Features

LOS ANGELES — “Annabelle: Creation” may not be able to save the summer — which, after this weekend, will only fall farther behind last year’s pace — but it is doing its part to frighten audiences into theatres.

The latest from New Line and Warner Bros, which serves as the fourth instalment in what has become the “Conjuring” extended universe, is casting its evil eye on $35 million from 3,502 locations. That is a strong start for the horror flick, which was made for about $15 million.

The track record for the franchise is strong — “Annabelle” ($37.1 million); “The Conjuring” ($41.9 million); and “The Conjuring 2” ($40.4 million). David F. Sandberg directed the sequel about a dollmaker whose creation terrorises a group of orphan girls. For those invested in the “Conjuring” canon, it serves as a prequel to the first “Annabelle”. Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto star in the pic that critics have generally given a thumbs up to (it currently has an 68 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes).

“Annabelle is scary as hell,” said Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief at Warner Bros. “And it’s exciting to see how broadly audiences enjoyed it,” he said, adding, “I think our marketing team did a fabulous job.”

The same studio’s “Dunkirk” continues to show strong during its fourth weekend, as it holds onto second place. One of the lone bright spots in a generally dismal summer for the box office, Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic made an additional $10.9 million this weekend, pushing its domestic total past the $150 million mark.

While it landed in the top three, Open Road’s sequel “Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature” appears to be a miss. From 4,003 locations, the animated adventure earned $8.3 million. That is less than half of the first “Nut Job” movie, which opened to $19.4 million before going on to take in $120.9 million worldwide during its run. The sequel’s story centres around a group of animals who attempt to save their home from being bulldozed and turned into an amusement park.

After “Nut Job 2” is Sony’s “Dark Tower” which underperformed during its opening weekend and continues to slide. With $7.8 million from 3,451 locations, the movie looks to slip 59 per cent from its first frame. The same studio’s “Emoji Movie” came in with with $6.45 million from 3,219 theatres, just under the $6.47 million of Universal’s “Girls Trip” which is closing in on the $100 million milestone. That landmark was just met by Sony’s “Baby Driver”, which took in $1.5 million this weekend.

Meanwhile, Lionsgate’s new release “The Glass Castle” is pulling in $4.9 million from 1,461 locations. Those are meagre earnings, but also a low theatre count. The adaptation of Jeannette Walls’ hugely-popular 2005 memoir mostly appealed to women, who made up 80 per cent of the audience. Audiences have been generally receptive, earning the movie an A- CinemaScore, while critics are more mixed (50 per cent of RottenTomatoes). Brie Larson reunited with “Short Term 12” director Destin Daniel Cretton for the project, which also stars Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.

In limited release, Paramount’s “An Inconvenient Sequel” added 376 theatres this weekend for a total of 556 where it is expected to make $800,000. TWC expanded Taylor Sheridan’s “Wind River” to 45 locations, where it is earning $642,067 — the studio plans to continue the film’s expansion to between 600 and 700 locations next weekend. Neon’s “Ingrid Goes West”, starring Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen, should make $141,216 from just three locations. And A24’s Robert Pattinson-starrer “Good Time” is opening in four theatres to $137,625.

This time last year, “Suicide Squad” suffered a steep second weekend drop to $43.5 million. But that is still more than this weekend’s winner. And while Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon” faltered, Sony’s “Sausage Party” surprised with $34.3 million, or about the same as “Annabelle: Creation” this year. That is to say, the box office continues to slip behind, and the summer of hell is only getting hotter.

People living in homes with water damage, damp floors or visible mould are more likely to have chronic sinus problems and bronchitis, as well as allergies, asthma and other breathing disorders, according to a large study from Sweden. 

Researchers found that about 11 per cent of homes had visible signs of dampness — and the more signs were present, the higher the likelihood of residents having nose, throat and lung-related health problems, according to the report in Clinical and Experimental Allergy. 

“A lot of papers show an association between asthma-related symptoms and building dampness. What’s new is the association between chronic inflammation and building dampness,” said senior study author Christer Janson of Uppsala University. 

“This is an important finding as chronic inflammation is quite a common condition with a very negative side effect on quality of life,” he told Reuters Health by e-mail. “We were surprised that the association with building dampness was so strong.” 

The researchers analysed data from more than 26,000 adults in four Swedish cities who responded to a questionnaire about respiratory symptoms, smoking, education and environmental exposures. In particular, the study team was interested in chronic rhinosinusitis, which includes symptoms of runny nose, itchy nose, facial pain, reduced sense of smell, nasal congestion and sneezing. 

They identified dampness by asking about visible water damage, floor dampness or visible mold seen in the home during the last 12 months and gave participants a dampness exposure score based on how many of these signs were present. 

A total of 2,992 people, or 11.3 per cent, reported any signs of dampness. For 8.3 per cent of the study participants, one sign was present, for 2.3 per cent there were two signs and for 0.7 per cent all three signs were seen in the home. 

Reported dampness was more common in humid or mild climates, as compared to areas of the country with longer, colder winters. People reporting damp homes were more likely to be women, unemployed or full-time students, smokers and less likely to be retired. 

Compared to nonsmokers with no signs of dampness at home, nonsmokers with any dampness signs were 90 per cent more likely to have nighttime shortness of breath, 77 per cent more likely to have chronic rhinosinusitis and 67 per cent more likely to have chronic bronchitis. They also had higher rates of wheeze, nighttime coughing, asthma and allergies. 

For chronic rhinosinusitis, the authors note, the degree of increased risk from dampness for nonsmokers was about the same as the effect of smoking for people without dampness in the home. 

“I found it both interesting and alarming that the adverse effects were stronger among people with low socioeconomic status due to limited possibilities for moving to a better home or making needed renovations,” said Jouni Jaakkola of the University of Oulu in Finland, who wasn’t involved in the study. 

Future studies should look at long-term results to better understand cause and effect with dampness at home, Jaakkola told Reuters Health by e-mail. 

“Cross-sectional studies [like this one] may underestimate the effects if people who get symptoms in damp homes change to better homes,” he said. “This probably explains the interaction between socioeconomic status and damp problems.” 

Janson and Jaakkola recommended several online resources to help people prevent dampness and mold problems. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, has a mold-control primer on
EPA.gov (bit.ly/29fxO4Y) and so does the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on the CDC.gov website (bit.ly/2lxArWu). The World Health Organisation (WHO) offers brochures in PDF format on its European website here: (bit.ly/10VfGJq) and here: (bit.ly/2nGrpH4). 

These resources recommend locating moisture problems, removing molds and controlling excessive water and condensation at home. Leaky pipes and roofs are often the biggest issues, the WHO notes. Professional help may be needed for leaks in building structure, sewage and air ducts, otherwise mould-removal can be done at home with a protective mask, goggles and rubber gloves, according to the EPA. 

A mild detergent can remove the mould, followed by a full-room wet wiping or vacuuming after the spores are sealed in a plastic trash bag. 

“If there are signs of building dampness in your home or you have water damage, get professional help and try to fix it as soon as possible,” Janson said. 

Economic challenges in childhood may be linked to the early development of thicker artery walls that are known to underlie many cases of cardiovascular disease, according to a new study from Australia. 

Compared to kids from wealthier backgrounds, kids from low-income families and neighbourhoods had thicker walls in the carotid arteries that provide blood to the brain. 

The buildup of plaque and cells on the inner lining of arteries — known as the intima-media — narrows the passage for blood and is called atherosclerosis, said Dr David Burgner of Melbourne University. 

“So the intima-media thickness of the carotid artery is a good measure of the extent of atherosclerosis and it is easily measured by an ultrasound of the neck, even in young children,” Burgner told Reuters Health in an e-mail. “In adults, carotid intima-media thickness is used clinically to assess the risk of future cardiovascular disease.” 

Atherosclerosis can affect any artery. In the coronary arteries, advanced atherosclerosis can lead to heart attacks. In the carotid arteries, it can lead to stroke. 

For the new study, children from 1,477 families were recruited into the study before their first birthday and examined every two years starting in 2004. The thickness of the children’s carotid intima-media was evaluated in 2015. 

When the researchers divided the children into four groups according to their family’s economic background, they found that the most economically disadvantaged children were 46 per cent more likely than children from the wealthiest families to have the thickest intima-media measurements. 

The increased thickness means those children’s veins work as if they are at least eight years older than they really are, the research team writes in the Journal of the American Heart Association. 

Neighbourhood economics were also tied to the condition of the children’s artery walls, researchers found. 

Social and economic status as a toddler was tied to the risk of thick artery walls as a adolescent. 

“It was striking that the socioeconomic status so early in life was associated with increased carotid intima-media thickness by mid-childhood; this is not an age when cardiovascular disease risk is often considered,” said Burgner, who is also affiliated with Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and Monash Childrens Hospital. 

He emphasised that the new study cannot say whether poverty causes children to have thicker intima-media.

Nor can it predict if these children will have heart problems or strokes later on.

“However, given the wealth of other work in adults, our findings add to the consensus that social inequality may have broad adverse health consequences from an early age,” said Burgner. 

“For individual families, minimising the known risks for cardiovascular disease — regular exercise, healthy diet, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight etc — remain the cornerstone of prevention.” 

Brimming with an air of authenticity, desirability and attainability by equal measure, the Dodge Charger is a rare breed by virtue of existence as a large non-luxury brand rear-wheel-drive saloon of the sort that was mainstream not too long ago. 

With moody design, rear-drive dynamics, extensive equipment, superb comfort, well-appointed interiors and visceral appeal by the truckload, the Charger is a standout and competes both with mostly uninspiring large front-drive saloons and rear-drive models now almost exclusively pitched as “premium” by manufacturers.

Dramatic design

Based on a Mercedes platform when re-introduced as a nameplate in 2006 — during the brand’s Daimler-Chrysler era — as the LX series and later evolving into the LD series as of 2012, the Charger has been in continual development since. The closest modern interpretation of the traditional large American saloon with up-to-date technology and drive-train, the Charger’s closest Australian Ford Commodoure and Holden Commodoure-based Chevrolet SS contemporaries have, however, fallen by the wayside, with both Ford and General Motors ceasing Australian model-line production.

Discretely influenced by the classic 1969 Dodge Charger coupe without being overtly “retro”, the contemporary Charger is a dramatic design with deep-set slim grille and rounded heavily browed lights an LED outline. Large, assertive and with a palpable sense of motion, the Charger features subtly scalloped bonnet edges, sculpted and deeply ridged surfacing at the flanks, a rakishly descends roofline and full-width rear lights harking back to iconic chargers of yesteryears, and in sportier top spec entry-level 3.6-litre engine SXT Rallye variant, it receives upgraded 20-inch alloy wheels.

Progressive delivery

Entry-level engine in a model range that includes heavy-hitting 370BHP R/T, 485BHP SRT and supercharged 707BHP SRT Hellcat large displacement V8 variants, the SXT Rallye is, however, no slouch. A modern and more efficient engine with its own charms, the SXT Rallye’s 3.6-litre DOHC V6 gains is tuned to develop an additional 8BHP and 4lb/ft over standard SE and SXT version. With a total of 300BHP at 6400rpm and 264lb/ft, the Rallye is estimated to cross the 0-100km/h benchmark in 6.2 seconds and onto a 225km/h top speed, and just 0.7 seconds and 10km/h behind the 5.7-litre Charger R/T. 

Weighing in at 135kg less and with a 600rpm higher rev-limit at 6400rpm, the Rallye differs somewhat in character to the lower-revving and more old-school R/T and its thick, rich wave of 395lb/ft torque and languidly muscular delivery. Despite a power and torque disadvantage, the Rallye is nonetheless peppy and brisk with a broad and well-developed mid-range torque sweet spot for easy overtaking and flexibility. The Rallye’s more progressive power and torque buildup, however, provide a sportier and more rewarding character where one has to work the engine harder.

Balance and agility

With its longer rev range and more progressive delivery, the Charger Rallye features improved throttle control and a more fluent driving style over the R/T model, and allows one to more accurately dial in power to the rear wheels without suddenly overwhelming rear traction and setting off stability control interventions. Driving the rear wheels through a slick and smooth shifting 8-speed automatic gearbox the Rallye benefits from a broad range of ratios for responsive acceleration, versatile mid-range performance and efficient and refined cruising. 

Significantly lighter than the R/T V8 Charger models and with less weight concentrated in front, the 1799kg SXT Rallye may not exactly be a lightweight model in absolute terms, but feels noticeably more agile and eager through corners. Turning in tidily and responsively with good front grip, quick and precise 2.6-turn electric-assisted steering, standard Rallye spec “sport suspension”, it feels balanced through corners, with good body lean control for its size and weight. Nippier and more manoeuvrable than the R/T, the Rallye feels crisper and tidier, with under-steer seemingly reduced.

Smooth and spacious

Stable and smooth at speed and through corners, as driven on track and through handling courses, the SXT Rally is confident through corners, with good grip and predictable oversteer and weight shift when provoked, owing to its long wheelbase. A refined, well-insulated and comfortable ride, the Rally seemed forgiving and supple despite its huge low profile 245/45R20 tyres, and with good vertical and rebound control, but admittedly, with test drive was on a smoothly surfaced track, and not on imperfect public roads. 

A refined, comfortable and well-equipped large saloon, the Charger cabin has a distinctly sporty style with clear instrumentation, driver-oriented centre console and high waistline and low roofline for a hunkered down ambiance. Big well-cushioned seats offer terrific comfort and are set somewhat high, which in front helps with visibility. In the rear, leg and shoulder room is very generous, while headroom is fine, but could be better still if the seats were set lower. Equipment levels are generous and include an intuitive and versatile Uconnect infotainment system, while materials, fit and finish are of good quality.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3.6-litre, all-aluminium, in-line V6-cylinders

Bore x Stroke: 96 x 83mm

Compression ratio: 10.2:1

Valve-train: Chain-driven, 24-valve, DOHC

Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, rear-wheel-drive, electronic limited-slip differential

Gear ratios: 1st 4.71 2nd 3.14 3rd 2.10 4th 1.67 5th 1.29 6th 1.0 7th 0.84 8th 0.67

Reverse/final drive ratios: 3.30/2.62

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 300 (304) [224] @6350rpm

Specific power: 83.2BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 166.75BHP/tonne

Torque lb/ft (Nm): 264 (358) @4800rpm

Specific torque: 99.3Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 199Nm/tonne

Rev limit: 6400rpm

0-100km/h: 6.2-seconds (est.)

Top speed: 225km/h (est.)

Fuel consumption, city/highway: 12.37-/7.58-litres/100km*

Fuel capacity: 70-litres

Fuel requirement: 91RON

Track, F/R: 1610/1620mm

Ground clearance: 124mm

Kerb weight: 1799kg

Weight distribution, F/R: 52 per cent/48 per cent

Aerodynamic drag co-efficiency: 0.304

Headroom, F/R: 981/930mm

Legroom, F/R: 1061/1019mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1510/1472mm

Hip room, F/R: 1428/1425mm

Cargo volume: 467-litres

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 11.5-metres

Lock-to-lock: 2.6-turns

Suspension F/R: Unequal double wishbones/multi-link

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated perforated discs 320 x 28mm/320 x 10mm

Tyres: 245/45R20

*Est. US EPA

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com Inc. is exploring a technology first developed for the US military to produce tasty prepared meals that do not need refrigeration, as it looks for new ways to muscle into the $700 billion US grocery business.

The world’s biggest online retailer has discussed selling ready-to-eat dishes such as beef stew and a vegetable frittata as soon as next year, officials at the startup firm marketing the technology told Reuters.

The dishes would be easy to stockpile and ship because they do not require refrigeration and could be offered quite cheaply compared with take-out from a restaurant. 

If the cutting-edge food technology comes to fruition, and Amazon implements it on a large scale, it would be a major step forward for the company as it looks to grab hold of more grocery customers shifting towards quick and easy meal options at home. 

Delivering meals would build on the company’s AmazonFresh service, which has been delivering groceries to customers’ homes for a decade. It could also complement Amazon’s planned $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods Market Inc. and Amazon’s checkout-free convenience store, which is in the test stage. 

The pioneering food-prep tech, known as microwave assisted thermal sterilisation, or MATS, was developed by researchers at Washington State University and is being brought to market by a venture-backed startup called 915 Labs, based in Denver. 

The method involves placing sealed packages of food in pressurised water and heating them with microwaves for several minutes, according to 915 Labs. 

Unlike traditional processing methods, where packages are in pressure cookers for up to an hour until both bacteria and nutrients are largely gone, the dishes retain their natural flavour and texture, the company said. They also can sit on a shelf for a year, which would make them suitable for Amazon’s storage and delivery business model.

“They obviously see that this is a potential disruptor and an ability to get to a private brand uniqueness that they’re looking for,” said Greg Spragg, a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive and now head of a startup working with MATS technology. “They will test these products with their consumers, and get a sense of where they would go.”

Amazon declined to comment.

Spragg’s company, Solve for Food, plans to acquire a MATS machine from 915 Labs that can make 1,800 packages an hour. The company aims to use the machine at a new food innovation centre in northwest Arkansas, near the headquarters of Wal-Mart. 

915 Labs also has an Arkansas connection: it is designing the beef stew and other dishes with a chef at the Bentonville-based Brightwater Centre for the Study of Food.

Walmart did not comment on whether it is looking into the technology.

Hiring food people 

‘like crazy’

MATS technology grew out of efforts by the US Army’s Natick laboratories more than a decade ago to improve food quality for soldiers in combat. Washington State University, a five-hour drive from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, received US funding and became the research hub for MATS.

915 Labs said it formed in 2014 and acquired the assets of a business called Food Chain Safety, which previously was working on MATS before facing financial trouble in 2013.

915 Labs also licensed the original patents from the university, its Chief Executive Michael Locatis said, and its MATS dishes are now pending US Food and Drug Administration approval.

In addition to ongoing work with the US military, the company has sold machines to the Australian government and to food companies in Asia. 

“They have to leapfrog to MATS because they don’t have the refrigerated supply chain like we have in the US,” said Locatis, who was an assistant secretary at the US Department of Homeland Security until 2013.

Amazon invited the startup to Seattle after learning about MATS technology last year at the SIAL Paris food trade show, according to Locatis.

In February, Amazon sent a team to Washington State University that met with Juming Tang, chair of the school’s biological systems engineering department and a key developer of the technology.

And in March, Amazon joined the university’s researchers and other companies in Seattle for the inaugural meeting of the Industrial Microwave Alliance, according to a university news release. The group’s mission is to “accelerate technology transfer of microwave-based food safety”.

“Amazon just started this,” Tang said in an interview. “They need to deliver meals to homes... They’re hiring food people like crazy.”

Not everyone sees why MATS would be worth pursuing. Some think packaged food would have little attraction to the generally high-income members of Amazon’s Prime shopping club.

“I get why new food processing systems that increase shelf life may be good for Amazon,” said Bentley Hall, CEO of fresh food delivery service Good Eggs. “I struggle to see how this solution addresses an actual consumer want or need better than fresh, prepared meals.”

MATS represents just one way Amazon is searching for an edge in the grocery business, to distinguish itself from incumbents like Kroger Co. 

The company has also filed for a trademark for cook-it-yourself meal-kits — a move that pushed down shares of Blue Apron Holdings Inc. — but has not yet detailed its plans for ready-to-eat meal delivery.

LaRose
Louise Erdrich
New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2016, Pp. 372

In her fifteenth novel, Louise Erdrich combines myth, hard-boiled reality and her own family history to tell an intense, emotionally charged story. The narrative unfolds on the cusp of a set of opposites which seem headed towards collision, but just as often meld together in unexpected ways. Set in North Dakota, on the boundary line between an Ojibwe reservation and the adjacent town of Pluto, “LaRose” is peopled by Native Americans and Americans of European descent, and many of mixed blood.

Sometimes the two communities seem at odds, at other times they coalesce. Still, none of the characters are mere symbols for their community. One learns a lot about the history and contemporary reality of the Ojibwes from their actions and memories, but each one is very individual and unpredictable. Erdrich obviously prefers characters who refuse to be defined by convention.

The most obvious opposite is between Native American culture as opposed to the “American way of life”. With the story weaving back and forth in time, this conflict is traced from the early days of outright extermination campaigns and land-grabs against Native Americans, to the era of forced assimilation of Indian youth in boarding schools, and up to the second millennium, by which time new generations have created their own synthesis of both worlds.

Parallel to this is the Native American belief system where only a thin veil separates the living from the spirit world inhabited by their dead ancestors. Many of the characters adhere to both the Catholicism brought by missionaries and their traditional beliefs.

A five-year-old boy gives his name to the novel for he is at the heart of these opposites. He is the fifth LaRose in a family that has had someone of that name in each generation since the late 19th century, each possessing special powers, such as communing with the spirit world, leaving their own body, flying, healing and fighting off demons. LaRose is also representative of the new generation`s fusion of the traditional and the contemporary. He has direct access to the spirit world but is also a typical child of his times, playing with American superheroes. Most of all, he is at the centre of the main conflict with which the novel opens.

Aiming for a deer while out hunting, La Rose`s father, Landreaux Irons, accidently shoots and kills Dusty, the five-year-old son of his neighbour and good friend, Peter Ravich. Faced with this seemingly irreparable tragedy, fearing that no one in either family can go on living, Landreaux and his wife, Emmaline, resort to traditional practices and decide to give their son to the Ravich family. This “unspeakable gift” [p. 17] guides the rest of the plot to explore two themes —how this unusual trade-off will affect the two families, both parents and siblings, and whether it will fulfill the criteria of justice, heal the Ravichs` pain and keep them from seeking revenge. Erdrich seems to be asking if there are other, more merciful and inventive ways to right a wrong besides the crime-and-punishment paradigm society most often relies on. Yet, one doesn’t know until the end if it works, whether LaRose can bridge the abyss between the two families, and whether Emmaline can survive the separation.

The themes of justice, retribution, revenge and how to live with the past, recur in several of the novel`s sub-plots. Romeo, a prescription-drug addict, harbours a grudge against Landreaux from when the two ran away from boarding school together. He is obsessed with schemes of revenge, all the while the Irons are raising his son for whom Romeo cannot shoulder responsibility. As the younger generation comes of age, the Irons and Ravich children experience bullying and worse, but find new ways to chart their own course and resolve conflicts, encouraged by Marine-turned priest Father Travis. For his part, Father Travis is still haunted by the death of his fellow Marines in the Beirut bombing, but has learned that violence only begets violence and is enraged when his country invades Iraq.

As the people of the reservation watch the start of the war on television, the questions of justice, revenge and retribution are raised to a new level. The Ojibwe have extra reasons to be sceptical of government claims, particularly about weapons of mass destruction. “Oh please! Everyone in North Dakota lived next door to a weapon of mass destruction. Right down the road, a Minuteman missile stored in its underground silo was marked only be a square of gravel.” [p. 295]

Erdrich is a gifted storyteller. Her imagination seems boundless, and she is equally adept at evoking the comic, ironic and tragic sides of life. Her prose is dense and poignant, whether describing the beauties of nature or chronicling the actions of human beings, be they noble or despicable and their consequences. Her non-linear technique enables her to bring together many subplots and themes, revealing the connections between them, and between past and present, and giving each event and character deeper significance.

SAN JOSE, California — Watching video online is getting more social.

Facebook introduced a platform Wednesday called Watch that will allow users to discover new shows that their friends are also viewing.

“Watching a show doesn’t have to be passive. It can be a chance to share an experience and bring people together who care about the same things,” wrote Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in a post.

Taking on Google-owned YouTube and Twitter, it is Facebook’s latest effort to get more video content on the social network. The move also allows the company, which has more than 2 billion monthly users, to go after more lucrative video ad dollars.

Other tech firms such as Amazon, Netflix and Apple have also tried to entice more users to spend more time on their sites by releasing video content. But if Facebook wants to become like Netflix, some analysts say it will be a taller order for the tech firm because people do not associate the website with long-form television shows.

Videos on YouTube, on the other hand, are shorter in length and also include comments from viewers.

“When you say a YouTube video that conjures a set of qualities that are very different from a Netflix show. I think there’s a big gap between those type of experiences and it depends where Facebook wants to sit on that spectrum,” said Paul Verna, an analyst with eMarketer.

Verna said he thinks Facebook is trying to sit somewhere in the middle.

“They want to be more than a one-minute viral cat video or a Tasty recipe video, but they don’t necessarily want to be the place to go where people watch ‘Game of Thrones’ or ‘Orange Is the New Black,’” he said.

Longer video content also gives companies “more of a runway for more advertising”, he said.

Facebook’s director of product Daniel Danker wrote in a blog post that the company believes that Watch will “be home to a wide range of shows, from reality to comedy to live sports”.

Danker pointed to baseball games, a cooking show for kids by Tastemade and a reality show called “Nas Daily” as some of its offerings. Some of these shows like a series called “Returning the Favour” hosted by Mike Rowe have episodes that run for about 20 minutes, screenshots of Watch show.

The tech firm said Watch will be available to a limited group of people in the United States, but did not say how many and when.

Facebook also said that it is funding shows that are community-oriented and have a series of episodes, but did not specify the amount.

Other social media sites including Twitter have also been striking partnerships to bring more original content to its website. Like Twitter, Facebook has also been emphasising the social conversations that happen while watching video.

Facebook users will be able to see through different sections what are the most talked about shows, what is making people use the “Haha” reaction emoji and what their friends are viewing.

Meanwhile, the company has been making a push to become “video first” by rolling out a live video tool and Snapchat-like Stories features that allow videos and photos to disappear after 24 hours.

But with Watch only available to a limited number of people, analysts say questions remain about whether people will be tuning into these shows on Facebook.

“There’s a lot that’s up in the air about how this is going to play out,” Verna said. “But they have succeeded so far in becoming a video-centric platform if nothing else.”

A new lozenge containing the amino acid L-cysteine is an effective, nontoxic smoking-cessation product, according to researchers in Finland. 

At least two US experts are not convinced, however. 

The study was conducted by Dr Kari Syrjanen who, along with five coauthors, works in Helsinki for Biohit Oyj, the company that funded the study and markets the lozenge as Acetium. 

L-cysteine is an amino acid that eliminates acetaldehyde, a compound in cigarettes believed to play a role in tobacco addiction by enhancing the brain’s responses to nicotine. 

The research team recruited close to 2,000 cigarette smokers online and randomly assigned about half to use the L-cysteine lozenge with every single cigarette they smoked for six months, and the other half to use a dummy lozenge. 

All participants kept an electronic diary, recording the number of cigarettes smoked and how much they enjoyed smoking each one. 

Altogether, 753 people followed the directions for the entire study, and another 944 followed the directions most of the time, according to the report in Anticancer Research. 

Over six months, 331 people who finished the whole study quit smoking: 181 (18.2 per cent) who took the L-cysteine lozenge and 150 (15 per cent) who took the placebo. 

Among those who adhered strictly to the directions, 170 (45.3 per cent) who took the L-cysteine lozenge quit smoking compared with 134 (35.4 per cent) who took the placebo. 

Less smoking pleasure and “smoking sensations changed” were given as strong reasons for quitting. Six per cent of participants in the study reported adverse events (although the researchers did not collect the details), and the rate was about the same in both groups. 

Dr Scott Sherman, codirector of the Section on Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug Use at NYU Langone Medical Centre in New York called the study “promising” but said the lozenge “is not ready for prime time”.

The results are “modest”, he told Reuters Health by e-mail. The researchers did not compare the lozenge to other smoking-cessation treatments, he noted, and it is not clear if it would have worked as well if participants were not required to complete the daily diary. 

The lozenge is not available in the US, and other formulations of L-cysteine might not work as well as the one that was tested, Sherman noted. “If the manufacturer wanted to sell the product in the US and claim that it helps with quitting smoking, it would need to be approved and regulated by the Food and Drug Administration,” he said. 

Most successful smoking-cessation interventions also include behaviour counselling, she added. “If you have somebody you’re accountable to, it makes you feel better.” 

Fully computerised unmanned vehicles are around the corner. On the ground or in the air, we will soon be carried by such cars or aircrafts. Will you go for it, will you trust them with your life?

Fail-Safe is a fiction written by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler that dates back to 1964 and that tells of a narrowly avoided all-out nuclear war between the USA and what was then the Soviet Union. The false alarm was triggered because of an electrical malfunction in a control device circuit on the American side.

Although that was well before the digital and high-tech era, I still recall most of the details of the book that I read when it was released and I was in my early teens, and I cannot help now but linking it to what we are living today with global networks and our heavy, steadily growing dependence on computer systems in most everything we do or go through.

Digital systems errors happen every day and will continue to happen. You can always come up with explanations, that it is “nothing but” a programming error, that it is an electrical malfunction, a severe snowstorm that has torn the fibre optic cable, that hackers, terrorists, rogue IT geniuses and bad guys of all kinds took control and caused the problem. What counts is the result: a catastrophe has taken place, with various levels of damage, regardless of how it happened or who did it.

Missing a train because of a computer’s fault is one thing and losing your life in a train accident because of such a fault is another. Last week a major technical failure at the Montparnasse train station in Paris, France, severely disturbed the already congested summer holiday railway traffic for three consecutive days. No one was hurt except perhaps emotionally.

We have learnt to live with the hazards and the imperfection of digital technology, from wrong bank statements to smartphone malfunction, virus attacks, lost files, broken wireless connectivity, and everything in between. However, when it is your very life that is directly at stake, like in driverless cars or pilotless airplanes, one has the right to stop and think twice. For the consequence of technical failures in such cases is a terminal, irreversible damage.

There are those who are in favour of unmanned vehicles, who are strongly inclined to trust them, who cannot wait to see them in action on the streets and in the air. I am one of them.

Given that nothing is 100 per cent guaranteed and that no one, no system and no device will ever provide such absolute level of safety, unmanned vehicles will probably be safer in the end than manned ones, all things considered.

At least I can be sure that if I ever ride a driverless car it will never be writing and sending a WhatsApp text message while in the middle of the 5th Circle in Jabal Amman at rush hour. I have seen this all too often.

Those against will remind you that last month a man was killed in the USA in a Tesla self-driving car that was being tested. Of course these unfortunate accidents are bound to happen. But again, the question should not be “are self-driving vehicles absolutely safe?” but “are not self-driving vehicles safer than manned ones?”

Which is not to say that the question is to be taken lightly. There are definitely things to do to make self-driving and self-flying machines as close as possible to being 100 per cent safe.

Development, testing, programming, manufacturing and all phases and aspects of this amazing technology that today is brewing under our very eyes, they can be carried out with increased thoroughness, with utmost care and rigour, with a level of accuracy and quality that should exceed anything done before.

I believe that those doing it, whether Tesla, Google or other parties involved in such research, are doing it right and are perfectly aware of the dire consequences that a less-than-perfect job could lead to. They are smart enough and know what is at stake here.

People whose blood pressure varies widely from day to day may be more likely to develop dementia than adults who have fairly steady blood pressure, a Japanese study suggests. 

Researchers examined data from one month of daily home blood pressure readings for 1,674 older adults without dementia. During the next five years, compared to individuals with little to no fluctuation, people with the most variations in blood pressure were more than twice as likely to develop dementia. 

“The present study demonstrated that an increased day-to-day blood pressure variation (measured at home) was significantly associated with the development of all-cause dementia, vascular dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease, regardless of average home blood pressure,” said lead study author Dr Tomoyuki Ohara, of the Graduate School of Medical Sciences at Kyushu University in Fukuoka City. 

While the study didn’t assess why this might be the case, it is possible that daily variation in blood pressure might cause changes in the brain’s structure and function that contribute to the development of dementia, Ohara said by e-mail. 

Consistently high blood pressure, or hypertension, is a known risk factor for dementia. Previous research has also shown a link between cognitive impairment and dementia and different blood pressure readings at the doctor’s office. 

Home monitoring might give a more reliable snapshot of blood pressure than tests at the doctor’s office because stress or anxiety about these exams sometimes leads patients to have higher blood pressure at the office than they do at home, a so-called “white coat” effect. 

Participants in the current study were 71 years old on average. For one month, they typically measured their blood pressure three times each morning before eating breakfast or taking medication. About 43 per cent of them took drugs to manage high blood pressure. 

Researchers reviewed data from blood pressure readings taken during that month, conducted cognitive testing to uncover the development of dementia, and reviewed medical records for the occurrence of stroke. 

Five years later, 134 participants had developed Alzheimer’s disease and 47 had developed what’s known as vascular dementia, which results from diminished blood flow to the brain and is often related to the occurrence of small strokes. 

People with the most variation in daily blood pressure readings at the start of the study were more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and almost three times more likely to develop vascular dementia, researchers report in Circulation. 

Among participants with the most variability in blood pressure, higher systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) in particular increased the risk of vascular dementia but did not appear to heighten the odds of Alzheimer’s disease. Systolic pressure is the pressure blood exerts against artery walls when the heart beats. 

One limitation of the study is that researchers lacked data on changes in blood pressure after the initial home monitoring period and did not have information on any lifestyle changes or medications people may have used to control blood pressure during the five-year follow-up period, the authors note. 

It’s also possible that fluctuations in blood pressure could be a symptom of cognitive decline in progress rather than a risk factor for developing dementia in the future, Dr Costantino Iadecola, director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York writes in an accompanying editorial. 

Iadecola noted that, presently, doctors do not know how to reduce variability in blood pressure. 

“The key question to be answered is whether interventions to control blood pressure variation, once available, would reduce dementia risk,” he said by e-mail. 

“In the meantime, the take-home message is that the health of the cardiovascular system is of paramount importance to the health of the brain,” Iadecola added. “Even if specific measures to target blood pressure variation may not be available at this time, maintaining general cardiovascular health through lifestyle changes (diet, exercise, etc.) and control of risk factors (diabetes, hypertension, smoking, obesity, etc.) remain the most sensible approaches to stave off dementia.”