Features

JAKARTA — The trendy café looks like a typical coffee shop in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, but in fact it sells herb-infused brews promising to fix every ailment from coughs to impotence.

Indonesians have for generations taken herbal medicine, known locally as “jamu”, as a remedy for common ailments, and many children’s early memories include being forced to gulp down concoctions of ingredients such as ginger and turmeric.

Now entrepreneurs have fused the age-old love of tonics made from the archipelago’s vast selection of herbs with the younger generation’s desire for a fashionable setting, and come up with beverages that focus on modern-day problems.

And as demand for alternative medicines grows from the Middle East to Africa, Indonesian jamu manufacturers hope the country can use its expertise in the sector to become a major player in the global herbal medicine industry.

A resurgence in domestic popularity is being driven by hangouts such as the Jakarta café, which welcomes young professionals and students to a retro setting that mixes old-fashioned furniture with touches of the past, such as black and white prints and vintage bicycles.

“Potent!” exclaims the menu, which features a picture of a beaming man wearing a traditionally patterned cap and a smart suit as he promotes a “stamina-boosting aphrodisiac”, named the Ginseng Prakoso Plus.

Next to him is a picture of a woman with her hair meticulously styled into a bun, offering a drink called the “Tight Cavity”, which aims to help improve a couple’s sex life after a woman has given birth.

‘Wives always smiling’

Other brews at the café, named “It’s a long time such we had jamu,” tantalisingly promise to “keep husbands at home” and “wives always smiling”.

The café, which opened two years ago, also offers a range of lighter, more palatable jamu, such as drinks made from the herb rosella to recharge the immune system, turmeric to boost stamina, and ginger to fight colds and coughs.

“Initially the bitter taste put me off, but I have grown accustomed to it,” said graphic designer Io Woo, 23, who gets her particular amu fix at the café three to four times a month.

“It’s less dreadful to consume it with friends here, where it’s cosy and comfortable.”

It is not just hipster cafés seeking to breathe new life into jamu. Traditional healer Retno Widati has since 2011 been teaching people seeking to open their own businesses how to make jamu ice cream from green beans, rice and galangal, a herb related to ginger common in Indonesia.

“Young people are not taking jamu as often as in the old days, they fear the bitter taste,” she said, adding her aim was to re-introduce it to people in a “more modern form”.

The “jamu movement” has some high-profile supporters, notably Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who reportedly starts his day with a glass of boiled turmeric and ginger.

The government has thrown its support behind the industry, which currently employs 15 million people and boasts more than 1,000 manufacturers, including some listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange.

Industry Minister Saleh Husin in September urged more exports of jamu products and said the sector aims to generate revenue of up to 20 trillion rupiah ($1.45 billion) this year, up from 15 trillion rupiah in 2014.

The old ways

Producers of jamu products see great opportunities abroad. Asia remains the stronghold for herbal remedies but their popularity is growing around the world, according to experts.

But Jamu Entrepreneurs Association Chairman Charles Saerang said Indonesia, which is home to around 6,000 varieties of herbs, was still punching below its weight and remained a small player in the $50 billion herbal remedy industry, which is dominated by countries including China and India.

He said the sector should focus on exporting good quality, cheap raw ingredients instead of simply ready-made products, as it mainly does now, which could increase annual earnings four fold.

Despite the arrival of hip cafés seen as key in driving jamu’s modernisation, there remains a hardcore of Indonesians who prefer the old ways — tonics served at streetside stalls, or in unpretentious, inexpensive local shops.

“Why should I pay five times more for something that’s essentially the same? I’d rather save my money because more money means more jamu to enjoy,” said school handyman Agustinus Martanbaim, 38, who buys his herbal drinks from local vendors.

BEIJING — In a martial artist’s white silk pyjamas, a man practised tai-chi in harmony with a motorised arm at a Beijing exhibition showcasing a vision of robots with Chinese characteristics.

Vehicles with automated gun turrets sat alongside drink-serving karaoke machines at the World Robot Conference, as manufacturers sought new buyers for their “jiqiren” — “machine people” in Chinese.

The push has support at the highest levels of government. President Xi Jinping issued a letter of congratulations for the conference, and the industry is name-checked in the draft version of the country’s new five-year plan, the policy document that guides national economic development.

The world’s second-largest economy is already the leading market for industrial robots, accounting for a quarter of global sales, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

But executives at a conference roundtable said the real market opportunity was in service robots for the homes and offices of the world’s most populous country.

“There are now less than 100,000 robots in Chinese families, not including vacuum cleaners,” said Liu Xuenan, chief executive officer of Canbot.

In the future, said Yu Kai, the head of Horizon Robotics, China’s automated helpers will do everything from building cars to driving them, predicting that “each person might have 10 robots” — nearly 14 billion potential tin men at current population levels.

Planet of the Apps

Robots have captured China’s imagination. From Transformers to Baymax, the star of Disney’s movie “Big Hero 6”, Chinese consumers have embraced robot heroes, spending hundreds of millions on related movies and merchandise.

In Chinese cities, businesses try to attract customers with robot waiters, cooks, and concierges. In the countryside, rural Da Vincis cobble together mechanical men from scrapyard junk.

A panel at the conference struggled with the question of how China would deal with the rise of artificially intelligent machines.

But the transition from the world of fantasy and novelty to a real robot economy could be tricky, with the country’s technology still lagging far behind neighbours Korea and Japan, the undisputed king of the robots.

China should have more realistic expectations for the near future, said Pinpin Zhu, president of China’s voice controlled service Xiao I Robot, which was involved in a patent dispute with American tech giant Apple linked to its personal digital assistant Siri.

The country may descend from the peak of high expectations into a “trough of disillusionment”, said Zhu, who believes a smartphone-based “Planet of the Apps” is more likely than a world served by humanoid robots.

Some companies, he said, were focusing on more realistic products, such as “trying to modify the microwave oven into a robot that can fry eggs... maybe it doesn’t look like a robot, but it has artificial intelligence.”

‘I won’t be alive’

Skynet, the malicious computer that rains nuclear destruction on the Earth in the Terminator series of movies, remains a far distant prospect.

A badminton-playing robot on display at the conference could barely defend against a small boy’s serve, much less trigger the apocalypse.

And for China to lead the robot revolution, it will have to do more than design machines able to beat children at lawn sports — it will also have to overcome what many experts see as a penchant for mechanistic copying.

The Chinese vision of the future on display in the cavernous exhibition hall had a distinct whiff of the past.

Robots with a more than passing resemblance to mechanical super heroes Iron Man and Optimus Prime danced to the Chinese mega pop hit “Little Apple”, while booths pushed derivative Segways and Roombas.

Most of the remaining displays were heavy industry mechanical arms, leavened with robotic butlers reminiscent of a 1980s movie.

But manufacturers are making rapid progress, said Toshio Fukuda, an expert on robotics at Japan’s Nagoya University, adding that imitation was a way-station on the road to innovation.

“In the beginning, you just make a copy. There’s no creativity,” he said, noting that Japan too was once criticised for having a copycat culture.

“It’s a process. They have to improve.”

Asked about the possibility of future robots turning against their masters and taking over the world, he laughed.

“Maybe in 30 or 40 years,” he said. “But I’m not worried. I won’t still be alive.”

Do you go full speed ahead without any restraint, or at least as far as your wallet lets you, or do you try to spend as little as possible on information technology? Do you opt for a compromise and believe that, in a general manner, this is the wisest attitude to adopt? If you think you spend reasonably, then what is reasonable when it comes to computers, the Internet, smartphones and the like?

Enterprises have learnt their lesson well, many years ago. They usually allocate a substantial part of their expenditure to their IT department. They perfectly realise its importance, what it brings to their business and most importantly what the dire consequences of trying to skimp in such a critical department would be.

Understandably home and small business users are not always as wise as big enterprises when it comes to this matter. Whereas some would go to extremes by always being up to date with the latest, the fastest and nothing but the very best, other would play the penny-pinching game and make do with the bare minimum.

The truth is that keeping up with IT is rewarding. Regardless of whether you think you need or don’t need this device or that Cloud service, you need to communicate with your friends, family and colleagues today. This alone makes it essential to have new devices, new software and to have subscriptions to the services everybody uses. It’s about being in or being out — as simple as that.

Still, and since very few people have unlimited budget, knowing what is expensive and what is less, can help to spend more smartly. As a general rule, hardware is considered to be relatively inexpensive, whereas services, software licences and in a rather insidious manner, Cloud services, are becoming expensive.

Imagine that a good laptop, a mid-range model, would cost you JD600, but that Windows and Office Pro are almost as costly. Not to mention programmes like Photoshop which will set you back some JD400 — per year! Adobe products are now only available as Cloud subscriptions.

And then there are these little things you spend here and there on the Web and that add up significantly. Countless Cloud services charge you less than JD10 per year. Deezer music streaming is one of them, for example. Several Cloud storage charge less than JD20 per year. Go for a few of these and you can find yourself paying JD200 to JD300 every year without even realising it.

One item that I find very cost-effective is my ADSL annual subscription. For about JD400 a year it gives me 24Mbps speed and unlimited download. When I think of all that I can do thanks to this lifeline I find it money well spent. The savings in international phone calls alone would more than justify the expense. For instance, thanks to Skype paid calls (Skype Credit) it costs me 2.3 cents a minute to call the USA or Canada. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if my ISP would lower its rates even more, but…

On the other hand high-end smartphones are rather expensive. Not that they are not useful, quite the opposite actually. I use mine extensively and benefit from virtually all of its functionalities, but given that it costs almost the price of a laptop computer and that most of us replace our smartphone every two years, on average, it becomes a rather expensive device. Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Edge Plus with 64GB storage is a “mere” $1,050 on Amazon and around JD800 in Amman.

Perhaps one way to see a top of the line smartphone as not-so-expensive equipment is to remember that it is indeed: a great mobile telephone, a great camera, a great Web browser, a great e-mailer, a great memo recorder, a great music player, etc.

One has to try and strike a good balance, but IT has definitely become a major expense chapter in our life, be it at the personal level or in the workplace. Being reasonable is to spend substantial amounts of money on it and to know that in most cases it is well spent and rewarding.

SEATTLE — Amazon boss and space pioneer Jeff Bezos scored a historic technical achievement Monday when his secretive Blue Origin space travel company successfully sent a rocket 100 kilometres into space and then, in a carefully controlled descent, landed it upright just four and a half feet from the centre of its launchpad.

“Here in mission control in West Texas, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Bezos said in a media conference call Tuesday. “It was one of the greatest moments of my life.”

Blue Origin released the news of its feat, complete with dramatic video of the lift-off and landing at its remote test launch site in Van Horn, Texas, a day after it happened.

The New Shepard rocket — named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space — delivered an empty crew capsule into space. The capsule, using parachutes, also landed safely 11 minutes after lift-off.

But it was the controlled return of the launch rocket that was a first. Until now, space rockets have been expendable — used once, then allowed to fall into the ocean.

“Not any more,” Bezos wrote in a blog post. “Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts, a used rocket.”

In the teleconference, Bezos described the ability to land a rocket so it can be used again, thus sharply reducing the enormous cost of putting vehicles into space, as “the Holy Grail of rocketry”.

“To get full re-use, to [be able to] refuel and fly again, to eventually get to something closer to aircraft-type operations, that has to be the vision,” he said.

Blue Origin tried to achieve this on its initial test flight in April, but failed when a hydraulic system malfunctioned. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has come close on three occasions, but hasn’t yet succeeded.

In this space race between the billionaires, Bezos now has bragging rights.

Blue Origin’s rocket used a unique ring fin to shift the centre of pressure aft to help control reentry and descent and eight large drag brakes deployed and reduced the vehicle’s terminal speed to 623km per hour.

Then, hydraulically actuated fins steered the vehicle through 191kph high-altitude crosswinds to a precise location 1,525 metres above the landing pad. At that point, the rocket’s engine re-ignited to slow it as the landing gear deployed.

New Shephard descended the last 30 metres at 7kph to touch down on the launchpad.

“I believe this is a new Golden Age of space exploration. The first Golden Age was the ‘60s. We have been treading water for a long time,” said Bezos. “We are on the verge of a new Golden Age in rocketry. I believe one day all rockets will have landing gear.”

Describing the planned trajectory for his New Shepard project in some detail for the first time Tuesday, Bezos said Blue Origin’s schedule will be “step-by-step, very methodical” and will take a human crew into space “when we’re ready and not before.”

“We’re going to do many, many test flights before we’re ready to put humans on board,” he said. “We’ll do some very stressful, challenging flights.”

“Hopefully a couple of years from now we’ll be putting humans on New Shepard and taking them into space,” Bezos added.

Bezos described one planned test flight that he said will be “very dramatic” — testing the crew capsule escape system. If something goes wrong on the way up, the capsule has a separate rocket motor that can fire to push it away from the main rocket. Bezos said this will be tested in flight when the launch rocket is at maximum aerodynamic stress.

“That will almost certainly destroy the booster, but we want to test that condition to verify the design of the escape system,” Bezos said.

Bezos said his engineers learn from each test flight and may modify sub-systems as they progress. After the hydraulics failed in April, Bezos said, Blue Origin completely redesigned the hydraulic system and it worked perfectly this time.

Asked how soon the rocket that just landed could go back into space, Bezos said preliminary checks suggested it is essentially ready, though more thorough inspections must be done. “We’ll have to wait some number of weeks before we can fly that hardware again.”

Bezos also talked about plans to take the next step beyond just reaching space and coming back down minutes later: going fast enough to stay up there, meaning going into orbit around the Earth.

Blue Origin is building a bigger, more sophisticated orbital spacecraft that will take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. But Bezos said his engineers have just nailed the most difficult part of the orbital mission plan with the re-entry and landing of New Shepard.

“We’ll take that same exact architecture we just demonstrated and use it on the booster stage of our orbital vehicle,” Bezos said. “The re-entry and final landing will be identical.”

For that orbital vehicle, however, the plan is to land the booster rocket “on an ocean-going platform down range” of Cape Canaveral.

That is exactly what Musk has been trying to achieve with SpaceX. Each time he’s tried, his rocket has tipped into the ocean.

The Blue Origin success prompted something of a snit between the two billionaires. On Twitter, Musk first congratulated Blue Origin, but then pointedly noted that achieving sub-orbital space flight for a few minutes is far short of going into orbit. SpaceX’s Falcon rockets have boosted spacecraft into orbit to deliver goods to the International Space Station.

And playing down Blue Origin’s achievement, Musk noted that credit for the first reusable suborbital rocket goes to the 1960s-era X-15 Air Force rocket plane.

However, the X-15 was never designed to go into orbit. Bezos’ orbital system will be bigger than New Shepard but will share the same architecture.

On the conference call, Bezos responded to Musk’s tweeted remarks by noting that Blue Origin’s New Shepard had just achieved “the hardest part of vertical landing and re-usability … the final landing segment” — the feat SpaceX’s Falcon rockets have not yet achieved.

And Bezos, who retains the enthusiasm he had as a 5-year-old boy watching the Apollo missions on TV, can certainly match Musk in ambition.

Musk says he wants to go to Mars and make space travel routine. Bezos equally aims to make science fiction a reality.

“The long-term vision is to see an enduring human presence in space. We want to see millions of people living and working in space,” said Bezos. “It’ll be a very fun test programme. It’s very fun to fly.”

Every child has their most frequently used phrase that, kind of, encapsulated their childhood. You see, like my brother’s was, “I don’t know”, which was an answer to almost all the questions my mother put to him after he misplaced his water-bottle, books, schoolbag, lunchbox, et al. 

Mine, on the other hand was, “Show me”, since I was always bursting with curiosity about anything and everything. I believe the minute our daughter was born, I blurted this too, through waves of postnatal exhaustion. I remember the doctor smiling warily before she handed me my brand new baby. 

Our delightful kid grew up amidst regular chants of “Mummy, look at me”! If I was busy in the kitchen, I would hear her childish treble exclaim, “Papa, look at me”. Whatever the little-one did, whether it was serving tea from a tiny toy teapot, painting a large cookie monster or giving us an imaginary baking demonstration, her most consistent refrain to her parents was to “look at her”.

Which we did, most of the time, but being a good-natured sort of baby, she did not mind if we did not give her our undivided attention. Except while she was dancing in front of the television, which was when we had to drop whatever we were doing and watch her.

Now the thing is, when she was three years old she discovered that she pirouetted best in front of the TV when the news was going on. The top of her tiny head barely reached the bottom of the television screen that was placed on a wooden stand in our living room. I don’t know whether it was my husband or me who encouraged her to dance when the news was playing but it was a brilliant strategy on our part. This way, our eyes could easily shift between the screen and her twirling form, without her having to utter the plaintive entreaty, even once. 

As she grew taller her head started blocking out the screen in front of us and we had to find a polite way to ask her to step aside. And then suddenly, one day, she decided to stop dancing to the news and we realised that she had grown-up. 

Lately, as a senior researcher for a political think tank in London, our daughter has been on the global news channels quite a bit. As we watch her being interrogated by some of the finest minds in international journalism, our hearts swell with pride. 

The minute we get to know that she is going to be broadcast live at any particular time, we get our respective iPhone cameras and position ourselves around the idiot box. The image of her as a little girl twirling joyfully in front of the television screen recurs repeatedly in my mind’s eye. I wonder if any other child in some another part of the world is similarly dancing to my daughter’s voice during the news transmission. 

“Can you move your arm from my line of vision?” my husband said the other day. 

“But your elbow is blocking my recording,” I complained. 

“You record the footage then,” my spouse muttered, moving away. 

“Why are you back?” I asked as he returned the next minute. 

“Did you hear that?” he whispered.

“Show me,” I said automatically. 

“She just said, ‘Papa look at me!’” he grinned. 

“You are imagining things,” I mumbled. 

“No, no,” he protested. 

“She said, ‘Mummy look at me’,” I corrected. 

LOS ANGELES — “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” dominated the weekend box office. The final film in the science-fiction franchise debuted to $102.7 million, but even that massive figure wasn’t as big a sendoff for Katniss Everdeen and her fellow revolutionaries as some had predicted.

The bow ranks as the year’s fifth biggest opening, but it falls short of tracking that projected the picture would top $120 million in its initial weekend in theatres. It also represents a low for the series, falling far short of the $158.1 million high-water mark established by 2013’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”. It’s a sign, perhaps, that interest in the dystopian world of Panem has crested.

Investors in Lionsgate, the studio behind the series, reacted negatively to news that “Mockingjay — Part 2” would miss projections, sending the company’s stock down more than 3 per cent on Friday. For its part, the studio was put in the odd position of almost having to defend a debut that ranks among the largest in movie history.

“It’s a phenomenal opening and we launched these movies at this time consciously knowing there’d be a lucrative long run way through the holidays,” said David Spitz, Lionsgate’s domestic distribution chief.

The series made up some ground overseas, picking up $147 million after debuting in nearly every significant foreign territory, including China. That left it with a worldwide haul of $247 million, less than the $274.9 million global kickoff enjoyed by “Mockingjay — Part 1” and far below the $300 million weekend that some analysts had predicted.

“Across the board this is just down and it’s a direct reflection of how people thought about [‘Mockingjay — Part 1],” said Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “That was not a film. It was just a trailer.”

Lionsgate spared no expense in planning a farewell to its most valuable series. It spent nearly $200 million to make and market the film. In the US the film did well in premium formats, earning an estimated $9.8 million, and Imax, where it picked up $8.5 million.

With “Mockingjay — Part 2” sucking most of the air out the multiplexes that left two new releases, Sony’s “The Night Before” and STX/IM Global’s “The Secret In Their Eyes”, struggling to get some recognition. “The Night Before,” a bawdy comedy with Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, fared best, earning $9.9 million from 2,960 theatres. The film cost $23 million to make, and drew an opening weekend crowd that was evenly split between men and women.

Sony distribution chief Rory Bruer noted that there won’t be another mainstream comedy in the marketplace until Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s “Sisters” debuts on December 16. He predicted the film would “get that pop” of playing into the holidays, and noted that the film received an A-minus CinemaScore.

“People love this movie,” said Bruer. “It’s one of those movies that you see with an audience and you want to throw up you’re laughing so hard.”

“The Secret In Their Eyes” faces fiercer headwinds. The remake of an Oscar-winning Argentinian thriller of the same name earned a disappointing $6.7 million for a fifth place finish. The story of a team of FBI agents involved in a murder investigation stars Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It cost $19.5 million to produce, and is the latest in a string of films pitched at adult audiences such as “By the Sea” and “Steve Jobs”, to whiff at the box office this fall.

Despite the weak opening, STX, which bought domestic rights with Route One to the film for $6.5 million, expressed confidence that “The Secret In Their Eyes” would find its audience over the holidays.

“We feel this is too early in the process to give us a full grade,” said Kevin Grayson, distribution chief at STX. “This is going to factor into the Thanksgiving play period, and the twists and surprise ending are going to keep water cooler conversation going.”

The weakness of the new films allowed holdovers “Spectre” and “The Peanuts Movie” to pad their box office results. The latest Bond adventure added $15 million to its $154.1 million domestic haul, nabbing second place on the charts. “The Peanuts Movie” finished third, picking up $12.8 million to push its stated total to $99.3 million.

In limited release, the Weinstein Company scored with “Carol”. The critically heralded love story with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara generated $248,149 from four theatres for a strong per-location average of $62,037.

“Reviews and word of mouth will drive this film,” said Erik Lomis, distribution chief at the Weinstein Company. “These are fantastic performances by Rooney and Cate and Todd Haynes delivered some great filmmaking.”

Universal had more trouble finding its audience for “Legend”. The violent gangster picture about the Kray twins saw Tom Hardy doing double duty as the crime boss brothers, but critics were lukewarm, and the picture nabbed a so-so $83,000 from four theatres for a per-screen average of $20,271.

With “Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” not hitting as big a bullseye as other pictures in the series, the overall box office tumbled. Ticket sales were down roughly 10 per cent for the weekend, down from the year-ago period that fielded “Mockingjay — Part 1’s” $121.9 million opening.

“The overall marketplace is slow,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “There’s too many movies, too many distractions, and so much going on in the world right now.”

SAN FRANCISCO — When users ask Siri, Apple’s digital assistant, what she likes to drink, she is quick with an answer.

“I have a thirst for knowledge,” she responds.

Her counterpart at Microsoft, Cortana, opts for a very, very dry martini.

But M, the digital assistant Facebook is testing, deflects the question. “I don’t have an opinion about that. What’s your favourite drink?”

As the tech giants race to build ever better artificial intelligence platforms, they are obsessing over the nuances of their digital assistants’ personalities.

For users, digital assistants are a gateway to powerful artificial intelligence tools developers expect to influence major decisions about what to buy and how to spend time.

The more tech companies can get users to rely on their digital assistants, the more valuable data they will accumulate about the spending habits, interests and preferences of users. The information could be fodder for lucrative digital advertising or a lever for companies to keep users locked into their ecosystems.

But companies are split on the best way to forge deep connections with users. Siri and Cortana are waging charm offensives, both quick to crack a joke or tell a story. Their elaborate personas are meant to keep users coming back.

Facebook has built M with no gender, personality or voice. The design bears some resemblance to Google’s similarly impersonal assistant.

While catchy one-liners generate buzz, a digital assistant with personality risks alienating users or, the companies say, misleading them about the software’s true purpose: carrying out simple tasks, much like a real-life assistant.

Facebook’s no-nonsense assistant focuses on handling chores such as ordering flowers or making restaurant reservations.

“We wanted M to be really open and able to do anything — a really white piece of paper — and see how people use it,” Alex Lebrun, a Facebook executive who oversees the AI team for M, said in an interview with Reuters.

For tech companies, the stakes are high, said Matt McIlwain, managing director of Madrona Venture Group, since digital assistants can guide users to their own products and those of their advertisers and partners — and away from those of competitors. Google’s digital assistant, for example, uses the company’s search engine to fulfil user requests for information rather than Yahoo or Microsoft’s Bing.

“That trusted assistant could function as my agent for all kinds of transactions and activities,” McIlwain said.

Research from the late Stanford professor Clifford Nass, an expert on human-computer interaction, shows that users can become deeply invested in AI that seems human, though they are also more disappointed when the systems come up short, raising the stakes for companies that make the attempt. And what charms one user can annoy another — a danger that Facebook and Google have largely sidestepped.

Nevertheless, the Siri team concluded that personality was indispensable, said Gary Morgenthaler, an investor in Siri, the startup that created the eponymous assistant and was later acquired by Apple.

“If you are emulating a human being,” he said, “then you are halfway into a human type of interaction.”

Google has decided it doesn’t want to take personality further without having a better handle on human emotion.

“It’s very, very hard to have a computer be portrayed as a human,” said Tamar Yehoshua, vice president of mobile search.

The Google app, making use of predictive technology known as Google Now, responds to questions in a female voice but has few other gendered touches and little personality.

The Google app does reflect its creator’s spirit of curiosity, however, by sharing fun facts, Yehoshua said.

Facebook has a team of human “trainers” behind M, who answer some requests that are beyond the capabilities of its artificial intelligence. The company hopes to gather data on users’ most frequent requests in order to improve M so it can handle them in the future.

That data is limited, however, as M is so far available only to 10,000 people in the San Francisco Bay area.

Despite M’s design, users frequently ask to hear jokes, a request the assistant obliges. Humans tend to anthropomorphise technology, academics say, often looking for a personality or connection even when tech companies intentionally have veered away from such things.

“When you give people this open mic, they will ask anything,” said Babak Hodjat, co-founder of AI company Sentient Technologies.

Siri’s personality did not change much after Apple acquired the startup in 2010, though she switched from responding in text to speech at the insistence of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, said Adam Cheyer, a co-founder of Siri who is now a vice president at another AI company, Viv Labs.

“He was right on that call,” Cheyer said. “The voice is something that people really connect with.”

Microsoft interviewed real-life personal assistants to help shape Cortana’s personality, said Jonathan Foster, Cortana’s editorial manager. The assistant’s tone is professional, but she has her whims.

She loves anything science-fiction or math-related — her favourite TV show is “Star Trek” — and jicama is her favourite food because she likes the way it sounds.

Such attention to detail is critical because humans are very particular when it comes to artificial intelligence, said Henry Lieberman, a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies human-computer interaction.

Companies must be mindful, he said, not to venture into what researchers call the “uncanny valley,” the point at which an artificial intelligence tool falls just short of seeming human. Users become fixated on the small discrepancies, he said.

“It becomes creepy or bizarre, like a monster in a movie that has vaguely human features,” Lieberman said.

iDAvatars CEO Norrie J. Daroga said he walked a fine line in creating Sophie, a medical avatar that assesses patients’ pain. He gave Sophie a British accent for the US audience, finding users are more critical of assistants that speak like they do.

And she has flaws built in because humans distrust perfection, said Daroga, whose avatar uses technology from IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence platform.

Some academics say Siri’s personality has been her greatest success: After her release in 2011, users raced to find all her quips. But some of her retorts have caused headaches for Apple.

When asked what to do with a dead body, Siri used to offer joking suggestions such as swamps or reservoirs — an exchange that surfaced in a 2014 murder trial in Florida.

She is more evasive when asked the question today. “I used to know the answer to this,” she says.

Even in that response, Morgenthaler sees traces of the true Siri.

“It’s a little bit of a protest against the corporatisation,” he said. “I don’t forget, but I’ve been made to forget.”

Making its global debut weeks ago at the Frankfurt Motor Show and expected in Amman in early 2016, the new Audi A4 is the Ingolstadt-based four-ring maker’s finest compact executive car yet. Competing in a crucial entry-level four-door premium segment, the A4 is a thoroughly well-reconciled and high-tech player that puts the squeeze on German, Japanese and British rivals. 

Driven in Quattro four-wheel drive guise on winding Italian country and hillside routes surrounding Venice, it was expectedly grippy, but with lighter weight and revised suspension design, also proved a rewardingly dynamic and eager drive. Advanced and well equipped, the new A4 features lightweight construction, class-leading aerodynamics and a sophisticated next generation suite of semi-automated driver assistance and infotainment systems.

Assertive and elegant

Built using an intelligently applied mixture of materials including high strength steel and lightweight aluminium, the new A4 is slightly roomier and bigger than its predecessor, but also up to 120kg lighter. Extensive weight-saving measures include lighter electric-power steering and aluminium suspension components for a lighter un-sprung weight to improve ride comfort and driving dynamics.

Assertive and chiselled, the A4 represents a striking yet elegant design evolution, with squinting sharply angled and browed LED front lights, and a huge and hungry hexagonal grille. Athletic even without optional S-Line trim, the A4 features sculpted surfaces and sills, ridged character lines, aggressive lower and side front intakes, shorter front overhang and pert rear bumper, lights and integrated spoiler.

Sporty but elegant, the A4’s level waistline lends a classier look and better visibility, while with smoothly arcing roofline and numerous design tweaks from mirrors to engine and suspension underbody covers, the A4 achieves best in class aerodynamics. Helping reduce fuel consumption, improve on-the-move performance and cabin noise refinement, the A4 achieves aerodynamics drag co-efficiency as low as 0.23 (0.27, as driven).

Fast and frugal

Offered with three turbocharged four-cylinder engines at launch — with more powerful options including S4 and RS4 variants soon arriving — the driven A4 2.0 TFSI Quattro is in the meantime certainly no slouch. Developing 248BHP at 5000-6000rpm and 273lb/ft from its 2-litre engine, and with tenacious Quattro traction digging in, it bolts through 0-100km/h in just 5.8 seconds and can top 250km/h.

Optimised for refinement, efficiency and power, the 2.0 TFSI features direct and indirect injection with its intake manifold integrated into the cylinder head for thermal management. Responsive from tickover with imperceptible turbo lag, its broad and rich peak torque mid-range provides effortlessly versatile progress and responses, and underwrites power build-up. With a distant growl and smooth delivery, power accumulates urgently and progressively to a peak plateau.

Driven through a finger-snap responsive 7-speed dual-clutch S-Tronic gearbox with economic and manual modes, and a stop/start system, the 2.0 TFSI returns frugal 6.3-litre combined fuel efficiency. Operating with default 60 per cent rear power bias for eager dynamics and balance, the Quattro system can transfer 85 per cent power rearward or 70 per cent frontward for sure-footed vice-like grip when pushed hard through corners or over low traction surfaces.

Tidy and tenacious

Riding on new five-link front and rear suspension designed for supply longitudinal absorption and lateral stiffness — and with upper links integrated directly into bodywork — the A4 is fluidly comfortable over imperfections and poised and flat through snaking switchbacks. Driven with optional adaptive dampers, the A4 proved refined, smooth and stable at speed, yet tautly controlled weight transfer through corners.

Tidy into corners — with precise electric-assisted steering — the new A4’s five-link suspension design and rear-biased Quattro drive allow for a crisp turn-in despite its engine being positioned just ahead of the front axle. Eager and agile, the A4’s cornering finesse is aided by a torque vectoring system that selectively brakes the inside wheel into corners for enhanced agility. 

Committed and precise through tight cornering lines and narrow winding roads, the A4’s Quattro four-wheel drive ensures resolute road-holding and re-allocates power as needed to power out of a corner with poise and precision. An optional limited-slip “Sport” differential can also mechanically and instantaneously re-allocate power along the rear axle for even sportier, safer, grippier and more agile cornering.

Ergonomic and extensively equipped

A model of design, build, cabin refinement and ergonomics in its segment, the driven Audi A4 featured rich textures, leathers, metals and open pore woods and a clean, sleek and uncluttered yet user-friendly dash and console layout. Supportive, well-adjustable seats and steering provided an ideal driving position while a level waistline provided an airy ambiance and good visibility.

Thoroughly well-equipped with standard and optional features, the A4’s infotainment systems includes Audi’s configurable Virtual Cockpit instrument cluster screen, head’s up display and Bang and Olufsen sound system. Also available are an 8.3-inch centre screen infotainment system features voice control, smartphone integration, rear seat tablet infotainment and a navigation system that operates in close cooperation with safety and assistance systems.

A comprehensive suite of semi-autonomous and safety systems includes, standard pre-sense city safety that can prevent collisions at 40km/h and reduce severity to 85km/h. Meanwhile, a Tour package features radar-based adaptive cruise control and a traffic jam assist function, which can even take over steering control on well-developed roads, up to 65km/h, in addition to the ability to anticipate and prepare for corners.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, in-line turbocharged 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82.5 x 92.8mm

Compression ratio: 9.6:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 7-speed automated dual clutch, four-wheel drive, self-locking centre differential*

Gear ratios: 1st 3.188; 2nd 2.19; 3rd 1.517; 4th 1.057; 5th 0.738; 6th0.557; 7th 0.433 

Reverse/final drive ratios: 2.75:1/4.27:1

Power distribution, F/R: 40 per cent :60 per cent

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 248.5 (252) [185.3] @5000-6000rpm

Specific power: 125BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 164.5BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 273 (370) @1600-4500rpm

Specific torque: 186.5Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 245Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 5.8 seconds

Top speed: 250km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 7.9/5.4/6.3-litres/100km**

CO2 emissions, combined: 144g/km**

Fuel capacity: 58 litres

Length: 4726mm

Width: 1842mm

Height: 1417mm

Wheelbase: 2820mm

Track, F/R: 1572/1555mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.27** (est.) 

Overhangs, F/R: 880/1026mm

Headroom, F/R: 1039/953mm

Luggage volume, min/max: 480/965 litres

Unladen weight: 1510kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Suspension: Five-link, adaptive dampers

Brakes: Ventilated discs

Tyres: 245/35R19 (optional)

*Optional limited-slip rear-differential

**As tested, with 19-inch wheels

PARIS — Scientists warned Thursday of the “epidemic potential” of deadly and fast-spreading bacteria resistant to last-line antibiotics. 

The new superbugs, found in southern China, could erase nearly a century of antibiotic protection against killer diseases born by common germs such as E. coli, the researchers reported in a study.

“These are extremely worrying results,” said Jian-Hua Liu, a professor at Southern Agricultural University in Guangzhou and co-author of the study. 

Liu and colleagues found a gene, called MCR-1, that makes bacteria resistant to a class of antibiotics, known as polymyxins, used to fight superbugs.

The gene — detected in common but deadly bacteria such as E. coli and K. pneumoniae, which causes pneumonia and blood disease — effectively makes these bacteria invincible.

Even worse, MCR-1 allows the bacteria to spread easily from one strain or species to another, said the study, published in Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Until now, rare cases of resistance occurred only through mutation in individual organisms, severely limiting transmission.

“Polymyxins were the last class of antibiotics in which resistance was incapable of spreading from cell to cell,” said Liu.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already warned antimicrobial resistance may result in “a return to the pre-antibiotic era”, where infections once easily cured prove fatal.

Most of the 50 to 100 million people who died during the 1918 flu pandemic — 10 years before the discovery of penicillin — were killed by bacterial pneumonia, not the flu virus itself.

Animal to human

The superbugs were detected during routine health testing of pigs and chickens in southern China. The animals were found to be carrying bacteria resistant to colistin, an antibiotic widely used in livestock farming.

This prompted researchers to examine E. coli and K. pneumoniae samples collected over a four-year period from pork and chicken sold in dozens of markets across four provinces.

They also analysed lab results from patients at two hospitals in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces. 

More than 20 per cent of bacteria in the animal samples, and 15 per cent of the raw meat samples, had the telltale MCR-1 gene. It was also found in 16 of the 1,322 specimens taken from hospitals. 

The lower infection rate among humans suggests the resistant bacteria passed from animals to people, the study found.

Although currently confined to China, the MCR-1 bacteria were “likely... to spread worldwide”, it said.

Experts not involved in the research expressed sharp concern. 

“This is a worrying report, as polymyxins are often the last-resort antibiotic to treat serious infections,” said Laura Piddock, a professor of microbiology at the University of Birmingham in England.

Post-antibiotic era

Other types of drug resistance — in tuberculosis, for example — show that “this likely paves the way for it to spread throughout the world”, she added. 

Some 480,000 people contracted multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in 2014, according to the WHO. The disease killed 190,000 in the same year.

“It is likely inevitable that polymyxin resistance will be added to the arsenal of multi-drug resistant bacteria and that they will spread globally,” said Judith Johnson, an expert on emerging pathogens at the University of Florida.

Professor Timothy Walsh of the University of Cardiff, who collaborated on the study, told the BBC News website antibiotics could soon become useless.

“If MCR-1 becomes global — which is a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’ — and the gene aligns itself with other antibiotic resistance genes, which is inevitable, then we will have very likely reached the start of the post-antibiotic era,” he said.

The study will renew debate about the use of colistin in animal husbandry, researchers said.

“The finding that this type of resistance can be shared by different bacteria — irrespective of whether from food, an animal or a person — is further evidence that the same drugs should not be used in veterinary and human medicine,” Piddock said. 

In the European Union, colistin is used in only veterinary medicine. In China, however, it is used routinely to promote growth, especially in pigs.

Nearly 12,000 tonnes of the drug are used annually in livestock production there, according to Marilyn Roberts, a researcher at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle.

WHO’s 12-country survey found that nearly two-thirds of all those questioned (64 per cent) believe wrongly that antibiotics can be used to treat colds and flu, despite the fact that the drugs have no impact on viruses. 

A WHO report in April showed there were “major gaps” in all regions of the world in addressing the problem and reining in overuse and misuse of antibiotics.

The UN health agency has warned that without urgent action, the world could be headed for “a post-antibiotic era” in which common infections and minor injuries that have long been treatable once again become killers.

The recently published survey showed a dire lack of understanding of the problem and widespread dangerous behaviour.

Broken down by country, the survey for instance showed that 5 per cent of Chinese respondents who had taken antibiotics in the past six months had purchased them on the Internet, while the same per centage in Nigeria had bought them from a stall or hawker.

In Russia, only 56 per cent of those who had taken antibiotics in the past year had them prescribed by a doctor or nurse.

Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948

Noga Kadman

US: Indiana University Press, 2015

Pp. 256

Noga Kadman is a researcher in the field of human rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She is also a licensed tour guide in Israel, and co-editor of a Hebrew-Arabic guide to the depopulated Palestinian villages and towns. In “Erased from Space and Consciousness,” she examines how “Israel deals with the preceding layer of its existence, a layer that it has erased and on which it has been built.” (p. 2)

In her view, “the importance of examining the Israeli approach to the Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948 goes beyond the subject matter itself, since this approach can serve as an indicator of Israeli readiness to achieve a sustainable resolution of the conflict.” (p. 6)

The book was originally published in Hebrew, signalling the author’s intent to advocate for Israeli recognition of Palestinian loss as a step towards reconciliation.

Grounded in Walid Khalidi’s and Salman Abu Sitta’s documentation of 416 destroyed villages, Kadman did extensive archival and field research, visiting 230 of these villages, to see how the policies of state and other Zionist agencies have shaped Israeli public consciousness of the destroyed villages and, by extension, of the Palestinians. 

The book begins with the 1948 war and its aftermath, focusing on the Zionist military campaign which demolished and depopulated the villages, created the refugee problem, and began the process of Judaisation — blocking the return of the Palestinians and settling Jewish immigrants in their place. 

Countering this erasure, Kadman highlights what happened in specific villages, including the less-publicised massacres in Tantura, Dawayima, Saliha, Safsaf and other places. After the war, Judaisation evolved: “In the 1950s and 1960s the demolition’s emphasis shifted from military and utilitarian needs to those of landscape architecture and erasure of the ruins, which stood as constant reminders of the refugee problem that Israel strongly preferred to ignore.” (p. 27)

Kadman analyses Israel’s treatment of village remains as part of the drive to control the land on the one hand, and build an Israeli national identity on the other. While early settlers’ records reveal delight at the fruit orchards and olive groves left behind by their Palestinian owners, much of such cultivation was ploughed under to make way for modern forms of agriculture, enacting furthering erasure. This “created a new demographic map, closer to the original Zionist imagery of an ‘empty land’.” (p. 38)

The Jewish National Fund’s massive forestation programme also changed the landscape. The bulk of new plantings were non-native — “an implementation of its stated policy of endowing Israel with a European landscape”. (p. 42)

There was another aim as well: Kadman quotes a JNF official as saying: “a large portion of JNF parks are on lands where Palestinian villages used to stand, and the forests are intended to camouflage this.” (p. 43)

The new geography was reflected in the naming and mapping of sites, with the original Arabic names of depopulated villages often changed to Hebrew names, and many dropped from the maps. Zionist imperatives determined whether remaining structures were kept or destroyed. Generally, ruins associated with ancient Jewish sites, or the Crusaders, were preserved while centuries-old Palestinian buildings were demolished. 

“Alongside the physical Judaisation, spatial socialisation is taking place, binding Israelis to the space in which they live, one that is structured and imparted to them as an almost exclusively Jewish space. This process includes, inter alia, the ignoring and marginalisation of the depopulated villages in Israel, which complement their erasure from the ground. Symbolic sidelining of the villages is carried out when their names are being erased or when they are marginally represented in maps.” (p. 51)” 

A most interesting chapter in the book addresses Jewish views of the depopulated villages on which their kibbutzim or moshavim was established. While the new rural communities benefited from what the Palestinians left behind, “seldom do they articulate any feeling or guilt or moral dilemma in this regard”. (p. 57)

“References to the lives of the villagers prior to their departure are rare.” (p. 59)

In addition to the lingering trauma of Holocaust survivors and the hardships of settling anew, Kadman attributes their attitude to their “having internalised the hegemonic Israeli narrative, which lays the blame for the war and its results… on the Palestinians themselves”. (p. 89)

“Erased from Space and Consciousness” is a case study in how geography and demography interact, and how politics and ideology shape material reality, which in turn shapes public consciousness. It is also a sign of the growing movement among Israelis to come to terms with their past. One only wonders why Kadman presents the conflict as one between two national movements without specifying Zionist as a colonial movement, when the picture she presents of the Judaisation process matches a colonial project.