So according to this recentely published study by Princeton and Indiana psychologists using larger font-sizes does not improve memory for the content being read but using unfamiliar styles does.
In a recent study published in the journal Cognition, psychologists at Princeton andIndiana University had 28 men and women read about three species of aliens, each of which had seven characteristics, like “has blue eyes,” and “eats flower petals and pollen.” Half the participants studied the text in 16-point Arial font, and the other half in 12-point Comic Sans MS or 12-point Bodoni MT, both of which are relatively unfamiliar and harder for the brain to process.
The design community has long considered Comic Sans some-what a joke of a font but maybe there is a purpose for it after all.
(via NY Times)
With Spotify announcing it has just started cutting it's wrists (pardon my morbidity) I compiled a list of alternatives you might like to try:
I personaly been using Grooveshark mainly because I got a cheap deal that gives me offline playback on my Android phone (you could get it on iOS but only if you jailbreak). You might still find the deal: buy a grooveshark t-shirt and get a year's free Anywhere subscription.
I'm amazed that given the amount of competition Spotify still went ahead with this decision. I do suspect that it had to do with licensing limits they were about to reach which made the price per song unbearably high (even with ads). So maybe this will happen to most of these services and we'll keep jumping from service to service.
Heard this guy playing in London next to Leicester Sq about an year ago and been looking for his music since then. Found him again yesterday evening outside of Embankment tube station and didn't think twice before I got my hand on his album. You can find more on him at myspace or last.fm. Support by spreading the word and buying his CD!
