stroke neurologists, neurosurgeons, trauma surgeons and other specialists.
This ability to connect patients with experts is invaluable, explains Dr Miles Ellenby, medical director of the network. "In a time of crisis, a telephone call is helpful. A picture is worth a thousand words. But live interactive video is priceless. We can actually see what's going on."
Remote diagnosis like this is just one example of the growing field of telemedicine – a broad term covering various ways healthcare can be delivered remotely. Back in 2001, for example, a team of surgeons in New York successfully removed a cancerous gall bladder from a 68-year-old woman 3,000 miles (4,828km) away in Strasbourg Civil Hospital, France.
The procedure, using a fibre optic communications link and a “robotic surgical system”, marked the first ever example of remote surgery, or “telesurgery” – a now well-established field.
Elsewhere, the US Army is using telemedicine to treat soldiers for medical and psychiatric conditions. Videoconferencing systems used by the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, for example, are flexible enough to allow treatment of former soldiers across America suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) along with providing psychotherapy for serving soldiers deployed in remote warzones.
Meeting demand
But this kind of technology is not just useful in emergencies. Increasingly, it is helping solve one of the main problems afflicting global healthcare: too few doctors for too many people.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 47% of its member states have fewer than one doctor per 1,000 inhabitants. For example, in the last decade Niger and Liberia had just two per 100,000 while Tanzania had just eight per one million people. The countries stand in stark contrast to the wealthy principality of Monaco – which boasted more than seven doctors per 1,000 inhabitants in 2011.
There are also huge imbalances in concentrations of doctors per country. In Malawi, for example, 87% of its population lives in rural areas but almost all of the country’s doctors are based in cities. Likewise in Canada, the isolation of some northern communities severely limits the availability of professional medical help.
In practice
China, which currently averages 14 doctors for every 10,000 citizens, is attempting to address its own shortfall with the help of a new telemedicine project at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in Hunan Province.
The project connects consultation rooms, classrooms and operating theatres via telepresence systems – high definition real-time videolinks – installed by global information and communications company, Huawei Enterprise.
The system helps spread the expertise available at Zhengzhou University by connecting the hospital with 118 county-level medical units across 18 cities. By using 3G mobile connections, fibre optics, fast-speed cables known as DSL, satellite and other communication technology, experts in Zhengzhou can now interact with colleagues across the province – even in rural areas with extremely slow internet speeds.
Data from medical instruments like dialysis or ECG (electrocardiogram) machines can be streamed in real-time while the system’s panoramic cameras help patient consultations feel as much like a face-to-face meeting as possible.
Moreover, different types of telemedicine terminals mean that healthcare professionals in multiple locations can collaborate on a patient’s treatment – with devices portable enough to be used by doctors whether they are at a desk, inside an operating theatre, or even inside a moving car.
DIY health
But these examples are just the tip of the iceberg, says Dr Patrice Cristofini, the executive vice president of vertical healthcare for Huawei in Western Europe.
As the technology improves further with the onset of smaller and cheaper wireless transmitters that can process larger amounts of data, such as 4G LTE, it will become accessible on a wider scale.
Already companies like Huawei Enterprise are working on devices compact and simple enough to be kept at a patient’s home that can track their health 24 hours a day.
Small portable “telehealth” units, designed to be kept on a bedside table, have been created for high-risk groups such as the elderly, the chronically ill, pregnant women or post-op patients. The devices can measure everything from blood pressure and heart rate, to ECG and dialysis data via attachments to the patient’s body. Information is collected by the unit’s wifi sensors and sent to a central server, which alerts the healthcare management team to any anomalies.
As with most new technologies, there are arguably downsides. New equipment costs, extra training for staff and the absence of a reassuring physical presence that patients are familiar with, could meet resistance. However, with increasing medical needs and growing populations, pressure on medical resources will become more intense. Around the world, for example, there are already one billion hypertension sufferers and 250 million diabetics and by 2050 the number of people aged over 60 will outnumber those under 15 for the first time in history.
“The enormous social demands will compel policymakers to invest more to facilitate technology growth so as to address the shortage of doctors. We hope that the widespread adoption of telemedicine may soon be a reality,” says Dr Cristofini.
spurce : BBc.com

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Ion Wireless Smart Lighting

Smart lighting is becoming more popular in the market at the moment, with many different firms showing off their products left, right and centre. One such company is Lava, who has produced a different kind of smart light called Ion. (It is currently in a production-ready prototype).  The firm is seeking $20,000 from the Kickstarter community.  The smart light is described as a digital version of the 1960s classic the lava lamp.  Maybe this product will actually come to market, as the classic Lava lamp does need an update.

Ion wants to update the lava lamp for today’s generation. This digital mood light is controllable and it has a cool features such as reacting to its environment.  The iON consists of Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, a bank of 40 tri-colour LEDs, a microphone, audio processor and capacitive touch sensors.
The user can just tap the lamp to produce different colours.  In many ways it is like the Philips Hue Smart Light, except with Ion it’s not just colours that change when the lamp is tapped; users get to choose from various light displays called “moods”, which are basically different coloured flashes and pulses. The lamp will ship with 15 different ‘moods’ out of the box, but Lava have said that they want to try to keep adding more as the Kickstarter campaign continues and also after Ion ships.
The compatible app also lets Ion owners set the brightness and speed of the mood displays, so you can change the ambiance according to how you feel. Lava have made a website where you can remote-control their prototype, to test the moods out.
One of the outstanding features of iON is called Rave mode.  It utilizes the audio processing ability of the lamp.  This means that it listens to the music that is being played and generates a real-time light show that is in sync with the music.  The different types of music produce different effects.  Low frequencies produce reds, mid range will produce greens, and high ranges produce blue. Every time a beat is detected the user will see a bright pulse of light. Using the app, you can totally customize the emphasis of each of the colours that you want.
The iON is going to cost $199. That is the current Kickstarter entry point.  The estimated delivery date is this coming August. Lava has tried to be as sustainable as possible, by seeking to source and manufacture as much of the project as locally as possible. The steel, electronics, finishing and final product assembly were all done within the Michigan area.
As always, if you would like to leave a sensible comment, then please do so in the comments section below.

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Google to offer Lego-like modular phone in 2015

U.S. tech giant Google has announced it plans to offer $50 customizable modular phones -- that users can modify themselves -- by early next year.

Google confirmed ongoing work on Project Ara, an effort to create phones that can be easily updated by users by switching parts in an out of the phones like Lego blocks, Time magazine reported.

The project of Motorola's Advanced Technology and Projects group -- which Google sold to Lenovo for nearly $3 billion in January -- has been retained by Google for further work.

A working prototype could be completed within the next few weeks, Google told Time, and modular phones could be in the ands of consumers by the first quarter of 2015.

The devices will utilize a permanent backbone, to be sold by Google, to which different modules created by outside developers can be attached.

"The question was basically, could we do for hardware what Android and other platforms have done for software?" project leader Paul Eremenko told Time. "Which means lower the barrier to entry to such a degree that you could have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of developers as opposed to just five or six big [manufacturers] that could participate in the hardware space." 

                              POSTED BY MUHAMMAD USMAN 

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Meet The Reversible USB Cable, Coming This Summer

Before Apple’s Lightning cable, I never even dreamed of a life where input/output cables could be reversible. Now, however, it’s hard to go back to standard and micro USB, because I got so lazy. Soon enough, however, USB is getting a new reversible standard called “Type-C” which is around the size of microUSB, and which replaces USB 3 cables entirely, on both sides.
We now have our first look at this tech, from Foxconn via some pre-production artist renderings (courtesy of The Verge). Don’t be surprised to see something that looks a lot like Lightning – if you’re building a reversible I/O standard, it’s going to look pretty much like the most efficient design to come before, which is Apple’s. It looks like the main connects might be inside the cable end, however, instead of on the outside, as they are with Lightning.

This new standard is supposed to be finalized in July, which means hardware that uses it could start to ship as soon as this summer. Anytime a cable standard changes, adoption is bound to be slow, but the extreme convenience of this new design will hopefully speed things along with PC, smartphone and accessory OEMs.
SOURCE::http://techcrunch.com

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Saudi Arabia Blocked Major Torrent Sites

The country’s Ministry of Culture and Information has recently blocked access to The Pirate Bay, without providing any explanation. Aside from the largest BitTorrent tracker in the world, a number of similar portals were also censored, including Torrentz.eu, Rarbg and possibly several others. Of course, the Saudi Arabian users are already trying to find a way to circumvent the restrictions.

Actually, the censorship of the torrent portals didn’t become a great surprise to anyone. It is known that blocking The Pirate Bay has become common around the EU in recent years, and now this practice spread to Saudi Arabia as well.

Local media report that without any prior warnings or official announcements, the Saudi Arabian Ministry for Culture and Information requested that local Internet service providers block access to the torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay, Torrentz.eu and Rarbg.com.

Although the reason for the blockade wasn’t officially announced, the piracy concerns seem plausible, because the move is coming from the Ministry of Culture, rather than from the Communications Commission that administers the regular filters in Saudi Arabia. In addition, you can see that the blocking notification for The Pirate Bay differs from the green notice which means that the websites are blocked in violation of the Islamic religion.

The interesting part here is that the move comes 2 months after a number of copyright holder groups urged the American government to place Saudi Arabia on its priority watch list. The entertainment industry and its outfits blamed Saudi Arabia for doing not enough to stop Internet piracy.

At the moment, the blockade is active on almost all broadband providers, except for maybe Zain, whose customers still have access to the website. Of course, this ISP does block the tracker’s porn category, but it’s an Islamic country.

Like almost anywhere in the world, The Pirate Bay was in the top 50 most visited portals in the country, so its blockade has caused quite a bit of uproar in social networks. For example, you can see the topic being currently trending on Twitter, where many users are expressing their frustration. Well, the numerous ways to bypass the blockade are known to the entire world, so Saudi Arabia can do what all other victims of censorship do.
ARTICLE SOURCE::EXTRATORRENT

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On the go: International airports in Pakistan to offer Wi-Fi

The CAA has selected Wateen Telecom as the exclusive Wi-Fi provider for this project. PHOTO: AFP/FILE

KARACHI: 

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Pakistan would establish state-of-the-art Wi-Fi [hot spot] zones at all the CAA major airports in Pakistan to provide free internet service, according to a press release by the WiMAX giant Wateen Telecom.

The CAA has selected Wateen Telecom as the exclusive Wi-Fi provider for this project. The company will manage and operate Wi-Fi services throughout all the major international airports in Pakistan.

Board of Directors of the Abu Dhabi Group Chairman Sheikh Mohammad bin Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan inaugurated the service.

Through Wateen Wi-Fi services, all passengers would be able to experience state of the art Wi-Fi access, allowing them quick and easy access to high-speed internet services, it said.

Wateen Telecom, that has the country’s largest network of fibre optic, has signed a five-year agreement with the CAA, the statement said, adding that the service would enable millions of travellers to use internet services while waiting at airports.

“Our commitment to Pakistan stays strong as we bring all international airports in the country at par with the international standards,” Abu Dhabi Group’s chairman said during the agreement signing ceremony at the Quaid-i-Azam International Airport Karachi on Tuesday.

By:::The Express Tribune

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HP Slate 6 VoiceTab review: Good design, average performance

 

Over two years after HP - a company we all know for its desktops and laptops - killed WebOS, it is taking another stab at the smartphone market. But this time HP is doing it with Android. The company today formally launched Slate 6 and Slate 7. Both are part of VoiceTab series, which means they support 3G connectivity and you can make calls using them. Both are first launching in India and are created keeping in mind the needs of customers in developing market.

We have Slate 6 with us for review today. It is a phablet with 6-inch screen and is meant for consumers who like to have one device through which they can make calls as well as enjoy web browsing, video playback and games on the large screen.

In India, the phablet category is quite crowded. Almost all phone makers have at least one phablet - a phone with a screen size of more than 5-inch - in the market. Can HP match or surpass the existing phablets with Slate 6?

Dive in for the answer.


Getting the design of a phablet right is not easy due to its size. But with Slate 6, HP has done well. With a thickness of less than 9mm, Slate 6 is among the slimmest devices in its class. The slim design means it feels compact and easy to hold and carry despite its large screen. Another thing that helps is the weight. At 160gm, Slate 6 is surprisingly light for its size. It is definitely not a device that you will like to - or will be able to - use with a single hand. But it is not as unwieldy as Huawei Ascend Mate.

The phone has the usual rounded-corners, flat-box design but there are some design elements that make the Slate 6 stand apart from other devices in the market. The back cover, which can be removed, is made of plastic with matte finish. But the highlight of the back cover is the glass-weave finish. It looks really nice and gives the device a premium feel.

The plastic frame around the device has been given gold finish instead of the usual faux chrome that we find in other devices. The metal buttons too feature the same finish. The combination of black body and the golden frame gives Slate 6 an appealing look.

Despite all plastic design, the build quality of the device is very good. It doesn't have any flex. Back cover fits snuggly. Buttons feel firm and not loose.

Slate 6 is powered by a quad-core processor. HP says the processor runs at 1.2GHz. However, in our tests we never saw it go past 1.1GHz. Though this is a very minor difference and something that doesn't have potential to affect any performance. There is 1GB RAM in the device. It has 16GB internal storage - you can add more through a micro SD card, a 3000 mAh battery, a 5MP primary camera and a 2MP front camera. The 6-inch screen has a resolution of 720P (1280 X 720 pixels). The device is powered by Android 4.2.2. Slate 6 has support for two sim cards.

Let down by performance
For Slate 6, HP gets the design part absolutely right. However, on other - and more crucial - aspects it has missed a beat.

The biggest let-down is the overall responsiveness of the device. Unlike other phone manufacturers who love to customize, or rather over-customize, the Android experience on their devices, HP is using the stock version of Android in Slate 6. This is a good thing. Unfortunately, it looks like HP just didn't optimize the OS at all for the device. The user interface on Slate 6 has noticeable lag. This lag is visible while scrolling through the list of home page, or during multitasking. Also, apps take a few extra milliseconds to open. And so does the keyboard when you click in a text field.

Overall, Slate 6 feels a little slow. Yes, it works. You can browse all sorts of websites on it. You can play all kind of videos in all sorts of formats on it, if not through the default player then using an app like MX Player. The GPS in Slate 6 works reliably. But it all feels a little slower than it ought to be, especially compared to phones like Galaxy Grand 2 or tablets like Nexus 7.

What about games?

Slate 6 can handle casual games like Angry Birds Go with ease. But more demanding games like Asphalt 8 can be played with smooth frame rates only at low graphics settings. At high graphics settings there is visible lag and the game doesn't respond to controls well.

The performance story is repeated in the hardware. On paper, Slate 6 has good hardware. But in actual use we found it to be rather average. While the screen is adequately bright and shows decent colours, we have seen better. The viewing angles for the Slate 6 screen are below average and there is a noticeable shift in colours if you tilt your head or move the device while looking at it.

The story with camera is the same. The 5MP camera is capable of shooting usable images, but only in good light. The photos lack proper contrast and level of detail but at least you can share them on social media sites. In low light, even if it is evening, colour noise creeps into the images shot with Slate 6. The camera software too could have been better. The shutter speed is slow and acquiring focus, especially in close up shots, can take a few seconds if light is low. Overall, the camera performance is disappointing.

The device records videos in 720P. These are recorded in 3GP format and the quality of video recording is decent. The level of detail that is recorded is poor but at least the focus is maintained well.

The 2MP front camera works well during video chats.

Slate 6 has stereo speakers, placed on the top and bottom of the screen. However, the volume is on the lower side. At full volume, the audio is sufficient for games but if you intend to watch films on Slate 6, we recommend using it with a headphone. We also found the volume to be on lower side during calls, though the voice clarity was good and signal was maintained well even when we used the device on the go.

Slate 6 has a good battery life. Depending on your use, it will last anywhere between 12 to 16 hours. When paired with a 3G connection, the device gave us a battery life of around 14 hours while we used it for gaming, photography, web browsing, emails, calls and instant messaging.

Should you buy it or not

HP has priced Slate 6 at Rs 22,990. Given the performance issues we don't recommend Slate 6. Though these performance issues are likely to be software related and could be fixed in the coming days, we suggest you to stay away from Slate 6 until these issues are fixed.

Slate 6 is not a bad device. But there are better devices in the market.

If you want a big screen device, we feel Huawei Ascend Mate is a better, albeit a little more expensive, choice. But if you can compromise on the screen size, Lenovo K900 nowadays has almost the same price. It is a much better phablet than Slate 6 and Ascend Mate even though it has a screen size of only 5.5-inch. At the same time, you can also take a look at the Galaxy Grand 2, which has a screen size of 5.25-inch, but offers better experience than Slate 6.

source:::timesofindia

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