Moleskine notebooks go digital in new app

By — Hayley Tsukayama, Saturday, April 23, 5:07 PM--The Washington Post

Scratch paper

Moleskine, the company that has made a sort of cult around the old-fashioned notebook, has taken its devotion to jotting things down digital. The company’s new app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, is a slick-looking notebook app that lets users type and sketch whatever may catch their fancy. Users can choose between ruled, plain or graph “paper” on which to record their thoughts. The app also lets you store images and geotag your notes. After you’re done, you can share your thoughts over e-mail or social media.

The free app doesn’t offer the same tactile gratification as the real notebooks’ smooth pages and sturdy covers, but it gets the job done — with style. Free, for iOS devices.

Living with the iWant impulse

By Michelle Singletary, Saturday, April 23, 5:21 PM--The Washington Post

You’re a Luddite.

“What did you call me?” I asked my husband, ready to fuss him out.

“You’re a Luddite,” he said again.

Before I could offer a comeback, I had to look up the word.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a Luddite first as a group of early 19th-century English workmen who, as a protest against losing their jobs, destroyed labor-saving machinery. More broadly, a Luddite is one who is opposed to technological change.

• Study: Music may improve cognitive skills of adults
  A study in the journal Neuropsychology of 70 healthy adults ages 60 to 83 found that those with the greatest musical experience had the highest scores in measures of cognitive skills, including visuospatial memory and cognitive flexibility, compared with those with lesser musical experience and those who never had music lessons. "Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging," said lead researcher Brenda Hanna-Pladdy. U.S. News & World Report/HealthDay News (4/25)