loss

Like most folks, I've made "enthusiastic" commitments to be more resolute in staying healthy this year. Such crazy claims include getting off the buttocks and working out, eating healthy, and other life-changing nonsense. Recently, one of my friends started this diet called the TAO Diet, which stands for Ten and One. The premise is simple: You eat 10 salads and one meal of whatever you please. Then rinse and repeat.

I've come to realize that I'm an attention-seeking and easily distracted geek with a healthy track record of...falling off track. But rather than giving … Read more

A great-sounding recording will sound its best only when it's properly mastered to LP, SACD, DVD-Audio, or a high-resolution file. Those formats will reveal the full glory of the music in ways that lower-resolution formats like MP3 or analog cassette always miss. But if you didn't have access to the high-resolution file to compare it with, a great recording will still sound pretty terrific as an AAC, M4A, or 320kbps MP3 file, because the recording's innate quality would shine through. On the other hand, a heavily compressed, processed and crude recording will always sound heavily compressed, processed … Read more

It sounds like a dieter's dream. Drink soda and lose weight. It's junk food with a healthy sheen and it's a real Pepsi product coming out in Japan.

Pepsi Special is special because of an added ingredient: dextrin, the same stuff found in Benefiber. It's a water-soluble fiber supplement that may also have some extracurricular effects with feelings of fullness and a reduction in fat absorption.

According to a study published in Appetite in 2011, soluble fiber dextrin increased participants' sense of satiety and decreased the amount of energy absorbed from the next meal. How that finding translates to a dextrin-charged soda is up for discussion.… Read more

Spotify's financial performance in 2011 was abysmal.

As revenue increased 151 percent from 2010, the on-demand streaming music service saw losses widen 60 percent for the same period, according to documents posted today by PrivCo, a company that sells data on non-publicly traded companies.

A Spotify spokeswoman told CNET that the numbers posted to PrivCo.'s site were accurate. But it turns out that the figures aren't exactly new. They were first reported in August by The Wall Street Journal, which tucked them into a story titled "Spotify to launch in Canada" and the revelation failed … Read more

A look at the numbers shows that subscribing to pay-TV services is on the ebb. According to Reuters, more than 400,000 TV watchers have "cut the cord" since January.

First, DirecTV, which is the top satellite TV provider in the U.S., announced today that it lost 52,000 customers in the second quarter. Then the No. 2 cable provider in the U.S., Time Warner, also announced a second quarter loss today with 169,000 people leaving the service.

"Basic video subscriber losses aren't getting better," Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett told Reuters … Read more

It looks like Nasdaq has a plan to compensate Facebook investors for losses incurred as a result of technical glitches that dogged the company's IPO.

The stock exchange plans to submit plans tomorrow with the Securities and Exchange Commission that will outline its first steps to makes up for losses suffered by banks and trading firms, sources familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). Collective losses have been estimated by some to exceed $100 million.

CNET has contacted Nasdaq for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Nasdaq officials had previously expressed regret … Read more

Diet apps are a dime a dozen. And with good reason: your smartphone is the ideal mobile companion for counting calories, managing exercise, and tracking overall health.

The latest entry into this crowded field: Super Diet Genius. What separates this $3.99 app from the likes of Lose It, Calorie Tracker, and MyFitnessPal? It's all in the "super."

Specifically, Super Diet Genius puts you on a diet that relies heavily on superfoods -- stuff that packs the maximum vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, and overall nutrition goodness. (You know: not pizza. Not candy bars. Not French fries.)… Read more

You might think you can't have a phone conversation with someone who's deaf, but Dimitri Kanevsky would not only disagree, he'd prove you wrong.

Deaf since he was 3, Kanevsky has hardly let his disability get in the way of progress -- or success. Born in the Soviet Union, he eventually emigrated, first to Israel, and then to the United States, and went on to become a research staff member in the speech and language algorithms department at IBM's Thomas Watson Research Center.

On Monday, Kanevsky and 13 others were honored at the White House in … Read more

The combination of mentally stimulating activities such as computer use and moderate physical exercise appears to decrease one's odds of suffering from age-related memory loss, according to a new Mayo Clinic study.

The researchers say their findings among a self-reporting cohort of 926 people ages 70 to 93 are just preliminary, but that the numbers are significant enough to warrant further investigation.

Previous studies have shown links between exercising one's mind and exercising one's body to improved memory, but this one, published in the May 2012 issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, suggests that a combination of … Read more