BOSTON – It’s no secret that men and women tend to spend their time on the Internet quite differently.

But British researchers suggest it’s not just a Web site’s subject or function that determines whether it will draw more men or women. The appearance of the site also might play a subtle role.

In a recent study at Glamorgan University Business School in Wales, test subjects rated the personal Web pages of 60 people for usability and aesthetics.

Not surprisingly, male subjects tended to assign higher ratings to pages designed by men, and females preferred sites made by women. But the researchers said they gleaned important tidbits by looking more closely at the ratings.

Women seemed to like pages with more color in the background and typeface. Women also favored informal rather than posed pictures.

Men responded better to dark colors and straight, horizontal lines across a page. They also were more pleased by a three-dimensional look and images of “self-propelling” rather than stationary objects.

With those standards in mind, the researchers checked out the Web sites for 32 British universities and determined that 94 percent had a “masculine orientation.” Two percent showed a female-favored arrangement.

Microsoft Nerds face Google Geeks for title: Pencil pushers and programmers from Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. faced off this week for the greatest of geek glories: the Golden Penguin Bowl.

Techies from both companies – rivals in the emerging search engine wars – matched wits Tuesday over questions about everything from old computer operating systems to the name of the mining spacecraft in the movie “Alien.”

The quiz competition’s announcer dubbed the matchup a battle of “good versus evil,” alluding to Google’s famous creed of avoiding evil deeds. But officially, this was a battle of Microsoft employees comprising the “Nerd” team against Google’s “Geek” squad.

Microsoft’s Rob Curran provided a wealth of science fiction knowledge, buzzing in quickly to answer questions about the TV series “Star Trek” and correctly naming the ore mining ship from “Alien” – the Nostromo. Curran took the stage wearing full Darth Vader regalia, while his teammates donned Stormtrooper costumes.

But the Microsoft team bumbled the year their employer released Windows 1.0 (1985).

Web browser for low-cost mobile phones developed: A new browser from Opera Software ASA promises Web surfing from almost any mobile phone, even inexpensive ones with little built-in memory.

Accessing the Internet largely has been restricted to higher-end mobile phones with the memory capacity to run a browser. The Oslo, Norway-based company said its new Opera Mini browser can allow surfing from 700 million low- to medium-cost phones as well.

Opera said the system only requires the phone to have a small Java program. Rather than have the phone itself process a Web page, a remote server does it before sending it to the phone, reducing system requirements.

Opera Mini is currently a pilot project, with Norwegian commercial television network TV-2 bundling Opera Mini into its mobile phone services.

From Herald news services