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JOHANNESBURG — South African doctors announced Friday that they had performed the world’s first successful penis transplant, three months after the ground-breaking operation.

The 21-year-old patient had his penis amputated three years ago after a botched circumcision at a traditional initiation ceremony.

In a nine-hour operation at the Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, he received his new penis from a deceased donor, whose family were praised by doctors.

“We’ve proved that it can be done — we can give someone an organ that is just as good as the one that he had,” said Professor Frank Graewe, head of plastic reconstructive surgery at Stellenbosch University.

“It was a privilege to be part of this first successful penis transplant in the world.”

Doctors say the man, whose identity has not been disclosed, has made a full recovery since the operation on December 11 and has regained all urinary and reproductive functions.

“Our goal was that he would be fully functional at two years and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery,” said Professor Andre van der Merwe, head of Stellenbosch’s urology division.

In 2006, a Chinese man had a penis transplant but his doctors removed the organ after two weeks due to “a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife”.

Scores of South African teenage boys and young men have their penises amputated each year after botched circumcisions during rite-of-passage ceremonies.

“There is a greater need in South Africa for this type of procedure than elsewhere in the world,” Van der Merwe said in a statement.

African teenagers from some ethnic groups spend about a month in secluded bush or mountain regions as part of their initiation to manhood.

The experience includes circumcision as well as lessons on masculine courage and discipline.

A commission last year found 486 boys had died at the winter initiation schools between 2008 and 2013, with a major cause being complications such as infection after circumcision.

“For a young man of 18 or 19 years, the loss of his penis can be deeply traumatic,” said Van der Merwe.

Van der Merwe described the anonymous donor and his family as “the heroes” of the story.

“They saved the lives of many people because they donated the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, skin, corneas and then the penis,” he said.

The South African team included three senior doctors, transplant coordinators, anaesthetists, theatre nurses, a psychologist and an ethicist.

Surgeons from Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital had searched extensively for a suitable donor as part of a pilot study to develop penis transplants in Africa.

Some techniques were developed from the first facial transplant in France in 2005.

They now plan to perform nine more similar operations.

South Africa has long been a pioneer of transplant surgery. 

In 1967, Chris Barnard performed the world’s first heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.

PARIS — Dazed parents wander the aisles of the Disney store in a manic search for the right Elsa dress or Anna doll, the endlessly repeated refrain of “Let It Go” ringing in their ears. Are they ready for another installment of “Frozen fever”? 

“I bloody well hate them all,” says one man, staring at the 60-euro ($70) price tag on a shiny turquoise dress.

He was one of many grimly determined parents making a dash through the Champs Elysees branch of the Disney store in Paris on Friday, looking for more merchandise to sate the bottomless hunger of their charges back home. 

The prospect of a Frozen sequel, officially announced a day earlier by Disney, does not fill them all with instant delight.

“More songs, more marketing? Yes, we’re certainly worried,” said Sylka Pax from Belgium, who has an eight-year-old girl. 

“It drives us a little crazy but it has some advantages,” she added on reflection. 

“We took part in a quiz the other day and I immediately recognised the Frozen song in the music section.”

‘No light at end of tunnel’

The parenting world has yet to recover from the sensory and financial assault launched by Disney in late 2013, when Frozen burst out of nowhere to become the single most important thing in the lives of millions of children.

That has meant several hours of Christmas Day lost to the construction of a Frozen castle — whose broken pieces then become hidden booby traps around the house. 

It has meant many mornings of struggle to convince a daughter she should wear her school uniform rather than an Anna dress. 

And it has meant hearing the song “Let It Go” more times than is medically advisable.

“We’ve got a five-year-old who sings it at the top of her lungs all day — Let it goooooo!” says Disney store shopper Carol Austin-Groome, from Britain.

“And she does not have a good singing voice.”

She is not alone. Even Prime Minister David Cameron admitted last month to having heard the song “more times than I care to remember” thanks to his four-year-daughter Florence who regularly “launches into song” in front of his security detail.

London’s Little Rascals children’s entertainment company says the will to organise Frozen parties has slowly melted away in the past year.

“It’s diminished recently, not really among the kids, but among the parents,” says founder Andrew Bloomer, adding that Frozen parties still account for around a quarter of his business.

He fears for the sanity of some customers if the sequel triggers another wave of “Frozen fever”.

“They saw a light at the end of the tunnel and now it’s gone,” he said. 

A desperate search

In another aisle at the Disney store, Yusuf Sogul is desperately looking for an Elsa doll before he catches his flight back to Istanbul. 

“My daughter is seven years old. She has phoned us twice today and I have many messages on Whatsapp telling me to get it, but they only have the big one — it won’t fit in my luggage,” he says, slightly panicked.

At the London branch of the store, some parents put a more positive spin on the Disney cash-cow, which has become the fifth-highest grossing film of all time.

“It’s the only movie she has watched all the way through,” said Anna, from Gothenburg in Sweden, buying a Frozen bag for her seven-year-old daughter. 

“Normally she has ants in her pants but with Frozen she sits and watches it. So it’s a good thing. And I love the music.”

While some fathers may be dreading the coming ice storm of a Frozen sequel, they also know they will have their revenge when an even more powerful force hits the screens.

“I couldn’t care less,” said London-based father Graeme Harrison. “Because the boys and I have now got Star Wars Episodes XII AND XIII movies to look forward to.”

The latest iteration of what is generally accepted as the first hot hatch when it first arrived in 1976, the Volkswagen Golf GTI is the car that has it all. First featured in these pages just after the global test drive launch event in the south of France in mid-2013, the Golf GTI’s day-to-day versatility and breadth of abilities was highlighted during a recent extended test drive in Dubai.

The sharpest looking GTI since the original, the current model is a complete package that combines often contradictory attributes and is above all an accessible daily drive sports car that is easy to drive, spacious, agile and brisk. 

Classy and crisp

Built on Volkswagen’s highly modular MQB platform, the current Golf GTI incorporates partial aluminium construction and is consequently larger and roomier, yet 42kg lighter, better handling and more efficient than its predecessor.

The best looking GTI since 1976, the current model is a more deliberate yet evolutionary design with crisper and better defined lines and creases that is both sportier and classier than the car it replaced. Lower, longer and wider, the Mk7 Golf GTI has a more rakish and athletic presence, with sharper lines and angles yielding a more urgent and dynamic demeanour with subtle underlying hints of the elegantly simple and angular Giugiaro-designed original.

Tidier and tauter, the contemporary Golf GTI has greater precision and presence, with slim grille, browed headlights, bold VW badge and big lower intake.

 Strikingly handsome in Night Blue — as driven — dark tones also better integrates the black lower intake slats.

More muscular than before, the current GTI features a raised bonnet and better toned flanks. Better harmonising its side skirts and A-pillar base with the waistline, the current GTI also features slimmer, moodier and classier rear lights and dual exhaust tips.

Cool, restrained and chiselled, the GTI’s thin red pinstripe across the grille and headlights pays tribute to the original, while its C-pillar kink creates a sense of forward momentum.

Lively performer

Powered by an advanced version of VW’s turbocharged direct injection 2-litre engine, the current Golf GTI features a new engine head design with integrated turbocharger and a water-cooled exhaust gas loop, which contributes to efficiency and performance. The GTI additionally features improved and variable thermal management, and reduced friction losses, and is Euro 6 efficiency compliant.

More powerful and efficient, the GTI develops 10BHP more, with 217BHP available at an earlier and broader 4,500-6,200rpm range, and is 13 per cent more efficient, returning 6.4l/100km combined fuel consumption in 6-speed dual clutch DSG gearbox guise, as tested. A 51lb/ft torque rise is more significant with 258lb/ft developed throughout a wide 1,500-4,400rpm band.

Quick off the mark with negligible turbo lag, the GTI is responsive, and with a short scramble for traction at full throttle and subtle dump valve rorts at full load redline upshift, blasting onto 100km/h in 6.5 seconds and towards a potential 244km/h top speed.

Smooth and seamless in delivery, the GTI’s charismatic engine is refined when cruising, but is not so insulated as to feel detached, and instead delivers a muffled gruff low-end growl. Muscular and flexible in mid-range, the GTI picks up speed and overtakes with confident ease in town and highway from high gears, while a punchy and eager top-end delivers a brisk turn of speed.

Composed and confident

Driving the front wheels through a 6-speed automated dual clutch gearbox, the GTI swaps cogs with seamless finger-snap succinctness. Default auto mode’s shift points are well judged, and while there is a sport mode to hold gears longer, one, however, found sequential manual mode through the steering-mounted buttons or gear lever to be more engaging for sporty driving.

With snappy gearbox and flexible and punchy gearbox, the GTI pounces fluently from one corner to the next, while an XDS+ torque vectoring system utilises selective braking for greater agility and less under-steer when powering out of corners. Tidy, crisp and eager into corners, the GTI remains flat and composed throughout.

With a bigger footprint, lower height and weight the GTI drives with better high speed and cornering composure, and is faithful through corners, even if one comes back on throttle early.

With well balanced handling and driver engagement, the GTI delivers reassuring grip and confident stability but feels ever lively and willing to weave through snaking switchbacks with pointy and agile manoeuvrability.

Lively but not twitchy, the GTI’s steering is similarly well-judged, with good high-speed directional stability, but is also responsive, direct and eager on-centre or through corners. With quick ratio of just over 2-turns lock-to-lock, the right level of resistance and refined feel and feedback, the GTI’s steering is intuitively natural. 

‘Just right’

A classy and grown-up hot hatch with the right level of comfort, stability, cabin and ride refinement, the GTI is at the same time and fun and engaging B-road blast with old school hot hatch charisma, agility, taut body control, performance and directness to keep one engaged and alert whether snaking through winding lanes, commuting on the highway or driving down to the shops.

A “just right” car on every level, the GTI is a refined yet connected drive that delivers clarity, confidence and practicality. With low bonnet and big glasshouse the GTI provides excellent road visibility to accurately place whether through a sharp corner or tight parking spot.

Classy but not overstated, the GTI has a clean, crisp, robust and upmarket but honest — rather than pretentious — character, design, drivability and cabin, and is as much at home in the corporate car park or back road switchbacks.

Driver-oriented yet practical, the GTI’s cabin provides an ideal and alert driving position, with plenty of room and highy adjustable and supportively comfortable seats, while instrumentation is clear and un-fussed.

Well-presented and finished with quality materials, the GTI’s feels well built, while the gear lever and various buttons are ergonomic and user-friendly. Spacious and practical — especially in 5-door guise as tested — the GTI well accommodates tall and large drivers, even with the optional sunroof.

Accommodating inside, the GTI’s longer wheelbase provides 15mm more rear legroom and good rear access. Luggage space is uniform and flat, and easily accommodated a week’s worth of luggage in its 380-litre boot, which with rear seats down, expands to 1270 litres.

Well equipped with comfort and infotainment features, the GTI features numerous advanced driver assistance and safety systems including progressive steering assist, post-collision braking, driver alert system and Isofix child seat latches as standard.

Optional available are adaptive cruise control, emergency braking, dynamic light assist, lane-keeping assist function, rear side airbags and a Performance package that adds 10HP power, improved brakes and a limited slip differential for improved handling and agility.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, turbocharged transverse 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82.5 x 92.8mm

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

Gearbox: 6-speed manual, front-wheel drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 217 (220) [162] @ 4,500-6,200rpm

Specific power: 109BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 154.7BHP/ton

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 258 (350) @ 1,500-4,400rpm

Specific torque: 176Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 249.6Nm/ton

0-100km/h: 6.5 seconds

Maximum speed: 244km/h

Fuel consumption, combined: 6.4l/100km

CO₂ emissions, combined: 148g/km

Fuel capacity: 50 litres

Length: 4,268mm

Width: 1,799mm

Height: 1,442mm

Wheelbase: 2,631mm

Track, F/R: 1,538/1,517mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficiency: 0.318

Unladen weight: 1,402kg

Headroom, F/R: 964/967mm (w/sunroof)

Elbow room, F/R: 1,469/1,440mm

Luggage capacity, min/max: 380/1,270 litres

Payload: 543kg

Steering: Variable electric-assisted rack and pinion

Turning circle: 10.9-metres

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated disc/disc

Suspension, F: MacPherson strut/multi-link

Tyres: 225/40R18

SAN FRANCISCO — Get ready to see more red warning signs online as Google adds ammunition to its technological artillery for targeting devious schemes lurking on websites.

The latest weapon is aimed at websites riddled with “unwanted software” — a term that Google uses to describe secretly installed programmes that can change a browser’s settings without a user’s permission. Those revisions can unleash a siege of aggravating ads or redirect a browser’s users to search engines or other sites that they didn’t intend to visit.

Google had already deployed the warning system to alert users of its Chrome browser that they were about to enter a site distributing unwanted software. The Mountain View, California, company just recently began to feed the security information into a broader “safe browsing” application that also works in Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers.

All told, the safe browsing application protects about 1.1 billion browser users, according to a Thursday blog post that Google Inc. timed to coincide with the 26th anniversary of the date when Tim Berners-Lee is widely credited for inventing the World Wide Web.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer doesn’t tap into Google’s free safe browsing application. Instead, Explorer depends on a similar warning system, the SmartScreen Filter.

Google’s alerts about unwanted software build upon the warnings that the safe browsing system has already been delivering for years about sites infected with malware, programmes carrying viruses and other sinister coding, and phishing sites that try to dupe people into sharing passwords or credit card information.

Whenever a potential threat is detected by the safe browsing system, it displays a red warning sign advising a user to stay away. Google also is demoting the nettlesome sites in the rankings of its dominant Internet search engine so people are less likely to come across them in the first place. Google disclosed recently that the safe browsing application has been generating about 5 million warnings a day, a number likely to rise now that unwanted software is now part of the detection system.

As it is, Google says it discovers more than 50,000 malware-infected sites and more than 90,000 phishing sites per month.

The safe browsing application had gotten so effective at flagging malware and phishing that shysters are increasingly creating unwanted software in an attempt to hoodwink people, said Stephan Somogyi, the product manager of safe browsing of Google.

“The folks trying to make a buck off people are having to come up with new stuff and that puts us in a position where we have to innovate to keep pace with these guys,” Somogyi said in an interview. “You are now going to see a crescendo in our enforcement on sites that meet our standard of having unwanted software.”

NEW YORK — A fragment of jawbone found in Ethiopia is the oldest known fossil from an evolutionary tree branch that eventually led to modern humans, scientist reported Wednesday.

The fossil comes from very close to the time that the early human branch split away from more ape-like ancestors best known for the fossil skeleton Lucy. So it gives a rare glimpse of what very early members of our branch looked like.

At about 2.8 million years old, the partial jawbone pushes back the fossil record by at least 400,000 years for the human branch, which scientists call Homo.

It was found two years ago at a site not far from where Lucy was unearthed. Africa is a hotbed for human ancestor fossils, and scientists from Arizona State University have worked for years at the site in northeast Ethiopia, trying to find fossils from the dimly understood period when the Homo genus, or group, arose.

Our species, called Homo sapiens, is the only surviving member of this group.

The jaw fragment, which includes five teeth, was discovered in pieces one morning by Chalachew Seyoum, an Ethiopian graduate student at Arizona State. He said he spotted a tooth poking out of the ground while looking for fossils.

The discovery is described in a paper recently released by the journal Science.

Arizona State’s William Kimbel, an author of the paper, said it’s not clear whether the fossil came from a known early species of Homo or whether it reveals a new one. Field work is continuing to look for more fossils at the site, said another author, Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Analysis indicates the jaw fossil came from one of the earliest populations of Homo, and its age helps narrow the range of possibilities for when the first Homo species appeared, Kimbel said. The fossil dates to as little as 200,000 years after the last known fossil from Lucy’s species.

The fossil is from the left lower jaw of an adult. It combines ancestral features, like a primitive chin shape, with some traits found in later Homo fossils, like teeth that are slimmer than the bulbous molars of Lucy’s ilk.

Despite that mix, experts not involved in the paper said the researchers make a convincing case that the fossil belongs in the Homo category.

And they present good evidence that it came from a creature that was either at the origin of Homo or “within shouting distance”, said Bernard Wood of George Washington University.

The find also bolsters the argument that Homo arose from Lucy’s species rather than a related one, said Susan Anton of New York University.

The new paper’s analysis is first-rate, but the fossil could reveal only a limited amount of information about the creature, said Eric Delson of Lehman College in New York.

“There’s no head, there’s no tools, and no limb bones. So we don’t know if it was walking any differently from Australopithecus afarensis,” which was Lucy’s species, he said.

It’s the first time that anything other than isolated teeth have turned up as a possible trace of Homo from before 2.3 million years ago, he said.

“This fills a gap, but it hasn’t yet given us a complete skeleton. It’s not Lucy,” Delson said. “This is always the problem. We always want more.”

Also on Wednesday, another research team reported in a paper released by the journal Nature that the lower part of the face of Homo habilis, the earliest known member of the Homo branch, was surprisingly primitive. That came from reconstruction of a broken jaw that was found 50 years ago.

The finding means the evolutionary step from the Ethiopian jaw to the jaw of Homo habilis is “not so large”, said an author of the Nature study, Fred Spoor of University College London and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

SAN FRANCISCO — Live streaming video from a smartphone may soon be known as “meerkatting” thanks to a new app that allows anyone with an iPhone to become a roving reporter.

The free application called Meerkat has become a virtual overnight sensation since its low-key arrival on Apple’s online App Store late last month, winning over journalists, politicians, self-anointed pundits, social media celebrities and others.

Meerkat integrates with Twitter, allowing users of the messaging platform to launch live video streams with a single touch of an on-screen button.

In the rapid-fire Twitterverse, Meerkat has become a sudden hit with tens of thousands of users trying it.

Meerkat “marries the wide potential of livestreaming with the instant and social strengths of Twitter. Two great tastes that go so well together”, wrote Hawaii-based consultant and blogger Ryan Ozawa.

“Imagine the applications for breaking news. Imagine deploying Meerkat at an event, with broadcasters and viewers easily interacting throughout. I could easily see myself falling head over heels in love with Meerkat.”

The app uses the name and image of a meerkat, which is a long-necked carnivorous relative of the mongoose that lives in the deserts of southern Africa.

Twitter strikes back

The news blog TechCrunch described Meerkat as “the livestreaming app Twitter should have built”.

Twitter appears to have taken notice.

The one-to-many messaging platform announced Friday that it was buying the maker of a rival video streaming app called Periscope, which is in beta testing and has not yet been released to the public.

“Excited to officially welcome @periscopeco to the Twitter team. Can’t wait for everyone to see what they’ve built!” Twitter product vice president, Kevin Weil, tweeted on Friday.

Twitter did not release details about the deal, but media reports said Twitter was paying between $50 million and $100 million for the app, which has so far been available by invitation only.

Additionally, Buzzfeed.com reported Friday that Twitter was cutting Meerkat’s access to some of its features.

It was not immediately clear whether Twitter would maintain Periscope as an independent app or integrate it into the platform. Both companies are based in San Francisco.

“That is a worry for Meerkat,” Danny Sullivan, founder of the blog Search Engine Land, said of Twitter buying Periscope. “If Twitter gets their own live video, they will have a tendency to want to favour that.”

‘Meerkatting’ SXSW

Sullivan “meerkatted” — some are calling it “meercasting” — a stroll around the South By Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, shortly after arriving there on Friday.

“It is kind of neat to give a taste of South-By to people who have never seen it and want a taste of it,” Sullivan said, referring to the festival by its informal name. “It works surprisingly well; it is very impressive how easy it was to get going with the live stream.”

With Meerkat, a tweet is fired off containing a link that anyone can click to be connected to the stream while it is in progress. Tiny profile icons pop up to show who is tuning in to broadcasts.

“At one point we had 110 people all walking around with me,” Sullivan said.

Videos are available only at Meerkat while they are live, but the app gives users the option of saving what they have recorded on their devices.

On Friday, an array of Meerkat streams flowing from SXSW included casual tours of Google and PayPal lounges along with impromptu interviews there by journalists who have seized on the application as a tool for giving intimate glimpses at news gathering.

The Iowa governor’s office announced on Friday that it will use Meerkat to live-stream press conferences and other events on Twitter.

“By using the Meerkat app, Iowans will be able to join us as we tour communities following natural disasters; as we visit a small business, listen in to our weekly press conferences or even as we hit the trail for our annual 99-county tour,” said Iowa Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds.

SEATTLE — Microsoft is working on an advanced version of its competitor to Apple’s Siri, using research from an artificial intelligence project called “Einstein”.

Microsoft has been running its “personal assistant” Cortana on its Windows phones for a year, and will put the new version on the desktop with the arrival of Windows 10 this autumn. Later, Cortana will be available as a standalone app, usable on phones and tablets powered by Apple Inc.’s iOS and Google Inc.’s Android, people familiar with the project said.

“This kind of technology, which can read and understand e-mail, will play a central role in the next roll out of Cortana, which we are working on now for the fall time frame,” said Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft Research and a part of the Einstein project, in an interview at the company’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters. Horvitz and Microsoft declined comment on any plan to take Cortana beyond Windows.

The plan to put Cortana on machines running software from rivals such as Apple and Google, as well as the Einstein project, have not been reported. Cortana is the name of an artificial intelligence character in the video game series “Halo”.

They represent a new front in CEO Satya Nadella’s battle to sell Microsoft software on any device or platform, rather than trying to force customers to use Windows. Success on rivals’ platforms could create new markets and greater relevance for the company best known for its decades-old operating system.

The concept of “artificial intelligence” is broad, and mobile phones and computers already show dexterity with spoken language and sifting through e-mails for data, for instance.

Still, Microsoft believes its work on speech recognition, search and machine learning will let it transform its digital assistant into the first intelligent “agent” which anticipates users needs. By comparison, Siri is advertised mostly as responding to requests. Google’s mobile app, which doesn’t have a name like Siri or Cortana, already offers some limited predictive information ‘cards’ based on what it thinks the user wants to know.

Microsoft has tried to create digital assistants before, without success. Microsoft Bob, released in 1995, was supposed to make using a computer easy, but ended up being the butt of jokes. The Office Assistant nicknamed ‘Clippy’ suffered a similar fate a few years later.

“We’re defining the competitive landscape... of who can provide the most supportive services that make life easier, keep track of things, that complement human memory in a way that helps us get things done,” said Horvitz.

Outside his door stands “The Assistant”, a monitor showing a woman’s face that can converse with visitors, has access to Horvitz’s calendar and can book meetings.

On his desktop, Horvitz runs “Lifebrowser”, a programme that stores everything from appointments to photos and uses machine learning to identify the important moments. A keyword search for his university professor instantly brings up photos and video from the last time they met.

Cortana could tell a mobile phone user when to leave for the airport, days after it read an e-mail and realised the user was planning a flight. It would automatically check flight status, determine where the phone is located using GPS, and checking traffic conditions.

None of the individual steps are a breakthrough, but creating an artificial intelligence that can stitch together the processes marks a breakthrough in usefulness, Microsoft says.

Rivals are on the same track. Google’s latest mobile app uses the predictive power generated from billions of searches to work out what a user is doing, what they are interested in, and sending relevant information, such as when a favourite sports team is playing next.

Apple is also pushing Siri, which uses Microsoft’s Bing search engine in the background, into new areas with its CarPlay and HomeKit platforms, as well as the recently unveiled Apple Watch.

The key to Cortana’s success will be knowing where a user is, what time it is, and what they are trying to do. Albert Einstein’s work on the relationship between space and time gave rise to Microsoft’s secret project name, said Horvitz.

“Einstein was brilliant about space and time,” he said. “It’s using brilliance about space and time generally in our agents.”

ATHENS — Photographs of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in his beautiful Athens home in a French celebrity magazine caused a storm on social media Friday as his ministry admitted it may raid the country’s social security funds to stave off bankruptcy.

Varoufakis is seen in Paris Match at a piano in his living room, and dining in some style on the roof terrace of his “love nest at the foot of the Acropolis”, while telling the magazine how he abhorred the “star system”. 

“There is always a relationship between a democratic deficit and a deficit of values,” he added.

Paris Match also revealed that Varoufakis and his wife, the glamorous artist Danae Stratou, are about to move from their present home in a building owned by her industrialist family at the foot of the Acropolis, to a larger apartment.

The reaction on social media was instant and unforgiving of the finance chief in Greece’s new hard-left Syriza government which has described the country’s financial plight as a humanitarian crisis.

Financial Times economics editor Chris Giles tweeted: “The humanitarian crisis in Greece... Un-put-downable... Highlight of the morning.”

Varoufakis’ fellow economist Benn Steil, of the US Council on Foreign Relations, joked, “Lifestyles of the rich and famous, Syriza edition”, while Eric Maurice, of the European Journalists Association, also tweeted, “Varoufakis has a good lifestyle but very bad PR.”

The article in the glossy weekly came days after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he had asked his flamboyant finance chief and other ministers not to give so many interviews and focus on getting things done.

The debt-wracked country faces repayments of 6 billion euros ($6.4 billion) in the next two weeks alone and, with its bailout frozen, the finance ministry is asking parliament to allow it to raise money from the reserves of the pensions and social security system.

The timing of the photographs could not have been worse for the self-styled “erratic Marxist” economist, whose first speech as finance minister lacerated the culture of bling which had helped sink Greece into debt. 

The new radical left Syriza government, he insisted, heralded a return to the restraint of the ancients. “We are in favour of austere life. Growth does not mean having Porsche Cayennes on narrow Athens streets,” he said. “Greeks created when they were austere: they didn’t have loans and overdrawn credit cards.”

‘Yanis, don’t overdo it’

There were noticeably fewer negative reactions to the photos on social media in Greece than from the rest of the Europe. And his French publishers, Editions du Cercle, were quick to come to his defence on Twitter: “I find the Varoufakis report in Paris Match absolutely wonderful. But there are always idiots who will spit their venom!”

Last week the Syriza daily Avgi warned Varoufakis to step back from toxic “overexposure” after he was widely ridiculed in Greece for his omnipresence on TV.

“Yanis, don’t overdo it,” the paper said. “Because... it’s about being frugal with words too.” 

The Paris Match shoot, apparently done last weekend when Athens was looking its best in spring sunshine, has the finance minister also flicking through one of his own books, and opening his family photo album to show that he was not always the matinee idol that has made him a sex symbol even in Germany.

With no reaction as yet from Varoufakis — his last tweet on March 1 was “dedicated to muck-racking journalists” — another Greek user of the network, versendaal, attempted to predict his reaction. “Tomorrow Varoufakis will claim to have been misled by muckraking Paris Match journos. ‘I thought I was talking to Le Nouvel Observateur’ [the French political weekly].”

SAN FRANCISCO — Amid all the talk of Apple Watch, a new MacBook laptop and a partnership with HBO, a set of Apple tools aimed at promoting medical research didn’t get much attention. The tools, called ResearchKit, promise to help researchers study asthma, Parkinson’s and other diseases by recruiting test subjects through iPhone apps.

These tools could give researchers more data to work with by making it easier for people to offer themselves up to science, but even supporters say the data won’t be appropriate for every study.

Here are key things to know:

Expanding the pool of research candidates

Test subjects are often picked because they happen to see a doctor involved with a study or are lured by ads promising cash. That excludes a lot of people who might otherwise qualify.

With ResearchKit, anyone with an iPhone can potentially participate. Researchers set criteria. One study on how breast cancer survivors cope requires participants to be breast cancer survivors. But a study on Parkinson’s disease wants data from the general population as well for comparison.

“Most researchers will tell you recruiting and sample size are one of their top concerns and challenges,” says Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of operations. “We see huge opportunities with hundreds of millions of iPhones users, many of whom would gladly participate if it’s just easier to do so.”

Another advantage: Researchers can collect data throughout the day, rather than only during periodic office visits.

How it works

Researchers use Apple’s ResearchKit tools to create an app. An iPhone user who wants to participate downloads that app and fills out a questionnaire to determine eligibility and establish a base line for further comparisons. Users will also learn more about the study so they can give consent.

The app will tell accepted participants what to do. In the Parkinson’s study, subjects will be asked to tap on the screen, speak into the microphone and walk several steps to gauge progression of the disease.

Some research apps will be able to tap data from other apps, such as those for fitness trackers. Apple says participants will be able to decide whether to allow that. The company doesn’t see any of that data.

What if you don’t have an iPhone?

Apple, naturally, designed the tools to work with iPhones. But the company is making ResearchKit’s “secret sauce” open for anyone to see and modify. Someone could adapt ResearchKit for Android.

Potential pitfalls

There’s potential bias whenever people actively choose to participate in a study rather than being asked at a doctor’s office. For instance, if you’re motivated enough to step up, you also might be more motivated than others to follow a fitness regime. Then again, it’s easy to download an app — and many participants might drop out once the novelty wears off.

Ray Dorsey, a University of Rochester neurology professor involved with the Parkinson’s app, also says researchers will have to weigh the benefit of getting more participants and more data against not being able to see participants in person. In many cases, the ResearchKit studies will only supplement more traditional research.

Researchers do have the option of recruiting participants via traditional ways and then using the app to collect data more frequently.

Kathryn Schmitz, a University of Pennsylvania professor involved with the breast-cancer app, says the apps will never be appropriate for some types of research, such as surgical follow-ups. But she says ResearchKit could help with many common ailments involving heart disease, obesity and diabetes, as apps could be used as an objective tracker of lifestyles.

Initial studies and beyond

Apple worked with five groups of researchers prior to Monday’s announcement of ResearchKit and released five apps aimed at studying Parkinson’s disease, asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular issues and breast cancer.

Other researchers will be able to start using ResearchKit next month.

It will take time to see scientific results. Some of the early efforts are about gathering preliminary data — and tailoring more specific research from there.

Who hasn’t been through the traumatising experience of transferring contact data from one machine to another? Or has lost all the contact information stored because of a mishap? Or has seen contacts turned completely upside down because of bad synchronisation with an online contact service that wasn’t well understood?

What could be simpler than an application that lets you store and manage names, telephone numbers and addresses? Contact applications, as they are usually called, are everywhere, most notably on smartphones and e-mail software (MS-Outlook, Gmail, etc.), be it online or locally kept on your computer’s hard disk. Despite its simplicity, its importance and its omnipresence, contact software remains to be perfected.

In principle most contact apps (or address books, to use another commonly used term for the same concept) are built on compatible structures and are able to exchange data and to synchronise between themselves. Indeed, the structure is simple. The fact is, however, that shortcomings and incompatibilities are overwhelming, often resulting in frustration and despair.

Problems are many and the consumer is left wondering why, after all these years and countless versions and improvements introduced by the industry, there isn’t today a straightforward, fool proof manner to manage contacts and keep them handy and secure, one that doesn’t require a degree in computer science.

The situation was already complicated because of inherent differences between operating systems. From MS-Windows to Android, and from mobile phones to online services, the road to contacts copying, sharing and exchanging has always been strewn with pitfalls. I still recall when, a couple of years ago, I tried to transfer my address book from a Nokia smartphone using Symbian system to a Samsung device running Android. I managed somehow in the end, but only because I am an IT professional by trade; a stubborn and a patient one what’s more. And even though, there were some imperfections in the resulting process that I had to correct manually.

Today, with the push to store, or at least to synchronise and back up your contacts in the cloud, the road is even a harder one. Not to mention those otherwise great communication apps like Whatsapp and Viber that want to synchronise with your address book in the background. Things can get pretty complicated.

Take an Android smartphone, the most widely used system in the world. IDC (International Data Corporation) figures updated on the fourth quarter of 2014 put Google’s Android at 78 per cent and Apple’s iOS at 20 per cent of the world market share for smartphone operating systems.

Contacts on an Android smartphone can be stored locally on the device, externally in the cloud, be synchronised between both, be linked to Whatsapp, Viber and Skype (welcome Microsoft…), or any combination thereof. Not lost yet? There’s more.

If you use a third party backup app to secure your contacts in case of crash, like for instance the excellent MyBackupPro by RerWare, or try to export the contacts to Excel so as to have an additional copy, you’d be surprised to see that your data isn’t exactly the same when you “bring it back” after a disaster. Of course the names and the numbers will be the same, but the organisation may be somewhat different.

Fields names for that matter may change. For example if you had a custom field named “Old Home Number” you may have something totally different after having restored your address book. If you had a specific ringtone or a nice photo-icon assigned to your best friend contact information in your address book, don’t expect this kind of information to be well preserved after a backup and restore operation.

When the IT world is able to deliver extremely complex, ingenious software applications of all kinds and that work beautifully, one cannot but wonder why there isn’t a contact app that takes proper care of all the aspects of the simplest of all database applications.