Features

Whether running Apple iOS, Google Android or Microsoft Windows Mobile, smartphones have yet to be perfected. The road to the ideal device is a tough, bumpy one, full of contradicting requirements.

How do you give users a large viewing area while keeping the phone pocketable? How do you make it fast, powerful, with a bright, sharp screen, but maintain good battery life? How do you provide countless features and functionality but still provide an easy to use interface, one that doesn’t drive the non-technical consumer crazy? How do you integrate a high-definition camera and still keep the smartphone’s weight light enough? I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of the designers and the engineers trying to accomplish all these missions impossible.

In the first quarter of 2016, Google Android soared high, capturing some 83 per cent of the world market, followed by Apple iOS with 15 per cent. This left a meagre 2 per cent share to Windows Mobile, RIM (Blackberry) and Symbian (Nokia) combined.

Given Google’s astounding financial and technical capability, one wonders why Android isn’t even better than what it is today. Especially that Google is already heavily investing in the self-driven electric car, certainly one of the most important, most critical aspects of future technology. Could improving smartphones be more challenging, harder to achieve that the car of the future?

Is it because Android is mainly running on smartphones not manufactured by Google itself? Would a Google branded device make a difference with the current crop of Android machines, led by Samsung? Actually the company may well “surprise” us and come up with its own branded phone by the end of this year, according to Richard Nieva of cnet.com.

To accomplish the above technical challenges, the news of esoteric solutions has been circulating on the Web. However, since the Internet’s rumour mill is the biggest of them all, one has to think twice and to cross-check information before believing any of these solutions is genuine or doable. Among them: a foldable, fully waterproof, 4X high-definition screen and a battery charge that can last up to five to seven days under full use.

Still on the esoteric but “makes-perfect-sense” side, Project Ara plans to make available smartphones that you can assemble yourself, using building modular blocks, much in the Lego style! With so many features around, you would build your device to better match your taste and needs. Perhaps huge memory and storage capacity matter more to you than a great camera. Or maybe the longest possible battery life is of prime importance in your kind of work, in which case you could sacrifice some not-so-important other features and functionality.

Next year, about summer time, we will probably see big changes in the smartphone world, and not just because Samsung will release its annual flagship model, as it has been regularly doing it so far over the last few years. A Google-branded handset and a Lego-like model will constitute two major innovations. It’s more than just a rumour.

SAN FRANCISCO — Last summer, flower delivery start-up BloomThat was in an enviable position.

The two-year-old San Francisco company had raised more than $5 million in venture capital funding. It had earned a tech world pedigree after graduating from the prestigious incubator Y Combinator. And it had its roots firmly planted in the “on-demand economy” — a business model popularised by Uber that was the hot new category in Silicon Valley.

But to live up to its promise of delivering bouquets within one hour in three markets, BloomThat was hemorrhaging cash. After launching in New York last summer, it was burning through more than $500,000 a month.

“It was not good; we probably had around four to five months of runway left,” said David Bladow, BloomThat’s co-founder and chief executive.

Faced with the prospect of going bust, Bladow and his co-founders asked themselves: Do customers really need their service at the press of a button?

It’s a question being asked at a number of start-ups that promise instant gratification. As the on-demand business model strains companies’ finances and the tech downturn makes investor money harder to come by, companies are realising that what works for Uber may not work for them.

Some, like BloomThat, have changed course from a model that was, for a time, seen as the easiest way to land funding in Silicon Valley.

“Someone said, ‘grow, grow, grow,’ and someone else parroted it, then everyone else parroted it, and we fell victim to the macro trend,” Bladow said.

Last year alone, venture capital firms invested more than $17 billion across 214 companies that had the on-demand business model, up from $7.3 billion the previous year. These investments represented nearly 13 per cent of all venture funding that year, according to data gathered by CB Insights.

Uber, the pioneer of the on-demand model, also continued to grow, giving the Valley reason to keep throwing money at on-demand businesses.

But offering rides is different from selling flowers.

For Uber to offer on-demand service, all it needs is lots of drivers using their own cars to log onto the app and start driving. For BloomThat to deliver flowers in a one-hour window, it had to set up distribution centres stocked with fresh bouquets that were ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. That takes real estate, supplies and staff — before even getting into the logistics of one-hour delivery.

Zirx, a venture-funded San Francisco start-up that offered on-demand valet parking, found its initial business model undermined by similar costs.

The company was paying a premium to lease parking spots in cities that have notoriously few parking spots. The more popular the company got, the more it cost to secure additional spots. Customers, however, weren’t willing to pay the premium.

“Most consumers have a price point in mind for a service,” said Sean Behr, the chief executive of Zirx. “The consumer is unwilling to pay for the true nature of on-demand.”

And so the first signs of an on-demand exodus have started to show. Some, like Spoonrocket (on-demand meals), Homejoy (on-demand house cleaning), and Shuddle (Uber for kids), have gone out of business because they couldn’t raise enough money. Sidecar, an Uber competitor, sold its assets to General Motors last year. And Zirx has dropped the on-demand component of its business entirely.

“A company needs to look into their own business and ask themselves what they’re best at,” said Eurie Kim, a partner at venture capital firm Forerunner Ventures, which invested in BloomThat and supported the company’s move away from on-demand delivery. “When you do that, you realise there are probably two or three things your customer really loves about your business, and it’s not necessarily the delivery.”

For BloomThat, the company learned that customers thought on-demand delivery was nice, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. People didn’t mind ordering flowers and getting them in a later window, or even the next day. By extending the delivery window by an hour, the company was able to reduce its number of drivers and distribution centres and cut costs by 25 per cent.

The company now offers on-demand delivery only in city centres, and nationwide next-day delivery. The latter accounts for 50 per cent of its orders, and the company became profitable four months ago.

When Behr looked at Zirx’s model, he realised “it would be a very difficult product to make money”. So he, too, changed the company’s course. Earlier this year, Zirx changed its business to offer a service where it moves vehicles for other companies, such as rental car services, mechanics, and car dealers. Behr expects Zirx to be profitable by the end of the year.

“The idea that we’re an on-demand company — that was part of the problem,” said Matt Schwab, BloomThat’s co-founder and president. “We’re not an on-demand company. We’re a company that builds products that has on-demand delivery. It seems trivial, but flipping the thinking changed the focus of the company.”

There are some industries where on-demand delivery is critical, said Ooshma Garg, the founder of Gobble, a dinner kit company that delivered on-demand meals back in 2012, before changing to a subscription model. But that only applies to two or three industries, not 100.

“We figured out that on-demand didn’t work for us within three months of trying it,” she said.

During its on-demand period, the quality of Gobble’s food and service suffered. Its target market, which was families, lived in the suburbs — meaning it had to have delivery drivers stationed across the Bay Area with trunks full of food. Any meals that weren’t sold went to waste. It wasn’t profitable.

Gobble quickly changed direction to a subscription model. It is now 20 times larger and is no longer losing money.

It’s not just companies that are waking up to the fact being “on-demand” doesn’t guarantee success — the investor tide has also turned.

As the downturn leads to more cautious investment, on-demand businesses are among the hardest-hit; funding for such companies fell in the first quarter of this year to $1.3 billion, down from $7.3 billion six months ago.

“If you look in venture capital markets, the on-demand sector is definitely out of favour,” said Ajay Chopra, a partner at Trinity Ventures who is an investor in both Gobble and Zirx.

It’s not lost on venture capitalists that the collective fear of missing out on investing in the next Uber is what drove many of the investments in on-demand businesses to begin with.

But as with any boom, there is a shake-out. Here, it’s been the realisation that on-demand delivery isn’t as new or groundbreaking as previously thought (e-commerce firms Webvan and Kozmo.com offered delivery in less than an hour in the late ‘90s before going out of business during the dot-com crash), and it’s not actually crucial to most companies.

“A lot will go out of business, sell, or merge,” Chopra said. “And I expect a lot of companies will pivot to a different model.”

And while a pivot may be an admission that a company didn’t get it right the first time, that’s just part of running a business, Chopra said.

It’s not easy. Gobble, Zirx and BloomThat all went through awkward transition periods. Gobble spent months educating its customers on the new business. Zirx had to cut the consumer-facing part of its business entirely. BloomThat’s growth flatlined for five months while it figured out its new model.

It’s not the straightforward overnight success story that Silicon Valley likes to sell. But it’s far more sustainable and lucrative than the rush to win at on-demand.

“We’ve come out of this fog,” Bladow said. “It allows me to sleep a lot better at night.”

Last week, along with everybody else, I suffered from an overdose of British politics via the international news channels. As the entire world reeled under the potential impact of the Brexit vote in England, I began to experience terrible nightmares. Politicians of every shape and form started to torment me and there was no way I could escape from their clutches. 

I resigned myself to the images of Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Francois Hollande, Boris Johnson and their ilk, every time I closed my eyes. For an apolitical person like me, it was excruciatingly painful. The entire process, that is. 

So, I was pleasantly surprised when my thoughts switched continents, and suddenly, Michelle Obama appeared in my dream last night. I know Mrs Obama is just the spouse of POTUS (President Of The United States) and is only living in the White House for a few more months, till the new residents are sworn in, but I must tell you that I was very happy to have her visit me. The event was a book release, and I could see the first lady of America very clearly at the gathering. She gave a scintillating talk and then presented the audience with her latest book called “American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America”.

Now, although the actual book was published in 2012, it took four years to reach a sleeping person’s dream, in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In the real world it might seem like a long time, but in the esoteric world of dreams, it was quite a fast journey. Mrs Obama had lots of help writing her book. In addition to Lyric Winik, a Washington writer, there were also White House staff-members connected to the garden and kitchen and those who had stories to tell about the gardens they had started in their cities and towns. There was a section on the importance of physical activity, including a photograph showing Mrs Obama doing her record 142 hula-hoop revolutions on the South Lawn, too. 

Divided into four sections (one for each season) it included snaps of vegetables, as well as easy recipes and blended the first lady’s personal gardening experiences. She even wrote about the time in her life when she had “no idea that tomatoes didn’t come in green plastic trays, covered by cellophane, and that they could be any colour other than pale red”.

I must emphasise that I saw all this very vividly in my dream but here is the bizarre part. When I went up to buy her book, and as she was going to autograph it in her neat handwriting, I asked her if she had read my book. Just like that! Even before I could prevent myself, the question, sort of, popped out of my mouth. Michelle Obama stopped what she was doing and turned towards one of her aides, who whispered something in her ear. And then, in a gesture, which was very reminiscent of what all the politicians had been doing on television these days, she changed her negative headshake to a positive, affirmative one. 

“You mean, she meant it?” our daughter sounded astonished on the phone. 

“Sort of,” I answered. 

“And then?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” I confided. 

“Mom!” she exclaimed impatiently. 

“It is difficult to say,” I pacified. 

“Please try to recall,” she pleaded. 

“I know what happened,” I said. 

“Yes?” she prompted. 

“I woke up,” I laughed. 

Babies who start standing later than other infants might have more challenges with cognitive or adaptive skills by the time they’re in preschool than their peers who stand sooner, a US study suggests. 

Most babies will start to pull themselves up to a standing position by around nine months of age and be able to stand without support by around 12 months, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

Overall, the roughly 600 infants in the study stood up with assistance by around 8.9 months on average. 

Babies who didn’t pull themselves into a standing position until 11 months, however, had significantly lower cognitive and adaptive skill scores on tests done at age four, the study found. 

“While we see these associations, these differences do not necessarily mean that the child is impaired in any way,” said senior study author Edwina Yeung of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. 

“There have been very few previous studies looking into this question even though it’s so important to understand these very early steps of development,” Yeung added by e-mail. 

“Among studies which have examined the connection, they have shown that earlier timing of gross motor milestone achievement is associated with better memory and processing speed later in childhood.”

For the current study, researchers focused on standing and other gross motor skill milestones from 4 to 24 months in children without any diagnosed developmental delays. 

The mothers in the study were about 32 years old on average. Most of them were married, had private health insurance, and either a college or graduate school degree. About 45 per cent of the women had infertility treatments. 

The infants were born at 38 weeks gestational age on average, about one week shy of when they would be considered full term. 

Roughly 52 per cent of the babies in the study were singletons, 43 per cent were twins and 4 per cent were triplets. 

The connection between later standing and cognitive skills at age four was only statistically meaningful for the singleton babies. 

For the twins, the difference in test scores at age four wasn’t big enough to rule out the possibility that it was due to chance. 

One limitation of the study is that a large number of women didn’t show up at clinic visits needed for their children to be assessed, the authors note in the journal Paediatrics. Mothers who skipped clinic visits were generally younger, less educated and less likely to have private health insurance. 

Parents should interpret the study results cautiously, in part because of issues with the study population, said Eliza Nelson, a researcher at the Florida International University who wasn’t involved in the study. 

“We have known for a long time that there is no one size fits all pattern of motor development,” Nelson said by e-mail. 

Children will not necessarily develop more quickly or be smarter if they achieve motor milestones at younger ages, noted Jana Iverson, a psychology researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who wasn’t involved in the study. 

However, walking can influence language development because babies can become more likely to start communicating about far away objects and bringing objects to caregivers, Iverson said by e-mail. Sitting and crawling also change how babies perceive the world around them.

Parents can use these motor skill milestones as an opportunity to help children with language development and cognitive skills.

“For example, if an infant crawls over to something on the other side of the room, talk to her about it, or if an infant stands up while holding a toy and makes eye contact, comment on the toy and what the infant is doing,” Iverson said. 

“These types of rich responses have been demonstrated time and again to influence infants’ cognitive and language development in positive ways,” Iverson added.

The first in British super car manufacturer McLaren’s expanded entry-level Sports Series cars, the 570S is a more affordable offering slated as sports car rather than the brand’s supercar Super Series cars. Built around the same lightweight frame, platform and drive-line as the core “super” 650S model, the 570S little differs in size and weight or even performance, but is a more practical and accessible car.

Taking a more “back-to-basics” approach for a brand so heavily steeped in high-tech solutions, the McLaren 570S ditches costly and complex technologies such as the 650S hydraulic suspension and active aerodynamics. Slightly lighter with more steering feedback, improved cabin access, ergonomics, visibility and luggage space, the 570S is the most useable McLaren to date and places a particular emphasis on enhanced craftsmanship and reliability.

Predatory posture

Competing with the Audi R8 and Porsche 911 rather than Lamborghini Huracan and Ferrari 488, the McLaren 570S may lose 79BHP and 57lb/ft torque to its more exotic 650S sister, yet performance is little affected by comparison. Spectacularly swift with 3.2-second 0-100km/h acceleration and 328km/h top speed, the 570S may be pitched as sports car, but it is also hard not to view it as somewhat of a bargain supercar.

Winner of the Middle East Car of the Year annual awards for Best Premium Performance Coupe segment and runner-up to the overall grand MECOTY recognition in 2016, the 570S is the lightest among its competitors by around 150kg and offers the best power-to-weight according to McLaren. Business-wise, it is expected to help raise McLaren’s production from a record 1600 units in 2015 to 4000-4500 unit production capacity.

Built on the same lightweight and stiff carbon-fibre passenger cell, aluminium frames and mid-engine platform, the 570S bears strong familial resemblance to McLaren’s other offerings. Predatory in posture with low slung bonnet, sharp air-splitter and side scoops, the 570S features McLaren’s now trademark sci-fi like headlights reflecting the brand’s emblem. With rising waistline leading to strong haunches, the 570S butterfly-style rear fascia and lights also resemble the McLaren emblem.

Heady thrills

Powered by McLaren’s staple twin-turbocharged 3.8-litre V8 engine detuned to a still scintillating 562BHP delivered a heady 7,400rpm, the 570S performance figures are staggeringly swift, dispatching 0-220km/h in just 9.5 seconds and onto 400 metres from standstill in 10.9 seconds at 220km/h. Meanwhile large fade-resistant carbon-ceramic disc brakes with 6-piston front and 4-piston rear callipers bring the 570S to a halt from 100km/h in 33 metres and from 200km/h in 126 metres.

With mid-engine pressing fat 285/35R20 rear tyres hard into tarmac, the 570S launches vigorously off-the-line, with little by way of turbo lag, before its twin chargers are fully spooled. With stratospheric rev range for a turbocharged engine — and crisply aggressive harmonics — the 570S delivery is eager and long-legged, allowing for precise throttle control and responses, if not quite as sharp as the 650S from idle engine speed.

Producing a muscular 443lb/ft throughout a somewhat high but broadly accessible 5,000-6,500rpm band, the 570S delivers effortless mid-range flexibility, but comes alive with manic urgency as revs rise through its torque plateau and towards peak power. Driving rear wheels through McLaren’s now familiar 7-speed automated dual clutch gearbox, cog shifts are sweetly, swiftly and smoothly executed in auto mode with three escalating response settings or manual shift mode through large fixed steering column-mounted paddle shifters.

Confidence and control

Riding on double wishbone suspension with more conventional adaptive dampers and mechanical anti-roll bars in place of the 650S sophisticated and unique hydraulic system, the 570S may lose some small degree of vertical wheel travel and ultimate fluidity. However, driven on imperfect, narrow, fast and winding British B-roads, the 570S rode best with its adjustable suspension in “comfort” mode, where lumps, bumps and cracks were dispatched with supple fluency.

With suspension settings in “sport” and “track” modes body control becomes tauter and sharper, but on public roads, “comfort” mode serves perfectly well in almost all situations. Neural handling with slight 58 per cent within wheelbase rear weight bias the 570S corners with athletic grace and agility, pouncing with poise and precision through successive corners over a sprawling and textured landscape. Electronic stability controls feature an independent “dynamic” mode for greater handling autonomy before electronic intervention.

Agility and precision is further enhanced by a Brake Steer system that selectively brakes the inside rear wheel to tighten entry into an apex, allowing for later braking and earlier throttle on exiting. Meanwhile, the 570S steering is quick, precise, refined and delivers textured feedback for road and position. Steering with confidence and a feeling of control with quick wrist flicks, the 570S tucks alert and crisp into corners yet remains reassuring at speed.

Ergonomic and spacious

More closely resembling its P1 hyper car Ultimate Series stablemate rather than the 650S, the 570S, however, lacks both models’ active aerodynamic system. It instead uses fixed aerodynamics, including shrink-wrap design, side intakes, front aero blades, integrated spoiler and rear diffuser to manage airflow around and over the car smoothly while providing downforce and high-speed stability, as well as sufficient cooling and heat extraction to the mid-positioned engine bay.

With longer and wider cabin, repositioned A- and slimmer B-pillars, the 570S cabin is more spacious and ergonomic and benefits from a revised cabin design incorporating a floating console sans centre stack division. Wider opening butterfly doors and lower and slimmer sills make access into the 570S easier than the 650S, even for larger occupants, while optional electric seats are highly adjustable, supportive and remain comfortable over long periods.

With a focused and alert driving position, big windscreen, terrific visibility and wing scallops peaking over the wheel centres, one can precisely and intuitively place the 570S through narrow winding roads with confidence to match the agility of its chassis. Focused and ergonomic, the 570S cabin features logical, tactile and user-friendly controls, dials and infotainment screen combined with airy ambiance, quality materials and improved stowage space.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3.8-litre, mid-mounted, all-aluminium, dry sump, twin turbo V8 cylinders

Valve-train: 32-valve, DOHC, continuously variable valve timing

Bore x stroke: 93 x 69.9mm

Gearbox: 7-speed automated sequential dual clutch, RWD

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 562 (570) [419] @7,400rpm

Specific power: 147.9BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 428BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 443 (600) @5,000-6,500rpm

Specific torque : 158Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 457Nm/tonne

Rev limit: 8500rpm

0-100km/h: 3.2 seconds

0-200km/h: 9.5 seconds

0-400-metres: 10.9 seconds @220km/h

Top speed: 328km/h

Fuel consumption, combined: 10.7l/100km

CO2 emissions, combined: 249g/km

Structure: Carbon fibre monocell, aluminium front & rear frames

Length: 4,530mm

Width: 2,095mm

Height: 1,202mm

Wheelbase: 2,670mm

Dry weight: 1,313kg

Weight distribution F/R: 42:58 per cent

Steering: Power-assisted rack and pinion

Suspension: Double wishbones, coil springs, adaptive dampers, antiroll bars

Brakes, F/R: Carbon ceramic discs, aluminium hubs, 394 x 36mm/380 x 34mm

Brake callipers, F/R: 6/4 pistons

100-0km/h: 33 metres

200-0km/h: 126 metres

Tyres, F/R: 225/35R19/285/35R20

Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans

Jane Taylor

London-New York, I. B. Tauris; Amman: Al ‘Uzza Books, 2012

Pp. 224

Jane Taylor has many accomplishments, but in Jordan especially, her name is inextricably linked to Petra, because of her unsurpassed photographs of the site. Her latest book, “Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans”, contains many of her photos, but also shows that she was not content to simply record spectacular monuments in their beautiful natural environment. Over time, the ruins obviously “spoke” to her, arousing her curiosity and admiration for their creators. While this book is based on archaeology, it goes beyond the monuments to investigate the less-apparent human element — the Nabataean people and society. Taylor’s motivation is clearly stated in the preface to the book: “Of all the powerful, rich and gifted people of the ancient world, the Nabataeans are the most unjustly forgotten.” (p. 8)

Modestly, Taylor does not claim original scholarship, but “tried to assimilate something of the fascinating work of those who have been at the sharp end of archaeological and historical research”. (p. 8)

The great value of the book is that it makes accessible to a broad readership information that is usually only found in specialised academic and archaeological literature. Yet, Taylor does more than sum up previous knowledge: She adds a strong social history slant, and her lively, human-oriented and sometimes playful prose proves that ancient history isn’t stiff or boring. 

In a sense, the book is an extended argument for why it is unfair that the Nabataeans have been so overlooked. Taylor develops this argument by chronicling their origins, the challenges they faced from the environment and other groups and empires, their linguistic, hydraulic and architectural achievements, and how they organised their society. Documenting all this was no easy task due to the paucity of written records.

The book begins with information about frankincense and myrrh, and their usage in the ancient world, as it was trade in incense that turned the Nabataeans from nomads of the Arabian Peninsula, into cosmopolitans with an infrastructure that stretched to the Sinai and southern Syria, and trade routes extending to Rome and India. It is fascinating to learn that originally they banned cultivation and home building on pain of death! However, early on, they developed expertise in water conservation, digging well-disguised underground cisterns throughout the territory they traversed. Besides ensuring survival, they “found that their control of water facilitated freedom of movement”, and freedom was something they treasured highly. (p. 17)

Being constantly on the move brought the Nabataeans into contact with other ancient civilisations from whom they learned. Their hydraulic skills most likely derive from the Sabaeans who built the Marib Dam in today’s Yemen, just as they were later to assimilate elements of Assyrian, Greek, Roman and other cultures. According to Taylor: “Their gift was to learn from the skills of others, and to transform disparate ideas into something uniquely their own.” (p. 17) 

Over time, the need to protect their lucrative caravan routes superseded the building ban, and fortresses and caravanserais were erected in strategic locations as they moved westwards and northwards, eventually concentrating on the Petra area, and making it their capital. As the settled population grew so did their agricultural endeavours. 

Large sections of the book read like a history of the whole area, charting the Nabataeans’ encounters with other civilisations of the time in Arabia, Edom, southern Palestine, Egypt and Syria, plus the Romans and Greeks. The Nabataeans seemed to have preferred diplomacy to avoid conflict, but there were also plenty of battles and intrigues. While here in Jordan we tend to think of them exclusively in terms of Petra, much of the archaeological evidence about their civilisation comes from other corners of their empire.

Throughout, Taylor compares archaeological evidence with the writings of ancient historians and the Bible. She often presents alternative interpretations, clearly identifying what is documented fact as opposed to theories or suppositions, and encouraging the reader to think. 

The most fascinating parts of the book cover the Nabataeans’ adaptable culture, language and social organisation. They spoke a dialect of Arabic but wrote in Aramaic. In contrast to some other empires, they seemed to have ruled more by consent than cruelty. An effective administration in Petra kept the peace among residents, and accorded women clear property rights. There seem to have been few slaves, so the amazing architectural feats were done by citizens with simple tools. They were syncretic in religion, adopting the gods of neighbouring peoples alongside their own. There are signs that Nabataean kings were close to their subjects and held accountable to a popular assembly — all in all, attributes of good governance that have yet to be realised universally in our world today. 

The book includes excellent maps of the city of Petra, Nabataean trade links in the ancient world, and the Nabataean Kingdom at its height. It is available at ACOR (American Centre of Oriental Research).

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON — Some of the Web’s biggest destinations for watching videos have quietly started using automation to remove extremist content from their sites, according to two people familiar with the process.

The move is a major step forward for Internet companies that are eager to eradicate violent propaganda from their sites and are under pressure to do so from governments around the world as attacks by extremists proliferate, from Syria to Belgium and the United States.

YouTube and Facebook are among the sites deploying systems to block or rapidly take down Daesh videos and other similar material, the sources said.

The technology was originally developed to identify and remove copyright-protected content on video sites. It looks for “hashes”, a type of unique digital fingerprint that Internet companies automatically assign to specific videos, allowing all content with matching fingerprints to be removed rapidly.

Such a system would catch attempts to repost content already identified as unacceptable, but would not automatically block videos that have not been seen before.

The companies would not confirm that they are using the method or talk about how it might be employed, but numerous people familiar with the technology said that posted videos could be checked against a database of banned content to identify new postings of, say, a beheading or a lecture inciting violence.

The two sources would not discuss how much human work goes into reviewing videos identified as matches or near-matches by the technology. They also would not say how videos in the databases were initially identified as extremist.

Use of the new technology is likely to be refined over time as Internet companies continue to discuss the issue internally and with competitors and other interested parties.

In late April, amid pressure from US President Barack Obama and other US and European leaders concerned about online radicalisation, Internet companies including Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and CloudFlare held a call to discuss options, including a content-blocking system put forward by the private Counter Extremism Project, according to one person on the call and three who were briefed on what was discussed.

The discussions underscored the central but difficult role some of the world’s most influential companies now play in addressing issues such as terrorism, free speech and the lines between government and corporate authority.

None of the companies at this point has embraced the anti-extremist group’s system, and they have typically been wary of outside intervention in how their sites should be policed.

“It’s a little bit different than copyright or child pornography, where things are very clearly illegal,” said Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the George Washington University’s Programme on Extremism.

Extremist content exists on a spectrum, Hughes said, and different web companies draw the line in different places.

Most have relied until now mainly on users to flag content that violates their terms of service, and many still do. Flagged material is then individually reviewed by human editors who delete postings found to be in violation.

The companies now using automation are not publicly discussing it, two sources said, in part out of concern that terrorists might learn how to manipulate their systems or that repressive regimes might insist the technology be used to censor opponents.

“There’s no upside in these companies talking about it,” said Matthew Prince, the chief executive of content distribution company CloudFlare. “Why would they brag about censorship?”

The two people familiar with the still-evolving industry practice confirmed it to Reuters after the Counter Extremism Project publicly described its content-blocking system for the first time last week and urged the big Internet companies to adopt it.

Wary of outside solution

The April call was led by Facebook’s head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, sources with knowledge of the call said. On it, Facebook presented options for discussion, according to one participant, including the one proposed by the non-profit Counter Extremism Project.

The anti-extremism group was founded by, among others, Frances Townsend, who advised former president George W. Bush on homeland security, and Mark Wallace, who was deputy campaign manager for the Bush 2004 re-election campaign.

Three sources with knowledge of the April call said that companies expressed wariness of letting an outside group decide what defined unacceptable content.

Other alternatives raised on the call included establishing a new industry-controlled nonprofit or expanding an existing industry-controlled nonprofit. All the options discussed involved hashing technology.

The model for an industry-funded organisation might be the nonprofit National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, which identifies known child pornography images using a system known as PhotoDNA. The system is licensed for free by Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft announced in May it was providing funding and technical support to Dartmouth College computer scientist Hany Farid, who works with the Counter Extremism Project and helped develop PhotoDNA, “to develop a technology to help stakeholders identify copies of patently terrorist content.”

Facebook’s Bickert agreed with some of the concerns voiced during the call about the Counter Extremism Project’s proposal, two people familiar with the events said. She declined to comment publicly on the call or on Facebook’s efforts, except to note in a statement that Facebook is “exploring with others in industry ways we can collaboratively work to remove content that violates our policies against terrorism”.

In recent weeks, one source said, Facebook has sent out a survey to other companies soliciting their opinions on different options for industry collaboration on the issue.

William Fitzgerald, a spokesman for Alphabet’s Google unit, which owns YouTube, also declined to comment on the call or about the company’s automated efforts to police content.

A Twitter spokesman said the company was still evaluating the Counter Extremism Project’s proposal and had “not yet taken a position”.

A former Google employee said people there had long debated what else besides thwarting copyright violations or sharing revenue with creators the company should do with its Content ID system. Google’s system for content-matching is older and far more sophisticated than Facebook’s, according to people familiar with both.

Lisa Monaco, the senior adviser to the US president on counterterrorism, said in a statement that the White House welcomed initiatives that seek to help companies “better respond to the threat posed by terrorists’ activities online.”

Do you need a supercomputer at home? Can you really use one? Does your daily computing require a machine able to perform trillions of operations per second?

The glitz around powerful computers is as old as the technology itself. In the movies (2001: A Space Odyssey), at college or in real life, the fascination remains. The big change is that the word powerful has little to do today with what it represented 30 or 40 years ago. It is not in the actually meaning but in the scale of the numbers. It is mind blowing, it is flabbergasting.

Suffice it to read what Jack Dongarra (BBC News) recently wrote about China’s latest super machine: “The 93 petaflop Sunway TaihuLight is installed at the National Supercomputing Centre in Wuxi. […] At its peak, the computer can perform around 93,000 trillion calculations per second”.

Who needs this and why?

Today’s computer market is well segmented and serves, essentially, four categories; at least as far as pure computer processing power is concerned. These are first the typical home and the small office users. This is and by far the largest community. Its needs are simple: Internet browsing, e-mailing, photo editing, managing small databases, perhaps doing straightforward PowerPoint presentations, writing and eventually performing easy calculations. By current industry standards any desktop or laptop computer and most tablets can do the job perfectly well. Long gone are the days when one had to worry about not enough memory, disk space or processing power.

The second category is that of those called “power users”. Whereas these are still home and small office users, they process high definition photos and videos, play advanced computer games and manipulate high digital files, sometime as large as 1GB per file. Although more demanding than the first, this category can still be happy with desktop and laptop machines, but just requires more memory and fast, dedicated graphic cards added. Still, even with 16GB memory and some NVidia 4GB graphic card, and that may end up being rather expensive, we’re still far from supercomputers.

The third category is represented by mid-size to large enterprises, whether private or public, civil or military. They need what is commonly referred to as servers. Whereas these still are not supercomputers, they are much more powerful than desktops and laptops not only because they have more technical resources and can handle thousands of tasks simultaneously, but also because they run under special operating systems (Windows Server OS, Linux) that provide the high level of control and security that enterprises need.

Then come supercomputers. For the tasks they are built for, nothing can be too fast or too powerful. This encompasses, for example, advanced scientific research, processing gigantic amounts of data for weather forecast, calculating path for military missiles, sending space crafts to Mars, mathematical models that simulate “big things” like the birth of the universe, etc. Definitely not home not office tasks! The machines are essentially found at prestigious universities, scientific or space research facilities and at the military centres of some countries.

If you are dreaming of having such a computer at home and feel the frustration of not seeing your dream come true, take heart. Just think that your humble laptop, the one that cost you less than JD1,000 and that you carry around everywhere, is as powerful as the supercomputer that could be found circa 1990 at Berkeley University. So in way you do own a supercomputer after all.

As the driverless car gets closer to reality, so too does the dilemma of how to insure the car and its owner.

The auto insurance industry faces upheaval in the next 25 years as the migration to autonomous safety features — and ultimately a self-driving car — shifts more of a car’s accident risk from the driver to the vehicle, analysts said.

The number of accidents is expected to drop sharply because more than 90 per cent of crashes now are caused by driver error. That could lower insurance bills for consumers. The US market for personal auto insurance policies, which generates $200 billion in premiums a year, could shrink substantially, some experts predict.

“There are going to be dramatic changes,” said Joe Schneider, a managing director at KPMG, who’s part of the accounting firm’s task force studying the issue.

A number of cars already have collision-avoidance features, such as blind-spot detectors and front-end crash-warning systems. The auto industry and federal regulators also have agreed to equip nearly every new car with automatic emergency braking systems within the next six years.

Completely self-driving cars are being developed by several auto manufacturers and Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit.

But the insurance industry, regulators and consumer advocates caution that myriad questions have to be answered before it’s known exactly how those driverless cars will be insured.

For instance, although a driverless car might cut the risk of accidents, it still would share the road with drivers behind the wheel. How would insurance for both types of vehicles be written, and what would it cost?

“We don’t want to see an environment created where you have vehicles that might not be nothing more than glorified golf carts autonomously operating among big-rig tractor trailers,” said Jim Whittle, the assistant general counsel for the American Insurance Association, a trade group for the insurers.

And don’t expect a price cut in auto insurance any time soon. In fact, prices have been climbing in recent years because of a rise in the number of crashes that reflects more kilometres being driven, higher car sales and an increase in texting and other driver distractions, among other factors.

The average annual spending for car insurance nationwide was $841.23 in 2013, the most recent year available, up 7 per cent from $786.65 in 2009, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. In California, it rose to $782.63 from $756.16.

The number of crashes rose 10 per cent to 6.06 million in 2014 from 5.51 million in 2009, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Cars with autonomous safety features are “certainly not the majority” of vehicles on the road because “the features themselves, while important in adding safety, aren’t such that every use and operation of the car is now automated”, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said.

“So far, we haven’t seen significant changes in claims or experience that would warrant changes in [customer] rates,” Jones said.

But KPMG estimates that over the next 25 years, the number of accidents could plunge 80 per cent from current levels, which “will go right to the core of the business” of providing car insurance, said Jerry Albright, a KPMG principal also on the task force.

Insurance bills aren’t coming down yet, but “over time do we think that is going to happen? Yes”, Schneider said.

Allstate Corp. Chairman Thomas Wilson — who has dubbed the move to driverless cars “The Jetsons”, after the cartoon with spaceship-like cars — said in a speech last year that the shift could have “the most detrimental impact on auto insurance” and one “we don’t want to wait” to figure out.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Corp. owns Geico Insurance, told an automotive forum last year that “we would not be throwing a party at our insurance business” when self-driving cars arrive, even though that day remained “a long ways off”.

Jones has ridden in Google’s driverless car and held hearings to see, as he put it, “how this will impact consumer protection and how it will impact insurance markets in California. We’re watching it very carefully”.

All of this is careening down the road a little too fast for Jamie Court, the president of the public advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.

“These technologies shouldn’t be rushed to market without hearing voices from all sides” about insurance, Court said. The “robot car shouldn’t be developed without a formal process for the public to weigh in with their concerns”.

For instance, “our big fear is that in accidents in driverless cars, the human being is still going to be considered at fault because robots are presumed not to make mistakes,” Court said.

Indeed, Buffett raised a question about accident fault that’s key to the insurers’ future: Exactly how much would the liability for crashes shift from drivers to the vehicles that are making most — if not all — of the safety decisions?

If it turns out that the automakers and their suppliers end up shouldering most of the liability, they might offer insurance themselves, said Donald Light, the director of the North American property/casualty practice at the research firm Celent. They might even add the insurance premium to the sticker price of new cars.

“That’s another big threat to the current insurance industry,” Light said.

In the meantime, British company Adrian Flux Insurance Services this month launched what it said might be the first “driverless car policy” in the world.

The policy would cover existing cars using autonomous features such as self-parking and autopilot systems and would cover drivers for things such as satellite failures that disrupt the systems or hacking by outsiders.

“We wanted to help provide confidence and clarity around the ongoing debate of ‘who is liable?’” Adrian Flux General Manager Gerry Bucke said in a statement.

As that debate continues, analysts agree that consumers probably still will need insurance even if they one day own self-driving cars. If a tree falls on the car or it’s vandalised, for instance, they’ll need coverage.

And just because the driverless car seems closer to reality doesn’t mean the vehicles will be commonplace, as in “The Jetsons”, for many years.

One reason, as Whittle of the American Insurance Association put it, is “the simple reason that a lot of people like to drive”.

The extended summer holidays, when all schools close down for a two to three month break, are lengthy and arduous. The parents are in a fix as they look for ways and means to keep their precious progenies occupied in some useful activity. They go into great lengths to explore the various possibilities and enrol them in one camp after another in order to make the maximum use of their time. It is a very challenging process and occurs with painful regularity every year, until the kids go off to college, but by then, a fresh set of complications crop up. But here I digress. 

However, let me tell you that it was not always like this. During our schooldays my summer and winter vacations appeared without any warning. Other than being in the corresponding seasons, that is. I mean, we did have an annual calendar with the holidays marked in it, but it was printed inside our school diaries where we were meant to jot down our homework assignments. The class teacher also sent complaint notes to our parents in the same diary with messages like, “the child needs to work on her arithmetic”. 

The terse, one lined missives never reached the recipients, because once I got home, nobody opened those diaries. I verbally conveyed my tutor’s grievances to my mum or dad and they would tell me to make more of an effort. That was it. There were no threats of punishment or any such thing. All they did was carelessly ruffle the hair on my head, and follow it up with gentle laughter. 

Personally, I liked it when my vacations sprang up suddenly. My mother would not have the time to book our train tickets and drag us to her father’s house for an endless summer of rules and regulations. My maternal grandfather was a tyrant and whenever he interacted with us, it seemed like he was shouting out orders to an army contingent, not children. My dad, on the other hand, never raised his voice. I jumped up every time my granddad said something because his commanding tone scared me and so I was happiest the years we were not forced to visit him.

Those long summer days when we stayed at home were glorious, especially the afternoons when we escaped the siesta room to loiter under the large shady Banyan tree that stood right in the middle of the courtyard. Our plump nanny, who was supposed to watch over us, snored noisily, while my brothers and I tiptoed on bare feet. 

Once out in the open we ran around aimlessly till we were out of breath and then went exploring for rare stuff. Our treasures ranged from bird’s eggs, caterpillars, snails, butterflies, peacock feathers and unique shaped stones to different kinds of wild berries. The pockets of my dresses bulged with these possessions that I traded with my friends later, in exchange for comic books.

We scared each other with spooky stories, the white bed sheets stolen from the clothesline, trailing behind our backs, when we enacted the scenes.

“I had a pet turtle called Daisy,” I recounted to our daughter.

“Oh yes?” she exclaimed without listening. 

“I lost her suddenly,” I continued. 

“Oh no,” she sympathised. 

 “I think somebody ate her up,” I said. 

“Oh no!” she repeated, sitting up in attention. 

“It broke my heart,” I muttered. 

“So what did you do?” she asked. 

“I stopped eating turtle soup,” I confessed.