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You always know where it is.  When you're in the shower.  Driving home from work.  Watching TV. No, we're not talking about your partner.  We're discussing your phone . Now a new study says the mere presence of our phone, well, reduces brain power, according to newswise.com. Your cognitive capacity is significantly reduced when your smartphone is within reach — even if it’s off. That’s the takeaway finding from a new study from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. McCombs Assistant Professor Adrian Ward and co-authors conducted experiments with nearly 800 smartphone users in an attempt to measure, for the first time, how well people can complete tasks when they have their smartphones nearby even when they’re not using them. In one experiment, the researchers asked study participants to sit at a computer and take a series of tests that required full concentration in order to score well. The tests were geared to measure partic...

It's hard to believe -- or maybe, not so -- but smartplanet.com is predicting that, within four years, our smartphones will be smarter than us. Why? The Web site quotes research firm Gartner, which has said that our smartphones, tablets and “phablets” will use "cognizant computing" — the next step in personal cloud computing — by 2017, "rendering them capable of predicting our next move based on what it knows." Would you want your phone to know everything you do?  Some now can, just by interrelating your calendar with where you are and who you've spoken to, or texted. “Smartphones are becoming smarter, and will be smarter than you by 2017,” smartplanet.com quotes Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “If there is heavy traffic, it will wake you up early for a meeting with your boss, or simply send an apology if it is a meeting with your colleague. The smartphone will gather contextual information from its calendar, its sensors, the ...