Features

SAN FRANCISCO — Parents may not have the resources of the National Security Agency, but it’s not that hard for them to snoop on their smartphone-addicted kids.

A booming array of gadgets are being marketed to harried parents who want to keep tabs on their children, whether they are speeding in Mom’s car or texting after hours when they should be asleep.

There are fobs, watches and bracelets with location sensing capabilities. Smart anklets track the ever changing moods of babies. There is even a SleepIQ Kids Bed that can tip parents off when kids are up after hours.

Many of these devices — especially the ones designed to track older children — are reliant on the smartphones that teens hold so dear, given their location tracking features.

“Parents want to feel more safe and in control of the situation; its a sort of feel good thing that parents can do,” said Florida Atlantic University criminology professor Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the US Cyberbullying Research Centre.

Phones and trackers

The six-year-old daughter of Frank Lee, a senior marketing manager at South Korean consumer electronics powerhouse LG, sports playfully coloured GizmoPal wrist wear.

The LG device designed for children lets them make mobile phone calls to pre-programmed numbers by pushing a button, and also taps into GPS capabilities to let parents easily check whether they arrived safely at their expected destination.

GizmoPal can also receive calls, but only from select pre-designated numbers.

“At first she was a little excessive in calling us,” Lee said. 

“I told her to let me know when she wants to stop wearing it, but she doesn’t even like to take it off to let me charge it.”

Applications that run in the background on teens’ smartphones or tablets can access camera rolls, messages, web browsing activity and more, according to Hinduja.

Software can even capture occasional screen shots of web pages being viewed.

In some cases, parents can set boundaries, or geo-fences, that will trigger text message or e-mail alerts if children stray into areas that grown-ups have designated off-limits.

“We’ve heard of parents putting microchips in children,” said Robert Lowery of the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.

“Of course, those things raise eyebrows. We don’t advocate that.”

Lowery, a former law enforcement officer, credited technology — including social media sites like Facebook where well-targeted calls for help can spread quickly — with ramping up the speed at which some missing children are located.

Parenting trumps technology

Hinduja, however, expressed concern that people might be sabotaging themselves with what they think are parenting short-cuts.

“In a perfect world, we want to have great relationships between parents and children so they will talk to parents about what is going on in their lives,” Hinduja said.

“If parents are going behind kids’ backs with this software, it basically kills any lines of communications that parents have probably worked years to develop.”

He recommended that parents wait until older children prove they cannot be trusted before they resort to cyber-snooping technology.

“It feels like hacking life,” Hinduja said. “People shouldn’t think there is software to make them a better parent, because there isn’t.”

Lee and Lowery agreed that good parenting trumps technology, which is best viewed as a helpful tool for keeping children safe and fostering communication in families.

“Technology can’t replace the human connection,” Lee said.

“It is about teaching responsibility regardless of the toy or tool.”

Lowery advises parents to teach children common sense when it comes to safety practices.

Kids should “kick and scream if someone tries to grab them”, Lowery said. “An electronic device is not going to stop that — it will just give us a good idea where they are going.”

NEW YORK — Are you a hack waiting to happen? Your boss wants to find out.

High-profile hacks have companies on the defence, trying to prevent becoming the next Sony Pictures or Anthem. And data shows phishing e-mails are more and more common as entry points for hackers — unwittingly clicking on a link in a scam e-mail could unleash malware into a network or provide other access to cyberthieves.

So a growing number of companies, including Twitter Inc., are giving their workers’ a pop quiz, testing security savvy by sending spoof phishing e-mails to see who bites.

“New employees fall for it all the time,” said Josh Aberant, postmaster at Twitter, during a data privacy town hall meeting recently in New York City.

Falling for the fake scam offers a teachable moment that businesses hope will ensure employees will not succumb to a real threat. It’s even a niche industry: companies like Wombat Security and PhishMe offer the service for a fee.

Phishing is very effective, according to Verizon’s 2014 data breach investigations report, one of the most comprehensive in the industry. Eighteen per cent of users will visit a link in a phishing e-mail which could compromise their data, the report found.

Not only is phishing on the rise, the phish are getting smarter. Criminals are “getting clever about social engineering”, said Patrick Peterson, CEO of e-mail security company Agari. As more people wise up to age-old PayPal and bank scams, for example, phishing e-mails are evolving. You might see a Walgreens gift card offer or a notice about President Barack Obama warning you about Ebola.

The phishing tests recognise that many security breaches are the result of human error. A recent study by the nonprofit Online Trust Alliance found that of more than 1,000 breaches in the first half of 2014, 90 per cent were preventable and more than one in four were caused by employees, many by accident.

Fake phishing e-mails are indistinguishable from the real ones. That’s the point. In one sent out by Wombat, the subject reads “E-mail Account Security Report — Unusual Activity.” The e-mail informs the recipient that his or her account will be locked for unusual activity such as sending a large number of undeliverable messages. At the bottom there’s a link that, were this a real phishing e-mail, would infect the recipient’s computer with malicious software or steal password and login information.

If you click?

Up pops a web page: “Oops! The e-mail you just responded to was a fake phishing e-mail. Don’t worry! It was sent to you to help you learn how to avoid real attacks. Please do not share your experience with colleagues, so they can learn too.” It also offers tips on recognising suspicious messages.

In the 14 years since PhishMe CEO and co-founder Rohyt Belani has been in the information security field, he says it’s changed from something a “geek in the back room” was supposed to take care of to something companies now handle at the highest level of management. The nature of the intruder also has changed, from pranksters to criminal organisations and nation-states.

As the security industry developed, he said, so did the idea of the user as “stupid” and the “weakest link”, destined to continue to fall for phishing attempts and other scams. Belani disagrees with that, faulting the security industry for not better training workers.

“We posted posters in hallways, gave out squishy balls, [made] screen savers,” he said. “When was the last time you changed your password because of a squishy ball?”

While phishing training e-mails are a “good cautionary measure”, they aren’t “actually going to strike at the core of the issue”, believes Agari’s Peterson. He, along with large Internet companies such as Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., support establishing a standard that makes it impossible for scammers to impersonate your bank, social network or other business in an e-mail. Think of it as a verification system for e-mails. For now, though, this seems a long way off.

So, at Pinnacle Financial Partners in Nashville, Tennessee, employees will continue to receive fake phishing e-mails, about one a quarter. The results are reported to the company’s audit committee and board of directors, said Chief Information Officer Randy Withrow. Since the 800-employee company started the Wombat programme Withrow said it has seen a 25 per cent drop in successful phishing attempts.

Workers “take it very personally” when they fall for it, he said. “They become apologetic and wonder, ‘how did I miss it?”

Luckily for Pinnacle, it was only a test.

Are digital tablets going to replace books in schools? Will it happen anytime soon?

Trying new, potentially life-changing technology when you’re 20 or older is one thing. Trying the same, or rather being forced to, when you’re 10 or 12 is something else. The impact can be devastating if the experience ever proves to be, well, not so beneficial, not to say harmful. For it is definitely what we would call an experience, with no results guaranteed.

There’s a global trend, in many countries, to try and replace traditional books with digital tablets at school. One of countries that are most seriously considering the change is France. The debate is hot and should the move be adopted by the authorities, the country may see it implemented in a year or two. More than 60 per cent of the population, however, is against the change and so it may not really happen so soon.

How come that France, a country with a very high level of education, globally, and a land whose culture is famous the world over, is considering such a drastic change for schoolchildren? Are they properly weighing the consequences?

In Jordan, the question is not totally eluded in official circles though it is not as seriously on the authorities’ agenda as it is in France, for example. Still, it is often heard and discussed in social circles in Amman.

At first sight it looks like a very attractive change or revolution should we say: less weight to carry every day for schoolkids, quicker learning, a smoother and better approach to the digital world and to the Internet, and last but not least more interactive learning. Not to mention the sempiternal save-the-planet approach that would save paper, ink, etc. The list of advantages is long and they make no doubt.

But there are also disadvantages; some are plain to see and others totally unpredictable. The obvious ones are a wider exposure to the web and to all its hazards. Of course Internet access can be limited to the local network in the classroom, for better control, but how do you give very young persons an Internet able digital device and make sure they do not bypass the classroom rules, that they will not get to the web anyway?

There are also technical constraints. A traditional book doesn’t need to be recharged, understandably, tablets do. So instead of the typical “I forgot my book at home” excuse there will be the “I forgot to recharge my tablet”. Sure, there could be solutions for that, like global wireless recharging in the classroom or simply a power outlet available for each child, but how hard and how expensive it would be to implement such major infrastructural changes?

The above are nothing compared to the unknown effects. These may take a generation or two to be observed and analysed.

The greatest fear of those who are against the sudden introduction of tablets at school, against seeing them replacing books completely, is the possible loss of handwriting. This fear is very understandable.

Given the time handwriting has been in use by mankind, losing it too suddenly could significantly alter one’s character. By handwriting any topic we understanding it, memorise it and learn it better. Typing is not exactly the same. There’s also the graphological aspect of handwriting that is not to be ignored. Handwriting reveals much of our character and is as identifying as a signature. Where will this go if you only use tablets when you are still at school? Will it make children will weaker personality?

 Things will inexorably change, however.

When electronic calculators invaded the academic field circa 1974 many were afraid that they would cause more harm than good to students. We know that it proved not to be true, now that we all have and use these calculators everywhere, from smartphones to computers, even if die-hard purist educators complain that the young generation is unable to perform mental arithmetic like their elders used to. Perhaps we should not fear tablets for they may prove to become as ubiquitous and as widely accepted as calculators. The human mind simply will be put to better use than it has been in the past — assumingly. Tomorrow’s tasks may not necessarily be today’s.

PARIS — A new look at four fossils has revealed that snakes’ earliest known ancestor lived as many as 70 million years earlier than thought, scientists recently said.

Until now, the fossil record had suggested snakes slithered onto the scene in the Upper Cretaceous period, about 94-100 million years ago.

But an international team of researchers reported in the journal Nature Communications that serpents actually have a much longer lineage.

“Evolution within the group called ‘snakes’ is much more complex than previously thought,” Michael Caldwell, a professor at the University of Alberta in Canada, said in a press release.

Re-analysing fossils in museum collections, the scientists found that the oldest among them belonged to the earliest identifiable snake, which lived between 143 and 167 million years ago.

Its skull has key features that have continued to appear among snakes ever since, even through millions of years of species diversification.

The granddaddy is a critter dubbed Eophis underwoodi, after Garth Underwood, an expert at Britain’s Natural History Museum, who wrote an important reference work on snakes in the 1960s.

Its fragmentary remains were found at a cement quarry in Oxfordshire.

E. underwoodi lived in the Middle Jurassic period, during the final stage of an important event in Earth’s geological history — the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent into two components called Gondwana and Laurasia.

It, and the three other ancient fossils, suggest that snakes by this time had already differentiated from their lizard cousins, the study says.

The big giveaway is the skull, which remains almost unchanged among snakes to this day.

Though E. underwoodi still had limbs, its cranium and dental features closely resembled today’s snakes.

Snakes lost their limbs gradually under evolutionary pressure as they adapted to niche habitats.

Caldwell and his team are hoping for other fossil finds to show whether there were even older snakes. They would also like to fill a knowledge gap of tens of millions of years the discovery has opened.

The thing is that I can never buy guavas. Don’t get me wrong; I love the fruit, in all its varieties. There are several types of it: the seeded, seedless, white centred, yellow skinned, green shaded and one very rare kind that has a red core to it. I love them all. But the fact remains that I can never buy them. 

And that’s because when I was a little, guava trees surrounded our house. Not one or two, but a veritable orchard grew in our backyard that would be laden with the luscious fruit. The birds, especially the parrots would go crazy in the guava season. They feasted on them from the crack of dawn until twilight set in. There was so much to choose from that like greedy children, they would peck at one and then hop across to another one, leaving the half eaten fruit dangling precariously at an unnatural angle. 

I knew the topography of most of these trees blindfolded. Aping my older brother, I had learned to climb them at a very early stage. Rushing back from school I would dump my heavy bag and lunchbox and immediately scamper up the one on the left of the doorway. That was also the place where I disappeared to sulk after every disagreement with my hapless parents. 

Our sensible mum did not have much patience with my tantrums but our nanny, who we called “Ayyamma” and was like our surrogate mother, would continue to coax me to come down. I would petulantly ask her to clamber up but her large girth unfortunately made it impossible to do so. Our father good naturedly would move his chair beneath the tree and ask for his tea to be served there. As the aroma of the wafer thin cucumber sandwiches wafted up, I would surreptitiously reach for them while hanging on to the unsteady branches for dear life. 

When the guavas ripened, they did so in quick succession. My mom, along with all the other ladies of our neighbourhood got very busy then. Regular meals in our household were halted as jam and jelly making took precedence over everything else. Other than those two routine specialties, she also concentrated on making guava juice, squash, conserve and just about anything else she could think of. If she could have her way she would have made guava toothpaste, guava soap and guava shampoo too. Believe me, it’s true. 

When all the transparent jars were filled and lined neatly on the kitchen counter and still more guavas came in from the orchard, she would finally give-up.

These fruits were separated into two heaps and placed outside the entrance gate of our house. Any farmer, passerby or stranger was welcome to take them, as much as they wished and as often as they wanted. 

Seeing such an abundance of guavas being distributed in my childhood, I somehow thought they came for free. To pay some amount to consume them was a concept that was completely alien to me. Lost in thought, I was jolted by the sound of our daughter’s voice. 

“Look Mum, guavas,” she exclaimed. 

“Let’s get the pineapple,” I cut in. 

“It’s JD4 per kilo,” she said. 

“Exorbitant,” I nodded. 

“The pineapple is for JD6,” she read out. 

“Put it in the basket please,” I requested. 

“But it’s more expensive,” she reasoned. 

“I know,” I agreed. 

“Penny wise, pound foolish?” she asked. 

‘You can say that again,” I laughed. 

MIAMI — When heated to the max and inhaled deeply, e-cigarettes produce the toxic chemical formaldehyde, which could make the devices up to 15 times more cancerous than regular cigarettes, US researchers recently said.

E-cigarettes are battery powered devices that heat up a liquid containing nicotine and artificial flavouring. The vapour is inhaled, much like a cigarette.

While some say e-cigarettes may help tobacco smokers kick the habit, others are concerned that the unregulated devices are being marketed widely despite little long-term evidence about their health effects.

The team from Portland State University experimented with a machine that “inhaled” e-cigarette vapour at low voltage and high voltage to see if and how much formaldehyde was produced by the heating of the vaping liquid, which contains flavouring chemicals, nicotine, propylene glycol and glycerol.

The machine took 10 puffs over the course of five minutes, each puff lasting three to four seconds.

No formaldehyde was detected when the machine operated at the low, 3.3 voltage setting, the authors said in a research letter published by the New England journal of Medicine.

But when it inhaled at the highest setting, five volts, formaldehyde was detected, at levels far higher than seen in conventional tobacco cigarettes.

At high voltage, an e-cigarette user vaping at a rate of three millilitres per day would inhale about 14 milligrammes of formaldehyde per day in formaldehyde-releasing agents, the article said, describing the estimate as “conservative because we did not collect all of the aerosolised liquid, nor did we collect any gas-phase formaldehyde.”

The daily estimate of formaldehyde exposure for a pack-a-day smoker is three milligrammes.

That level of exposure could boost the risk of cancer five to 15 times higher than in long-term smokers, it added, using two previous studies on formaldehyde in cigarettes as reference.

“How formaldehyde-releasing agents behave in the respiratory tract is unknown, but formaldehyde is an International Agency for Research on Cancer group 1 carcinogen,” the article said.

“Formaldehyde-releasing agents may deposit more efficiently in the respiratory tract than gaseous formaldehyde, and so they could carry a higher slope factor for cancer.”

Peter Hajek, director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, said the study did not reflect real-world conditions.

“In e-cigarette use by humans, overheating the liquid generates acrid tasting ‘dry puff’ which is unpleasant and avoided rather than slowly inhaled,” said Hajek, who was not involved in the study.

“When a chicken is burned, the resulting black crisp will contain carcinogens but that does not mean that chicken are carcinogenic,” he added.

“Vaping may not be as safe as breathing clear mountain air, but it is much safer than smoking. It would be a shame if this study persuaded smokers who cannot or do not want to stop smoking and contemplate vaping that they might as well stick to their deadly cigarettes.”

PARIS — Damage to the brain’s outer layer caused by smoking may be reversible after quitting, but it could take years, a study said Tuesday.

Brain scans of 500 Scottish septuagenarians confirmed a link between smoking and an acceleration of age-related thinning of the cortex — the outer layer of grey matter, researchers reported.

But they also pointed, for the first time, to potential for recovery after quitting.

The cortex of ex-smokers in the group “seems to have partially recovered for each year without smoking”, the multinational research team wrote in the Nature journal Molecular Psychiatry.

But they warned that: “Although partial recovery seems possible, it can be a long process.”

Many studies have linked cigarette smoking with cognitive decline and dementia, and some also with brain degeneration.

“Evidence suggests that smokers have, on average, slightly poorer global cognitive functioning in later life, as well as lower mean scores on several cognitive domains such as cognitive flexibility and memory,” said the study authors.

But it has never been shown whether the effects may be reversible.

For the new study, the team used people who had participated in the Scottish Mental Survey as schoolchildren in 1947, when their cognitive function was tested.

The survivors underwent MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans again in 2007, and the results of 504 of them were analysed.

There were 36 current smokers, 223 ex-smokers and 245 who had never smoked in the group, which had an average age of 73, said the study paper.

There was no significant difference between their ages or childhood IQ, and the group was split just almost equally between men and women.

Analysis of the scans showed that current smokers “had a generally thinner cortex than those who had never smoked”, said the study.

‘Strong motivational argument’

As for the quitters, who had on average smoked about a pack a day for 30 years, “it took roughly 25 years without smoking for differences in cortical thickness to no longer be observed between ex-smokers and those that never smoked”, the authors wrote.

And they warned: “Heavy ex-smokers remained with a thinner cortex at age 73 years even after more than 25 years without smoking.”

The findings could mean that giving up smoking caused cortical thinning to decelerate to a rate slower than normal age-related thinning, to allow ex-smokers to “catch up”, the study said.

Or it could be that the cortex actually started to thicken and rebuild.

“Smokers need to be informed that cigarettes are associated with accelerated cortical thinning, a biomarker of cognitive ageing,” said the study.

“Importantly, cortical thinning can persist for many years after smoking cessation.

“The potential to at least partially recover from smoking-related thinning might serve as a strong motivational argument to encourage smoking cessation.”

SEOUL — Watch what you say in your living room. Samsung’s smart TV could be listening. And sharing.

Voice recognition technology in the South Korean company’s Internet connected TVs captures and transmits nearby conversations.

The potential for TVs to eavesdrop is revealed in Samsung’s smart TV privacy policy available on its website.

“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition,” the policy said.

For the voice command feature to work, the TV listens for speech which is translated by third-party software into text and sent back to the TV as a command. Samsung declined to name the software company. The TV also transmits other information including its unique identifier.

Samsung said data collection is aimed at improving TV performance but users can disable it.

In a statement, the company said it takes consumer privacy “very seriously”.

“We employ industry-standard security safeguards and practices, including data encryption, to secure consumers’ personal information and prevent unauthorised collection or use.”

It is not the first time that smart TVs sparked privacy concerns. In 2013, the owner of a LG Electronics smart TV revealed it was sending information about his viewing habits back to the company without consent and without encrypting data.

LG has also experimented with displaying targeted ads on its smart TVs, which requires collecting and utilising user data, such as their location, age and gender.

PARIS — Europe will launch an experimental “space plane” on Wednesday, a car-sized, wingless vessel whose 100-minute unmanned mission will inform the design of reusable spacecraft of the future.

Reentry is a major challenge for the aerospace industry — as illustrated when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated in Earth’s atmosphere in February 2003, killing all seven crew.

Friction with the Earth’s atmosphere slows the returning craft, but also heats the outside to scorching temperatures.

If the reentry angle is too steep the craft will burn up, too shallow and it may bounce off the atmosphere or pierce through but completely miss its landing target.

These are the types of conditions that the European Space Agency’s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) are meant to test. 

“We are able to go (to space), we are able to stay in orbit. What we want to learn today is to close the loop, to return from orbit and this is one of the most complex disciplines in space activity,” IXV programme manager Giorgio Tumino told AFP.

The craft is equipped with more than 300 sensors, including infrared cameras, and its maiden trip will seek to “really capture all the key phenomena that are unknown, are not predictable on the ground. You really need in-flight experience for this,” Tumino said.

The IXV sports an innovative body shape its designers hope will balance reliability with manoeuvrability.

Most reentry craft carrying astronauts have been flat-bottomed capsules landing with parachutes — a simpler design that offers little control for landing on target.

NASA’s winged Space Shuttle, on the other hand, could land accurately on an airstrip but was heavy, complex and expensive — and damage to heat-resistant panels on a wing is what caused the Columbia disaster. The shuttle has since been retired.

The IXV has a design somewhere between the two — an aerodynamic shape that creates the lift needed to fly, but without wings — called a “lifting body”.

Four thrusters and two hind steering flaps will stabilise and angle the craft, while ceramic thermal protection panels will shield it from temperatures up to 1,700 degrees Celsius on reentry — hot enough to melt metal.

The two-tonne, five metre-long plane is scheduled to be blasted into space on a Vega rocket from ESA’s space pad in Kourou, French Guiana, at 1300 GMT next Wednesday.

It will separate from the launcher about 18 minutes later, some 320 kilometres above Earth, and then climb to a height of about 450km before starting its descent at several times the speed of sound, recording valuable data along the way.

A parachute will deploy to slow the descent, and balloons will keep the craft afloat after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, where it will be recovered by a ship for analysis.

“The IXV mission will test cutting-edge system and technology aspects to provide Europe with an independent reentry capability, and a building block for reusable space transportation systems,” said an ESA statement.

“ESA has developed the capabilities to deliver spacecraft into orbit, dock automatically with cooperative or non-cooperative targets and even land on celestial objects far away in our Solar System. 

“Mastering autonomous return from orbit and soft landing will open a new chapter.”

In its element on London’s tight and busy streets, the UK’s best-selling Ford Fiesta is affordable, agile, economical and sensible. With 131,254 Fiestas registered in the UK in 2014, it outsells the next best-selling Ford Focus (46,114) and its chief rival and third best-selling Vauxhall Corsa (49,471), according to Auto Express. 

More than just rational purchase, the unassuming Fiesta’s honest and fun character, with stylishly modern but unpretentious design, sublime combination of agile and engaging handling with supple and composed comfort, and generous equipment contribute much to its runaway success. 

Driven in turbocharged 1.0-litre manual gearbox five-door Zetec guise, the Fiesta proved a perky, petrol-pinching and practical week-long companion.

Feisty Fiesta

Classy and sporty in an unaffected and feisty manner, the Fiesta’s big gaping horizontally-slatted grille and squinting wraparound headlights wouldn’t look out of place on a sports car, while a sharply rising waistline and gently sloped roofline give way to a pert rear with tailgate spoiler and high-set diamond-like rear lights.

With prominent wheel-arches, sharp rising side crease, wheels pushed out far to corners and black lower bumper cladding, even the humblest entry-level Fiesta strikes a sense of urgency and forward motion that bring to mind its Fiesta WRC rally hero alter-ego. Completing the package is a choice of smart alloy wheels and colours, including fresh optional Candy Blue, as driven.

With its tall cabin, short sloped bonnet, upright seating, compact dimensions and big front glass the Fiesta provides good road visibility to place it on the road and easily park with exact confidence, and good front and rear headroom. A practical and well packaged supermini-class hatchback, the Fiesta’s uniformly shaped boot was able to accommodate four bags in its 290-litre volume (274l with spare tyre), and can further be expanded up to 974l (with tyre repair kit) when rear seats are folded down.

A practical and driver-focused place, the Fiesta’s supportive and upright seats and height/reach adjustable steering are set-up for an alert driving position. Design is modern and busy but user-friendly.

Perky and punchy

In landscape not short of Fiestas, the driven demo car’s unique ‘FMC 1’ (i.e. Ford Motor Company 1) personalised license plate stood out on a car so ubiquitously popular and affordable, given previous bearers included the iconic 1966 Ford GT40 Mk1 supercar. However, it nonetheless cheekily represented the Fiesta’s UK best-selling position and alluded to the significance of its 1-litre Ecoboost engine.

Light and compact, the Fiesta’s 1.0 turbocharged direct injection 3-cylinder Ecoboost engine is a perky and frugal gem, which develops 99BHP at 6000rpm and 125lb/ft torque throughout 1400-4000rpm. Fitted with a stop/start system the Fiesta 1.0 returns penny-pinching 4.3l/100km fuel consumption and 99g/km CO2 emissions on the combined cycle.

Driving front wheels through a 5-speed manual gearbox with quick and snappy shifter and light and intuitive clutch pedal travel and pick-up, one faultlessly dials in slip or grip when launching off-the-line. Perky and punchy, the light 1101kg Fiesta dashes through 0-100km/h in 11.2-seconds and can attain 180km/h.

Responsive at low rpm, the Fiesta 1.0 is however punchier once it starts building towards its generously rich mid-range, which provides confident highway and B-road overtaking, nippy town driving and incline pulling power. With a distant off-beat 3-pot thrum, the smooth 1.0 Ecoboost relies on flywheel weights — rather than balancing shaft — and engine mounts to effectively damp vibrations, while an oil-lubricated cambelt is smooth and durable.

Darty drive

A rare frugal and sensible car that’s fun to drive, the Fiesta is feisty, perky, punchy and engaging drive. Darty and manoeuvrable through urban and country roads, the Fiesta’s quick and fuel-saving electric-assisted steering is well-calibrated to be sharp, exact and feelsome, and with an ultra light and compact engine over the driven front wheels, the Fiesta is eager and tidy turning into corners. Agile through corners the Fiesta turns on the proverbial coin, and with compact dimensions and narrow frame, zips through winding streets and switchbacks. With big footprint and well-judged chassis calibrations, the Fiesta is confident with intuitively good handling, willing and eager through corners at a brisk pace.

A nimbly agile car with flickable steering and communicative chassis, the Fiesta 1.0 Zetec rides on 195/55R15 tires, a well-chosen compromise between firmness for handling but leaning more for comfort and intuitive road feel.

A surprisingly comfortable car, the Fiesta dispatched the bumpiest and lumpiest of British roads with a supple fluency that took the edge of the sharpest imperfections. With its suspension set up for comfort, the Fiesta leans slightly through corners, but nevertheless remains composed and delivers a natural and predictable feel for its position, limits and the road. Refined and stable and on highways, the Fiesta was alert, engaging and reassuring at speed and settled and buttoned down on rebounds.

Practical package

A practical and well-packaged small car, the Fiesta Zetec tested featured good honest trim levels with soft textures in strategic places the driver most often comes into contact with, as well as leather multi-function steering wheel and gear knob.

Stylishly modern with big clear dials, the Fiesta’s interior is somewhat busy but user-friendly and welcoming, but the infotainment screen could do with being bigger and/or nearer.

Well equipped, the Fiesta Zetec featured a heated windscreen, which proved usefully quick-acting in defrosting. Other features include electric windows and mirrors, remote central locking, standard six-speaker audio system with USB, MP3 and Bluetooth compatibility, and numerous other standard and optional features, including parking sensors.

Well-equipped, the Fiesta Zetec scores the maximum five star EuroNCAP safety rating and comes with a host of standard safety features including a stiff body shell, all-round headrests and three-point seatbelts, Isofix childseat latches, hard biting front ventilated disc and rear drum brakes with ABS, electronic brakeforce distribution and emergency brake assistance, and driver, passenger, front side, curtain and driver’s knee airbags. Also available is an optional Active city Stop system, which can automatically brake to prevent collisions up to 30km/h.

Frugal yet fun

Well-rounded, frugal, punchy and prodigious, the Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost is an ideal alternative to many hybrid cars in terms of real world fuel consumption and their antithesis in terms of its light, fun and uncomplicated approach to efficiency.

The Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost is also available in 123BHP guise and special Red and Black editions, with 138BHP and sportier style and suspension to bridge the gap between garden-variety models and the sublime Fiesta ST. One of the finest hot hatches, it is speculated that the 197BHP turbocharged 1.6-litre Fiesta ST might be joined by a yet hotter 250BHP four-wheel drive Fiesta RS version by 2017.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 1-litre, turbocharged, transverse 3-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 71.9 x 82mm

Compression: 10:1

Valve-train: 12-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 5-speed manual, front-wheel-drive

Top gear/final drive ratios: 0.69:1/3.61:1

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 99 (100) [74] @ 6000rpm

Specific power: 99.1BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 89.9BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 125 (170) @ 1400-4000rpm

Specific torque: 170.1Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 154.4Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 11.2-seconds

50-100km/h, in 4th: 14.7-seconds

Top speed: 180km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 5.3/3.7/4.3l/100km

CO2, combined: 99g/km

Length: 3969mm

Width: 1722mm

Height: 1495mm

Wheelbase: 2489mm

Track, F/R: 1465/1447mm 

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.328

Headroom, F/R: 993/945mm

Legroom, F/R: 1072/792mm

Luggage, min/max: 276/974-litres

Fuel capacity: 42-litres

Kerb weight: 1101kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 10.1-metres

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson Struts/torsion beam

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/drums

Tyres: 195/55R15