Features

PARIS – E-cigarettes, touted as an aide for giving up tobacco, in fact lower the odds of quitting success, claimed research Thursday that was immediately criticised as flawed.

A research duo from the University of California, San Francisco reviewed the findings of 38 studies conducted across the globe into e-cigarette use, and concluded that smokers who use the devices were 28 per cent less likely to quit smoking tobacco.

Published in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine, it claimed to be the largest review of e-cigarettes value as a tool to help smokers kick the habit. 

Looking at the data, it seemed that e-cigarettes in fact hampered attempts at quitting, the team said.

“The irony is that quitting smoking is one of the main reasons both adults and kids use e-cigarettes, but the overall effect is less, not more, quitting,” co-author Stanton Glantz said in a statement issued by the university.

“While there is no question that a puff on an e-cigarette is less dangerous than a puff on a conventional cigarette, the most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking conventional cigarettes.”

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat up a liquid containing nicotine and artificial flavouring. The vapour is inhaled — “vaped” — and exhaled, much like a cigarette.

In the last few years, health experts and watchdogs have been embroiled in debate as to whether the gadgets, often not strictly regulated, are safe.

They can also be used with nicotine-free liquids, but some fear e-cigarettes could be a gateway to “real” cigarettes for teenagers.

Experts who were not involved in the new study were cautious, some scathing in their comments.

Peter Hajek, director of the Queen Mary University of London’s Tobacco Dependence Research Unit, called it “grossly misleading”.

The work, he said, looked only at current smokers who had at some point used an e-cigarette — thus excluding any former smokers who may have used exactly such a device to quit.

Ann McNeill, a King’s College London professor of tobacco addiction, said the review was “not scientific”. It included data from two studies she had co-authored, but used in ways she claimed was “either inaccurate or misleading”.

“I believe the findings should therefore be dismissed.”

Steven Bernstein of the Yale School of Medicine, in a comment carried by The Lancet, said that despite concerns over the data, the study did raise questions about the usefulness of e-cigarettes as quitting aides.

LAS VEGAS — The next frontier for the tech sector is the human brain.

A new breed of neuro-hacker is finding ways to capture and manipulate brainwaves to improve health, with potential to help the severely handicapped.

A number of the innovations were on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where computer scientists and biomedical experts showcased ways to tap into and use brain signals.

The “mind control” headband unveiled by start-up BrainCo effectively hacks into brain signals with a range of possible applications — from helping to improve attention spans, to detecting disease, controlling smart home appliances or even a prosthetic device.

The device “translates your brainwaves into electronic signals”, said the Boston-based firm’s Zenchuan Lei.

At CES, BrainCo demonstrated how a person could use the headband to manipulate a prosthetic hand — a potential life-changer for those paralysed or missing limbs.

“These signals can be used to control objects like a prosthetic hand,” Lei said. “You can turn the lights on or off just by focusing on that.”

The device designed by scientists from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology employs “neuro feedback”, a means of allowing people to control their brainwaves for various purposes. It is expected to be sold later this year for less than $150.

Lei suggested the device could also help people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder because “it teaches you to enhance your focus and concentration”. 

A similar project on display from New York-based OpenBCI (which stands for open-source brain computer interface) seeks to create a platform for applications of the technology in healthcare, education or other fields.

OpenBCI uses a 3D-printed helmet which captures brainwaves from various sectors of the brain.

‘Neuro-marketing’ potential

“This can be used to help people with ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease] or quadriplegics communicate,” said OpenBCI Chief Executive Conor Russomanno.

The technology also offers a potential for so-called “neuro-marketing” which tests new products and services on the basis of sensory and cognitive response.

South Korean start-up Looxid Labs unveiled a headset that tracks both brainwaves and eye movements, claiming this provides more accurate insights into the mind.

“No other device that I’m aware of combines these things,” said Looxid Chief Business Officer Alex Chang.

With the headset attached to a computer, “you can roll your eyes to scroll the mouse, and click on a button by blinking”, Chang said.

The headset is being launched in July as a developer kit, with scope to build applications for controlling physical or virtual objects, communicating, analysing a user’s mood or mental health, or verifying their identity.

“We also see this as having potential in gaming because you can control things with your eye,” Chang said.

“When you concentrate you can stop the bullets.”

He added that for neuro-marketing applications, “we can show someone an ad and we can see where the eyes are focused. We can scan emotions and understand how someone is responding”.

Other exhibitors at CES demonstrated wearable devices that block pain signals to the brain, as an alternative to medications with side effects for people who suffer from debilitating pain.

Meditation aid

The neuro-feedback technique is being applied as a meditation aid by Canadian-based Interaxon and its Muse headband.

Muse uses sensors on the forehead and behind the ears to measure brain signals, and advise users how to improve their meditation technique.

The coaching app helps people achieve a level of consistency in their meditation efforts. 

“It’s like going to the gym. The muscle doesn’t get stronger unless you do it over and over again. It’s the same with your brain,” said Muse Marketing Manager Tracy Newsom-Rosenthal at the CES show.

One start-up at CES was showcasing a technique to deliver pleasure signals to the brain via music, by triggering the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and
oxytocin.

The hand-held device from Florida-based Nervana allows users to plug in a music player into the $299 device and get the pleasurable signals delivered by its headphones.

“We send a signal into the vagus nerve which produces dopamine, and that relaxes you,” CEO Ami Brannon told AFP on the show floor.

“Some people describe the sensation as euphoric.”

But Brannon said the technique “is not really hacking the brain”.

“We access the central nervous system and it just tickles the nerve to remind the brain to release dopamine,” she said.

“People who practice yoga or meditation can already do this.”

LOS ANGELES — Futuristic self-driving cars travelling along California roads have needed plenty of old-fashioned human intervention to stay safe.

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday released reports filed by seven companies the agency gave permission to test prototype vehicles in public. The documents summarised instances in which a human driver had to take over due to technology problems or other safety concerns.

The reports show wildly different levels of success since on-road testing started in September 2014.

Experts in the technology said Google, whose cars drove the most by far, performed relatively well, though they also cautioned that the testing typically happened during good weather. Other companies reported frequent instances in which the person who is required to be in the front seat — just in case — had to grab the wheel.

Nissan, for example, tested just 2,376km in public, but reported 106 cases where the driver had to take control. The automaker has said it plans to have “commercially viable autonomous drive vehicles” by 2020. A spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.

Google said its cars needed human help 341 times over 682,360 kilometres. That would be the equivalent of about 10 times per year, given the 19,300km the average US vehicle travels annually.

In 11 of the 341 instances, Google said its cars would have got in a crash.

The head of the company’s self-driving car project said that while the results are encouraging, they also show the technology has yet to reach his goal of not needing someone behind the wheel.

“There’s none where it was like, ‘Holy cow, we just avoided a big wreck,’” said Chris Urmson, Google’s self-driving car project leader.

“We’re seeing lots of improvement. But it’s not quite ready yet,” Urmson said. “That’s exactly why we test our vehicles with a steering wheel and pedals.”

The California Department of Motor Vehicles, which is writing new regulations for the technology, said it was still reviewing in the reports.

Google reported 272 cases in which the cars’ software or onboard sensors failed. Though Google did not release detailed scenarios, the problems included issues with the self-driving cars seeing traffic lights, yielding to pedestrians or committing traffic violations. There were also cases where intervention was needed because other drivers were reckless, and several dozen instances of an “unwanted manoeuvre” by Google’s car.

Bryant Walker Smith, a professor at the University of South Carolina who closely follows self-driving car developments, said Google’s rate of potential collisions was “not terribly high, but certainly not trivial”. He said it remains difficult to gauge how self-driving cars compare to accident rates among human drivers, since even the best data underreport minor collisions that are never reported to authorities.

While Google’s problem rate is “impressively low”, a trained safety driver should remain in the front seat, said Raj Rajkumar, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specialises in self-driving cars.

According to data in Google’s report, a driver typically took control within one second of the car asking for help.

Drivers at other companies often reacted quickly as well, according to their reports, though Volkswagen Group of America reported that, in one case, it was more than 12 minutes before the person took control of one of its test Audis. Audi of America spokesman Brad Stertz said he was gathering details on the incident, but believed it was a software glitch that did not affect public safety, and possibly was a false reading.

John Simpson, a frequent critic of Google who focuses on privacy issues for the non-profit group Consumer Watchdog, said the company’s report “underscores the need for a driver behind the steering wheel capable of taking control of the robot car”.

Google has argued to California regulators that once the company concludes the cars are ready for the public to use, they should not need a steering wheel or pedals because human intervention would actually make them less safe.

Google released its report Tuesday before the agency posted reports from other companies in what Google described as an effort to be transparent about its safety record. The company had lobbied against having to report disengagements in the first place, saying the data could be misinterpreted.

The other companies testing self-driving cars on California streets are Tesla Motors, Mercedes-Benz, and parts suppliers Bosch and Delphi.

Google’s testing mostly involves driving around the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters or the streets of Austin, Texas. The company’s rate of human intervention has improved in recent months, according to its data, but Urmson cautioned that the rate might again rise as Google subjects the cars to more challenging environments and weather conditions.

Google said its cars would have been responsible in eight of the eleven avoided accidents, according to computer modelling the company performed later. In two other cases, its cars would have hit a traffic cone.

Google cars have been involved in nine collisions since September 2014. In each case, the other car was responsible, according to an analysis by Virginia Tech University.

Apart from games and perhaps photo processing software, most of the applications we use are some forms of database. We may not notice it — and sometime don’t even need to — but Amazon’s gigantic online shopping store, online banking websites and airline booking systems are nothing but large databases. So are imdb.com movies and dpreview.com digital photography websites; both are now owned by Amazon by the way. And of course the biggest of them all, Google’s contents that we love to search, are nothing but a gigantic, planetary-scale database.

Your contacts list —whether you keep it in your smartphone, in MS Outlook or online with free e-mail accounts such as Gmail — is also one form of database, albeit a small, very simple one.

Does it really matter to understand what a database structure is and how it works? Not necessarily and not for the casual user. However, given the high level today of IT awareness, especially among the young generation, and the availability of easy-to-learn databases, it comes as a precious value added to one’s IT culture and general knowledge, two elements that cannot be underestimated by today’s standards of education and culture. Not to mention that such knowledge leads to smoother dealing with countless applications whether operated from a smartphone or a computer.

If not learning fully the art and the technique of database design and management, understanding at least the essential concept alone can be beneficial, whatever your trade or academic profile may be. For that understanding Microsoft Excel spreadsheet application is a good place to start. Most people use but a tiny fraction of Excel possibilities, sticking to basic calculations, whereas with its columns and rows structure Microsoft’s superb application comes with many database functions. It is intuitive enough for everyone to discover and move along more complex functions, progressively.

The Pro version of Microsoft Office Suite also comes with Access, a real database application. It is not as intuitive as Excel but it is possible to use the templates and Northwind, the sample database that is supplied freely with the programme, to learn it yourself without external assistance at all, or eventually with a little help from YouTube tutorials. What is nice with Access is that you can use it in a very simple manner or take it to the extreme and build very advanced, sophisticated systems.

MS-Access is considered to be right in the middle of the range of databases that go all the way up to Oracle and SAP, two high-end professional databases that no one should even try alone at home! Besides, their licences are so expensive that only enterprises can afford to buy them.

At the lower end are nice databases that you can even enjoy learning and discovering on your smartphone or tablet. One such friendly application is Memento by LuckyDroid. As the name of the designer implies, it is available only for Android phones for the time being, not for iPhones.

Memento is great in all its aspects. It is light, fast and inexpensive at only $10. Moreover, it comes with all the essential “ingredients” that make a true database, but in simplified form: fields, records, searches, queries, password protection, etc. If you enjoy your Android smartphone and are comfortable working long hours on its screen, Memento is the ideal place to start. If your phone screen is just not big enough, do it on an Android tablet.

With Memento building a personalised contact list or a database to store all your passwords is easy and will make you understand how a database is structured.

Understanding database structure, what it is and what it does, leads to better understanding the Web and the world of IT in general.

Before I could write my first column of the year, even before I could celebrate my January birthday, suddenly, I became terribly ill. My temperature shot up and as I shivered uncontrollably, all my feverish brain could register was the chill that was creeping up my bones. 

I kept asking for more and more blankets till at some point I got completely delirious and started mouthing inanities. It was at this juncture that my friend, whose house I was staying in, called up the doctor. Since it was a Sunday, the doctor was off duty and was going to a fancy party. But after understanding how delicate my condition was, he rushed back and ordered that I get admitted into the hospital immediately. 

I must have passed out because the next thing I remember, I was being pushed into a lift, on a wheelchair. How I got there is a bit of a blur, but once inside the elevator I heard someone singing. The liftman, bored with the repetitive nature of his job, where he had to simply press the buttons for the various floors, was entertaining his own self, and by proxy, the rest of us. 

“Dark clouds have gathered in the middle of the night and sleep has become my enemy. Tell me, what shall I do?” he crooned in a haunting voice. My own head was bursting, but I felt his pain was more than mine. I was awestruck by the melancholic song and suddenly it became very important for me to talk to him. My wheelchair was facing the door and I tried to turn my head around to look at him. All I could make out was the dull green of his uniform. 

“My dreams are vanquished and my hope is in tatters. My tears are flowing like a river but my heart is parched. Tell me, what shall I do?” he sang the next part of the song. The gloomy lyrics filled me with despair. I wanted to tell the sad singer to sit in a matching wheelchair and follow me to the ICU. 

Soon, the doors opened and I was taken straight to a room where an intravenous drip was attached onto my frail wrist. I kept pointing towards the general direction of the elevator hoping someone would understand that there was another miserable patient stuck in there.

I was in and out of consciousness for two days but whenever sanity prevailed I badgered my spouse about the singer in the lift. He said he would take me to meet him as soon as I could walk. The following morning I decided to quiz the plump nurse, who had been working there for donkey’s years. 

She told me that their hospital elevators never had any attendants. Ever! When I protested saying I had not only seen but also heard one of them sing loud and clear, she looked shockingly alarmed and hurried out of the room, without a backward glance. 

“You think I’m making it up?” I asked my husband later. 

“No dear,” he said distractedly. 

“You heard him singing too,” I accused. 

“Yes dear,” spouse agreed. 

“I mean, no dear,” he corrected himself. 

“Tell me, what shall I do?” I wailed. 

“You sit back and rest,” he soothed. 

“No, no, he was singing this,” I snapped. 

“You get better first,” he insisted. 

“And then?” I questioned. 

“We will find your singing elevator,” he promised.

“Elevator singer,” I prompted automatically.

You may not have unwrapped a robot on Christmas, but your New Year will be filled with artificial intelligence.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other technology companies, large and small, are making rapid advancements with virtual personal assistants that can solve problems and even complete tasks.

“We’re going to start to see more personal assistants, and the ones that are already online will get more useful,” said Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner.

The assistants, sometimes referred to as “chatbots”, represent noteworthy advancements to computer programmes that simulate conversations. Chatbots are not new — think Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana.

But in 2016, you’ll encounter different, smarter varieties of chatbots, some appearing in your favourite social media applications.

“Chatbots are designed to answer questions, to perform searches, to interact with you in a very simple form, such as jokes or weather,” said Brian Solis, principal analyst with Altimeter Group. “Ultimately, they should be able to anticipate your needs and help you shop.”

These robot helpers are also expected to assume more human-like qualities in 2016, exchanging messages in a conversational style rather than a computer’s mechanical responses.

The human side of chatbots will be most apparent in mobile messaging applications such as Facebook Messenger, where the social network has already begun perfecting its own virtual assistant called “M”. M, first released to a small number of Messenger users in August, can strike up a conversation or crack a joke — but also book travel, make purchases or wait on hold with the cable company when you’re not in the mood.

Powered by both artificial intelligence and actual humans (who help train the digital robots), M is the digital equivalent of a secretary or hotel concierge. The persona was originally code-named “Moneypenny” after the fictional character in James Bond films.

Google is also working to add question-and-answer computer programmes inside a messaging app, the Wall Street Journal reported last month. Google is likely motivated by a desire to gain ground in the mobile messaging realm, where rivals such as Facebook are far more dominant. The company also has a financial interest to remain at the forefront of Internet search, a behaviour that, on smartphones, has migrated away from the traditional search engine.

Mobile messaging apps, meanwhile, are on the fast track to a billion users, growing so fast that they’re overshadowing social networking as a favourite smartphone activity with youngsters.

“If you look at what the youngest tech generation is doing… it’s more about Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger than it is with pure-play social networking,” Blau said. “That is where the future is.”

Forty-nine per cent of smartphone owners ages 18 to 29 use messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Kik or iMessage, according to a Pew Research Centre report published in August. The activity appeals to older generations as well. Some 37 per cent of smartphone owners age 30 to 49, and 24 per cent of those ages 50 and older use mobile messaging apps, Pew found.

Facebook Messenger is used by more than 700 million people each month. WhatsApp, also owned by Facebook, has more than 900 million monthly users.

As audiences grow, American companies are taking inspiration from hit Asian messaging services, where human-like chatbots such as Microsoft’s Xiaoice (meaning “little Bing”) have already proved popular. The American variety of artificial intelligence and automated assistance currently centres around shopping — for good reason. That’s where the money is.

Take the iPhone apps Mona and Mezi, for instance, which are marketed as personal shopping assistants.

Powered entirely by artificial intelligence and built by former Amazon employees, Mona is meant to provide a concierge-like experience for consumers looking for top-notch recommendations on what to buy. The one-year-old start-up is programmed to appeal to 18-to-35-year-old women who like to shop online, enjoy finding discounts on high-end fashion and appreciate getting feedback from friends. She sifts through e-mail receipts and interactions with the app to make educated bets on what you want to purchase.

“Mona will show you five items, and you will be able to say, ‘Mona, I like the first one but can you show me that in a different colour?’,” said Orkun Atik, co-founder and chief executive of the Seattle-based startup. “And we want to give her a personality because we believe that we can advance her to a level where you’re talking to a person.”

Mona may sound like a niche app, but a robot that scours the Web to help you find, and buy, exactly what you want could serve as a replacement for Google. Atik believes in five years people will interact with smart, artificial-intelligence-based personal assistants in lieu of search engines.

The recently launched app Mezi is also a type of search engine replacement. The app acts as an electronic travel agent and product expert. Like Facebook, Mezi relies, in part, on humans to converse with shoppers. The company employs people it considers subject-matter experts so customers get the best recommendations possible. Artificial intelligence is used behind the scenes to route conversations, identify message intent and assist the assistants.

Currently, 25 per cent of Mezi’s messages are machine-made, CEO Swapnil Shinde said, but the San Francisco start-up believes it can perfect the system to handle 80 per cent of messages with chatbots. It’s a necessary progression as machine labour is far more economical than the human equivalent.

The constraints of messaging apps make them ideal breeding grounds for bots still in their intellectual infancy. Plus, the medium is suited for concierge-like treatment, which more of us, particularly younger folks, are beginning to expect from our apps.

“Philosophically, it is how we, as consumers, have been conditioned,” Solis said. “You want great service. You crave great experiences — and you feel like you’re entitled to them, regardless of your status.”

So if you expect the world to revolve around you, chatbots could be your new best friend.

Even black holes can lose a little glitter. Scientists studying a galaxy containing two black holes have found that one of them seems to be missing the usual crowd of stars surrounding it — a hint that it may be an elusive astrophysical object: an intermediate-mass black hole.

The findings, presented at the 227th American Astronomical Society meeting held in Kissimmee, Florida, and recently published in the Astrophysical Journal, could shed light on the evolution of the supermassive black holes that are thought to anchor virtually every large galaxy in the universe.

Finding a galaxy like SDSS J1126+2944, which contains a pair of such sizeable black holes, is quite rare. It’s thought to be the result of two galaxies crashing into each other, merging into a new whole with two holes.

“I’ve spent a career working on how to find these things, and there aren’t very many of them known — there’s only 12 of them known,” said lead author Julie Comerford, an astrophysicist at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

It wasn’t long before Comerford and her colleagues noticed something quite strange about this pair of singularities. One of them was surrounded by the thick entourage of stars that typically surrounds a supermassive black hole, but the other one looked oddly bare, almost stripped, with 500 times fewer stars than its more popular peer.

There are two possibilities for this imbalance, Comerford said. It could be that because of the particular dynamics of the violent merging of two galaxies, one of the supermassive black holes was stripped of its stars. But that would have to be an extreme event for a supermassive black hole to lose that many stellar companions.

But there’s another possibility: The “naked” black hole could actually be a smaller, rarely seen object called an intermediate-mass black hole. While this more modest object would probably still have had some of its stars ripped away, the loss would have been far less extreme because the black hole would have started out with a smaller stellar entourage to begin with.

Black holes are the corpses of collapsed stars that warp the surrounding space-time, capturing anything, including light, that dares cross its event horizon. These objects seem to be divided into two camps: stellar black holes, which are thought to result from the death of smaller stars and which can weigh up to 30 suns or so; and supermassive black holes, which can hold the mass of many millions or even billions of suns.

There doesn’t seem to be much lying in the vast gap between these lightweights and heavyweights — which perplexes scientists, who are trying to understand the evolution of supermassive black holes, which lie at the heart of large galaxies (including our own Milky Way). How did these gargantuan objects come to be?

Intermediate-mass black holes, with masses in the range of 100 to a million suns, could offer an answer, Comerford said. It’s possible they were the seeds of the supermassive objects we see throughout the cosmos today.

“That’s why intermediate mass black holes are interesting to find, because they’re sort of a missing evolutionary link in the chain building up to supermassive black holes,” Comerford said.

In recent years, astronomers scanning the heavens have discovered a few (very few) so-called intermediate-mass black holes, which might offer some of the missing links in that chain. But they’re devilishly difficult to detect and confirm.

If the stripped black hole is in fact one of the intermediate-mass variety, studying it could give scientists fresh insight into the evolution of these strange phenomena. Comerford says she’ll have to observe it with a radio telescope and an X-ray telescope at the exact same time to determine whether it’s the real deal.

NEW YORK — Life on the streets of New York may be miserable for the thousands of homeless who sleep rough, but many are disillusioned by stepped-up efforts to eradicate a modern-day crisis.

America’s biggest and wealthiest city is a beacon across the world for financial success and entertainment — one of the biggest tourist draws on the planet, welcoming 56 million visitors last year. It has more billionaires than any other city in the world, says Forbes.

And yet 75,000 people are homeless, according to US government figures — the mentally ill, those who lost jobs in the 2008 global financial crash, employees who cannot afford skyrocketing rents, families and children.

Dozing on benches in Penn Station, begging on the street or curled up at the bottom of subway stairwells, the plight of the city’s homeless is clear for all to see.

The Coalition for the Homeless non-profit says nearly 60,000 people are in shelters each night and that in recent years homelessness in the city has hit highs not seen since the 1930s Great Depression.

The statistics are an embarrassment for Mayor Bill de Blasio, a progressive Democrat two years on the job who campaigned to redress the city’s colossal inequality after two decades under Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani and billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

His office marked the New Year by announcing a slew of initiatives, upping the number of personnel taking people off the streets when temperatures drop, increasing the number of beds for homeless youth and promising to double the number of city-funded drop-in centres.

“I am taking the gloves off on this issue, we are going at this with everything we’ve got. We will turn the tide,” de Blasio promised.

‘Like prison’

But it’s not a problem going away overnight. Outreach teams took 97 people to shelters during one particularly cold night last week, out of an estimated 3,000-4,000 believed to sleep rough.

“Woah, there’s a lot of people don’t like shelters,” Eddie, 61, told AFP as he shuffled down Ninth Avenue with a walking stick.

“When you go in, they’re gonna screen you like you’re in prison, they’re gonna pat you down.” 

Last month, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer issued a stinging report about “nightmare conditions” endured by children in family shelters run by the department of homeless services.

“What they gotta do is, instead of building all these goddam hotels for the tourists, all these abandoned buildings should get the homeless,” said Eddie, gesturing at nearby skyscrapers.

Some of those most hardened to life on the streets say they loathe shelters, claiming they are dirty and violent.

Troy, a 48-year-old grandfather and military veteran, says he hasn’t slept in a shelter for nearly a year.

Sitting on a crate on top of a piping-hot air vent on a bitterly cold afternoon in Manhattan, he compares shelters to “being in jail” and prefers life on the streets.

“Oh, it depends where you at! You see where I’m at, I’ve got many locations like that,” he said, warming his hands over the hot air.

“The time I go and see my buddy is when I can take a shower or I go to the community centre and take me a shower.”

Asked what the solution is, he waved towards a vacant-looking building — prime real estate — saying the city should renovate it and turn it over to the homeless.

Reforms announced

On Monday, de Blasio announced $8.5 million a year to finance drop-in centres, which offer food, showers, medical care and advice, acknowledging that many street homeless dislike traditional shelters.

It is the latest in a series of reforms following a 90-day review, including 15,000 new supportive housing units. 

“I got into an argument with somebody and they swung at me, and I got beat up,” said Dashaun Brown, 38, from Georgia, sheltering in Penn Station for warmth and remembering his worst shelter experience.

Tall and lanky, and self-conscious about his heavily decayed front teeth, he says he last had a job as a teenager, flipping burgers.

Rugged, utilitarian and capable yet economical, manoeuvrable and comfortable, the light double cab pickup truck is a versatile and accessible multi-purpose vehicle. Designed for work and private use, the light truck segment is as effective at play as a recreational off-roader as at war, where it is a favourite of guerrilla forces and some conventional armies.

Renowned, robust and reliable, the Isuzu D-Max is among the leaders in its light pickups milieu, where being fit for purpose is the defining principle. If ultimately not as refined as more car-like SUVs, the D-Max’s attainable and rugged sensibility and cargo and off-road capabilities lend it a greater utilitarian appeal and authenticity than less capable, more precious SUVs or soft roaders.

Urgent and utilitarian

Redesigned in 2012 and offered with different cab, trim, cargo bed and drive-line configurations and specifications offered across the model range, the D-Max GT is a conveniently equipped,  more lifestyle-oriented regional edition. Introduced in 2014, the D-Max GT features racy twin-stripe bonnet and tailgate stripes, gunmetal grey 17-inch alloy wheels, a red grille emblem and an automatic gearbox. 

More dynamic looking than its predecessor, the GT aesthetic treatment emphasises the current D-Max’s urgent posture, created by a centre grille slat extending across the top of swept back headlights and along the ridges of a more defined bonnet. Better defined wheel-arches and a swept back windshield angle further lend the D-Max a sense of athletic momentum.

With two-tone red and black cloth upholstery and robust hard-wearing plastic surfaces, the D-Max GT’s cabin is spacious and utilitarian, with wide doors and side step for easy access and generous head, leg and shoulder room for five passengers. Meanwhile, a generous bed measuring 1550mm long, 1530mm wide and 465mm deep features tough plastic lining and numerous latching points. 

Confident and reliable

Powered by a 2.5-litre turbo-diesel engine with direct common-rail injection, the D-Max GT features a robust steel timing chain — unlike some competitor’s belt designs — for thorough reliability. Developing 134BHP at 3400rpm, the D-Max spins with comparative ease towards its redline. But in a machine like this, it’s generous and readily available 236lb/ft torque output at 1800-2800rpm is more relevant.

Idling with a typical but subdued diesel clatter, the D-Max’s turbo swiftly spools up with little discernable lag, and pulls hard throughout a robust mid-range sweet spot. Muscular in mid-range, on-the-move acceleration and incline climbs are dispatched muscularly at low and moderate speeds. Overtaking at higher speeds requires one more planning and use of gears, given power-to-weight and a diesel engine’s low-revving nature.

Driven through a 5-speed automatic gearbox for daily use convenience, the D-max GT’s economic shift points well suit its robust low-end output. Responsive to throttle input and smooth and timely, the GT’s gearbox also features gear-lever actuated sequential manual shifts, which can hold gears to the rev limit for added driver control. 

Rugged and manoeuvrable

Built on a rugged ladder-frame chassis with improved cross bracing and 42 per cent more rigidity, the D-Max delivers improved durability, ride, handling and stability when hauling or towing. With improved ride, the D-Max’s rugged rear live axle and leaf spring set-up is less bouncy over low speed bumps, and with 255/65R17 tyres proved surprisingly refined, supple and unruffled over sizeable medium speed lumps, bumps and cracks. 

Tough and unfazed by rough roads, the D-Max feels stable at highway speeds and with more sophisticated independent double wishbone suspension feels agile and nuanced turning into corners. 

Manoeuvrable through narrow winding roads, the D-Max features a tight 12.2-metre turning circle, and while tall gearing requires 3.84 turns lock-to-lock, steering feels accurate and with power assistance well-weighted. Dual piston front disc and rear drum brakes proved responsively effective.

With either rear-drive mode for fuel efficiency or four-wheel drive for sure-footed traction and grip over low traction surfaces and through brisk cornering, the D-Max benefits from balances weighting. Manoeuvrable and easy to drive, the D-Max also offers good front and side visibility from its spacious and airy cabin and big side mirrors to accurately place it easily on the road.

Versatile and frugal

Versatile, rugged and manoeuvrable, the D-Max is a thoroughly capable work and off-road vehicle well able to cope with a hard knock life. It features a low-ratio four-wheel drive gearbox transfer for towing, climbing or crawling across treacherous terrain and generous 235mm ground clearance and 49° tilt, 30° approach, 22.4° break over and 22.7° departure angles for traversing rough terrain.

Practical, capable and hard-wearing, the D-Max is also economic and sensible, especially in light of low JD0.36 per litre diesel prices at time of writing. Stated to consume 7.57l/100km at an unspecified cycle, the D-Max also anecdotally proved to be a particularly frugal oil burner during test drive, as observed over almost 600km of various conditions. A huge 76-litre fuel tank also allows for long driving range.

Equipped with numerous convenience features, the GT tested is fitted with remote central locking, electric windows, A/C, centre armrest, child lock rear doors, tilt-adjustable power steering – but not reach adjustability and a CD/MP3 audio system with Bluetooth and mini-USB connectivity. Optionally available are driver and passenger airbags and ABS brakes with electronic brakeforce distribution, while a reversing camera would be a welcome addition.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

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

Bore x stroke: 95.4 x 87.4mm

Compression ratio: 18.1:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, common-rail injection

Gearbox: 5-speed automatic, four-wheel drive, low gear transfer case

Gear ratios: 1st 3.52:1; 2nd 2.042:1; 3rd 1.4:1; 4th 1:1; 5th 0.716:1

High/low gear range: 1:1/2.482:1

Reverse/final drive: 3.224:1/3.909:1

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 134 (136) [100] @3400rpm

Specific power: 53.6BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 69.6BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 236 (320) @1800-2800rpm

Specific torque: 128Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 166.2Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: approximately 13 seconds (estimate)

Fuel consumption: 7.57l/100km

Fuel capacity: 76 litres

Wheelbase: 3095mm

Track: 1570mm

Overhang, F/R: 905/1295mm

Legroom, F/R: 1070/915mm

Ground clearance: 235mm

Water fording: 600mm

Approach angle: 30°

Break over angle: 22.4°

Departure angle: 22.7°

Tilt angle: 49°

Kerb weight: 1,925kg

Gross vehicle weight: 2,800kg

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

Steering: Power-assisted rack & pinion

Lock-to-lock: 3.84 turns

Turning circle: 12.2 metres

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs, 2-piston callipers/drums

Tyres: 255/65R17

LAS VEGAS — The battle to be at the centre of your digital life has taken on a new dimension amid a proliferation of connected devices.

After smartphone wars, browser wars and platform wars, a fight is on to be the “hub” which connects the millions of connected objects from light bulbs to wearables to washing machines.

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which concluded Saturday, the contenders included robots, televisions, speaker hubs and even wearable trackers powered by artificial intelligence. And the connected car raced into the mix. 

Exhibitors ranging from start-ups to big consumer electronics giants are vying to be the control centre for the vast array of Internet of things in your home, car and elsewhere.

South Korea’s LG unveiled its Smart ThinQ home hub, a speaker that lets a user communicate with and get alerts from connected appliances, security systems and even talk to cars.

This allows the smart home and connected car to communicate with each other. And it can connect with older appliances with attachable sensors.

LG calls this “the future of the smart home” and uses an open platform that can connect with devices using Google Nest, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and more.

Samsung announced its TVs will act as command centres in smart homes by incorporating technology from Silicon Valley start-up SmartThings, which Samsung bought in 2014, allowing them to control devices synched to the platform.

“You can have a smart home basically for free as a starting point; it is pretty amazing,” SmartThings founder and chief Alexander Hawkinson told AFP. 

Chinese electronics giant Haier unveiled its Ubot personal assistant robot — a near-humanoid gadget which can control home appliances.

“He’s like a personal assistant who can turn on your TV and all your appliances, and when you’re not home he helps with surveillance,” said Haier’s Kristen Smith.

“The ultimate goal is to simplify your life, to take care of the things you worry about.”

Respond and entertain

Segway, which is owned by China’s Ninebot, unveiled a personal transporter which morphs into a cute robotic personal assistant.

The robot, made in collaboration with Intel and China’s Xiaomi, is open to developers which could add on applications for security, entertainment or other activities.

After riding it, the device sprouts arms and can navigate and interact with users with its sensors and artificial intelligence. It is expected to be commercialised later this year.

More whimsical, Chinese start-up UBTech Robotics unveiled Alpha 2, a prototype personal assistant humanoid which can respond and entertain.

“You can talk to him and he will answer. He can give you the weather,” said UBTech’s Jessica Pan.

“And he is very lifelike. He has 20 joints and can move like humans, he can dance and show you a yoga pose.”

These new contenders face a tough battle against entrenched companies like Google and Apple — not part of the floor exhibitors at CES — which each have their own artificial intelligence assistants as well as ecosystems for connected homes and wearables.

And Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said ahead of the show that he wants to build a robot butler “like Jarvis in ‘Iron Man’” which can manage household tasks.

While Zuckerberg and Facebook were not exhibiting at CES, his comments and the innovations at the show underscore the progress being made in computing and artificial intelligence, which can unleash new innovations.

Wearable Siri

Start-up OrCam, for example, unveiled a wearable artificial intelligence clip-on camera which “acts like a personal assistant like Siri or Cortana, but with eyes and ears”, says OrCam marketing chief Eliav Rodman.

The device “can provide a real-time profile of people as they walk up to you during a conference, displaying their details on your smartphone or watch; it can track your eating habits”, says OrCam co-founder Amnon Shashua.

“It can even monitor the facial expressions of people you meet and topics of discussion and let you know in hindsight the quality of interaction you have with friends and family.”

Carmakers don’t want to be left out either.

Ford, for example, unveiled an alliance at CES with US online giant Amazon aimed at allowing people to connect their cars into “smart home” networks. 

The tie-up will enable drivers to communicate with the hub and, for example, ask if their garage door is open, or request an appointment with their mechanic.

Other carmakers including BMW and Volkswagen showed systems which connect not only to a smartphone but to home networks, enabling users to tap smart appliances or garage door openers, for example.

Wild West

These new systems offer new connecting options but could create confusion because of multiple technical standards.

“It almost forces you to get things within the same brand in order to match up,” said Ron Montoya at the auto research firm Edmunds.com.

Roger Kay, analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates, agreed, saying that there is no grand architecture, so everyone is making a land grab. Everyone wants to be the hub. 

Kay said that until players such as Apple, Google and Microsoft agree on open standards, “it going to be difficult for this market to move forward”.