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PHOTOKINA 2010, COLOGNE, GERMANY, September 21, 2010 — FUJIFILM Corporation is pleased to announce the new FinePix X100, a high-grade digital compact camera featuring an APS-C CMOS sensor, a Fujinon 23mm fixed focal length lens and a newly developed Hybrid Viewfinder, due for commercial release in early 2011.

The FinePix X100 is aimed at the professional photographer or keen enthusiast looking for exceptional quality pictures from a compact camera. It is designed to appeal to the millions of DSLR users who need a slim back-up camera for high quality in-fill shots when the use of a bigger SLR system is either inconvenient or impractical. Or, of course, it can be used as a professional’s only top-end camera, if size and versatility are the primary considerations.

Fujifilm has closely studied the current line-up of professional cameras and feels that there is a strong need for a compact high-quality (APS-C based) camera as a counterpoint to an SLR. Using the experience of working with generations of photographers using famous emulsions like Velvia, Provia, Astia etc., Fujifilm engineers distilled this knowledge into months of careful study to create the perfect compact-sized professional camera.

The priority for this model is picture quality, so it was decided to make the highest quality possible lens and sensor combination, built from the ground-up. The lens chosen is a fixed, prime F2 lens, made by Fujinon, manufactured to perfectly match the APS-C custom sensor. Added to this is the newly-developed EXR Processor, which combines all the latest image processing technology Fujifilm has built up over the years.

Other cameras on the market look to fill the need for the ultimate ‘compact’ professional camera, but the Fujifilm development team believe that, having listened to the marketplace, the FinePix X100 offers a number of technical developments that will set this camera apart from other contenders.

Having shot an entire trip to Paris with a single 28mm F1.4 lens, I think traveling with a 23mm F2 would be fantastic. Unfortunately, it's a 35mm equivalent, which isn't as wide as I'd like.

That said, Fujifilm designed for shooting at F2, with a 9 blade aperture for creamy bokeh, and a built in 3-stop neutral density (ND) filter to let you keep the aperture wide open.

Our experiment had similar ambitions; to take a group of seniors in their 70s and 80s and make them feel younger by recreating the world they had left behind 35 years ago.

They agreed to live in our time capsule house for a week, during which they dressed in 1970s clothes, slept in replicas of their very own 70s bedrooms, watched television from that era, and talked about 1975 in the present tense.

It proved to be a fascinating but draining experience - for both experimenters and experimentees.

Researchers have in recent years scaled back their estimates of the influence genetics plays in intelligence differences. The previous figure of 80 percent is outdated. Nisbett says that if you take social differences into account, you would find "50 percent to be the maximum contribution of genetics." That leaves an unexpectedly large proportion of a child's intelligence for parents, teachers and educators to shape.

Psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.

“What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,” said Dr. Bjork, the senior author of the two-room experiment.

Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time.

If you have an Apple Mobile Device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch) it's actually possible to sync it with multiple computers. You just have to understand the rules. Apple groups things into four categories:

Data – the data or info category consists primarily of things like your contacts, calendar, bookmarks, notes, email accounts, etc. This information can either be sync'd via iTunes or wirelessly via MobileMe or Microsoft Exchange (although Notes currently can only be sync'd via iTunes). 

Media – the media category consists of your music, movies, music videos, TV shows, podcasts, audiobooks, ringtones, iTunesU and now iBooks. This content can either be sync'd or managed manually.

Photos – well this category is pretty self explanatory. It's your photo library and all of your photo albums. Your photos can either be in iPhoto or simply in a folders and subfolders.

Apps – last but certainly not least is your Apps that you've downloaded from the App Store.

Now that you know what the four categories are the content from these four categories can live on one, two, three or four different computers.