News

The obesity epidemic is not all about huge portions and processed foods — it's a no-brainer that a more sedentary lifestyle is part of the equation. And since most of us spend a good portion of the work day sitting in a chair, a new study published in the journal PLoS One has set about to quantify exactly how much those desk jobs are really hurting us. Turns out a lot; the number of desk-bound or light-activity jobs has increased in the last 50 years from 50 percent to 80 percent, leading to a loss of 140 to 160 calories burned a day.

These numbers are in line with the climbing obesity rate (currently one in three Americans), and while the results aren't surprising, it does show just how much the shift from more active jobs like those in farming and manufacturing has affected our national waistline. And having an understanding of how the eight or so hours in the day we spend sitting in a chair has led to a collective decrease in activity will help us get to the bottom of the reasons why our society continues to gain weight. Also, researchers want to use the findings as a way to encourage employers to offer incentives like discounted gym memberships or public transit fares (or even those hilarious-looking yet probably effective walking desk stations).

From taking walks at lunch (or the stairs instead of the elevator), office workers still have some fitness tricks up their sleeves. But does this study show that employers need to offer ways for workers to be more active, or should fitness be a personal responsibility?

Microsoft announced its latest operating system yesterday, which will hit devices "later this year." Dubbed Mango, the OS update will come with a whopping 500 new features, which will be centered around communication, social connectivity, and the Internet. Although Microsoft didn't unveil all 500 latest features to come with Mango, here are a few standouts I think you'll love.

• Hands-free — When you're driving, Mango can announce an incoming call or text message, and will allow you to respond to either without ever picking up your handset. Safe driving FTW!
• Threads — Switch between your active texts, Facebook chats, or instant messages in one threaded space so you can keep the conversation going no matter where it takes place.
• Social networks — Mango will add Twitter and LinkedIn feeds to contact cards and includes built-in Facebook check-ins, along with integrated face detection to easily tag pics of your pals before you upload to Facebook or the web.
• Local Scout — Bing will aggregate activities and events that are going on around your current location, and allow you to rate each activity.
• App Shortcuts — Kind of like multitasking, App Shortcuts are a handy feature in Mango. For example, if you're reading about a movie while surfing the web, Mango will create a quick shortcut to your IMDB app so you can check out the film's details.

What other features are you looking forward to in Windows Phone 7.1? If you want to see the entire Windows Phone 7.1 presentation from yesterday, check out the video on Microsoft's website.

I got my invite for Google Music Beta last night and took a quick tour around to get my feet wet. In case you missed it, Google Music Beta is a cloud storage service that works across Android devices. Awesome features include wireless syncing (from your computer, to laptop, to smartphone, to tablet, all of your music syncs automatically without the need to plug in and upload), and iTunes scrubbing so you can get all of your already-stored music into the cloud.

First, you'll need to install the Google Music Manager, which will help you get all of your tunes to the cloud. Installation was a breeze, and it took less than a minute to upload about 100 songs. It does take a bit longer for the titles to show up in your library, though. You can create "instant mixes" that are similar in nature to Apple's "Genius Mix" (selecting a song to mix from creates a list of similar songs), custom playlists, and auto playlists, and it will even auto-update if you've downloaded new music to iTunes or your music folders (when your device is set to auto sync). To hear about the limitations of Google Music Beta, just read more.

At Google's I/O conference today, the team unveiled its Google Music beta page which is live now and available for your invite requests. Coming shortly after Amazon's cloud music service, Google Music will allow you to listen to your music collection from anywhere with the help of the free Google Music app which is available now in the Android Market. Best part is, if you know you're going to be offline at some point during your day, you can select albums and songs you want to listen to sans connection, and Google Music will also make your recently played tunes available offline.

What's more, your Google Music library will automatically sync with your device so you never have to plug in and transfer songs like you do with iTunes and your one, single library will be available over multiple computers. Get a closer look at Google Music in the demo video after the break.

Grow baby, grow! While some expectant mamas document their pregnancies with belly casts and body painting, many turn to less time-consuming methods such as daily or weekly photographs to mark the time.

Genevieve Damascus did just that. Wearing the same black yoga pants and tank top, she took weekly photographs of herself throughout her pregnancy, edited them together, and created a two-minute video showing how her body evolved before giving birth. The result is inspiring. Check it out and tell me, how did you document your pregnancy?