Features

They say money cannot buy happiness, but science begs to differ.

An international research team has demonstrated that you really can make yourself happier by paying other people to do your time-consuming chores.

It does not matter whether you are rich or poor, the new study suggests. If you feel pressed for time, your life satisfaction can be improved by trading money for minutes that you can use as you wish.

The researchers, led by Ashley Whillans, a professor at the Harvard Business School, began with survey data from nearly 4,500 people from the United States, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands. Survey-takers were asked whether they paid other people to do “unenjoyable daily tasks” in order to “increase their free time”.

In 28 per cent of cases, the answer was yes. These folks spent an average of $147.95 per month to buy themselves extra time.

What they lost in currency, they made up for in happiness. Whillans and her colleagues found that the people who traded money for time were more satisfied with life than their counterparts who did not. They also were less likely to say they felt “time stress,” a condition that was linked with lower levels of life satisfaction.

Just in case their original question was too narrow, the researchers conducted a second survey that asked more than 1,800 Americans whether they spent money to buy themselves “more free time”.

This time, half of the survey-takers answered yes. These folks spent between $80 and $99 per month, on average, so that others would handle chores like cooking, shopping and “household maintenance”.

As before, the people who bought themselves time were more satisfied with life than those who did not. And as before, the people who did not employ this strategy were generally less satisfied with life because their lack of free time was stressing them out.

These findings held up even after the researchers took into account the amount of money survey-takers spent on groceries — a variable used as a proxy for discretionary income.

“People across the income spectrum benefited from buying time,” the researchers wrote.

Finally, Whillans and her colleagues conducted a more direct test with the help of 60 lucky working adults in Vancouver.

For two consecutive weekends, the researchers gave these volunteers $40 to spend. In one of the weeks, the volunteers were asked to spend the money on a material purchase. In the other week, they were asked to invest their windfall on something that would save them time. The researchers checked in with the volunteers each weekend to see how they felt after they had spent the money.

As expected, the volunteers reported less time-related stress in the week when they made a time-saving purchase than in the week when they bought a material good.

They also had more positive feelings (like joy and enthusiasm) and fewer negative feelings (such as anger, fear and nervousness) in the week when they bought themselves time.

“Making a time-saving purchase caused improvements in daily mood,” the researchers wrote. “Improvements in daily mood should promote greater life satisfaction.”

In other words, they had found a way to buy happiness.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fancy a laptop computer 20 times faster than the one you are using now? It may well be round the corner. We may soon see the light — literally!

Each technology has its limit. Year after year the industry keeps pushing it, improving on it, and then one day that limit is reached — new ways must be found.

Since 2006 Intel’s processors line up for small computers has been the Core i3, i5 and i7, from slowest (and least expensive) to fastest (most expensive). It is worth mentioning the company’s latest, most powerful addition, the i9 that was announced earlier this summer, though until now its not yet available for mobile devices.

There are several variations and speeds to choose from, for each of the models. Moreover, each of them has been significantly improved over the past decade. Essentially, however, it is more or less the same technology, based on Intel’s microarchitecture.

One of the breakthrough technologies that has been announced in the past but was never commercialised is the one based on superconductivity, whereby electronic components and elements offer no resistance at all, resulting in very high processing speeds, no overheating and very low power consumption.

Superconductivity is usually achieved in laboratory only, at extremely low temperature. Being able to perform the trick at room temperature has been repeatedly announced by researchers but has never materialised — at least not commercially, not on a wide scale.

Another, newer technology that apparently promises the same extraordinary result is that of the “photonic computer”. Instead of electricity, communication and data would be channelled along light paths (think of something similar to laser…), hence achieving unpresented speed and no significant heat production. A dream come true, in other words. The closest researchers have come to achieving this trick is in Australia, at University of Sydney.

Using photons, light’s main constituent, to carry and process information, instead of electricity travelling though copper cables, is nothing new, of course. One of the most obvious applications is Fibre Optic (FO) networking, the same that most Internet service providers in Jordan are now offering, replacing the traditional ADSL type over metal wires. FO is becoming the standard in Jordan, after winning over most industrialised countries in the world.

Photons, light and FO, they are all based on the same scientific concept and technology. Long before FO was implemented to bring you the Internet, it was already used in local computer networks, anytime long copper cabling was not possible. Indeed, IT engineers know well that you cannot have one stretch of copper cable longer than 100 metres in your local network. In all these cases FO has always brought the right solution.

When will the photonic computer be available for sale? University of Sydney’s scientists did not tell, and probably are unable to tell today. However, everything indicates that it may be less of a dream, more tangible than achieving superconductivity at room temperature. In other words it may be doable for the IT industry in the near future.

One question remains. Do we really need super-fast computers at home or at work? Most of us would rather have faster and more stable Internet, as well as safer computers. Still, extra speed would not hurt.

Many of the same things people should do for a healthy heart, like exercising, eating well and avoiding cigarettes, can also help protect the brain from cognitive decline and dementia, according to the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association.

Both the heart and brain need adequate blood flow. But blood vessels can narrow and harden over time, increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes as well as cognitive decline, according to an advisory the organisations published in the journal Stroke. 

The odds of this type of blood vessel damage, known as atherosclerosis, can be minimised by a healthy lifestyle and keeping blood pressure as well as sugars and cholesterol levels in the blood within safe range, the advisory authors note. 

“Most healthcare providers are comfortable recommending healthy lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factor control measures to prevent heart attack and stroke,” said lead author Dr Philip Gorelick, a researcher at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids. 

“Many, however, are not aware of or knowledgeable about the possibility that many of the same basic factors that prevent heart attack and stroke may also prevent or delay the onset of cognitive impairment and dementia,” Gorelick said by e-mail. 

As lives stretch longer in the US and elsewhere, about 75 million people worldwide could have dementia by 2030, according to the advisory. 

The document stresses the importance of taking steps to keep the brain healthy as early as possible, because atherosclerosis can begin in childhood. 

Elevated blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, for example, can damage blood vessels, triggering complications that eventually reduce blood flow to the brain. 

Although these conditions can be managed with medications, the advisory stresses that the largest benefit to brain health and cognitive function may not always be found in pills. 

“Although it is extremely important to control blood pressure and cholesterol with medications, there is the largest benefit to cognitive and brain health if the blood pressure and cholesterol can be maintained at healthy levels through things that everyone can do such as engaging in aerobic exercise, eating a Mediterranean diet, and keeping a healthy weight,” said Dr Andrew Budson, a researcher at Boston University and author of “Seven Steps to Managing Your Memory: What’s Normal, What’s Not, and What to Do About It.” 

A Mediterranean diet typically includes lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and olive oil. This diet also tends to favour lean sources of protein like chicken or fish over red meat, which contains more saturated fat. 

Too often, a modern Western diet consists of a lot of processed food, refined sugar and flour, and is paired with a lifestyle devoid of exercise, Budson, who was not involved in the advisory, said by e-mail. 

Adopting a Mediterranean diet, along with other heart-healthy habits, are best done as early in life as possible to get the most benefit, the advisory emphasises. 

“The advice is not new,” said Dr Hannah Gardener, a neurology researcher at the University of Miami Medical School in Florida who was not involved in the advisory. 

“The time to act to reduce your risk of stroke and dementia is many decades before these health outcomes occur or are diagnosed,” Gardener said by e-mail. 

If people cannot manage to address all of the seven risk factors for heart and brain problems at once, eating well and exercising a lot is a good place to start, said Dr Rebecca Gottesman of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. 

“Exercising and eating a healthy diet are not only important on their own, but may lead to reductions in blood pressure, cholesterol and [blood sugar], as well as weight,” Gottesman, who was not involved in the advisory, said by e-mail. “People who are active are also less likely to smoke, which is harmful for a number of aspects of health.”

SAN DIEGO — Tuna caught in industrialised areas of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans have 36 times more pollutants than those fished in remote parts of the West Pacific, scientists from Scripps Oceanography have found.

The researchers tracked concentrations of toxins in tuna around the world and found that the location of fish, as much as its species, can affect how safe it is to eat.

“The pollutant levels in seafood — and tuna in our case — can be heavily determined by the location where it was caught,” said lead author Sascha Nicklisch, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “It is important to know the origin of catch of the fish, to know the amount of pollutants in your fish.”

Researchers said they hoped the study would help advance understanding of how toxins enter our food supply through seafood and how to manage fisheries to reduce that risk.

The study, published in the June issue of the academic journal Environmental Health Perspectives, tested tuna from locations around the globe for the presence of pesticides, coolants and flame retardants. Together, they’re part of a class of chemicals called persistent organic pollutants, which accumulate in body tissue and make their way up the food chain.

Big fish and predators tend to have higher levels of toxic chemicals, so tuna offered a good means of tracking them. And yellowfin, which are relatively large fish but have shorter ranges than other tuna species, allowed researchers to look at regional pollutants.

“They stay in the location where they are born and hunt,” Nicklisch said. “So we tried to use these tuna to create a snapshot of local contamination.”

Scientists identified eight key sites around the globe and analysed 10 fish from each of them. To collect the samples, staff researcher Lindsay Bonito travelled from Tonga to Panama, Louisiana, Hawaii, Guam and Vietnam, chasing tuna.

“I was tasked to go out and actually secure tuna from all over the world,” Bonito said. “I would either go out and fish for it, or contact fishermen.”

They screened the fish for 247 toxic compounds and calculated pollutant concentrations for each area. Average toxin levels in tuna from the most polluted areas were 36 times those found in the least polluted areas. The differences between individual fish were even higher. Toxic levels in the most and least contaminated tuna samples varied by a factor of 180, according to the report.

In general, Nicklisch said, the more contaminated sites were industrialised areas of the northern hemisphere, including ocean regions off the Atlantic coast of Europe, and the east and west coasts of North America. Those of Asia, and in the Pacific Islands were relatively clean, he said.

“The sites where we caught them are known to be more pristine, such as kingdom of Tonga,” he said.

Because food-borne toxins can affect the health of people who eat them, the US Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration issue guidelines on how much fish to eat, with more protective recommendations for children and pregnant or nursing women.

Most of the tuna analysed in the study would be considered safe under current guidelines, the researchers said. But there were wide variations between regions, and some areas, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean around Europe, had high levels of unsafe fish.

In all of the tuna samples, researchers found a particularly pernicious set of chemicals. Each fish tested contained 10 specific compounds that interfere with proteins that regulate cell membranes and fend off toxins, Nicklisch said. By disabling that defence, the toxic compounds open the floodgate to a host of other pollutants.

“These compounds might lead to accumulation of chemicals in these tuna, because the proteins usually block those compounds in fish, but also in us, in humans,” Nicklisch said.

He said he hoped the study would lead to better safety testing of chemicals found in food, and enhance public information and labelling of seafood.

“The most important part of the take-home message is that it’s important to know where your fish was caught,” he said.

The government of India launched an initiative to save and educate the girl child, roughly two years ago. I have been harping on this issue for the last several decades but nobody really listened to me. It was only when decline in the child sex ratio (defined as the number of females per one thousand males, within the age group of 0-6 years) reached alarming proportions, the concerned authorities woke up from their apathy, to spread social awareness on this subject. 

I belong to a family where the women had to fight for their higher education because it was not automatically granted to them. I am talking about my mother’s generation, of course. My grandmothers had to battle to even go to school. As soon as they mastered the alphabet and could do basic counting, their names were withdrawn and they were made to contribute in the housework at home. 

My mum, on the other hand, convinced my maternal granddad to allow her to enrol at the renowned BHU for an undergraduate degree. She had to switch three trains and one streamer at the end of each term, in order to reach Banaras from the interiors of Assam, where her father was posted. But she was resilient and so were many of my aunts and it was only this determination that finally helped in getting them good academic qualifications.

When our daughter was born, we were overjoyed, but while the rest of the family were cooing over her cherubic looks and angelic smile, I was already planning her intellectual future. Soon after her naamkaran (naming ceremony), I started singing the letters of her name out to her in the form of a lullaby. She listened with rapt attention to my every utterance and one day, when I least expected it, she mimicked me perfectly. 

From then onwards we were on a roll and much before her second birthday, she could identify every colour of the rainbow, recognise most of the animals in her picture book and hum all the nursery rhymes and nonsensical ditties that I made up for her. She was especially good at spelling the names of her little friends and if they made any mistake, she corrected them immediately. “No, no no, it is not Simta,” she would lisp. “S-m-i-t-a, S-m-i-t-a”, she would repeat to the confused child.

“That is how you spell your name,” she announced.

Despite moving from one country to another with my husband’s job, for which she was compelled to switch five international schools, she pretty much sailed through them without much difficulty. I would coach her at home and had to teach myself rudimentary Arabic, French and Spanish, which were her additional subjects, before helping her with them. 

When the time for her college applications dawned, we were in East Africa, with the most dubious Internet and postal services on the planet. Following in the footsteps of her matriarchs, our daughter had to struggle too before she got admitted into the higher portals of academia.

All these thoughts were going through my head when I called to wish her happy birthday.

“Mom, can you come for my graduation?” she asked. 

“Again? But I’ve already attended twice,” I replied. 

“This one is my second master’s degree before I start PhD,” she stated. 

“Remember your favourite mantra — save daughters by educating them?” she continued.

“Well, yes,” I answered. 

“I am simply fulfilling your wish,” she laughed.

“God bless you,” I said.

Women who consistently get the minimum recommended amount of exercise for a healthy heart may be less likely to have a stroke than their counterparts whose exercise habits shift over time, a recent US study suggests. 

Researchers examined data on more than 61,000 women in the California Teachers Study who reported their exercise habits at two points in time, once from 1995 to 1996 and again from 2005 to 2006. The women were current and retired teachers when the study began. 

Overall, 987 women had a stroke by the end of the study period. 

But the women who got at least 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise at both points in time were 30 per cent less likely to have what is known as an ischemic stroke, the most common kind, which occurs when a clot blocks an artery carrying blood to the brain. 

“How people exercise changes over time and some individuals exercise when they are a young adult but do not keep it up when they are older,” said lead study author Dr Joshua Willey of Columbia University Medical Centre in New York. 

“In our study, we found that maintaining exercise levels was protective against stroke, and that taking up exercise when not being active while younger was also protective,” Willey said by e-mail. “Similarly, those who no longer exercised on the follow up assessment did not have a lower risk of stroke.” 

The American Heart Association recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise or at least 75 minutes of more vigorous physical activity. 

More than 22,000 women met these minimum recommendations at both points when they were assessed in the study, mostly with moderate exercise. 

Almost 19,000 women failed to get enough exercise at either point in time. 

Another 11,500 women fell short of this goal in the beginning but achieved it at the end, while about 8,600 women started out getting enough exercise, but failed to do so by the end of the study. 

Compared to women who failed to meet exercise recommendations at either point in time, women who got enough moderate activity at both points were 38 per cent less likely to have a fatal stroke and 12 per cent less likely to have any kind of stroke, the study found. 

Meeting moderate exercise guidelines by the end of the study, but not at the start, was associated with 35 per cent lower odds of a fatal stroke and 27 per cent lower odds of any stroke. 

But the chance of any stroke, including fatal ones, was similar for women who never got enough exercise and women who started out meeting the activity recommendations but did not do so at the end of the study, researchers report in the journal Stroke. 

The results were similar for women who did higher-intensity exercise. 

The study was not a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how exercise habits might influence the odds of having a stroke or dying from it. 

Other limitations include the lack of data on other factors that could influence stroke risk such as blood pressure, obesity or diabetes, the authors note. 

Even so, the findings add to growing evidence for the benefits of moderate exercise, said Joe Northey of the University of Canberra in Australia. 

“Moderate intensity seems to be optimal for increasing blood flow to the brain,” Northey, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. “Increasing cerebral blood flow through exercise improves the health and function of the brain.” 

Enjoyment, rather than intensity, should be the focus, said Dr James Burke, of the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor, Virginia. 

“The best exercise is the one a person enjoys doing because he/she is more likely to make it a habit,” Burke, who was not involved in the study, said by email. 

Inactivity, meanwhile, can take a toll on health, said Sandra Billinger of Kansas University Medical Centre in Kansas City. 

“When we don’t exercise, our blood vessels become more stiff, we tend to gain weight, our lungs are not well used and our muscles become weak and lose size,” Billinger, who was not involved in the study, said by e-mail. 

LONDON — Designer Tommy Hilfiger present ed his first catwalk show outside the United States on Tuesday, closing London Fashion Week with a collection taking inspiration from the British music scene.

The much-anticipated showcase of Hilfiger’s Spring/Summer 2018 collection brought a touch of sportswear chic to Fashion Week, closing the five-day event with a high-profile bang.

The 66-year-old American designer, king of a fashion empire which last year saw sales of $6.6 billion, has picked the Roundhouse as a venue, an arts space known for concerts by legendary stars like Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and David Bowie.

The choice recalls Hilfiger’s early experiences of seeking inspiration in the British capital.

“I started to come to London when I was a teen because I wanted to explore the whole lifestyle and I was obsessed with fashion. I wanted to see what was going on in London,” he told AFP at the fashion house’s London showroom.

He found flair in British bands of the period — naming the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Eric Clapton and Small Faces as influences.

“They had a sense of style that was very different to anyone else,” said Hilfiger, dressed in jeans and a gilet.

It is this “heritage of British rock” that the designer will celebrate Tuesday with a show created in collaboration with model Gigi Hadid.

“Gigi is very involved with designing the Gigi Tommy collection with us. So a lot of the ideas came from her style,” he said, describing Hadid’s taste as street, sport and fun.

The collaboration will also promote the brand’s online presence thanks to the social media profile of the model, who boasts nearly 36 million Instagram followers.

Embracing
the digital age

Tuesday marked the third time Hilfiger presents his “TOMMYNOW” concept, an on-the-road catwalk similar to a band tour. 

The idea has already proven successful on home soil, with stops in New York last year and Los Angeles in February, each bringing with it extravagance and extraordinary costs.

Hilfiger has been able to make them profitable, adopting the “see now, buy now” immediate sale approach which has emerged over the past few seasons — a trend which he is certain will not be going away. 

The designer has taken the idea even further by creating an app which enables guests to take a photo of a model and buy their outfit instantly. 

“Young people especially, they see something on the runway or they see something that looks cool, they want to wear it the next day. They don’t want to see it on the runway and wait six months to buy it,” said Hilfiger. 

The designer sees the digital age — and the social media hype that comes with it — as an irreversible trend and an opportunity to be seized. 

“I think we have to continue to move forward and we have to embrace it,” he said.

Other than Hilfiger, London Fashion Week saw another big name hit the catwalk on Sunday: Giorgio Armani.

The involvement of both designers in this year’s event has been a boost for the British fashion scene, which is well-known for bold young designers but has, apart from Burberry, often lacked major brands. 

Their presence is especially welcome in light of Brexit, which has prompted fears of a flight of talent and capital from the UK, and has exposed the country to considerable economic uncertainty.

Virtual reality games might help ease pain not just by distracting players from what ails them, but also by triggering changes in the brain, a recent research review suggests. 

Distraction may indeed play a role in pain relief, the review of six small studies suggests. But it is also possible that the technology could help produce changes in the nervous system when it’s used to help reprogram how a person responds to pain. 

“Guided imagery has long been a treatment for psychological disorders, and virtual reality is a more immersive way to provide guided imagery,” said lead study author Dr Anita Gupta of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey. 

“More research is needed to tell if virtual reality is truly effective, but having more options to treat pain is promising,” Gupta said by e-mail. 

Virtual reality technology has been around for decades, first coming to prominence when the military used it for flight simulators. The earliest hardware filled an entire room, but as the technology has become smaller and cheaper to produce, it is increasingly being used for a variety of medical purposes including wound care, physical therapy, dental pain relief and burn treatment. 

Today, mass-produced virtual reality devices may require no more than a smartphone and special headsets to operate, and a growing number of people use these gadgets to play video games and take lifelike, three-dimensional tours of places they might not be able to visit in real life. 

For the current study, researchers reviewed articles published from 2000 to 2016 that explored different ways virtual reality might augment pain relief. 

Altogether, researchers identified four small experiments that randomly assigned some patients to try virtual reality for pain relief as well as two pilot studies of the technology for this use. 

In addition to acute pain, several studies looked at chronic pain states such as headaches or fibromyalgia. These studies also combined virtual reality with other treatments such as biofeedback mechanisms and cognitive behavioural therapy. 

Taken together, the results from the small studies in the current analysis suggest that virtual reality might help with what is known as conditioning and exposure therapy, a form of behaviour therapy that involves helping patients change their response to pain when they feel it. 

More research in larger groups of patients is needed to draw firm conclusions about how well virtual reality works for pain relief, the authors caution in the journal Pain Medicine. 

But the results suggest that virtual reality treatments for chronic pain might help reduce reliance on opioid painkillers and potentially help curb misuse of these addictive medications. 

Patients need to understand that virtual reality is just a tool to design treatments, and not a treatment by itself, said Max Ortiz Catalan, a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, who was not involved in the current study. 

“You can’t prescribe virtual reality, but treatments that employ it, and the methods of such treatments are what matters,” he said by e-mail. “Two different methods can use virtual reality and one works while the other doesn’t depending on how virtual reality is used.” 

Side effects of virtual reality can include motion sickness, nausea and dizziness, Gupta said. 

Still, it’s a non-invasive approach option that is becoming more widely available and more affordable. 

“I would certainly try this as part of a traditional treatment plan with routine guidance from a board-certified pain specialist who understands the risks and benefits of all treatments involved and what works best,” Gupta said. 

Fiat-Chrysler Automotive’s (FCA) latest offering into the ever more popular and competitive compact SUV segment from its consistently popular Jeep brand, the latest generation Compass is modern, well equipped, well-packaged and efficient, and draws on the brand’s rich heritage.

Available in several petrol and diesel engines, drive-lines and versions including a capably off-road focused Trailhawk range topper for more adventurous drivers, the Limited trim version is however the most refined, and mated with entry-level 1.4-litre petrol engine and front-wheel-drive, is the urban warrior of the range.

Rugged appeal

Built on the FCA group’s “wide small architecture” with a stiff structure employing 65 per cent high strength steel construction for improving driving dynamics and comfort, and collision safety, the Jeep Compass also rides on independent front and rear suspension.

Offered with a range of colours including bright and bold hues, the Compass exudes a sense of presence, and employs a design language largely derived from its considerably larger and familiar Grand Cherokee stable mate, most evident from its upright front fascia, broad rear lights and wide and muscular stance.

With a noticeably more rugged and somewhat traditional SUV design aesthetic, the Compass strikes a more visceral chord, and features a slim and high-set interpretation of Jeep’s signature seven-slot grille, with gloss black background and honeycomb mesh inlets. Its squinting and browed headlights feature lower LED strips for moody emphasis, while lower black cladding along the bumpers flanks adds to its rugged appeal. 

Muscularly surfaced bodywork includes bulging squared-off wheelarches in traditional Jeep fashion, while a rakishly descending floating roof line with forward jutting body colour C-pillar create a sense of momentum.

Efficient and innovative

Powered by a transversely mounted turbocharged direct injection 1.4-litre four cylinder engine, the Compass features Fiat’s innovative and efficient Multiair technology with electro-hydraulic air intake control, which improves power and torque, and reduces consumption and emissions. Available in 167BHP state of tune in four wheel drive versions, the lighter 1505kg front wheel drive Compass featured, however, receives a more efficient lower output version of the same engine. 

Developing 138BHP at 5000rpm and 169lb/ft torque by just 1400rpm, it accelerates through the 0-100km/h benchmark in 9.9-seconds and onto a 192km/h top speed.

Mated to a six-speed manual gearbox in front-drive guise — rather than a nine-speed automatic available on other models — and with a stop/start system, the Compass 1.4 Multiair returns low 6.2l/100km fuel consumption and 143g/km CO2 emissions, combined. 

Relatively low-revving and refined in character, the Compass 1.4’ under square designed engine is at its best throughout a broad mid-range where maximum torque is available and power is building up, rather than below 1400rpm or at top-end beyond 5000rpm. Meanwhile, front ventilated and solid rear disc brakes are confident and reassuring.

Refined and manoeuvrable

Refined, versatile and confidently stable on highway and for an entry-level engine, one however needs to work the Compass 1.4’s gearbox more often to get the best out of it, which with quick and light shifter and light intuitive clutch pick-up, makes it more fun to drive than an auto. 

Manoeuvrable and easy to drive, the Compass offers good visibility and is easier to place in tight confines — whether in town or off-road — than its comparatively broad bonnet and width might suggest. Steering is light with a tight turning circle.

Driven through Sintra national park’s narrow and winding hill climbs in Portugal during its global launch earlier this year, the Compass proved Nimble and agile as SUVs go. Steering was quick and accurate if not especially nuanced in road feel, while independent suspension with frequency adaptive damping provided a refined, comfortable and fluent ride over imperfections and decent, if not overly firm and sporty body lean control through corners. Driven with 17-inch alloy wheels and taller sidewall 225/60R17 tyres, the Compass was also supple over lumps and bumps.

Comfort and convenience

Settled over crests and dips, the compass felt reassuring and controlled, while driving position is alert and well adjustable, with big comfortable seats and chunky multi-function steering wheel. Primarily intended for road use in front-drive guise and Limited trim, the driven compass may not have the same electronic software or 4x4 hardware as other Compass versions. 

It nonetheless offers more off-road capability than most drivers will need, including 198mm ground clearance, 406mm water fording, and 15.8° approach, 21.8° break-over and 30.8° departure angles.

User-friendly, easily accessible and accommodating for larger passengers inside, the Compass features good in-segment materials and soft textures inside, while layouts are intuitive and design pleasant. Spacious for passengers in front and rear, and with generous 438-litre minimum and 1251-litre maximum cargo capacity, the Compass is well packaged.

Standard and optional equipment levels are high and feature driver assistance and safety system including lane departure, and collision warnings, parking assistance, blindspot and rear crosspath detection and adaptive cruise control, while extensive convenience features include power tailgate and 8.4-inch Uconnect infotainment system, as tested.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 1.4-litre, transverse, turbocharged 4-cylinders

Bore x Stroke: 72 x 84mm

Compression ratio: 10:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, direct injection, variable timing

Gearbox: 6-speed manual, front-wheel-drive

Gear ratios: 1st 4.154:1; 2nd 2.118:1; 3rd 1.361:1; 4th 0.978:1; 5th 0.756:1; 6th 0.622:1

Reverse/final drive: 4:1/4.438:1

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 138 (140) [103] @5000rpm

Specific power: 100.8BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 91.7BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 169.6 (230) @1750rpm

Specific torque: 168.1Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 152.8Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 9.9-seconds

Top speed: 192km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined; 7.8-/5.2-/6.2-litres/100km

CO2 emissions, combined: 143g/km

Length: 4394mm

Width: 1819mm

Height: 1624mm

Wheelbase: 2636mm

Track: 1547mm 

Ground clearance: 198mm

Approach/break-over/departure angles: 15.8°/21.8°/30.8°

Water fording: 406mm

Seating: 5

Headroom, F/R: 995/978mm

Legroom, F/R: 1046/973mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1439/1400mm

Trunk height, length, width: 691, 605, 1069mm 

Cargo volume min/max, with tire repair kit: 438-/1251-litres

Fuel capacity: 60-liters

Unladen weight: 1505kg

Trailer towing maximum: 1000kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Steering ratio: 16.5:1

Lock-to-lock: 2.68-turns

Turning circle: 11.07-metres

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/Chapman struts

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/discs

Tyres: 225/60R17

Your passcode can be hacked, but your face is yours and yours alone. That is the thinking behind Apple’s latest security measure, which is more high-tech and a bit more intimate than anything else on the market.

With Face ID, which Apple unveiled on Tuesday, owners of the company’s new top-of-the-line iPhone X will be able to unlock their phone, pay for products and use mobile apps just by glancing at their device.

“Nothing has ever been simpler, more natural and effortless,” Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said during Apple’s first product launch at its new headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. “Face ID is the future of how we unlock our smartphones and protect our sensitive information.”

Though still a novel concept for many Americans, biometric technology — which includes face, fingerprint, iris and retina recognition identification systems — has been a hotbed of research this decade. With Apple’s backing, the field just got its most high-profile boost, yet, and could soon become the industry standard, even if many consumers aren’t quite comfortable with the concept.

Technologists tout a futuristic experience that is more secure than entering a passcode. They predict the technology could one day be used to unlock cars, withdraw money from ATMs or enter connected homes.

“You can share your password. You can share your car keys. But you can’t share your biometrics,” said George Avetisov, chief executive of biometric security firm HYPR Corp.

With Touch ID, Apple’s fingerprint technology, the chance that a random person could unlock your phone with his or her fingerprint is 1 in 50,000, Apple said; with Face ID, it is one in 1 million.

Both systems store biometric data locally on the device rather than on a centralised server that could be targeted by hackers. That makes biometrics attractive from a privacy and security standpoint, Avetisov said.

Revenue for the biometrics scan software industry is projected to reach $5.5 billion this year, with estimated growth of 5.2 per cent annually for the next five years, according to a May report from IBISWorld. The market research firm noted “prolific expansion” since 2012 and named biometrics one of the nation’s five top performing niche industries.

Facial recognition technology has slowly crept into everyday life, most notably with personal photos. Upload a picture to Facebook, and the social media giant suggests friends to tag. Google and Apple can automatically identify faces in photos, making it easier for users to search their photos for a specific friend or relative.

But Face ID takes facial recognition a step further. It works by relying on an advanced suite of tech — including an infrared camera, flood illuminator, front camera, dot projector, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor — packed into the front of the new iPhone X, which starts at $999.

To set it up, hold your iPhone X in front of your face and move your head around slowly. That becomes the stored version on your phone.

To use it, glance at the front-facing camera. The dot projector beams out more than 30,000 invisible infrared dots, and the infrared camera captures an image.

Apple uses the infrared image and dot pattern and pushes them through neural networks — a kind of machine learning model — to create a mathematical model of your face and then checks that model against the stored image captured during the setup phase. Once it detects a match, the phone unlocks; Face ID will also work with Apple Pay and third-party apps.

Face ID is sophisticated enough to work in the dark, and to learn your face under different circumstances — so go ahead and wear those funky glasses or grow that hipster beard.

Schiller said Apple also worked hard to ensure the technology “can’t be easily spoofed”. Photographs will not fool it, and Apple even worked with professional mask makers and makeup artists in Hollywood to protect against attempts to beat Face ID, he said.

The tech also requires user attention — your eyes have to be open, and you cannot be looking away (meaning there is little risk of intrusion while you sleep).

Identical twins may trip up the system, but for them and anyone else averse to using their faces, the iPhone X can still be unlocked using an old-fashioned passcode.

Although Apple said Face ID will provide users with more security, the technology also raises questions about unauthorised uses, particularly by law enforcement.

Last year, federal officials dropped their legal fight against Apple after figuring out a way to unlock the iPhone used by an assailant in the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack. Apple had refused to comply with agencies’ request to engineer a way around the iPhone’s security measures, saying that doing so would set a dangerous precedent.

Ultimately, FBI technology experts were aided by an outside group, which provided a backdoor technique to extract information from the phone. That left a vexing debate over a user’s privacy versus collective security unresolved.

With Face ID set up, it is plausible that law enforcement could use a suspect’s face to unlock his or her iPhone, said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy.

Fatemeh Khatibloo, an analyst with Forrester Research, said authorities in the US cannot compel you to provide your PIN or passcode. Faces, on the other hand, are public, so Face ID is functionally less private from a legal perspective, she said.

Apple did not respond to a call for comment on the matter; the FBI referred an inquiry to the Department of Justice, which said it did not have an immediate comment.

Many big tech companies have invested in facial technology in recent years. Facebook last year acquired FacioMetrics, which let smartphones analyse facial images in real time, and in 2015, Snapchat bought Looksery, a startup that applied filters to users’ faces.

Apple reportedly acquired two companies that were developing facial recognition technology: Israeli startup RealFace and San Diego startup Emotient, which uses artificial intelligence to read facial expressions and emotions. According to Crunchbase, RealFace was acquired this year and Emotient was bought in January 2016.