Features

It’s easy to imagine a future in which products as mundane as toasters and window blinds will be connected to the Internet and controlled by software.

It’s harder to guess who’s going to make them.

Leading producers of consumer software such as Google, Facebook, Amazon.com and Snapchat are branching into designing physical goods at accelerating rates. Driven by intensifying competition for consumer attention and enabled by declining manufacturing costs, software companies are entering battle with firms as far-removed from Silicon Valley as Timex and Ray-Ban.

The years to come could see Amazon making bookshelves that know what’s on them, grocery delivery app Instacart peddling refrigerators that restock on their own and music streaming service Spotify designing headphones with a cellular chip and flip-down video display.

It’s all conjecture for now, but they are real considerations for software behemoths that want to solidify monopolies as well as start-ups seeking to upend traditional consumer brands, technology executives and advisers say.

“Everything that’s a physical object is eventually going to be a combination of hardware and services,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president for products at design software giant Autodesk. “The more industrial and complex ones are going to come from a traditional hardware company. But the more consumer-oriented and less complex, software companies will enter those product categories a lot more.”

The latest signs of that future emerged Tuesday, when Google launched Home, a $130 tabletop device comparable to an alarm clock, except it responds aloud to spoken commands and search queries. It also revealed a Wi-Fi router and the first fully Google-branded smartphones. The unveiling caps a turnabout for a company that originally limited its mobile ambitions to supplying free software to handset makers.

Google’s announcement came the week after Snap Inc., formerly Snapchat, shared details about $130 video-camera sunglasses it’s shipping later this year.

The convergence of hardware and software follows decades of stark separation (Bell Labs and Apple Inc. being among the few notable exceptions that pursued both). Product makers Sony and Samsung struggled to get into developing software, with bugs and poor architecture drawing negative reviews. Software vendors, used to fat profits and patching problems with updates, avoided the challenge and expense of immutable gadgets.

The rise of smartphones and online-fuelled global trade have opened doors, though, most of them in the last five years.

With more cellphones selling each year than desktops or laptops ever did, prices of Wi-Fi chips, GPS sensors and other technical parts have fallen. Devices no longer need constant tethering to an electrical outlet, mobility that’s stoking software vendors’ imaginations. And because smartphones are always on and nearby, they’re an obvious anchor for a personal gadget ecosystem.

Contract factories now can turn around orders quickly, and there’s no waiting for some massive hard drive full of schematics to move by FedEx. Online ads and shops ease distribution and marketing challenges.

These developments decreased the money and time needed to build products. Hazards remain. One miscue can devastate multimillion-dollar investments, whether it be a shipping company suddenly going bankrupt or a widespread component spontaneously catching fire (just ask Samsung).

“The biggest single thing for software people to grasp is how expensive mistakes are in hardware,” said Jeremy Conrad, founding partner at hardware start-up incubator Lemnos Labs.

Increased discipline is required from Day One in hardware, a skill common among employees who have worked at big product makers, he said.

There too, software companies have benefited from the recent demise of and subsequent lay-offs at onetime household names. Facebook, Google and Snap have hardware executives formerly employed by the likes of Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Motorola.

Competition for workers is still fierce, though.

“The growth at the big companies is so fast that there’s no excess talent,” Conrad said.

Facebook is developing virtual-reality headsets for watching movies and playing games. Microsoft makes gaming consoles and is branching into high-tech visors. Amazon sells a speaker with a virtual assistant built in, buttons for automatic ordering of household items, Internet entertainment access boxes and tablets. Uber is working with automotive makers on self-driving cars and trucks.

Hanspal describes efforts of Autodesk’s tech peers as exploratory. Each company wants to see if it can boost sales and usage by introducing new ways for consumers to connect.

“The more connection points, the stronger you are,” Hanspal said. “They really want to be present at all the points a consumer might decide to take a relevant action.”

It’s a test, he says, of whether controlling the access lanes is just as important as owning the highways.

Apple, the world’s most valuable public company, has demonstrated the potential. The iPhone maker manages to pull billions of dollars from sales of high-priced devices and a growing sum from selling or taxing content consumed on its products.

Not every company sees devices as moneymakers. For some, it’s a defensive mechanism. In building its Spectacles, with a camera that posts video bites to its app, Snap reduces its reliance on smartphone makers for distribution. It could fear the day that Samsung builds a 10-second video app into its smartphones and allows sharing to multiple social media services.

Being the device maker produces unmatchable advantages, said Danny Crichton, an investor at Charles River Ventures, which has more investments in hardware start-ups than most venture capital firms.

A self-made device opens new advertising lanes for Snap, which is in cutthroat competition with Facebook and Google for advertisers who are shifting spending from TV to the Internet.

“There’s been so much consolidation of attention to Apple and Android on the devices side and to Facebook and Google on the advertising side, that the desire of many of these software companies to find a unique way to engage customers is increasing,” said Charles Golvin, research director at tech consulting firm Gartner.

Developing hardware is not a perfect solution. Gadgets can become cheap and indistinguishable over time. But the ecosystem of product, service and large-user community is better than any one of those on their own, Golvin said.

“Hardware can be commoditised,” he said. “The competition can leapfrog you, but your customers are secured by the services and community tied to that. That’s where you have to focus.”

Other companies, including Netflix and Spotify, are choosing an agnostic approach, making sure their apps are accessible on whatever products come about. At some point, they must ask, “Why live for a competitor’s device?” Crichton said. They could at least wade into exclusive arrangements with existing product makers to shut out rivals, a tactic Google reportedly has considered.

Imagine a Bluetooth-connected keychain that hails an Uber with a press of a button and has a tiny screen listing the car’s licence plate.

This type of exclusive device would be compelling for Uber because users would be less likely to think about rival Lyft, Crichton said.

Technology experts say companies should not stray from their core identities with hardware. For Google, TVs could be OK, but probably not coffee mugs, Conrad speculated.

Companies also appear to have heeded lessons. A company’s devices are generally compatible with those of other manufacturers, unlike in the past, and they’re all more thoughtful about conducting trials, integrating personalisation and stunning with appealing aesthetics.

The next big separator may be who nails the tech industry’s move toward predictive virtual assistants, Golvin said. The company that anticipates people’s needs and does the best job fulfilling them could have the most dominant hardware meets software ecosystem.

The Illuminator
Brenda Rickman Vantrease
New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005
Pp. 406

Although its time span is only a few years, “The Illuminator” has an epic quality due to how Brenda Rickman Vantrease situates the story in a panoramic view of English life and history in the late 14th century. It is a time of transition and brewing conflict: Cracks are opening in the old feudal order. Bishops and nobles jostle for power, taking advantage of the youth of King Richard.

There is mounting popular resentment of the social inequality upheld by the crown, the nobility and the church, claimed to be the Divine Order. The English language spoken by commoners is asserting itself in relation to the aristocracy’s preference for Norman French and the church’s Latin liturgy. John Wycliffe is doing the first translation of the Bible into English, to make it more broadly accessible, while renegade priests are railing against the church’s wealth and abuses.

Crisis hits when the crown and the church increase taxes and tithes to subsidise their opulent lifestyle and foreign wars fought in the name of religion. Coming on the heels of the plague which had already aggravated the miserable conditions and overwork of the poor, this ignites the 1381 Peasant Revolt and its violent suppression, signalling the climax of the novel, and spelling the demise, or nearly so, of its major characters. 

From the first pages, the author thrusts us into the burning questions and material reality of the day: Sugar is rare and expensive, as are candles; the poor may choose to watch their children starve, or sell them into servitude; those who appear to be different are subject to ridicule, or worse; while speaking out against injustice may land one in a dungeon, or the hangman’s noose. “Truth-telling was a hazardous business.” (p. 185) 

The story centres on an aristocratic family surrounded by servants, serfs and peasants on their estate, but the point-of-view is greatly broadened by their encounters and friendship with singular personages of contrasting backgrounds, chiefly a dwarf, a peasant girl and an anchoress, both gifted with visionary powers, and Finn, the illuminator. While the king, Wycliffe, the revolt leaders, the anchoress and a venial, conniving bishop are based on real historical figures, the rest are creatures of the author’s imagination, so vividly well-drawn as to remain in the reader’s mind long after closing the book. 

Still beautiful at 40, Lady Kathryn of Blackingham Manor is recently widowed, though not grieving for Sir Roderick, her overbearing, insensitive husband. Mostly she is worried about preserving the estate so that her two sons may inherit it. She is painfully aware of women’s limited rights. Financial ruin or any smudge on her reputation can give cause for the manor to be taken from her, and predators are already lurking, from greedy priests peddling indulgences that drain her dwindling resources, to false suitors coveting her land. Not the pliable female preferred in patriarchal society, she is determined to run the estate wisely and steer clear of the prevailing power struggles, but a series of conspiracies and accidents of fate cloud her prospects. 

Seeking protection and public proof of her piety, Kathryn agrees to an abbot’s request to host Finn, the artist who is illuminating the Gospel of Saint John for his monastery. Since Finn has a marriageable daughter, it is not be suitable for them to live with the monks. The entry of the illuminator and Rose breathes fresh air into the manor house. Strong but gentle, brave but compassionate, with an acute sense of social justice, and infinite charm, Finn eschews unnecessary violence and false piety. In his view, “There is no such thing as a holy war”. (p. 15)

He is the antithesis of Sir Roderick and the entire lot of scheming, violence prone nobility and corrupt bishops. Like Kathryn, he seeks balance in religion, for he has tasted “the dark underbelly of piety” that almost destroyed his life. (p. 43)

They fall in love, and Kathryn finds the pleasure that was lacking in her marriage, but Finn has secrets that complicate her situation. One is that he is also illuminating Wycliffe’s translations, considered heretical by the church. 

The feminism implicit in Kathryn’s strong will, and the genuine piety so lacking in the top clergy, find full expression in an anchoress who, like Finn, exemplifies major themes in the story. Believing that God’s love for humans can only be compared to a mother’s love for her child, she postulates the concept of a Mother God, presaging some modern feminist ideas. (The anchoress is inspired by Julian of Norwich, whose “Divine Revelations” is the first book written by a woman in the English language.) 

By mixing history with fiction, and humanistic values with adventure, Vantrease has concocted a powerful novel full of passionate and saintly love, corruption and purity, kindness and treachery, noble human intentions and cruel fate. The book is obviously well researched, containing fascinating details about the cuisine, architecture, agriculture and costume of the times, not to mention the derivation of the colours used for the illumination of manuscripts. It would make a beautiful and exciting film.

The increased risk of stroke that comes with smoking may extend to non-smokers who live in the same household and breathe in second-hand smoke, a US study suggests.

Researchers found that never-smokers who had a stroke were nearly 50 per cent more likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke at home than people who had never had a stroke.

During the study, stroke survivors exposed to second-hand smoke were also more likely to die from any cause compared to those without second-hand smoke exposure.

“Second-hand smoke is a risk to all people, but those with a history of stroke should take extra care to avoid it,” said lead author Dr Michelle Lin of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

One in four non-smokers (58 million people) in the US are still exposed to second-hand smoke, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

“While cigarette smoking has long been known to increase the risk of stroke, less is known about the relationship between second-hand smoke and stroke,” Lin said by e-mail.

To explore the question, the study team analysed data on nearly 28,000 never-smokers over age 18 who participated in annual National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.

Participants were recruited between 1988 and 1994 and again between 1999 and 2012. They were asked, “Does anyone who lives here smoke cigarettes, cigars, or pipes anywhere inside this home?”

To gauge the amount of smoke people were exposed to, blood tests for cotinine, a breakdown product of nicotine, were performed on each participant.

The researchers also looked at other factors that might influence stroke risk or likelihood of second-hand smoke exposure like race, sex, education and income level.

The people most likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke at home were black men with high alcohol intake and a history of heart attack who were living in poverty. 

Among survey participants between 1999 and 2012, people exposed to high amounts of second-hand smoke, as measured by blood cotinine, were 46 per cent more likely than those exposed to little or no smoke to have a history of past stroke.

In the 1988-1994 group, the results were different, and second-hand smoke exposure was not linked to increased stroke risk. The study team writes in the journal Stroke that this difference requires further investigation.

Among all participants, however, stroke survivors who reported second-hand smoke exposure were about twice as likely to die of any cause, compared with stroke survivors not exposed to smoke. 

This added risk of death among people with prior stroke increased along with the amount of smoke exposure. 

The same pattern was not seen among people without prior stroke, and the study team speculates that the reason might be second-hand smoke most affects people who already have vascular disease, such as those with a history of prior stroke or heart attack. 

“No level of exposure to second-hand smoke is safe,” said Angela Malek, a researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina who studies second-hand smoke risk.

Malek noted that in addition to stroke, adults exposed to second-hand smoke are also at risk for heart disease and lung cancer, while children may experience asthma and infections.

“Limiting or avoiding areas in which smoking is taking place is recommended for both children and adults,” Malek said by e-mail. “It is never too late to start avoiding environmental smoke exposure!”

“Move away from smokers to minimise your exposure to second-hand smoke,” Lin advised. “Tell smokers that they put everyone else around them at risk for stroke.”

The first mid-engine BMW since the M1 sports car of 1978, the BMW i8 was first glimpsed as the Vision Efficient Dynamics concept in 2009, before production launched five years after. Like the M1 was the first fully fledged product from the Bavarian automaker’s performance M division, the i8 is the specialised electric and hybrid BMW i sub-brand’s first production car since being founded in 2011.

A luxurious high-tech mid-engine 2+2 coupe, the i8 is expected to appeal to a trendy, tech-savvy, environmentally conscious and upwardly mobile clientele. In this regard it is perhaps closer to a Tesla Model S electric luxury saloon, than a McLaren P1 hybrid supercar or the original Tesla Roadster sports car, despite a shared mid-engine configuration. Conceptually, if not technologically, its exotic and leftfield appeal is loosely similar to the DeLorean DMC-12 during the early 1980s.

Aesthetics and appeal

Similar to the DeLorean’s rear-engine layout, gull-wing doors and stainless-steel construction, the BMW i8 features exotic mid-engine configuration, forward tilted up-swinging doors, and lightweight carbon-fibre and aluminium construction to off-set the heavy hybrid components and electric motors. Likewise rakish and space age in styling and aesthetic as the DeLorean, the i8’s design and familial style, however, owes more to its asymmetric M1 predecessor.

Busier than the DeLorean’s sophisticatedly clean lines and less visceral than the M1, the i8’s design is more complicated than either. At the rear, layered pillars, upright flanks and busy shapes seem particularly complex, but help achieve low CD0.26 aerodynamics for noise refinement and fuel efficiency benefits. The i8’s glasshouse profile and a similarly dramatic and urgent front demeanour — with narrow and moody squinting fascia and bonnet louvers — are, however, clearly M1-inspired.

An accessible daily use sports coupe rather than outright sports- or supercar, the i8’s technology, packaging, practicality and petrol/electric drive-train integration are well-accomplished. With mid-mounted 1.5-litre 3-cylinder petrol internal combustion engine driving rear wheels, and electric motor driving the front, the i8 is effectively a four-wheel drive car, with associated traction and road holding benefits. In default Eco Pro driving mode, it utilises both petrol and electric motors to balance performance and efficiency.

Highly developed hybrid

Highly developed, the i8’s 3-cylinder petrol engine produces 228BHP at 5,800rpm and 236lb/ft torque at 3700rpm, while its electric motor develops 129BHP and 184lb/ft. In Sport driving mode, both work in concert to produce a combined 357BHP and 420lb/ft system output. With four-wheel-drive traction and generous and immediate electric motor torque in Sport mode, the 1,560kg i8 lunges confidently off-the-line, dispatching 0-100km/h in 4.4 seconds, and is capable of 250km/h.

Underwriting the petrol engine’s output and negating low-end turbo-lag, the i8’s electric motors also shore up its stout mid-range to provide effortlessly muscular and responsive on-the-move versatility, including 3.4-second 80-120km/h acceleration. With an aggressive stereo speaker-enhanced and throbbing offbeat 3-pot growl, the i8 is at its most responsive and manic in Sport mode.

The i8, however, takes a different persona when driven in economical electric-only mode, operating smoothly and in near silence, save for a mild sci-fi like electric motor whine. Relying more on low-end torque in electric mode, the i8’s electric range is 30km, with top speed limited to 120km/h. Standard plug-in re-charging time is 2.5 hours, while in most efficient hybrid Comfort mode, the i8’s claimed range rises to 600km, during which the combustion engine also operates as an electric generator to re-charge batteries.

Smooth and sophisticated

Driven through a six-speed automatic gearbox the i8 shifts smoothly and slickly in normal driving modes, but recalibrates for a more aggressive profile in Sport mode. Holding gears longer to access full power and down-shifting early, the i8’s gearbox is best in “auto” mode when in Sport setting, as manual inputs are often over-ridden for a more consistently aggressive and responsive set-up. The i8 also features regenerative brakes to utilise kinetic energy to help charge the batteries and help reduce brake disc wear.

With stiff carbon-fibre passenger cell and aluminium sub-frame, the i8’s sophisticated double front wishbone and rear multi-link suspension better operate in terms of handling precision and ride comfort, without interference from excessive body flex. Packaged for more neutral handling characteristics, the i8’s front electric motor and mid-engine keep major weights within its big footprint for stability and balance.

Meanwhile, heavy batteries are located in the central tunnel for balanced 50:50 weighting and low centre of gravity, and with adaptive damping allow for taut cornering composure and body lean control. Smooth and pinned down, the i8 effectively puts combined power to ground and rides firm in Sport mode but more forgivingly in default mode. Rebound control is also good, but default stability control settings are somewhat over-careful through choppy corners with exaggerated vertical and lateral movements.

Accomplished ability

One of only two current four-seat mid-engine cars, the i8 is of similar weight and weighting, only slightly larger and arguably better packaged than the Lotus Evora. However, where the two diverge is in their respective characters. A viscerally charged seat of the pants old school sports car, the Evora’s chassis and steering relay fluently textured analogue connections. The i8 is. however. a more complex beast with layers of high-tech systems providing a more managed, if somewhat clinical, but nonetheless highly accomplished and capable driving experience.

A vindicating success in hybrid driveline integration the i8 is dynamically adept and balanced through corners, with tidy, refined, quick and precise electric-assisted steering. Neutral and agile handling, with mild understeer if pushed too hard in, and alternatively oversteer if driven too aggressively out of corners, the i8 is sophisticated, stable and smooth but is not — nor is it designed to be — a raw and visceral sports car. 

A practical yet powerful sports car with frugal 2.1l/100km combined ful consumption and 49g/km CO₂ emissions, the i8 features a luxuriously business-like and well-equipped yet unostentatious cabin. A combination of the futuristic high-tech displays and familiar switchgear, the i8’s cabin offers good front visibility and well-adjustable, supportive and alert driving position. Wide up-swinging doors provide easy access over wide and high sills, while rear seats may be confined, but are hugely practical for children or occasional larger adult use.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 1.5-litre, turbocharged 3 cylinders

Electric motor: Hybrid synchronous motor

Bore x stroke: 82 x 94.6mm

Compression: 9.5:1

Valve-train: 12-valve, DOHC, variable timing

Gearbox: 6-speed automatic, four-wheel drive

Gear ratios: 1st 4.459; 2nd 2.508; 3rd 1.556; 4th 1.142; 5th 0.851; 6th 0.672

Reverse/final drive: 3.185/3.683

Power – petrol engine, BHP (PS) [kW]: 228 (231) [170] @5,800rpm

Power – electric motor, BHP (PS) [kW]: 129 (131) [96]

Power, combined, BHP (PS0 [kW]: 357 (362) [266]

Torque – petrol engine, lb/ft (Nm): 236 [320] @3,700rpm

Torque – electric motor, lb/ft (Nm): 184 (250)

Torque, combined, lb/ft (Nm): 420 (570)

0-100km/h: 4.4 seconds

80-120km/h, 4th/5th: 3.4-/4 seconds

Top speed (electric only): 250km/h (120km/h)

Fuel consumption, combined: 2.1 litres/100km

Energy consumption: 11.9kWh/100km

Fuel capacity: 42-litres

Range , electric/combined: 30-37km/600km

Battery charging: 2-2.5 hours

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.26

Weight distribution, F/R; 50:50 per cent

Turning circle: 12.3 metres

Construction: Carbon-fibre passenger cell/aluminium subframe

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbone/multilink, adaptive dampers

Brakes: Ventilated discs

Tyres, F/R: 215/45R20/245/40R20

Even preemies who receive breathing treatments to improve lung function early in life may have respiratory challenges as children and adolescents, an Australian study suggests. 

Researchers focused on the most vulnerable subset of premature babies: those born at no more than 28 weeks gestation. These babies are too frail and weak to breathe on their own; they often lack a lining in the lungs known as surfactant that keeps tiny airspaces called alveoli from collapsing with each exhalation. 

When researchers examined data on about 300 extremely small, low birth weight babies, they found these early arrivals were much more likely to have small airway obstruction at ages 8 and 18 than a group of 260 otherwise similar babies who were born full term and normal size. 

Furthermore, the preemies had a greater increase in small airway obstruction between ages 8 and 18, compared with full-term babies.

“Since surfactant in healthy pregnancies is produced mostly after 34-35 weeks of pregnancy in the foetus, infants born before this time are more likely than babies born after 34-35 weeks to have surfactant deficiency, and hence breathing difficulty after birth,” said lead study author Dr Lex Doyle, a paediatrics researcher at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Australia. 

A typical pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks and babies that arrive after 37 weeks are considered full term. In the weeks immediately after birth, preemies often have difficulty breathing and digesting food. Some premature infants also encounter longer term challenges such as impaired vision, hearing and cognitive skills as well as social and behavioural problems.

For the current study, Doyle and colleagues focused on infants born in 1991 to 1992, just as synthetic and natural surfactants made of lipids and proteins became available in Australia to treat preterm infants. Doctors can inject liquid containing these surfactants directly into the air passages of the lung to improve breathing. 

Within the preemie group, the subset of early arrivals who also had lung damage caused by time on a respirator or long-term oxygen use had worse lung function at age 8 and age 18 than the preterm babies that did not have these issues. 

In addition, preemies who became smokers by age 18 also had worse lung function than preemies who never smoked, researchers report in the journal Thorax. 

One limitation of the study is the lack of follow-up after age 18, because lung development typically continues into the 20s, the authors note.

Still, the findings suggest that as preemies become adults, they need to make sure to alert doctors about their early arrival and be monitored for potential breathing problems, Doyle said. 

“Knowledge that they were born preterm and any complications they had should be part of their medical history for life,” Doyle said. “They would, of course, also be wise not to smoke.”

Parents and children should also pay close attention to any shortness of breath, especially during exercise, said Dr Marjaana Tikanmaki, a researcher at the National Institute for Health and Welfare and University of Oulu in Finland.

“It could be a sign of airway obstruction,” Tikanmaki, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. “Reversible airway obstruction, asthma, can be treated with regular inhaled corticosteroids and with salbutamol that opens small airways in acute shortage of breath.”

It’s one of the aspects of living with technology that you tend to take lightly, until you realise how important it is, and how deep its impact can be.

Giving a name to a digital file you are storing does not matter much at the very moment you do it, and actually may not matter at all if all you are keeping on your device or computer are only a few files, say tens of them. However, who of us has only a few files stored? Whether on a smartphone, a tablet or a laptop, we now keep and maintain thousands and even sometime tens of thousands of them. My personal count is about 45,000.

Digital files of all kinds, photos, music, documents, spreadsheets, programmes, and so forth, this is how we store information these days. Whether it is on a hard disk, on a memory card, a USB drive or in the cloud, the result is the same: we end up with very large numbers that need proper, efficient management. Failure to do so often translates into files lost, misplaced, or that take very long to retrieve. Take heart, however, there are software tools that can help you work better and even put order in the digital filing mayhem you may have generated after years of saving files without a good method.

The first part of the organisation that is necessary for smooth digital filing is, of course, to create a logical and practical structure of folders and subfolders. We have become more or less aware of this aspect, of the “architecture”, even if not everyone does it well; it varies a lot from one user to the other. The second part is about giving meaningful names to the files we place inside these folders — and it is a more critical, a more delicate action that one might first think.

Build yourself a “system” for naming your files and follow it rigorously. Maintain consistency. Watch spelling (yes, it does matters). Put enough information in the file name but avoid ending up with too long a string at the same time.

Most Windows-based systems do not recommend having file names longer than 255 characters. This may seem very long, but the count also includes the folders names where the file is, so if for instance it is saved inside several folders and subfolders you can easily reach 255 characters. It is called the path. Example of path with a photo file name on drive D: ”D:\MyPhotos\2015\TakenWithSmartphone\Greece\Hydra\DiningWithFriends.jpg.”

Use a smart combination of capitals and small letters for easier reading. Avoid, as much as possible, mixing different types of files in the same folder. Name files in a way to have comfortable reading of the list when you sort them.

Among all the software products out there that are designed to get you better organised, there is one that is particularly good at files naming and renaming. It is called Better File Rename (BFR) – the name says it all. BFR is here to assist you being organised, and re-organised in case you are not yet.

The powerful tool can do massive and instant renaming of thousands of files, using smart yet easy to understand and apply rules and formulas. It follows plain logic and does not require a degree in IT. There are versions for Windows and for Mac OS as well, and the product’s licence is a mere $20.

With BFR you can select a large number of files, or the contents of an entire folder for instance, right-click to launch BFR, and then apply a massive rename action. You can insert numbers, strings, search and replace strings inside the names, apply dates changes, renumber, delete characters, and so forth.

Apple and Microsoft operating systems do come with some tools that are useful to retrieve files and to search for strings inside the files. However, even these otherwise useful built-in tools are not enough for the kind of work you have to do today to keep your huge digital filing storage really tidy. Even if you already are a well-organised person and do proper file naming from the very start, chances are that you will need to go through reorganisation and files renaming at some point. This is where BFR comes in. Without it it’s a daunting, long and tedious task.

Acetaminophen, long the mainstay of a pregnant woman’s pain-relief arsenal, has been linked to behavioural problems in children born to mothers who used it during pregnancy.

Recent research published by the journal JAMA Paediatrics found that a woman’s use of acetaminophen at 18 and 32 weeks of pregnancy was associated with greater odds that when the resulting child was 7 years old, his or her mother would report a range of problematic behaviours.

Compared to women who reported no acetaminophen use at 18 weeks of pregnancy, those who took the medication at that point of gestation were 42 per cent more likely to report hyperactivity and 31 per cent more likely to report conduct problems in the children they bore.

Women who took acetaminophen at 32 weeks of pregnancy were 29 per cent more likely than women who did not to report emotional difficulties in their child at age 7. Children born to mothers who took acetaminophen late in their pregnancy were 46 per cent more likely to experience a wide range of behavioural difficulties than were children born to moms who took no acetaminophen at that point.

Finding a link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and an outcome affecting the child is no proof that acetaminophen is the cause of the outcome. But the authors contend that the study results do heighten concerns that feotal exposure to acetaminophen can give rise to neurodevelopmental problems.

Several epidemiological studies have linked acetaminophen use during pregnancy to ADHD-like behaviours in the child. Research performed on mice has suggested that the medication alters brain development by disrupting hormonal function in the developing foetus. And several other mechanisms of injury have been suggested.

The authors of the study took several steps to reduce confusion in interpretation of the study’s findings, and to strengthen evidence of a causal link between acetaminophen and poor neurodevelopmental outcomes in children exposed before birth.

They looked for a link between a child’s behavioural problems at age 7 and his or her mother’s postnatal acetaminophen use, and found none. They looked for a link between a child’s behavioural problems at age 7 and acetaminophen use by the mother’s partner during pregnancy. Again, they found no association.

The emerging picture, then, points more strongly to a developing foetus’ exposure to acetaminophen as a possible causative factor. The authors wrote that the new findings add to those of a 2013 study that compared adverse behavioural outcomes in siblings as a function of a mother’s acetaminophen use during pregnancy. Collectively, the two suggest that “unmeasured familial factors” — socioeconomic differences, or a mother’s attitudes toward medication use — are not the actual cause of a child’s behavioural problems.

The new research also sought to take account of the possibility that women who passed on a genetic propensity to hyperactivity or impulsive, inattentive behaviours might also be more likely to use acetaminophen during pregnancy. In a subset of participating mothers, researchers looked for a passel of common genetic variations linked to ADHD-like behaviours. They failed to discern a pattern of increased medication-taking by women who were carriers of genetic variations linked to behavioural problems. 

Finally, the authors of the study acted to avoid a common problem with research that links adverse pregnancy outcomes to certain medications: that women whose children have some identifiable problem are more likely to recall taking medications during pregnancy. The current study asked women when they were pregnant about their medication use, and then — seven years after her child’s birth — asked her to assess her child’s emotional and social well-being and report a range of problematic behaviours.

The study reflects the experience of 7,796 mothers who gave birth to a baby in 1991 and 1992 in the county once known as Avon, England.

Acetaminophen has long been seen as safe for use by pregnant women, and more than half of pregnant women in the United States and Europe are thought to use it during pregnancy. In this study population, 53 per cent of women reported use of acetaminophen at 18 weeks, and 42 per cent reported acetaminophen use at 32 weeks.

As a fever reducer, acetaminophen is considered a bulwark against a more immediate threat to a developing foetus. The authors cautioned that pregnant women and their physicians should carefully weigh any potential harm to offspring against the risks of not treating fever or pain in the mother.

When we reach the fifth decade of our existence, we think that we have become wise. We feel that by now we have developed the judgement to sift wrong from right, artificiality from genuineness and dishonesty from honesty. It is an invisible accolade that we like to award ourselves with. But, life as a teacher puts us through more and more difficult lessons, so that we continue to live and learn. 

Before I tell you how I was conned recently, allow me to warn all my readers that just because you know a person from your school or college days does not mean that the lady or gentleman cannot swindle you. In the goodness of things, it should not happen; the past camaraderie that you shared should instil some sort of honour among thieves, but the sad fact is that it does not. 

So, when a con man from my home country India, researched my background on the social networking sites and contacted me, my first reaction was to block him. My mother, as well as the nuns in my school had drilled into me, that I must not talk to strangers. But very swiftly this con man mentioned an acquaintance from my old university who I had recently met at a college reunion and I paused for a moment. That pause cost me more than two thousand quid! How? Let me explain.

Being an expert fraudster he knew that there was an upcoming wedding that was going to take place in my family. With great skill and expertise he spread his web of lies and offered to help with the arrangements. I declined because I had already lined up everything locally in Jordan. He kept calling and insisting that he simply wanted to explore the market potential and would be happy to be counted as one of our guests. All I needed to do was pay for his airfare, hotel stay and a token amount, if I felt he had contributed towards anything.

My associate from the university days lived in the same Pink City in India as the conman and because of our mutual association I decided to give his idea a shot. He immediately asked for a booking amount. It was just a formality he said because he needed to block the dates. One and a half thousand pounds exchanged hands. Then I sent him the tickets to come to Amman before the event. He landed here and got to work. Not in assisting but in shopping for himself and from downtown markets to the upscale malls he did not spare any avenue.

A fortnight after he headed back, there was no news from him. Following constant reminders, he e-mailed us the conditions under which he would consider making another trip. The price he quoted was four times the initial token, two more people needed to accompany him, we were asked to pay the entire amount 15 days prior to them making their journey. And only then would he supervise the proceedings. As for the booking amount, we could forget it! With a sinking feeling I realised that I had been completely duped. 

“There is a college reunion coming up,” I told my husband. 

“Another one?” he asked. 

“Same one actually,” I mumbled.

“You want to go?” he questioned.

“It will be nice to renew old friendships,” I said. 

“No more fraudulent contacts, mom,” our daughter piped up. 

“Or deceitful wedding connections please,” my spouse spoke firmly. 

MADRID — They may be cute, colourful and chatty, but South American quaker parrots have taken up residence in Madrid and other Spanish cities, irritating residents with their shrill squawks and destabilising the ecosystem.

The small, bright green and grey-breasted birds — also known as monk parakeets — first arrived in Spain in cages as entertaining pets, but some either escaped or were let loose, getting their first taste of freedom in the green, leafy Spanish capital — and then proliferating.

Maria Moreno, who lives in the Los Carmenes district in southwestern Madrid, said she first noticed them several years ago.

A pair of parrots chose the area as their home, and enjoyed it so much that there are now a dozen parakeets who fight among themselves and compete for food with pigeons, sparrows and magpies.

“The noise and mess they make is awful,” she says, adding “and they urinate on cars”, as she watches the parrots fly to and from trees along her road.

‘Very adaptable’

Some districts of Madrid, as well as parks such as Casa de Campo or the Retiro, are full of the birds which originate from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia.

They build communal nests that weigh up to 50 kilos, mostly in trees — they favour cedars — but also in electric pylons.

In order to do so, the parrots tear thousands of branches off trees, at times leaving them nearly bare.

“It causes a significant deterioration in the health of the tree, and some dry up,” says Blas Molina, an expert at the Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO/Birdlife).

According to research by the society, there were around 20,000 quaker parrots — called so for their bobbing and shaking — in Spain last year, many of them in Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga on the southeast coast.

Other European countries such as Britain have also seen an influx of monk parakeets.

Paris, Rome and London, meanwhile, have large colonies of ring-necked parakeets, which come from Asia and Africa and are also deemed aggressive towards other birds.

Jose Luis Postigo, a researcher at the University of Malaga and an expert on quaker parrots, about which he is writing a thesis, says the species is “very adaptable”.

It can live in a warm country like Spain, as well as in the colder climes of Brussels or Chicago, adapting by building thicker nest walls.

Classified as an invasive species, Spanish authorities are allowed to take measures to cull them, and in 2011 sales of the bird were banned in the country.

Molina says that in order to counter the large number of parrots, authorities have in the past cut branches and destroyed nests where they found colonies.

But he adds that they ignored the parrots themselves, “which means that what they actually did was move them to other zones”.

Salvador Florido, head of environmental health surveillance at Malaga’s city hall, said that with the arrival of quaker parrots, there were now “fewer varieties [of birds] due to competition for food”.

In Madrid, where more than 5,000 monk parakeets live, authorities are working with SEO/Birdlife to find out where the colonies are.

Exactly what they will do, though, remains a mystery.

The SEO will not explicitly recommend culling the birds — a drastic move that does not sit well with animal rights groups, even if it is legal given quaker parrots have been classified as an invasive species.

Madrid city hall is also staying mum on what it plans to do.

But it at least has information from the experience of other towns, such as Zaragoza in northeastern Spain.

There, authorities managed to bring down the number of adult birds from more than 1,400 to just around a dozen.

Luis Manso, the head of environmental conservation in Zaragoza, said one of the methods used was piercing eggs with a very fine needle and leaving them in the nests.

The aim was “to deceive the adults into thinking they were viable, when really they didn’t come to fruition”.

That did not work so well though. So in the past two years, they have taken a more drastic measure — shooting them down.

Health might be its own reward, but even cash incentives only work in the short term to motivate people to exercise more and activity trackers add little benefit, according to a study from Singapore.

“Readers should not assume that going out and buying a Fitbit is going to make them healthier,” lead author Eric Finkelstein, a professor at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, told Reuters Health by e-mail.

Simply increasing the number of steps a person takes may not translate to real improvements in health or weight loss, he added.

One in ten adults in the United States now owns an activity tracker, the study team writes in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.

To determine how these devices affect health and whether adding other kinds of incentives can help increase activity levels, the research team collected data on 800 employees from 13 organisations in Singapore. 

The participants, aged 21 to 65, mostly worked desk jobs with little opportunity for exercise during the workday.

The study team divided people into four groups of about 200 each: those who received only a basic model Fitbit, those who got the same Fitbit and would also receive cash incentives tied to activity goals, those who got the Fitbit and earned charity donations, and people who got no tracker or incentives and served as a comparison group.

For participants earning incentives, some were tied to weekly steps, with a goal of 10,000 steps per day and 70,000 steps per week. There were also incentives for minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per week, which was the study’s main focus.

The research team also monitored health outcomes including weight, blood pressure and quality of life.

Participants reported on their progress at six months, at which point the incentives ended, and researchers followed up with them again at the one-year mark to see if the habits formed during the period when they were receiving rewards had endured. 

At the start of the study, about two-thirds of participants were considered to be too inactive, while about a third were considered active. A majority of participants were overweight or obese and around 10 per cent had high blood pressure.

At six months, the group wearing no trackers was getting slightly less moderate to vigorous exercise per week than at the start of the study, while the tracker-plus-cash group was doing about 29 minutes more than them and the tracker-plus-donations group was logging 21 minutes more than the no-tracker group. 

The tracker-alone group was logging about 16 minutes more activity than those without trackers, a difference small enough that it could have been due to chance.

At the one year follow-up, it was the group whose cash rewards had ceased six months earlier that was exercising just 15 minutes more than the no-tracker group and was basically back to their activity levels at the start of the study. The Fitbit-only group was averaging 37 minutes more exercise than the no-tracker group and those who had been earning charitable donations were doing 32 minutes more. 

Since the no-tracker group was still exercising less than at the beginning of the study, the other groups’ additional minutes represented fairly small difference from baseline, the researchers note.

There were no changes in weight, blood pressure or other health measures at either the six-month or one-year marks. 

At the one year assessment, only 10 per cent of participants in all three groups that had Fitbits were still wearing them, researchers found. 

“Wearable devices alone are unlikely to motivate the average person to change their behaviours,” said Dr Mitesh Patel, who studies incentives for physical activity at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Social incentives can help by using people’s natural needs for competition, collaboration and support, he said by e-mail. 

Patel, who was not involved in the study, also recommends combining wearable devices with social programmes or strategies to keep up exercise, much like having a “gym buddy”.

Finkelstein also noted the importance of social influence to help people keep their commitments to be active.

“If the goal is to increase physical activity I would join a gym or walking group. Having an exercise buddy is something I strongly encourage,” he said.