Features

LOS ANGELES — “It” came; “It” saw; “It” conquered.

The New Line and Warner Bros. adaptation of Stephen King’s novel is officially shattering box office records during its opening weekend. The R-rated horror film made a whopping $123.4 million from 4,103 locations, far surpassing earlier expectations. That would give “It” the third largest opening weekend of 2017, higher than “Spider-Man: Homecoming”, which made $117 million. Only “Beauty and the Beast” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” earned more this year. $7.2 million of “It’s” domestic grosses are coming from 377 Imax screens.

“There’s something really special about the story itself, the way the movie was made, and the marketing,” said Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief at Warner Bros. “The stars aligned on this, and we still have some room to grow for the weekend.”

“It” earned a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 87 per cent and a B+ CinemaScore. Its gender breakdown is reportedly 51 per cent female and 49 per cent male. About two thirds of the audience has been over 25 years old.

“It’s” opening is mostly unprecedented, crushing the record for largest September opening set by “Hotel Transylvania 2” in 2015 with $48.5 million, and the biggest opening weekend banked by a horror or supernatural film — “Paranormal Activity 3” earned $52.6 million in 2011. When it comes to R-rated movie openings, “It” falls only to “Deadpool”, which changed the game in 2016 with a massive $132.4 million opening. This, during a weekend when Hurricane Irma threatens huge portions of Florida and Georgia, which could dent attendance by as much as 5 per cent.

In addition to its domestic grosses, the horror hit is expected to pull in $62 million from 46 markets overseas, giving “It” a $179 million global debut. That is a huge win for a movie with an estimated $35 million production budget.

Horror films often have lower budgets than other more CGI-dense blockbusters, so the return on investment has potential to be massive. Goldstein said the genre is one that New Line particularly excels in, and there is potential to see more horror in the future if the right story comes along. “If we were able to find more films in this genre, we’d be thrilled to make them,” he said.

The movie comes courtesy of Argentine director Andy Muschietti, who is known for the 2013 horror film “Mama”. Bill Skarsgard stars as Pennywise the Clown, which terrorises young children in Derry, Maine. The rest of the cast includes youngsters Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Nicholas Hamilton, and Jackson Robert Scott in supporting roles.

That leaves Open Road’s “Home Again” trailing far behind. The Reese Witherspoon-led romantic comedy earned $8.6 million this weekend from 2,940 locations. The $15 million project was directed by Hallie Meyer-Shyer, the daughter of Nancy Meyers, who also worked on the film as a producer. The story centres on Witherspoon’s character — a mother of two who unexpectedly has three young men come to live with her following a recent separation from her husband.

Lionsgate’s “Hitman’s Bodyguard” is landing in third with $4.8 million from 3,322 locations after winning the domestic box office for the past three weekends. “Annabelle: Creation” from Warner Bros. is next with $4 million from 3,003 spots. And “Wind River” caps the top five with an anticipated $3.1 million from 2,890 theatres.

For the movie business, “It” could not have come at a better time. Following a dismal summer box office that plunged 14.6 per cent from last summer to $3.8 billion, “It” serves in part as the pick-me-up the industry was desperately craving. After this weekend, the year to date box office will improve from 6.5 per cent behind 2016 to 5.5 per cent, according to data provided by ComScore.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore attributed the film’s success to the “universality of the fear of clowns”, which created an “event for fans who came out to be scared en masse in the communal environment of the movie theatre”.

He added, “The marketing campaign brilliantly evoked a sense of teenage wonderment, fear, and ultimately bravery in the face of the true evil as perfectly embodied by Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise. That, along with the great ensemble cast of young actors and a movie that delivered on the promise of that marketing, made the film an astonishing over-performer.”

A sequel is already in the works at New Line with Gary Dauberman attached to write the script, and Muschietti expected to return to the director’s chair.

Regarding plans for the next movie, Goldstein said, “It puts more pressure on us to come up with the best version of the story so we bring fans what they want to see. We’ve had a lot of history with franchises. Some are great, and some we wish we had a little bit more story. Fortunately, there’s a lot here in this story.”

People who are considered metabolically healthy may still have a higher risk of developing heart problems if they are obese than they would if they weighed less, a recent study suggests. 

Obesity on its own is a risk factor for heart disease. The study focused on the odds of heart problems for people at various weights who were considered metabolically healthy because they did not have three other risk factors for heart disease: diabetes, high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol. 

Metabolically healthy obese people were 49 per cent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and almost twice as likely to develop heart failure as normal-weight people without any metabolic abnormalities, the study found. 

“Although those `metabolically healthy’ obese people may not have those risk factors we described – diabetes and high blood pressure and blood fats – being obese is already a metabolic abnormality,” said senior study author Neil Thomas of the University of Birmingham in the UK. 

“There is no such thing as `metabolically healthy’ and obese,” Thomas said by e-mail. 

Globally, 1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organisation. Obesity increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, joint disorders and certain cancers. 

For the study, researchers focused on one commonly used measure of obesity known as body-mass index (BMI), a measure of weight relative to height. 

A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered healthy, 25 to 29.9 is overweight, 30 or above is obese. Anyone with a BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight. 

An adult who is 175cm tall and weighs from 57kg to 76kg would have a healthy weight and a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. An obese adult at that height would weigh at least 92kg and have a BMI of 30 or more.

For the current study, researchers examined data on 3.5 million adults who were at least initially free of heart disease. 

Overall, about 3 per cent of these people were underweight without any metabolic abnormalities, 38 per cent were metabolically healthy and at a normal weight, and 26 per cent were overweight without metabolic issues. Another 15 per cent were metabolically healthy and obese. 

Metabolic problems were rare, regardless of people’s weight. 

But like obese people in the study, individuals who were not obese but who were overweight without metabolic abnormalities still had a higher risk of heart disease than people who were metabolically healthy and also at a healthy weight, researchers report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 

Individuals who were underweight and without metabolic abnormalities had a higher risk of vascular disease than people who were a normal weight, the study also found. This might be at least partially explained by smoking, which can mean people are slimmer but also that they have a higher risk of vascular problems, the authors note. 

One limitation of the study is that BMI does not distinguish between weight from fat versus lean muscle mass, making it possible that at least some people classified as obese in the study were actually unusually muscular rather than fat, the authors also point out. The study might also include people who had undiagnosed risk factors for cardiovascular disease. 

People should not base their understanding of their own health and fitness on BMI alone, said Jennifer Bea, a researcher at the University of Arizona in Tucson. 

“You can have a normal BMI, but low muscle tone and low bone mass, thus by default, a high percentage of fat,” Bea said by e-mail. “Even normal weight individuals based on BMI can have metabolic dysfunction and be at risk.” 

Children who skip breakfast on a regular basis are likely to fall short for the day in getting all their recommended essential nutrients, a UK study suggests.

Kids who skipped breakfast every day were less likely to get enough iron, calcium, iodine and folate when compared to kids who ate breakfast every day, the research team found.

“A greater proportion of those children who ate breakfast met their recommended intakes of these micronutrients compared to breakfast skippers,” coauthors Gerda Pot and Janine Coulthard of Kings College London told Reuters Health in an e-mail interview.

“These findings suggest that eating breakfast could play an important role in ensuring that a child consumes enough of these key micronutrients,” Pot and Coulthard said.

Though older children were more likely to skip breakfast, the day’s nutrient shortfall was greater when younger children missed the morning meal.

“Our research indicated that although lower proportions of 4-to-10-year-olds skipped breakfast regularly compared to 11-to-18-year-olds, greater differences in micronutrient intakes were seen in the younger age group when comparing days on which they ate breakfast with days on which they skipped it. It may, therefore, be particularly important to ensure that this younger age group eats a healthy breakfast, either at home or at a school breakfast club.”

Researchers examined four-day food diaries for almost 1,700 children ages 4 to 18. The information was taken from a yearly national diet and nutrition survey between 2008 and 2012.

Breakfast was defined as consuming more than 100 calories between 6am and 9am.

Overall, about 31 per cent of kids ate breakfast daily, 17 per cent never ate breakfast, and the rest ate it some days and skipped it on others. In this group, the researchers also compared differences in nutrient intake by the same child on different days.

The team found that 6.5 per cent of kids aged 4 to 10 missed breakfast every day, compared with nearly 27 per cent of 11-to-18-year-olds.

Girls were more likely to miss breakfast than boys, and household income tended to be higher for families of children who ate breakfast every day.

More than 30 per cent of kids who skipped breakfast did not get enough iron during the day, compared to less than 5 per cent of kids who ate breakfast, the researchers report in British Journal of Nutrition.

Around 20 per cent of breakfast skippers were low on calcium and iodine, compared to roughly 3 per cent of kids who ate breakfast.

About 7 per cent of children who skipped breakfast were low in folate, compared to none in the groups that ate breakfast.

Fat intake went up when kids skipped breakfast, researchers found.

Kids who skipped breakfast did not seem to compensate by eating more calories later in the day. In fact, kids who did not eat breakfast ended up eating the same number or fewer total calories as kids who ate breakfast every day.

Making sure kids eat breakfast appears to be more difficult in the older age group, who are possibly less receptive to parental supervision, Pot and Coulthard said. 

“One tactic would be to get children involved in making breakfast, maybe even preparing something the night before if time is short in the morning.” 

The authors noted there are a wealth of healthy, simple and tasty recipe ideas available on social media that children can choose from, adding that kids might even like to post a picture of their creations online. 

Audi’s fastest production road car and winner of the 2017 Middle East Car of the Year accolade, the Audi R8 V10 is a sensational performer and is also as sensibly practical as a bona fide mid-engine supercar can be. Billed as the thinking man’s — or woman’s — supercar when it arrived in first iteration back in 2006, the second generation R8 even better delivers on this promise, but remains an intuitively visceral, rather than a clinically cerebral experience. 

Evolutionary in design and engineering, the cumulative effect is a far-reaching improvement in comfort, practicality, driving dynamic and performance, especially in the more powerful R8 V10 Plus version, as driven.

Launched globally as a 2016 model, the second generation R8 V10 is a tauter, tidier, sharper and more deliberate re-interpretation of its predecessor’s design expression. With a broader and seemingly lower-set single frame hexagonal honeycomb grille seemingly framed by side air inlets with vertical slats and sharply angled, slim and heavily browed LED headlights, the R8 V10 has a predatory and hungry visage.

A low bonnet and subtle yet sharply ridged fin-like character lines and discretely rising and bulging wheel-arches adds to its road-hugging stance, as does its width, and design emphasis on how it “sits” on all four wheels to allude to its Quattro four-wheel-drive. 

Eager and evolutionary

With larger curved windscreen, low bonnet, forward-set cabin and arcing roofline, the R8 radiates a sense of purpose and eagerness. Deeper more chiseled grooves along its flanks feed into its side air intakes and low-set mid-mounted engine. In R8 V10 Plus guise driven, carbon-fibre trim panels are finished in gloss and include a rear wing which — along with the rear diffuser — helps generate 140kg downforce at top speed. Also finished in carbon-fibre, the R8’s characteristic “sideblade” intake covers are now divided by a long uninterrupted waistline, with hidden lower door handles and strong broad but low-set rear shoulders and subtle Coke-bottle lines.

Marginally shorter and lower yet wider and with longer wheelbase, yet comparatively lighter than the car it replaces, the new R8 V10 is built on a lighter and stiffer version of the Audi Space Frame, incorporated a mix of aluminium and more carbon-fibre reinforced polymer. Externally, the R8’s body is almost entirely built from aluminium. Viewed by some as a high performance sports car rival to the likes of top-end Porsche 911s, the R8 V10 Plus, however, is very closely related to, yet more practical and slightly longer than the Lamborghini Huracan. In turn this makes it a more affordable and discrete supercar alternative to flashy and pricey exotics.

Urgent and exacting

Like its Lamborghini sister with which its shares mid-mounted engine, gearbox and more, the Audi R8 bucks the trend for smaller turbocharged engine supercars. Instead, it retains its charismatic, ultra-responsive, driver-engaging and stratospherically high-revving 8700rpm naturally-aspirated 5.2-litre V10 engine. Producing 70BHP more in the more powerful R8 V10 Plus of two versions — and same as the Huracan — it develops 602BHP at 8250rpm and 413lb/ft at 6500rpm, which allows for sensationally swift headline and real world performance. Rocketing through 0-100km/h in 3.2-seconds or less and through 0-200km/h in 9.9-seconds, the aerodynamic and relatively lightweight 1580kg R8 V10 Plus can attain 330km/h, and returns acceptably good 12.3l/100km combined efficiency when driven less enthusiastically.

Highly responsive to the slightest input from idling to redline, the R8 V10 Plus allows one to dial in exact increments of power through corners to not overpower grip and allow for precise driving finesse, while its engine also pulls hard from low rpm and through a broad mid-range. Responsive and quick to rev and wind down, its V10 engine builds power and torque with searing progression, as it races to redline. 

Meanwhile, an authentic, evocative and distinctly metallic staccato engine note crackles and hardens to urgent bellowing and wailing as revs rise, and is accompanied by a throaty exhaust note and gurgling at throttle lift-off.

Crisp and committed

Launching from standstill with startling alacrity as all four driven wheels dig in to the tarmac for enormous traction, the R8 V10 Plus accelerates with consistent urge against wind resistance, and remains planted at speed, with up to 100kg downforce at the rear and 40kg at the front, for meaty and precise steering, and reassuring directional stability. Unfortunately absent in this latest iteration is the option of a manual gearbox, as is the case with most rivals. However, the R8’s 7-speed dual-clutch gearbox is seamlessly quick, precise and decisive when shifting through different automatic modes, with escalating comfort-to-responsiveness settings, or through its steering wheel-mounted manual mode paddle shifters.

With rear-biased four-wheel-drive and weighting, and engine mounted low and behind the cabin for superb within-wheelbase weight distribution and low centre of gravity, the R8 V10 Plus feels neutral and nimble through corners.

Entering a corner with crisp immediacy and tight grip at a flick of its quick, direct and well-weighted electric-assisted steering, it is committed and agile through corners and switchbacks. And with stability controls in less interventionist mode and a heavy right foot, one can playfully kick out the rear to tighten a cornering line, before its four-wheel-drive swiftly reallocates more power frontward and its limited-slip differential redistributes power along the rear axle to find the necessary traction and grip.

Clarity and comfort

Blasting out of a corner with all four wheels tenaciously dug into tarmac and ready to assault a series of oncoming corners, the R8 V10 remains taut and flat owing to its optional adaptive magnetic dampers that stiffen for improved body control through corners, loosen for more supple ride comfort over straights and provide buttoned down vertical control and fluency over imperfections.

A scalpel sharp hill climb companion, the R8 V10 Plus’ is connected, agile and engaging, with long-legged rev-limit, highly responsive throttle control and chassis adjustability. Somewhat reminiscent of a Lotus Evora in handling and nimbleness, the R8 V10 Plus is, however, a flexible machine that also enjoys Nissan GT-R-like road-holding and commitment.

Highly capable and flattering, the R8 V10 Plus is in many respects a more practical Lamborghini Huracan LP610-4 with more cargo space, and more understated design and badge. However, for taller and larger drivers, its generous headroom, spacious cabin, excellent visibility, highly adjustable driving position and feeling of being at the centre of the action, lends an added and crucial layer of confidence, control and clarity.

Luxurious, well trimmed and with extensive infotainment, convenience and safety features and adjustable driving modes, the R8 feels manoeuvrable and manageable at speed, through switchbacks and on city streets, and even provides better rear visibility than some narrower front-engine sports cars with more rearwards cabins..

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 5.2-litre, mid-mounted, dry sump, V10-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 84.5 x 92.8mm

Compression ratio: 12.5:1

Valve-train: 40-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 7-speed automated dual clutch

Driveline: Four-wheel-drive, multi-plate clutch, limited-slip differential

Gear ratios: 1st 3.133; 2nd 2.588; 3rd 1.958; 4th 1.244; 5th 0.979; 6th 0.976; 7th 0.841; R 2.647

Final drive, 1st, 4th, 5th, R/2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th: 4.893/3.938

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 602 (610) [449] @8250rpm

Specific power: 115.7BHP/litre

Power-to-weight, unladen: 381BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 413 (560) @6500rpm

Specific torque: 107.6Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight, unladen: 354.4Nm/tonne

Rev limit: 8700rpm

0-100km/h: 3.2-seconds (3.1-seconds with sport tires)

0-200km/h: 9.9-seconds

Top speed: 330km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 17.5-/9.3-/12.3-litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 287g/km

Fuel capacity: 73-litres

Track, F/R: 1638/1599mm

Overhangs, F/R: 994/782mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.36

Headroom: 977mm

Unladen/kerb weight: 1580kg/1655kg

Weight distribution, F/R: 42 per cent/58 per cent

Luggage capacity, boot/behind front seats: 112-/226-litres 

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 11.2-metres

Suspension: Double wishbones, adaptive magnetic dampers

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated, perforated ceramic discs

Brake callipers, F/R: 6-/4-piston callipers

Tyres: 245/30ZR20/305/30ZR20

Engines of Liberty: The Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional Law

David Cole

New York: Basic Books (Perseus), 2016

Pp. 307

Most people view constitutional law as relatively immutable, subject to change only occasionally by the supreme court or popular referendum, and there is truth in that view: “constitutional reform is not supposed to be easy. The constitution is designed to insulate certain principles and norms from the winds of political change”. (p. 7)

In the US, after the first ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights, only 17 amendments have been adopted in over 200 years. 

It is also commonly assumed that constitutional change involves mainly lawyers, judges and stuffy courtrooms, but “Engines of Liberty” reveals the less-recognised role of civil society. The author, David Cole, a leading civil liberties lawyer and professor at Georgetown University, argues that “civil society groups play an equally important part in shaping constitutional law. At their best, they are the catalysts of constitutional change — the engines of liberty”. (p. 6)

To prove his point, Cole examines the strategies employed by three movements that began their work outside the courts in order to later succeed in court. The first of these is the movement for marriage equality, i.e., to have same-sex marriage legalised. Early advocates of same-sex marriage “soon learned that constitutional change required much more than a well-footnoted [legal] argument”. (p. 24)

They adopted an incremental approach, pushing for marriage equality at the state level, starting with states considered more progressive, in order to influence federal courts. They learned that to get public backing, they needed to present their case in human terms rather than as a question of rights. Public relations campaigns were mounted to dispel stereotypes about gays and lesbians, and to show that gay and lesbian couples, like everyone else, wanted to marry because of love and commitment. 

In 2015, after over 20 years of campaigning, the US Supreme Court recognised that the constitutional right to marry applies to all. This may seem like a long haul, but “constitutional law tends to move at a glacial pace, and especially at the end, the progress on marriage equality was anything but glacial”. (p. 78) 

The second movement examined is for the right to bear arms led by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Though seemingly worlds apart from the movement for marriage equality, it also adopted the state-by-state strategy and worked extensively outside of federal courts. Established in 1871 to promote marksmanship, the NRA has long had massive membership and resources, though Cole points out that its success depends not on money but on its ability to mobilise members to vote for candidates who oppose gun control. The Second Amendment of the US constitution was not originally interpreted as protecting individuals’ right to bear arms, but as giving states the right to raise militias. From the late 70s, however, the NRA campaigned for the right of the individual to bear arms, and in 2008 the US Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment does indeed protect this right. 

The third campaign examined is completely different than the two above. It concerns the abuses of the Bush Administration’s war on terror: holding prisoners without judicial hearings or access to lawyers at Guantanamo or secret prisons around the world, torture, rendition, etc. 

Patently illegal, these abuses were at first shrouded in secrecy; it was difficult to get information about the victims, much less to contact them or elicit public sympathy for them in the post 9/11 climate. Yet, a small number of committed groups, chiefly the American Civil Liberties Union, the Centre for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch, took up the challenge and devised new strategies: They “turned to foreign audiences and governments, exhorting them to bring pressure to bear on the United States to conform its actions to basic human rights. They successfully framed the debate as pitting the rule of law against ‘law-free zones’…” (p. 153-4)

The law suits they filed on behalf of detainees eventually resulted in a supreme court ruling that they had the right to judicial review of their cases: the [supreme] court, for the first time in its history, stood up to the executive and legislative branches acting together during wartime”. (p. 161)

Although the legacy of that period is yet to be resolved, the Bush Administration curbed many of its worst abuses in the face of international censure. 

Cole’s account is lucid and comprehensive. While maintaining immaculate objectivity, he brings out the dynamic, human side of what goes into lawmaking, including personal sketches of the people who led the charge for recognition of rights they considered to be fundamental, and interviews with many of them. This makes his book lively as well as instructive.

His own involvement in litigating for human rights and civil liberties in the “war on terror” signifies that he cares deeply about his subject. “Engines of Change” is inspiring; it should encourage those who take democracy and civil and human rights seriously, and are willing to struggle to defend and expand them. While the book is geared to the US political and legal system, rights activists in other countries will find many pointers on how to further the causes for which they advocate.

SAN FRANCISCO — With Apple set to unveil its newest iPhones, a key question for the California tech giant is whether it can recapture the magic from its first release a decade ago.

The keenly anticipated media event  on Tuesday will be the first in the Steve Jobs Theatre at Apple’s new “spaceship” campus in Silicon Valley, evoking the memory of the company’s late co-founder and iconic pitchman.

Jobs introduced the first iPhone on January 9, 2007 and set the stage for mobile computing — and an entire industry revolving around it. The first devices became an instant hit as they went on sale on June 29 of that year.

Apple as usual has revealed little about the September 12 event in Cupertino. Invitations provided the date, time, location and a message that read: “Let’s meet at our place.”

The timing, however, is in sync with Apple’s annual unveiling of new iPhone models and comes as rivals field fresh champions powered by Google-backed Android software.

Eyes are on Apple to dazzle as the culture-changing firm seeks to retain its image as an innovation leader in a global smartphone market, showing signs of slowing and as Chinese rivals close ground.

Chinese smartphone colossus Huawei passed Apple in global smartphone sales for the first time in June and July, taking second place behind South Korean giant Samsung, according to market tracker Counterpoint Research.

Samsung last month unveiled a new model of its Galaxy Note, as it seeks to move past the debacle over exploding batteries in the previous generation of the device, and mount a renewed challenge to Apple’s flagship devices.

Other makers are also scrambling for market share, including Google, which is expected to soon unveil a second-generation of its flagship Pixel smartphone.

iPhone X?

Some reports say Apple will introduce three new iPhone models, with unconfirmed talk that a special premium iPhone will be priced as high as $1,400.

“It will have to be magical,” analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group said of a new iPhone with that kind of price tag.

“Even if you can’t afford it, this has to be the one you lust after.”

The new iPhone would also need to “set the bar” in a market with premium Android-powered handsets priced much lower, according to the analyst.

Two new iPhone models are expected to be improved versions of the prior generation, with most of the dramatic changes built into a premium handset unofficially referred to by some as “X” but pronounced “ten” in honour of the anniversary.

Loup Ventures partner Gene Munster said in a research note that the new premier iPhone “will be the biggest step forward in iPhone technology that we’ve seen since the original device launched 10 years ago”.

Some reports say the new iPhone will include a high-quality, edge-to-edge screen with a notch in the top for an extra camera supporting 3D facial recognition.

Others speculate that the back of the new handset will be glass and will offer wireless charging.

The most dramatic changes were expected in the premium model, which could go so far as to get rid of a home button that has been a main control feature since the iPhone debut.

Flicking or swiping gestures could replace the home button function, enabling the handset face to appear almost all-screen.

RBC Capital Markets said that a recent survey of iPhone 8 users in the US indicated “sizable pent-up demand and excitement around the upcoming iPhone launch” with wireless charging generating the most interest.

Augmenting reality

In 2007, Jobs billed his smartphone approach as blending liberal arts, design and technology. Today Apple is seen as needing a fresh spark, whether from the phone itself or from services or other devices like the Apple Watch.

Apple’s new iOS 11 operating system unveiled earlier this year boasts new camera features, the Siri digital assistant made smarter, and the potential for augmented reality applications.

Apple made an AR kit available to developers to create apps with the technology.

Adding 3D and computer vision hardware to an iPhone would “be a big step toward putting AR in the hands of everyday users”, Munster said.

Apple has taken to spotlighting the growing stream of revenue from selling content and services to the hundreds of millions of people using its devices.

“We believe Apple’s true differentiation is its unique computing ecosystem: iOS,” RBC Capital Markets said, referring to the mobile software powering the company’s creations.

“Simplistically, the scale of users attracts application developers, which in turn bolsters the number of users.”

LONDON — When Ingrid Caldironi decided to start living a more eco-friendly lifestyle, she made a few changes to her routine.

Caldironi bought a reusable coffee cup, started making her own beauty products and tried to stop buying packaged products.

But she soon hit a wall.

Most British supermarkets sell few unpackaged products, and she was spending most of her weekends roaming London in search of loose vegetables and bulk coffee.

So she decided to open her own shop: the only “zero-waste” store in London, which sells foods in bulk, products made out of waste and durable alternatives to typical throwaway products such as plastic cutlery, razors and sponges.

“I want to help people understand that it’s not difficult to be sustainable,” Caldironi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at her store, Bulk Market, in east London.

“When people change their behaviours, and they start demanding something different, then companies will need to change,” she added.

Bulk Market opened last week and sells everything from rice to dog food to cakes, catering for customers who want to leave no trace with their consumption. 

It currently serves about 50 people a day, from young families to older customers, in a small, white-walled store lined with glass bins, wooden tables and wicker baskets.

As Caldironi talked, she sipped sparkling water infused with wonky cucumbers — destined for landfill due to their shape — in a can made of aluminium, a widely recycled material.

Dozens of similar, package-free shops have opened across the world, from Copenhagen to Montreal, as a response to mounting concerns about plastic pollution and food waste.

Plastic planet

According to researchers, humans have produced more than 8 billion tons of plastic since the 1950s, with most of it discarded in landfills or the wider environment, hurting ecosystems and human health. 

Most of the plastics that do get recycled — less than 10 per cent of the total — can only be recycled once before they too end up in landfills, while other materials, such as the aluminium, used in drink cans, can be recycled indefinitely. 

Packaging is the largest market for plastic and the petroleum-based product accelerated a global shift from reusable to single-use containers, researchers said. 

Fed up with how government and business are responding to the climate change emergency, a fast-growing group of individuals is taking matters into its own hands.

Enter Bea Johnson, a California-based French blogger who rose to fame after she cut the yearly waste produced by her family of four to a single jar and published a guide to living waste-free.

“Recycling is not the solution to our environmental problems, Johnson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview. “It depends on way too many factors to be efficient.”

Instead, Johnson focuses her efforts on waste prevention, using five rules: refuse what you do not need, reduce what you own, reuse items instead of buying disposables, recycle only what you cannot refuse, reduce or reuse, and compost the rest.

Some of the main staples of the zero-waste lifestyle include bamboo toothbrushes, which can be composted, and stainless steel straws, paper towels and reusable sanitary products which do not need to be replaced as often as their throwaway counterparts.

Banana bread

A plethora of zero waste bloggers also provide recipes explaining how to use commonly thrown-away foods, such as bananas, broccoli stalks or stale bread.

The bulk containers provided in zero-waste stores such as Bulk Market allow customers to refill their own jars with the exact quantity of beans, spice or oil they need, cutting waste.

In Britain, an estimated 7 million tonnes of food and drink are thrown from homes each year, costing an average household about £470 ($604.89) a year, according to the Food Standards Agency, a government body.

Some EU countries, including France and Italy, have already adopted national measures to fight food waste. 

Britain still has among the lowest levels of food redistribution, whereby out-of-date but edible food is redistributed to people in need via charities and food banks.

Caldironi, a former marketing executive, also hopes to support local social enterprises such as Toast Ale, which makes beer out of surplus bread and Luminary Bakery, which employs female former inmates. 

“My place is going to be a place to show people you can have a different way of shopping — you can have a normal life, you don’t need to change so much,” Caldironi said.

But although the emphasis is on the impact small changes can have on the environment, many zero-waste advocates say the shift to a “circular economy” — which means reusing products and materials, producing no waste and pollution, and using fewer new resources and energy — can only be achieved with the help of businesses and governments.

“Citizens are making a big difference but it can’t all be on the shoulders of citizens,” Ariadna Rodrigo, product policy campaigner at Brussels-based advocacy group Zero Waste Europe, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“You need a change across the whole idea of how business is done.”

After years of growing doubt about the value of screening men for prostate cancer, a new analysis of existing clinical trial evidence has found that when men between 55 and 70 get the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, test, the result is lives saved.

In 2009, a New England Journal of Medicine editorialist famously called the debate over PSA testing for prostate cancer “the controversy that refuses to die”. That comment came with the publication of two clinical trials — one conducted in the United States, the second in Europe — that drew two contradictory conclusions on prostate cancer testing.

The US undertaking, called the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial, found that screening men for prostate cancer does not save lives. The European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer suggested that screening drove down the rate of deaths from prostate cancer by 20 per cent.

In 2012, a federally funded panel of experts on preventive care concluded there are more risks than benefits to screening American men for prostate cancer with the PSA test. And in April 2017, the US Preventive Services Task Force dumped the decision squarely into the laps of patients and their doctors. Some men between 55 and 69 years of age might well decide to get their PSA checked, the task force said. After hearing the ledger of pros and cons, however, others in that age bracket might just as reasonably skip the screening test, the panel concluded.

The new research, published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, now calls those recommendations into question. The authors of the study, led by biostatistician Ruth Etzioni of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, concluded that screening men over age 55 “can significantly reduce the risk for prostate cancer death”.

When men who fit the criteria for screening get the PSA test, the reduction in deaths due to prostate cancer was between 25 per cent and 32 per cent, the new study found.

But the newly published analysis also underscores that the value of prostate cancer screening rests heavily on which men you screen, where and for how long you conduct the clinical trial and how you crunch the numbers.

In the end, said Vanderbilt University urological surgeon Dr Sam Chang, the new analysis “reinforces what urological surgeons and treating physicians have thought all along: that PSA screening is helpful”.

But it is helpful, said Chang, only when it focuses on the right men — those between 55 and 70 — and when it is tempered by an understanding that not all worrisome findings are evidence of disease that should be treated aggressively.

Sometimes, said Chang, who was not involved in the newly published article, a man will get a problematic PSA test reading and decide not to act on it immediately or aggressively. But knowing there is a decision to be made is probably a better basis for planning than not knowing, he added.

“Over the past five to 10 years, there has been a better understanding by everyone about the harms of over-treatment,” Chang said. “You want to avoid over-diagnosis and over-treatment.”

Chang underscored that for two groups in particular — African American men and those with a first-degree relative who died of prostate cancer — knowing is especially important, because the risks of aggressive disease in such populations is much higher than for others. Neither group was the subject of special attention in the newly published analysis.

In an editorial published Monday alongside the new analysis, Andrew Vickers of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre also made clear that it’s what patients and their physicians do after the PSA test that matters most.

“Unfortunately, the way screening has been implemented in the United States leaves much to be desired,” Vickers wrote. “The controversy about PSA-based screening should no longer be whether it can do good but whether we can change our behaviour so that it does more good than harm,” he added.

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer found in men, affecting 101.6 of 100,000 American men, according to the Centres for Disease Control & Prevention. In 2013, the latest year for which figures are available, 176,000 got a diagnosis of prostate cancer and 28,000 died of it.

But a change in a man’s reading on the PSA test is a highly imperfect gauge of trouble: approximately 80 per cent of positive PSA test results are thought to produce false-positives, creating scares that prompt men to get biopsies. And treatment, which carries with it a high risk of subsequent difficulties with sexual function, urination and bowel movements, is often unnecessary because prostate cancers are often so slow-growing they will never make a man sick.

Not getting enough sleep? It could be adding to your waistline.

A United Kingdom study has found that people who sleep about six hours a night had a waist 3.05 centimetres larger than those getting nine hours of sleep a night.

The research, which was led by Laura Hardie of the University of Leeds, looked at 1,615 adults who reported how long they slept and kept records of food intake. Participants had blood samples taken and their weight, waist measurement and blood pressure recorded. The researchers also took into account age, ethnicity, sex, smoking and socioeconomic status. The findings were published in the journal PLOS One.

“Because we found that adults who reported sleeping less than their peers were more likely to be overweight or obese, our findings highlight the importance of getting enough sleep,” Hardie told the ScienceDaily.com website.

“How much sleep we need differs between people,” she added, “but the current consensus is that seven to nine hours is best for most adults.”

Lack of sleep was also linked to reduced levels of HDL cholesterol — the “good” cholesterol — a factor that can increase the risk of heart disease.

However, according to ScienceDaily, the study did not find any relationship between shortened sleep and a less healthy diet, a fact that surprised the researchers. Other studies have suggested that shortened sleep can lead to poor dietary choices.

As to why lack of shut-eye can increase weight, another study, which took place at the University of Chicago in 2012, found that signals from the brain that control appetite are affected by lack of sleep, the website reported. In particular, the hormones ghrelin, which increases appetite, and leptin, which indicates when the body is satiated, are impacted.

Another of the Leeds researchers, Greg Potter, said the number of people with obesity worldwide has more than doubled since 1980.

“Obesity contributes to the development of many diseases, most notably type 2 diabetes,” he told the website. “Understanding why people gain weight has crucial implications for public health.”

The chief reason why some people — a minority, certainly — still fight the trend to go full steam ahead in the IT cloud is the fear to see their data stolen, lost, hacked or misused. And yet, there are other reasons that make working online a nuisance. I am thinking of one of them more particularly: the way they handle online subscriptions, and the associated renewal and payment processes. From unfair practice, to downright deception, unethical attitude and time-consuming processes, it is not always a pleasant ride.

Whether it is a one-time purchase or a yearly subscription, most if not all online services want you to create an account, enter a lot of data and provide credit card details. Some will offer a free trial period, but will still ask you for your credit card details from the onset, “just in case” you decide to extend the trial period to a fully paid subscription. And you only find out after you spend long minutes painstakingly entering personal data!

Most of the antivirus software and e-mail hosting companies will automatically put you on “auto-renewal” mode. This means that after the first subscription period is over, they will automatically debit your credit card. You may notice the auto-renewal feature or you may not. If you do notice, some of the services will give you the option to go and untick the box so as to disable the auto-renewal; whereas one would expect such option to be turned off by default, and not the other way round.

The worst case of auto-renewal I have encountered, yet, is with the antivirus subscription by a well-known company, which name I will avoid mentioning here. There was no way for me to turn off the auto-renewal on the account by browsing the account on the website, and I had to call the company’s customer service on the phone. I was told that disabling this feature was not possible online but that they can do it for me, since I cared enough to call. When I confirmed that this is what I wanted they did not do it immediately, not before asking the usual annoying question: “Why? Wouldn’t you reconsider?”

There is worse. Some will ask you for your credit card details on the phone, which of course is against all known and accepted practices in terms of security. They do not necessarily mean or plan to misuse the info, but…

If what you are buying is software, you may want to deselect all automatic payments, if given the possibility to do so. Except in cases where you fully trust the seller, and automatic payment for updates of the software is really more convenient for you. Just remember that updates are frequent.

Among the online services that I found to behave very ethically when it comes to payments and renewals, and as examples only, I can mention Amazon, GoDaddy, Microsoft, Google, PayPal, Netflix and beIN Sports. To be fair I must say that almost all the big players in the cloud behave ethically. After all their reputation, and therefore their business, is at stake. They are too smart not to behave!

Perhaps a last, small advice from someone who handles countless online accounts and subscriptions of all kinds. Remember that it is a real market out there, just like the real-life physical market you may go to in downtown Amman for instance. Yes, bargaining is the word. With some online services, you can call them on the phone, tell them that you are considering renewing or buying more options, and that a nice discount would really be welcome. You would be surprised to see how many would respond positively, even if such discount usually remains within the limited 10 per cent to 20 per cent range. Unfortunately, not all such services provide customer support over the phone.