Features

These days I have to repeat whatever I say at least twice, before someone my age or older, can understand what I’m saying. No, I’ve not started speaking in a foreign dialect. Not yet! That is my plan for next year when I begin to learn Portuguese, but for now, my conversations are mostly in a language that I’ve always spoken and which my companions have easily understood.

So, why is it that I have become completely inaudible of late? Have I started mumbling or has everyone else become hard of hearing? Do I not speak loud enough or has my generation turned a little deaf? Are my vocal chords failing along with my eyesight? What has poor vision got to do with muffled speech? Does it have a connection there somewhere? Am I missing something? 

I don’t know that but what I do realise, for a fact, is that I continue to misplace my reading glasses, several dozen times a day. The frequency, with which this happens, boggles my mind. I mean, one minute they are right there, perched precariously on the bridge of my nose, giving me a clear vision of all that I survey but the instant I am distracted, even momentarily, they simply vanish into thin air. Poof! Just like that!

And then the hunt begins, where I look under the chairs and over the tables, continuously uttering incoherent tirades on the side. After much searching, I find them and we are reunited for a short while, before they go missing all over again. It is not that the reading glasses trot off somewhere on its own, not at all. The thing is that I put them down on some flat surface and immediately forget where I have placed them. 

In order to better recall the placement of my glasses, I decided to announce where I put them, as a sort of verbal note to myself. For instance, if I was in the kitchen and had taken  them off there, I would say “kitchen counter” while placing them on the, well, kitchen counter. Thus before heading to the dining room, my brain would prompt me to pick up the discarded glasses from that precise place in the kitchen only. An enormous amount of precious time was saved by this simple exercise. Also, even though I could not spot them from a distance, I blindly followed where my oral reminder led me, and was instantly rewarded.

It was all working out rather smoothly for the last couple of months but suddenly, I got embroiled in the repetitive-conversation-syndrome vis-à-vis my peer group. Whenever I answered any of the questions put to me by any of them, the immediate response was either “what?” or “hain”? 

Both these terms mean the same thing, in English or Hindi but basically, I had to repeat myself, in a louder tone this time. Subsequently, all the recurrent talk interfered with my verbal notes on the placement of reading glasses, and it all became a giant muddle. In my head, that is. 

Recently, I had just proclaimed “tea tray” before dropping my glasses there, when my husband asked me for the car keys. 

“They are in the brown bag,” I articulated clearly. 

“What?” my spouse bellowed. 

“And my reading glasses are on the car tray,” I explained. 

“Hain?” he exclaimed. 

“Speak louder, where are the keys?” he queried. 

“In the tea bag,” I stated in a loud voice. 

WASHINGTON — Clad in a blue t-shirt and shorts, the average-size “man” is belted into a luxury Tesla Model S for a very short ride with a very abrupt end.

The collision sounded like an explosion and left the pristine electric car destroyed, glass and debris scattered around the sad remains.

The “man” — a technology-packed, 80kg crash test dummy — was the victim of a single-car crash at 65 kilometres per hour into a solid wall.

But the destruction is for the greater good. The dummy’s sensors send a vast array of data to show how he fared.

They tell how hard and how fast his head and body hit the steering wheel; the extent to which airbags cushioned the blow; how well the seatbelt worked; and whether any other body parts suffered injuries.

The results are used by automakers to make safer vehicles, and the process has dramatically reduced the number of deaths in traffic accidents.

Traffic deaths rising

But contemporary driving habits are challenging traditional efforts to keep the death rate on a downward trajectory.

In 2015, traffic deaths showed the biggest increase since 1966 and were up even more in the first half of 2016, climbing by over 10 per cent, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Distracted driving, including texting or talking on a cell phone while driving, accounted for over 3,000 deaths in 2014, with over 400,000 injured, NHTSA said.

Automakers need to figure out how to avoid accidents resulting from things like driver inattention, said Joseph Noland, senior vice president of vehicle research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Carmakers are adding features like electronic stability control, forward collision warning and autonomous emergency braking.

“These technologies are coming very, very quickly, and our studies show that many of them are very effective,” Noland told AFP.

But testing those new technologies is “really going to be a challenge for us”, he said.

Of the new technology features, IIHS so far only tests the automatic emergency braking.

IIHS, which is funded by the insurance industry, and NHTSA, a federal agency, are the only organisations in the United States that conduct crash tests.

With a budget of just over $5 million for the 80 high-speed crashes it conducts each year, IIHS estimates its test programmes have contributed to a dramatic decline in death rates: fatalities were cut by more than half between 1990 and 2012, to just 65 for every one million vehicles from 143.

“We look at the types of crashes that are injuring and killing real people right now on the roads, and then we develop tests to replicate that.”

The test that was used for the Tesla Model S, was a “small overlap” crash test first introduced in 2012 to simulate a crash into a pole or a tree. IIHS says many automakers have struggled with it.

The Tesla Model S did not receive the top rating of “good” in the initial test late last year, so the company requested a retest. Manufacturers have to earn good ratings in all five crash tests to be considered an IIHS Top Safety Pick.

In last year’s test, the driver crashed into the steering wheel hard, because the seatbelt spooled out too far, IIHS said. Tesla made changes to the design for vehicles built after October in an effort to address the problems.

For the tests, IIHS technicians send the car down a 430-metre tunnel pulled by a cable, a system similar to a ski lift, and just before impact, it is released from its tether.

To the casual observer, the Tesla crash looked terrifying, but the IIHS analysis will not be available for a week or two, at which point it will be clear whether Tesla was able to address the flaw and get a coveted top rating.

Jack R. Nerad, vice president at car reviewer Kelley Blue Book, told AFP the safety ratings are key for automakers because consumers gravitate towards the safer vehicles.

“They have changed car design very, very significantly. From the second they first hit the computer screen, the ratings are very important.”

Car graveyard

Car enthusiasts would be driven to tears by the carnage on display at the IIHS testing centre in rural central Virginia, two hours south of Washington, in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

There are smashed cars, trucks and SUVs lined up throughout the building, including a classic 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air, which was smashed into a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu. Suffice to say the Bel Air is nice to look at but not safe to drive.

The institute works with other national testing organisations through the Global New Car Assessment Programme to try to drive design changes worldwide.

The need for safety improvements in other countries was dramatically demonstrated when IIHS in October crashed a Mexican-made Nissan Tsuru — essentially the same as the 1992 US-made Nissan Sentra — into a 2016 Nissan Versa, a top safety pick. 

The result for the Tsuru driver, with no airbags or modern structural improvements, was devastating. Days before the test was to take place, Nissan announced it was suspending production of that model, one frequently used by Mexican taxi drivers.

Launched regionally at last year’s Qatar motor show and nominated for this year’s upcoming Middle East Car of the Year awards’ Compact Premium Performance SUV category, the Audi SQ5 TFSI is sporty but subtle and fast yet comfortable mid-size offering. Part of the German brand’s more discreet “S” performance line, rather than full-bore “RS” high performance vehicles, the SQ5 is a spacious and smooth riding sports SUV and consistently quick and capable performer powered by a supercharged 3-litre V6 engine, like its Jaguar F-Pace rival.

Planted posture

A relative latecomer to the region, with a new second generation standard Q5 model soon due and even a similarly powered model line topping successor SQ5 previewed at the recent Detroit motor show, the current SQ5, nevertheless, holds its own in terms of performance, technology, dynamics and design. Taut and elegant in design with slim headlights flanking a snouty and dominantly large grille, subtly muscular surfacing and gently sloping roofline, the SQ5 has a defined if discreet presence and discernible aesthetic sense of cohesive solidity.

With its long bonnet, short rear overhand complemented by quad rear tailpipes and upturned lower bumper air splitter style section and tailgate spoiler, the SQ5 sits on the road with and an alert and urgent demeanour. Meanwhile, its more prominent side sills and larger 21-inch alloy wheels lend it a more planted and road-hugging stance than garden variety Q5 versions. Riding on 255/40R21 tyres, the SQ5 grips well and steers precisely through corners, while low CD0.36 aerodynamic drag benefits cabin refinement and fuel efficiency.

Consistent
and confident

Consistent and progressive yet confident and generous throughout its rev range owing to its mechanically linked supercharger’s ability to boost more responsively than an exhaust gas driven turbocharger, the SQ5 pounces off the line with a sense of immediacy. Producing a maximum 349BHP at a peaky 6000-6500rpm plateau, and 347lb/ft at a rich 4000-4500rpm mid-range, the 2005kg SQ5 races through the 0-100km/h benchmark in 5.3-seconds and can attain 250km/h. Driven through a smooth and slick 8-speed automatic gearbox, the SQ5 also returns modest-for-its-class 12.3l/100km combined cycle fuel efficiency.

Responsive at low-end, flexible in mid-range and urgently howling as it reaches for its top-end, the SQ5’s supercharged 3-litre V6 engine demonstrates all-round ability and benefits from good throttle response.

Brisk and willing, the SQ5 also benefits from a broad range of gear ratios to get the most of its engine’s abilities in terms of outright performance, on-the-move versatility and refinement and efficiency. Smooth in operation and delivery, the SQ5’s engine is complemented by concise gear shifts and large, capable and effective ventilated disc brakes.

Settled and committed

With its V6 engine slung close to but just forward of and pushing down on its front axle and driving all four wheels through Audi’s trademark Quattro system, the SQ5 generates huge levels of traction for launching confidently off the line and for driving over loose surfaces. Distributing its power between front and rear wheels as and when necessary, the SQ5’s road-holding is sure-footed through corners, while a relatively low centre of gravity for an SUV, in addition to taut dampers, ensure body roll is kept well in check for its class.

Tidy into corners with little hint of its slightly nose heavy configuration, the SQ5’s suspension settings and quick, precise and meaty steering lend it an unexpected agility. Pushed hard through tight corners, the SQ5’s grip is resolute, but with a slight instinct towards under-steer were it to be pushed to its high grip threshold. At speed the SQ5 is reassuringly stable and planted, with a settled ride and buttoned down vertical reflexes on rebound. Ride quality is smooth and forgiving, if slightly on the firmer side compared to non-performance oriented SUVs of similar size.

Refined and spacious

A smooth and refined ride with terrific noise, vibration and harshness isolation, the SQ5’s cabin is a luxurious and well-appointed environment with quality textures and materials aplenty. Well-assembled with sturdy feeling build quality and rich with leather upholstery and metal accents, the SQ5’s business-like yet sporty cabin features logical layouts and user-friendly interfaces, including an intuitive infotainment system and big chunky sports steering wheel. With level waistline and reversing camera visibility and manoeuvrability are good, while a panoramic roof adds an airy ambiance. 

Comfortable and supportively well-bolstered and adjustable front seats provide an upright and alert driving position. Meanwhile, rear seating is spacious with generous legroom and headroom even for tall and large occupants. Rear door access is also good and cargo capacity accommodatingly spacious, and includes electric tailgate. 

Well-equipped, the SQ5 features tri-zone climate control, Bluetooth connectivity and LED and xenon lights, while the driven car featured a high quality Bang and Olufsen sound system, adaptive cruise control, adaptive lights and front sports seats.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3-litre, supercharged, in-line V6-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 84.5 x 89mm

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

Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Ratios: 1st 4.714; 2nd 3.143; 3rd 2.106; 4th 1.667; 5th 1285; 6th 1; 7th 0.839; 8th 0.667

Reverse/final drive: 3.317 / 3.076

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 349 (354) [260] @6000-6500rpm

Specific power: 116.5BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 174BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 347 (470) @4000-4500rpm

Specific torque: 156.9Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 234.4Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 5.3-seconds

Top speed: 250km/h

Fuel consumption, combined: 12.3-litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 284g/km

Fuel capacity: 75-litres

Length: 4644mm

Width: 1911mm

Height: 1624mm

Wheelbase: 2813mm

Track, F/R: 1638 / 1632mm

Overhangs, F/R: 896 / 935mm

Headroom, F/R: 1043 / 990mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1465 / 1432mm

Unladen weight: 2005kg 

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.36

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning Circle: 11.6-metres

Suspension: Multi-link

Brakes: Ventilated discs, 381mm / 330mm

Tyres: 255/40R21

PARIS — It is a humdrum secondhand clothing store in one of the most down-at-heel districts of the French capital.

But for designer Francisco Terra and other rising stars of the Paris catwalk, the shop stuffed with shirts and skirts that sell for the price of a coffee is “a temple of fashion research”.

Terra loves the place so much he held his Paris fashion week show in the store, the flagship “friperie” of the Guerrisol chain.

“It is not just people who don’t have much money who shop here,” the creator behind the Neith Nyer label said, “but all the stylists of the big labels who come to do their homework”.

His show comes only six weeks after hip brand AVOC presented their menswear collection in another more upmarket vintage store.

With high street chains going hell for leather for throwaway fashion, those in the know are embracing better quality vintage clothing, while designers are turning to secondhand and charity shops for inspiration.

Parisian friperies where the poor still buy pre-owned shoes and suits are now the haunt of hipsters and fashionistas looking for clothes that help them stand out.

Putting together “a look is all about the exclusivity of the piece”, said Brazilian-born Terra, who worked for Givenchy and Carven before striking out on his own.

“Today with mass market fast fashion, you can only find that in vintage of secondhand shops,” he added.

‘Upcycled’ jeans

Influenced by Margiela and Jean Paul Gaultier, two fashion houses who have long embraced the art of recycling, 34-year-old Terra began to repurpose clothes for his own brand, which he named after his Austrian grandmother.

His new show is set in a fictional future Tokyo in 2083. Faced with a chaotic economy, young people are forced to patching their ancestors’ old clothes together to create their new styles.

The storyline was inspired by the Japanese capital’s thriving secondhand stores, Terra said, which often rework old clothes.

Upcycling, as remaking existing clothes is called, has long been the trademark of a number of Paris labels, including streetwear brand Andrea Crews.

Upcycled jeans made from cut up old Levi’s were also one of the things that helped make French brand Vetements the label of the moment.

Vintage is also a major theme at a trade fair running alongside Paris fashion week, which this year contains a shop bringing together some of the capital’s “pre-worn” designer stores and the online luxury secondhand site Vestiaire Collective.

Amnaye Nhas, a manager of one such luxury Paris store, Thanx God I’m a VIP, said sales rocket during the runway shows, particularly when labels revisit historic looks for coats and aviator jackets.

Vintage can be reassuring. 

Her store only sells clothing from the very top designer labels. They refuse to handle anything in synthetic fibre and outfits have to be in perfect condition, she said. 

With prices ranging from 40 euros to 2,000 ($42 to $2,100), Nhas said their clients are demanding and know what they want.

A green toned Leonard silk jacket is on sale for 995 euros, while a 1978 Burberry coat is priced at 450 euros.

“Some customers are real sticklers for designer labels,” she said, “but others would normally shop in high street stores like Zara and just want to find something original to wear with that.”

Fashion historian Manuel Charpy said vintage mania is nothing new.

“In the 19th century secondhand clothing was much more important than today, completely dominating the mass market” and items were sold again and again, he said.

The current hunger for vintage began out of economic necessity after the financial crisis of 2008, said trends specialist Cecile Poignant.

The success of the American television series “Mad Men”, set in the early 1960s also helped, she said. 

Vintage clothes “give people reassurance and historical anchorage in changing times”, Poignant added.

“It all has to do with the sense of insecurity people are living with today. We are a lot less sure than we were 30 years ago that the future will be brighter.”

BARCELONA — The car of the future will let you pay for petrol or parking directly from your vehicle and receive traffic alerts and restaurant recommendations from your on board digital assistant.

Connected cars — or “mobile phones on wheels” — will be able to do those things and more, including communicate with each other on the road and with the infrastructure around them through their computer networks.

And they will, of course, be able to drive themselves. 

Prototypes, fitted with the next generation 5G wireless communications network, turned heads at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. 

But as the excitement and novelty over connected cars grows, vehicle, tech, and telecom firms are struggling with how to handle the inevitable legal and ethical issues.

Add to that the risk of cyber attack and reliability issues surrounding a fast and stable Internet connection and connected cars face many obstacles before they can ever be set loose. 

“Connected cars pose a significant risk from a cyber security perspective,” said Jeff Massimilla, head of cybersecurity at General Motors, during a discussion at the MWC.

This is the industry’s biggest worry: hacking.

A hacker could easily take over a car’s network and disable brakes, the transmission, or simply shut the car down.

And that worry is hardly unfounded: Connected cars were hacked in 2015 during testing. 

According to data presented Monday by Masayoshi Son, chief executive of telecoms giant SoftBank, cyber attacks against connected objects — objects with Internet connectivity — have multiplied by four and five times between 2015 and 2016.

To mitigate the risks, telecom and vehicle firms have teamed up to enhance collaboration.

“We cannot do it alone,” said tech executive Ogi Redzic, who heads the connected vehicles services at Renault-Nissan.

Renault-Nissan partnered with Microsoft last September, and its cars plan to use Microsoft Cortana as a digital assistant.

Three years ago, Volkswagen acquired Blackberry’s European research and development centre, a group of 200 engineers, to update its connected software.

‘Bandwidth issues’

The success of connected vehicles will also hinge on the ability of an internet network to enable lightning-quick downloads or support split-second activities, such as the automatic traffic movement of driverless cars.

The current 4G standard enables fast broadband access via mobile smart phones, but government and manufacturers see the next generation enabling connection speeds of up to 1,000 times faster than current ones.

“When there will be many [connected] cars on the roads, there will be flow and bandwidth issues to make the system work,” said Guillaume Crunelle, an automotive analyst at Deloitte. 

The new, fifth generation of mobile networks is expected to enable communications between cars and infrastructure, automated manoeuvres such as overtaking and braking, and emergency warning and call systems, among others.

Commercialisation of 5G is not expected to start before 2020, however, as companies and governments negotiate to try to standardise norms between different countries for smooth 5G use worldwide.

“The 5G vehicle reacts swiftly in case of accident and transmits the information to neighbouring cars,” said Changsoon Choi, a senior manager at SK Telecom.

Driverless cars will require better GPS-tracking systems and the creation of more detailed digital maps in order to avoid possible obstacles.

In terms of infrastructure, “there are enormous investments to be made so that a vehicle can communicate with a parking system, traffic lights, road signs” said Mouloud Dey, the director of innovation and business development at analytics firm SAS.

“We still have no idea who will finance that type of thing.” 

Driverless cars also pose moral and legal dilemmas.

Will vehicles be designed to protect their passengers at all costs, even if they have to plough through a crowd of pedestrians to do so?

Who will bear the responsibility of an accident? The manufacturer, the vehicle owner or the network provider?

“We show a certain leniency to human driving errors that we won’t necessarily show for a machine,” Crunelle said. “We will have to make a decision on the life and death of some.”

“I don’t know who on the regulatory level will want to take on that responsibility.”

“Consumers are ditching their $2,000 DSLR camera for this incredible $50 lens”. “Make $4,000 per month, online and without leaving home, quickly, easily”. “The miracle natural food that kills cancerous cells and that drug companies are afraid you may discover”. “Learn a foreign language in three weeks”. “The 8-minute surgery that will give you superhuman vision. Forever”. “Five foods never to eat because they lower your testosterone”. “The ultimate way to get cheap hotel rooms.” In short, nothing but miracles, waiting for you to click a web link to happen.

Such silly claims have become a daily nuisance, whenever you are logged on the Internet, browsing any website. Since for most of us “whenever” is tantamount to “all the time”, this makes the situation all the more annoying. These deceptive, grossly misleading Internet ads used to make me smile for I would just go past them, ignoring them, not clicking on any part of the ad.

Now they don’t make me smile anymore. They have become real nuisances and a pure waste of time. It’s plain Internet pollution. Even if you are not the kind to fall in the trap and click, they distract you from the main topic you are reading or working on; plus the very unpleasant feeling that they shamelessly insult your intelligence.

Because such ads often are browser-dependant and not site-dependant, it is hard to avoid them completely. You may be looking at CNN site or checking your Facebook page — otherwise two “respectable” and clean sites — chances are you will be subjected to these ads anyway. One wonders how many users do actually fall for it and click. There are no available statistics on the subject. However, given the size of the current traffic on the web, the originators of these ads will be happily rewarded if only one person in a thousand goes clicking. They bet on that and it is certainly happening all the time.

These ads constitute a double deception. Firstly what they actually can do or deliver is but a pale, a distorted and a minimal part of the actual product or service they claim. Secondly, some of them will lead you to contents that have absolutely nothing to do with the catchy sentence you are reading or picture you are viewing. They just mean to entice you, to lead you to another type of contents, the kind that you would never go to in the first place if you knew their real nature.

Advertising has always been regulated. Make a false one and you are liable for legal action by the authorities. Alas, this seems to work only in the real world, not in the virtual one. Streets, buildings, printed magazines and newspapers, TV channels, radios and the like, they all can be monitored and controlled in a rather reasonable, acceptable manner. But how do you do that in the web? The process is difficult, complex, and practically impossible.

Even if some web browsers are less ad-lenient than others (the excellent Mozilla’s FireFox for instance), even you install ad-filters, there will be no way to completely stop this kind of Internet ads. The best protection against this nuisance is not to be gullible and to ignore any ad that promises you the moon or that pretends it can accomplish miracles. Blocking them completely, however, seems to be out of the question, technically speaking. We just have to live with the pain.

Couples who are obese may take longer to achieve pregnancy than partners who aren’t as overweight, a recent US study suggests.

Previous studies in women have linked obesity to difficulties getting pregnant. In the current study, neither male nor female obesity alone was linked to taking a longer time to conceive, but when both partners were obese, the couple took up to 59 per cent longer to conceive than non-obese counterparts.

“If our results are confirmed, fertility specialists may want to take couples’ weight status into account when counselling them about achieving pregnancy,” said Lead Study Author Rajeshwari Sundaram of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland.

“The benefits of a healthy weight are well-known: obesity increases the risk for diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer,” Sundaram added by email.

Sundaram and colleagues focused on the relationship between pregnancy and body mass index (BMI), a ratio of weight to height. A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered a healthy weight, while 25 to 29.9 is overweight, 30 or above is obese and 40 or higher is what’s known as morbidly obese.

An adult who is 175cm tall and weighs 72kg, for example, would have a BMI which is in the healthy range. An obese adult at that height would weigh at least 92kg and have a BMI of 30 or more.

Researchers categorised individuals into two subgroups: obese class I, with a BMI from 30 to 34.9, and obese class II, with a BMI of 35 or greater.

Overall, 27 per cent of the women and 41 per cent of the men were obese class I or heavier. 

Then, the researchers compared the average time to conceive for couples where neither partner was obese to couples where both fell into the obese class II group.

Couples in the obese class II group took 55 per cent longer to achieve pregnancy than their normal weight counterparts, the study team calculated.

After accounting for other factors that influence fertility such as age, smoking status, exercise and cholesterol levels, obese class II couples took 59 per cent longer to get pregnant. 

About 40 per cent of the men and 47 per cent of the women also had enough excess fat around the midsection to potentially influence fertility. 

In addition, 60 per cent of the women and 58 per cent of the men said they exercised no more than once a week, the researchers report in Human Reproduction. 

Beyond its small size, another limitation of the study is that it wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to determine whether obesity directly causes infertility, the authors note. It also focused on couples in the general population, not people undergoing treatment for infertility, so the results might not reflect what would happen for all couples trying to conceive, the researchers point out. 

However, unlike many other studies of obesity and fertility, the current analysis used height and weight measured by clinicians instead of relying on participants to report this information themselves, which may make the findings more accurate. 

Obesity can influence fertility by altering hormone levels in both men and women, converting testosterone to oestrogen, said Dr Jeffrey Goldberg, section head of reproductive endocrinology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. 

“If you have more fat there is more conversion from testosterone to oestrogen,” Goldberg, who wasn’t involved in the study, said. 

It makes sense that obese couples would take longer to conceive because excess weight doesn’t just impact fertility in women. 

“For women, extra weight impairs ovulatory function,” Goldberg said. “For guys, having lower testosterone and higher oestrogen impairs sperm production and having a lot of fat around the scrotum, fat thighs and fat around the abdomen raises the scrotal temperature and that can also have an adverse effect.”

There is something very exciting about going to Bombay. Even though it is now called Mumbai, I always refer to it privately, by its former glorious name. The teeming metropolis, which is the commercial capital of India, is a curious mix of contradictions because despite it being called a “city of dreams”, the fact is that “this city never sleeps!”

Other than being the chosen abode of the richest industrialists in the country, it is also home to Bollywood, the largest film industry in India. Once a collection of seven separate islands, Mumbai has grown to become one of the most populous cities in the world. The Marine Drive beach, with its twinkling lights, known as ‘the Queen’s necklace’ (because of its garland-like shape), can be witnessed from the flight itself, when you land in the evening. 

Getting out of the airport and into a cab, while observing the clever manoeuvres of the driver- as he manipulates his vehicle in the swirling traffic- is a challenge in itself. I am often left wondering how I managed to drive in these very streets, almost two decades ago. Must be the recklessness of the young, for I did live life dangerously during those days. 

When I moved to Bombay in 1992, I attracted all kinds of like-minded people who ended up becoming my friends. We were a crazy bunch but the craziest was this friend of mine who loved Indian movies with a passion that bordered on insanity. Not only did she watch the new film on the day of its release, but it had to be the first showing as well. “FDFS” is what it was termed, first day first show! Most of them were matinees where we took our toddlers along, and they learned to walk unaided, in the carpeted aisles of these cinema halls.

The best, by far, was when we discovered that a movie shooting was going on in a nearby area. The thrill of picking up our kids, jumping into a car and racing to the spot, was unexplainable. Though, watching the actual shooting in process was quite a let down, if truth be told, because the sheer number of takes and re-takes that the actors had to go through, was agonising. But, the awe, of viewing creativity in progress, was what sustained us. There was hardly any detail, however trivial, about moviemaking that escaped our razor-sharp vision. We knew everything about everyone. In Bollywood, that is.

Educating my husband on these intricacies was an uphill task. He knew nobody in the Indian film fraternity, and was tragically slow when it came to retaining any information about them. Also, when we came face to face with any of the film stars, he refused to believe that they were, whom they actually were. To be fair to him, most of them in real life had little or no resemblance to their glitzy onscreen reel life personas, but still.

“Look, that is Govinda,” I pointed out, the other day.

“Who is Govinda?” asked my spouse. 

“Shhh! He can hear you. He’s our top actor,” I whispered. 

“Are you sure? But he is only five feet tall,” my husband remarked.

“His nick name is Chi Chi,” I told him. 

“Chee Chee? Chee Chee?” my husband exclaimed incredulously.

The star stopped in his tracks and turned towards us.

“Ahem! Autograph please,” I covered up the embarrassment.

“God bless, Chi Chi,” he scrawled illegibly, on a piece of paper.

BARCELONA — Consumers are snapping up fitness trackers, smartwatches and other connected wearable gadgets — but huge numbers wind up in drawers unused after just a few months once the novelty wears off.

“Abandonment has been a big problem with wearable products,” said Mike Pedler, the leader of PwC’s product innovation and development practice.

“It is something that everyone involved in designing and producing wearables is still wrestling to address.”

With worldwide sales of smartphones now barely growing, many tech firms have turned their focus to wearable gadgets in the hope that they will be the next big source of growth.

Huawei, the world’s third-largest phone maker, unveiled a new smartwatch at the Mobile World Congress, the phone industry’s largest annual trade fair, with a more sporty look than the first device it launched two years ago.

Dozens of other wearable gadgets, ranging from bracelets that measure your heart rate to GPS-connected footwear, were on show at the event which wraps up on Thursday.

CCS Insight predicts 411 million wearables devices — including virtual reality headsets and wearable cameras — will be sold around the world in 2020, up from 123 million in 2016.

But about a third of owners of smart wearables abandon these devices after six months, according consulting firm Endeavour Partners.

“For now most devices would not pass the ‘turnaround test,’ which is characteristic of an item you would turn around and retrieve if you realised you’d forgotten it on your way to work. Like your wallet. Or keys. Or smartphone,” PwC said in a report on wearables last year.

‘Lack killer app’

Part of the problem is that smartphones can already do most of the things people use wearables for — they act as pedometers, count calories, measure heartbeats and make payments.

“Wearables lack a killer application,” said Pedler.

Wearables also often need to work together with a smartphone, leading consumers to complain that they are a hassle to use.

The main reasons people gave for abandoning their fitness wearables was that they were “too difficult” or “are annoying”, according to a 2016 study by German health insurer DKV.

Huawei’s new watch has its own cellular connection and the chief executive of the company’s consumer business group, Richard Yu, said he believes this is the key to increase the appeal of smartwatches.

“The majority of smartwatches do not have an autonomous Internet connection, you need your smartphone nearby and that uses a lot of energy, that has hindered the development of the market,” he told AFP in Barcelona.

‘Need better design’

The look of wearables is also an issue. Huge batteries make them big and bulky.

“We need to see better design,” said Ramon Llamas, the research manager of IDC’s wearables team.

“The wearables we have seen have really been first generation type devices,” he adds hoping for improvements.

The tumbling size — and cost — of components is making it possible to make smaller and sleeker wearables.

Munich-based Bragi has come out with the Dash, a wireless in-ear headphone that looks like a hearing aid that holds a music player, 4 gigabytes of storage, and a microphone to take phone calls — you just need to nod your head to accept.

Researchers are also working with flexible materials like graphene — which is 100 times stronger than steel, super thin and can conduct electricity and heat — to make more attractive wearables.

Barcelona’s Institute of Photonic Sciences has made a prototype of a graphene wearable device, which it displayed at the fair that can wrap around a wrist measuring heart rate and oxgyen levels.

Graphene will allow firms to focus on the design of wearables instead of focusing just on the technology, said Frank Koppens, a graphene specialist at the institute.

“You won’t even notice it is a wearable,” he added.