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Adults who never watch TV during family meals and eat mostly home-cooked food are much less likely than others to be obese, according to a recent US study.

Past research has suggested that more frequent family meals are linked to lower obesity, but in the current study of more than 12,000 Ohio residents, eating at home, rather than out, and without the television on, was tied to lower obesity risk regardless of how often family was present.

It may be difficult for some families to eat a meal together every day, but they may be able to have healthier habits for the meals they do share, researchers conclude in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

“Families’ mealtime practices vary, and may be associated with adults’ obesity,” said lead author Rachel Tumin, of the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Centre in Columbus.

“Adults might eat more food when they are watching TV, and meals that are not home-cooked may be less healthy than meals that are home-cooked,” Tumin said by e-mail.

To determine how family meal practices affect obesity risk, the study team analysed data from the 2012 Ohio Medicaid Assessment Survey on for 12,842 adults who had eaten at least one family meal in the past week.

The participants answered questions about how often they ate meals at home with their family, how often they watched TV while eating and how many of their meals were home-cooked.

The researchers used self-reported height and weight data to calculate each participant’s body mass index (BMI), a ratio of weight to height. People with a BMI over 30 were considered obese, and one third of participants fell into this category.

Overall, 52 per cent of respondents ate family meals six or seven days per week, 35 per cent ate family meals about every other day and 13 per cent ate meals with family one or two days a week. 

About a third of adults watched TV during most or all family meals, while another 36 per cent did not watch any TV or videos during meals. For 62 per cent of adults, all of the family meals they ate were cooked at home.

Researchers found that the number of meals people ate with their family was not linked to their likelihood of being obese.

Adults who cooked all of their family meals at home, however, were 26 per cent less likely to be obese, compared with those who ate some or no home-cooked meals. 

People who never watched TV during meals had 37 per cent lower odds of being obese than those who always watched TV or videos during family meals. 

While eating more family meals may be beneficial for health, the quality of meals is important as well, said Jerica Berge, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis who studies family meal practices.

“It’s not just eating more of them that matters, it is important to consider other factors such as the healthfulness of the food eaten at the meal, the emotional atmosphere at the meal, or whether there are distractions at the meal [e.g., TV],” Berge, who was not involved in the study, said by e-mail.

“Turn off the TV when having family meals and use it as a time to check in about the day, current events, and fun future plans,” Berge said.

Tumin also advised leaving the TV off during meals, adding, “People who may not have time to cook their own meals could still consider buying healthy foods for family meals.”

Where social gatherings are concerned, it is not that I don’t like attending them but if I am excluded from one, it does not bother me unnecessarily. Given a choice, I prefer reading a book and having a quiet dinner, to the loud partying, any day. I have nothing against the partygoers; if they have the stamina or inclination for hectic socialising, I am happy for them. But personally, I like meeting smaller groups of people and having meaningful conversations with a couple of them, over a meal. 

We are all a product of our upbringing and the tiny coal town where I grew up was in a remote area that had no restaurants. The closest café, that served South Indian pancake like dosas, was over one hour away. It was in the near vicinity of a barbershop where my father took us for our monthly haircut. I don’t think it was unisex but my brothers and I were unceremoniously shepherded into the same salon. A fat elderly barber who wore thick glasses, would cut our hair. He would first put a plump round cushion on the chair to make us sit on top of it, so that we reached his eye level, because it was too much of an effort for him to look down otherwise. 

A large white apron like bib was wrapped under our chin, and even before the click-click of the scissors started, I could see tears rolling down my eyes, reflected in the mirror in front of me. I tried my best to control the sobs and would look sideways at my two siblings, who sat there stoically, on either side of me. The movement had to be subtle because the hairdresser jokingly threatened to cut my ears off if I shifted. Needless to say, I hated those visits but a trip to the café downstairs, after the hair trimming, was what motivated us.

Now there were not many culinary choices in this place, the menu barely had six to eight dishes in total, but the paper-dosa they made was to die for. This rice pancake was fried golden crisp, more than a foot long and was served with an unlimited supply of lentils and chutneys. Our father gave us a free reign once we reached the cafe and we could order whatever we wanted. Our heads felt lighter after being shorn of the extra hair and we grabbed the chance of sipping lemonade and chomping on the crispy fare. 

My mother and grandmother joined us for lunch and sometimes the neighbourhood families tagged along. The occasion would turn into an unplanned social gathering because everyone knew everybody. This was the only partying I did as a youngster, other than accompanying my parents while visiting their friends, who served us impromptu home-cooked meals whenever we called on them. 

So, not being invited to certain events, concerts or festivities did not make me lose sleep. Similarly, if I did not wish to invite someone to my party, celebration or gathering, I simply didn’t. 

“What you doing on Sunday?” an aggressive posh voice said, the minute I picked up my telephone. 

“I’m having a small get together,” I answered. 

“Wonderful! I love the food you serve,” the socialite gushed. 

“Thank you,” I replied. 

“What time is it? I have not seen the invite,” she went on.

There was silence as I refrained from answering.

“This weekend I’m busy. Can’t make it,” she hurriedly disconnected. 

BEIJING — A years-long crime spree by Chinese toilet paper thieves may have reached the end of its roll after park officials in southern Beijing installed facial recognition technology to flush out bathroom bandits. 

Park managers at the Temple of Heaven, an expanse of imperial landmarks in the capital, spent three years testing ways to foil the toilet looters, including fingerprinting and laser sensors, before they settled on the new technology, which was introduced over the weekend.

Elderly square dancers taking their bathroom breaks on Tuesday were greeted by a robotic voice: “Welcome! Please stand in the recognition zone”.

One by one, they obediently positioned themselves on a yellow square marking and watched their faces pop up on a blinking blue screen mounted to the wall. Then the machine dispensed their individual allotment of 60cm of toilet paper.

If the same individual attempts to collect more bathroom tissue within nine minutes, he or she will be met with a polite rejection: “Please try again later.”

Toilet paper crooks have been known to take home entire rolls, smuggling them out in bulging bags that go undetected at the security gates.

The high-tech solution was welcomed by some of the park’s regulars.

“It’s pretty good, as long as we have enough to use,” said Pu Meilang, 68, who takes frequent strolls around Temple of Heaven.

“It thwarts the rule-breakers.”

Desperate measures

The park has sought to put a stop to toilet paper bandits for years, according to Lei Zhenshan, a marketing manager for Shoulian Zhineng, the Tianjin-based company behind the device.

In 2014, they started experimenting with different ways of tracking toilet paper usage and finally settled on facial recognition — but not without some internal dispute.

“It seemed a little awkward at first,” Lei said, “but we saw that the degree of waste was quite severe, and decided to take this technical approach to correcting people’s behaviour.”

He said they decided against fingerprinting because people might use all ten of their fingers in turn to maximise rations.

According to Lei, the technology has already reduced waste by 70 per cent since it was brought to Temple of Heaven.

The machines, which cost more than 6000 yuan ($869) each, were first introduced in June around the Bird’s Nest Stadium in the city’s Olympic Green.

Though most Temple of Heaven park-goers by the east gate were able to quickly get their bathroom tissues on Tuesday morning, the system was not without small inconveniences.

One woman had a toddler who was too short to reach the camera range. 

Another, a 55-year-old who was partaking in a sailor-style group dance, came clad in a full black navy uniform. She had to remove her cap and sunglasses to receive her portion.

Li Zengxiu, 58, came out of her bathroom stall to discover that she would not be granted additional toilet paper to wipe her hands.

But she was happy to make the sacrifice, Li said as she air-dried them instead.

“We’re saving paper for the good of the country.”

Users on the social network Weibo were more sceptical.

One commenter wrote: “In two days, the facial recognition machine will be taken too.”

Tougher, more refined, capable, efficient and better equipped than ever, the latest generation Nissan Navara 2.5-litre turbodiesel double cab 4x4 pick-up’s appeal as rugged workhorse, utilitarian daily transport and adventure wagon is truly compelling. 

Among the best in a popular and growing mid-size pick-up segment, the diesel-powered Navara and the best among its competitors in fact make a compelling argument as an alternative to more expensive and less capable, if ever-popular SUVs. If perhaps less refined than a similarly sized SUV, the Navara’s fuel-sipping diesel engine and rugged ability and durability, however, instil one with a particular peace of mind and confidence.

Improved appeal

Known as the NP300 Navara and first launched in 2014 alongside the now outgoing previous generation model, the new Navara has been gradually rolled out to global markets. Arriving in Middle East markets in recent weeks and months, the NP300 Navara is based on a strengthened evolution of its predecessor’s thoroughly well proven and tough boxed ladder frame chassis. Its 48mm shorter wheelbase, and improved ground clearance provide improved on- and off-road agility. Offered with five-link rear suspension for certain markets for improved ride quality and more daily drive appeal, the driven wide-body LE model however featured more traditional and rugged live axle and leaf spring rear suspension.

Designed to convey a greater sense of presence than its predecessor’s restrained and elegantly boxy lines, the NP300 Navara seems larger and more bulging. Integrating Nissan’s contemporary V-motion grille design and flowing along the bonnet, the new Navara is however characterised by a seemingly more high-rise style. Featuring a higher bonnet, the NP300’s pronounced wings help one position it on road through open roads, but reduces visibility in tighter confines, compared with its predecessor. The NP300 also features a higher waistline, with an upward kink at the end of the rear doors. Riding with improved ground clearance and higher waistline, the NP300’s roofline is, however, lower.

Efficient and involving

Powered by Nissan’s proven 16-valve DOHC 2.5-litre in-line 4-cylinder turbodiesel engine to the tune of 161BHP developed at 3600rpm and a mighty 297lb/ft torque produced at 2000rpm, the Navara’s acceleration is improved, with 0-100km/h arriving in an estimated 11-seconds or so. More important than outright — and officially unavailable — headline figures is the Navara’s welling and generous mid-range torque, which allows for confident muscular, hauling, off-roading and overtaking on the open road. A low-revving engine as all diesel engines, the Navara’s 2.5, however, pulls cleanly and eagerly through its mid-range might and towards its low rev limit, while diesel clatter is less evident than with many rivals.

Driven through a somewhat long-throw 6-speed manual gearbox with precise and intuitive clutch biting point, the Navara instils a greater sense of driver involvement, autonomy and adventure. Working the Navara’s shifter to keep the engine in its sweet spot is a pleasure. At low-end, it is more effective to more gradually lift off the clutch and feed in power and build momentum, to avoid turbo lag from idle, which is typical of any turbodiesel engine given their inherently narrower performance band. Driving the rear wheels during normal conditions for better efficiency, performance and agility, the Navara is quoted as achieving a low 6.6l/100km on the combined cycle.

Confident and capable

Confident and composed on highway, the Navara digs deep and pulls hard on acceleration, while riding with greater refinement and stability than most of the competition. Comparatively settled and buttoned down for a live axle and leaf spring set-up, the Navara’s drives through imperfect and rutted roads — of paved and unpaved varieties — with ease and comfort. Riding on a rugged suspension design and with tall sidewall 255/70R16 tyres, the Navara well-absorbs rough textures and — and unlike most SUVs — gives one peace of mind in its ability to effortlessly take all the punishment that a neglected countryside backroad can mete out to the tires and suspension. 

With balanced weight distribution, nuanced front double wish bone suspension and rear-wheel-drive engaged, the Navara is eager going into corners and agile for a rugged workhorse. Steering is refined and accurate, if tall-geared, while body roll is well contained for its segment. Exiting corners at a brisk pace is however a more delicate matter owing to its commercial vehicle rear underpinnings, with slight axle hop as expected, and bounce if power is too aggressively fed in. However, the Navara is well-equipped and features a vigilant electronic stability control system, and electronic brakeforce distribution keeping it level and complementing effective ventilated disc front and rear drum anti-lock brakes.

Off-road ability

A thoroughly capable off-road vehicle capable negotiating various treacherous terrain with confident ease, the Navara is sized well for even narrow and easily accessible trails. Its off-road hardware suite includes full-time four-wheel drive in regular direct ratio or low 2.717:1 ratio when more power needs to be deployed at a crawling pace. For low-traction surfaces the Navara features a locking rear differential to keep both wheels turning in unison and limited-slip centre differential to send power where needed. With high 229mm ground clearance, the Navara and generous approach, break-over and departure angles, and electronic hill descent control and hill start assistance, for good measure.

In addition to its generous cargo, loading and towing capacities, the new Navara boast a spacious double cabin accommodating five occupants, with easy access. It is spacious in all directions despite the shorter roofline and wheelbase, and with good front and side visibility, despite a higher waistline. Meanwhile rear parking sensors (and optional rearview monitor) help with manoeuvrability. Finished in durable good quality fabric, soft textures, piano black and metallic trim, the Navara’s cabin is pleasant and refined. Well-equipped with convenience features, the Navara LE HR specification driven came with remote central locking, climate control and CD sound system with USB and Bluetooth connectivity.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2.5-litre, in-line, common-rail turbo-diesel, 4-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 89 x 100mm

Compression ratio: 15.1:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC

Gearbox: 6-speed manual, four-wheel-drive

Driveline: low gear transfer, locking rear & optional limited-slip centre differentials

Gear ratios: 1st 4.685:1; 2nd 2.478:1; 3rd 1.623:1; 4th 1.207:1; 5th 1.0:1; 6th 0.808:1

Reverse/final drive: 4.709:1/3.538:1

High/low range: 1:1/2.717:1

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 161 (163) [120] @3600rpm

Specific power: 64.7BHP/litre

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 297 (403) @2000rpm

Specific torque: 162Nm/litre

0-100km/h: approximately 11-seconds

Fuel consumption, combined: 6.62-litres/100km

Fuel capacity: 80-litres

Length: 5336mm

Width: 1850mm

Height: 1808mm

Wheelbase: 3150mm

Overhang, F/R: 878/1308mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficiency: 0.37

Minimum ground clearance: 229mm

Approach angle: 32.2°

Break-over angle: 23.7°

Departure angle: 26.5°

Kerb weight: 1925kg (est.)

Towing capacity: 3500kg

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbones, coilovers/leaf springs, live axle

Steering: Power-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 12.4-metres

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/drums

Tyres: 255/70R16

Price, 2WD starting from/4WD, as driven: JD22,000/JD28,000

AMMAN — Held in the month that celebrates women, Hind Nasser’s exhibition at Gallery 14, “Many Faces of an Artist”, literally displays many faces of women while giving the viewer an insight into the many facets of this artist’s work that spans more than three decades.

The exhibition may well coincide with the International Women’s Day, but Nasser’s works are not an ephemeral, one-day-a-year homage, but a rendition of the quintessential woman, the mysterious, resilient, strong creature that is often overlooked, downtrodden or marginalised.

The rich gallery of portraits — in crayon, ink or acrylic — introduces one to women who, solemn or playful, happy or sad, young or old, slim or generously endowed with curves, pose detachedly or peer inquisitively back at the viewer.

Very few are renditions of faces of real models; most are the result of the artist’s imagination, with a sprinkle of portraits of members of the close family.

From minimalist — a few masterful strokes of brush create silhouettes that bring to mind African art or Japanese calligraphy — to sketched, to almost naive and to realistic and richly detailed, the “faces” are diverse, in appearance, medium, colour and rendition.

Fakhrelnissa’s influence — Nasser was taught by this famous painter “when I never thought I would paint”, spending 15 years with this “very generous” artist who “introduced me to art” — is unmistakable in some images. But one could think of Gauguin in others and sees absolute originality in most.

Clearly defined, with strong features and painstaking details, barely emerging from a nebula of colour, like in a laboured process of creation, or outright abstract, the images, created in a wide range of styles and colours, linger on the retina long after viewing them, powerful images even at their most delicate or vulnerable.

Dark crayons, bold primary colours and pastel hues mix together — with golden shades and glitter adorning some newer portraits — are a feast for the eye and an apt manner of depicting femininity.

A few works displaying groups of women, coming together for some purpose or simply for the pleasure of sharing each other’s presence, are juxtaposed to lonely figures in meditating postures, all conveying thjavascript:void(0);e richness of a woman’s feelings.

Portrayed in their glorious beauty, Nasser’s women are as varied as in real life.

Metamorphosed into flowers, taking a bath, enjoying solitude or sharing a cup of coffee with a friend, they are sensible, inwardly absorbed, self-contained, mysterious and in possession of knowledge that invites to be deciphered.

The artist’s style changes over time, but not dramatically. From early sketches to today’s portraits, the unitary thread is the woman — mother, child, sister, friend — a universe in herself that awaits discovery, understanding, love and appreciation.

The gallery will host women in the media, writers, designers and lecturers during this period that heightens awareness to half of the humanity.

Nasser’s works, on display through April 29, will, however, be the everlasting gift to the beauty of women.

Flood of Fire

Amitav Ghosh

New York: Picador, 2016

Pp. 616

This is the final volume of “The Ibis Trilogy”, a masterpiece of historical fiction linking mid-19th century India and China, and named after an opium-transport vessel. In the first book, “Sea of Poppies”, the Ibis is carrying Indian coolies to work on plantations in Mauritius, when a mutiny breaks out. The mutineers escape and are thought to have died at sea but, like other characters in the first two books, they resurface in “Flood of Fire”. Indeed, “the bond of the Ibis was like a living thing, endowed with the power to reach out from the past to override the volition of those who were enmeshed in it”. (p. 439)

Set mainly in China during the First Opium War, “Flood of Fire” adds new layers to Amitav Ghosh’s rendering of the political economy of opium and empire — how it reshuffles power relations, the fate of entire countries and countless lives, bringing ruin to many and enormous riches to a few. Yet, empire also creates new, internationalised communities, like the Chinese who work with the foreign traders, and the offspring of the Indian opium merchants who spend long years in Canton and establish second families there, unknown to those back home. Whereas the British upheld rigid caste boundaries when recruiting their Indian sepoy army to fight their battles for them, the future, as depicted in the novel, is moving towards hybridity and cross-cultural fertilisation.

The opium wars cement the foreign merchant community’s integration into imperial strategy, but also aggravate the contradictions inherent in colonial designs. “Flood of Fire” begins and ends with Kesri, second in command, after a British officer, of a battalion of sepoys, and one of several characters to undergo a decisive transformation in the novel. While soldiering is touted as a glorious undertaking, following Kesri’s career shows the complex and often ugly demands of war. There are panoramic battle scenes as the British navy advances on Canton, but there are more close-ups of the misery that war inflicts on combatants and civilians alike. In Kesri’s case, his tasks of providing for his troops and keeping their morale up, are made more difficult by the British troops’ crude racial discrimination against their Indian counterparts.

As the two sides face off, the Chinese leaders rely on reason, finding it “impossible to conceive that any country would send an army across the sea to force another country to buy opium”, but their rationale is blown away by superior British firepower. (p. 332)

It becomes apparent that battles are not won by honour and bravery, as Kesri once believed, but by a mix of unpredictable circumstances and, above all, who has the best equipment.

When the joint British-sepoy forces leave their ships to engage the enemy on the ground, Kesri finds himself facing ordinary Chinese villagers mobilising with paltry weapons to defend their land from the invaders. “So much death; so much destruction—and that too visited upon a people who had neither attacked nor harmed the men who were so intent on engulfing them in this flood of fire”. (p. 505)

Kesri suffers a moral crisis. Tormented by the realisation that he is not fighting to defend his own land or family as are the Chinese, still his sense of honour dictates that he stick to his oath of loyalty to the British.

Another character to undergo a transformation in thinking is Shireen, widow of Bahram, the Indian merchant who dies in mysterious circumstances in “River of Smoke”. In “Flood of Fire”, she learns that he had been leading a double life for thirty years, and left behind a son in China. Defying her community’s tradition of cloistering women, she decides to travel to Canton to find the son. Once decided: “It was as if a gale had parted the purdahs that curtained her world, blowing away many decades’ worth of dust and cobwebs”. (p. 217)

When the Indian merchants stationed in China question her undertaking, she asks if they think the children they have begotten there will disappear, saying, “it is impossible to bring children silently into this world. They all have voices and some day they too learn to speak”. (p. 565

Meeting Mrs Burnham, who is trapped in a loveless marriage of convenience to one of the most prominent — and unlikeable — British opium traders, Shireen also learns that it is not only in her own country that women’s wishes are subverted by family ambitions and convention.

“Flood of Fire” is filled with intrigue, passion, betrayal, and big and small acts of human kindness. It is also replete with examples of the inhumanity, exploitation, hypocrisy and corruption inherent in empire, which is especially salient in the opium trade and the wars it causes. Watching the battle for Canton, Neel, the most intellectual of all the novel’s characters, ponders: “How was it possible that a small number of men, in the span of a few hours or minutes, could decide the fate of millions of people yet unborn? How was it possible that the outcome of those brief moments could determine who would rule whom, who would be rich or poor, master or servant, for generations to come?” (p. 388)

Obviously, such questions have equal relevance today.

Sally Bland

In children with a common condition that causes them to periodically stop breathing during sleep, areas of the brain involved with thinking and problem-solving appear to be smaller than in children who sleep normally, a study finds.

Researchers cannot say the brain changes actually cause problems for children at home or school, but they do say the condition, known as obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), has been tied to behaviour and cognitive problems.

“It really does seem that there is a change in the brain or that the brain is affected,” said study author Paul Macey, who is director of technology and innovation at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Nursing.

Macey and colleagues write in Scientific Reports that up to 5 per cent of all children are affected by OSA. The condition causes the child’s airway to become blocked, which ultimately causes the brain to go without oxygen for short periods of time and may wake the child up.

Previous studies on lab animals and adults with OSA have shown changes in the brain due to nerve cells dying, they add. 

For the new study, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to analyse the volume of children’s grey matter, which is the outermost layer of the brain that allows for higher levels of functioning like problem solving.

They compared brain scans from 16 children with OSA and 200 children without the condition. All the youngsters were between 7 and 11 years old.

Overall, children with OSA had decreases in grey matter volume in areas of the brain important for controlling cognition and mood, compared to the other children.

Macey, who is also affiliated with the UCLA Brain Research Institute, said it’s unclear how closely changes in the brain are connected to behaviour, cognition and other issues.

“We know these two things are happening, but we’re not sure how much the reduced grey matter tracks with poor scores,” he told Reuters Health.

The researchers also cannot say exactly why OSA is tied to reduce gray matter volume among children. A lack of oxygen may kill off brain cells or it may stop the brain from properly developing, for example.

Macey’s team wants to see whether treating the condition helps children get back on track with their healthy peers.

“If we did that we would know better how people recover from it or not,” he said.

Dr Eliot Katz, of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, said previous research shows treating OSA by removing tonsils and adenoids improves children’s school performance, behaviour and sleep-related issues. Evidence is mixed on whether it improves cognition.

Katz, who was not involved with the new study, said the previous research on problems faced by children with OSA — like behaviour and cognition — is fitting nicely with the brain imaging studies.

“This is really the first large, really well controlled study that has found decrements in grey matter in children with obstructive sleep apnea,” he told Reuters Health.

He said parents should discuss symptoms of OSA with children’s healthcare providers. Those symptoms include chronic snoring and gaps in breathing while they sleep.

“Sleep complaints are often not addressed in well child care visits,” he said, or in training programmes for paediatricians.

He advises parents to “take a brief phone video of the breathing pattern that’s concerning to them and show it to their paediatrician”.

Macey said daytime tiredness and mood issues can also be symptoms of OSA. Children who are overweight and obese are at higher risk for the condition.

SINGAPORE — In today’s so-called smart home, you can dim the lights, order more toothpaste or tell the kids to go to bed simply by talking to a small WiFi-connected speaker, such as Amazon’s Echo or Google’s Home.

This voice-first market — combining voice with artificial intelligence (AI) — barely existed in 2014. This year, Voice Labs, a consultancy, expects 24.5 million appliances to be shipped.

Other big tech firms have their own plans: Apple is taking its Siri voice assistant beyond its mobile devices to PCs, cars, and the home; Baidu last month bought Raven, billed as China’s answer to Amazon’s Alexa intelligent personal assistant; and Samsung Electronics plans to incorporate Viv, its newly acquired virtual assistant, into its phones and home appliances.

But not everyone thinks the future of communicating with the Internet of Things needs to be vocal.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, for example, was working on Jarvis, his own voice-powered AI home automation and found he preferred communicating by text because, he wrote, “mostly it feels less disturbing to people around me”.

And several major appliance makers have turned to a small Singapore firm, Unified Inbox, which offers a service that can handle ordinary text messages and pass them on to appliances.

With your home added to the contacts list on, say, WhatsApp, a quick text message can “start the coffee machine”; “turn on the vacuum cleaner at 5pm”; or “preheat the oven to 200 degrees at 6:30pm”.

“Think of it as a universal translator between the languages that machines speak... and us humans,” said Toby Ruckert, a German former concert pianist and now Unified Inbox’s CEO.

The company is just a small player, funded by private investors, but Ruckert says its technology is patent-backed, has been several years in the making, and has customers that include half of the world’s smart appliance makers, such as Bosch .

Unified Inbox connects the devices on behalf of the manufacturer, while the consumer can add their appliance by messaging its serial number to a special user account or phone number. It so far supports more than 20 of the most popular messaging apps, as well SMS and Twitter, and controls appliances from ovens to kettles. Other home appliances being tested include locks, garage openers, window blinds, toasters and garden sprinklers, says Ruckert.

“People aren’t going to want a different interface for all the different appliances in their home,” says Jason Jameson, of IBM, which is pairing its Watson AI supercomputer with Unified Inbox to better understand user messages. They will this week demonstrate the service working with a Samsung Robot Cleaner.

“The common denominator is the smartphone, and even more common is the messaging app,” Jameson notes.

There’s another reason, Ruckert says, why more than half of the world’s smart appliance manufacturers have signed up.

They’re worried the big tech companies’ one-appliance-controls-all approach will relegate them to commodity players, connecting to Alexa or another dominant platform, or being cast aside if Amazon moves into making its own household appliances.

“Our customers are quite afraid of the likes of Amazon,” Ruckert said. “Having a Trojan horse in a customer’s home, like Echo, that they must integrate with to stay competitive is a nightmare for them.”

An Amazon spokesperson said the company was “excited by the early response by smart home device manufacturers and even more excited by the customer response”, but declined to speculate about future plans. 

A spokesperson for Bosch said no single company can knit the Internet of Things together, so “there is a need to collaborate and establish ecosystems”, such as working with Unified Inbox.

Already the race is on to incorporate other services into these home hubs.

Amazon allows third parties to develop apps, or “skills”, for Alexa. It has more than 10,000 of these, with many added in just the past three months. Most are developed by firms using Amazon’s software toolkit and range from telling jokes to ordering food.

And Amazon makes it easy for other hardware makers to incorporate Alexa into their appliances, increasing its reach.

Chinese device maker Lenovo has embedded Alexa in its speakers, while General Electric has it in a lamp — meaning users can control these devices by voice, and use them to order products from Amazon. LG Electronics and Huawei are also working on Alexa-enabled devices, Amazon said.

Text messaging, though, may yet break down those walls.

As Zuckerberg noted, the volume of text messages is growing much faster than the number of voice calls. “This suggests that future AI products cannot be solely focused on voice and will need a private messaging interface as well,” he says.

Even smarter

Some companies are already looking further ahead, and doing away with the need for any human instruction — whether by voice or text — by making machines smarter at learning our habits and anticipating them.

LG, for example, is using deep learning to make its appliances understand and avoid objects in a room, or fill an ice-tray based on a user’s cold drink habits.

At Unified Inbox, Ruckert looks ahead to being able to communicate not only with one’s own appliances, but with machines elsewhere. Bosch executives in Singapore, for example, have demonstrated how a user could ask a smart CCTV camera how many people were in a particular room.

Ruckert is also working with Singapore’s Nanyang Polytechnic to send updates to family members or staff direct from hospital equipment attached to patients.

And smart appliance entrepreneur James Dyson said hat the future lies in what he calls “highly intelligent automation”.

“For me, the future is making everything happen for you without you being particularly involved in it.”

Are you happy with the Internet speed that your telephone operator provides you with over its network? Are you stuck with the sluggish 2G, or are you enjoying 3G or even the faster 4G?

Arguments will never end about speed and performance in technology. Whether it is the speed of hard disks, of processors or that of the Internet connection, the consumer never has enough of it, and the industry keeps pouring oil on the fire by making everything faster all the time.

Whether continuously increasing speed is actually needed or is relevant is another topic. Many will argue that it is good to have anyway, for you never know when you may really need it. I agree.

Enter 5G, the upcoming ultrafast Internet for your phone, tablet or even computer, for that matter. It is going to be the next big leap in mobile connectivity. For the emotive ones and the tech-heads, let us say from the onset that it is not yet available. It is not a distant dream either. First tests may take place as early as next year, and nowhere else than South Korea, the world champion in terms of extensive and high-performance Internet services.

Because it is all but still experimental at this stage, no precise data is available yet as to the actual speed of 5G, though tests indicate that it would be in a range comprised between 3 and 10Gbps (gigabits per second), according to China’s Huawei and South Korea’s Samsung. In layman’s term this is about 10 to 12-fold the speed of the current 4G network! An even more striking illustration: it will allow you to download an entire high-resolution full-length movie in just a few seconds.

Such speed actually will mainly improve and positively affect the streaming of high-definition multimedia contents, a segment of the Internet usage that is growing exponentially. Internet voice and video calls and conferencing also will strongly benefit from 5G. The whole YouTube, Vimeo or Deezer experience will have new meaning. But obviously, you don’t really need such speed to send a simple email, a Whatsapp text message, or to read the news online. 

5G already raises a few questions, even if it may take two to four more years to be practically available.

When you consider that 4G is not yet everywhere, that most of us are still on 3G, that once you have 5G the quantity of downloads and uploads is going to reach gigantic proportions, and last but not least the cost this may involve, you just stop and think. Not forgetting that no smartphone on the market today has 5G capability… well, perhaps except for the model announced just a few days ago by ZTE and that claims to have “pre-5G” functionality and 1Gbps download capability — a claim yet to verify.

Still, like any technology trend towards more-and-faster, it is going to happen and we will get used to it, not to say hooked on it, and will gladly pay for it.

Who would have thought 10 or 12 years ago that we would be taking photos or videos that are 5MB or 10MB large, and would be sending then instantly and wirelessly by phone at the other end of the world? I can’t wait to see what 5G will make us do.

For the dwindling few of us who do not actually need to lose weight, the idea of slashing food intake in a bid to extend our healthy lifespan isn’t universally appealing. Hedonists the world over, in fact, have denounced the calorie-restriction-for-life-extension idea as a cruel hoax: the bony, cold and irritable cranks willing to deny themselves the comfort of enough food to maintain their weight probably do not actually live longer, they say: it just feels like their miserable lives go on and on.

Well, here’s a surprise: these people are not miserable. In fact, compared to normal, healthy adults who went about their lives eating what they wanted for two years, normal-weight people who ate 25 per cent less than they wanted for the same stretch of time were happier, less stressed, slept better and had more robust sex drives.

Researchers have long known that when obese people restrict their calories and lose weight, their moods, sleep and sexual function all improve along with many measures of cardiovascular and metabolic health. But the notion that no one with a normal healthy body weight would choose to deliberately forego about 500 calories per day has apparently discouraged anyone from exploring whether calorie restriction would confer the same benefits upon the slim-and-healthy.

But researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Baton Rouge, La., suspected as much. They teamed up with researchers from Duke University, Tufts University and Washington University to conduct a two-year study comparing the effects of calorie restriction on 218 healthy, normal-weight study subjects, almost 70 per cent of them women, ranging between 20 and 57 years old.

The new research was published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Two-thirds of the participants slashed their normal calorie intake by 25 per cent, while the remaining third went about their lives eating as they always had. In addition to checking their weight and, in men, reproductive hormones, the researchers took detailed measurements of each subject’s mood, sleep quality and sexual function.

By the end of year one, the subjects in the calorie-restriction group had lost, on average, 15.2 per cent of their body weight, and 11.5 per cent of body weight by the end of year two. By the end of the study, the calorie-restriction group’s average BMI was 22.6 — right in the middle of the healthy, normal weight category. Those who continued to eat normally had no change in their weight on average.

Over time, the calorie-restricted subjects reported improving mood compared to their baseline measures, and falling tension levels. Those who had continued to eat normally had poorer moods than the calorie-restricted subjects, and among the few who fell just inside the overweight category (BMI above 25), had worsening depression scores by the end of year two.

On five measures, the calorie-restricted subjects’ perceived sleep quality levels remained the same, while those of subjects who continued to eat as they wished worsened at the end of year one.

By the end of the two-year study, those who had pared their intake reported improvements in their sexual drive and relationships, although men who fed themselves to satiation reported higher arousal scores. At the end of one year, free testosterone levels declined in the men who ate what they wanted, but not in the men whose calories had been pared.

In none of these cases was the average difference between the satiated and the lean-and-hungry large. But they were clear, and judged not to have been statistical flukes. The researchers suggested that physicians could use the findings to reassure their healthy, normal-weight patients that calorie restriction may have some benefits and does not lead to misery.

In a commentary published alongside the new research, Dr Tannaz Moin of the University of California, Los Angeles wrote that the new research underscores the potential importance of measures that head off weight gain and obesity before they happen. Currently, insurers are required to reimburse physicians for screening and counselling their patients for obesity, but the focus has been on patients who already have become obese.

Since it is clear from the new research that normal-weight people can be induced to cut their calories over a long period, maybe, wrote Moin, physicians and insurers should be focusing on prevention in younger adults who are still trim and healthy.