Features

Days of Ignorance

Laila Aljohani

Translated by Nancy Roberts

Doha: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2014

Pp. 165

This is a novel that celebrates love, caring, sincerity and intellect, but the opposing forces — intolerance, violence, hypocrisy and ignorance — loom large in the story. Obviously, Saudi author Laila Aljohani is not living in a bubble, but is keenly aware that one is not always rewarded for giving love or sticking to one’s principles. What happens to her beautifully crafted main characters when they fall in love, illustrates the point. 

Both born in Saudi Arabia, Leen and Malek are a bit outside the mainstream. Leen is much more independent-minded than stereotyped images of Saudi women; due to her enlightened father, she is able to move about freely. Approaching 30, she is still single, challenging the norm that a woman is only validated by having a husband and son. Malek’s difference is more ominous.

He is not a Saudi citizen since his father was a Hijazi — an African who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and stayed on in what he deemed to be “the land of God”. In the course of the novel, one learns that Hijazi and Black are only some of many racial, ethnic and tribal categories, each with a derogatory nametag attached, that are considered out-of-bounds, especially where marriage is concerned.

Leen and Malek are drawn to each other precisely because they are different; they take life more seriously than many around them, and their way of thinking veers off the beaten track. Neither has rushed into romance or marriage as they were searching for their ideal counterpart. Malek wants “a woman who would enthral [him] with her mind”. (p. 91)

Their love for each other is gentle and respectful, punctuated with humour, but from the first page one learns that things have gone wrong. 

Hashem, Leen’s younger brother, attacks Malek for no other reason than his colour. As Malek lies in a coma at the hospital, hovering between life and death, Leen tries to make sense of what happened; she realises she should have known that her “relationship with Malek would expose the imperfection of life beneath her country’s sky”. (p. 54)

Repulsed by the injustice done to Malek, she prays to God to protect her from the evil of losing her faith in His justice.

The story is told in retrospect from four different points-of-view — that of Leen, Hashem, their father and Malek. As Aljohani skillfully develops her characters, a direct link is established between ignorance, racial and gender discrimination, and violence. As the only son, Hashem is excessively spoiled by their mother, and succeeds neither in school or a job. His only skill is driving around, picking up and dropping women who promptly fall “through the cracks of his memory”. (p. 20).

In contrast, Leen completes university, has a good job, and enjoys intellectual pursuits. Jealous of Leen and incensed that their father lets her do as she pleases, Hashem takes matters into his own hands. 

Aljohani doesn’t position this “honour” crime as an isolated incident caused by the dynamics in this particular family. Leen’s work at the Social Welfare Home has acquainted her with many cases of domestic violence. But the story goes even farther to link ignorance to the violence of war. Each chapter is prefaced by a short report of events leading up to the 2003 war on Iraq.

The page where Hashem realises that he has attacked Malek without any proof of him having improper relations with Leen, is followed by a page, noting that there is no evidence that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. By making a direct link between violence and ignorance, Aljohani is addressing injustice in her own society as well as on an international scale. 

It is significant that the Arabic title of this book, first published in 2007, was “Jahiliyya”, referring to pre-Islamic times which Muslims consider a period of ignorance. Yet this is a modern novel set in a country that claims Islamic law as state law. Aljohani is also targeting hypocrisy when people claim religious devotion, yet act out of ignorance rather than the values religion teaches.

In a sense, this novel is about young people’s disappointment with what they encounter in the real world. While Aljohani paints a picture of life in Saudi Arabia, the essence of her story — how ignorance spawns racism and violence — could apply to many societies. We have only to look at the violence inflicted on people who are different in the United States until today, from the three Muslim students who were mercilessly gunned down, to routine police brutality against the Black community in particular.

LONDON — A team of scientists said on Friday they had found “robust evidence” that a condition called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a biological as opposed to a psychological disorder, but some experts questioned the findings.

The team from Columbia University in the United States identified in their research distinct immune changes in patients with CFS — markers they said pointed to distinct disease stages and would lead to better diagnosis and treatment.

CFS, sometimes called myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME, is a controversial and debilitating condition characterised by disabling physical and mental fatigue, poor concentration and memory, disturbed sleep and muscle and joint pain.

There is no cure and scientists don’t know what causes it, but it affects around 17 million people worldwide.

Many sufferers say they think their illness started after a viral infection. But suggested links to a virus known as XMRV were shown in a scientific paper in 2010 to have been based on contaminated samples in a lab.

Recent research showing psychological treatments such as cognitive behaviour therapy can help CFS sufferers become more active have also caused argument, with some patients complaining such results suggest they are just lazy or suffering from a condition that is all in the mind.

In the latest study, published in the Science Advances journal, researchers found that specific immune patterns in patients who had CFS for three years or less were not present in controls or in patients who had the disease for more than three years.

Short duration patients had higher amounts of many different types of immune molecules called cytokines, researchers found. The link was unusually strong with a cytokine called interferon gamma that has been linked to fatigue after viral infections.

“We now have evidence confirming what millions of people with this disease already know — that ME/CFS isn’t psychological,” said Mady Hornig, who co-led the study.

The results should help speed diagnosis and the discovery of new treatments, she said.

However, other CFS specialists urged caution.

Michael Sharpe, a professor of psychological medicine at Britain’s Oxford University, said the finding was, “potentially interesting” but added: “This type of study [case-control study] is notorious for producing findings that other researchers subsequently fail to replicate.”

In a similar tone, Stephen Lawrie, an Edinburgh University psychiatry expert, said Hornig’s team may well have found different immune profiles at different stages of the disease, but added this could be “down to chance and hence a false positive signal”.

WASHINGTON — Google unveiled plans Friday for a new campus headquarters integrating wildlife and sweeping waterways, aiming to make a big statement in Silicon Valley — which is already seeing ambitious projects from Apple and Facebook.

The design also includes lush public gardens, looping covered bikeways and futuristic-looking buildings that can be moved about like toy blocks.

The redesign on the Google property in Mountain View, California, by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and London-based Thomas Heatherwick, was submitted to local officials Friday, with details released on the company’s official blog.

The latest huge design project in Silicon Valley comes as Apple is in the midst of building its “spaceship” campus and Facebook is using renowned architect Frank Gehry for its campus expansion.

Google — which has faced opposition from locals — said its new design is aimed at “rethinking office space”.

“As we’ve inhabited a variety of workplaces — including a garage in Menlo Park [California], a farmhouse in Denmark and an entire New York City block — we’ve learned something about what makes an office space great,” Google vice president for real estate, David Radcliffe, said in a blog post.

Radcliffe said the new campus will “lead to a better way of working”.

He added that “instead of constructing immoveable concrete buildings, we’ll create lightweight block-like structures which can be moved around easily as we invest in new product areas.”

The plan includes large canopies over the campus which “regulate climate, pollution and sound, while freeing spaces from traditional architectural limitations like walls, windows and roofs”.

It aims “to blur the distinction between our buildings and nature”, added Radcliffe.

One rendering shows a loop for bicycles and pedestrians going through the centre of one building, connecting with cafes and local shops.

Tensions in the Valley

The New York Times, which first reported on the Google campus plan this week, said the project has raised concerns in the once-sleepy community of Mountain View about being overrun by the technology behemoth.

The expansion of the wealthy tech giants in the region has led to increased congestion as well as an explosion in the area’s real estate prices.

Radcliffe said the new Google campus will see it do “more with the local community”.

“We’re adding lots of bike paths and retail opportunities, like restaurants, for local businesses,” he noted.

“We also hope to bring new life to the unique local environment, from enhancing burrowing owl habitats to widening creek beds.”

In nearby Cupertino, Apple won approval in 2013 for a shimmering flying-saucer-shaped headquarters after a tax break granted the technology titan was trimmed.

“Apple Campus 2” is described as a 21st Century creation designed for research, collaboration and innovation.

Apple enlisted world-famous architect Norman Foster to transform a 71-hectare site dominated by asphalt and old buildings into “sustainable, state-of-the-art office, research and development facilities”.

Facebook, meanwhile, is upgrading its Menlo Park campus at the former headquarters of Sun Microsystems.

Gehry, known for his deconstructive style and buildings that sometimes appear unfinished, also designed the Stata Centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris.

Facebook’s new hub has been described as “a large, one-room building that somewhat resembles a warehouse”.

AMMAN — A feel-good sensation embraces the viewer of the works exhibited by Wijdan at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts even before the senses grasp their meaning.

It is the playfulness and artistry of the aesthetically pleasing silhouettes detaching themselves against the white walls and the vivid, attractive colours which seem to emanate light that draw the eye first.

Then, one reads the words these sculptural representations spell out in delightful calligraphy, repeatedly, like a mantra: variations of the word love in Arabic — hob, walah, ishq, wajd, wasl (connection that brings lovers together).

Moving around to take in the details is like repeating a chant, a spiritual incantation that charms souls. It is a spiritual journey of sorts, and one cannot but fall in love with what one sees. 

“The sculptures executed in Italian Murano glass denote the word ‘love’ and its synonyms, a concept I have been including in my art for over a decade and a half. Love, in all its forms and connotations, remains the major and foremost concept of my art works,” says the artist.

The glass, sheets of different colours stuck together in ovens, is cut by the use of water to create unexpected art forms with a message. 

Whether made of one letter, like the powerful “lamalef” — one letter made of two that starts the “shahada” in Islam, negating but immediately asserting (la illaha illallah) — one word, invariably a variation of “love”, or several words connected, the lettering, in a stunning range of colours, forms spatial representations that soar like flames or crouch like an animal ready to pounce.

They are figurative yet abstract, symmetrical — at times truly mirror images that gracefully combine to form attractive figures — or artistically asymmetrical, and at all times a source of wonder and delight.

Their surfaces both absorb and reflect light, they are both transparent and opaque; although glass, they have a glowing warmth and are sensual, inviting a surreptitious stroke. And why shouldn’t they when they spell out the meaning they do?

The white Carrara marble base enhances their pristine nature. It is the vibrancy of the colours in which they are executed that suggests love and exuberance, while also making one marvel at human ingenuity.

Interspersed among the sculptures, and skilfully grouped by colour and theme, are several paintings on a wide array of paper from different countries of the world. 

The title of the exhibition, “Transparencies: Paper and glass”, could not have been more aptly chosen.

For, although paper does not normally strike one as a transparent medium, in Wijdan’s case, it often is.

Layer upon layer of colourful sheets, stripes, bands, ribbons, frayed fibre and parchment-like panes are often brought together, in collages, to create geometric patterns, movement and depth.

Different textures are superimposed, leaving one guessing at all times. 

One constant are the spiritual words that appear here and there — hua, meaning God, anta, ana, the self — in beautiful calligraphy.

“Certain Arabic words and letters that have bonds to Sufi idioms also occupy a part of my layered paper compositions,” says the artist.

The lotus flower, implying meditation, the ribbons that “villagers and mendicants, after making a wish, tie on a tree near Sufi shrines of holy men and women, in the hope their wish would come true”, the peepal leaf, “mentioned in Buddhist manuscripts as the first tree to be created on Earth”, delicate and a work of art in itself, and tiny glittering trinkets used to adorn Indian brides make their way in Wijdan’s paintings, enhancing the symbolism and strengthening the mysticism.

The layering does not seem to end. Layers of papers, ribbons, leaves and paint create almost three-dimensional works that are supported by a white background and surrounded by white wooden frames that delineate them on the white walls, frame within frame, within a wider frame: a very ingenious placement.

The juxtaposition of paintings and sculptural works is carefully chosen; the groupings create clusters of peace and oases of love of stunning visual impact.

Love, spirituality and contentment are the overriding feelings elicited by these works that Wijdan wishes to see the young generation access and appreciate.

And what a difference that would make in these times!

The works are on display until March 21.

NEW YORK — More hospitals and doctors are starting to use data from fitness trackers and health apps to help treat patients. But they are moving cautiously. The technology has a lot of potential, but there are key challenges to work out:

Liability

What if a patient’s data shows signs of an ailment, but no one notices? That’s the chief reason Hackensack University Medical Centre in New Jersey is starting with only six patients and three doctors and is monitoring mainly lifestyle data, such as nutrition. It wants to add blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs to its monitoring, but a hospital committee needs to sign off first.

Doctors say that many patients already bring health data to visits, often as printouts that an office must then scan in. Getting data electronically through Apple’s HealthKit and similar technologies would give doctors and nurses more options to see charts and look for patterns. Ultimately, Hackensack and other hospitals envision setting up a specific person or team to review incoming data. Software alerts could be triggered when a measure falls outside the ideal range, and a nurse or technician would check for accuracy and refer unusual cases to doctors.

Is data reliable? 

Many consumer devices such as fitness trackers aren’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, so how much should doctors rely on them? The Centre for Digital Health Innovation at the University of California, San Francisco, is studying this in a partnership with Samsung. One way to test involves strapping a device, on 100 individuals and measuring them as they stand, sit, exercise and sleep. Readings would be compared with those from devices known to be reliable.

“Just because it works in a lab on a couple of individuals doesn’t necessarily means it works on a broad variety of individuals in real life,” said Michael Blum, the centre’s director.

Privacy and security concerns

Data entered into a healthcare provider’s electronics record system is covered by strict federal privacy laws, which subject providers to penalties for breaches. But if you’ve signed waivers as part of insurance claims, your insurer can get the data, too. Nicolas P. Terry, director of the Hall Centre for Law and Health at Indiana University, isn’t too concerned about that, though. 

Health privacy laws don’t extend to technology companies that make trackers and apps, however. The companies might be subject to penalties if they fail to abide by their own privacy policies. But if they never promise to safeguard the information, they are free to share and sell it, Terry said.

The concerns exist regardless of whether a doctor is using the information for patient care. Although a step counter might seem innocuous, it also might record the location of your step.

“Now you have a surveillance system,” Terry said. “If the people you meet also have wearable devices, we could figure out who you meet.” He says data companies might also build health scores that potential employers and life insurance companies would love to have.

Do I get paid for this time? 

Historically, doctors are paid for office visits and procedures. Medicare and private insurers are starting to reward doctors for preventative care, however. With the Medicare programme, for instance, doctors are given a set monthly fee to keep patients healthy. That could involve reviewing fitness data and checking on patients regularly by phone to identify problems that might otherwise result in more costly treatments or visits.

“It is slowly changing...but it’s still challenging to get paid for analysis and for e-mail and phone call time,” said Dr John Schumann, a Tulsa, Oklahoma, internist who blogs on health issues at GlassHospital.

Other limitations

These devices and apps do little to ensure that patients take the medicines they’re supposed to. There are companies developing sensors to record when you pick up a bottle, but for now, doctors have to trust their patients.

Doctors also need to ensure that they aren’t getting data only from younger patients who are already highly motivated and aware about their health.

“What we need is data for older people, and they are not doing that right now, with rare, rare exceptions,” said Dr David J. Cook, who is leading research at the Mayo Clinic into how trackers and apps can improve care. Because hip-replacement patients that Mayo wants to track tend to be older, Mayo has had to loan them Fitbit trackers and $60 Android phones.

Neither Fitbit nor Android works with Apple’s HealthKit, so programmers at Mayo had to write code to integrate those devices. HealthKit should make future integrations easier at Mayo and elsewhere, but there will always be some devices and apps excluded.

It’s the dress that’s beating the Internet black and blue. Or should that be gold and white?

Friends and co-workers worldwide are debating the true hues of a royal blue dress with black lace that, to many an eye, transforms in one photograph into gold and white. Experts are calling the photo a one-in-a-million shot that perfectly captures how people’s brains perceive colour and process contrast in dramatically different ways.

“This photo provides the best test I’ve ever seen for how the process of colour correction works in the brain’,” said Daniel Hardiman-McCartney, the clinical adviser to Britain’s College of Optometrists. “I’ve never seen a photo like before where so many people look at the same photo and see two sets of such dramatically different colours.”

The photo, taken earlier this month before a wedding on the remote Scottish island of Colonsay, also illustrates the dynamics of a perfect social-media storm. Guests at the wedding could not understand why, in one photo of the dress being worn by the mother of the bride, the clearly blue and black-striped garment transformed into gold and white. But only in that single photo, and only for around half of the viewers.

The debate spread from the wedding to the Internet, initially from friend to perplexed friend on Facebook.

One such wedding guest, musician and singer Caitlin McNeill, posted the photo Thursday night to her Tumblr account with the question: “Guys please help me. Is this dress white and gold, or blue and black? Me and my friends can’t agree and we are freaking the [expletive] out.” She’s consistently seen gold.

One of her friends, Alana MacInnes, saw gold and white for the first hour, then black and blue.

Buzzfeed sensed clickbait heaven and, amid its own newsroom argument, was among the first to call McNeill. It posted more than a half-dozen stories on the image and the tsunami of reaction.

On Twitter, #TheDress and variants surged to the top of trending lists globally within hours.

The entertainment elite then chimed in.

Taylor Swift saw the dress was “obviously” blue and black. “What’s the matter with u guys, it’s white and gold,” countered Julianne Moore. Kim Kardashian, never one to miss a trending topic, reported she was seeing gold but to husband Kanye West, it was solidly black and blue. “Who is colour blind?” Kardashian asked the twitterati.

The answer, says Hardiman-McCartney, is that every viewer seeing either set of colours is right.

He says the exceptional bar-code style of the dress, combined with the strongly yellow-toned backlighting in the one photo, provides the brain a rare chance to “choose” which of the dress’ two primary colours should be seen in detail.

Those who subconsciously seek detail in the many horizontal black lines convert them to a golden hue, so the blue disappears into a blown-out white, he said.

Others whose brains focus on the blue part of the dress see the photo as the black-and-blue reality.

“There’s no correct way to perceive this photograph. It sits right on the cusp, or balance, of how we perceive the colour of a subject versus the surrounding area,” he said. “And this colour consistency illusion that we’re experiencing doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your eyes. It just shows how your brain chooses to see the image, to process this luminescence confusion.”

The photo produced a deluge of media calls Friday to the Tumblr reporter, 21-year-old McNeill, who calls the seemingly endless phone calls “more than I’ve received in the entirety of the rest of my life combined.” She says the photographer, who is also the mother of the bride, never wanted the publicity.

There’s one clear winner: English dress retailer Roman Originals, which has reported a million hits on its sales site in the first 18 hours following the photo’s worldwide distribution.

“I can officially say that this dress is royal blue with black lace trimming,” said Michele Bastock, design director at Roman Originals.

She said staff members had no idea that the dress, when shot in that singularly peculiar light, might be perceived in a totally different colour scheme. Not until Friday anyway, when they arrived at work to field hundreds of e-mails, calls and social media posts. They, too, split almost 50-50 on the photo’s true colours.

All agreed, however, the dress for the Birmingham, England-based retailer was likely to become their greatest-ever seller. The chain’s website Friday headlined its product as “#TheDress now back in stock — debate now.”

“Straightaway we went to the computers and had a look. And some members of the team saw ivory and gold. I see a royal blue all the time,” she said. “It’s an enigma... but we are grateful.”

LOS ANGELES — Leonard Nimoy didn’t just leave a lasting impression on the science-fiction world, he also left his mark on science itself.

Seth Shostak, who researches the possibility of real-world extraterrestrial life as the senior astronomer at SETI Research, recalled that Nimoy was regularly willing to lend the organisation a helping hand. When he was asked to narrate a planetarium introduction or appear as a guest at an event, Nimoy did so graciously and never charged.

“That struck me then, and it strikes me now,” said Shostak. “If you play a famous alien, you might have little interest in how science is searching for real aliens, but Nimoy was actually interested in the science — and he was always willing to help us out.”

Remembrances poured in from beyond the entertainment spectrum after news spread Friday about the death of the 83-year-old actor, who played the half-alien, half-human Spock in “Star Trek” films, TV shows and video games. NASA, Virgin Galactic, Intel and Google all sent messages, as did other groups motivated by Nimoy and his role as the truth seeking science officer.

“Leonard Nimoy was an inspiration to multiple generations of engineers, scientists, astronauts and other space explorers,” said NASA administrator Charles Bolden. “As Mr Spock, he made science and technology important to the story, while never failing to show, by example, that it is the people around us who matter most.”

NASA posted a photo online taken in 1976 of Nimoy and his “Trek” cast mates in front of NASA’s real-life space shuttle Enterprise, parked outside the agency’s manufacturing facilities in Palmdale, California.

Samantha Cristoforetti, an Italian astronaut aboard the International Space Station, similarly tweeted her condolences from space.

“Live Long and Prosper, Mr. #Spock!” she wrote.

Don Lincoln, a senior physicist at Fermilab, said he was inspired to go into science not just because Nimoy’s portrayal of the logical Mr Spock but also because of “In Search of...”, the curious 1970s TV series hosted by Nimoy that was dedicated to mysterious phenomena.

“Despite the fact he worked in fiction, anyone who can inspire that many people to look into the sky and wonder has done something really important for mankind,” he said.

Lincoln noted that “Trek” and the character of Spock, armed with his Vulcan nerve pinch and phase set to stun, provided the world with a dynamic look at someone interested in science.

“The fact is that Spock was a cool geek,” said Lincoln. “Scientists are not always portrayed as being very strong. Usually, they’re the guy with the tape on their glasses and their pants too high. He was clearly a person who had desirable components beyond just being smart.”

Nimoy’s commitment to astronomy frequently warped from beyond the Alpha Quadrant and into the real world. He and his wife, Susan, donated $1 million to the renovation of the iconic Griffith Park observatory complex overlooking Los Angeles. The observatory’s theatre is named after Nimoy.

“Mr Nimoy was committed to people, community and the enlarged perspective conferred by science, the arts and the places where they meet,” the observatory said in a statement. “The theatre honours Nimoy’s expansive and inclusive approach to public astronomy and artful inspiration.”

The actor, director and photographer narrated several films focusing on astronomy, including a 2012 short film about NASA’s Dawn mission and the 1994 IMAX documentary film “Destiny in Space”.

“All I can say is if and when we pick up a signal, it’ll be wonderful if the real aliens are half as appealing as Mr Nimoy was as Spock,” said Shostak of SETI Research.

Everybody craves apps nowadays. The name alone is catchy and sounds so much more attractive than passé terms such as application, programme or software. Beyond the appeal of the name, however, lies an ocean of risks. Not everyone is aware of what apps can do to their mobile device, especially those that come free — by far the largest number.

I am not against apps; quite the opposite actually. I have about 30 of them on my smartphone and tablet and regularly use at least 10 of these very useful tools on a daily basis, intensively. The trick about apps is being aware of what they do in the background, how they can affect the performance of your device, how much of your data and files they access without you even realising it, and how much of “you” they reveal to the outside world. Only then you can control them and make them more useful than annoying.

One of the annoyances of having free apps was advertising. Whereas this is still not fun, it is not much of a risk for pop up advertising is something that you see, that is not hidden. So at least you know what’s going on, even if the unpleasant ads pop up unexpectedly, hide part of your screen and appear at the worst moment. This is annoyance but not hazard. Besides, most free apps propose an ad-free paid version.

One of the worst aspects of apps is the work they do in the background, like for instance running silently and issuing notifications of all kinds. This eats substantial technical resources from your mobile device, reducing speed and performance by occupying memory, grabbing processor power and consuming bandwidth, whether wifi or 3G/4G. You don’t know it until you see the notification that you never asked for in the first place. Games do it all the time.

To stop the notification you have (if you know how) to look for the application manager, locate the culprit app and then uncheck the notification selector. A selector that should have been unchecked by default, but this is not how the game designer wanted it to be! With apps, at least the cheap and poorly designed, it’s like being guilty until proven innocent.

Wrong information is one of the downsides of apps. Take TrueCaller (TC) for instance, that otherwise wonderful app that lets you find out the name of the anonymous person who called you from their mobile phone even if it is not listed in the provider’s directory.

A friend wanted to look up the number who called him and used TC for that. Unfortunately the name that was returned by the app was not the right one. Indeed, TC works by gathering information from the contacts list of all those who install it, making this huge database its own. Therefore any erroneous information in anyone’s contacts will be passed on to the others, without any verification for validity! With an app like TC you sometime get wrong information and in all cases your entire contacts information is shared with all those who have the app installed.

Paid apps present fewer risks and in general behave a little more politely. But they all do something to your mobile device. I had to fight to stop the legitimate S-Health app that came pre-installed in my Android. I never noticed it until it displayed without being asked the number of steps I had walked and the distance I had covered one fine day! I managed to stop the app but could not uninstall it for it is “bound” to my smartphone. At least I was able to stop the memory bleeding and return some power to the phone set.

Most apps, when you install them for the first time, have the legal obligation to display a list of the risks associated with them, what they can do to your device, how much info they read from it (like your entire contacts, again) and so forth. Because of the speed at which we all work and use mobile devices few of us have the time or the patience to go through all the details, not everyone would understand them anyway, and we all end up quickly, gladly clicking the “I accept all the terms” button. Et voilà — that’s how it is.

SAN FRANCISCO  — How many remotes does it take to watch television, stream Netflix or record your favourite show on DVR?

The Ray Super Remote wants to declutter your coffee table and become the central nervous system of all of your home entertainment systems. The touch-screen device, released Tuesday, is designed to control TVs, cable boxes, DVRs, video game consoles and Internet streaming players such as Roku and Apple TV. What’s more, it runs on software that learns viewers’ preferences so it can list programmes suited to personal interests.

“As we looked at ways to reimagine TV, it seemed like the remote control needed the most help,” says David Skokna, CEO of New York-based Ray Enterprises. “We think we have a big opportunity to do something magical.”

Priced at $199, the remote won’t be released until May or June, but pre-orders are being accepted online at http://www.ray.co. It requires a Wi-Fi system and pay-TV boxes to work properly.

This isn’t the first attempt to build a smarter remote control. Logitech and a few other electronics companies have been making universal remote controls for years. More recently, a variety of mobile apps have been offering ways to turn smartphones and tablets into multipurpose remote controls.

After nearly three years developing his device, Skokna is counting on the Ray remote’s versatility and intelligence to stand out from the other options on the market.

The Ray remote controls more than 200,000 devices and can run applications that will enable it to control other Internet-connected home appliances, such as Google’s Nest thermostat. The search and recommendation features are set up to eliminate the need to spend a lot of time looking for content. Users can tell the remote what kinds of programming interests them, such as football or comedy, so shows fitting those categories are automatically highlighted on the nearly 5-inch screen.

The remote’s battery lasts for about 10 days and can be easily recharged in a power station that doubles as a holding tray.

The biggest question facing the Ray remote may be this; How many people are so frustrated with juggling multiple remote controls that they will be willing to spend more money on another device?

MIAMI — With peanut allergies on the rise worldwide, a study Monday found that contrary to previous advice, feeding foods containing peanuts to babies before 11 months of age may help prevent allergies.

The findings in the New England Journal of Medicine are based on a British study of 640 children, aged 4 months to 11 months, who were considered at high risk of becoming allergic to peanuts either because of a pre-existing egg allergy or eczema, which can be linked to peanut allergy.

Researchers at Evelina London Children’s Hospital randomised the children into two groups — some were fed foods containing pureed peanuts and others were told to avoid peanuts until they turned five — to see if avoiding peanuts was really the best way to prevent peanut allergy.

They found that by age five, fewer than 1 per cent of the children who ate food containing peanuts three or more times each week developed a peanut allergy, compared to 17.3 per cent in the group that avoided peanuts entirely.

The final results did not include 13 out of 319 randomised children who were excused after showing signs of peanut allergy early in the study.

The children involved in the research were also not fed whole peanuts, which can be a choking hazard.

“This is an important clinical development and contravenes previous guidelines,” said Gideon Lack, head of the Paediatric Allergy Department at King’s College London, who led the LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) study.

“Whilst these were withdrawn in 2008 in the UK and US, our study suggests that new guidelines may be needed to reduce the rate of peanut allergy in our children,” added Lack, who presented the findings at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology meeting in Houston, Texas.

Lack urged parents of babies and young children with eczema or egg allergies to consult with their paediatrician about the possibility of trying to introduce peanuts into their children’s diet.

Rising worldwide

Some experts said the study points to a new way of reducing peanut allergies, which have more than doubled in the last 10 years in Britain and North America.

“We have always been suspicious of a possible increased incidence of allergy to peanuts, and perhaps other foods, due to a delayed introduction of those foods usually occurring after the age of three,” said Paul Lang, a paediatric allergist at North Shore Allergy and Asthma Institute in New York, who was not involved in the study.

“This study points to a possible earlier introduction of food to decrease the ability to become allergic to those foods.”

An allergy to peanuts can develop early in life. It is rarely outgrown and can be fatal.

About 1 in 50 school age children in Britain are allergic to peanuts. The condition is estimated to affect 1 to 3 per cent of children in the developed world. Incidence is also rising in Asia and Africa.

Further work, known as the LEAP-On study, aims to research whether the same effects could be maintained if the children stopped eating peanuts for 12 months.

“Although there are still many unanswered questions about natural history of peanut and other food allergies, this study provides new valuable practical information,” said Blanka Kaplan, paediatric allergist at Cohen Children’s Medical Centre in New York. Kaplan was not involved in the study.

“It underscores the benefits of early peanut introduction and harm of unnecessary delay of peanut consumption in infants with risk for
allergic diseases.”