Features

NEW YORK — New tablet computers from Samsung will feature screens that are richer in colour than standard LCDs.

These screens, known as AMOLED for active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes, are already found in smartphones made by Samsung and a few other manufacturers. But until now, tablets haven’t used them because larger AMOLED screens are more difficult to produce.

Samsung Electronics Co. is trying to change that with its upcoming line of Android tablets, called the Galaxy Tab S. On Thursday, Samsung announced two such models, with screens of 8.4 inches (21.3cm) and 10.5 inches (26.7cm), as measured diagonally.

Samsung is the world’s second-largest maker of tablets, behind Apple and its trend-setting iPads. In recent years, Samsung has been gaining market share — at Apple’s expense — by offering a wide range of sizes and quality.

Earlier this year, it unveiled a “Pro” brand aimed at professionals. The “Tab” brand has been used on Samsung’s budget tablets and don’t come with a stylus, as Samsung’s “Note” tablets do. With the new screens, Samsung is elevating the Tab line to become its flagship tablet.

Besides producing richer colours, AMOLED allows tablets to be thinner and use less power because screens typically don’t require backlighting. But IHS analyst Sweta Dash said the performance gap between AMOLED screens and regular LCDs has narrowed, while AMOLED screens can cost 10 to 30 per cent more to make.

Samsung does have the advantage of making its own screens, and the South Korean company can afford to reduce profit margins on tablets if that boosts volume and reduces costs on the screen-production business. What it learns from making tablet screens might even help it one day make affordable AMOLED television sets.

The new tablets will have better screen resolution than last year’s Tab line. The new models will all sport displays of 2,560 pixels by 1,600 pixels, matching what’s found in the Pro series.

By comparison, Apple’s iPad Air is at 2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels, for a density of 264 pixels per inch. Apple markets its displays as “Retina” and doesn’t believe more pixels will necessarily be discernible to the eye. Apple is expected to refresh its iPad lineup this fall.

Until now, iPad rivals have succeeded largely by undercutting Apple on price, and better hardware hasn’t been enough, said Rhoda Alexander, director of tablet and monitor research at IHS. AMOLED screens could change that, she said, because colours will pop out when compared side by side at a Walmart or a Best Buy.

Equipment is cheap, but is computing, generally speaking, inexpensive too?

Every now and then the IT industry likes to remind us that the price of hardware keeps going down in a rather spectacular manner, while performance is increasing dramatically at the same time. The specialised media is full of these little comparisons that are made to impress us.

Examples: Memory used to cost $5,000 for a miserable 512KB chip circa 1985, and is now $50 for a 4GB module. This shows that, roughly speaking, memory is a million times cheaper today than it was in 1985. One also remembers the old famous quote by one of the IT industry gurus who, after being criticised by an automobile industry top executive, replied: “If the auto industry had done what the computer industry has done in the last 30 years, a Rolls-Royce would cost $2.50 and get 2,000,000 miles per gallon.” It may be true, but there are hidden facts about the actual costs that cannot be ignored.

Hardware, or equipment if one prefers, is cheap but hardware today is the tip of the iceberg that constitutes the global cost of computing, whether we are talking of smartphone or a big computer server machine.

When you add up the price of software licenses and upgrades, the various subscriptions to the Internet, the regularly scheduled replacement of old units with new ones, the cost of antivirus programmes, and perhaps before anything else the cost of the technical support and service you need to maintain the equipment in good working condition, the final bill becomes a huge one.

For a typical laptop, and assuming you only use legal software licences (how could it be otherwise?), these will cost you an average of 50 per cent of the machine’s initial price. In some cases, when you also buy original applications like Adobe Photoshop or Sony Vegas for audio-video editing, your software bill would exceed and by far the price of the laptop. It does not end here. Software makers are good at making you need and want upgrades at regular intervals. If minor upgrades often are free, major upgrades will make you pay non-negligible amounts of money.

Internet is almost everywhere, but except for hotspots at the public places you go to or at your friends’ access to the web is something you pay for in the end, one way or another, even if it’s through your phone’s 3G network.

Another hidden cost is the multiplicity of devices we all operate today. Until around 2005 one computer at home and another one at work would be enough. Now smartphones, laptops and tablets everywhere significantly add to the global cost, for they don’t come free of charge in the first place, and of course they also need licences, service, repair, etc…

But there’s some good news — very good actually

Whatever we’re paying, regardless of any comparison with 20 or 30 years ago, computing is a most feasible activity. The benefits, the advantages cannot be overestimated. E-mail has made the cost of stamps nil. Communication networks like Viber, WhatsApp and Skype save us incalculable amounts. So as to get the best out of Skype I buy credits that let me place calls from Jordan to regular phones abroad through the celebrated service that has been Microsoft’s property since 2011. A $10 coupon keeps me going for about six months. There are various subscription formulas available, but a call to a US-based phone costs me $0.017 a minute!

The countless web services are invaluable. When you pay $10 a month for 100GB of online storage (DropBox for example) it is wiser not to whine and to see what you’re actually getting for your money instead. Annoyed by the ads that you see on your Gmail? Remember that Gmail is free.

With fast web connections IT technical support today can often be performed remotely, saving everybody time and money that would otherwise have to be spent in transportation, not to mention the speed of getting things fixed quickly.

And did I mention the cloud? It alone justifies any money spent on it.

Therefore price comparison with “yesteryears” is totally irrelevant. Hardware prices have gone down in an unthinkable way while connectivity, services and licences are now costly. But all this wouldn’t mean a thing without taking into consideration what we are actually getting. And we’re getting a lot, a whole lot.

NEW YORK – It may be a while before drones start patrolling American skies or delivering packages, but kids and adults will be able to command their own personal flying devices very soon.

The French electronics firm Parrot on Tuesday unveiled its “Rolling Spider” and “Jumping Sumo” mini-drones to go on sale in the US market in August.

“We wanted to create connected robots for the generations of smartphones and tablets,” Parrot spokeswoman Vanessa Loury told AFP at a demonstration in New York.

The mini-drones are controlled by mobile apps loaded on tablets and phones using Apple’s iOS or the Google Android platform, Parrot said.

With these new devices, “everything around you becomes an excuse to play, and the world transforms into a giant playground,” said a statement from Parrot.

“Rolling Spider” has four rotors and can also be adapted to move on two wheels to roll on the ground or on a wall. It features “kid-friendly piloting”.

“Jumping Sumo” is a two-wheeled device which can jump up to 80 centimetres (2.6 feet). It can spin, roll and take pictures with a wide-angle camera.

The devices will sell for $100 dollars and $160 in the US and will be sold in France for 99 and 159 euros.

Parrot is also known for its civilian and professional drones, including one that can be used for mapping and for agricultural crop monitoring.

In the United States, the question of drones is still being studied by aviation officials, although these types of toys may be flown at low altitudes.

As for the question of drones for package delivery — as envisioned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — Parrot said the time has not yet arrived.

“Delivering packages is a long way off,” said Parrot executive Peter George.
“I can’t see that happening for 20 years.”

But George added that with the devices, “it’s really been about having fun with toys.”

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook Inc. is expanding the internal user profiles that underpin its targeted advertising system, for the first time including personal information based on activities that did not occur within the boundaries of its social network.

While Facebook has long maintained internal profiles of users based on the comments they make and the posts that they “like” within its social network, the company will now flesh out those profiles with information based on some of the external websites and mobile apps its members use, a move that could further inflame concerns about how it treats personal privacy.

The enhanced profiles will allow marketers to deliver more relevant ads, Facebook said in a blog post announcing the change on Thursday. If a Facebook user researches a new television on an external website or inside of a mobile app, their profile might now indicate an interest in televisions and in electronics, making it easier for advertisers pitching electronic devices to reach that user on Facebook.

Facebook already has access to much of this information through tools that it uses to measure the performance of its ads as well as through “plug-ins” that integrate Facebook features on third-party websites, but the company has not until now incorporated the data into its users’ ad targeting profiles.

To quell potential privacy concerns, Facebook will for the first time give users the ability to review and edit their internal advertising profiles. By clicking on a button alongside Facebook ads, a user can see all the “interests” on their record, remove unwanted categories and add any desired categories.

Facebook said it will also provide a link to an industry website that will allow users to not have their activities on websites tracked, as well as a link to the appropriate controls within their smartphones to eliminate mobile app tracking.

The new ad capabilities come as Facebook strives to ramp up its advertising revenue amid competition from Google Inc. while addressing persistent concerns about personal privacy on the world’s No.1 social network.

In April, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced new features that lets users limit how much personal information they share with third-party mobile apps.

Facebook, Google and other online companies have faced increasing scrutiny and enforcement from privacy regulators as consumers entrust ever-increasing amounts of information about their personal lives to Web services.

In 2012, Facebook settled privacy charges with the US Federal Trade Commission that it had deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. Under the settlement, Facebook is required to get user consent for certain changes to its privacy settings and is subject to 20 years of independent audits.

AMMAN — Artworks by young Jordanian artists showing glimpses of stolen encounters among strangers are on display at Amman’s Zara Gallery, portraying harmony in the midst of what appears to be only chaos.

“Encounters” shows that regardless of where one goes, whether we travel or simply wait for our train at a station, we cannot escape other people’s faces as they constitute the all-present background to our life.

Rhythmic brush strokes of bright colours framing passengers’ moods and emotional experiences rather than physical reality make up the canvases of of Ammani artist Aileen Abdo.

Large portraits of rushing people and ephemeral faces captured in an unexpected moment show the struggle of the 25-year-old artist to relate to random emotions.

“My philosophy is derived from the tendency to relate to another person’s feelings of security and stability, loss and, in many cases, identity crises, which all reflect the soul wandering in this world,” Abdo said before the opening of the exhibition.

“I tried to paint expressions of frozen moments using colours that imitate nature, but in an exaggerated way.”

A few paces away, a Fauvist touch characterises the works of artist Dina Fakhri Malkawi, whose fascination with stations as places where all contrasts find reconciliation takes over the viewer, making him realise that his movements are only a quest for something unspecified he lacks.

Malkawi said that train stations and airports bring people together randomly, and despite their schedules, priorities and personalities, they all gather in one place at one moment in time.

“Stations represent a place where all nationalities, races, ages, religions, personalities, colours, bodies and languages can be united and featured in one spot,” the 26-year-old Jordanian said, adding that stations are places where differences become indifferent to everyone.

“I see our lives somewhat like these stations. We keep moving from one destination to another, searching for things. Just like a puzzle, the pieces may seem overwhelming and new, but they all make sense once they are put together. This is the essence of stations: finding harmony and purpose in the midst of what seems to be chaos.”

Combining her love for travel and curiosity regarding people, Jordanian-Canadian artist and illustrator Majd Soudi challenged the limits of new digital media to depict moments and persons she experienced in her travels.

Resorting to a unique blend of digital painting and photography, Soudi transforms photographs into a new work dubbed “paintography”, which makes use of computer software and custom-defined brushes.

“With every work I aim at recreating a glimpse of the soul of the places and people as I saw them, thus revealing their original beauty,” Soudi said.

The exhibition runs until July 2.

Sleep, I must admit, is a wonderful state of being. In fact, I would go a step further and describe it as an inactivity that is most refreshing for our well-being. While we are sleeping our bodies are rested and rejuvenated. We wake up from our peaceful slumber, completely restored and energised, to face a new day and all the cares it brings with it. 

Unlike walking and talking, no one has to really teach us how to sleep. Like breathing, this is something that is ingrained in us from infancy itself. Babies sleep round the clock and have little concept of day or night. Their enthusiastic mothers have to, rather, train them on how to stay awake. This they do by trial and error. Sometimes they fall into an exhausted doze even while their energetic offspring are gurgling in delight. But here I digress. 

Research shows that folks who face sleep deprivation suffer a number health issues including irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, diabetes and so on. It can make you forgetful, depressive and obese. And as if all this is not bad enough, it also leads to, what one survey describes very politely, marital strife. Since it did not expand on the last bit I leave it to your imagination, dear reader, what that might mean. 

According to Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, preferred the company of men “that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look, He thinks too much; such men are dangerous”. 

So you see, how essential it was to be sleep enhanced. Even with no modern investigation to supplement the claim, from time immemorial, rulers and heads of state, kept sleep-deprived people at a safe distance.  From their selves, that is. Or suffered the fatally tragic consequences that the great Roman emperor did. 

The universal rule is that everyone sleeps at night, once the sun goes down and dinner is partaken of. But in some societies there is a concept of an afternoon nap also. For the uninitiated, this is a snooze time that follows lunch. Mostly practised in hot countries where the sun is at its scorching best during high noon, people drop off to sleep for a short period of time right after their mid-day meal. 

In these cultures, their day is divided into three parts. The pre-nap morning chunk where most of the physically challenging activity is done. The intermediary naptime, where everything comes to a standstill and the entire town, sort of, drops dead. And the post-nap lethargic pen pushing type of sluggishness, followed by hectic socialising. 

Personally, I think only physically ill people need to be found in bed during daytime. Even at the height of my sickness I sit up in a chair rather than lie down while the sun is shining. But recently I was terribly jet lagged after a trip to the United States. My body was trying to adjust to the different time zones and as soon as my head touched a pillow, I passed into oblivion. 

“What are you doing?” I heard a voice from a distance.

“Counting till hundred,” I mumbled

“With eyes closed?” the accusatory voice continued.

“They are semi open,” I said.

“In two hours how far have you reached?” the voice asked.

“I’ve been sleeping for so long?” I sat up with a jump. 

“Caught napping!” spouse grinned, ducking as a cushion went sailing over his head.

LONDON — Women who often indulge their cravings for hamburgers, steaks and other red meat may have a slightly higher risk of breast cancer, a new study suggests.

Doctors have long warned that a diet loaded with red meat is linked to cancers including those of the colon and pancreas, but there has been less evidence for its role in breast cancer.

In the new study, researchers at Harvard University analysed data from more than 88,000 women aged 26 to 45 who had filled in surveys in 1991. Their red meat intake varied from never or less than once a month, to six or more servings a day. Initial results of the study were first published in 2006 and showed a preliminary link between eating red meat and breast cancer after 12 years; the new research confirmed the earlier findings with longer follow-up information, and analysed other types of breast cancer.

Using a statistical model, scientists estimated that in women who ate the most amount of red meat, there were an extra 6.8 cases of breast cancer for every 1,000 women over 20 years of follow-up. The researchers couldn’t rule out the possibility that other factors might explain the apparent link between red meat and breast cancer.

In developed countries, women have about a 12.5 per cent chance of developing breast cancer.

Scientists suspect proteins in red meat speed up cell division and tumour growth; chemicals such as nitrates in processed meats are already classified as probable carcinogens.

The study was carried out mainly among educated, white American women, and researchers said that the results were not necessarily applicable to women of other races. It was paid for by the US National Institutes of Health and published online Tuesday in the British journal, BMJ.

“This underlines the importance of having a healthy diet,” said Sally Greenbrook, a senior policy officer at the UK charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer, who was not part of the research. She said women should focus on reducing their chances of breast cancer by staying slim, and exercising and drinking in moderation.

Greenbrook added that there wasn’t yet enough proof about the dangers of red meat to change current prevention guidelines.

Others said diet is notoriously difficult to measure, and that the link between eating red meat and breast cancer appeared weak. Valerie Beral, a cancer expert at the University of Oxford, pointed out that vegetarians don’t have a lower risk of breast cancer than meat-eaters.

Still, Mia Gaudet, director of genetic epidemiology at the American Cancer Society, said it was plausible that red meat could somehow be connected to breast cancer and that women’s eating habits in their 20s might be particularly significant.

“Breasts are still developing and are more susceptible to carcinogens before women have their first full-term pregnancy,” she said.

Gaudet, who doesn’t eat red meat herself, said the American Cancer Society recommends people eat a “plant-based” diet.

“It’s important to have a healthy lifestyle throughout your life and not just as you get older and more worried about cancer,” she said. “People should perhaps consider ordering a salad or a vegetarian option sometime.”

LOS ANGELES – French video game star Ubisoft wants smartphone users to get up and dance.

A test version of hit franchise “Just Dance” that can be played just about anywhere using smartphones as controllers should be released on a small scale for testing later this year.

If “Just Dance Now” resonates, it will eventually be released as a free application for smartphones powered by Apple or Google-backed Android operating systems.

“We’ve seen the casual games market evolve and a huge explosion on mobile,” Just Dance executive producer Jason Altman said at an E3 video game extravaganza that continues through Thursday.

“We think the opportunity is enormous.”
Ubisoft introduced “Just Dance Now” during an E3 press briefing where dancers spread about a theatre audience jumped to their feet to see who could best match moves set to a Lady Gaga song.

Smartphones act as controllers tracking how well players copy moves in game video streamed over the Internet to Web browsers in computers, tablets, or smart televisions.

During the briefing, the game was displayed on a huge theatre screen.

Altman said the game has handled a simulation of 20,000 people taking part in one game, making it conceivable that an audience at a stadium concert could face off on footwork during a song if an artist put the technology in place for a show.

“This is a huge opportunity to bring ‘Just Dance’ out of the living room and into the world at large,” Altman said.

Ubisoft wanted to see whether “Just Dance Now” catches on before figuring out how it will earn revenue from the game.

For fans of the leading dance video game franchise, a new premium installment is on its way for play on consoles.

PARIS – General anaesthesia before the age of one may impair memory later in childhood, possibly lifelong, a study said Monday.

This was the conclusion of scientists who compared the recollection skills of two groups of children –– some who had undergone anaesthesia in infancy and others who had not.

The children, aged six to 11 and divided into two groups of 28 each, were tested over a period of 10 months for their ability to recollect specific drawings and details therein.

The children who had been anaesthetised as babies had about 28 per cent less recollection on average than their peers, and scored 20 per cent lower in tests that assessed how much detail they could remember about the drawings.

“The children did not differ in tests measuring intelligence or behaviour, but those who had received anaesthesia had significantly lower recollection scores,” said a media summary provided by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, which published the results.

Recollection plays a role in autobiographical memory, classroom learning and reading comprehension.

“Thus, even subtle recollection deficits may have immediate consequences and reduce the child’s potential to learn over time, which future studies should examine more closely,” wrote the University of California team.

They found no difference between children who had been anaesthetised only once and those put under several times. 

The team observed no discernable effect of anaesthesia on familiarity –– a second function of memory which evokes a sense of an experience as opposed to recollection, which deals with the details.

In a parallel study, the same researchers showed that 33 rats put under general anaesthesia during their first week of life also suffered long-term deficits in recollecting odours, compared to never-anaesthetised rats.

None of the rats had suffered any injury, which the scientists took to prove it was the anaesthesia that affected memory and not any condition which had necessitated the anaesthesia for surgery, the scientists said.

As children cannot be anaesthetised for no reason, the team could not conclusively rule out the reason for the surgery as the cause of the memory impairment. But they said their observations in rats are likely to hold true in humans.

Deficit may be ‘lifelong’ 

Other studies have shown that anaesthesia can kill brain cells and affect the working of synapses, but its impact on human memory has been unclear.

Further research is needed to determine how long the impairment will last, but study co-author Greg Stratmann said rat studies “suggest that the deficit is lifelong”.

“We’ve never seen the deficit go away in rats. In fact, we have seen it get worse over time,” he told AFP by e-mail.

It is also not known whether anaesthesia might have a similar brain effect when given to older children or adults.

Stratmann cautioned against drawing far-reaching conclusions from this single study.

“However, these findings should get you thinking about whether an anaesthetic that may previously have been considered harmless is really necessary.

“I am talking about imaging procedures and other non-surgical procedures that may currently be done under anaesthesia for the sake of convenience. It is possible that some anaesthetics in young children can be avoided. This should be done whenever possible.”

LOS ANGELES — Sony Corp. announced Monday that it’s bringing new instalments of the popular video-game franchises “Uncharted” and “LittleBigPlanet” to the PlayStation 4 as it celebrated the six-month-old game console’s marketplace triumph.

Sony also premiered “Abzu”, an undersea odyssey from the creators of the award-winning “Journey”, and “Entwined,” a psychedelic 3-D flying game. And it showed new highlights from the steampunk thriller “The Order: 1886” during its annual presentation at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

On the hardware side, the company said it will bring PlayStation TV, its video- and game-streaming device, to North America and Europe this fall. The $99 device lets users stream video, older PlayStation titles and games for Sony’s hand-held Vita system to any TV. The “micro-console”, which debuted in November in Japan as PSVita TV, also lets PlayStation 4 players send the action to a second TV.

On July 31, Sony will launch the open beta of its cloud-based PlayStation Now service, which will allow players to stream classic games from Sony’s older consoles onto newer devices such as the PS4, the hand-held Vita, Xperia cellphones and Bravia TVs.

Sony is also demonstrating Project Morpheus, its virtual reality headset, at E3. That project, however, won’t be available to consumers for at least another year.

Sony has led Microsoft Corp. since both companies began selling their latest consoles in November. Sony has sold 7 million PlayStation 4 consoles to Microsoft’s 5 million Xbox One units. However, both companies have outpaced the sales of their predecessor consoles — the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 — during the same amount of time. And Sony’s lead is far from insurmountable.

That makes exclusive titles like the just-announced “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” and “LittleBigPlanet 3” more important. But one much-hyped PS4 exclusive, the racing game “DriveClub”, was conspicuously absent at this year’s E3 presentation. Many of the games Sony showcased Monday — including Ubisoft’s “Far Cry 4”, Warner Bros.’ “Batman: Arkham Knight” and Deep Silver’s “Dead Island 2” — will also be available on the Xbox One, although Sony promised exclusive content or early beta access for each.

One exclusive that will appeal to comic book fans: A live-action drama based on Brian Michael Bendis’ popular series “Powers” will begin airing on Sony’s PlayStation Network in December.