(credit: Steve Paine/Flickr)

To no one’s surprise, tablets, smartphones, laptops, and televisions are now permanent fixtures in the lives of most kids. But knowledge of whether that media use will enrich their minds or turn them into easily distractible dullards is fuzzy. And researchers and parents are still trying to figure out what exactly children and teens actually do with their glowing gadgets.

In two separate surveys released this week, researchers reveal new insights into how kids, six 6 months to 18 years old, use media. The most striking takeaway from the studies may be that screen time now transcends both age and socioeconomic status—some six-month-old 6-month-old infants in low-income families have their own dedicated mobile devices with Internet internet access, researchers found. A third of three- and four-year-olds three and four year olds included in one study used multiple media devices at once, a practice called “media multitasking.”  And teenagers across the country log an average of about nine 9 hours a day with media, with some spending up to 16 hours a day.

But a closer look reveals complex usage patterns and a hodgepodge of smaller trends. Some of those trends may worry health professionals and parents; others may seem heartening. In the end, researchers are hopeful that the data will help iron out much-needed recommendations to parents on what types and amounts of media use is OK for kids. And the findings may offer clues on how experts could wring educational and developmental benefits out of kids’ gadget time.

The security of Internet-connected baby monitors got a failing grade from researchers who found critical vulnerabilities in all nine of the models they reviewed.

The weaknesses make it possible for hackers half a world away to perform a host of nefarious actions. They include monitoring live video feeds, changing camera settings, harvesting video clips stored online, and making an unlimited number of additions to the list of users who are authorized to remotely view and control a monitor. Researchers from security firm Rapid7 spent most of 2015 reviewing nine models from eight manufacturers and then scored them on a 250-point scale for overall security. The researchers then translated the scores into standard academic grades. Eight of the models received an and F and one got a D. As Kashmir Hill at Fusion points out, the report comes a week after an Indiana couple reported someone hacked their two-year-old's baby monitor and played the Police’s "Every Breath You Take" followed by “sexual noises.”

Internet of insecure things

The Rapid7 research is the latest to underscore the troubling security involving the "Internet of Things." The term is applied to everyday devices—including washing machines, thermostats, and cars—that have computing and network capabilities embedded into them. The Rapid7 researchers said they focused on baby monitors because they are widely used and underscored the how intensely personal uses IoT devices could serve. The researchers went on to warn that the bugs they found could do much more than allow voyeurs to invade the owners' personal privacy. The weaknesses could also prove valuable to attackers who target executives of large companies who sometimes work from home or who access monitors from work phones or networks.

MICHOUD, La.—On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came, the federal levees failed, and chaos ensued in the New Orleans metro area.

By now the damage is well documented. So many people were displaced that New Orleans still only sits at approximately 80 percent of its pre-storm population a decade later. More than 1,200 people died—the most for a US storm since 1928. And 80 percent of the city flooded, causing property damage since estimated at $108 billion by the National Hurricane Center. Almost regardless of metric, Katrina stands as the most devastating Atlantic storm to ever hit the US.

Yet one day before Katrina, Malcolm Wood had to go into work.

Remember writing grocery lists and sticking them to your fridge? Amazon thinks you should now leave the task of restocking food and household supplies to a button.

The company announced a new device on Tuesday called the Dash Button, which connects to your smartphone using a Wi-Fi network. With one touch, the button will automatically reorder a product. There are buttons for a variety of products that Amazon sells, from Bounty paper towels to Glad trash bags to Larabar energy bars. The device is only available to Prime members.

Amazon’s video on the Dash Button (see above) shows that each button is emblazoned with the brand’s logo. (How’s that for brand loyalty?) The buttons are hangable and stickable, and it seems like the idea is to place the device in an area where you normally stock the product, like a cabinet. Then, you can press the button when you’re running low on a product.