Features

War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification

Jeff Halper

London: Pluto Press, 2015

Pp. 340

The myriad of facts and insights contained in Jeff Halper’s new book are nothing short of mind-boggling. While one may be familiar with the origins and development of the Israeli arms industry, “War against the People” covers the exponential expansion and diversification of its production and sales to become a humongous network reaching every corner of the world. Crucially, Israel has not simply increased, but qualitatively retooled its weapons manufacturing to match evolving global conditions. 

Halper is an anthropologist and anti-occupation activist who heads the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. As he points out, human rights activists like himself have not focused on the details of how armaments and security systems work. Yet, as he began wondering how Israel gets away with continuing the occupation of Palestine despite the international community’s professed opposition, he found the answer in its military industries. In short, Israel has succeeded in turning its military and security prowess into political influence by using occupied Palestine as a laboratory for testing new weapons, security and surveillance systems and counter-insurgency tactics, selling these to others, from the US to China. As countries benefit from Israeli goods and expertise in such vital fields, supportive political relations usually evolve and the beneficiaries are less likely to vote against Israel at the UN, for example.

What Halper terms securitisation means securing global capitalism, ensuring the flow of capital, resources, and being able to deal with resistance. With the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, escalated by neoliberal privatisation and cutbacks in public services, resistance is increasing. While inter-state wars are becoming less frequent, they have been replaced by civil wars, asymmetrical wars involving non-state actors, insurgency and counter-insurgency, or a combination of the above. 

“In these conflicts, that admittedly can’t be won and which entail prolonged periods of occupation, core militaries are by necessity being ‘policized’.” (p. 24)

Meanwhile, police are becoming more militarised, even in countries that espouse democracy. The aim is not so much victory as pacification of whatever forces challenge the status quo, whether Palestinians under occupation, slum dwellers in Brazil who are “in the way” of gentrification, impoverished Africans caught in a struggle over scarce resources, or marginalised ethnic or religious communities. As Halper points out, civilian casualties predominate in such warfare that is fought in urban areas, “among the people”.

Pacification involves standard armed forces, but police, security agencies, elite forces, paramilitaries and prison systems assume pivotal roles. Israel has all these types of forces, much experience in this kind of permanent conflict, battle-tested weapons, and security and surveillance technology that other countries need—all by virtue of continuing the occupation. From this angle, the occupation is a major source of profit and political clout, giving Israel zero incentive to seek a solution with the Palestinians. 

To prove these points, Halper painstakingly shows how Israel reached its status as the most militarised country in the world and the seventh largest arms exporter, tracing the development of its battle and security doctrines and major weapons systems. He applies a precise analysis to subjects that are often oversimplified, such as how Israel manages to maintain its strategic relations with major imperialist powers, chiefly the US, but also leverages its prerogative to act independently. Subsequent chapters describe the nuts and bolts of Israel’s military and security cooperation with countries around the world.

Central to his analysis of how Israel successfully markets its model of long-term pacification, Halper outlines what he calls the Matrix of Control derived from military rule over the Palestinians since 1948, controlling every aspect of their lives with laws, military orders, repression and surveillance — whether by drones or nanotechnology, in between unleashing rounds of overwhelming military force. It is here that the descriptions of advanced surveillance technology are truly mind-boggling, far too complicated to be covered in this review, and very scary in terms of how such devices disrupt and endanger, not only people’s privacy, but undermine their humanity and lives. 

However, Halper’s intent is not to scare. He believes that pacification and “war against the people” can be resisted but first progressives must put this misuse of technology on their agenda. In the meantime, his analysis is very useful for understanding not only the ongoing occupation of Palestine, but also the other wars raging in this area, where the Israeli role is only indirect, but nonetheless influential.

NEW YORK — TV networks are trying a new tactic to understand what shows and commercials people like to watch: read their minds.

Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal (NBCU) and Viacom Inc. are each opening labs where they will study TV viewers in mock living rooms filled with infrared cameras, tracking their biometrics — such things as eye movements and facial reactions made while hooked up to skin sensors and heart monitors.

Viacom’s lab, which is being built in New York, will include electroencephalograms (EEGs) to monitor peoples’ brain waves while watching television. And ratings firm Nielsen Holdings , which just bought neuroscience firm Innerscope Research earlier this year, is adding facial coding and biometrics to its labs, which currently conduct eye tracking and perform EEGs.

Networks have tried for years to find out what viewers think, but their technology is still mostly based on surveys and asking watchers to turn dials about what they like and don’t. The new biometric data avoids questions, tapping straight into physical response.

“The problem is that when you ask someone how they respond to things, they sometimes think about it or they overthink it,” said Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development at NBCU. “This is the closest to what’s going on inside your brain.”

As more viewers fast-forward through ads, and advertisers increasingly shift their budgets away from TV in favour of digital ads, networks see neuroscience and biometrics as a way for them to target ads better and improve relations with advertisers.

The experience of The Ad Council, a New York-based organisation that creates ad campaigns for non-profit and government agencies, shows how using biometrics could help boost response from viewers. It has worked with Nielsen Neuroscience to test some of its ads.

In testing one ad, for The Shelter Pet Project, which promotes the adoption of pets from local animal shelters, viewers were engaged by watching a mixed-breed dog playing with the screen and reaching out to viewers. But the parts of viewers’ brains triggering memory weren’t firing when the message about contacting Shelterpetproject.org appeared on the screen, said Patty Goldman, research director with Ad Council.

So Ad Council tweaked the ad to add audio encouraging viewers to visit the site. While it’s not known how much the change affected the results of the ad, the Ad Council did have success with the entire campaign, seeing average monthly visitors to the Web site increase to 174,000 from 74,000 within the first three months of the campaign.

NBCU, which opened its lab in Orlando, Florida, in September, wants to be able to tell which scenes elicit the strongest emotional response from viewers, and then use those scenes in its promotional ads, said Wurtzel.

Viacom is examining different kinds of viewer focus and ultimately wants to find the best time for a commercial, so that, for example, if a scene elicits a response from expectant mothers it can plug in a diaper ad; if the scene makes people hungry, it’s time to run an ad for food. Viacom, whose offerings include Nickelodeon and MTV, has been working to improve the ratings of many of its top networks, which have been in decline.

The concern is that the new process, which at $30,000 to $100,000 per study costs about twice as much as normal focus groups, may not improve sales.

“Just because their brain cells are lighting up during a commercial, doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to buy the product, they may simply find the commercial engaging,” said Beth Rockwood, senior vice president, market resources and advertising sales research at Discovery Communications, which is looking into possibly doing more with neuroscience research.

Hershey Co has been using neuroscience and biometric research for several years, and still is unsure what conclusions it can draw regarding their effectiveness. “I don’t think anyone is comfortable saying that this is going to translate into more sales,” said Andy Smith, director of consumer insights at Hershey.

He said he agrees that the research can win points with advertisers, a crucial advantage in TV’s war with the Internet.

“If I can get more growth by spending less, we benefit,” Smith said.

Mind reading

Every week in the Time Warner Centre in New York City about 200 people are paid to come to be watched watching television, movies or playing on computers in Time Warner Inc.’s three-year old Medialab. Participants get paid anywhere from $10 for a 10-minute study to $1,000 for a full day.

Cameras which track their eyes and record their facial expression line the front of a fake living room. Clip-on sensors on their fingers pump a micro-electric current to track sweat. Belts track heart rates and next year, the lab will add EEGs.

Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting System, a pioneer in biometrics, with Innerscope Research tested a US navy ad that depicted an aircraft carrier. Using eye tracking technology, Turner was able to see that viewers with devices in their hands looked up at the sound of the helicopters in the middle of the ad. There also was a spike in the heart rates and skin sensors in the moments following the sound, showing that they had the strongest emotional response to the ad during those seconds, said Howard Shimmel, chief research officer at Turner.

“The eye tracking showed that they looked back up, but the biometrics showed that they were engaged,” said Dr Carl Marci, chief neuroscientist at Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience. “Eye tracking is not an emotional measure, it’s an attention measure and even people focus on something, their brain may not be responding to it.”

However, viewers looked back down at their devices after the sound. Turner’s response to advertisers: announce your brands, don’t just show them.

Networks also need to worry about toeing the line between being engaging and making consumers feel used.

“I think that we should all feel a little paranoid and a little manipulated by all of this,” said Dave Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS Corp. “This is a trust and if we do it right, we provide information and content that is valued.”

NEW DELHI — Childless couples from around the world have been left in limbo after the Indian government revealed plans to ban them from the country’s booming multimillion dollar surrogacy industry.

The industry has exploded in recent years with thousands of infertile couples flocking to India, one of only a handful of countries offering cheap surrogacy using skilled doctors and with relatively little red tape.

But the unregulated industry’s growth has sparked debate about exploitation of the 25,000 mainly poor Indian women whose wombs are hired to carry couples’ embryos through to birth.

After announcing plans last week for legislation banning commercial surrogacy, the government issued a notice to the country’s 350-odd fertility clinics, ordering them “not to entertain any foreigners”.

The move sparked an outcry from fertility specialists, along with rallies by surrogate mothers, pressing the government to dump the decision in favour of strict regulation of the industry. 

“Why should foreigners be discriminated against? We are all human beings,” Nayana Patel, one of India’s leading IVF specialists, told AFP.

“I have been doing this for 11 years and it’s a beautiful arrangement. Banning it is not the answer,” Patel, who heads the Akanksha clinic in western Gujarat state, added.

Clinics scrambled to reassure confused and anxious foreigners who have already started the process, but others have been told to put their plans on hold.

“We have told couples who are still at the very start to wait and watch what happens,” Patel said, adding her clinic has given such advice to 30 to 40 couples in recent days. 

Two clinics in Mumbai were this week successful in getting the ban lifted temporarily for couples already expecting a surrogate birth, after taking legal action. But their lawyer, Vikrant Sabne, told AFP that the Bombay High Court’s order did not apply nationally.

Shivani Sachdev Gour, head of Surrogacy Centre India in Delhi, said it was “logical” that parents already signed up be allowed to continue. “There are no guarantees but if they have started the process they should be able to keep going,” Gour said.

A health ministry official declined to comment until after the Supreme Court resumes hearing a lawyer’s petition later this month that seeks to shut down the “unethical” industry. 

‘Our only option’

After arriving from Ireland this week, one couple said they were determined to go ahead, confident that since they already registered with a clinic, “our case holds up in a court of law”.

Unable to have children and born with a heart defect that rules out IVF treatment, the woman said they turned to India as a last resort after learning adoption was outlawed in Ireland for people with certain medical conditions.

“Realistically this is our only option,” the 35-year-old from Cork, who did not want to be named, said at a Delhi clinic.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the children born this way will have a more loved life because their parents have made so much of an effort to have them,” her husband, also 35, added.

“It would be madness to ban it.” 

After opening up to surrogacy in 2002, India has become one of the world’s leaders, generating between $500 million and $2.3 billion annually, according to various estimates.

Russia, the Ukraine and some US states are among those that also allow commercial surrogacy. But India’s clinics charge couples between $20,000 and $30,000, a fraction of the price in the United States.

Thailand passed a law this year banning commercial surrogacy for foreigners after a series of high-profile scandals.

Nepal’s top court also closed the doors in August, leaving dozens of expectant parents in turmoil, before the government stepped in, granting visas allowing them to take their babies home.

India has steadily tightened its industry, barring gay couples and single people from using surrogates in 2012. 

Denied payment

Currently, couples and surrogate mothers, many of whom live in shelters during pregnancy, sign a contract before starting the process. But research shows some surrogates do not receive a copy, while others do not understand its contents.

Many women, some illiterate, have children of their own, but few have undergone a caesarean — commonly used in surrogate pregnancies — and are unprepared.

Others are not paid the promised amount and lack health insurance if things go wrong, the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research said.

But Manasi Mishra, the centre’s head of research, said a ban would only force the industry onto the black market and out of reach of regulators.

“The industry will go underground and the bargaining capacity of the surrogates will diminish even further,” Mishra told AFP. 

For Manu Kami, the reasons for bearing another woman’s child were clear. Her husband earns 6,000 to 7,000 rupees ($96 to $106) a month as a cook, barely enough to feed their two young children. 

After being paid 300,000 rupees ($4,500) for her first surrogate pregnancy to an American couple, Kami could afford school fees and a new home.

“It has one bedroom and a kitchen and a bathroom,” the 28-year-old said with a smile.

You’ve probably seen it — a teenager rocking to music blasting from headphones while also texting, checking out Facebook and watching TV.

And, supposedly, doing homework.

For those people who date back to pre-handheld-device days and who found it hard enough to concentrate on homework even without digital distractions, the sight of multi-tasking teens is mind-boggling.

It’s also more prevalent than you might think.

A new report by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based non-profit that tracks children and their technology use, finds that teens aged 13 to 18 spend almost nine hours a day — that’s longer than they usually sleep — on “entertainment media”, which includes things like checking out social media, music, gaming or online videos.

And that’s not including time spent using media for school or homework.

Meanwhile, tweens — those aged 10 to 12 – are not far behind, consuming about six hours of similar content, according to the report released Tuesday.

The study also found that half of teens say they often or sometimes watch TV (51 per cent), use social networking (50 per cent), text (60 per cent) and listen to music (76 per cent) while doing homework. You can bet that those figures include some who do all four at the same time.

“As a parent and educator, there’s clearly more work to be done around the issue of multi-tasking,” said James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media. “Nearly two-thirds of teens today tell us they don’t think watching TV or texting while doing homework makes any difference to their ability to study and learn, even though there’s more and more research to the contrary.”

For old-media diehards, it is perhaps surprising that listening to music and TV are still the favourites among teens and tweens, with about two-thirds of teenagers saying they listen to music every day, and 58 per cent reporting daily consumption of TV. By contrast, 45 per cent reported using social media every day and only 36 per cent said they enjoyed that activity “a lot”. Twice as many said they really enjoyed their music.

Television is the favourite activity of preteens, according to the report, with 62 per cent of age eight- to 12-year-olds saying they watched every day.

Boys are much more likely to play video games than girls. The survey found male teenagers spent an average of 56 minutes a day gaming, while girls devoted seven minutes. Girls spent more time on social media or reading than boys.

Ethnicity also plays a role, with black teenagers spending more time with media than other groups — an average of 11 hours and 13 minutes each day. Latino teens spend just over nine hours and white teens spend eight hours, 48 minutes, the study found.

“The census really sheds light on how different media use is for different kids,” said Steyer, “from boys to girls, low-income to more affluent, and kids from all ethnic backgrounds”.

The report is based on interviews with 2,658 young people earlier this year, according to Common Sense Media, with the results having a margin of error of plus or minus just under 2 per cent.

Memorisation, spelling, handwriting and raw knowledge are some of the skills we are losing because of digital technology and the Internet — because of the machines. Is it really a big loss? Is our mind replacing them with other skills, ones that we are gaining precisely thanks to the technology, and that would be more relevant, more useful in the digital age?

We have almost given up on memorising raw data such as names of places and people, dates of events, and all kinds of information instantly available on the Internet search engines and in the gigantic databases the IT world has built. Even smartphone apps come to the rescue nowadays to tell us most everything we need to know.

When expecting a friend or relative to arrive at Queen Alia International Airport I recently stopped calling the old telephone-based information system to check the time of arrival, and instead I log on flightradar24.com that shows me, in real-time and in motion display, where the aircraft is in the sky and when it is about to land. Who needs a telephone then?

The same kind of change is taking place for handwriting and spelling. How many more years are schools going to teach the children these time-honoured skills? Devices write for you and correct your spelling. Even automatic language translation is being improved each year that passes, though — one must admit — we’re not entirely there yet, at least if you are looking for good, accurate translation with correct syntax and everything.

Talking about children, it is precisely watching them operate tablets, laptops and smartphones that is very informative, very enlightening. It’s all about speed apparently, not only in manipulating the devices with their hands but mainly when reacting, interacting, in other words thinking. On average a young teenager is twice as fast as a typical fifty-year old person, whatever he or she may be doing. So humans will be “faster”, overall, in the future.

Another skill the young generation may be gaining is an uncanny power to multi-task, to use a purely computer term. This is the ability to perform more than one task at one time. There is, however, a big debate about how sane this is, if these multiple tasks are being performed as well as if “processed” (another computer term) one by one, etc.

Hardly a week passes without news and updates in the media about the upcoming driverless car. From Toyota to Google, several giant corporations active either in the automotive or the IT sector are working, fighting relentlessly, investing gigantic funds, to be the first to commercialise a model to go on the street. Analysts estimate that driverless cars will be an affordable reality between 2030 and 2040. So we are also going to lose our driving skills too! 

Will we be smarter? Will our ability to analyse and make better decisions be improved in the future? Will we have more time for leisure or to go to the gym? One thing is certain: this is all making us different human beings, for better or for worse. And it is on us now.

This weekly column started exactly 23 years ago, to the day, when the first ChipTalk was published on November 5, 1992. Since then it has been on, uninterrupted, written by the same author, and today’s story is the 1,166th in the series.

PALO ALTO, California — “We don’t make that kind of glass,” said Waguih Ishak, director of Corning Inc.’s West Coast Research Centre, pointing to the windows lining his office and, beyond that, to the windshields of the cars parked outside.

“That is very thick glass, where impurities and small defects don’t really matter. At Corning, we make electronic-grade glass.”

Ishak knows that to the layman, this doesn’t mean much.

Glass is glass. You can see through it, it keeps things out, and it breaks.

What more could Corning’s lab in Palo Alto do besides make it a little thinner, a little smoother and a little clearer?

Ishak smiled. His face was friendly, but the knowing look in his eyes was clear: You have no idea.

He played with a plastic-like sheet between his hands, bending it back and forth.

“This is Willow Glass,” he said, forming a bell curve with the sheet. “It’s 0.1-millimetre-thin glass.”

Corning can now mass-produce Willow Glass and ship it around the world in large rolls.

“And this”, he said, tapping on some smaller pieces of glass on the table, “is Gorilla Glass.”

Gorilla Glass is the glass in iPhones. Thanks to Corning’s chemical formulas, it’s the reason phones are now more scratch- and shock-resistant than earlier models.

Now picture this, Ishak said: razor-thin glass with the flexibility of plastic and the durability of steel.

Think what it would mean for mobile devices.

Heck, think what it could mean for any electronic device with a screen.

This isn’t a pipe dream, he said. Scientists at Corning — a company that creates the recipes and processes to manufacture glass used in smartphones, televisions and even space shuttles — are finally having technological breakthroughs that could make glass, an often overlooked component of electronic devices, sexy.

Or, in Ishak’s eyes, sexier than it already is.

“Plastic ages,” he said. “After a few years it becomes yellow and deteriorates. Glass doesn’t.”

He continued: “If you have a one-millimetre sheet of plastic, it will take an oxygen ion [that is, moisture] a few hours to get through it. Moisture is terrible for electronics. If you have a one-millimetre piece of glass, it will take 30 billion years.”

“So!” Ishak said, raising both eyebrows, satisfied he’d made his point. “Hmm!”

Beyond the inherent properties of glass, though, Ishak has reason to believe in the material. Willow and Gorilla Glass aside, he’s leading a team of scientists and engineers at Corning to make glass do things most people thought were impossible. Thinner, stronger, flexible, anti-glare, anti-bacterial — and that’s just the start of it.

In Corning’s factories, high-quality raw material comprising sand and other material is melted and poured down the exterior of a structure that resembles a trough. The molten glass flows down each side of the trough, meeting at a point at the bottom. Here, the substance fuses together (thus the name fusion glass manufacturing) and gravity continues to pull it down. As gravity pulls it, the substance begins to cool into sheets of glass.

This is a process that Corning has used for the last few decades to make glass.

More recently, though, Corning has added a step to the process. As the substance cools, Corning attaches it to a roll, which pulls the sheet even further, making it thinner. The result? Glass that gets as thin as 0.05 millimetre.

It’s not as simple as stretching the glass out like pizza dough, though. Corning scientists have spent years tweaking the chemical composition, time, pressure and temperature to make it work. Willow Glass was made possible only a year or so ago.

Thinner glass can obviously mean thinner devices, but these new processes are producing glass so pristine that Ishak predicts they’ll soon be able to support 4K or higher resolution video on mobile phones.

Another thing: “Every time I shave 0.1 millimetre, it allows for a bigger battery,” Ishak said. “Bigger battery means more time between charges.”

The company is also making strides with stronger, steel-like glass.

On Ishak’s table, where small squares of Gorilla Glass sat, he tapped on a square of non-Gorilla Glass.

“This one is ordinary soda lime,” Ishak said.

Soda lime is the kind of glass used for drink bottles and windows.

Using a tool that resembled a metal crochet needle, he pressed one end against the glass. With little effort, it cracked.

“This one is soda lime that we’ve treated with some chemicals,” he said, tapping at the next piece of glass.

This time, Ishak had to apply a bit more pressure, but again, the glass cracked.

“And this third one is Gorilla Glass, which we made, and plunged in a special chemical bath. The recipe is our intellectual property.”

Ishak threw his weight behind the metal needle, pushing it into the third piece of glass. It stayed put.

“And this last one is the next iteration of that.”

This time using both hands, he pushed the needle into the millimetre-thin square. The glass didn’t budge. It didn’t even scratch.

These developments are a big deal, according to industry experts who believe advancements in glass alone could change the way we make and use mobile devices.

“I see the immediate use of this ultra-thin glass will be improving the durability of phones,” said Andrew Hsu, head of the concept prototyping team at Synaptics, a firm that develops touch screens and displays. “It’s amazing to think everyone has a $600-to-$800 device that’s incredibly complicated, and people use and abuse them and throw them around.”

More durable phones could also mean the end of phone cases, which, according to Daniel Hays, a principal partner at PwC, could “improve the viability of having dual-screen phones where the back of the phone serves a different purpose,” he said. A second screen, perhaps? Maybe a touchpad?

Or, according to Hsu, if glass can get so thin that it’s bendable while retaining its strength, think of the different forms devices could take.

“In the early days of phones, there was a diverse ecosystem of handsets that took many different forms and shapes,” he said. “Then, after 2009, every one had a rectangular slab.”

Tougher devices, more powerful and longer-lasting devices, and more diverse devices are all inching closer to reality all thanks to, yes, glass.

And with glass becoming so thin and flexible, researchers around the world are even exploring flexible electronics: phones that can be folded in half, tablets that can be rolled up like a fruit roll.

According to Ishak, glass is ready for fruit roll technology. Willow Glass already comes on a roll. The rest of the electronics industry just isn’t quite ready to get that sexy.

But when it is, Ishak said, Corning will be ready.

And when the roll-up phones are finally made?

“I’ll be the first to buy it!”

Every once in a while, as expatriates living away from our homeland, we come across foreigners who know more about our country than we do. Take this Jordanian gentleman, for instance. Suave and elderly, he was delighted to meet me, especially when he discovered that I was from India. And then he asked me if I had seen “Sangam”. 

My husband, who had made the introduction, had no idea what he was talking about. But I instantly figured that he meant the classic Indian movie that was a blockbuster hit of my parents’ generation. When I nodded my head in agreement, he was slightly sceptical. The film must have been released before my birth, he reasoned. It was, I agreed again. He looked disappointed but when I told him that it was a story of two men who were best friends, one of whom was a pilot, and they loved the same woman, he brightened up immediately. 

From then onwards he was mesmerised. He could not stop raving about the picture; from the songs to the plot to the cinematography to the actors, he loved everything about it. Soon, we were trading insights about the film. I informed him that this was the first Raj Kapoor (the great Indian actor, director and showman) movie that was shot entirely in colour. He said he knew it already. Then he stated that this picture was shot in foreign locales like Paris, Venice and Switzerland, which was also a first for Indian cinema. I was surprised to learn this bit of information. 

As we settled into our seats around the dining table, he confided that almost every night he listened to the songs of “Sangam”. His American wife could not understand this manic enthusiasm initially but now, if he forgot to do so, she reminded him about it. He found the tunes very soothing even if he could not comprehend the meaning of the songs completely. We disagreed a little with whether the film was about male bonding or a love triangle. The manner in which the two men kept shunting the female love-interest from one to the other without any regard to her feelings, was debated upon. 

The coy and reclusive Vyjayantimala reinvented herself, and even wore a swimsuit, he enlightened me. Giving in to Raj Kapoor’s obsession for the colour white, she was spotted only in white dresses in this entire picture, I conveyed to him. It was nominated for twelve Filmfare awards, out of which the movie won four of them, including best director, actress, editing and sound design, we chorused. 

While we were reminiscing about the bygone era, someone tried to tell us about Hollywood stars Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and Tyrese Gibson’s visit to Amman to attend a Jordanian billionaire’s wedding. It was happening at a nearby hotel but none of us showed the slightest inclination to go there. Not that we were invited but if we wanted to, we could have gatecrashed. However, we treated the news as a slight deterrent before going back to our main discussion about “Sangam”. 

“What does the word mean?” the gentleman asked suddenly. 

“It is a difficult word,” my husband admitted.

“Actually, it’s a Sanskrit word,” I tried.

“But what does it mean?” he repeated.

“I might have to Google it,” I confessed.

“Tell me at our next meeting,” he said.

“That’s it! Exactly,” I exclaimed.

“What’s the point?” my spouse interrupted. 

“Sangam means meeting point,” I smiled. 

WASHINGTON — Like it or not, Twitter on Tuesday retired its star button that users click to “favourite” a post and replaced it with a heart.

The messaging platform said the new system of “likes”, which is also used by Facebook, offers a better way for users to express their views. But it quickly sparked an outcry from some users.

“Hearts? Really Twitter? Why not lollipops, or sugardrop fairies made of rainbow smiles, sparkles and a generous dollop of dreams?” one user wrote.

“There are too many love hearts on Twitter now, I feel like I’m reading text messages between a 12 year old couple,” another tweeted.

Twitter said the move was designed to be easier to understand for users around the world.

“We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers,” product manager Akarshan Kumar said in a blog post.

“You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favourite.”

Kumar said the heart “is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures and time zones”.

“The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it,” he added.

The heart symbol had already been used on Twitter’s Periscope livestream app, and it now will appear on Twitter and Vine, the app for short videos.

The idea has been around for months, and key Twitter investor Chris Sacca suggested such a change in a June blog post, saying favourite was “too strong a word”.

“Favourite is a superlative. It implies a ranking. In the early days of Twitter many of us interpreted the word literally and only keep a few tweets in our favourites that were truly, well, our favourites,” he wrote.

“Today, many of my friends and I use the star as a ‘like’ button equivalent... However, the majority of users are baffled by favourites and they don’t end up using the star much, if at all.”

‘Horrible things’

A Twitter “poll” — another new feature to boost user interest — found 88 per cent preferred “favourites” and only 12 per cent “likes”, with some 28,000 users voting.

Some critics said the change puts people in an awkward position of liking tweets related to tragic news events.

“For journalists that means it’ll look like we ‘love’ horrible things,” tweeted Bel Trew, a Middle East reporter for The Times of London

Similar complaints have been voiced about Facebook’s “like” button and the social network has been studying other options.

But Facebook has said there will be no “dislike” button. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has said users wanted “the ability to express empathy” because “not every moment is a good moment”.

Twitter has been struggling to boost its user base in the face of sluggish growth compared with that of other social networks. It recently brought co-founder Jack Dorsey back as its chief executive on a permanent basis.

In its latest quarterly update, Twitter reported 320 million monthly active users — only modestly up from 316 million in the past quarter and 11 per cent higher than a year ago.

Nintendo is finally making the move into smartphone gaming, figuring it’s better late than never.

The Japanese electronics maker — one of the world’s biggest video game companies but a virtual nonentity in the rapidly growing mobile games industry — unveiled its first title for smartphones last week in Tokyo.

“Miitomo”, which is set to be released in the spring of next year, is a game that allows players to create avatars to interact with one another socially. The game is the first of five mobile apps Nintendo plans to launch by March 2017, including one that may feature the iconic “Super Mario”, the company said at an investor briefing in Tokyo.

The long-overdue move is an effort to tap into the lucrative and cutthroat world of mobile games that has exploded with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets. Chances are, at one time or another, you were secretly obsessed with “Angry Birds” or “Candy Crush”. Even Kim Kardashian scored big when she launched “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” last year, with the addictive mobile game raking in $1.6 million in its first five days.

This year marks the first time mobile gaming revenue will exceed console gaming revenue globally, at $30 billion versus $27 billion, according to video game market research firm Newzoo.

Nintendo’s popular franchises, which include “Super Mario” and “Zelda”, “have the potential to be a billion-dollar business on mobile alone,” said Peter Warman, Newzoo’s co-founder and chief executive.

“Unbelievable that it has taken so long for Nintendo,” he said. “They had to see Apple, Google, King and Supercell surpass them in terms of 2014 game revenues to take action towards mobile. However, it never is too late because smartphone and tablet gaming is here to stay.”

Nintendo first announced its entry into smartphone games in March, partnering with Tokyo Internet firm DeNA.

“Both companies will develop and operate new game apps based on Nintendo’s (intellectual property), including its iconic game characters, for smart devices,” DeNA said in a statement at the time.

“The alliance is intended to complement Nintendo’s dedicated video game systems business and extend Nintendo’s reach into the vast market of smart device users worldwide.”

Once the unequivocal leader in video games, Nintendo today is facing threats from several directions.

Its troubles began when casual gamers who enjoyed Nintendo’s family friendly titles migrated from home and hand-held game consoles to mobile devices, where they found similar games made by rival developers, often available free.

At the same time, consoles like the PlayStation and Xbox started serving hardcore gamers with graphically rich titles, many highlighted by heart-pounding violence.

Complicating matters for Nintendo was the saturation of the global console market. It didn’t help that consoles never made inroads in China and other regions.

As such, the Kyoto company has experienced steep declines in console sales in recent years.

In 2008, no home video game console was more popular than the Nintendo Wii, with 24.19 million units sold. By 2014, only 530,000 of them were sold, fewer than the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, according to data website Statista.

Nintendo’s latest console, the Wii U, was a dud, selling about 10 million units its first three years. Even its hand-held 3DS has seen sales dip from 12.56 million units in 2011, its launch year, to 9.97 million in 2014.

Meanwhile, sales of Sony’s PlayStation 4, a more powerful gaming console, nearly doubled to 13.92 million units in 2014 from 2013.

By turning its focus to smartphones, Nintendo is relying less on its console business while capitalising on the near ubiquity of smartphones.

But unlike Sega, which ditched its Genesis console to focus on games, Nintendo isn’t abandoning consoles.

Ideally, the move into mobile games satisfies longtime customers while enticing new ones to the Nintendo brand, which might in turn lead them to buy Nintendo’s consoles. The company also is working on a secretive new platform code-named NX.

The problem with chasing its target audience to mobile is that the smartphone gaming market has become crowded with competitors, and Nintendo is relegated to playing catch-up.

Warman said the annual growth rate for mobile games in the US has slipped over the last few years from more than 60 per cent to just over 10 per cent. The good news for Nintendo is that emerging markets are embracing mobile games.

“Top global game franchises generate $1 billion-plus per year. Examples being ‘Candy Crush’, ‘Clash of Clans’, ‘Call of Duty’, ‘GTA’. ‘Mario’ is in the same league and has the potential to generate $500 million-plus on mobile alone,” he said. “I am very happy that Nintendo has woken up to the real world.”

All of Nintendo’s intellectual property would be eligible for development under the alliance, and that only new, original games optimised for smartphones would be created, “rather than porting games created specifically for the Wii U home console or the Nintendo 3DS portable system,” DeNA said.

The companies also said they would build an online membership service for consumers that would be accessible from smart devices, PCs and Nintendo consoles.

Nintendo’s first mobile game will be free to download but include in-app purchases.

A paid game, which usually costs 99 cents to a few bucks, would have provided a short-term boost in revenue. But a free game means more downloads, and therefore, more user data. That gives Nintendo time to analyse how well the game works, tweak it and develop ways to maximise in-app purchases, Warman said.

Whether the apps lead gamers to buy Nintendo’s consoles is uncertain.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said the explosion of mobile games was aided by cheaper cellphone data plans. That lured users away from Nintendo’s hand-held consoles onto smartphones and tablets, creating an expectation that video games would be cheap or free; after all, only a small percentage of people pay for in-game features.

“I don’t know if the free-to-play audience is interested in spending $150 on a device and another $40 to $50 on a game,” Pachter said.

Despite its woes, Nintendo still boasts loyal fans.

Samantha O’Neil — better known as NintendoFanGirl to her 61,000 YouTube subscribers — said a mobile game would be a welcome addition to the company’s storied line-up.

No matter what the game is, she said, “I’ll buy it out of the gate.”

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Google’s Internet-beaming balloons are ready to take off on the next phase of their mission to deliver online access in regions where most people live offline.

The balloons will begin hovering in the stratosphere above Indonesia in an expansion of the project. About 250 million people live in the country composed of about 17,000 islands in that part of Southeast Asia, although only 42 million have Internet access, according to the CIA’s estimates.

Google’s two-year-old “Project Loon” programme aims to change that by transmitting high-speed Internet signals from clusters of balloons floating about 1,830 metres above the Earth.

Although the project is still being funded primarily by money that Google makes from digital advertising, it recently became part of an independent lab called X that is run by Google’s new parent company, Alphabet Inc.

Alphabet frames Project’s Loon as a noble endeavour striving to get about 100 million currently unconnected people tapped into the vast reservoir of knowledge, entertainment and conveniences available online. But it could also enrich Google by expanding its potential audience. Project Loon is still testing its technology, so there is still no estimate when it will start selling the Internet service to households and businesses within range of the balloons.

The Internet access will be sold through wireless service providers in Indonesia, where there the number of mobile phones — about 319 million — outnumber people. But most of those phones don’t connect to the Internet because users can’t afford data plans, or more frequently, live in remote or rocky terrains where it’s impractical or too expensive to install the equipment need to deliver high-speed Internet access.

If things pan out as envisioned, Project Loon will deploy hundreds of balloons that serve as cell towers in the sky, invisible to the naked eye. To pull it off, the project’s engineers must choreograph a high-altitude dance, ensuring that as one balloon drifts out of a targeted territory’s Internet-receiving range, another one will float in to fill the void.

The Indonesian expansion follows extensive testing in New Zealand, Australia and remote areas in California and Brazil. Indonesia’s sheer size and geographic sprawl makes it Project Loon’s most ambitious step yet.

Eventually, Project Loon envisions dispatching its balloons to other unconnected regions in the world, ranging from small villages in Africa to the woods of California.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin envisions Project Loon eventually creating millions of jobs around the world to raise the standard of living for now-impoverished people as they are able to get online to educate themselves and make new connections.

“The emotional distance of the world is shrinking, thanks to the communications we enjoy today,” said Brin, who oversees the X lab as Alphabet’s president.