Features

SAN FRANCISCO — Robin Williams’s death had people worldwide scouring the Internet for insights into the famed comic’s life, making him the hottest search trend of the year on Google, the web giant said Tuesday.

“The passing of beloved comedian and actor Robin Williams shook the world, bringing many people online to search for more information and to remember, and putting Williams in the #1 spot on our global trends charts,” said Google’s vice president of search, Amit Singhal, in a blog post.

“There was even an uptick in searches related to depression tests and mental health in the days following his death.”

Williams, known for high-energy, rapid-fire improvisation and clowning, was found dead on August 11 at his home in Marin County, north of San Francisco.

He hanged himself, according to coroners.

There were signs that the 63-year-old comic actor — who had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease — had tried to cut his left wrist, according to an autopsy report.

Williams, an Oscar-winner and veteran of movies, stand-up shows and hit television series, was one of Hollywood’s most popular entertainers and his death triggered an outpouring of emotion the world over.

World Cup, Ebola top searches

World Cup fever was the second hottest search trend at Google.

“The World Cup in Brazil had its fair share of unforgettable moments and had everyone glued to their TVs and mobile devices all summer,” Google said.

“From Luis Suarez’s bite heard around the world, to Tim Howard’s superman performance vs. Belgium, to Germany’s incredible run to their fourth title, the competition certainly lived up to its reputation and topped the charts.”

The deadly Ebola virus and tragedy-struck Malaysia Airlines were the third and fourth fierce search topics, respectively, followed by the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” fad of dousing oneself in icy water to raise money to battle Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

The remainder of the Top 10 search trends for this year were mobile game Flappy Bird, drag queen performer Conchita Wurst, the Islamic State group, hit animated film “Frozen” and the Sochi Olympics.

“It was a year in which we were struck by the death of a beloved comedian, and watched news unfold about a horrific plane crash and a terrifying disease,” Singhal said.

“We were captivated by sporting events, and had our fun with birds, a bucket of ice and a frozen princess.”

Apple’s new iPhone 6 was the top consumer electronics gadget search trend, while “Hunger Games” film star Jennifer Lawrence was the top query trend focused on a person, according to Google.

Nude photos of the Oscar-winning actress and a trove of other stars were hacked and posted online in September, and several threatened to sue Google for failing to take down the leaks.

WASHINGTON — Recovery of feeling can gradually improve for years after a hand transplant, suggests a small study that points to changes in the brain, not just the new hand, as a reason.

Research presented at a recent meeting of the Society for Neuroscience sheds light on how the brain processes the sense of touch, and adapts when it goes awry. The work could offer clues to rehabilitation after stroke, brain injury, maybe one day even spinal cord injury.

“It holds open the hope that we may be able to facilitate that recovery process,” said Dr Scott Frey, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

When surgeons attach a new hand, nerves from the stump must regenerate into the transplanted limb to begin restoring different sensations, hot or cold, soft or hard, pressure or pain. While patients can move a new hand fairly soon, how quickly they regain feeling and what sensations they experience vary widely.

After all, the sense of touch isn’t just about stimulating nerves in the skin. Those nerves fire signals to a specific brain region to decipher what you’re touching and how to react. Lose a limb and the brain quickly rewires, giving those neurons new jobs. Frey’s work shows the area that once operated a right hand can start giving the left hand a boost.

Brain scans suggest those changes are at least partially reversible if someone gets a hand transplant years later. But little is known about how the brain’s reorganisation affects recovery.

Telling where on the palms or fingers they’re being touched without looking is a persistent problem for hand transplant recipients, and a function of the brain’s main sensory area. Frey’s team compared four transplant recipients, four patients whose own hands were reattached immediately after injury, and 14 uninjured people.

The longer the time since their surgeries, the more accurately patients located a light touch, Frey reported. Two who’ve had transplanted hands for 8 and 10 years, respectively, were almost as accurate as uninjured people. So were two patients whose own hands were reattached 1½ and 3 years earlier.

Nerve regeneration is thought to take about two years, Frey said.

“Yet their sensory abilities and motor abilities continue to improve, albeit gradually, as long as we’ve been measuring,” he said, suggesting the brain continues to adapt.

Hand transplants are relatively new and rare. The United Network for Organ Sharing last summer began regulating them like it does organ transplants, and knows of about two dozen recipients in the US since 1999.

But they offer a model for the brain’s ability to reorganise after a stroke or other injuries that are harder to study, said Dr. Gordon Shepherd, a Yale University neuroscientist who wasn’t involved in the work.

Touch isn’t just a functional sense: Another study presented examined its emotional side.

Certain nerves register pain or itching. A completely different nerve detects the pleasure of a caress.

Those nerve fibres have been studied mostly in animals. They’re found on the backs of mice, less on the limbs and never the paws. In humans, they’ve been found only in hairy skin. Previously, researchers measured the nerves’ activity in human forearms, and found they fired mostly after a gentle stroke that people called pleasurable but not after a fast pat.

The theory is that these nerves evolved for social bonding. So Dr Susannah Walker of Liverpool John Moores University tested if people experienced empathy when viewing video clips of different touches.

Observing someone being gently stroked, people rated the touch to be pleasurable on the back and shoulder, but less so the forearm and not the palm, Walker found. A fast pat wasn’t deemed pleasurable.

LOS ANGELES — When the people whose houses hug the narrow warren of streets parallelling the busiest urban freeway in America began to see bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling by their homes a year or so ago, they were baffled.

When word spread that the explosively popular new smartphone app Waze was sending many of those cars through their neighbourhood in a quest to shave five minutes off a daily rush-hour commute, they were angry and ready to fight back.

They would outsmart the app, some said, by using it to report phony car crashes and traffic jams on their streets that would keep the shortcut-seekers away.

Months later, the cars are still there, and the people are still mad.

“The traffic is unbearable now. You can’t even walk your dog,” said Paula Hamilton, who lives on a once quiet little street in the Santa Monica Mountains in a neighbourhood called Sherman Oaks.

Hamilton’s winding little road up the low-slung mountains that separate the city’s traffic-clogged San Fernando Valley from its equally traffic-clogged west side is now filled each weekday morning with a parade of exhaust-belching, driveway blocking, bumper-to-bumper cars.

So is practically every other nearby street that parallels the busy Interstate 405 freeway.

On the other side of the mountain, where cars cruise down roads into tony Brentwood, traffic has also been the hot topic of late, with several people telling each other they will fool the app with their phony accident reports.

If they have, they’ve obviously failed. Longtime resident Joann Killeen said her 6.4-kilometre commute to UCLA, where she teaches a public relations class, can take two hours during rush hour. “The streets on the west side are no longer a secret for locals, and people are angry,” she said.

That’s because the app can’t be outsmarted, Waze spokeswoman Julie Mossler said.

“With millions of users in LA, fake, coordinated traffic reports can’t come to fruition because they’ll be negated by the next 10 people that drive down the street passively using Waze,” she said.

Many residents have been complaining to local officials.

“First thing this morning, my field deputy took an earful from a resident up there,” said City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents Hamilton’s neighbourhood.

There are some things that can be done to mitigate the situation, said Los Angeles Department of Transportation spokesman Bruce Gillman, like placing speed bumps and four-way stop signs on streets. Lanes could even be taken out to discourage shortcut seekers, but a neighbourhood traffic study would have to be done first.

“It’s to make streets so people can walk, people can bike,” Gillman said.

But the bigger problem, Gillman said, is that everybody is using smartphone apps these days and they will quickly find every shortcut out there.

“I plead guilty to that,” said Richard Close, who is president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association that represents Hamilton’s neighbourhood.

As soon as he gets over the hill to Killeen’s neighbourhood, Close said, he uses the app to find the fastest route to his office in Santa Monica. Killeen herself admitted she uses Waze and also Sigalert.com to get around town.

Which seems to speak to Mossler’s contention that the real problem facing LA residents isn’t the traffic app. It’s the traffic.

Los Angeles County has 7.6 million registered vehicles, more than some states. The Interstate 405 Freeway that parallels the unhappy neighbourhoods carries 379,000 cars a day.

So while a shortcut down a sleepy street might not be a problem in a place like Des Moines or even Detroit, it’s a different story in a city that last year was again ranked No. 1 for the nation’s most time-consuming traffic jams.

“Los Angeles is a powder keg of cars, construction and population that will only continue to get worse,” Mossler said she wrote to a person from the 405 neighbourhood who complained. “With or without Waze, drivers will be looking for alternatives to major thoroughfares.”

A Fiat firecracker by another name, the Abarth 595 Competizione is a fun, fast and feisty hot hatch from Fiat’s traditional tuning arm and now standalone brand. 

A skunkworks performance hatchback, the 595 Competizione is the most focused and driver-oriented Abarth iteration of Fiat’s hugely successful retro-cool 500, bar the top-of-the-range 695 Biposto. 

An agile and eagerly nippy lightweight hot hatch brimming with Italian charm, the 595 Competizione is also a practical, manoeuvrable and fuel-efficient daily driver.

Named after the 0.6-litre 2-cylinder Abarth 595 version of Fiat’s classic tiny rear-engine 1957-75 Nuova 500, the modern 595 is, however, a powerful, well-equipped and more conventional front-engine front-driver.

Feisty and fun

The Abarth scorpion badge in place of the Fiat badge adorning other 500 models is the first indiscrete clue as to the 595 Competizione’s more performance-oriented intentions. A feisty hot hatch take on Fiat’s rounded, tiny bug-eyed retro-inspired city car, the 595 Competizione has a feisty and fun sense of flair. 

Sitting lower and with a more aggressively beefy bumpers and skirts combo, the 595 Competizione has a pyramid-like road-hugging stance. Tall, narrow and compact like other 500s classic and contemporary, the 595 Competizione’s relatively large 205/40R17 tyres are pushed far out to the corners for a big footprint and road-holding stability.

Complementing its classic clamshell bonnet and slim front vent, the 595 Competizione’s bigger bumper section includes a more aggressive air intake and side vents both front and rear. A charismatic, playfully agile and brisk car, the Competizione is at its best in primary colours like the driven vehicles stark red paintjob. 

Liberally adorned with scorpion badges front, rear and next to the door handles to underline its potential and Abarth branding, the 595 Competizione’s high and curved roofline is given a more assertive treatment with a big tailgate spoiler. From rear, the Competizione gets quads tailpipes and pert bumper with a dark wire-mesh and air diffuser-like lower segment.

Petite and punchy

Petite and punchy, the 595 Competizione is powered by the second most prodigious version of the range’s Abarth-tuned Fiat 1.4-litre 16-valve 4-cylinder engines, developing 115BHP per litre of displacement. 

Turbocharged and transversely positioned to drive the front wheels, the 595’s engine develops 158BHP by 5500rpm and 170lb/ft at 3000rpm. And weighing in at a lightweight 1035kg, 595 Competizione benefits from a 152BHP/tonne power-to-weight ratio, which allows the 5-speed manual gearbox version driven to sprint through the 0-100km/h dash in 7.4-seconds and onto a 210km/h maximum.

Meanwhile, the 595 Competizione can return frugal 6.5-litre/100km fuel efficiency and 155gkm CO2 emissions on the combined cycle. 

More important than just headline figures is how the 595 Competizione delivers its’ performance, and though its’ turbocharger features fixed geometry, it nevertheless spools up quickly and with little by way of low-end turbo-lag. 

A broad high torque band provides effortlessly responsive mid-range muscle and flexibility for overtaking and underwrites its buildup to maximum power. Driven at the Fiat group’s Balocco proving grounds just north of Turin, Italy, the 595 Competizione pulled hard on long straights to close to its maximum speed. With light clutch and quick short-throw lever, one can swiftly work through the Abarth 595’s 5-speed manual intuitive and engaging gearbox.

Darty Dynamics

The most aggressive and sportily set-up abarth-tuned version of the Fiat 500, just short of the range-topping 187BHP 695 Biposto, the 595 Competizione features lowered and firmed up suspension including Koni dampers and anti-roll bars on both its MacPherson strut front and torsion bear rear suspension.

Superbly agile, the 595 diminutive 595 Competizione is eager and nippy, and with light weight and quick direct steering, turns-in and changes direction with a crisp efficiency. With its big footprint within a tiny frame, the darty 595 Competizione’s agility means it can turn on the proverbial coin and is adept through tight winding corners and chicanes on track. Meanwhile, drilled and ventilated discs provided tight and timely braking.

Defined by perky performance and darty agility the Competizione kept good pace at the rear of a convoy of more powerful Alfa Romeo 4Cs and Giulietta QVs, when driven almost flat-out on a fast and winding circuit at Balocco. 

Manoeuvrable and tidy, the Competizione features an electronic torque vectoring system, which, similar to limited-slip differential, sends more torque to the outside driven wheel while braking the inside wheel, so that it powers out of corners tidily and poised. 

Sure-footed, the 595 Competizione can be induced to playfully kick out its rear to the side to tighten a cornering line, but with stability controls on most vigilant setting, one couldn’t explore this fully.

Alert and airy

Reassuringly stable at high-speed straights and sweeping bends for a small, light and tall car the 595 Competizione also corners with terrific body and weight transfer control. However, with supportive and comfortable seats set somewhat high for a tall and heavy-set driver — even when lowered — and given its exemplary tight cornering ability, one occasionally had a more pronounced sensation of what little body roll there actually is.

On the other hand, the Abarth’s high seating suited its tall roof and low bonnet and provides excellent visibility to accurately and intuitively place it on road. For added manoeuvrability, the 595’s electric-assisted features a lighter assistance setting and rear parking sensors.

With high seating matched by a high-set short-throw gear lever falling close to hand for swift shifts, one can quickly reach back to its thick contoured leather-clad sports steering wheel. Quick and easy shifting for daily driving, perhaps a slightly stiffer shift action would suit track driving.

A three-door four-seat hatchback, the 595 provides terrific headspace and decent cabin width and a useful 185-litre minimum boot volume.

Lively and airy inside, the Competizione features metal pedals and gear lever, steering tilt adjustability and multi-function controls for its USB and Bluetooth enabled
CD/MP3 system. Clear instrumentation features a large centre speedometer, internal rev counter, and side-mounted turbo boost gauge.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 1.4-litre, 16-valve, turbocharged transverse
4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 72 x 84mm

Compression ratio: 9.8:1

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

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 158 (160) [118] @ 5500rpm

Specific power: 115.5BHP/litre

Power -to-weight ratio: 152.6BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 170 (230) @ 3000rpm

Specific torque: 168.1Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight ratio: 222.2Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 7.4 seconds

Top speed: 210km/h

Fuel economy, urban/extra-urban/combined: 8.5/5.4/6.5 litres/100km

CO2 emissions, combined: 155g/km

Fuel capacity: 35 litres

Length: 3667mm

Width: 1627mm

Height: 1485mm

Wheelbase: 2300mm

Track, F/R: 1409/1402mm

Overhang, F/R: 776/581mm

Boot capacity: 185 litres

Weight: 1035kg

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/torsion beam, anti-roll bars

Steering: Electric assistance, rack & pinion

Brakes, F/R: Drilled, ventilated discs, 284 x 22mm/discs, 240 x 11mm

Tyres: 205/40R17

Thirteen Days in September

Lawrence Wright

Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher

2014, 

Pp. 293

This is a remarkable book, well researched and interesting to read. It details, in almost 300 pages the negotiations that took place in Camp David over 13 days during September 1978. These intensive negotiations, which President Carter personally conducted with Egyptian President Sadat and the Israeli Prime Minister Begin, culminated in the signing of the Camp David Accord and led to peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. This treaty, which is still widely unpopular in Egypt, endured for the last thirty-five years and looks to sustain for the foreseeable future. 

The author explained that when the leaders of Egypt and Israel met at Camp David, their two countries had engaged in four wars in the previous 30 years. The conflict evolved into a tug-of-war over territory — mainly, the Sinai Peninsula — and the right of the Palestinians to return to their former homeland. Although clashes continue between Israel and its other neighbours, the Camp David agreement removed the only Arab adversary that posed a genuine military threat to the future of Israel. 

The book as the author claims is actually three chronologies, and he handles them ably. The first is the 13 days of Camp David summit forms the architecture of this account. Beneath that is a history of the modern Middle East as seen through the eyes of the remarkable men who were present at the negotiation and in many respects made that history. At bottom are the tectonic plates of the three religions as revealed in the stories of the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran. 

The author goes on to argue that the struggle for peace at Camp David is a testament to the enduring force of religion in modern life, as seen in its ability to mould history and in the difficulty of shedding the mythologies that continue to lure societies into conflict.

Reading this book, and having personally witnessed and lived the whole history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly the crushing defeat in 1967 and the loss of precious Arab Land, Jerusalem and the West Bank of Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, I cannot but admire the persistent efforts of Sadat to recover Egyptian territory occupied by Israel after June 1967. Since he took over from Nasser in 1970, he made this goal the main target of his presidency. Sadat utilised all tools of diplomacy to attain his sacred goal of reclaiming sovereignty over Sinai, although with constraints. In pursuing his sacred goal he utilised all diplomacy tools — the war of 1973, the daring visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 and the direct face-to-face negotiations in Camp David in autumn of 1978. In the end, in my judgement and that of other independent observers like the author of this book, he was the main winner at Camp David, but at a price. I recall that in 1986, Boutros Ghali who was Egypt’s minister of state at that time told me in a personal conversation that history will prove that Sadat outwitted Begin at Camp David. However Begin had other priorities, for him the West Bank was more important than Sinai, and he was willing to trade.

Sadat tried to negotiate the return of Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai, as well as Arab sovereignty over Jerusalem and the West Bank. Although he succeeded in the first goal, he miserably failed/sacrificed the second goal. The West Bank is still an occupied territory, Israeli occupation is becoming more entrenched there and the peace envisioned between Israel and the Palestinians was never fully implemented, which is why turmoil in the region continues. In signing the treaty with Israel, Egypt severed its link to the Palestinian cause. Without a powerful Arab champion, Palestine and the region became a mascot for Islamists and radical factions who could only do further damage to the prospects of peaceful and just response to the misery of the abandoned Palestinian people. 

Of course this Egyptian/Israeli accord was impossible without President Carter’s personal involvement. He personally conducted the negotiations, set reasonable goals and threatened risky US friendship and clout if either party did not comply with US final position/dictate. He made the stakes high for both parties if any of them caused the failure of the negotiations. Carter brought the weight of his office down hard, threatening to break off relations with Egypt and end their personal friendship. Carter made it clear to both men that if either of them deserted the process; they would have a problem with the United States — a problem neither man could afford. Carter allowed each side to make concessions to the US that they couldn’t make to each other. 

In the end both parties succumbed to the US pressure, one of them, Sadat, willingly, and the other Begin (but not his team who were in favour of the Accord) hesitantly. Nothing else could overcome the obstinacy of Begin and his tunnel vision of the history of the Holy Land. 

The author tried to be honest and fair in presenting the intricacies of the Arab-Israel conflict. To an extent I feel he succeed in this. The Camp David negotiations only cover part of the book; the rest is mainly biographies of the main characters that met at Camp David and their background and careers. One learns a lot from this, since it greatly influenced their approach to the negotiations, their tactics and their values.

The author also throws doubt about Zionists historic claim to the Holy Land and Jerusalem and their biblical narrative. He rationally argues these issues as well as the story of the Exodus. The author writes “for the secular Jews who created modern Israel, the story of the Israelites’ presence in Egypt, and the Exodus, and the arrival in Canaan 3,000 years ago is a testament to Jewish title to the land. History and archaeology combine to tell a different story, however. There may have been Jews in Egypt, but there is no documentation by the ancient Egyptians — scrupulous record keepers — of their presence. It is possible that the biblical chronology is wrong”.

This is an important chronicle in documenting the Arab-Israeli conflict; it researches past history and documents recent events that are novel even to the learned scholar of this conflict. I wish that it would be translated into Arabic very soon.

LONDON — British scientists have developed an ingredient that makes foods more filling, and say initial tests in overweight people showed that it helped prevent them gaining more weight.

The ingredient, developed by researchers at London’s Imperial College and at the University of Glasgow, contains propionate, a natural substance that stimulates the gut to release hormones that act on the brain to reduce hunger.

Propionate is produced naturally when fibre in the diet is fermented by microbes in the gut, but the new ingredient, inulin-propionate ester (IPE), provides much larger amounts of propionate than people can generate in a normal diet.

“Molecules like propionate stimulate the release of gut hormones that control appetite, but you need to eat huge amounts of fibre to achieve a strong effect,” said Gary Frost of Imperial’s department of medicine, who led the study.

“We wanted to find a more efficient way to deliver propionate to the gut.”

In a study published in the journal Gut, Frost’s team gave 20 volunteers either IPE or inulin, a dietary fibre, and then allowed them to eat as much as they liked from a buffet.

The team found that those given IPE ate 14 per cent less on average and had higher concentrations of appetite-reducing hormones in their blood.

In a second phase, 60 overweight volunteers took part in a 24-week study in which half were given IPE powder to add to their food and half given inulin.

Only one out of 25 volunteers given IPE who completed the study gained more than 3 per cent of their body weight, compared with 6 out of 24 given inulin. None of the IPE group gained more than 5 per cent of their body weight, compared with four in the inulin group.

After 24 weeks, the IPE group also had less fat in their abdomens and livers compared with the inulin group.

Frost said that while the findings were only from a small, early stage study, they offered “encouraging signs” that IPE might help prevent weight gain in overweight people.

He and his team are working with Imperial Innovations, a technology commercialisation company focused on developing promising British academic research, on taking IPE to market.

“We’re exploring what kinds of foods it could be added to,” he said.

WASHINGTON — The drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc. has received approval for an updated version of its Gardasil vaccine that protects against an additional five strains of the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the company’s Gardasil 9, which protects against nine strains of the virus called HPV, or human papillomavirus. That’s up from four strains covered by the original Gardasil vaccine approved in 2006.

The FDA recently said the updated Gardasil has the potential to prevent roughly 90 per cent of cervical, vulvar, vaginal and anal cancers. Original Gardasil protected against strains blamed for 70 per cent of US cervical cancers. Like its predecessor, Gardasil 9 also guards against two viral strains that cause genital warts.

About 75 to 80 per cent of men and women are infected with HPV during their lifetime. Most don’t develop symptoms and clear it on their own. But some infections lead to genital warts, cervical cancer and other cancers.

The FDA approved the vaccine for use in males and females — in ages 9 to 26 for females, and 9 to 15 in males. Vaccination requires three shots over 6 months.

Last year, a study by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found that the vaccine cut viral infections in teen girls by half. The study also showed that only about a third of teen girls had received all three shots. The vaccine was recommended for boys in late 2011.

The shots work best if given before someone is sexually active so public health officials have emphasised giving the vaccine to 11- and 12-year olds.

FDA regulators approved Gardasil 9 based on company studies enrolling 13,000 patients. The most common side effects linked to the vaccine were related to the injection, including pain, swelling and redness.

Kenilworth, New Jersey-based Merck reported Gardasil sales of $1.83 billion in 2013, up from $1.63 billion the year before.

SAN FRANCISCO — Sensors that track steps, pulse, diet and more marked a wearable computing fashion trend this year as they evolve from measuring what we’ve done to telling us what to do.

Smart bracelets, watches, and pendants increasingly adorned the techno-chic, and for some even their dogs sported medallions tracking whether they nap too much and run too little.

Data gathered by sensors is fed to
smartphones or tablets, where applications figure out how people or their pets are doing when it comes to fit lifestyles.

A nascent “quantified self” movement that picked up pace this year is expected to bolt ahead in 2015, with a boost from the launch of an Apple Watch tuned for fitness and much more.

“We do tend to get a little more excited about stuff that is all about us,” said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.

Sensors in things we wear allow automated observations about daily activities to be scrutinised by computers in online data centres, which may one day be able to anticipate people’s needs.

Industry trackers note that many people who bought fitness bands tended to abandon them, perhaps because the pure novelty of comparing step counts with friends wears off.

“Consumers are not about tracking data,” said Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder.

“What they need is insight how to live a better life.”

Computer love

By tapping into
smartphone features such as e-mail, calendars and location tracking, servers on the Internet can put the quantified self into context, such as what someone might like when they are at a particular place at a certain time of day.

“By the end of the decade you will be talking to whatever device is connected to you, and it will talk to you,” Enderle said.

“Whether you want to get married to it is another thing and speaks to a mental condition.”

The analyst’s quip played off of hit film “Her”, in which Joaquin Phoenix portrays a character in a future time who falls in love with a computer operating system that understands him better than do people in his life.

A “killer application” for wearable computing would be going beyond measuring activities to pumping insights to predictive personal assistants that are linked via the Internet to controls for things such as lights, televisions, and thermostats, according to NPD Group analyst Ben Arnold.

“Say it is 9:00am and I am talking with a friend about how much I like barbecue [food],” Arnold said.

“Then my smartwatch at noon knows I am thinking about lunch and recommends a barbecue place nearby, because it heard the conversation in the morning. That is the goal.”

Google could hit the mark first due to its Deep Mind project devoted to getting machines to think the way people do, the analyst reasoned.

Google Now software designed to anticipate what users of Android mobile devices might want already does things such as notice someone has a flight confirmation e-mail and then alert them regarding the best time to leave for the airport based on real-time traffic conditions.

Apple has its Siri virtual assistant on iPhones, and Microsoft has Cortana to help on Windows mobile phones.

A recent Apple alliance with IBM hints that artificial intelligence prowess from Watson might be used to enhance Siri.

Fitness bands squeezed

In the short term, pressure is on smart accessories such as FitBit and UP bands that pioneered the quantified self-trend by tracking steps, sleep, and meals.

“We are at a moment of great creative destruction,” Gownder said of the trend.

“Eighty per cent of what you are seeing today will probably fail in some fashion, and that is okay.”

Forrester research shows that interest in wearing sensors, particularly on wrists, has jumped in the past year.

Smartwatches have been released by titans such as Samsung, Sony, LG, Motorola and Microsoft. Features go beyond fitness tracking to letting wearers make calls, check e-mail, take photos, interact with apps on smartphones, and more.

“The value becomes helping me use the data as opposed to helping me get the data,” NPD analyst Arnold said.

Apple Watch boost

The release next year of an Apple Watch is expected to push smartwatches into mainstream culture with the power of the Apple brand.

“There is no doubt in my mind that people will be lined up around the block to buy Apple Watch,” Arnold said.

“The market radically changes when Apple gets in; it grows. And, maybe to an extent it raises all boats.”

Apple Watch will be woven into the California company’s Web of gadgets and services, opening the potential for the wrist-worn device to be used for tasks such as controlling Apple TV or unlocking smart door locks synched to iPhone apps.

Once information about, and tailored for, people is on their wrists, a natural next move is to put it in front of their eyes with Internet-linked eyewear such as Google Glass, according to Arnold.

“I’m just not sure the world is ready for Google Glass, but it is a logical next step,” the analyst said.

LOS ANGELES — Amy Pascal, one of the most powerful women in the man’s world that is Hollywood and the force behind such critical and commercial hits as “The Social Network” and “American Hustle”, has had better days.

The co-chairman of the studio and chief of its film division is under fire for racist remarks about President Obama’s presumed choice in movies that surfaced in e-mails made public by the Sony cyber attack.

Pascal also faces criticism for green-lighting the film that may have inspired the hacking to begin with: “The Interview,” which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as bumbling journalists tasked with killing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

North Korea has denied responsibility for the attack, but praised it as a “righteous deed”. Earlier this year, the country’s foreign ministry said the film’s release would be an “act of war” and promised “merciless” retaliation.

“The Interview” is not the first film to target political leaders, or even North Korea. “Team America: World Police” famously took aim at Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il. This also isn’t the first time a powerful executive has been dogged by private comments made public. But can Pascal’s career survive such a double whammy?

The 56-year-old thinks so.

“I’d be surprised if my entire legacy was based on the leak of the e-mail exchange,” Pascal told industry website The Wrap on Thursday. Virtually unknown outside of Hollywood, her nearly 20-year tenure at Sony and Columbia Pictures has included some very well-known films, such as “Skyfall”, ‘’Superbad”, ‘’Salt”, ‘’Fury” and “The Equaliser”. Pascal was fourth on The Hollywood Reporter’s annual ranking released this week of the most powerful women in entertainment.

She apologised Thursday for the “insensitive and inappropriate” comments in her e-mails that she says are “not an accurate reflection of who I am”. Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin, who participated in the racist exchange, apologised as well. Rudin, incidentally, was a producer of “Team America”.

Pascal’s decision to bring “The Interview” to theatres isn’t as problematic as the unflattering image created by her own private e-mails, said branding expert Dorie Clark.

“She’s on solid ground rhetorically when she talks about the fact that Sony Pictures Entertainment is never going to back down from releasing a film because of the threat of what hackers might do,” Clark said.

Rogen thanked Pascal for having the courage to make the film at its premiere Thursday, where Sony took the unusual step of denying press interviews.

Clark said Pascal’s professional network will determine the continued viability of her career.

“What’s going to decide her future is how close she is with her boss and what kind of relationship she has with the board. This scandal is survivable,” she said. “It depends on how many people there are in Hollywood who want to put a knife in her back.”

Clark said the studio’s financial success under Pascal is likely to play into her fate, noting the company’s revenues are up 13 per cent over the past fiscal year. The studio underwent a multimillion-dollar cost-cutting campaign the previous year after a few flops, including the Jamie Foxx-Channing Tatum action flick, “White House Down”.

Crisis-management specialist Michael Levine said corporate leaders are far more forgiving of those who are generating profits, especially since Pascal followed the “four golden rules of redemption” after the e-mail leak: Contrition, humility, taking responsibility and responding quickly.

“If one is successful for an organisation, they’re given every benefit of the doubt,” he said.

Pascal and Sony did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

The massive Sony hack not only revealed private e-mails sent by top executives, it also made thousands of employee social Security numbers public and leaked five new Sony films, including “Annie”, which opens next week.

The juiciest aspect, though, has been the emails, which offer an uncensored peek behind the curtain at how Hollywood does business. In one of the messages, Rudin called Angelina Jolie a “minimally talented spoiled brat”. Pascal and Jolie crossed paths this week at an industry breakfast event, but no fireworks flew.

Ironically, the flap over the hack attack could boost box office returns for “The Interview”, which opens on Christmas.

“The circumstances are nothing anyone would covet or want in their marketing plan... But now that it’s happened, it may end up helping the movie,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak. “It’s raised the awareness of the film to an incredible level that it otherwise might not have enjoyed were it not for this situation.”

LOS ANGELES — The growth of ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft so far has not been hindered by limits from government regulators and campaigns by taxicab competitors. A bigger threat to the new industry’s impressive start could come from customers — if enough people stop using the services over fears that drivers aren’t safe.

Not safe as in the drivers won’t get into an accident — safe as in they won’t attack passengers.

Uber operates in more than 250 cities in 50 countries, and recently was valued at $40 billion based on $1.2 billion that investors poured into the company in its latest funding round. Lyft, meanwhile, operates in 70 markets in the US, up from 30 at the start of the year.

So far, controversies have not seemed to impact the popularity of ride-hailing apps. They boast several advantages over taxis, including no-cash payments and an app that shows how far away a car is and whether the driver received positive reviews from prior riders. Uber ranks 39th in the Apple iTunes store among the most popular free apps, ahead of Gmail and the music streaming service Pandora. Lyft, which is much smaller, is not in the top 100.

But just this week, California prosecutors sued both, saying they misrepresent and exaggerate the rigor of their background checks. Police in India questioned an Uber executive about its background checks after a driver was accused of raping a passenger. And Uber removed a driver in Chicago after a customer reported she was sexually assaulted during a ride in the city last month. The company said it is cooperating with police in what it called “an appalling and unacceptable incident.”

This week’s incidents follow scattered anecdotes of previous assaults by Uber drivers. They don’t prove the services are unsafe alternatives to traditional taxis. But they do present a challenge if riders begin to think they reflect a systemic disregard for passenger safety.

Jeff Brewer, pastor at a church in the Chicago suburbs, wouldn’t step into an Uber car. Though he likes the convenience Uber would bring, he sticks with taxis on trips into the city.

“Whether it’s right or wrong, there’s at least some sort of perception that there’s a company that has vetted the person,” he said.

As with airlines, if passenger safety becomes an ongoing issue with Uber rather than isolated incidents, it could face long-term consequences, said Alex Stanton, a crisis management and communications specialist.

“At some level, there is a point at which safety does trump convenience,” Stanton said.

The safety and regulatory issues “absolutely” affect Uber’s valuation, said Sam Hamadeh, CEO of research firm PrivCo. Unlike, say Twitter and WhatsApp, Uber is not a “nice, clean technology company, the type that venture capitalists in Silicon Valley usually invest in — which is software, Web apps” and so on, he said.

“Here you are talking about actually, physically having to transport people,” he said. “Uber’s work isn’t done once the taxi is hailed on their app. That’s when all the problems begin.”

On its website, Uber says its drivers are “screened through a rigorous process we’ve developed using constantly improving standards”. In a written statement, Uber added that it screens would-be drivers against “federal, multistate and county criminal background checks spanning the past seven years”. The company expects to complete more than 2 million checks this year, according to spokesman Lane Kasselman.

But California prosecutors, who filed lawsuits against Uber in San Francisco Superior Court, say the company’s safety checks are not as rigorous as they sound. Unlike with regulated taxis in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Uber’s background checks do not require drivers be fingerprinted.

Hirease, the company that performs Uber’s background checks, instead relies on “personal identifiers”, such as licence numbers and social security numbers are supplied by the applicants. As such, the lawsuit says, there is no way to ensure that the applicants are who they say they are.

As part of a settlement of a similar lawsuit, Uber rival Lyft agreed to drop claims that its background checks are the “best available” and the “gold standard”.

Lyft spokeswoman Erin Simpson said in an emailed statement that the company has “pioneered strict safety screening criteria that far exceed what’s required for taxis and limos in nearly every municipality across the country”.

Regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission are revisiting ride-hailing company rules they put in place last year. Among the questions: “Did we get the criminal background check right, is it exhaustive as it should be,” said Marzia Zafar, director of the agency’s policy and planning division. That review is likely to take about a year.

She did note that most of the 100 or so phone calls the commission received this year and converted into written complaints against ride-hailing companies had to do with fee charges, not safety.

Cab drivers have seized on the safety issue, however, saying that taxi drivers have to pass government-standard checks which cost more but do a better job screening out bad applicants. The Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association has launched a “Who’s Driving You?” campaign targeting Uber and Lyft.

“Once consumers realise Uber and Lyft are cutting costs, they’ll begin to shy away,” said Dave Sutton, an association spokesman.