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On my recent visit to India, the mango season was behind schedule. I was hoping that by the time I landed in the country, the luscious fruit would have made its unmistakable appearance. But some sudden April showers had slowed its arrival. Nature had not provided the relentless dry heat that was necessary for ripening the harvest and so the entire process was delayed. 

To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. Without resorting to hyperbole, I must admit that I was completely heartbroken, in every sense of the term. For a mango lover, this was a cruel blow from which I could not recover for the entire duration of my stay that was spread into one whole week. 

I had visualised myself gorging on the golden fruit. For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes, even with my morning and afternoon tea. Its aroma and sumptuous flavour was colouring my dreams. If I closed my eyes the thoughts went berserk and took me back to my childhood. 

My father was passionate about mangoes. Unlike other gentlemen of his generation who did the routine grocery shopping for their wives, my dad was clueless. He did not know where the sugar, eggs or washing powder came from. Maybe he thought my mother manufactured them in the kitchen like the jams and jellies she prepared. The amazing part was that he was not the least bit curious about it too. 

As long as the meals were presented on the dining table at the appropriate times, he was happy. But he made it a point to praise my mom’s cooking, unfailingly. Day after day he thanked her for the steaming platefuls of food that she rustled up. I remember the exact manner in which he expressed his gratitude. “Delicious!” he would exclaim. “Thank you for making my favourite dish,” he said. 

My siblings and I were fussy eaters but when our father looked at us expectantly, we nodded in agreement. Our mum would be delighted with all this appreciation and urged us to eat-up all the morsels scattered on our platter. 

But during mango season, she did not have to make any effort because both my brothers and I had inherited our father’s obsession with this juicy fruit. Throughout the hot summer months my father would drive to the overcrowded vegetable market and buy mangoes by the crateful. They were individually wrapped in shredded paper and nestled inside cardboard boxes. These would be stuffed into the boot of our tiny car, some spilling over the passenger seat. 

During mealtimes, dad sat at the head of the table and took over the task of slicing the mangoes. An entire pile of them would be placed at his elbow. Before chopping, he would hold up a succulent one and ask us if we wanted the side or the centre seed. This was a trick he played with us children. If we asked for the former, he would cut up the mango in such a way that he kept the fleshy part for himself. If we wanted the seed, he skinned the seed before handing it to us. 

“I will have a side piece please,” I requested once. 

“A side order coming up,” my father said preparing to pass me a thin strip. 

“Actually I will have the seed,” I said, confusing him. 

“Oh! But that’s mine,” he twinkled. 

“I’m also yours,” I retorted. 

“Fair enough,” he laughed.

“Game up,” I laughed back.

NEW YORK — “I’ll be back,” the line Arnold Schwarzenegger first uttered more than 30 years ago in that indelible manly monotone, belongs to the Terminator, of course. But it also might as well be the official slogan of the summer movie season.

It’s the time of year when Hollywood’s older, reliable brands, with the tenacity of Schwarzenegger’s lethal cyborg, claw their way back onto the big screen in a popcorn parade of big-budget sequels, reboots and re-dos. That’s nothing new, but the extent of the sequel spinning is.

The sequel expansion — as headlong as Tom Cruise in the “Mission: Impossible” movies — runs in all directions, stretching into prequels, second-try reboots, spinoffs and franchises that are less linear, roman-numeral progressions than (as in the brimming Marvel world) whole universes of overlapping characters: fantasy realms to visit, not just stories to follow.

To fuel the proliferation, Hollywood is dipping ever deeper into its vaults: 10 of this summer’s most anticipated blockbusters have origins dating back more than three decades, including “Fantastic Four”, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”, “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Terminator: Genisys”, the fifth film in the series created by James Cameron in 1984. Schwarzenegger is back to say that he’s back.

Nostalgia and familiarity mingle with updated special effects and new cast members in these films to render something that hopefully feels fresh to moviegoers. As the “Fast and Furious” series (more profitable in its seventh instalment than ever before) has proven this spring, the lifespan of the sequels no longer adheres to the old rules of inevitable decay — at least for now.

The ever-lengthening life of franchises can make for some strange off-screen realities, and not just for 67-year-old Terminators. “Mad Max: Fury Road” (May 15), is returning decades later with its original creator, the Australian director George Miller.

“One of the most jolting experiences of my life was to go to SXSW and watch ‘Road Warrior: Mad Max 2’ in a newly minted print for the first time in 32 years and then showing scenes from ‘Fury Road’ all these years later,” says Miller. “It was a kind of a time travel. It was a strange but powerful experience.”

There is blunt mathematics behind the proliferating franchises. The top six summer films at the box office in 2013 were sequels. Last summer, all of the top 10 movies were sequels, reboots or hailed from well-known properties.

This summer, the box-office seems nearly certain to be led by “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (May 1), the sequel to the 2012 superhero team-up original, the highest grossing-summer movie ever. With $1 billion-plus in box office assured, the financial imperative is, of course, enormous. “Age of Ultron” writer-director Joss Whedon says “making more money would be swell”, but a creative purpose is still necessary.

“I wanted to do better,” says Whedon. “I wanted to spend more time with these guys. I just introduced them, and the movie ended. I wanted to spend time with them as a team, as comrades, with them in conflict and the fun and the humour and the pain that comes with that. I wanted to go deeper.”

While Marvel’s “Avengers” marches forward (a two-part sequel is planned), other franchises have progressed less predictably.

“Magic Mike”, made for just $7 million, opened in June 2012 with a remarkable $39.1 million and went on to gross $167 million worldwide. A male stripper romp that winks to the real past of producer-star Channing Tatum, it returns July 1 with “Magic Mike XXL”. It’s the classic kind of sequel — a road trip — albeit one with an especially untraditional destination: a Florida stripper convention Tatum attended before his acting career took off.

The premise still makes director Gregory Jacobs chuckle.

“We started thinking about a sequel, honestly, really early on,” says Jacobs, a producer and assistant director on the first “Magic Mike”, now taking over for director Steven Soderbergh. “We all loved this idea of a road trip with these guys; we just couldn’t fit it into the first movie.”

“Magic Mike XXL” is joined by a handful of sequels that come from fairly recent films: the teen musical “Pitch Perfect 2” on May 15; the “Despicable Me” spinoff “Minions” on July 10; Seth MacFarlane’s comedy “Ted 2” on June 26.

But the bulk of the summer season will depend on older franchises, some of which are counting on moviegoer amnesia.

“Jurassic World” (June 12), stuck in development for a decade, is the fourth instalment in the franchise that has been dormant (but not extinct) since 2001’s “Jurassic Park III”. Its star, Chris Pratt, led last summer’s runaway hit, “Guardians of the Galaxy”.

“Fantastic Four” (August 7), starring Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan, is an attempt to reboot the Marvel foursome after the little loved “Fantastic Four” gave it a go just 10 years ago, and was followed by a 2007 “Silver Surfer” sequel.

The futuristic “Tomorrowland” (May 22), directed by Brad Bird (“Ratatouille”, “The Incredibles”) and co-starring George Clooney, comes from the producers behind “Pirates of the Caribbean” and hopes to turn another Disney theme park attraction into a massive franchise.

“Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation” (July 31), the fifth entry to the Tom Cruise action series, isn’t the only film trading off an old television show. “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” (August 14) is Guy Ritchie’s take on the ‘60s spy series. HBO’s “Entourage” (June 5) will also get a big-screen swan song about four years after the show’s finale.

With so many name-brand films clustered together in the summer, box-office analysts like Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Rentrak, predicts this season will lead Hollywood to a record year. That would be welcome news for the industry, following a limp 2014 summer.

If summer 2015 is to reverse last summer’s downturn, it will need a few of the original films to pop, too. One thing 2015 has over 2014 is a Pixar movie. After a year off, Pixar will release “Inside Out”, about the voices inside the mind of a young girl, on June 19. The comedy options, too, may be better. “Spy” (June 5) stars Melissa McCarthy in a spoof thriller, and “Trainwreck” (July 17), from director Judd Apatow, stars Amy Schumer as a monogamy-averse career woman.

PARIS —  A form of mental training which helps people recognise the onset of depression, and control it, works as well as anti-depressants in preventing relapse, researchers said Monday.

Dubbed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), the method may offer a welcome alternative for people wishing to avoid long-term use of anti-depressants, which can have unpleasant side effects like insomnia, constipation and sexual problems, said a study in The Lancet medical journal.

In a two-year trial with 424 depression sufferers in England, researchers found that MBCT users faced a “similar” risk of relapse to those on anti-depressants.

The method was not more effective than drugs, as many had hoped, but the findings nevertheless suggested “a new choice for the millions of people with recurrent depression on repeat prescriptions”, said study leader Willem Kuyken, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford.

Depression is often a recurring disorder, and people with a history of the ailment are frequently placed on a long-term course, typically about two years, of anti-depressants.

Previous research had shown that anti-depressants can reduce the risk of relapse by up to two-thirds when taken correctly, but dosage adherence is hugely variable.

The side effects, however, have fuelled interest in alternative methods like MBCT.

It entails training depression sufferers to accept that negative feelings and thoughts are likely to recur, to recognise them when they do, and deal with them effectively rather than trigger a depressive spiral by dwelling on the gloomy.

The new study claims to be the first-ever, large-scale comparison between the efficacy of MBCT and anti-depressants.

The trial volunteers were randomly divided into two groups. Half continued taking their medication while the rest phased out the drugs in favour of MBCT.

The training involved eight group sessions of 2 hours and 15 minutes each, with daily home practice. Participants were given the option of four follow-up sessions over the following 12 months.

All 424 volunteers were assessed for a period of two years with a diagnostic tool called the “structured clinical interview”.

The MBCT group had a 44 per cent relapse rate, the researchers found, compared to 47 per cent in the group taking anti-depressants.

“As a group intervention, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy was relatively low cost compared to therapies provided on an individual basis,” study co-author Sarah Byford from King’s College London said.

LOS ANGELES — Even in its debut weekend, Kevin James’s “Paul Blart” sequel couldn’t outpace “Furious 7”.

The reigning box office champion might have slowed from its blockbuster debut, but “Furious 7” maintained first place for the third weekend in a row with an estimated $29.1 million, according to box office tracker Rentrak on Sunday.

This brings the high-octane action movie’s domestic total to a staggering $294 million, well above the $202.8 million that “Fast & Furious 6” had earned at the same point in the cycle in 2013. The film’s worldwide box office crossed the $1 billion mark Friday.

“The film has set a new standard for the potential for box-office in the pre-summer month of April and has truly become part of movie folklore with its record setting numbers, strong reviews, spectacular word-of-mouth and of course the outpouring of support for late star Paul Walker,” Rentrak’s senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian said.

“Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2” came in a close second with an estimated $24 million. While the PG-rated comedy didn’t perform as well as the first film’s $31.8 million opening in 2009, it did surpass Sony’s modest expectations. Also, it only cost $30 million to produce.

“It’s a great result. It’s going to be very profitable for us and a big success,” Sony’s president of worldwide distribution Rory Bruer said.

“It was something that Kevin really wanted to do and we wanted to do it with him,” he said. “Kudos to Kevin for working so hard in promoting the film.”

Dergarabedian said “Blart’s” opening “proves that if you give the people what they want, you can make a tidy profit.”

Meanwhile, the low-budget, social media themed thriller “Unfriended” took third place with $16 million — sixteen times its production budget.

With “Furious 7” topping the charts again and a strong debut for “Unfriended”, Universal’s president of domestic distribution Nick Carpou marvelled how both of films are “so successful at both ends of the spectrum”.

“When you find success you look to repeat them,” he said of Universal’s partnership with Blumhouse on microbudget horror films. “It works.”

“Unfriended” is the 11th microbudget film to open above $15 million for Blumhouse. Other successes include “The Boy Next Door”, “Ouija”, and “The Purge” series.

According to exit polls, audiences for “Unfriended” were 60 per cent female and 74 per cent under the age of 25.

Rounding out the top five were holdovers “Home” and “The Longest Ride”, with $10.3 million and $6.9 million, respectively.

Disney’s animal film “Monkey Kingdom” debuted to $4.7 million to claim the seventh spot, in line with last year’s “Bears”, also from Disneynature.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google is about to change the way its influential search engine recommends websites on smartphones and tablets in a shift that’s expected to sway where millions of people shop, eat and find information.

The revised formula will favour websites that Google defines as “mobile-friendly”. Websites that don’t fit the description will be demoted in Google’s search results on smartphones and tablets while those meeting the criteria will be more likely to appear at the top of the rankings — a prized position that can translate into more visitors and money.

Although Google’s new formula won’t affect searches on desktop and laptop computers, it will have a huge influence on how and where people spend their money, given that more people are relying on their smartphones to compare products in stores and look for restaurants. That’s why Google’s new rating system is being billed by some search experts as “Mobilegeddon”.

“Some sites are going to be in for a big surprise when they find a drastic change in the amount of people visiting them from mobile devices,” said Itai Sadan, CEO of website-building service Duda.

It’s probably the most significant change that Google Inc. has ever made to its mobile search rankings, according to Matt McGee, editor-in-chief for Search Engine Land, a trade publication that follows every tweak that the company makes to its closely guarded algorithms.

Here are a few things to know about what’s happening and why Google is doing it.

Making mobile friends

To stay in Google’s good graces, websites must be designed so they load quickly on mobile devices. Content must also be easily accessible by scrolling up and down — without having to also swipe to the left or right. It also helps if all buttons for making purchases or taking other actions on the website can be easily seen and touched on smaller screens.

If a website has been designed only with PC users in mind, the graphics take longer to load on mobile devices and the columns of text don’t all fit on the smaller screens, to the aggravation of someone trying to read it.

Google has been urging websites to cater to mobile device for years, mainly because that is where people are increasingly searching for information.

The number of mobile searches in the US is rising by about 5 per cent while inquiries on PCs are dipping slightly, according to research firm comScore Inc. In the final three months of last year, 29 per cent of all US search requests — about 18.5 billion — were made on mobile devices, comScore estimated. Google processes the bulk of searches — two-thirds in the US and even more in many other countries.

Bracing for change

To minimise complaints, the company disclosed its plans nearly two months ago. It also created a step-by-step guide and a tool to test compliance with the new standards.

Google has faced uproar over past changes to its search formula. Two of the bigger revisions, done in 2011 and 2012, focused on an attempt to weed out misleading websites and other digital rubbish. Although that goal sounds reasonable, many websites still complained that Google’s changes unfairly demoted them in the rankings, making their content more difficult to find.

Still caught off guard

While most major merchants and big companies already have websites likely to meet Google’s mobile standard, the new formula threatens to hurt millions of small businesses that haven’t had the money or incentive to adapt their sites for smartphones.

“A lot of small sites haven’t really had a reason to be mobile friendly until now, and it’s not going to be easy for them to make the changes,” McGee said.

Burying helpful content

Google’s search formula weighs a variety of factors to determine the rankings of its results. One of the most important considerations has always been whether a site contains the most pertinent information sought by a search request.

But new pecking order in Google’s mobile search may relegate some sites to the back pages of the search results, even if their content is more relevant to a search request than other sites that happen to be easier to access on smartphones.

That will be an unfortunate consequence, but also justifiable because a person might not even bother to look at sites that take a long time to open or difficult to read on mobile devices, Gartner analyst Whit Andrews said.

“Availability is part of relevancy,” Andrews said. “A lot of people aren’t going to think something is relevant if they can’t get it to appear on their iPhone.”

WASHINGTON — With the Apple Watch expected to sell in the millions, news organisations are refocusing their efforts to become part of that tiny screen.

In the news business, this is now called "glance journalism."

The Apple Watch, expected to catapult to the leading item in wearable technology, opens up new possibilities to a news industry seeking to connect with audiences in the digital era.

The New York Times says its app for the Apple Watch will be "a new form of storytelling" and that "editors on three continents" will update notifications. Readers will be able to "hand off" an article to view on an iPhone or iPad.

Yahoo will have four apps for the Apple device, including a news digest updated hourly with "microsummaries" of major stories, as well as apps for fantasy sports, weather and one specifically for Hong Kong news.

CNN and National Public Radio also have apps for the Apple Watch, and others are expected to follow.

The new technology means more bite-size news being directed at consumers, say media analysts.

"We are about to enter the era of 'at a glance journalism'," says Mario Garcia, a consultant with Garcia Media and faculty member at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, in a blog post.

Garcia, who is also participating in a research project on news for smartphones with Arhus University of Denmark, said he is "fascinated" with the possibilities.

"It is more difficult to pull an iPhone out of one's pocket or a purse in a crowded New York City subway that it would be to glance at one's watch," he said.

"So, I predict that we will be doing a lot of glancing, as in reading seductive headlines and deciding if we read or not."

New formula needed 

The emergence of wearables offers a new platform for the news media -- one that is fast, personal and always on, says Robert Hernandez, who teaches mobile journalism at the University of Southern California.

"The ability to access knowledge will be quicker with the watch," Hernandez told AFP.

For newsrooms, it is "a new opportunity to be part of this person's body," Hernandez said.

And journalism will find a way to use the smartwatch, he said: "When Twitter came out people were saying 'you can't do journalism in 140 characters,' but it has now become an essential tool."

Gilles Raymond, founder and chief executive of the News Republic application, says he believes the smartwatch will be an important source for news and that the Apple Watch will be an important test.

"When there is breaking news you want access to it immediately, so the watch is the ideal tool to do that," said Raymond, who is based in San Francisco for the French-based firm which offers smartphone and tablet news apps.

He said smartphone users now glance at their handsets more than 100 times a day, and with the smartwatch that could become 300 or 500 times: "It will be very addictive," he said.

Raymond said there is only limited experience with news on smartwatches now but that news organizations and apps are prepared for the possible widespread adoption of Apple Watch.

"The question is will you read only the first line and then take your phone out or will you read the full article on the watch?" he said.

"Both scenarios are credible but I think people will want to read the article on their watch. They can adapt."

News organizations will need to adapt as well, Raymond said, by developing content easily viewed on the small screen but could be rewarded with "a new way to build a relationship" with readers.

Understanding mobile 

But media organizations need to find the right formula for delivering short news alerts and notifications without being obtrusive or annoying. Wears of the watch are likely to fine-tune these systems to their liking.

Alan Mutter, a former Chicago newspaper editor who is now a digital media consultant, says news organizations need to think creatively about how to use new devices like the smartwatch.

"The insanely small screen cannot be just an extension of what's on the mobile phone," Mutter said.

"You have to think about how consumer uses the device and how can you do something that's valuable."

Mutter said smartwatch users may not want to feel "pecked to death" by vibrating alerts and that news publishers must strike the right balance on these notifications.

"Maybe it will be news at the top of the hour, in a spurt of headlines, or maybe it will be a summary you can listen to," he said.

"You have to create the content that works for the medium."

Mutter said most traditional news organizations failed to successfully navigate to the Web, but now have an opportunity with mobile and smartwatches.

"They need to develop their mobile presence, they need to understand it's not just a passive device," Mutter said.

"If they do mobile right, they will be able to do Apple Watch."

Introduced as a 2014 model, the Audi S3 Sedan is one of few compact and quick saloon cars available today. Whereas fast small saloons were thick on the ground in past, this segment has largely been replaced by hot hatchbacks or migrated to move the large and pricier executive saloon segment.

With few direct rivals, the Audi S3 is a discrete but hugely talented junior super saloon, which sits somewhere between the extrovert Subaru WRX STI, the 2-door BMW 235i Berlinetta Coupe and the less practical flamboyantly low-roof Mercedes CLA45 AMG, which despite four-door three-box configuration, is billed as a four-door coupe.

Understatedly assertive 

Understatedly handsome with conservatively chiselled yet elegantly assertive presence and accessible sub-executive premium brand kudos, the S3 Sedan’s is a classic high performance Q-car recipe.

Without overt bulges, wings, flared arches and gaping scoops and vents, and only quad tailpipes silver, side mirror casings and beefy 18-inch twin five-spoke alloy wheels marking it out, the S3 could — to the untrained eye — be mistaken for a garden variety A3 with ever-popular S-Line exterior styling kit.

Flying under the radar — so to speak — the S3 is a classy, reserved, quick and highly competent little brute with the power to surprise — and therein lies its appeal.

If not a flamboyantly wild and aggressive design like its brutally powerful 518BHP Audi A3 Clubsport Quattro super saloon concept car sister, the S3 Sedan is however certainly sculpted and sporty, yet assertively dignified.

With big tall grille, slim inward angled and moodily browed headlights, big lower side intakes and subtle front air splitter, side skirts, upturned air diffuser and build-in spoiler, the S3’s intent is clear but more muted.

A straight and chiselled side character line is etched across the front and rear lights and is complemented by a rising lower ridge, while its roofline trails to a high-set short boot. 

Consistently muscular 

Powered by a transversely-mounted in-line 2 litre four-cylinder direct injection turbocharged engine with aggressive 1.2-bar boost pressure, the Audi S3 Sedan delivers sensationally swift performance, versatile delivery and frugal fuel efficiency. 

Spooling up swiftly with little turbo lag from tick-over, the S3 develops a mighty 280lb/ft of torque throughout a broad 1800-5500rpm mid-range, and with no gearing flat-spots, allows for responsively muscular and effortlessly confident flexibility at virtually any speed or gear once spinning in its wide sweet spot.

Underwritten by a gloriously rich wave of torque, power builds up smoothly and effortlessly to a 286BHP maximum (10BHP less than Euro-spec versions billed as S3 ‘Saloon’) consistently on tap throughout 5500-6200rpm.

Channelling its power through a Quattro four-wheel drive system, the S3 develops vice-like traction and vigorously through the 0-100km/h acceleration benchmark in 5-seconds flat, as driven in 6-speed automated dual clutch S-Tronic gearbox, guise, which is 0.4 seconds quicker than the manual gearbox version.

Subtly fruity acoustics channelled into the cabin reflect the S3’s high performance ability, but otherwise brisk turns of speed come in an effortlessly refined manner. Muscularly flexible on-the-move, the S3’s swift sequential shift gearbox can be driven in a manual mode for additional driver involvement. Electronically-restricted to 250km/h, the S3, however, returns low 6.9l/100km combined fuel efficiency and 159g/km combined CO₂ emissions.

Cornering composure 

Built on Audi’s and Volkswagen’s new more aluminium-intensive modular MQB platform with the front axle set 42mm more forwards and a slightly lighter engine with a 12-degrees backwards camber, the S3 turns in with tidy, committed and neutral agility into and through corners, unless entering a corner at extreme speed, where faint understeer is easily managed.

Putting its considerable power down through all four wheels, the S3 can vary power distribution between front and rear to where it’s needed. Maintaining its composure, road-holding, the S3’s Quattro system allowed for sure-footedly swift progress through tight twisting corners, sweeping bends and straights. Meanwhile, the S3’s progressive steering was precise, accurate, well-weighted and reassuringly stable at high speed. 

Driven at the Dubai Autodrome circuit, the S3 almost felt like a somewhat grown-up Subaru WRX STI, as it tucked neatly through corners with its torque vectoring system braking the inside wheels for added agility, and its four-wheel drive reallocating power rearwards if flung hard through a tighter corner.

Refined, committed and reassuringly stable at speed, the S3’s adaptive magnetic dampers kept it poised and taut through all but the fastest tightest corners on track, where body lean became slightly evident, compared to the Audi TT sports car driven at the same session. At its most involving when driven briskly, the S3 is otherwise deceptively fast in how refined it remains at speed, while brakes faithfully reined in its 1455kg mass from speed.

Classy compact 

Somewhat narrow and manoeuvrable in town, the S3 was firm, composed and buttoned-down but comfortable on Dubai’s smooth roads with grippy 225/40R18 tyres. Refined inside and with an elegant and well-built premium feel, the S3’s cabin is classy, sporty and convenient. With clear instrumentation, thick flat-bottom multi-function sports steering wheel, supportive and well-adjustable seats, one finds a good driving position, while the S3’s design — between three-box saloon with hints of a notchback — allow for good road visibility and terrific front headroom. Rear space is also decent, with the sloped roofline only slightly reducing rear head space for tall adult passengers, who are unlikely rear occupants in this segment. 

Designed with clean lines and circular motifs including air vents and rotary dials, the S3’s cabin features contrasting metal accents and dark leather seats and trim, and soft textures are plenty. Well equipped with mod cons, safety and entertainment features, the S3’s pop-up infotainment screen and rotary selector can be used for most functions including various vehicle mode settings.

Featuring standard Bang & Olufsen sound system, sat nav, electric seats, rear view camera, parking sensors, panoramic sunroof, climate control and keyless entry is standard Middle East spec, the S3 can also be equipped with additional infotainment and driver assistance systems such as adaptive cruise control and high beam, active lane and blind spot assists.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2 litre, transverse, turbocharged 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82.5 x 92.8mm

Compression ratio: 9.3:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, direct injection, continuously variable valve timing

Boost pressure: 1.2-bar

Gearbox: 6-speed automated dual clutch, four-wheel drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 286 (290) [221] @ 5,500-6,200rpm

Specific power: 144BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 196.5BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 280 (380) @ 1,800-5,500rpm

Specific torque: 191.5Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 261Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 5 seconds

Top speed: 250km/h (electronically governed)

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined:  8.8/5.9/6.9 litres/100km 

CO₂ emissions, combined: 159g/km

Fuel capacity: 55 litres

Length: 4,469mm

Width: 1,796mm

Height: 1,392mm

Wheelbase: 2,631mm

Track, F/R: 1,551/1,526mm

Overhangs, F/R: 874/964mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficiency: 0.29

Headroom, F/R: 1,006/924mm

Luggage volume, min/max: 390/845 litres

Kerb weight: 1,455kg

Weight distribution, F/R: 59 per cent/41 per cent

Steering: Variable electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 11 metres

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link, adaptive magnetic dampers

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/discs

Tyres: 235/35R19

The Rosie Project
Graeme Simsion
US: Simon and Schuster, 2013
Pp. 295
 

Big parts of this novel are simply hilarious but that does not mean it is frivolous. Both the humour and the important thoughts in “The Rosie Project” stem mainly from the unique take on the world of the main character and narrator, Don Tillman. Don is a genetics professor at a university in Melbourne, Australia. As the story opens, he gives a lecture on the genetic aspect of Asperger’s syndrome, the mildest form of autism. Soon, one realises that he could have spoken from a more personal angle.  

Don’s social awkwardness, emotional paucity and rigidity, combined with his phenomenal memory and scientific career, place him in the Asperger’s category, though author Graeme Simsion doesn’t label him outright. Being unable to interpret people’s facial expressions, or understand jokes and idiomatic speech, Don doesn’t fit in; he has few friends, and often responds inappropriately and lands in awkward situations.

Some of his interpretations and reactions to other people’s words are truly funny, and one will laugh out loud, but also pause to think: What do people really mean with the phrases they reel off? What do they really want with their social interaction? 

The Rosie Project is the last of many projects which Don undertakes. It all starts with the Wife Project, based on a meticulous, 32-page questionnaire designed to be circulated over dating sites, in order to weed out unsuitable women and lead him to the perfect life partner. Looking for a mate in this way is part of his obsession with charting his life according to logic, rather than instincts or emotions, but when Rosie walks in, his rigorously observed daily schedule and usual rules are overturned.

For the first time, a woman gives him her phone number and says to call her, causing him to think, “I had temporarily been included in a culture that I considered close to me… Another world, another life, proximate but inaccessible.” (pp. 72 and 95)

Rosie is a stunning redhead, a psychology graduate student who presents herself as a bartender (her part-time job). Don thinks she is applying to the Wife Project, but she was sent by a mutual friend to make Don have some fun. So, from the start, they are at cross purposes — he finding her totally unsuitable because she smokes, is always late, and other faults; she wondering at his Wife Project-related references. 

Their interaction is odd but not only because of Don’s idiosyncrasies; Rosie is also off-beat. When Don discovers that her bad relationship to her father, and her belief that he is not her real father, are causing her much mental distress, he offers to help her find her real parent via genetic research. In total denial as to how attractive he finds her, he justifies his new project as a scientific pursuit. 

Thus begins the Father Project, a series of charades and escapades aimed at obtaining DNA samples from over 100 doctors who were in Rosie’s now dead mother’s graduating class. The project includes Don becoming a quite successful bartender at these doctors’ class reunion, and Don and Rosie travelling to New York together to track down other suspects. Their search adds another layer to the suspense already building as to where Don’s and Rosie’s relationship is heading. 

As different “father” candidates are eliminated, so too Don eliminates many of his presuppositions about bartenders, sports enthusiasts and other types of people he thought he had nothing in common with, as well as what things he could enjoy doing. A subtheme of the novel is gently ridiculing the pretensions of academics, while the trip to New York offers an opportunity to laugh at the American penchant for superlatives as Don and Rosie eat the World’s Best Breakfast and the World’s Best Pizza, and peruse the World’s Longest Cocktail List, etc.

But feelings remain the sticking point. It is unclear to the end if Don can overcome his inability to trust and articulate his feelings. What is very clear, however, are the advantages of throwing conventions to the wind, of having fun and trying new things, of not only recognising but relishing individual differences, and of accepting others as they are. This is the first novel for Australian author Gaeme Simsion, and he delivers a fast-paced, funny story, full of well-developed, quirky characters, credible dialogue and original insights.

“The Rosie Project” is available at Readers/Cozmo Centre.

WASHINGTON — In a remote part of the Venezuelan Amazon, scientists have discovered that members of a village isolated from the modern world have the most diverse colonies of bacteria ever reported living in and on the human body.

The microbiome — the trillions of mostly beneficial bacteria that share our bodies — plays a critical role in maintaining health. Friday’s study raises tantalising questions about the microbial diversity of our ancestors, and whether today’s Western diets and lifestyles strip us of some bugs we might want back.

Most surprising, this group of Yanomami indigenous people harboured bacteria containing genes with the ability to resist antibiotic treatment, even though the villagers presumably were never exposed to commercial medications.

This isolated population offers “a unique opportunity to put our microbial past under the microscope”, said lead researcher Jose Clemente, an assistant genetics professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

The results bolster a theory that diminished microbial diversity in Western populations is linked to immune and metabolic diseases — allergies, asthma, diabetes — that are on the rise, said senior author M. Gloria Dominguez-Bello of NYU Langone Medical Centre.

“The challenge is to determine which are the important bacteria whose function we need to be healthy,” she said.

Everyone carries a customised set of microbes that live in our noses and mouths, on our skin and in our intestines. This microbial zoo starts forming at birth and varies depending on where you live, your diet, if you had a vaginal birth or a C-section and, of course, antibiotic exposure.

Most of what scientists know about the human microbiome comes from studies of Americans, such as the US government’s Human Microbiome Project, or of Europeans. But increasingly, scientists are attempting to compare non-Western populations, especially those that keep traditional lifestyles like the isolated Yanomami.

“It’s a fascinating study,” Dr Lita Proctor of the National Institutes of Health, who wasn’t involved in the new research. “The more diverse your microbiome, the more those microbes bring properties to your body that you might need.”

The Yanomami continue to live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in rainforests and mountains along the border of Venezuela and Brazil, and as a group are fairly well-known. But Friday’s research, reported in the journal Science Advances, stems from the discovery of a previously unmapped Yanomami village in the mountains of southern Venezuela. Researchers aren’t disclosing the village’s name for privacy reasons but say it was first visited by a Venezuelan medical expedition in 2009 that collected faecal, skin and mouth swab samples from 34 villagers.

Scientists compared the bacterial DNA from those villagers with samples from US populations and found the Americans’ microbiomes are about 40 per cent less diverse. The Yanomami’s microbiomes also were somewhat more diverse than samples from two other indigenous populations with more exposure to Western culture — the Guahibo community of Venezuela and rural Malawi communities in southeast Africa.

Intriguingly, the Yanomami harboured some unique bacteria with beneficial health effects, such as helping to prevent the formation of kidney stones, the researchers reported.

Then genetic testing uncovered silent antibiotic-resistant genes lurking in some bacterial strains. Antibiotics still could kill the bugs. But when the genes were switched on, by antibiotic exposure, they could block activity of some common modern antibiotics, said study co-author Guatam Dantas of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Today, exposure to antibiotics in medicine or agriculture spurs germs to become harder to treat. But bacteria in soil were a natural source of early antibiotics, Dantas explained, and probably these villagers at some point picked up those bugs which had evolved resistance genes as a defence from competitors. He said it suggests people have a natural reservoir of genes that may have other duties but that can activate to trigger drug resistance in the right environment.

“It emphasises the need to ramp up our research for new antibiotics because otherwise, we’re going to lose this battle against infectious diseases,” Dantas said.

HANOVER, Germany — Collaborative robots and intelligent machinery may have wowed the crowds at this year's Hannover Messe, but experts see German industry as having some way to go towards incorporating them on factory floors in what could become the fourth industrial revolution.

The undoubted star of the world's largest industrial trade fair which closed its doors in the northern German city on Friday was YuMi, a collaborative dual-armed robot made by Swiss-based automation technology group ABB.

ABB says it developed YuMi primarily for the consumer electronics industry and it is capable of handling the delicate and precise parts of a wristwatch to components used in mobile phones, tablets and desktop PCs.

But it will increasingly be rolled out to cover other market sectors as well, the company said.

And it is completely safe, so that YuMi and human co-workers can work side-by-side on shared tasks without protective fencing or cages.

Chancellor Angela Merkel put its safety features to the test when she visited the stand and placed her finger inside the gripper on YuMi's right arm, causing it to stop.

At another stand, the German firm Beckhoff showed off its automated assembly line able to adapt itself seamlessly to handle different parts according to their shape, size and colour, while the human co-worker is equipped with a special smartwatch to monitor the process and intervene if necessary.

Digital revolution 

Industry views the merging of production and online technology as the way forward for manufacturing, where "smart" factories use information and communications technologies to digitise their processes, boosting quality and efficiency at the same time as cutting costs.

Digitisation is being heralded as the fourth industrial revolution — hence the term widely used in Germany of "Industrie 4.0" — following the invention of the steam engine, mass production and automatisation.

With nothing less than Germany's mighty industrial prowess at stake, politicians and business leaders are keen to wave the "Industrie 4.0" flag.

The government has even launched a new working group of businesses, unions and researchers to look into ways of moving digitisation forward and which will present its ideas and findings later this year.

But German companies still have a long way to go, experts say.

A recent survey by the BITKOM federation for information technology, telecommunications and new media, found that currently four out of 10 companies in key industrial sectors use Industrie 4.0 applications.

The automobile sector is leading the pack, with 53 per cent of companies using such applications, followed by electro-technology, the chemicals sector and mechanical engineering.

"Digitisation of German factories is in full swing, but still has a long way to go," said BITKOM board member Winfried Holz.

"In view of the fierce international competition, say from China and the United States, companies must invest massively in the digitisation of their processes and products if Germany wants to hold on to its leading position in the manufacturing sector," Holz said.

Catching up 

But German companies still have some catching up to do.

According to the BITKOM survey, around one in four companies currently have no Industrie 4.0 strategy, even if they insist it's on their radar in the future.

But as many as 14 per cent of companies say digitisation is not an issue for them at all.

Overall, 80 per cent of companies said they felt that industry was too reticent in the process of digitisation, with 72 per cent saying they were put off by the investment costs and 56 per cent by the complexity of the issue, the survey showed.

Another 56 per cent said they saw a lack of specialist personnel as a problem.

If digitisation "is to lead the way for the next 10-15 years, we only partially know exactly how to implement it", said Wolfgang Dorst, who heads BITKOM's own Industrie 4.0 department.

While many large companies have sufficient financial and human resources to digitise their production, frequently is the small and medium-sized companies which are not so well off financially that hvave the creative ideas, Dorst noted.

Bernhard Juchheim, the head of Jumo, a family-run company specialising in industrial sensor and automation technology, told AFP that his company would start building its own smart factory in Fulda in central Germany next year.

Critics fear digitisation could render humans obsolete in the manufacturing process.

But the process will actually create new jobs, said Michael Ruessmann of the Boston Consulting Group.

He authored a study which found that 390,000 new jobs and an additional 30 billion euros ($32 billion) in gross domestic product could be created in Germany over the next 10 years as companies switched to so-called "intelligent factories".