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With an indelible link to the Middle East and Gulf region in particular, the latest “Y62” generation Nissan Patrol was initially launched in Abu Dhabi back in 2010, while the latest face-lifted and updated 2014 version made its debut at the recent Dubai motorshow. First introduced in 1951, the first two Patrol generations were basic, rugged, capable and utilitarian off-roaders in the vein of the Land Rover or Willys Jeep, but by 1980 became bigger and better kitted; by 1987 adopted coil spring suspension for added refinement and off-road ability and has since become more luxurious.

The flagship Nissan SUV, the vast Patrol is a “big beast” in more ways than one, and inherits a huge and loyal Middle East following as a large family vehicle, while previous generations are thoroughly durable off-road and tuner cult car favorites in the Gulf. While more basic versions of the rugged previous generation Patrol continue in some markets, the larger, more refined and luxurious new generation has made a big impact in the regional market, and with 15,500 examples sold in 2012 and an anticipated final tally of 20,000 for 2013, commanded a 32 per cent market share in the Gulf by August 2013.

Big in the Middle East

Available in a limited number of markets, the 2014 Patrol is very much aimed at its biggest Middle East market, and is considered as a regional “brand image driver” for Nissan. As such, the latest face-lifted Patrol was researched and developed with Middle East customer feedback in mind and 13,000 hours of regional testing. According to Nissan, the Patrol’s comfort levels and how it conveys a sense of power was well received, while respondents preferred a greater variety of colours and a sportier look, which the 2014 model addresses with what is, for the most part, a subtle but effective aesthetic and interior refresh.

With a hulking sense of proportion and presence, the 2014 is a more chiseled-looking machine, whose most noticeable changes include a more sculpted front bumper design with sharper creases and fog-light surrounds, and a sportier and moodier light cluster redesign that includes LED elements. The 2014 model noticeably uses more chrome elements to its re-styled grille, which replaces the black honeycomb background with chrome slats, and chrome side port surrounds. Rear lights lose the clear casing and gain chrome surrounds, while new multi-spoke 20-inch alloy wheels are another highlight for upscale trim versions, and are particularly fetching in two-tone black and silver.

Smooth delivery

With its naturally aspirated 5.6-litre V8 engine carrying over unchanged for 2014, and developing a mighty 400HP at 5,800rpm and 413lb/ft torque at 4,000rpm — as driven — the Patrol is a brisk mover for a nearly 2.8-tonne full-size SUV, and will make the 0-100km/h dash in an estimated 6.5-seconds. Running a direct fuel injection system and driven through a seven-speed automatic gearbox to efficiently utilise its engine, higher spec 400HP Patrol versions’ estimated 16.8l/100km city and 11.76 highway fuel consumption figures are restrained for its class. However, with such weight and power, spirited throttle inputs increase consumption, and it is no wonder that the Gulf is its most popular market.

Silky smooth, progressive and happy to be revved hard, the Patrol’s engine is highly refined rather than a rumbling V8, and with good throttle control, one precisely dials in power. With its enormous weight one works the engine and gearbox with meaningful throttle depressions for brisk, eager off-the-line, flexible mid-range and revvy high-end delivery. Smooth and timely shifting, the seven-speed gearbox well-compliments the engine’s refinement and while gears can be sequentially selected through the lever, there are no steering-mounted gearbox shifters. Entry-level spec Patrols receive 315HP engines without direct injection and a choice of five-speed automatic or six-speed manual gearboxes.

Refined ride

With sophisticated independent double wishbone suspension all-round combined with active hydraulic dampers, the Patrol is smooth, refined and well-controlled through corners for its size. Sprung for a combination of comfort over cracks, bumps and unevenness on straights, the Patrol’s dampers however firm up through corners to reduce body roll and maintain poise. Certainly not a vehicle to wantonly throw through narrow hairpins, the Patrol however availed itself well on fast but tightly winding routes. Highway stability was similarly reassuring, while its adaptive dampers impressively reigned in the pitch and dive often associated with vehicles of this class, size and weight on hard acceleration and braking.

With vice-like four-wheel-drive grip, the Patrol effectively puts its power down, turns in well for a tall and heavy vehicle and grips hard through fast corners. Steering is generally geared high and is light, but has reasonably good precision, and comes with automatically variable assistance levels. Ride quality smooth, with high levels of refinement from noise, vibration and harshness, despite the big alloy wheels and relatively low tyre sidewalls. Upscale Patrol versions receive a host of optional driver and safety assists, including intelligent cruise control with distance control, brake assistance with collision warning, lane departure warning and prevention, and blind spot warning and intervention systems.

Rugged road-tripper

Well-equipped for off-road driving, the Patrol’s independent suspension keeps tyres in contact with ground, and lockable four-wheel-drive and locking rear differential retains traction over loose surfaces, while low gearbox transfer ratios allow high power driving at crawling pace. Generous approach, ramp and departure angles are complemented by electronic hill descent control and automatically optimised driving modes for road, rock, sand and snow. A hugely capable tow vehicle, the Patrol holds a production vehicle Guinness World Record for towing a 170.9-tonne cargo plane over 50-metres in August 2013. One however feels that high-end Patrols should be offered with entry-level models’ smaller 18-inch wheels and higher profile tyres for off-road driving.

With a commandingly high driving position, cavernous interior and cargo space, and extensive mod cons including Bose sound system and DVD screens, the eight-seat Patrol is an ideal road trip companion. Comfortable and indulgent, the Patrol features adjustable steering and seats and looks best with the new tan leather upholstery. Generously appointed with soft touch textures, shiny metallic accents and highly lacquered woods, the Patrol features big dials and user-friendly layouts. To help maneuver the enormous Patrol, optional equipment includes a Back-up Collision Intervention system and multi-angle Around View Monitor parking system incorporating a parking assist guide that lines to should follow to park in tight spots.

SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 5.6-liter, in-line V8-cylinders

Bore x stroke (mm): 98 x 92mm

Valve-train: 32-valve, variable valve timing, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 7-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Drive-train: Locking rear differential and low gear transfer case

Gear ratios: 1st 4.887:1 2nd 3.17:1 3rd 2.027:1 4th 1.412:1 5th 1:1 6th 0.864:1 7th 0.775:1

Reverse / final drive ratios: 4.041:1 / 4.395:1

Power, HP (kW): 400 (294) @ 5,800rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 413 (560) @ 4,000rpm

0-97km/h: 6.5-seconds (est.)

0-160km/h: 17.8-seconds (est.)

Fuel consumption, city / highway: 16.8 / 11.76 liters/100km (est.)

Fuel capacity: 100 + 40 litres

Height: 1,940mm

Width: 1,995mm

Length: 5,165mm

Wheelbase: 3,075mm

Tread, F/R: 1,706 / 1,704mm

Minimum Ground clearance: 273mm

Kerb weight: 2,750-2,800kg (est.)

Gross vehicle weight: 3,500kg (est.)

Tyres: 275/60R20

Approach / departure angles: 26.6° / 25.9°

Steering: speed-sensitive power assisted rack and pinion

Turning radius: 12.1-metres

Suspension: Independent, double wishbone with active hydraulic damping

Brakes, F&R: Ventilated discs

Seating capacity: 8

LOS ANGELES — The Grammy Awards celebrated outcasts and outsiders, including a couple of French robots, white rappers and a country girl singing about gay rights.

The Recording Academy's voters on Sunday night awarded French electronic music pioneers Daft Punk for teaming with R&B legends to make a hybrid album that celebrated both genres, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and Kacey Musgraves for supporting gay rights and New Zealand's Lorde for her simple message to the masses.

Daft Punk and collaborator Pharrell Williams won four awards, including top honours album and record of the year, and best new artists Macklemore and Lewis matched that with four of their own.

New Zealand's Lorde won two awards for her inescapable hit "Royals".

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo of Daft Punk showed the celebratory feel of their hit, record of the year "Get Lucky", by asking Stevie Wonder to join them with Williams and Nile Rodgers in a colourful performance.

Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories" was the year's event album, capitalising on the growing popularity of electronic dance music. They beat out reigning pop queen Taylor Swift, the favourite to win the award.

The dance music crowd had been waiting for a major win since the Bee Gees' 1977 "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, the last dance LP to win album of the year.

Rodgers said the duo richly deserved the win after taking years to put the album together as they sought authentic musical moments that can only be recorded live by real musicians.

Macklemore and Lewis have dominated the pop world with three huge hits that were wildly different and rivalled "Get Lucky" in popularity — "Thrift Shop", “Can't Hold Us" and the gay rights anthem "Same Love".

They won three awards during the Grammys' pre-telecast ceremony — rap song and rap performance for the comical "Thrift Shop" and rap album for "The Heist", beating out Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Jay Z and Kanye West in that category before taking major award best new artist.

The Recording Academy's own rap committee tried to exclude Macklemore and Lewis from the genre's categories before being overruled.

Lorde, the teenager whose invitation to ignore all the status symbols of pop music in her song "Royals", was one of the year's out-of-nowhere hits. She took major award song of the year and best pop solo performance.

The singer shyly summed up the experience in just a few words during her acceptance speech: "Thank you everyone who has let this song explode. Because it's been mental."

AMMAN — Kids who regularly plugged into social networking sites before bedtime reported sleeping nearly an hour less on school nights than those who rarely connected online, a new study shows.

“Using technology in the bedroom may result in sleep loss, delays in initiating sleep, daytime sleepiness and more,” the study’s lead author, Teresa Arora, told Reuters in an e-mail.

“In turn, this may affect daytime performance, particularly at school,” Arora, from Weill Cornell Medical College in Doha, Qatar, said.

The researchers found children between the ages of 11 to 13 slept significantly less when they frequently communicated on a cell phone, surfed the Internet, played video games, watched television, listened to music and even if they used a computer to study before hitting the sack.

Social networking was associated with the biggest loss of sleep. Those who said they usually connected to friends online before getting into bed reported sleeping the least — an average of eight hours and 10 minutes a night — compared with nine hours and two minutes among those who never connected.

Earlier studies have linked sleep deprivation to obesity, depression, difficulty regulating emotions and lower grades. A Chinese study published last month found staying up late may raise teens’ blood pressure.

For the current study, the researchers analysed surveys on sleep and technology habits completed by 738 students at seven randomly selected schools in the Midlands region of England in 2010.

Kids who frequently viewed TV before bed were four times more likely to report waking up several times during the night than non-viewers, and frequent social networkers were three times more likely to wake up a lot.

Children who regularly played video games or listened to music at bedtime had significantly more difficulty falling asleep, the researchers reported in Sleep Medicine.

Teenagers’ sleep schedules naturally tend to shift as a result of feeling alert later at night and having trouble falling asleep. But technology may worsen the tendency to burn the midnight oil, Arora and her colleagues wrote.

The findings came as no surprise to Nanci Yuan, medical director of the Sleep Centre at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, California. She was not involved in the new study.

“The advent of technology has made every age group, but especially teenagers, have difficulties with their sleep,” Yuan, who also studies sleep disorders at Stanford University, told Reuters.

“We’re seeing more sleep-deprivation problems in society as a whole, and we’re seeing it more in teenagers.”

Children from 11 to 13 years old need between 10 and 11 hours of continuous sleep a night for optimal health, she said. She recommended that adolescents shut down all electronics, ideally removing them from the bedroom, at least one hour, and preferably two, before turning in.

“We have to make sleep a priority as important as good nutrition and exercise,” she said.

Christina Calamaro similarly stressed the need to unplug at least an hour before lights out. She has studied the effect of technology on adolescent sleep at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware but was not involved in the current study.

Calamaro called on healthcare professionals to do more to educate parents about children’s need for uninterrupted sleep.

“We need to teach adolescents boundaries with technology,” she said. “We need to really drive home that message to parents about modelling sleep behaviour in their home.”

CUPERTINO, United States — Geeks who brought the Macintosh computer to life became Silicon Valley rock stars on Saturday, with people asking for autographs or photos while celebrating the Apple desktop machine’s 30th birthday.

Members of the original “Mac” team got the star treatment for passionately building a home computer “for the rest of us” at a time when IBM machines dominated in workplaces.

The friendly desktop referred to as the Mac and, importantly, the ability to control it by clicking on icons with a “mouse”, opened computing to non-geeks in much the way that touch screens later allowed almost anyone to get instantly comfortable with smartphones or tablets.

The birthday party was held in a performing arts centre in the Californian city of Cupertino, where legendary late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs first introduced the Mac to the world on January 24, 1984.

“Ever since I can remember I’ve been entranced with how these Macs work,” 16-year-old Tom Frikker told AFP as he worked his way through the crowd, getting original team members to autograph the vintage Mac he brought from home.

“It seems like a work of art,” the teenager continued. “I thought it would be cool to come out and see all these people that I’ve heard about.”

Prior to the Mac, with its “graphical user interface”, computers were commanded with text typed in what seemed like a foreign language to those who were not software programmers.

“The effect the Mac had on the world and on computing is really fascinating,” said Warren Sande, a fibre optic telecom company manager who was a schoolboy when the Apple desktop debuted.

Sande’s 14-year-old son was eager to hear inside stories from those who made the Mac.

“The Mac had no video hardware, a tiny amount of RAM and a floppy drive, and it did stuff that my computer with eight gigabytes of RAM and dedicated video hardware has trouble doing,” Carter Sande said.

“I need to figure out why,” the teenager said. “It is so amazing that they did so much with a tiny amount of hardware.”

‘We were making art’

The original vision of launching a Macintosh with 64 kilobytes of RAM and a $1,000 price gave way to introducing one with 128 kilobytes of RAM at $2,500.

Members of the Mac team told of being crushed when they got word of the higher price because they had been driven by a belief that they were making a machine that typical people could afford as well as easily use.

Applause erupted from the audience as members of the original Mac team stepped on stage to share memories. Video clips, many starring a young Steve Jobs, were played.

“It wasn’t work, we were making art,” Mac development team member Bill Atkinson said, recalling how Jobs had their signatures engraved inside the Mac because “real artists sign their work.”

The maddening brilliance of Jobs was a thread running through many shared memories.

One worker described an “evolution of Jobs” that started with him bashing a suggestion as idiocy only to claim it as his own days later.

“Sometimes he was exasperating, that man, but there is very little I would change,” early Apple employee Rod Holt said.

“People put themselves into that computer.”

Apple spotlighted the arrival of the Mac with a television commercial portraying a bold blow struck against an Orwellian computer culture.

The “1984” commercial directed by Ridley Scott aired in an expensive time slot during a Super Bowl in a “huge shot” at IBM, Daniel Kottke, of the original Mac team, told AFP.

Mac prowess at page layouts and photo editing won the devotion of artistic types and ignited an era of desktop publishing.

Macs sold decently out of the gate, but Windows machines hit with a low-price advantage for budget-minded buyers. Microsoft released the first version of Windows in late 1985.

Microsoft took the lead in the home computer market by concentrating on software, while partners cranked out Windows-powered machines at prices that undercut the Mac.

A long-running rivalry between Microsoft and Apple has yielded to the mobile age, with Google and its Android operating system targeted as the new nemesis, as lifestyles centre on smartphones and tablet computers.

The original boxy Macintosh, with its mouth-like slit below the screen for “floppy” data disks, has evolved into a line that boasts slim, powerful laptops in the smooth shape of the Mac Pro desktop model.

“Steve would constantly drum into us how much of a dent we would make in the universe,” said Andy Hertzfeld, of the original Mac team.

“Of course we believed him.”

We Are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics in a Time of War
Edited by Nadje Al-Ali and Deborah Al-Najjar
New York: Syracuse University Press, 2013, 266 pages

It is very life-affirming to see a book of such beauty about Iraq, but this is not art for art’s sake or an attempt to avoid ugly reality.

On the contrary, the writers and artists who contributed to this volume are determined to turn the trauma they face from the violence and destruction of their country into an impetus for creativity — to show the truth, to heal, to resist and build hope for the future.

In the words of Rashad Salim, “Art the world over gives body to the senses, memory to consciousness, and a door to articulate our humanity, understand our tragedies, and imagine deliverance.” (p. 249)

“We Are Iraqis” shows that Iraqis are ready to reclaim their own voice in order to counter the false images spread by the (former) US occupation authority and international media.

Their resistance via various art forms powerfully refutes racist notions about theirs being a culture of violence. Though dispersed around the world, they are coming together to resurrect and enrich their culture, using classical symbols of ancient Mesopotamia or more modern forms to portray their heritage, the ravages of war or both.

This is part of what the book title denotes. It also reasserts a united, but not monolithic, national identity in the face of the sectarian identities that have come to the fore in the last decade.

Few of the writers even refer to their religious background though it may come out in their story, as when Sinan Antoon recalls, not without irony, how he was asked to write about Iraqi Christian literature — a genre he didn’t know existed.

Yara Badday, who is of mixed Shiite-Sunni descent like many Iraqis, addresses the issue head-on while recounting her travels around all parts of Iraq in 2004 and 2009: “I do not see this battleground as a civil or sectarian war. Rather it is an amalgamation of violence and greed with innumerable players both inside and outside Iraq.” (p. 92)

An interview with Ella Habiba Shohat, “Arab-Jews, Diasporas and Multicultural Feminism”, gives a global perspective on racism and sectarianism.

Most of the contributors now live in exile. Some were born abroad; some left Iraq only recently, others during earlier waves of repression, war and sanctions.

Their contributions are diverse: Poems, essays, paintings, even a mini-play expressing the terror elicited by violence. They give voice to memory, outrage, loss, but also coping strategies for surviving chaos or the alienation of exile.

Humour is also used to unmask hypocrisy or the ironies of living in the comfort zones of the very countries that waged war on Iraq.

Art historian Nadia Shabout writes about “The Bifurcations of Iraq’s Visual Culture” — the destruction of artworks, museums and educational infrastructure, the emigration of artists, the isolation of artists who remained in Iraq as opposed to the cosmopolitanism of those in exile.

Maysaloun Faraj finds hope in the innovative art that has emerged in exile, which she gathered into an exhibition called “Strokes of Genius”.

Nadje Al Ali writes about a joint exhibition in London, “Sophisticated Ways: Destruction of an Ancient City”, bringing together Hana Malallah, who has always lived in Baghdad, and the more cosmopolitan Rashad Salim, who began to lose faith in modernity after the US invasions. “Modernising Iraq has come to mean ‘sophisticated ways of destruction’.” (p. 154)

Particularly innovative is Wafaa Bilal’s performance art: “I was sequestered in a Chicago gallery with a paintball gun aimed at me that people could shoot over the Internet.”

Acting on his philosophy “of using art to get people to examine their own attitudes… and hence hopefully reach new levels of understanding themselves and others”, he conceived the project “as a way to provoke Americans to consider the technologically remote and removed nature of modern warfare”. (pp. 95-96)

In “A Tale of Two Exiles”, Sama Alshaibi, who inscribes her art on her body, tells of reuniting with the Palestinian branch of her family when it was impossible to visit her Iraqi one.

There are other links to Palestine as when Maysoon Pachachi uses her experience of teaching filmmaking to young Palestinians to start a free, filmmaking centre in Baghdad to document reality and instil critical thinking in the new generation.

The book also includes personal narratives of trying to make a difference. In “The Assassination of Iraqi Academic Life”, Saad N. Jawad gives a moving account of teaching in Iraq for 30 years (1978-2006) “while living through one crisis after another”. (p. 48)

Maki Al Nazzal of Fallujah writes of harrowing trips to Jordan to bring children for medical treatment.

Ferial J. Ghazoul recounts poet Saadi Youssef’s lifetime of cultural resistance, calling him “a beacon for a better tomorrow”. (p. 230) In contrast, Ali Bader’s brilliant account of a conference of 600 Iraqi intellectuals in Erbil leaves little hope for the communists turned capitalists he describes.

Like art itself, this book combines the personal with the political, the material with the visionary, in order to address reality.

Rooted in history, it presents new perspectives for the future. For Iraqis to reclaim their humanity has global implications.

As pointed out by Rashad Salim, “the Iraq situation maps out the worst political, social, and environmental fears that threaten us and our planet. It is not an isolated reality but the extreme of a global trend. Unless understood… as such it won’t change, thus making the locus of the birth of Old World civilisation the herald of our New World civilisation’s end.” (p. 249)

PARIS — Vitamin D supplements have no significant effect on preventing heart attack, stroke, cancer or bone fractures, according to a review of scientific evidence published over the weekend.

Researchers led by Mark Bolland of the University of Auckland in New Zealand looked at 40 high-quality trials to see if supplements met a benchmark of reducing risk of these problems by 15 per cent or more.

Previous research had seen a strong link between vitamin D deficiency and poor health in these areas.

But the new study, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, strengthens arguments that vitamin D deficiency is usually the result of ill health — not the cause of it.

Its authors say there is “little justification” for doctors to prescribe vitamin D supplements as a preventive measure for these disorders.

“Available evidence does not lend support to vitamin D supplementation and it is very unlikely that the results of a future single randomised clinical trial will materially alter the results from current meta-analyses,” they write.

Vitamin D is a key component for healthy bones, teeth and muscles.

It is produced naturally when the skin is exposed to sunlight or derived from foods such as oily fish, egg yolks and cheese.

In March last year, British scientists, in a comparison of 4,000 women, found that vitamin D supplements taken in pregnancy made no difference to the child’s bone health.

And in September 2012, researchers at New York’s Rockefeller University saw no evidence that vitamin D supplements lowered cholesterol, a factor in heart disease, at least over the short term.

In contrast, a November 2012 investigation into pregnant women who lived in high-latitude, northern hemisphere countries with long, dark winters found a link between low levels of natural vitamin D and an increased risk of multiple sclerosis in their offspring.

For these women, taking vitamin D supplements to offset the effects of long periods without sunlight could be advisable, according to that research.

SAN FRANCISCO — Bitstrips may seem like a sudden sensation now that the app maker’s comic vignettes are all over Facebook and other social networks. But the Toronto start-up’s success was a drawn-out process.

The concept for a mobile application that lets people turn their lives into comic strips took shape as a high school diversion more than 20 years ago. That’s when Jacob Blackstock drew a profane spoof of Charlie Brown and Lucy Van Pelt from the “Peanuts” comic strip and passed it to Shahan Panth, who sat behind him in 12th-grade English class. Even though a teacher reprimanded them for boorish behaviour, a snickering Panth encouraged Blackstock to continue expressing his irreverent take on life through comics.

The two friends remained in touch after high school, often relying on comics as a way to communicate and needle each other. When Panth landed his first job out of college at an insurance company, Blackstock made it a point to fax a crude comic featuring his friend each day.

“I can’t even repeat some of the things that he would say in those comics, but it was as about bad as you can possibly imagine,” Panth says.

Goofing off eventually turned into a business. In 2007, Blackstock and Panth decided to start Bitstrips in an attempt to create a comic-strip version of YouTube. Bitstrips remained a novelty service confined to customising comics within Web browsers until October, when the company released a mobile application for iPhones, iPads and devices running on Android software.

But Blackstock, 38, and Panth, 39, are getting the last laugh as their once-quirky pastime turns into a worldwide phenomenon. More than 30 million people in 90 countries have turned themselves into comic-book characters on Bitstrips’ mobile applications. Google, which tracks people’s interests through its widely used search engine, rated Bitstrips as the trendiest app of 2013, eclipsing the likes of Twitter’s Vine video app, Facebook’s Instragram photo app, King.com’s Candy Crush game and SnapChat’s ephemeral messaging app.

“A ridiculous amount of people have been loving Bitstrips so much that many of them are sharing their comics to the point that it can be overwhelming to those that aren’t into it,” said Blackstock, who is Bitstrips’ CEO and creative director.

With hopes of preventing a backlash to its application, Bitstrips recently added options that allow users to share their comics with a limited group of people instead of broadcasting through their Facebook networks or other digital hangouts.

Bitstrips’ free mobile apps triggered the craze by making it easy for anyone with a smartphone or tablet computer to quickly create and post comics featuring themselves and a friend depicted in different scenarios. The apps provide thousands of comic scenes to choose from, then allows each user to create their own captions.

The overwhelming response surprised Blackstock and Panth, who had to scramble to increase Bitstrips’ computing capacity to keep with the intense demand. They now have a staff of 17 workers and have raised $3 million from Horizons Ventures in Hong Kong.

The seed money will help keep the service running until Blackstock and Panth figure out how to generate revenue from Bitstrips’ rapidly growing audience. One possibility: The company could charge users for extra Bitstrips features that would allow them to do things like insert themselves into comics that also feature characters from their favorite TV show or movie.

Horizon Ventures’ backing of Bitstrips is notable because it is run by Li Ka-shing, whose track record includes early investments in other now-popular digital services such as Facebook, Spotify, Skype and Waze. Facebook now boasts a $144 billion market value while Skype sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion and Waze sold for nearly $1 billion to Google. Spotify remains a privately held company that doesn’t disclose its finances, but the market value of its music streaming service has been pegged above $4 billion.

Blackstock, who is nicknamed “BA” in reference to a sound he made as a child, thinks Bitstrips will prove his ideas weren’t quite as goofy as they seemed when his high school English teacher caught him drawing cheeky comics a few decades ago.

“We don’t see this as a joke engine,” Blackstock says. “We see this as a new medium for self-expression.”

Intel’s recently released figures may prompt you to think that people have been buying fewer computers. How is that possible?

Sales of computer processors by Intel in 2013 have been down from 2012. Does this mean that people are buying fewer computers now? Intel is the main manufacturer of computer processors, holding an impressive 16 per cent market share (2012 figures), sitting at the very top, well above Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and other chip manufacturers. Therefore Intel’s figures are always taken as a significant, reliable market indicator. Still, Intel posted a sizable seven billion dollar profit for last year, though this is somewhat down from the previous year the company said.

To better understand how the trend is shifting a little re-definition of the word computer may help. Typically when we say computer we tend to think desktop or laptop machines. However, at the higher end we find servers and at the lower end tablets, smartphones and a variety of portable, mobile devices we have become familiar with. At the end of day they all are computers.

When Intel say people have bought fewer computers in 2013 perhaps this can be translated as “fewer desktops and laptops”, and indeed all market indicators confirm such a trend. On the other hand, the trend is towards more computer sales when it comes to big size servers and to smaller devices like tablets and smartphones.

Large businesses have been acquiring more servers for even these muscular, powerful machines are now affordable. Dell for instance supplies small- and medium-size businesses with excellent servers costing between $2000 and $6000. Therefore companies and organisations are encouraged to buy servers and aren’t afraid of investing in them anymore. You don’t necessarily have to be a large corporation with a staff of 500+or to have a turnover in millions or billions of dollars to buy a server computer today.

In parallel, it is mainly the soaring sales of tablets and smartphones, those extremely mobile — and terribly attractive — computers that are negatively impacting on sales of desktops and laptops. And since tablets and smartphones often run on non-Intel chips, the conclusion is obvious! Overall, and taking into consideration all kinds of computers, people are not buying fewer computers overall, but more; definitely.

This being said, one has to acknowledge that there is at the same time a shift in consumers’ habits that has to be taken into consideration. Because computing is gradually but irremediably shifting from local to online, and from fixed to mobile, this will certainly continue in the coming years, almost any computer today would do the job you want to do online.

Besides, it is plain logic that mobility will eventually reduce or stabilise sales of fixed (i.e. non-mobile) equipment.

Twenty-first century usersseem more concerned about applications, online storage, privacy issues, data backup and security, and worry less about hardware per se. They seem to be saying “Just get me connected to the Web and I’ll take it from there, the rest does not really matter to me, as long as my connection is working, is fast, reliable and safe.”

Indeed, regardless of whether sales of machines are down or up, this depending on the physical size of hardware and the degree of mobility, the one single demand that is common to all users today is to have faster and more reliable connectivity. Intel certainly would not mind.

LOS ANGELES — The largest object in the asteroid belt just got more attractive: Scientists have confirmed signs of water on the dwarf planet Ceres, one of the few bodies in the solar system to hold that distinction.

Peering through the Herschel Space Observatory, a team led by the European Space Agency detected water plumes spewing from two regions on Ceres.

The observations, published in Thursday's issue of Nature, come as NASA's Dawn spacecraft is set to arrive at the Texas-sized dwarf planet next year.

It's long been suspected that Ceres is water-rich, but previous detections have been inconclusive. This is the first definitive evidence of water on Ceres and confirms that it has an icy surface, said lead author Michael Kuppers of the European Space Agency.

"It makes Ceres a more exciting target" for exploration, he said.

The latest finding puts Ceres in a special class of solar system objects with active plumes of water, a key ingredient for life. The company includes Jupiter's moon Europa — where an underground ocean is believed to exist — and the Saturn moon Enceladus, where jets have been seen venting from the surface.

The source of the water plumes is still unclear. Scientists think there may be a layer of ice just below the surface that gets heated by the sun or the plumes could be spewed by ice volcanoes.

Dawn won't be in the best position to witness any water activity since it'll arrive at a time when Ceres is far from the sun. But the spacecraft carries instruments that can detect water and it will map the dwarf planet in detail, said Dawn deputy project scientist Carol Raymond, who had no role in the research.

Launched in 2007 and powered by ion propulsion, Dawn is the first spacecraft to orbit two space rocks.

Ceres is different from Dawn's first target, Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The zone is littered with rocks left over from the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, allowing scientists to study how Earth and the other planets evolved.

Unlike Ceres, Vesta is dry and rugged. Its scars reveal it got whacked twice by smaller asteroids. Some of the debris was cast into space and rained on Earth as meteorites.

SEOUL, South Korea — If ever in doubt about your guy’s commitment to a relationship, ask him if he would commit to an app.

A growing number of young couples in Asia are sharing special moments in the privacy of Between, a tight networking app that links only two people.

In an age of social media overload where tweets, Instagram and Facebook postings can invite unwanted attention from parents and employers, Between feels like a digital safe haven that blocks outside noise and keeps memories just for two.

Created by Seoul-based start-up Value Creators & Company, Between hit 5 million downloads in two years. About two-thirds of the users are in South Korea with their average age in the mid-20s. Between has attracted more than half a million users in Japan and is expanding in Thailand and Singapore. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese and American couples have also joined.

Value Creators CEO Park Jaeuk said social media fatigue is the main driver behind Between. As more people join Facebook, Twitter, and chat-based services such as Line and Kakao Talk, Between sees a bigger chance to grow its user numbers.

— How it works

You install Between on your Apple or Android device and provide the mobile number of the person you want to use the app with. Most use the app, which is free, with someone they are romantically involved with, though that’s not required. Once the request is accepted, the two can use instant messaging, keep journals, exchange voice messages, post pictures and leave comments. Between also offers a blog-like space where the two users can create photo albums and long notes. Pictures can be tagged to a “Memory Box”, which arranges them in a stream of tiles. Reminders for anniversaries, birthdays or any special days such as the day the couple first met can be set in the app’s calendar. The content created is private to the two users and the app can be password protected.

— Digital couple ring

CEO Park said the company envisioned a closed social network akin to a “digital couple ring”. While any two people can use Between regardless of their relationship status, Park said many users see the app as a sign of commitment and loyalty, similar to rings that South Korean couples wear even before promising marriage. Agreeing to use the app or asking someone to join the app shows affection. A shy Korean may prefer saying “Do you want to do Between with me?” to ask someone out, he said.

While some mobile apps have given rise to exchanging naked pictures or hooking up with a stranger nearby, Between’s design encourages an exclusive and lasting relationship. The one-account-per-e-mail rule supports the idea of monogamy, although Park laughed saying the company wouldn’t deter a person managing multiple accounts. Ham Yoon-seok, a 29-year-old finance professional in Seoul, said he writes poems and letters of apology on Between after a quarrel with his girlfriend.

Between will never add a location-tracking feature, Park said, because the app maker believes that trust is key in a relationship.

— Dating culture

South Korean couples often expect each other to follow romantic customs, a source of big business here. In addition to Valentine’s Day when women give chocolate to men, there is White Day on March 14 when men give sweets to women. It is easy to guess what to give on Rose Day and what to do on Kiss Day. Some businesses exclusively serve couples by selling identical looking T-shirts and other apparel that can be paired. Some offer special discounts for couples. The list goes on.

Korean couples celebrate not only a one-year anniversary, but also 100 days since meeting. Between keeps a count, serving as a reminder for people like Ham, who marks such occasions by writing a poem, giving a gift or dining at a fancy restaurant. Ham and his girlfriend have been together for more than 1,000 days.

— Hands on

Since I started using Between with my boyfriend, it has become the primary way we chat, save photos, plan vacations and keep to-do lists. We have stopped talking on Kakao Talk or iMessage. While I ceased to post pictures on Facebook, dozens of pictures accumulated on Between. Between feels like keeping a blog between the two of us with an instant messaging feature as an added benefit. I can tell when my boyfriend sends an instant message because Between alerts with a unique beep sound. Even for couples like us who sniff at anything excessively lovey-dovey such as wearing a couple ring, Between’s simple design and features have a great appeal.