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PARIS – Gone are the days of squinting at your smartphone as you try to make out what is happening in your favourite film.

On Wednesday, eight months after the American release, Google launched its latest innovation –– Chromecast –– in Europe and Canada, a small device the size of a finger which allows you to transfer online video content from a mobile device onto an HD television.

According to the Internet giant, the device has done well in the US, with “millions” sold to date, although it has not revealed a precise figure.

Wednesday saw the device released in ten European countries –– Germany, Denmark, France, Spain, Finland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain –– as well as in Canada. Google is also now opening up the platform to developers, with 3,000 already signed up to create content.

The Chromecast device plugs into a television through an HDMI port, then communicates with a smartphone, tablet, or laptop over the WiFi network.

Click the small icon, and you can send videos from your mobile device to your television, or use your smartphone as a remote control.

The device means consumers will be able to watch everything from cat videos on YouTube to feature films on Netflix. Content will also vary by country. In the UK, viewers can use the device to watch programmes from the BBC, in France, they can use it for FranceTV Pluzz and SFR TV.

While there have been other devices to connect televisions to mobile devices before, such as Apple’s Air Play, Google is betting that the simplicity of its device, its size, and price –– it sells for 35 euros ($49) will win over the market.

It is also proud of the way Chromecast allows users to “multitask” –– it is possible to send mails and use other applications while watching television.

“Chromecast is the easiest way to bring your favorite online movies, shows, music and more to the TV screen,” said Mario Queiroz, director of product management at Google. “It should be easy for people to watch the content they want wherever they are.”

According to rumours, online shopping giant Amazon will also release its own television-smartphone interface next month.

Pascal Lechevallier, the founder of What’s Hot, a consultancy which specialises in new media, said the device was a great way for multi-channel networks on YouTube to be watched on the home’s main television.

“History is changing, and the video offering online is going to become even larger,” he predicted, stressing the importance, in time, for Google to capitalise on video ads as they are screened on television.

There was an announcement on Google, just a few days ago, reminding us we that are celebrating this year the 25th anniversary of the Internet. My first reaction was “No way, it’s been only 25 years! It seems like it has been here forever. How were we living without it before?” In fact its exact “birth” date is a debatable subject. Some would like to go back to the Arpanet, the Internet’s ancestor that was introduced circa 1969, whereas a more realistic estimate would set the date around 1990 when the web as we know it became a well-established network, widely available and adopted.

For those who were there before 1990, can they really imagine how much this has changed our life, what is the actual impact of the revolution?

The impact of Information Technology (IT) is unlike that of any other technical field. It is massive and it’s all happening at lightning speed; it’s virtually immediate. It is also so strong, so powerful and so radical that it just cannot be ignored, postponed and studied or discussed “later”.

While most of the articles published in this column are about computers, the Internet, and high-tech in general, I allow myself now and then, and with the above in mind, to use this space to tackle matters pertaining to living with the technology, to the impact it has on us all. In a way it is still about technology but in an indirect manner.

This has prompted some readers to ask me to stay the course, to avoid talks of “the social philosophy of digital” (to quote one of these readers) and instead to keep bringing them clear, sound news about hardware, software, up-to-date high-tech gear, networks, new ways to work, and so forth. In parallel many also are those who seem happy to be entertained and at the same time informed about the various aspects of living in the high-tech digital world, how it affects us socially, mentally and psychologically.

Granted, in most technical fields there would be a separation between the description of the technology, its tools and its physical devices on one hand, and the human impact it may have, on the other. Whereas the first part would be the specialty of the field’s professionals, those who work in it, the second would be the prerogative of philosophers, physicians, psychologists, scholars and researchers who are able to take a wider, unbiased look from outside the industry.

Again, IT is a case that is unheard of in modern history. The shock is strong and is immediately felt. Therefore talking about the impact goes hand in hand with any talk about the machines, the networks, the apps, etc.

For a minute forget about the 25-year-old Internet and think of smartphones and the free-to-use communication messenger channels like Skype, Viber, WhatsApp or Tango. Think also of the number of tasks we now do online, exclusively. Online shopping, ticketing and e-banking, these three “apps” alone, have radically changed our life, not forgetting the cloud and social networking of course; and it’s been six to seven years only, not 25!

So how can we brush aside the social impact and separate it from more tangible matters like megapixels, gigabytes, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G, 4G, USB3.0, hybrid hard disks and the like? Remember for instance that in the expression “social networking” there’s “social”; that says it all.

Whereas the input of independent researchers and scholars is necessary and is welcome, it is perhaps up to each one of us, users, parents, educators, young, old, at work or at home, to do our own analysis, to realise what this is all doing to us, for better and for worse.

And if this article was too “social or intellectual” to some readers’ taste, I promise to get back to technical specs and news of high-tech innovations next week.

SAN FRANCISCO  — Sony is getting into the virtual reality business.

The Japanese electronics and gaming giant unveiled a prototype virtual reality headset to be used in conjunction with its PlayStation 4 video game console during a Tuesday talk at the Game Developers Conference.

Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, showed off the slick black-and-white headset at the annual gathering of game designers. He said Sony has been working on the technology for more than three years.

The adjustable device is codenamed Project Morpheus and features a head-mounted display with 1080p resolution and a 90-degree field of view. Sensors built into the headset can track a wearer’s head movement in concert with a PS4 camera.

“This prototype is by no means final,” said Yoshida. “We will continue to work on this to improve it, but we believe it’s a good representation of how PlayStation will deliver VR.”

Anton Mikhailov, a senior software engineer working on Project Morpheus, said the current version of the technology must be attached to a PS4 console with a cord that’s about 15 feet (4.5 meters) long, and users’ virtual perspectives can be simultaneously broadcast on a television screen.

“The experience can be shared, and that’s only going to allow it to spread,” said Mikhailov. “I think that’s going to be the key. Once people see someone else interacting in VR, they’re going to want to put it on and try it next.”

Mikhailov said users will be able to interact with the virtual world displayed on the headset with the gesture-detecting PlayStation Move controller, as well as the standard DualShock 4. He declined to specify when the headset would be released or how much it would cost.

Project Morpheus will be available for demonstration beginning Wednesday for conference attendees on the conference’s expo floor with four games: diving cage simulator “The Deep”, medieval combat game “The Castle”, sci-fi dogfighter “EVE: Valkyrie” and a VR rendition of the stealthy action-adventure title “Thief”.

While Sony Corp. has released other head-mounted display units, Project Morpheus marks the company’s first foray into VR with PlayStation. Sony’s headset is similar to the Oculus Rift, a VR device currently in development by the Irvine, California-based start-up Oculus VR.

Both devices use head tracking to reduce queasiness when users peek around a virtual landscape, and they look more like ski googles than the bulky gaming helmets of the 1990s that usually left users with headaches.

SAN FRANCISCO – Google said Tuesday it was bringing Android to wearable devices, as LG and Motorola started the countdown to Internet-enabled watches based on the dominant platform for smartphones. 

The move allows developers to create apps for smartwatches, the first phase of the Android Wear platform.

Two manufacturers — LG Electronics and Motorola — quickly jumped on the bandwagon.

“We’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible with mobile technology,” Google Android chief Sundar Pichai said in a blog post.

“That’s why we’re so excited about wearables — they understand the context of the world around you, and you can interact with them simply and efficiently, with just a glance or a spoken word.”

The news comes amid a surge of interest in wearable electronics which can connect with smartphones, and after the launch of several smart watches by large and small manufacturers.

In Seoul, LG Electronics said Tuesday it would launch by the end of June its first Internet-enabled smartwatch powered by Google’s new operating system, tapping into the nascent but growing market for wearable devices. Its engineers worked closely with Google, LG said.

A rough image of the watch unveiled by the firm showed a black screen displaying time and what looks like an upcoming flight schedule.

Motorola also said Tuesday on its blog site it would make a similar watch available this summer, starting in the United States.

A typical smartwatch allows users to make calls, receive texts and e-mails, take photos and access apps.

The new Android Wear system will make it easier to develop apps specifically for a watch or other wearable device.

“Today we’re announcing Android Wear, a project that extends Android to wearables,” Pichai said.

“And we’re starting with the most familiar wearable — watches.”

He said the platform would help facilitate apps that provide news and information, allow chats, monitor health and fitness or help in shopping. The system will enable voice-controlled apps and connect to a smartphone or other device.

“Because Android for wearables works with Android’s rich notification system, many apps will already work well,” Pichai said.

“We’re also already working with several consumer electronics manufacturers, including Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung; chip makers Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek and Qualcomm; and fashion brands like the Fossil Group to bring you watches powered by Android Wear later this year.”

Samsung’s new smartwatch, the Gear 2, which was launched in February is powered by the Tizen operating system developed by the South Korean giant along with other partners.

Global smartwatch sales are expected to grow this year by more than 500 per cent from 1.9 million units in 2013, and to expand further in coming years, according to the market researcher Strategic Analytics.

Google said separately it was expanding its Google Play catalog of films and other content for purchase or rental to 39 new countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

In the third world countries, there is no concept of DIY. Believe me, it’s true. Come to think of it, there is never any need also. To “do it yourself”, that is. In these places, what they lack in infrastructure, they more than make up in manpower. 

So for any given task, there are several people who can do it for you. Take this scenario for instance: Supposing your car breaks down in the middle of the road. The tyre has to be changed or, worse still, it has to be towed away. Do you have to roll up your sleeves and get down to the chore? Not at all! Folks materialise out of thin air to offer help. A bit of money exchanges hands and, before you know it, you are on your way. 

One simply gets used to this kind of culture and becomes quite useless at helping one’s own self. But there are embarrassing moments when one travels abroad to first world countries, where occasionally, something as simple as opening a sauce bottle or a can of sausages, becomes a major challenge. Especially if you look able bodied and mentally stable. The residents cannot understand why you are the way you are. The mystery remains unsolved if they never get a chance to visit your homeland. 

For me, personally, self-help is an alien concept. I never get a chance, you see. There are so many people eager to help me that I am the last person I turn towards. It has always been like this, from the very beginning. Perhaps it has something to do with my diminutive stature. I would add meek nature, but even under the blanket cover of poetic licence, that would be an untruthful description of myself. I realise that. But what I cannot fathom is why people are so keen to rush to my aid. Sometimes, unwanted too. 

Therefore, when I walk into bookstores and see shelves lined with books on self-help, I don’t even go there. I mean what is the point? Of say, teaching myself the art of flower arrangement, or going on a cabbage soup diet, or gardening on my tiny patch of land? Somebody somewhere will do it for me, even without my asking for help. So I never really bother to find out. 

But then I came across the term “inner peace”. I remember exactly in what context I first noticed it. It was at a Deepak Chopra talk that I was writing about for a newspaper some years ago.

This wily new age guru is a holistic, alternative medicine practitioner, physician, public speaker and writer all rolled into one. I was a part of the mesmerised audience and my first question to him was on how to find this reclusive “inner peace”. 

“See, it is simple. When anyone is confused in life, the inner harmony becomes a mythical goal and troubled thoughts or unhappy feelings cannot be turned into inner peace,” he told me. 

“Huh?” I said. 

“Yes,” he smiled. 

“You are going to help me find it, right?” I requested. 

“The secret of inner harmony is that it already exists,” he stated. 

“Where?” I was curious. 

“It is within you. You just have to uncover your inner peace,” he insisted. 

“How?” I persisted.

“Like blowing dust off a mirror or letting the clouds pass away from the sun,” he lectured. 

“Phoo, phoo, like this?” I asked puffing my cheeks out. 

“Exactly,” he laughed.

LONDON – Rival firms are racing to develop injectable biotech asthma drugs for patients with severe disease who don’t respond well to traditional inhalers, in pursuit of a new market worth a possible $7.5 billion.

Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline, the leader in asthma treatments since launching its Ventolin inhaler in 1969, is in the vanguard but faces competition from the likes of Roche, AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Teva .

Despite treatment advances in recent decades, asthma is still not well controlled in up to 20 per cent of patients on standard therapy, which consists of inhaled steroids and long-acting beta agonists that are designed to open the airways.

This patient group includes many with severe disease, thought to number around 2 million in leading industrialised nations, according to consultancy Decision Resources.

Novel antibody-based drugs now nearing the market offer a way to get to the root of the problem by targeting key inflammatory chemicals made in the body that drive asthma. They are already being hailed by doctors as a major advance.

“I’m very optimistic about the new drugs,” said Elisabeth Bel, president-elect of the European Respiratory Society and head of respiratory medicine at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam.

“We have participated in several trials with the new biological agents and have seen some amazing results.”

In particular, the new injectable medicines have led to reductions in serious asthma attacks, known as exacerbations, of around 40 to 60 per cent in clinical trials.

The threat of such attacks — which may require hospital treatment and can sometimes be life-threatening — dominate the lives of people with severe asthma and represent a big financial burden to healthcare systems providing emergency care.

Significantly, the new drugs offer a more personalised approach to asthma care, with patients undergoing so-called “biomarker” blood tests to check if they are likely to respond to the medicines.

This targeted approach is gaining traction in many medical fields, most notably cancer. It is attractive to governments and insurers who pay for healthcare, since it means drugs should only go to patients who are likely to benefit.

“Severe asthma patients represent the majority of the (asthma) burden on healthcare systems and budgets,” said Bahija Jallal, head of AstraZeneca’s MedImmune biotech unit, which is investing in a broad portfolio of medicines for the condition.

“We will be working to convince payers this is something that brings value.”

Coupled with the money hospitals could save from a big drop in exacerbations, this leads many analysts to argue that companies will be able to charge a high price for the new drugs.

Barclays analysts, for example, assume a price of around $15,000 a year for GSK’s new drug mepolizumab, which is set to be submitted for regulatory approval later this year following positive late-stage study results last week.

Seamus Fernandez of Leerink, who predicts the market for severe asthma biotech drugs could exceed $7.5 billion a year in the United States and Europe alone, is more cautious and expects a price tag of something under $10,000, reflecting an increasingly competitive landscape.

That would be a modest discount to the price of Xolair, from Novartis and Roche, which is the only biotech asthma drug sold at present, but which works in a different way to the new batch of products and is only indicated for allergic asthma.

Some doctors are wary about the pricing environment.

“I think cost is going to be a hurdle. Payers are going to have to figure out whether they are going to allow multiple patients to be on multiple biologics,” said Michael Wechsler, an asthma specialist at National Jewish Health in Denver.

LOS ANGELES — Microsoft Corp. on Monday released a version of its OneNote note-taking software for Macs and added new features and a free tier for all of the software’s users in moves clearly targeted at up-and-coming productivity software rival Evernote.

The moves offer more consumers a taste of its Office 365 suite of software, which normally costs $99 a year. The free version of OneNote keeps some functions that give it an edge over the free tier of Evernote, including offline access to notes and the ability for multiple people to work on the same note simultaneously.

New Microsoft users also get seven gigabytes of free online storage through its OneDrive cloud storage service. Free Evernote users are limited to uploading 60 megabytes of data per month. Evernote’s premium users, who pay $45 a year, can upload 1 GB of data per month.

Some new features play catch-up to what Evernote offered already, including a OneNote Clipper button for Web browsers that saves Web pages as notes, and a universal e-mail address [email protected] that gives users a single destination to e-mail documents to themselves for saving as notes. Evernote has its own clipper and an individualised e-mail address for sending notes to oneself.

People who purchase a full Office 365 Home Premium subscription — which includes the Outlook e-mail programme, Excel spreadsheet software and PowerPoint presentation tool — will be able to use OneNote functions that are better integrated with other Office programmes and get 20GB of cloud storage. Business users who pay to subscribe will have access to change history and tools that protect sensitive information.

The moves are part of a push by Microsoft to open up the company to working with other software platforms beyond Windows and to emphasize its cloud offerings. While the changes were in place before new CEO Satya Nadella took over in February, he fully supported the moves, said David Rasmussen, group programme manager for OneNote.

“We want to actually remove all barriers for people to adopt this,” Rasmussen said.

WASHINGTON – Americans might have embraced the latest gadgets but they are still partial to getting at least some of their news the old-fashioned way.

Adults in the United States tend to frequently move from one device or platform to another –– television and print newspapers among them –– as they follow current events, a survey released Monday found.

“Americans on average reported that, during the past week, they followed the news using four different devices or technologies,” it said.

“The majority of Americans across generations now combine a mix of sources and technologies to get their news each week,” said Media Insight Project, an initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.

The survey also found that, for many Americans, traditional media was still more trusted than news blogs and social networks.

Eighty-eight per cent said they liked to get their information directly from a news organisation, such as a newspaper, TV newscast, website, or newswire, rather than from aggregators or social media.

And the trust factor plays into this as well. Americans largely trust the traditional news organizations: 43 per cent saying they trust this information completely or very much and 44 per cent indicating they trust it “moderately”.

By contrast, only 15 per cent of those who get news through social media say they have high levels of trust in this source and 27 per cent for news coming from electronic sharing with friends.

“Contrary to the idea that people now tend to trust news sources that share their point of view, taken together the findings suggest that rates of trust are highest for news operations that have less editorial opinion built into their model, such as local television news and wire services,” the study said.

The report was based on a survey of 1,492 US adults between January 9 and February 16. The researchers said the overall sampling margin of error was 3.6 percentage points.

The study confirmed differences in how various age groups get their news. 

Fully 89 per cent of those in the 40-59 age bracket and 95 per cent of those 60 and over used television to get news in the past week, compared with 76 per cent of those 18-29. 

Three quarters of those 60 and over said they had read print publications in the past week versus 47 per cent of adults age 18-29.

NEW YORK – Children whose mothers pay close attention to how much time they spend watching TV and playing video games tend to weigh less, according to a new study.

Researchers found that mothers who were more active in their media supervision had children who were thinner at age seven and who gained less weight over the next few years.

“At this point we can say there is an association but we cannot say exactly why,” Stacey Tiberio, the study’s lead author from the Oregon Social Learning Centre in Eugene, told Reuters Health.

For example, she said the results could be due to vigilant mothers encouraging their children to be more active instead of letting them watch TV. It could also be that their kids aren’t spending as much time being exposed to food advertisements.

The researchers write in JAMA Paediatrics that understanding the role of parental media monitoring is crucial in the development of obesity programmes and interventions.

For the new study, they used data from 112 mothers, 103 fathers and their 213 children.

Parents and children answered questionnaires, were interviewed and received physicals when the kids were five, seven and nine years old. The data were collected between 1998 and 2012.

The researchers found that when mothers reported spending less time monitoring their kids’ media consumption, kids tended be heavier at seven years old.

What’s more, less aggressive media monitoring by mothers was tied to more irregular weights among children over the entire study period.

Monitoring by fathers was not tied to changes in weight. Tiberio said that may be because mothers tend to be children’s primary caregiver. She also cautioned that these are only the results of one study.

But she said showing a link between TV monitoring and weight in this group is important, because early adolescence tends to be a crucial point for many people weight-wise.

“It’s basically a one-way door,” Tiberio said. “If you are obese by middle childhood, you have an increased likelihood of staying in that group.”

Jennifer Falbe, who was not involved with the new research but has studied screen time and its connection to weight, told Reuters Health the new study supports current recommendations.

“What they found is consistent with the American Academy of Paediatrics recommendation to limit children’s total screen time to no more than one to two hours per day of high quality content,” she said.

Falbe is a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.

“Parents should keep TV sets and other electronic media out of children’s bedrooms,” she said. “Research has also indicated that parents’ own TV viewing habits can influence their children. In addition to limiting their children’s screen time, it’s also important to set a good example.”

SAN FRANCISCO — The video game industry is taking itself more seriously.

Besides the usual talk of polygons, virtual worlds and artificial intelligence at this week’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, there will also be planned discussions led by game makers about such socially conscious topics as designing for gamers with disabilities, battling depression at game studios and tackling hate speech in online game communities.

The organisers of GDC, which kicks off Monday at the Moscone Centre and continues through Friday, have expanded the conference’s advocacy-themed sessions with panels featuring such titles as “Beyond Graphics: Reaching the Visually Impaired Gamer”, ‘’How to Subversively Queer Your Work” and “Women Don’t Want to Work in Games (and Other Myths).”

“It’s something that in some way or another has always been part of the conference, but it’s something that we’ve found interest in genuinely continue to grow as the industry has become more diverse and inclusive,” said Simon Carless, executive vice president of UBM Tech Game Network, which organises GDC and several other technology conventions.

This year’s conference is expected to attract about 23,000 game developers and executives from across the globe. Carless and other GDC organisers, which includes an advocacy advisory committee made up of game designers, hope that examinations of racism, misogyny and homophobia in games aid the industry’s continued fight for wider cultural legitimacy.

Rosalind Wiseman, author of the book “Queen Bees and Wannabes”, which inspired the Lindsay Lohan film “Mean Girls”, will be part of a Tuesday discussion about gaming and social hierarchies among boys. The panel will examine how the games that young men choose to play effect their popularity, as well as their social competence in moments of conflict.

Other speakers will include Adam Orth, who left Microsoft Corp. last year after fiery Twitter exchanges about “always-on” technology; Manveer Heir, a game maker who works on the “Mass Effect” sci-fi series, which features gay and lesbian characters; and Toshifumi Nakabayashi , who organises an annual game workshop to support Fukushima  disaster victims.

Despite the refreshed focus on real-world issues at the convention, how to view and interact with ever-changing virtual worlds will ultimately take centre stage at GDC. PlayStation 4 creator Sony Corp. is expected to tease its rendition of virtual reality technology during a Tuesday presentation called “Driving the Future of Innovation at Sony Computer Entertainment”.

Meanwhile, a handful of developers will be showing off software using the VR goggles Oculus Rift, which captured attendees’ attention at last year’s conference. The exhibit “ALT.CTRL.GDC” will highlight 14 games that utilise such alternative control schemes, like a piano-powered version of the sidescroller “Canabalt” and a holographic display called Voxiebox.