Day: 02/06/2015

Samsung’s New Fast-Focusing Camera Is Surprisingly Affordable

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/samsung-nx500/

For all that, the price is surprisingly low. $800 is a great price for the feature set (presuming everything works as advertised) and you get a kit lens, an optically stabilized 16-50mm/F3.5-5.6 powered zoom. That lens costs around $300 by itself…

I clicked on this article because I keep wearing out the zoom lens on my cheap digital cameras… It’s a little depressing to see how different my definition of “affordable” is compared to Wired’s.

Anthem Sued Over Massive Data Breach by CA Consumer

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-06/anthem-sued-in-california-by-consumer-over-massive-data-breach

“It appears that Anthem’s security system did not involve encrypting Social Security numbers and birth dates –- two of the most valuable pieces of information that a thief can have,” Susan Morris said in her complaint filed in federal court in Santa Ana, California…

College Freshmen Are More Depressed And Alone Than Ever

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/college-students-depressed-ucla_n_6624012.html

“One of the things we have seen is there is an association of depression and time spent on social media,” said Dr. Victor Schwartz, a psychiatrist and medical director at The Jed Foundation…

The survey also shows incoming students reported the lowest rates of alcohol and cigarette use in more than 30 years. The rate of students frequently or occasionally drinking beer as a teenager, for example, dropped to 33.2 percent in 2014 from 74.2 percent in 1981.

This, too, may be cause for concern, Schwartz and Eagan said.

“On the one hand, it’s good students may not be drinking so much in high school,” Eagan said. “But what does it mean when students have no prior experience with alcohol in high school, and there’s more opportunities to drink in college?”