Features

MUMBAI — It was a quest worthy of a superhero. Animator Rajiv Chilaka spent years flogging his pitch about a superhuman Indian child to Western executives, to no avail.

But today "Mighty Little Bheem" is a global hit, as viewers seek alternatives to white-dominated storylines.

From his mother's sari to his love of laddoos, everything about the star toddler is Indian.

His giant fan base stretches from Seattle to Sao Paulo, making it Netflix's most popular show for preschoolers.

Since its launch last year, it has been seen by more than 27 million households. It was Netflix's top international release of 2019 in the United States, and a third season is now under way.

But the nappy-wearing superhero's journey from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad to Hollywood was not easy.

"I was thrown out of every office I went to," said Chilaka, who originally approached US television channels with the hope of taking "Chhota Bheem" ("Little Bheem") -- his popular Indian show about a nine-year-old village boy with superhuman strength -- global.

TV executives demurred, claiming children in the West would reject it because the setting was "too bright and colourful" and the protagonist was shirtless, Chilaka said.

"It didn't really make sense to me. I mean, kids are drawn to colour and Disney made 'Jungle Book' -- a whole movie about a boy in his underwear -- years ago," he said.

Although US studios regularly approach Indian animators to create English-language content at a lower price, the industry had never won acclaim for original productions.

Then Netflix came calling.

The streaming giant wanted to crack India's massive entertainment market, and hoped a Bheem spin-off based on a baby version of Chilaka's beloved superhero would help to do just that.

No translation needed

"We really wanted to have a character that resonated for, first and foremost, our Indian members," Dominique Bazay, director of original animation for Netflix, told AFP.

There was no question of Westernising the content, she said.

Bheem wears a traditional bindi — a dot on the forehead — and lives in a village where everyone is dressed in Indian clothing.

Raised by a single mother, he crawls his way into every kind of mischief, occasionally including a cheeky monkey and baby elephant in his escapades.

The company was not worried about how the show -- which has no dialogue -- would translate among overseas viewers, Bazay said.

"Kids are really willing to discover (new things) and their curiosity is boundless," she said.

Nevertheless, few expected the adventures of Bheem and his furry friends to attract such a huge global audience, as it snapped up fans in the age of "Black Panther" and the growing demand for more diversity in entertainment.

New Yorker Lisa-Michelle Houck told AFP her children, aged four and two, were fast fans of the show.

Bheem's fondness for laddoos — a yellow Indian sweet — was self-evident to them, she said. "It's just candy."

Laughter and lessons

Bheem's antics — from banging his toy drum non-stop to making a mess at home — are instantly hilarious to young viewers.

And for parents seeking a break from traditional kids' programming and its parade of pink-wearing princesses and white protagonists, the show is an easy way to introduce children to a more multicultural worldview.

Bheem's single-parent household offers important lessons on how "there is no one right way to have a family", said Houck.

She and her wife also wanted their mixed-race children to see that "you don't have to be white to be a superhero".

For Bheem's creator Chilaka, the success has been both stunning and sobering.

"When we started work, I was very conscious that this was the first animated show from India to find such a large platform," the 46-year-old said.

"It was a big load on my shoulders, because I knew it could open doors for others."

Bheem's journey from underdog to global phenomenon could prove a game changer for India's animation industry, he added.

It has already transformed the fortunes of Chilaka's studio, Green Gold Animation, which has seen its staff numbers shoot up from 25 to around 1,200 people based in India, the US, Singapore and the Philippines.

"We are still pinching ourselves," Chilaka said, adding that he hopes to produce a movie about the toddler at some point.

"This little kid has turned my life upside down."

By Ammu Kannampilly

PARIS —Chanel went back to the timeless glamour of black and white Hollywood movies in its blockbuster show on the last day of Paris fashion week.

In its biggest catwalk spectacle on Tuesday since designer Virginie Viard took over the fabled French house from Karl Lagerfeld after his death last year, an army of the world's top supermodels walked under a huge Hollywood-style sign spelling out Chanel's name.

They included the body positive pin-up, Jill Kortleve, the Dutch model who is a voluptuous size 16.

COVID-19 restrictions may have limited the number of fashionistas allowed into the immense Grand Palais in central Paris, but like the decor, Viard wrote her ambitions large.

Her collection felt like no less than a grand sweep through the long history of the label founded by Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, with a giant nod to Chanel's time in Tinseltown in the 1930s when she dressed stars like Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich and Gloria Swanson.

"I was thinking of actresses on the red carpet... some of whom we haven't seen in a long time... their faces a little somewhere else as the photographers call out to them," Viard said afterwards.

"And the fans behind the barriers, that very lively side of cinema outside cinemas, which I love," she added.

The show -- dominated by black and white interspersed with splashes of bold colour -- coincides with the first ever museum exhibition dedicated to Coco Chanel in the French capital, which opened last week to rave reviews.

Big screen glamour

Viard recreated and updated some of her most beloved looks, with a nod to her predecessor Lagerfeld's more street fashion sensibility with logos a gogo.

"Gabrielle Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld dressed so many actresses in their films and in their lives," Viard added. "They made us dream."

"Without redoing clothes exactly and falling into vintage, I wanted it to be very joyous and colourful and full of life."

With Paris fashion week forced largely online by the coronavirus, Chanel streamed the show live for fashion fans.

"Lights, cameras, action!" it declared on Instagram as it aped the opening of a silent black and white film, placing a huge Chanel sign on the Hollywood Hills.

Viard kept up the theme of the brand's long association with the silver screen with video clips of models reclining in luxury hotels like movie idols about to attend premieres.

On Instagram, it also ran clips of French screen goddesses like Jeanne Moreau, Anna Karina and the Vienna-born Romy Schneider wearing Chanel in classic movies.

The brand's association with Hollywood began in 1930 when studio mogul Sam Goldwyn begged Coco Chanel to come to Los Angeles to give his stable of stars some "class".

Chanel resisted at first even as Goldwyn offered her $1 million to come twice a year, before finally succumbing to his blandishments.

At a party to greet her, the great German director Erich von Stroheim clicked his heels before kissing her hand, declaring, "You are a seamstress, I believe?"

Chanel forgave his snobbery, saying, "Such a ham, but what style!"

By Fiachra Gibbons

Those who cannot stand seeing uninvited, distracting ads on their web browser page, address the problem by installing a plug-in software application that automatically blocks these ads. According to thinkwithgoogle.com 11 per cent of the world’s computers have an ad blocker installed.

AdBlock Plus, one of the most popular such plug-ins, has been around for about 10 years now. It is an effective way to get around ads and to only see the topic you went to visit the website for in the first place. The web has become the preferred place for advertisers. It only makes sense after all, given the huge traffic that takes place every second of every minute on the network. It is more sought-after than traditional TV broadcast, even more than the old-fashioned street signs perhaps.

Over the last 12 months, developers of websites and webmasters have been reacting to (counterattacking should I say) ad blockers with a simple, yet effective approach; a weapon of their own. Once you open a webpage, the site will detect if your browser is using an ad blocker. It will then deny you access to the page and will display a screen asking you to disable the blocker, to let you in.

There are a couple of variations around this scenario. Some will ask you gently to disable the ad blocker, but will let you in anyway, whatever you choose to do. Others have a more clear-cut, a sharp kind of approach.

It is in a way, a cat and mouse game that is more or less similar to computer viruses and antiviruses. In the end they all make our living with the web in particular and IT in general, more complicated.

So, should the 11 per cent of the population using ad blockers uninstall them? Should they leave them on and then selectively allow this or that site?

There are two good reasons why one should disable ad blockers, but discernment is the key word here. The decision shouldn’t be done blindly.

The first reason is obvious. If you absolutely need to access the web page and you are denied access to it because your blocker is enabled, then there is little choice left in such case.

Another, perhaps purely ethical approach, is to remember that most sites, news in particular, need ads to be sustainable. The Internet has made countless contents free, but someone has to pay in the end, if we want to benefit from the wealth of information that is posted and available out there. A comparison with the tax system is relevant here. Public services just cannot operate if citizens do not pay their taxes.

Some sites have adopted the “donate when/if you can” approach, and would not ask you to disable your ad blocker. Two of these sites come immediately to my mind. Karenware.com offers numerous small utility software applications that are very useful when working with Windows operating system, and come to nicely complement it.

Kenrockwell.com is a site about photography. It has excellent reviews about photo gear, provides precious advice to both amateur and pro photographers, and best of all, is not biased towards any brand. The quality writing is always objective, never subjective.

These are just two examples. There are thousands of sites that have adopted the donation approach to sustain their operation.

In the end, how much to enforce ad blockers, how much to disable them, when, if and how to donate to sites that are worth being supported financially, it is all a question of balance. Just like most everything in life.

PARIS — Iranian Marjane Satrapi is famous for her films and graphic novels, but it is her painting which keeps her sane, she told AFP.

The artist who was nominated for an Oscar for “Persepolis”, based on her graphic novel on post-revolution Iran, started out as a painter.

And that is where she always returns to after writing and shooting films like “Chicken with Plums” and last year’s biopic of Marie Curie, “Radioactive”.

“Painting is about going back to the origin of what I liked doing. And my mental health depends on it,” she said in her Paris studio with its view across the rooftops to Montmartre’s Sacre Coeur.

In fact Satrapi has become so French — she hasn’t been back to Tehran in two decades — that she has rather taken to Parisians’ famous foul humour.

Her giant canvases feature striking women like her with red lips and manes of jet black hair.

“I really like honest, ferocious women,” said Satrapi, 50, who has always worn her feminism on her sleeve.

Their sharp contrasts also echo the drawings in her bestselling graphic novels.

‘Women are

much prettier’

“I like figurative painting the most. Like the Old Masters, I would like to fill the public need for beauty.”

Despite COVID-19, and the risk of another lockdown, she is showing 16 of her paintings in the Francoise Livinec gallery in Paris next month.

None of them features men because according to Satrapi, men are just too damn “ugly” to paint.

“All that badly shaved skin. The male peacock may be more beautiful than the female, but with humans it’s the women who are much prettier,” she declared.

Despite her own long history of outspokenness, Satrapi insisted that she is “against all kinds of radicalism where they want to burn everything down.

“Feminism is all about doing. If I show that I can do something too, even better than a man, I have won the fight and I also set an example,” said the writer, who described herself as a “big mouth who knows how to defend herself”.

‘Hypocritical moralising’

But she also hates what she calls a new hypocritical and moralising strain of feminism, “people who are looking for a new kind of religion”, Satrapi claimed.

“This moralising side really pisses me off. I don’t want to be called a killer for eating a chicken,” she added, saying she was against people’s lives being forced into “formats”,

If “secularism becomes a religion as intolerant as extremist religion, then it’s abject,” she argued.

For Satrapi humour is essential and a key “expression of human intelligence. Life is about losing everything. You die like a worm or a cat — if we can’t laugh about all that, we are beyond stupid”.

And before she goes herself, Satrapi said she wants to have made eight films, five exhibitions and four books. “I have a plan for the next 30 years,” she joked.

As for her homeland, Satrapi said she no longer “feels credible” in commenting on it.

She misses terribly the warmth of “its hospitality, the Elburz Mountains and Farsi jokes... and its poetry, the purest form of expression.

“We are the only people who, when we want to be really understood, quote Saadi, Hafez and Omar Khayyam.

“A people whose mausoleums for its poets are fuller than its mosques cannot be bad,” she said. 

Launched last year as a 2020 model, the Lincoln Aviator may play second fiddle to hulking full-size Navigator SUV flagship in the American luxury car maker’s model hierarchy, but it is in fact set to become the brand’s most interesting, desirable and rewarding vehicle. Effectively replacing Lincoln’s largely excellent Continental saloon when it is soon discontinued owing to changing consumer habits and Lincoln’s and its Ford parent company’s direction to a more SUV- and crossover-oriented line-up, the Aviator is exactly what a modern American luxury vehicle should be.

Urgent and elegant

Based on the same new rear-drive oriented platform that underpins the current Ford Explorer, the Aviator is a dynamically adept, thoroughly comfortable, highly refined and spaciously practical SUV. Generously equipped with high tech mod cons and safety features, and finished with truly fine quality materials and tasteful design, the Aviator competes with the best Europe has to offer in the mid-size to large SUV segment. That said, it retains a quintessentially American flavour with a powerful posture and plenty of presence that is stylish, glamorous and glitzy rather than brash, brutish or excessive in “bling”. 

With a short front overhang, long bonnet and long wheelbase well balanced by a long rear overhang and long, gently descending “floating” roofline, tipped with a jutting tailgate spoiler, the Aviator is among the most perfectly proportioned SUVs in its class. Evocative in its elegant proportions, the Aviator’s body-to-glass ratio, subtly contoured wheel-arches and somewhat Saab-like rear light tips lend it a wide and sporty hunkered down stance. Urgent in demeanour even at standstill, the Aviator’s huge optional 22-inch wheels are also well proportioned, as is the height between its front wheel-arch apex and bonnet line.

Rapid and responsive

Built on a new in-line engine and rear-drive oriented platform — with optional four-wheel-drive, as driven — the Aviator shares much with its sporty, performance oriented Ford Explorer ST cousin, including the same punchy and prodigious twin-turbocharged direct injection 3-litre V6 engine and the same slick, smooth and quick-shifting 10-speed automatic gearbox to utilise its output over a broad and versatile range. Developing 400BHP at 5,750rpm and easily accessible 415lb/ft torque at 2,750rpm, the Aviator carries its over two-tonne mass at a rapid pace, including an estimated 5.5-second 0-100km/h sprint and estimated 230km/h top speed.

Well-insulated and whisper quiet at languid cruising speeds but raspy and eager when prodded more meaningfully and wrung towards its redline, the Aviator’s comparatively compact 3-litre V6 is impressively thorough throughout its rev-range. Responsive with scant noticeable turbo lag — presumably due to short gasflow paths — it digs deep and pulls hard from low down and delivers broad and muscular mid-range oomph. With a wide underlying torque sweet spot and achieving maximum power relatively early, the Aviator’s twin-turbo V6’s delivery, however, has an sweeping, urgent and peaky quality not always characteristic of turbo engines.

Supple and settled

A sweet and supple riding SUV that harks back to legacy American land yachts with its cushioned, wafting comfort but none of their shuddering vertical responses, exaggerated lean or vague handling, the Aviator is instead far more accomplished and dynamically well-rounded. Exactly the sort of vehicle that American manufacturers should be making, the Aviator is confident, stable, settled, refined and reassuring crunching long distances at speed. Meanwhile, it was forgiving, comfortable and composed over lumps, bumps and imperfections with a seemingly seamless fluency on Dubai roads, including a particularly rough patch of highway.

Optionally available with adaptive air suspension and a forward-facing Road Preview camera system that reads and accordingly alters suspension rates for road height deviations ahead, the Aviator proved smooth and comfortable despite low profile 275/40R22 tyres, and was buttoned down on vertical rebound. More impressive than its anticipated high comfort level is the Aviator’s handling prowess. Turning tidily into corners, with its light and direct electric-assisted steering offering better feel than expected, the Aviator’s layout and weighting felt balanced, while its rear-biased four-wheel-drive adeptly redistributed power frontwards as necessary for road-holding and agility.

Comfort and composure

Though placing comfort and luxury above more sporting driving qualities, the Aviator is nonetheless plenty quick and avails itself confidently through corners and quick direction changes. Eager and balanced through a corner with its four-wheel-drive maintaining tenacious grip, the Aviator feels committed and reassuring, yet adjustable, agile and with intuitive seat-of-the-pants on-the-limit dynamic intuition for such a long, tall and heavy vehicle. Leaning somewhat when chucked into a corner with its weight flung out to the rear and outside, the Aviator seamlessly gathers itself, with its suspension quickly but progressively tautening to keep it composed. 

Generously equipped with an exhaustive standard and optional convenience, comfort, infotainment, safety and high tech driver assistance features list, including highly adjustable seats, the Aviator also offers an extensive choice of specification, trim, theme and package options with different flavours and ambiance. Perhaps best with dark, deep and rich leather and wood Presidential trim, all options are nevertheless exquisitely luxurious in character, materials and textures. Comfortable inside with plenty of passenger and cargo space, including reasonably roomy third row seating, the Aviator accommodates six or seven passengers depending on a choice of twin independent or standard bench mid-row seating.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3-litre, all-aluminium, twin-turbocharged, in-line V6-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 85.4 x 86mm

Compression ratio: 9.5:1

Valve-train: 24-valve, DOHC, variable valve timing, direct injection

Gearbox: 10-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Ratios: 1st 4.714; 2nd 2.997; 3rd 2.149; 4th 1.769; 5th 1.521; 6th 1.275; 7th 1.0; 8th 0.853; 9th 0.689; 10th 0.636; R 4.885

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 400 (405) [298] @5,750rpm

Specific power: 135.3BHP/litre

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 415 (563) @2,750rpm

Specific torque: 189.7Nm/litre

0-100km/h: under 5.5-seconds (estimate)

Top speed: 230km/h (estimate, unrestricted)

Fuel consumption, combined: 9.1-litres/100km (estimate)

Length: 5,080mm

Width, including mirrors: 2,284mm

Height: 1,743mm

Wheelbase: 3,025mm

Headroom, F/M/R: 1,054/1,008/937mm

Legroom, F/M/R: 1,092/1,019/742mm

Shoulder room, F/M/R: 1,562/1,557/1,372mm

Hip room, F/M/R: 1,486/1,481/1,039mm

Luggage volume, behind 1st/2nd/3rd row: 2,200-/1,200-/500-litres

Seating: 6/7

Fuel capacity: 76-litres

Kerb weight: 2,150-2,225kg (estimate)

Towing capacity: 3,039kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link, anti-roll bars, optional adaptive dampers

Tyres: 275/40R22

By Abeer Jabaji

Personal Development Coach and Classical Homeopath

What is your reason for waking up in the morning? What is the source of value in your life and what makes your life worth living? What is your Ikigai?

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that simply means “reason for being”. Translated roughly into English, it means the “thing that you live for”. Research has found that having a sense of purpose can extend and enrich your life. It can cut your risk of heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and depression. The resulting stress reduction has even been shown to improve the quality of your sleep. Each person’s Ikigai is personal and is specific to their lives, values and beliefs.

Where it all began

Ikigai originated in Okinawa, Japan, a remote island to the south west of Japan, in the famously called Blue Zone. It has an unusually large population of centenarians (people who live to or past 100 years). The inhabitants of this island carry the secret to longevity and vitality and a long, happy and purposeful life.

In Okinawa, Ikigai is a revered tradition; with their purpose-driven lives, people on the island have clear roles of responsibility and a feeling of being needed well into their 100s. In the Okinawan language, the word “retirement” does not exist.

Ikigai is not linked to one’s financial status or the success one acquires in life, but rather to one’s own purpose. Even if a person feels that the present is unfulfilling and miserable but still has a goal in mind, then she or he may feel Ikigai.

Discovering your own Ikigai can lead you to fulfilment, happiness, balance and living longer.

So what is Ikigai and how can you find yours?

Ikigai is the convergence of four areas in your life:

• What you love (your passion)

• What you are good at (your vocation)

• What the world needs (your mission)

• What you can get rewarded or paid for (your profession) 

To find your Ikigai, ask yourself: 

• What do I love?

• What am I good at?

• What does the world need?

• What can I be paid or rewarded for now or in the future? 

Reflect on each question and take your time while writing your answers. 

Ten rules* that can help you find your Ikigai

• Stay active and don’t retire

• Leave urgency behind and adopt a slower pace of life

• Only eat until you are 80 per cent full

• Surround yourself with good friends

• Get in shape through daily, gentle exercise

• Smile and acknowledge people around you

• Reconnect with nature

• Give thanks to anything that brightens your day and makes you feel alive

• Live in the moment

• Follow your Ikigai

The problem for millions of people is that they stop being curious about new experiences as they assume responsibilities and fall into the trap of routines. Their sense of wonder starts to escape them. They just carry on with their daily lives with no purpose, no passion and no sense. But you can change that and start looking for meaning and fulfilment in what you do daily. Follow your passion because it knows the way. 

What is the one simple thing you could do or be today that would be an expression of your Ikigai? Think about it and go for it! 

*From “Ikigai The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life” by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles 

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

LOS ANGELES — “Modern Family” star Sofia Vergara has topped the Forbes list of the highest paid actresses in the world, leading a charge by small-screen talent in a year when movie theatres have gone dark, the magazine said Friday.

Vergara — who is also now a judge on “America’s Got Talent” (AGT) — earned a whopping $43 million in the past 12 months in salary and endorsements. She moved up from second place last year.

The 48-year-old Colombia-born actress earned $500,000 an episode for the final season of Emmy-winning “Modern Family”, which wrapped up earlier this year.

Forbes estimated she would earn “at least $10 million each season” for “AGT”, one of the most popular reality competition shows in the United States.

The coronavirus pandemic paralysed Hollywood, forcing crews to stop production and shuttering movie theatres, so many big-budget films have been delayed.

Many film stars also make money by earning a share of the profits — meaning if movies are not released in theatres, their income plummets.

Nevertheless, Oscar winner Angelina Jolie was in second place on the Forbes list at $35 million.

But actresses who make most of their money from television and/or streaming services made up the bulk of the list.

“Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot came in third at $31 million, but she made a chunk of her money from the Netflix film “Red Notice”.

“Grey’s Anatomy” lead Ellen Pompeo was eighth at $19 million, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” star Elisabeth Moss came in ninth at $16 million.

Another Oscar winner, Viola Davis, made her first appearance on the top 10 list. 

The “How To Get Away with Murder” star — who will soon star in Netflix’s adaptation of the August Wilson play “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” — came in 10th at $15.5 million. 

Even the venerable Meryl Streep (fifth place) made most of her income in the past year from either films for streaming services or television roles.

In total, the top 10 paid actresses in the world in 2020 earned $254 million in the 12 months leading up to June, Forbes said. That was down 20 per cent from last year.

The top 10 highest paid actors made nearly double as much — almost $550 million — in the same period. Last month’s list for the men was topped by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at $87.5 million.

The top 10 are Sofia Vergara ($43 million), Angelina Jolie ($35.5 million), Gal Gadot ($31.5 million), Melissa McCarthy ($25 million), Meryl Streep ($24 million), Emily Blunt ($22.5 million), Nicole Kidman ($22 million), Ellen Pompeo ($19 million), Elisabeth Moss ($16 million) and Viola Davis ($15.5 million).

LONDON/PARIS — Scientists have created an army of microscopic four-legged robots too small to see with the naked eye that walk when stimulated by a laser and could be injected into the body through hypodermic needles, a recent study said. 

Microscopic robotics are seen as having an array of potential uses, particularly in medicine, and US researchers said the new robots offer "the potential to explore biological environments". 

One of the main challenges in the development of these cell-sized robots has been combining control circuitry and moving parts in such a small structure.

The robots described in the journal Nature are less than 0.1 millimetre wide — around the width of a human hair — and have four legs that are powered by on-board solar cells. 

By shooting laser light into these solar cells, researchers were able to trigger the legs to move, causing the robot to walk around.

The study's co-author Marc Miskin, of the University of Pennsylvania, told AFP that a key innovation of the research was that the legs — its actuators — could be controlled using silicon electronics.

"Fifty years of shrinking down electronics has led to some remarkably tiny technologies: you can build sensors, computers, memory, all in very small spaces," he said. "But, if you want a robot, you need actuators, parts that move."

'Figuring out what's possible'

The researchers acknowledged that their creations are currently slower than other microbots that "swim", less easy to control than those guided by magnets, and do not sense their environment. 

The robots are prototypes that demonstrate the possibility of integrating electronics with the parts that help the device move around, Miskin said, adding they expect the technology to develop quickly. 

"The next step is to build sophisticated circuitry: can we build robots that sense their environment and respond? How about tiny programmable machines? Can we make them able to run without human intervention?" 

Miskin said he envisions biomedical uses for the robots, or applications in materials science, such as repairing materials at the microscale.

"But this is a very new idea and we're still trying to figure out what's possible," he added. 

'Swallow the surgeon'

Researchers said that they were able to produce the components for the robots in parallel, meaning they could make more than one million of them in each four-inch wafer of silicon. 

The legs were made from nanometre-thick platinum that bends when stimulated by laser light, creating the walking motion.

Their average speed was about one body length per minute, the study said, adding this was "comparable to crawling biological microorganisms".

The robots can survive highly acidic environments and temperature variations of more than 200 degrees Kelvin (-73 degrees Celsius), the study said. 

In a commentary also published in Nature, Allan Brooks and Michael Strano of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the concept of robots small enough to travel through blood vessels had been around since Nobel laureate Richard Feynman talked about the potential to "swallow the surgeon" in 1959. 

They said the new study provides "a clear vision" for solving the challenge of creating a tiny robot that can both convert energy into motion and is able to be programmable. 

"The authors' robots, although not autonomous in their current form, can be seen as a platform to which 'brains' and a battery can be attached," they said, predicting the "hurdle of developing autonomous programmability for microrobots will soon be overcome".

By Kelly Macnamara and Laurence Coustal

It is no surprise to any person who accesses the web at least once a day, that Google search page is the most visited of them all on the network. It has overtaken all existing sites, the estimated number of which is 1.7 billion in the world, according to websitehostingrating.com.

What is equally if not more fascinating, is that the second most visited site on the Internet is YouTube; just another Google online service! Add Gmail whose importance and role cannot be overstated, and the Android operating system, both by the same company, and the conclusion as to the weight Google plays in the world of IT, and simply in the world, becomes clear.

Naturally, the other GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) members are also IT giants in their own right, and their impact on us all is perfectly acknowledged, but Google seems to be doing something the others are not.

It is also interesting to note that in the top ten list are six Chinese companies, versus four American, though again, the first two are American. Among the Chinese we find Tmall, Baidu and Tencent QQ, in 3rd, 4th and 5th position, respectively, just before Facebook that comes 6th.

In these days where working and studying remotely is the way to go, and where cloud storage has been widely accepted and adopted, even by those who, before the COVID-19 crisis, were the most sceptical and reluctant to trust the network with their personal and business data, are we to follow the most powerful one blindly?

“Don’t Put All your Eggs in One Basket” we are often told. Is this old advice valid in the IT and the Internet world?

Just last Monday September 28, and for a few hours, Microsoft 365 service was down for some of the users who were accessing it in the USA. The product, or the service as it is now referred to, is used by millions the world over. Although the issue was resolved in less than seven hours, a huge number of subscribers in the USA region felt the frustration.

As great and as omnipresent and powerful as Google may be — I for one, happily make daily and intensive use of all their services — common sense should always prevail. The old saying about all the eggs in one basket is as valid as ever. I would say it is even more valid in the online world, because of its inherent virtual and intangible attributes.

On a practical level, however, it is not simple or possible to have a Plan B for every aspect of our living with the network. You can, of course, have an e-mail account other than your Gmail, as an extra precaution, but surely you cannot replace your YouTube channel where you uploaded some videos for your friends or relatives to enjoy. There is simply no alternative for the amazing video channel. Just remember all that they let you upload, and for free, what’s more. Apart from posted videos, YouTube is now slowly replacing some regular satellite TV broadcasts.

Similarly, it would not be practical to operate an Android smartphone and an Apple iPhone at the same time, just to have your back covered. In the end you must trust one of them, for convenience.

Despite unavoidable criticism here and there, from time to time, overall the services and products delivered to us by GAFAM are helpful and useful. Last week I had to call Amazon to fix an error with my Prime subscription. I called thinking that they would never really answer the phone, given the huge size of their operation. I was wrong. A computer spoke to me at first, and after a couple of questions and answers, I specifically asked to speak to a person. The computer obliged and connected me to a real and courteous person who solved my problem in two minutes.

As dominant in the top ten as Google may be, the company is smart enough to take into consideration the presence of the others and to keep working well and as ethically as possible. In the prestigious list, the Chinese IT giants, in particular, certainly are not to underestimate.