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Oliver Deussen, a professor of computer science at the University of Konstanz in Germany, watches as e-David, a former industrial robot, paints. “We were interested in understanding how to describe a human painting style through mathematics,” he explains. By Kathrin Streckenbach   A German university has developed a robot picture painter that works a brush just like Pablo Picasso did, but critics question whether the digital dauber is really creating art. e-David is the brainchild of a team at the University of Konstanz. It does not think up paintings from scratch, but instead copies from photographs using masterly brushstrokes, thanks to specially designed software. The software principle is called “visual optimisation,” constantly improving the daubs until they look right. One recent morning in e-David’s studio, the painting was not yet finished, but it was already clear that the latest work was based on a photograph of The Thinker, a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. e-David was carefully adding a brush stroke of white paint to a section of the painting that it considered was still too dark. “We were interested in understanding how to describe a human painting style through mathematics,” explains Oliver Deussen, a professor of computer science at the university. Deussen and his team worked for over three years teaching e-David — the name is an abbreviation of “Drawing Apparatus for Vivid Interactive Display” — how to paint. Originally an industrial welding robot used in car production, e-David was modified for his new task with the addition of all the necessary gear for a budding artist, including an easel, a palette with 24 paint colours on it, brushes and a pot to wash his brush.  “We also connected it up to a camera and computer,” says Deussen. Once it receives its base picture from the scientists, e-David begins distributing paintstrokes on the canvas with the help of a special programme. The robot decides independently where to add new strokes and required around 15 hours to complete its representation of The Thinker. “The machine observes itself constantly while painting by taking photographs with the camera so that it can compare its work with the desired result,” says Deussen. The painting is finished as soon as e-David calculates that it can no longer achieve a closer representation of the target picture than already exists. The resulting paintings look like a strange mixture of the artificial and natural. e-David has painted all kinds of subjects, including portraits, landscapes, animals and a still life or two. In one painting of an old tower on a lakeside, it is even possible to see reflections in the water. “In theory, e-David can paint any style from Impressionism onwards,” says Deussen. The question now being asked by many people is what effect, if any, these new painting robots will have on the art business?  “Paintings created by robots are a fascinating area. They definitely go beyond the status of simply clever playthings,” says Robert van den Valentyn from Cologne art auctioneer firm Van Ham.  “It should be noted, however, that the works are based on already existing art forms, because the programmers are, in most cases, not artists themselves.” What distinguishes real art is creativity, something based on our intuitions and our humanity, he argues. “It’s for this reason that computer-generated paintings are not a threat to the market,” says van den Valentyn. e-David could do some very nice paintings to adorn your living-room wall, but it would not rate as collectible art, any more than work from the mass-production art studios in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen does.  “The Chinese painting factories already provide for this market today at incredibly low prices. But the products are industrial,” he says, arguing that real art requires individual creative brilliance. Holger Bunk from the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart agrees, although he does admit that the development of such machines will challenge artists in how they think and what they create.  “I have still not heard of any development that calls into question what I do as a painter or an art teacher. It has never been the case that I have to say to myself that everything has now changed and painting is no longer possible.” While the quality of paintings created by e-David and other such robots can be sometimes quite astounding, Bunk compares the innovation to the invention of the tape recorder. “Professional comedians only used to tell jokes live. Now they can be recorded and replayed in exactly the same tone of voice every time,” he explains. “However, this doesn’t help to keep the joke funny if you have heard it told before.” He says real art is like a joke when you hear it the first time. And what makes art special is that real artists never imitate but constantly have new ideas. Professor Deussen agrees that e-David is not an artist, just a tool: a high-technology brush, in effect. But at the moment e-David is unconcerned about being disparaged. The robot carefully cleans and dries its brush-tips after finishing its latest work. Like most industrial robots, e-David is endowed with lethal strength and no sensitivity if a human accidentally gets in its way. The studio has sensors to shut e-David down if staff enter the danger area. “But paradoxically, it can paint with enormous sensitivity,” Deussen says. — DPA    

The big picture: (L to R) Larry Birnbaum, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and of Journalism, Northwestern University; Kathy McKewon Director, Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering at Columbia University; Mohamed Haddad, Data Journalist at Al Jazeera Network; and Justin Martin, Assistant Professor in Residence, Journalism Program, Northwestern University in Qatar in attendance. Speakers at Doha symposium urge responsible useof Big DataCommunity ReportIt is a figure to boggle the mind, never mind how much fun it may be. The world is projected to produce 8 zettabytes of digital content by 2015, the equivalent of over 100 million years of video, Big Data expert Martha Stone told attendees of Northwestern University in Qatar’s symposium. Eighty per cent of this data, she said, continues to be unstructured and disorganised, especially as it is generated by audiences on platforms such as Twitter and YouTube.Stone, who is a fellow at the University of Oxford’s Reuter’s Institute and leads the World Newsmedia Network, gave a presentation on the use of Big Data in surveillance, and urged her audience to be mindful and responsible in their use of Big Data. According to Stone, the PRISM programme created by the National Security Agency to track information costs some $20 million dollars. She however, said: “It remains unclear yet what the (US) government is doing with the vast data that is being collated and analysed by artificial intelligence.”Big Data is a label used to describe data sets with sizes and complexities well beyond the capabilities of day-to-day statistical software. Analysts argue that the rise of digital and mobile communications have accelerated the growth of these immense databases.  During her presentation at NU-Q’s symposium “Big Data, Smart Media? Connecting Content, Audience and Information,” Stone also announced that World Newsmedia Network would be holding their next Big Data conference at the Microsoft headquarters in 2014.Stone spoke alongside several leading Big Data scholars and journalists including NU professor Larry Birnbaum, co-director of the Intelligent Information Laboratory at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Kathy McKewon Director, Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering at Columbia University, and Darnel Moore, Managing Partner at Perception Consulting, who spoke about how sports marketers can use Big Data to better understand and influence fan behaviour.“Big Data has been studied by a range of experts in their various fields, whether in engineering, computer science or business analytics. The subject has powerful implications for journalists and other media professionals, so we have been lucky to be able to gather the right people at the right place, here at Northwestern University Qatar, to speak to the community about how Big Data can and will affect their world,” said Everette Dennis, Dean and CEO of NU-Q.“I’ve been particularly pleased with the interest in the subject expressed by our students, for whom Big Data holds enormous potential,” he added. The panel discussions included Mohammed Haddad, a Data Journalist at Al Jazeera Network who is responsible for creating visualisations in the newsroom. Haddad used his experience in visually mapping the locations of rebel groups in Syria to explain what a journalist should look for in Big Data.Haddad reminded the young journalists that data is an abstraction of the real world and that its presence on a screen should not deter them from “going out and getting (your) own data.”“You must ask yourself how much detail your audience is actually looking for,” said Haddad. “The story is in the outlier, but the story might also be that there is no data.” Haddad also said that Al Jazeera was increasingly looking to equip journalists with the tools to mine through Big Data and use the results in their stories, and that the Network is soon to host the Mozilla Foundation for a training course for Al Jazeera staff.Communication Senior Rawan Al Thabatah, said the symposium had revealed to her a “new exciting challenge that will force us to move even quicker as communicators, but will also allow us to be constantly up-to-date. The information I saw today, especially from NU-Q presenters, was fascinating and unexpected.”

By Troy WolvertonApple’s new iPad Air represents a refinement of the company’s tablet concept, not a revolution. But that doesn’t make it any less compelling.You won’t find many new features on the Air, which replaces the more simply named “iPad” as Apple’s full-size flagship tablet. Nor does it work much differently from its predecessors.What you will find, though, is a device that is much thinner, narrower and lighter than previous iPads and is thereby more enjoyable to use. It’s also, thanks to an updated processor, considerably faster, though that fact won’t be as readily apparent.I just got the new Air on last week, so I haven’t had time yet to thoroughly test it, but it makes a favourable first impression. I considered its predecessor the best full-size tablet on the market; the Air now seems to have wrested that title away.The distinction between the Air and previous iPads is apparent before you even take it out of its box. The Air’s box is, like the device, narrower and shorter than that for the fourth-generation iPad that preceded it.According to Apple, the Air is 20% thinner than its predecessor and about 1.5cm narrower. Thanks to those changes, the new iPad weighs just a pound, down from 1.4 pounds previously.The change is definitely noticeable — and appreciated. The Air’s not as light as Apple’s iPad Mini, but it feels closer to that than it does to the older iPads, which could be unwieldy to hold with one hand and could tire your arm if you held them for a long period, such as when watching a movie.The new Air, by contrast, is much easier on the arms and, because it’s lighter, more portable. I found myself holding it while I brushed my teeth, something that was much more difficult with the older iPad.The Air, like its predecessors, has a metal case. So, even though it’s lighter, it still feels sturdy.The other big change is its new chip. Apple has outfitted the Air with the same 64-bit A7 chip that debuted on its iPhone 5S smartphone. The new chip offers a big boost in power.On the standard performance tests that I ran, the new Air vastly outperformed its predecessor — and the vast majority of other smartphones and tablets.The Air loaded “Infinity Blade 3,” a new and graphically rich game, about 10 seconds faster than did the fourth-generation iPad. It also was about 5 seconds or so faster in exporting a 20-second movie from iMovie to the device’s camera roll.But if you’re not into high-end gaming or doing a lot of movie-making on your device, you probably won’t notice much of a difference in speed. The Air and its predecessor take about the same amount of time to launch their Mail, Web browser and Maps programmes.To be sure, you’ll probably appreciate the speed difference more down the road than now. Future upgrades to iOS are likely to require a 64-bit processor or will run much more slowly on older processors. And over time, developers will probably write more apps that take advantage of the A7’s power.Other changes with the Air are less apparent than its chip. It has a new Wi-Fi radio that includes two antennas rather than just one. This is supposed to give it faster speeds and make it less susceptible to interference. I didn’t test the Wi-Fi antennas thoroughly, but didn’t notice much of a difference.If you choose to get the version of the iPad that includes a cellular radio, you’ll find that the Air is able to access more LTE networks than before on more carriers.More notable are the things Apple didn’t include and didn’t upgrade. Unlike the iPhone 5S, the Air doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor, which Apple calls Touch ID. So if you want to prevent other people from using your tablet, you’ll have to use a passcode instead of tapping your finger to it.Compared with the Android and Windows tablets available, the iPad has one big shortcoming: It can’t be customised for multiple users. If you plan to share your tablet with your wife or child, they’ll have access to everything you have access to — unless you turn on its customised feature restrictions every time you hand over the device.The Air has the same basic cameras as its predecessor — a 1.2MP one in front and a 5MP one in back. It would have been nice if Apple had upgraded those, given how many people are using their tablets as cameras. But it’s not a deal-breaker that it didn’t.Similarly, the Air has the same high-resolution Retina display as its predecessor. It’s not as high-resolution as some of its competitors, but it’s a great screen and you probably won’t be able to tell the difference.All told, the changes Apple made to the iPad to create the Air may not sound like much. But all you have to do is pick one up to appreciate the difference. — San Jose Mercury News/MCTiPad Air debut meets with yawns from buyers Apple released the faster, thinnest and lightest version of its iPad last week in the US, but the usual long lines and hoopla for the launch of a new device from the consumer-tech giant were absent in the early, post-Halloween morning light.The scene outside stores in Palo Alto, California, was muted, with only a sprinkling of customers awaiting the iPad Air release. About two dozen customers were lined up outside the store on University Avenue just a half-hour before doors opened, a little more than half the crowd that showed up for the iPad Mini launch last year, and fewer than 20 braved the chilly morning temperatures at Stanford Shopping Center. In San Jose,  no line had formed about 2 hours before the Apple store at Oakridge Mall threw open its doors, with about 15 people eventually lining up by 8am, including some couples.“I’m the dork who showed up early,” said Kevin Anderson, who arrived at 6am at the Stanford store to claim first place in line. “I couldn’t wait.”Anderson, an engineer for Tesla, had been iPad-less for a couple weeks after selling his second-generation device on eBay.com for a respectable $310. He has been using mostly his iPhone for Internet access.“We only have one computer at home, and it’s always busy Pinterest-ing by my wife,” Anderson said, referencing the social media-sharing platform Pinterest. “It’s driving me nuts.”Charles Zhou, a mobile application developer from Sunnyvale, arrived shortly before the store opened at 8am  — and was still among the first customers to enter the store.Like Anderson, Zhou said he had been without an iPad since selling his second-generation device last week on eBay for $280. He bought one of Google’s Nexus tablets to try to hold him over.“I said, ‘Let’s see if this is enough,’ “ Zhou said. “And immediately I was like, ‘I miss iPad.’ “Shoppers were in and out of the Stanford store in about five minutes, a few offering only a quick cheer after making their purchase — marking a stark contrast to the pomp and circumstance of Apple’s iPhone launch last month. Other customers popped in for a smartphone repair or to browse, seemingly unaware of the release event.One customer ran up to the store about a half-hour after it opened and asked an Apple employee: “Hey, where are all the people?”The lines may have been even shorter if Apple had allowed customers to pre-order the devices, as it did with last month’s iPhone launch and previous iPad debuts. Software engineer Erasmo Acosta drove to Stanford from Fremont,  early Friday to nab an iPad Air, but said he doesn’t normally go to launch events and doesn’t particularly like them.“But since (Apple) eliminated the presale, we’re out here in the cold,” he said. “I don’t enjoy it.”Still, Acosta was excited to replace his year-old, fourth-generation iPad for the new iPad Air. “It’s faster, better, and the whole experience is better,” he said.In-store sales of the iPad Air began in Australia and are headed to more than 40 other countries, marking the biggest launch yet for one of Apple’s tablets. Lines were long at some stores across the globe, with reports of many hours-long waits in some countries. The Apple store in Hong Kong sold out online before the device went on sale in stores, according to news reports. But US launches were much more subdued from New York to Palo Alto.Apple is also preparing to release an upgraded version of the iPad Mini — the company’s answer to a device midway between a smartphone and tablet computer — sometime this month, and supply is expected to be short, such as it was with the Mini’s debut last year. The latest iteration of the 7.9-inch tablet adds the adding high-definition “retina” display available on full-sized tablets and some Mac products. — By Heather Somerville/ San Jose Mercury News/MCT

By Charles FlemingIn 1964, the Beach Boys had a hit record that started with the lyrics, “It’s not a big motorcycle, just a groovy little motorbike.”A half-century later, Honda has reinvented the groovy little motorbike for a new generation of young riders. And it can’t make them fast enough to satisfy a swarm of buyers.Dealers in the US are sold out of the tiny Grom — a name derived from “grommet,” for newbie surfer — and report waiting lists of about 40 buyers. Many are offering more than the asking price for the street-legal mini-motorcycle, which starts at $2,999 (in the US), less than many scooters.For Honda, the Grom represents a play to bring new customers to the company and to motorcycling in general. As with the launch earlier this year of its CB500 series, Honda is aggressively courting new riders, young riders, female riders and minority riders — anyone outside the cohort of white male baby boomers who have been the core buyers of motorcycles for decades. “We need this market to grow,” said Bill Savino, manager of American Honda MC Press. “The boomers are going out. We need new riders coming in.”At Huntington Beach (California) Honda, the strategy seems to be working. But owner Greg Guthrie sees even broader appeal.“Every day we have three or four people asking about it,” he said. “I’ve been in the business 25 years, and I can’t remember a unit that has had a wider cross-section of buyers. There is no demographic for this bike. It’s everyone. That’s the demographic.”The Grom sits and rides like a pit bike or a minibike — like the Honda CT90, Trail 90 or MiniTrail, models that Honda sold by the tens of thousands in the 1970s.But it has the look of a shrunken street bike and comes equipped with disc brakes and a four-speed manual transmission. Power comes from a 125cc motor. For a street-legal machine, it’s a spare nubbin of a thing that, fully fuelled, weighs only 225lbs.At that weight, there’s enough power to zip through city traffic but not enough to keep up with “big” motorcycles, like the ones the Beach Boys were singing about in “Little Honda.”The Grom is easy to ride, easy to park and, at a projected 100 miles per gallon, cheap to operate. The base price is about half what the company gets for its bigger 300cc Forza scooter, and just $400 more than the cost of the company’s stripped-down 50cc Ruckus.While celebrating the success of their little motorcycle, Honda executives admit they did not anticipate the Grom’s popularity. “We thought it would do well, but we’ve been taken aback by the response,” said Jon Seidel, assistant manager of American Honda MC Press. “We have dealers with waiting lists of 30 and 40 people.”At Honda of North Hollywood, sales manager Larry Ingraham said he has 10 people on a waiting list, 30 units on order, and not a single Grom in his showroom. “Honda may have missed the mark on quantity,” Ingraham said. “I don’t think they knew what kind of reception they were going to get.”Ingraham has heard of customers paying as much as $5,500 to get their hands on a Grom. Several used Groms were for sale on Craigslist and eBay this week for prices of $4,200 or more.Many who might have put down a deposit for a Grom delivery change their mind, Guthrie said, when they’re told the new units won’t be in showrooms until perhaps December or even January.To advertise its Super Cub — the lightweight 1960s step-through machine that inspired that Beach Boys song — Honda used the slogan: “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.”For the Grom, the company is taking particular aim at the younger rider. One piece of Grom promotional material reads, “With your own wheels, you can bag the bus and forget about having to beg for rides from your friends or — shudder — your Mom.” An accompanying photo shows a kid holding a skateboard.In foreign markets, where the Grom was introduced more than a year ago, the model is known as the MSX125. It would have been called that here too, a Honda representative said, except that name was already patented by a lawn mower.One dealer observed that, at such a low MSRP, the Grom isn’t likely to be a massive revenue generator. Instead, it is designed to buy the company a bigger share of the US market, where it has often been the dominant Japanese motorcycle maker.Robert Pandya, an avid motorcyclist and owner of SpokesPeople PR, seems to have foreseen the Grom’s success. He put down a deposit at Central Texas Powersports in Georgetown, Texas, before the dealer had even seen a Grom.Convinced they were going to be popular, Pandya bought two — one for himself and one for his brother. “One is fun,” he said. “But two is a race!” — Los Angeles Times/MCT*  Price and technical specifications may vary in locally available models.

By Troy WolvertonApple still knows how to create compelling products. But it seems to have forgotten nearly everything it ever learned about pricing such products for mainstream consumers.The company’s new iPads, unveiled last week, look great and include some exciting new features. But the pricing of the company’s iPad line as a whole is absurdly high, with Apple’s models often costing at least $100 more than their closest rivals.You know things are out of whack when the best-priced iPad still costs $500 and Apple is offering a two-and-half- year old model at a price that is $40 more expensive than a comparably sized — but brand new — Samsung tablet.Apple, of course, has a reputation for offering expensive products, and company executives have repeatedly tried to position its brand as a premium one. Apple’s Mac computers remain pricey compared with their PC rivals, and its iPhone isn’t cheap, particularly without a hefty carrier discount.But the company’s history tells a more complicated story than its reputation would suggest.Apple’s iPod line was consistently priced aggressively compared with its rivals, and Apple developed lower-cost models to compete in the lower-priced segments of the market, rather than conceding them to the competition.When Apple introduced the original iPad with a starting price of $500, many observers were blown away that it would charge that little, as some had speculated that the device would cost as much as $1,000.Even with the iPhone, which initially carried a hefty $500 price, Apple found a way to reach mainstream consumers, persuading AT&T to subsidise it so consumers paid a much more palatable $200 upfront.But lately the company seems to be going back to its pricey ways.Before Apple introduced its new iPhones last month, it was rumoured to have a low-cost model in the works, one that could be broadly affordable even without a carrier discount. Instead, the company unveiled the iPhone 5C, a repackaged version of last-year’s iPhone 5, that carries a $550 unsubsidised price. You may not be surprised to hear that according to numerous reports, the 5C is selling poorly and several retailers have already offered discounts on it.Yet last week’s event offered more of the same. Apple introduced a pair of laptops that, yes, are each $200 less expensive than last year’s models. But with starting prices of $1,300 and $2,000, they are well beyond the typical price of a PC.It also put a price tag on the Mac Pro, a new computer targeted at creative professionals that it previewed in June. That computer’s base price is an absurd $3,000, which looks even more ridiculous when you consider that the entry model has so little storage that buyers will almost certainly have to get a pricier model with more storage or immediately buy an external hard drive.But you could dismiss those announcements as being in line with Apple’s longtime pricing strategy for the Mac. More shocking were the prices it announced on the iPads.Apple kept the $500 base price on its flagship model, now dubbed the iPad Air. While that price used to be a bargain, it’s increasingly looking expensive, especially when you can get Google’s Nexus 10 for $400 and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 for $360. But it’s at least defensible; the big iPad is still the best full-size tablet out there, and the changes Apple made to it — adding a 64-bit chip and giving it a much thinner and lighter case — appear to have made it even better than before.But the prices on the other iPad models are simply baffling. Instead of marking down last year’s fourth-generation iPad as a lower-priced full-size model, Apple decided to drop that model and continue producing the iPad 2. And it will continue to sell the iPad 2 for $400.That’s a crazy price, considering the cost of the Nexus 10 and the Galaxy Tab 3 — brand-new Android models with better specifications. And it also seems obscene when you consider that the iPad 2 debuted in February 2011 and could be ineligible for updates to its operating system as early as next year.The prices Apple slapped on its iPad Mini models are just as bewildering. When Apple introduced the Mini last year, the device had three obvious drawbacks: It had a relatively low-resolution screen and an older processor, and at $330, it cost more than $100 more than its competitors.This year, Apple fixed the screen and processor shortcomings. The new Mini has one of Apple’s high-resolution Retina displays, and the company included with the Mini an A7 chip, which is its latest and greatest processor.If Apple had kept the Mini’s price at $330, those upgrades might have justified its price. But instead, Apple raised the price on the Mini to $400.Mind you, you can get Google’s Nexus 7, which has a similarly high-resolution, if smaller, screen and a similarly fast processor for just $230. And Amazon charges the same price for its brand-new 8-inch Amazon Kindle Fire HDX.Apple did cut the price of last year’s Mini, which it decided to keep in its lineup, but only by $30, which means that it still costs significantly more than brand-new models from its rivals.Apple’s prices would make sense if the company were still dominating the tablet market. But its market share has plunged and its tablet sales actually fell last quarter from the same period a year earlier.So while Apple may know a lot still about how to make cool devices, it seems to have lost its way on pricing. Here’s hoping it relearns its lesson. — San Jose Mercury News/MCT

What if Gucci, Prada or Louis Vuitton suddenly and unexpectedly produced its own designer knockoffs, ones that sold for more than 50% less than the majority of their lines?Well, if you’re an automaker, say, Mercedes-Benz, then the product might be called the 2014 CLA-Class, an all-new model and market for the brand in the United States.Stylistically, this car is clearly modelled on the “four-door coupe” styling pioneered by the larger Mercedes-Benz CLS. With its rounded greenhouse and sloping shoulders, the CLA looks like the larger CLS — if it had been left in the dryer too long. But the CLA’s look is a little crisper, a bit more aggressive and every bit the head turner.But the CLA starts at just $29,900 (in the US), an astonishing $42,200 less than the CLS. In fact, it’s the least expensive Mercedes-Benz you can buy for 2014; it’s even $5,900 cheaper than the C-Class sedan. And when typically equipped, the new CLA should average around $35,000, about the same as a top-of-the-line Honda Accord and less than a fully loaded Ford Fusion.By offering filet mignon at hamburger prices, Mercedes-Benz is taking a big chance with its image. Unlike in some other countries, in the United States, Mercedes-Benz is viewed as a luxury car manufacturer, rather than a maker of cars for commoners.So, just what do you get in this modest Mercedes?Well, for starters, you get a car that uses a front-wheel drive platform — a first for the brand in this market — adapted from the redesigned A-Class, a small hatchback that Mercedes-Benz sells in Europe and Asia.The CLA comes in two flavours: the mild CLA 250 and the wild CLA 45 AMG. Both cars use a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.The base CLA 250 is rated at 208hp and can attain 60mph in 6.9 seconds. By contrast, the CLA 45 AMG is rated at an astonishing 355hp – quite a lot considering the engine’s size – and reaches 60 mph in 4.5 seconds.All-wheel drive will be offered on the CLA 250 in the spring; it’s standard on the CLA 45 AMG.Given the CLA’s stunning styling and remarkable price, you’re probably expecting it to be fun to drive. In reality, it’s a mixed bag.It’s not that the car isn’t nimble — in fact, it’s fairly athletic, with nicely weighted steering despite the lack of road feel. Overall handling is good and the CLA remains flat in corners. Opting for the $2,200 Sport Package, which includes 18-inch AMG five-spoke wheels, sport suspension and larger brakes, doesn’t seem to significantly alter this vehicle’s character, which includes a noticeable amount of road noise and a ride than can be jarring at times, thanks to a very firm suspension.Acceleration is more than adequate in the CLA 250 despite the car’s turbo lag. As you’d expect, the CLA 45 AMG’s extra power makes it noticeably more fun to drive, and although very capable, it’s still not quite the driver’s car you’d expect.But on the whole, this car is very much a welter-weight Mercedes-Benz. If you’re coming from a car that’s a bit more benign, this will not bother you. But if you’re expecting a car with classic sports sedan character, it’s not all there.And then there’s the stop/start system, added in the name of fuel efficiency. When the car comes to a stop, the engine shuts off to conserve fuel. Once you lift your foot off the brake, the car restarts. But, like similar systems from other German manufacturers, it does so with an invasive shudder. Thankfully, this annoyance can be turned off at a touch of a button.The cabin is sporty and modern and fairly premium in appearance. The interior’s ambience cleverly hides its modest cost, at least when compared to a traditional Mercedes-Benz cabin. Leather is optional, as is aluminum trim. The faux leather — “pleather,” if you will — is fairly convincing. Any part of the cabin that your body touches is nicely padded.At these prices, it’s little surprise that the small luxuries one expects in a premium car are optional. So be sure your CLA has the $2,300 Premium Package which adds a Harman/Kardon sound system, iPod/MP3 interface, SiriusXM satellite radio, dual zone climate control, heated — but not cooled — front seats, garage door opener, compass and auto dimming mirrors.The CLA’s centre stack is crowned by a screen that resembles a tablet. Some thought it looked like an afterthought, but its location is remarkably free of glare. And once you’re accustomed to the software, Mercedes-Benz’s infotainment system is fairly easy to use.As for passenger accommodations, the front is acceptably roomy, while the rear is inhospitable for adults. Here’s where fashion has extracted its price. The stylishly rounded roof diminishes head room. Even if you manage to get in without knocking your noggin, you’ll find leg room is in short supply as well. And the front one-piece seat backs are annoying since the headrests are not adjustable. And if you wear size 12s, as I do, you’ll find that the CLA’s footwell is cramped, with the brake pedal and accelerator placed very close to each other.At least the trunk is huge.Such quibbles are to be expected from a car that’s considered by Mercedes-Benz to be a coupe, despite having four doors. After all, coupes extract a pound of flesh in exchange for their good looks. In this regard, the CLA is no different. It’s a young take on the traditional Mercedes persona. But its sportiness comes from its look, not from its performance, unless you opt for the CLA 45 AMG. And it lacks the lush ambience founded in pricier products that wear the three-pointed star.But to drivers who have never experienced a Mercedes-Benz, the 2014 CLA-Class allows entry into what once was an exclusive club with startling good looks and an equally attractive sticker price.Make no mistake, with the CLA-Class, Mercedes-Benz has a hit on its hands.But once the novelty wears off, you have to wonder if this reasonably priced car will eventually dilute the marque’s premium image. When the servants drive the same brand of car as the lord and lady of the manor, it’s hard to convincingly market yourself as a luxury manufacturer. — The Virginian-Pilot/MCT- Price and technical specifications may vary in locally available models.

Radar and sensor screens are mounted on the dash of the Nissan Leaf Autonomous vehicle.By Jerry HirschThe Nissan Leaf is cruising at 35mph when a pedestrian jumps into the roadway. But there’s no one at the controls. Instead, radar, lasers and cameras recognise the pedestrian — actually a dummy shoved into the road by an engineer. Computers order the car to slam the brakes and swerve, avoiding a collision.The recent demonstration, at a former military base in Irvine, California, underscored just how far automakers have come in developing cars that drive themselves. Car companies including Nissan, General Motors and Mercedes have logged thousands of miles of successful tests, with an eye toward selling autonomous vehicles by 2020.Nissan’s test provided a vivid display of what’s already possible: The Leaf dropped an occupant at the “store,” then proceeded to drive itself down a parking row, stop for an SUV driven by a human, and back into a space.But the technology is just one of many challenges. Convincing consumers, regulators, insurers and lawyers that autonomous vehicles are safe — and determining who pays when they crash — could wrap their future in a Gordian knot.“It is uncharted waters,” said James Yukevich, a Los Angeles attorney who defends the auto industry from product liability lawsuits. “I don’t think this is an area very many people have thought much about.”Coddled by robotic chauffeurs, would people retain the driving skills to take over in emergencies? Who would be liable if an autopiloted car runs through a crowd of pedestrians: the owner or the automaker? Would insurance premiums go up or down? Would cyberterrorists figure out how to make Fords blast through school zones at 100mph?Are human drivers really ready to give up control?Such thorny questions cast doubt on automakers’ ambitious timelines, said Bryan Reimer, a scientist and transportation expert at MIT. “Humans can deal relatively well with humans making mistakes, but we don’t deal as well with robots making mistakes,” Reimer said. “How many of us are willing to get on an airplane with no pilot — even though half the time the pilots are just sitting around watching the automation?”It may seem inevitable that machines will one day pilot cars more safely than humans. But that will have to be proved beyond doubt before legislators and regulators give them free rein. The engineering will have to be fail-safe, said David Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.For now, just three states — California, Florida and Nevada — allow self-driving cars on the road, and only for testing. Six states have rejected testing, and seven others are considering regulations, according to the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University.California has directed its Department of Motor Vehicles to craft regulations by the start of 2015, said Bernard Soriano, deputy director for the agency. The state is working with the NHTSA, the highway patrol and the state’s departments of insurance and transportation to figure out the regulations.Automakers are moving in stages toward fully autonomous cars. They started more than a decade ago with features such as electronic stability control, which assists with braking to help drivers control the car.Some 2014 Mercedes-Benz and Acura models combine adaptive cruise control, which keeps a vehicle at a safe distance from cars ahead, with lane keeping, which automatically adjusts steering. Another system slams the brakes before an impending crash.The next level of development: cars that assume full control under favourable traffic or weather conditions. These are the self-drivers Nissan expects to sell by 2020, said Maarten Sierhuis, director of the automaker’s Silicon Valley research center. The NHTSA is working on a four-year timetable to issue regulations for such cars.All this leads to the final frontier: vehicles that can operate completely on autopilot — even without passengers, as in automated taxis or delivery vans.The challenge for automakers will be programming cars to navigate complicated and unexpected conditions, Sierhuis said.“It is always the outliers — the very complex traffic situations that are hard to imagine and hard to test — that are difficult,” he said.Sierhuis plans to test the autonomous Leaf at a section of road near his Sunnyvale, California, office that he calls “the monster”. Human drivers cause an accident a week there, a high-volume road with a highway crossing and three intersections in quick succession.As it formulates rules, California’s DMV is looking for guidance from regulations governing robotic surgery and the potential use of commercial aerial drones, which are seeing limited use for photography in Canada.Beyond regulatory hurdles, car companies could be taking on a huge liability in selling robotic cars.“If the driver has no control of the vehicle at all, how is it possible for that person to be negligent?” Yukevich said. “You can sit there and read the newspaper. If there is an accident, you can’t be at fault.”Liability questions surrounding automated cars may be simpler than they appear, said Ryan Calo, a professor who teaches robotics law at the University of Washington. If automakers build every system in the car, then presumably the automaker will be on the hook in lawsuits over accidents or injuries — just as human drivers are now.Moreover, by their nature, the cars would come with an array of sensors that feed into a black-box data recorder, making it easier to unravel whether man or machine is to blame in crashes. Nonetheless, lawyers and judges will no doubt shape the law surrounding self-driving cars — after they hit the road.“The legal issues don’t need to be 100% worked out from Day 1,” Calo said. “I do think there will be enough structure in place so that this won’t be the Wild West.”Less complicated is the issue of insurance. Already, automated driving technology on today’s cars is reducing property and injury claims. That could mean lower premiums as automation advances, insurance officials say.Although cars could be the first mass-marketed robots, the insurance industry has covered automated machines in many sectors. “A modern airliner is in effect an autonomous vehicle,” said Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute.Consumers remain skeptical. Only 18% said they would buy autonomous vehicles, and 33% said they would feel safe on roads filled with them, according to a survey of 1,000 adults conducted in September for the Chubb Group of Insurance Cos.In time, Sierhuis believes, people will take to autonomous cars just as eagerly as they have other technologies.“People were surprised when we landed on Mars,” he said. “But now we have robots walking around on the surface, and no one thinks twice about it.”As with many technologies we now take for granted, autopiloted cars have a long history in science fiction. Sally, an Isaac Asimov short story first published in 1953, portrays a futuristic world where people no longer drive themselves. — Los Angeles Times/MCT

By Susan CarpenterThe only missing element was the Houston countdown as I pressed the launch button on the McLaren 12C Spider. Left foot planted on the brake pedal, right foot goosing the gas, the twin-turbocharged V-8 spooled for my imminent catapult across the asphalt. Six seconds and 200 yards later, I felt lighter, having expelled all the available air in my lungs through an irrepressibly giddy scream. The fact that I was doing this in a convertible speaks volumes for McLaren engineering and its Formula 1 racing legacy.Being on a track, I was, of course, driving with the roof locked in place and a helmet strapped to my noggin. But the Spider, which was designed in parallel with McLaren Automotive’s fixed-roof 12C coupe, comes with almost no performance penalty. The 0-to-62-mph acceleration time is the same, lickety-split 3.1 seconds. The convertible gained 88 pounds, but just 3 mph were sheared off the 207 mph maximum speed of the hardtop.The greatest penalty, in fact, is the price (in the US). The Spider costs about $30,000 more than the $231,400 coupe — but that’s pennies for McLaren’s rarefied buyership.Designed as a track car that’s civilised enough for the street and, now, versatile enough to allow tanning at mach speed, the 12C Spider has been available in the US since January.Still, the British supercar maker, which produces just 1,800 units annually, hasn’t had enough cars to satisfy the West Coast automotive media’s relentless need for speed until last week, when it cordoned off the asphalt at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California — a suitable environment to showcase its streetable F1 technology.Entering the two-seater 12C Spider through its dihedral doors requires a gymnastic level of limberness to avoid impalement from the sharp angle of the steeply raked windshield, which, once you’re settled in the low-slung and cocooning cockpit, offers great visibility. Visible over the ultra-low dashboard are two distinct humps on either side of the bonnet that orient the driver to the wheels.The 12C Spider is constructed with the same carbon fiber MonoCell its sister company, McLaren Racing, has been using in Formula 1 since 1981. Isolated by an aluminum crush structure, should the driver crash, the moulded carbon cockpit is lightweight, strong and rigid for high-speed flogging — and muscular enough that it negates the need for the usual chassis reinforcements required when jettisoning a fixed roof for a spider variant.It takes 17 seconds for the electronically operated retractable hardtop to fully lift or lower into a tonneau cover whose colour is matched to the body, which, on my test car, was a shade of orange so fiery it looked combustible. The roof can be operated at speeds up to 19 mph. In other words, it’s best done when stopped, so drivers can take full advantage of the 12C Spider’s capabilities.The Spider is, like the 12C coupe, powered with the upgraded 625PS, or 616-horsepower, engine first deployed for the 2013 model year. Encased in glass like the high-performance art piece it is, the engine — which uses a pair of small, quick-spinning turbochargers to nullify discernible turbo lag and provide more boost at lower revs — can be operated in normal, sport and track modes. They activate different shift points on the seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission when driven as an automatic, and channel increasingly deafening levels of engine intake noise to the cabin.The only part of the powertrain that was changed for the Spider is the exhaust. Redesigned to work in harmony with the silhouette of the retractable roof, it evacuates up and over the rear axle to avoid coming through the rear suspension. The suspension is likewise adjustable in normal, sport and track modes, independent of the powertrain settings.It was in track mode that I spun out during my sashay of a fast chicane and started drifting toward a concrete wall at 100 mph, having lifted my foot from the accelerator with the steering wheel cranked from a turn. In sport suspension mode, the car would have intervened and kept my rear wheels planted, but in track mode you’re on your own.Unique to McLaren, this second suspension-mode panel operates hydraulically interlinked dampers that increase or reduce pressure as needed to affect the stiffness of the suspension and negate the need for sway bars. A Z bar on the rear end acts like a spring, working with the air brake to keep the back axle in better contact with the road and distribute brake force most effectively.As I careened through corner after corner in the 12C Spider, the air brake was truly something to behold during the occasional split seconds I was able to take my eyes off the track and glance in the rear view mirror. Stomping the brake pedal at speeds above 62 mph instantly activates the F1-derived rear wing that ordinarily nestles in the car’s hindquarters and only glides into place to quicken slowdowns and to keep the car’s rear end from lifting.For street driving, the rear window can likewise move up and down, regardless of the roof’s position. With the roof lowered, the rear glass automatically finds the most aerodynamic position to reduce buffeting. The audio controls also automatically adjust to compensate for extra noise when the roof is stowed, while the climate control fan is calibrated to the vehicle’s speed.For 2014, the 12C’s in-cabin technology has been upgraded with a centre console swipe screen that is vertically oriented, similar to a smartphone. It can be operated by touch or with a voice-recognition system similar to the iPhone’s Siri, only McLaren’s personal assistant is known as Iris, and the voice is male.Driving the 12C Spider on the street, Iris occasionally scolded: “You are over the speed limit.”Buyers of the McLaren 12C Spider are likely to hear that often. — The Orange County Register/MCT* Price and technical specifications may vary in locally available models.In a nutshell Base price: $265,750 (in the US)Powertrain: Direct-injected, twin-turbocharged, 3.8-liter, V-8, longitudinal mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, seven-speed, dual-clutch transmissionHorsepower: 616 at 7,500 rpmTorque: 443 pound-feet at 3,000-7,000 rpmMaximum speed: 204 mph0 to 62 mph acceleration time: 3.1 seconds62 to 0 mph braking distance: 101ft

The 2014 Ford Fiesta ST is the brand’s performance subcompact, meant to compete with the Fiat Abarth and Mini Cooper S.By Mark PhelanWith any luck, the 2014 Ford Fiesta ST performance subcompact will start a race. Not a street race. I’m hoping for a race among other automakers to develop their own fast and frolicsome subcompacts.The Fiesta ST provides a lot of fun at a relatively low price. The appealing package faces very little competition. Surprisingly, no Japanese or Korean automaker sells a hot subcompact in America. The Hyundai Veloster turbo comes closest, but it’s a compact.To find legitimately sporty subcompacts, look to Europe: the Fiat 500 Abarth and Mini Cooper S. Chevrolet has a toe in the water, but has yet to take the plunge. Its Sonic 5 RS has go-fast looks and good handling, but no more power than its mainstream model.The Sonic 5 RS, 500 Abarth and Cooper S constitute the Fiesta ST’s entire competitive set.Fiesta ST prices start at $21,400 (in the US). It’s only available as a four-door hatchback with a 197-horsepower turbocharged 1.6-litre engine and six-speed manual transmission.I tested a nicely equipped Fiesta ST with Recaro seats, navigation, Sony audio, voice recognition, a touch screen and more.The ST leads the pack in power and price. Its engine outmuscles the competition, and its base price is lower than the Abarth and Mini. Sonic RS prices start $1,215 lower, but the Chevy’s output of 138hp and 148 pound-feet of torque make it a marginal competitor.The Fiesta ST needs premium fuel to generate its advertised 197hp and 202 pound-feet of torque. Regular fuel won’t damage the engine, but does reduce horsepower by 3% to 7%. That is offset by the fact that the Fiesta achieved its EPA fuel economy rating — 26mpg in the city, 35 on the highway and 29 combined — with regular fuel.The Fiat 500 Abarth and Mini Cooper S are more fuel efficient than the ST: 30 mpg in combined driving: but used premium fuel in the test. That makes them slightly more expensive to fuel, according to EPA projections. The Sonic 5 RS rated 30 mpg in combined driving with regular gas. It should cost slightly less to fuel each year than the Fiesta STThe Fiesta ST’s engine delivers plenty of power for confident acceleration. Unlike the more powerful Focus ST, it has almost no torque steer. That makes the Fiesta more fun to drive in many circumstances. Ford electronically augments the engine note. It’s pleasantly noticeable when you’re on the throttle, but fades into the background in easy driving. Road noise is nagging at highway speeds.The Fiesta ST’s steering is direct and responsive. The suspension kept the car flat and stable in enthusiastic manoeuvres. The hatchback layout provides good passenger and cargo space. The controls combine voice recognition with dials and buttons. A touch screen in the center of the dash is too small to use easily in a moving vehicle.I don’t care for the manually adjustable Recaro sport seats. They’re part of a $1,995 option package that includes heated seats and side view mirrors. The seats are too confining and don’t offer enough adjustments. My 14-year-old niece Emily, who is the definition of petite and weighs about as much as a wet sparrow, declared the seats perfect, because they fit her like a glove.Draw your own conclusions, but I’d recommend testing the standard seats. The race is on. The Ford ST was quick out of the gate, and its performance, fuel economy and value are likely to establish it as a leader among the sporty subcompacts likely to follow it. — Detroit Free Press/MCT*  Price and technical specifications may vary in locally available models.In a nutshell Type of vehicle: Front-wheel-drive subcompact sporty four-door hatchback.Reasons to buy: Performance, looks, fuel economy, valueShortcomings: Seat comfort and adjustability; interior noise; small touch screen.Engine: 1.6-litre direct-injected turbocharged DOHC variable timing 16-valve four-cylinder.Power: 197hp at 5,500 rpm (premium fuel); 202 pound-feet of torque at 4,200 rpm.Transmission: Six-speed manual.

By Salvador RodriguezApple Inc’s iOS 7 is a big change — and worth downloading.The free mobile operating software for the iPhone and the iPad comes with a bright new look and a whole lot of major new features, but there are also several hidden features you might not have noticed or heard of. Here are the highlights.Focus photos using volume button: In iOS 7, you can now press on the iPhone’s volume down button to quickly focus the camera and take a picture. Hold down on either volume buttons and it’ll quickly shoot a burst of photos.Block people from calling, messaging you: Tired of constantly hearing from your ex? You can block him or her on iOS 7. Go to your phone application, find the contact, scroll to the bottom and tap “Block This Caller.” This will keep you from getting the person’s calls, messages and FaceTime requests. You can also block someone who’s not in your contacts if they’ve recently called or texted you. And if you ever want to call or message the person you’ve blocked, you’ll still be able to do it.Message time stamps: One of the most annoying things about previous versions of iOS is that you couldn’t see a time stamp for each text message you sent or received. The Messages app would show you a time stamp for some but not all messages. That’s been fixed. Inside a conversation in the Messages app, you can now swipe left to see a time stamp for every message.Easy-to-find private browsing in Safari: Private browsing in Safari was already a feature in iOS, but before now, you had to go into the Settings app to turn it on. In iOS 7, you can tap on the bookmarks icon within the Safari app to turn it on; it’s the second icon from the left on the bottom bar. Private browsing enables you to surf the Web without storing your history.See (and turn off) your frequent locations: In iOS 7, your device will track the locations you frequent. You can see those locations in a map in the Settings app. Open the app, go to “Privacy,” then “Location Services,” then scroll down to “System Services.” On the next page, tap on “Frequent Locations.” Once there you can toggle off “Frequent Locations” to keep your phone from tracking you. Or you can tap on your history to see a neat map of the places you visit most.Turn off apps: Turning off an app in iOS 7 is different from how it was done in previous versions. To do it, double-tap the home button to be taken to the multitask screen. There, find the app you want to close and swipe it upward until it is moved off screen. The app is now off.Hidden device search: Before, you could quickly search your gadget for contacts, songs or documents by swiping left on the home screen. That’s now gone and has been replaced by a different gesture. To find search, you’ll instead have to tap the middle of the home screen and swipe downward.Search Twitter and pictures with Siri: You can quickly see what someone is tweeting by asking Siri, “What is (person’s name) saying?” Siri will then pull up that account’s most recent tweets. Additionally, you can also do an image search using Siri. Simply say, “Show me pictures of (item you’re searching for)” and Siri will quickly pull up images.Bubble level tool: Need to see whether the table you’re constructing is balanced? There’s now a bubble level tool within the Compass app. To access it, open the app and swipe to the left.Change the way your phone vibrates: If you don’t like how your iPhone vibrates when you get a call or text message, you can now change that. Go to your Settings app, then “Sounds.” Tap whichever notification you want to edit, and then tap “Vibration.” At the bottom, you’ll see “Create New Vibration.” Tap that and you can start creating your own vibration.Change the way Siri pronounces a word: If you don’t like the way Siri is saying a certain word or name, you can try to change it by telling her, “That’s not how you pronounce that.” Siri will then ask you the proper way and listen to how you say it. Afterward, she’ll present you with three ways she can say it, and you can choose the one you like. But I say “try to change” because when I tried, it didn’t fix the way she said my friend’s name. — Los Angeles Times/MCTA finder of lost filesBy Harold GlickenMy life is a mess. Hundreds of yellow sticky notes are stuck haphazardly around my PC. Piles of paper fall like melting icicles from my desk. Cash register receipts that I’ll never reconcile with Quicken fly in the wind created by a ceiling fan. While I can’t find anything among my physical mess, I can find just about anything on my PC’s hard drive. Thank you, Copernic.This Windows utility with the funny name indexes files — you choose which kind and where they’re stored — in the background as you waste the power of Microsoft Word to work on your grocery list. And then, when you need to find those files, you enlist Copernic’s help. In no time, the file name appears in a window. Below it are the contents of the file.I’ve been testing a pre-release edition of version 4 and have had mixed results. Copernic in general isn’t as intuitive as it could be. You enter a keyword in a search box, refine your search within a defined timeframe, such as the past week, and refine it with other parameters to the best of your memory. The results pop up instantly. But in my tests, if I didn’t know the entire file name, when it was created or where it might be stored, I got crazy results. Often I’d get hundreds of files and e-mails in a basic search. I’d have to scroll down to find my file. The more information you have about a document, e-mail, movie or other kind of file, the more precise your results will be.On the plus side, though, I thought I had lost this column. In seconds Copernic found the file, along with dozens of others, including a review of a previous version of Copernic I had written two years ago. Of course, if I had refined my search and chosen only files that were created in the past week, it would have been easier to find.The company asserts that the interface in Version 4 has been beautified and simplified. Utilitarian, yes, but beautiful it ain’t. More languages, including Mandarin, Hebrew, Dutch, Portuguese and Russian, are supported. Its compatibility with Windows 8 has been refined, among other features.The good folks at Copernic, a Canadian company, are trying to streamline their program, but you’ll have to navigate copious help files to get the hang of it. On a positive note, there’s a quick start guide. Much to my consternation, a friend figured out the program right away, without referring to help files. Which is why my life is still a mess.Copernic generously offers free and trial downloads of its search software (www.copernic.com). The more powerful professional version costs $50. A subscription to Copernic for smartphones and tablets that finds files on remote PCs also is available. Other useful Copernic programs are offered on their website. — MCTTechQ & ACan you move your Office to a new PC?I recently purchased a new PC for my daughter, and I’d like to move Microsoft Office 2007 from her old PC to her new one. I have the product key (a number code needed to install Microsoft software), but I can’t find a way to download Office 2007. As an alternative, I still have the software key and licensing rights to install Microsoft Office 2010 Professional on another PC, but I can’t find where to download it, either. What can I do?A: The most practical solution is to download Microsoft Office 2010 Professional at http://tinyurl.com/kkprrr6. This is a trial version that works for only 30 days unless it’s unlocked with a software key, which you have.You also can download Office 2007 from Microsoft by entering your product key at http://tinyurl.com/cus2at. But because Microsoft no longer provides updates for Office 2007, reusing it is less desirable.There also is a potential licensing problem in reusing Office 2007. If the software came preinstalled on the old PC, it can’t be moved to a new one.I wrote on a desktop PC for years, but now need a light, portable computer with a reliable, good-feeling keyboard for when I’m not at my desk. I’ve looked at laptops, notebooks and tablets with attachable keyboards, but I’m not sure what to buy. I primarily use the computer for e-mail, Internet research and intensive writing. Also, I know nothing about Windows 8 or other technical issues. Do you have any suggestions?A: For accuracy and reliability, you need a physical keyboard, not a virtual keyboard on a tablet screen or one of the flimsy add-on keyboards sold for use with tablet computers. While a desktop computer offers the best keyboard (the keys are large and spaced far enough apart that you’re unlikely to hit one key when you mean to hit another), the keyboard on a larger laptop also works well for typing once you get used to it.I’d avoid Windows 8, which can be difficult to use. Dell still sells Windows 7 laptops; see “Windows 7 Deals” on Dell’s website, at http://tinyurl.com/os2j4ud.You recently suggested four free Windows PC security programs. Can you direct me to that column? I just bought a tablet computer, and didn’t think about adding security software.A: The column can be found at http://tinyurl.com/ptlgn9t. But those PC programs won’t work on tablets, which use different operating system software.For Google Android tablet security software, see the offerings on the Google Play website, at http://tinyurl.com/jvksqsw. For Apple iPad software, go to the iTunes store and search for “iPad security app.” — By Steve Alexander / Star Tribune/MCT

The 2014 Kia Cadenza is the automaker’s attempt to break into the luxury-sedan segment.By David UndercofflerIt was a mistake to leave a copy of the window sticker on the front seat of the loaded 2014 Kia Cadenza.  Three times during a week of testing, a passenger climbed in, saw the $41,900 price (in the US) and blurted: “That much for a Kia?!”But it took only a short ride for the impressive Cadenza to make its case. Kia Motors Corp was once known to US buyers as the builder of econoboxes, not leather-lined premium sedans. A decade ago, the brand’s middling reputation would have prevented it from entering the luxury realm.Yet in recent years Kia, a corporate cousin to Hyundai Motor Corp, has hit its stride in both quality and sales. The popularity of models such as the excellent Optima mid-size sedan, Sorento sport utility vehicle and Soul compact crossover have led to a vehicle sales increase every year since 2008. Kia eclipsed the 500,000 sales mark in the US for the first time last year.Kia hopes this success will make buyers more comfortable parting with a respectable sum of money for its new flagship — $35,100 to start. The full-size Cadenza aims to steal sales from the likes of Chrysler’s 300, Buick’s LaCrosse and Toyota’s Avalon.The South Korean-built Cadenza shares a platform with the Hyundai Azera, along with its 3.3-litre, direct-injected V-6 engine and six-speed automatic transmission. The motor makes 293hp and 255 pound-feet of torque.This engine and transmission combination are a smooth duo, providing power and refinement in equal measure. Fuel economy is rated at 19 miles per gallon in the city and 28 mpg on the highway. In 300 miles of mostly city driving, we averaged 16 mpg.Despite the shared underpinnings, the Kia Cadenza is positioned upmarket from the Hyundai Azera. The $3,000 difference in the cars’ starting prices (in the US) yields few tangible upgrades in the Kia beyond some basic interior trim and a better stereo system.But the Cadenza has the poise of a luxury car, while the Azera feels more like just a larger family sedan. Wind and road noise are wonderfully absent from the interior, and the Cadenza’s ride is comfortable without wallowing all over the road.This refinement extends to the car’s design. The layout and construction of the cabin give it an upscale, if understated, impression of luxury. Complaints are limited to a slightly counterintuitive layout of buttons on the dashboard.The Cadenza is slightly longer and narrower than the similar Hyundai, and is down just a smidge in cargo room. There’s more interior space than the Toyota Avalon and Chevy Impala, despite offering less rear legroom. Trunk space is about the same as the Toyota and Hyundai, though all three trail the Impala here.With former Audi designer Peter Schreyer at the helm, Kia’s exterior styling has evolved dramatically in recent years. The Cadenza’s look is wisely subdued; when you’re an econobox-maker breaking into the luxury car market, you don’t want to make a scene.Tasteful bits of chrome trim, LED taillights and daytime running lights are as exciting as the Cadenza gets, though our tester also benefited from some handsome 19-inch alloy wheels. These are, curiously, part of the technology package, which also include adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring and lane departure warning.Although helpful at times, these systems didn’t seem as sophisticated as those from rival brands. They ended up being more annoying than helpful. Skipping them is an excellent way to save yourself $3,000.The only other package buyers can add to their Cadenza is the $3,000 luxury package. It adds wonderfully soft Napa leather seats, a panoramic moon roof, heated rear seats and steering wheel, and a digital instrument panel. The driver also gets a ventilated seat, but the joys of backside cooling aren’t offered to anyone else in the car.But even these add-ons aren’t necessary to get the luxury treatment from the Cadenza. In stock form, the car’s list of niceties is long: 8-inch touch-screen navigation system, leather seats and steering wheel, Infinity sound system, backup camera, eight air bags and a 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty.Regardless of what you pay, Cadenza is priced competitively enough to give rivals fits. It will need the help; with the Toyota Avalon and Chevrolet Impala all-new this year, the segment is much more cutthroat than even a year ago.Consumer Reports turned a few heads recently by giving the 2014 Impala one of its highest scores ever. Although the new Impala is a world of improvement over its predecessor, this Kia outshines the Chevy in terms of refinement, handling and drivetrain.It also has a firmer grasp of entry-level luxury than the new Avalon and the rest of the segment. For an automaker practiced in this space, that would be an achievement. That Kia pulled it off on its first pass is even more impressive, especially since this segment averages only about 500,000 cars a year.This bodes well for the brand’s future in the luxury realm. Kia sells a larger rear-wheel-drive sedan in foreign markets, and there have long been rumours that the car could be headed to the US. If it does land here, expect it to sell for $50,000 to $70,000.Yes, for a Kia. The Cadenza proves you really don’t need to ask that anymore. — Los Angeles Times/MCT* Price and technical specifications may vary in locally available models.In a nutshell Highs: Refined interior, smooth drivetrain, solid valueLows: Generic styling, annoying tech optionsVehicle type: Four-door large family sedanPowertrain: 3.3-liter direct-injected V-6 engine, front-wheel driveTransmission: Six-speed automatic transmission with paddle shiftersHorsepower: 293Torque: 255 pound-feetZero to 60 mph: 6.3 seconds, according to Motor TrendCorolla soars in popularityToyota Motor Corporation (TMC) recently announced that cumulative global sales of the Toyota Corolla surpassed 40mn units in July, reaching 40.01mn units. This milestone marks another historic achievement for the Corolla, Toyota’s perennial global car.Marking the milestone, the current Corolla chief engineer Shinichi Yasui said: “I feel this car has been nurtured by people all over the world and I am very proud to have contributed to its foundation and grateful to all those who have owned and loved their Corollas. The key to the Corolla’s success is the faithful passing down of its original development concept from Hasegawa: that the Corolla must bring happiness and well-being to people around the world.”According to Nobuyuki Negishi, chief representative of Middle East & North Africa Representative Office, Toyota Motor Corporation: “Reaching this significant milestone is a huge achievement for Toyota and reflects the company’s commitment to ensuring that customers get to enjoy a car with a legendary global reputation for providing excellent value for money, low operating costs and reliable trouble free motoring stemming from quality engineering, along with outstanding comfort levels. All these factors have been instrumental in the success of the Corolla and we look forward to continuing this remarkable success story and making sure that this iconic model stays popular with a new generation of Middle East consumers in the future.”In November 1966, Toyota opened a new plant in Takaoka, Aichi Prefecture, dedicated solely to Corolla production. Two years later, with an emphasis on providing region-specific vehicles, production began in Australia and Malaysia. From 1965 to 1968, Toyota more than doubled its total annual production from 480,000 to 1.1mn vehicles — a testament to the Corolla’s significant contribution to the growth of the company.The Corolla, currently produced at 15 plants worldwide, accounts for one in five vehicles sold in Toyota’s 76-year history. Corolla exports to North America began in 1968, and early sales success in this market helped global cumulative sales of the car reach 1mn units just four years after launch.  In 1997, the Corolla became the world’s best-selling nameplate, with global cumulative sales exceeding 22.65mn units. More than a million units have been sold each year since 2002; last year, a total of 3,180 Corollas were sold every day across more than 150 countries and regions.The Corolla was originally designed to meet the changing needs of Japanese commuters. In the mid-1960s, the then chief engineer Tatsuo Hasegawa recognised that with Japan’s industry expanding, most consumers’ daily commuting time was increasing. The need to get around in a personal vehicle was therefore growing and this insight led Hasegawa to conceptualise the first Corolla, with his guiding principles defining the vehicle ever since: always evolving and designed to meet consumer needs in each market.When the first Corolla rolled off the production line, many basic safety features were still optional. Later, to meet the needs of families, Toyota decided to include many of these features as standard. Toyota’s commitment to pursue significantly higher levels of quality and continue adding new standard features to the affordably priced Corolla has helped ensure that families around the world continue to choose it more than any other sedan.The history of the ever-evolving Corolla, filled with examples of technology and quality improvement, is emblematic of Toyota’s efforts to anticipate customer needs and provide even better cars.1 The generations of Toyota Corolla, launched first in 1966.

Mark Hammergren, astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, with an image of the comet ISON on his computer. The comet will be closest to the sun on Nov 28 and might be highly visible before dawn on the days just following that.By Cynthia DizikesWhen Adler Planetarium astronomer Mark Hammergren first heard the buzz about comet ISON last fall, he felt a familiar tinge of excitement.The brightest comet in the last century. As vivid as a full moon in the night sky over Chicago. A once-in-a-lifetime, blazing spectacle.But as ISON zips closer to Earth’s orbit, the hunk of ice and dust has done something typically cometish: upended expectations.Compared with original estimates, ISON is already dimmer than expected, reviving bitter memories of the “great” comet Kohoutek. Hyped in 1973 as the comet of that century, Kohoutek fizzled into an unspectacular dud above the southern horizon.Hammergren, who was a kid at the time, recalled being led outside after sunset to view the comet. But instead of a brilliant tail of gas and debris lashing the night sky, all Hammergren saw were contrails.“There is a great saying about comets being like cats,” Hammergren said. “They both have tails and they do what they want.”Indeed, the annals of astronomy are streaked by unexpected comet burnouts and breakups, but also surprising outbursts like the 2007 brightening of comet Holmes. In October of that year, the normally faint comet briefly ballooned into the largest object in the solar system when gases erupting from its surface expanded to a diameter greater than that of the sun.Given the uncertainty, Audrey Fischer, a director of the Chicago Astronomical Society, said “every one of us is holding our breath.”Although the society has already begun to plan viewings, astronomers at the Adler and other observatories are taking a wait-and-see approach, ready to stage events if ISON should suddenly brighten or public interest spikes.Comet ISON was first spotted in September 2012 by scientists working with the International Scientific Optical Network, or ISON for short. At that time, the comet was unexpectedly bright for being so far away, fuelling speculation that it would grow to record-breaking radiance by the time it swung around the sun in late November.For now, ISON can be seen in the Northern Hemisphere through a powerful telescope — a faint smudge in the constellation of Cancer about 183 million miles away from the sun, said astronomer and Northwestern University lecturer Michael Smutko.“If you are up in the early morning hours, and you know where to (point your telescope), you can see it from Chicago,” said Smutko, who has not yet been inspired to partake in a pre-dawn viewing.By November, however, Smutko hopes that could change. ISON is expected to make the celestial equivalent of a flyby when it passes 730,000 miles above the sun’s surface on November 28.Around that time and into December, astronomers anticipate that ISON will become visible to the naked eye, burning low in the eastern sky.“It does not look like it is going to reach full-moon brightness, but maybe Venus brightness — brightest star in the night sky,” Smutko said. “It should still put on a decent show.”Exactly how bright ISON will become, how wide and long it will grow, and whether it will put on a strictly suburban show remain unknowns.ISON is currently speeding through the cosmos at roughly 67,000 mph and is expected to accelerate to about 844,000 mph as it swings around the sun. But because ISON and other comets are so far away from Earth, unlike meteors, they appear relatively static in the sky.Comets are huge chunks of ice, frozen gases, dust and rock, a makeup that gave rise in the 1950s to the so-called dirty snowball model.As comets fall closer to the sun, heat vaporizes the ice, releasing plumes of gas and dust. Sunlight reflects off that debris, illuminating the comet — a word derived from the Greek word meaning “hair of the head.”Particularly bright comets are dubbed “great comets” and have typically appeared about once every 10 years.The last truly great Northern Hemisphere comet, according to many astronomers, was Hale-Bopp, which was first spotted in 1995 and eventually remained visible for a record 18 months.“It became quite a commonplace sight,” Hammergren recalled. “Even to myself, as a graduate student in astronomy at the time, I would be leaving work and look up and say, ‘Ah, there’s the comet again.’”A comet’s brightness depends on how close it passes to Earth and the sun. But it also comes down to size and composition, making predictions tricky.Hale-Bopp’s core was estimated to be about 25 miles across. ISON’s has been pegged at roughly 3 miles. Comet Holmes’ core, meanwhile, is thought to be about 2.In general, the more ice and gases that can be vaporised, the more stunning the comet, Hammergren said.“We don’t know how ices are distributed around the comet,” he said. “Could there be a big deposit of ice that could be exposed to the sun as it gets closer? Could the comet, as it gets closer, rearrange itself, a landslide on the surface, perhaps, that could expose new ice?”“All of these things could change a comet’s behaviour from one day to the next,” he said.Comets that pass particularly close to the sun, like ISON, also risk breaking apart, as comet Elenin did in 2011. In a eulogy of sorts at the time, NASA bid the “uninspiring” celestial nomad a final farewell.“Perhaps, a little homage to a classic Monty Python dead parrot sketch is in order,” NASA asteroid expert Don Yeomans was quoted as saying. “Comet Elenin has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-comet.”Astronomers think chances are relatively low that ISON will share Elenin’s disappointing fate, though they cannot be certain until the comet gets closer to the sun. In the meantime, Hammergren continues to check on ISON’s arrival and brightness at least twice a week, remaining cautiously optimistic in spite of himself.“I’m still hoping that it goes through some kind of major outburst and reverses its recent behaviour,” Hammergren said. “You maybe have one shot in a decade of seeing a comet. They are still very special events, very beautiful events and very ephemeral.” — Chicago Tribune/MCT

Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook praises the new iPhone 5S as the most refined model the company has ever introduced in Cupertino, California.  By Troy WolvertonMaybe we should call him Timid Tim. As last week’s iPhone event showed yet again, Apple under CEO Tim Cook is anything but bold. The company that reeled off one breakthrough after another under the late Steve Jobs and wasn’t afraid to kill off its own successful products to make room for new ones now seems content to just stay the course.Instead of completely new or radically redesigned gadgets or dramatically expanded product lines, we get incremental tweaks and changes. When the highlights of last week’s event are that Apple has introduced one new phone that comes in gold and another that comes in brightly coloured plastic cases, it’s clear the company’s not exactly stretching itself.“As time has gone on, each of these events has had (fewer) surprises,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst with tech research firm IDC. Apple needs to take a risk and “shake things up again,” he continued. “Otherwise people are going to write these things off as being not as compelling as they used to be.”Rumours have swirled for years that Apple is about to unveil an iWatch or an Apple TV, but it hasn’t released a truly new product since the iPad in early 2010. Yes, innovation doesn’t happen on a regular time schedule, and many of Apple’s breakthrough products took years of development. But the recent drought raises doubt about Cook’s appetite for risk.The big news out of the recent event was that Apple, for the first time, will offer two new iPhone models, the flagship iPhone 5S and a less expensive iPhone 5C.But the lineup change was largely cosmetic. For several years now, when Apple introduced a new iPhone model, it continued to offer its older ones, but at discounted prices. The iPhone 5C is just a new version of that old strategy. It essentially is last year’s iPhone 5 with a colorful plastic case and a slightly different moniker. It has the same chip, the same camera and the same screen.It was widely rumoured that the 5C would be a new, low-cost model that could reap huge sales for Apple in developing markets like China and India. But it’s not. Sure, you can get it for $100, but only with a pricey two-year contract in the US. If you try to buy it without a contract, it will put a $550 hole in your checking account. The unlocked iPhone 5S will set you back $650.So Apple still lacks a lineup of differently styled or priced phones. As Avi Greengart, who covers the smartphone market for research firm Current Analysis, puts it, “that’s their strategy and they’re sticking to it.”That Apple has taken this long to introduce such a modest addition to its iPhone lineup speaks volumes about the company’s timidity under Cook. For contrast, look back on how Apple managed its iPod line under Jobs.It’s now been six years since the launch of the iPhone. Within the six-year period following the launch of the original iPod in 2001, Apple had established four distinct product lines — the iPod Classic, the iPod Nano, the iPod Shuffle and the iPod Touch. It had already eliminated its most popular product line, the Mini, and replaced it with the Nano. It then introduced the iPhone, which by combining a phone and a digital music player threatened to undermine sales of the entire iPod line.With the iPod, Apple offered products at a wide range of prices. And it showed it could meet the needs of different consumers. The Nano and the Shuffle weren’t discounted versions of last year’s model — they were distinct products with unique features that set them apart from the higher-priced classic.Apple also showed that it could respond to market demand and changing technology. It released the Shuffle in response to the growing market for inexpensive digital music players. And it released the Nano as flash-based players started to become a popular alternative to hard drive-based models.A year or two ago, Apple arguably had little incentive to do anything different with its iPhone lineup. Sales were soaring and Apple was gaining share in a fast-growing market. But Apple’s smartphone sales growth has slowed markedly and it’s now shedding market share. Meanwhile, the company’s other business lines have seen sales slump. Apple needs some new products — and more big hits.Yet its recent record is one of missed opportunities. Given the success that Samsung and others have had with phones with displays of about 5 inches or so, a large-screen iPhone would seem to have obvious appeal. And given that much of the future growth in smartphones is expected to come from less developed countries, a truly low-cost iPhone would seem to be a no-brainer.But instead of seizing those opportunities, Apple chooses to stay the course. If you want to know why, you’ll have to ask Timid Tim. — San Jose Mercury News/MCTIt might be time to look beyond the iPhone By Jeff GellesBuy an iPhone 5S when it debuts next week, and you’ll be assured of getting Apple’s latest and greatest smartphone technology — at least until the iPhone 6’s expected debut sometime next year.Apple’s large profits are testimony to its power in a market it created six years ago. The lines expected at stores on September 20 — sure to swell this time around because Apple isn’t offering pre-orders for its new flagship device — will likely show that it hasn’t lost all its mojo, even if fans sound a bit apologetic over waning drama in the annual upgrade cycle.But if you’re reluctant to shell out to get an iPhone 5S this could be a time to weigh alternatives. Will you be missing out? Mostly at the margins. Another testament to the iPhone’s success is that virtually every feature has been mimicked or even one-upped by the competition — starting with Android phones that now account for about two-thirds of smartphone sales, and lately by some nifty Windows Phones.Here are three paths to cut costs and still take part in the smartphone revolution, where even camp followers can try out many of the coolest tools:Try Android or another platform. There is one current iPhone — well, there will be two next week, but for Apple that was big news. Google’s open-source Android platform has been hugely successful at spurring competition — its Android.com website lists 120 US smartphones from 16 manufacturers, and even that list appears incomplete.How to choose? Try reviews and ratings. Consumer Reports, for instance, recommend dozens of Android phones, and rank both Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and its older Galaxy S3 ahead of the iPhone 5, giving each higher marks for messaging and phoning.Other devices it rates “very good” include the LG Optimus G, the HTC One, Nokia’s Lumia Windows phones, and even BlackBerry’s recent attempts to regain a market toehold, the Q10 and the Z10. At PCWorld.com, Motorola’s new Moto X also gets top marks.But if you want the smartphone basics – e-mail, Internet access, applications and an adequate camera — and want to save cash, remember that you may not need a top-ranked alternative that’s about as costly as a new iPhone. Consumer Reports also recommends inexpensive Androids from manufacturers such as Pantech, LG and Samsung, as well as earlier Lumia Windows phones.One warning: If you look for ratings online, note that specs for the same phone sometimes vary from carrier to carrier. Do your research, shop around and save. — The Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT

The 2014 Fiat 500L is a five-door vehicle that’s 27 inches longer, 6 inches taller and 6 inches wider than the 500, Fiat’s first vehicle in its return to the US.By Mark PhelanFiat’s a newcomer to the US, but the Italian automaker has been doing several things well since it was founded 114 years ago:Cramming lots of interior space into tiny cars.Wringing spirited performance from small engines.Imbuing affordable little cars with unique Italian style.The roomy little three-star 2014 Fiat 500L puts those strengths on display in a charming and enjoyable package. The red 500L Lounge I tested looked like a cheeky cartoon character come to life. The grinning face that its headlights and grille presented made me smile every time I walked up to the 500L.Prices for the 2014 500L four-door hatchback start at $19,100 (in the US). All models come with a 160hp turbocharged 1.4-litre four-cylinder engine. The base model has a six-speed manual transmission.For an automatic transmission, you have to move a couple of rungs up the price ladder to the Easy trim package. It goes for $20,195 with the manual and $21,545 with Fiat’s six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. Dual-clutch transmissions are mechanically similar to manuals, but the driver doesn’t have to shift gears and there’s no clutch pedal.Dual-clutch transmissions, or DCTs, are popular in Europe. They’re fuel-efficient and cost less than the automatic transmissions most people are used to. Several automakers, including Audi, Ford and Volkswagen, sell dual-clutches in the US. Some customers here have complained DCTs don’t feel like the transmissions they’re used to. I found the 500L’s DCT pleasant and accommodating to enthusiastic driving.I tested a very well-equipped 500L Lounge, the top model. It had the DCT, Beats audio, leather seats, Bluetooth phone and audio compatibility, a navigation system, touch screen, good voice recognition and more.It stickered at $24,695. The 500L competes with offbeat and space-efficient models like the Audi A3, Buick Encore, Kia Soul, Mini Cooper Countryman, Nissan Juke and Volkswagen Golf. The 500L’s price and features compare very favourably to them.The 500L is a small car — a full foot shorter than a Honda Civic sedan — but has a very spacious interior. The passenger compartment offers plenty of leg and shoulder space and stratospheric headroom. The hatchback provides plenty of luggage space, a cargo cover and an adjustable floor that allows you to create two-level storage with a compartment for laptops and other small items.It’s an exceptionally comfortable and practical car. There are some ergonomic issues, though. The cargo cover is difficult to remove. There’s no good place to put phones and music players. An auxiliary glove box would be easier to use if it were hinged at the top or had a gas strut to open the door.The 500L’s name and looks recall the smaller two-door 500, but it’s completely different mechanically. It uses a different architecture and comes from a different plant. The 500L’s platform will underpin a variety of subcompacts from various Chrysler-Fiat brands.The 500 coupe is 27.7 inches shorter than the 500L. Its room and practicality should appeal to a very different group of buyers.The 1.4-litre turbocharged engine is the same capable power plant that powers the 500, certain versions of the Dodge Dart and a variety of Fiat and Alfa Romeo models in Europe. It produces plenty of power, including 184 pound-feet of torque at just 2,500 rpm.Unfortunately, the engine needs premium gas to generate full power or attain its EPA window-sticker fuel economy rating of 24 mpg in the city and 33 on the highway. Regular petrol won’t hurt the engine, but does reduce performance and mileage.The 2014 Fiat 500L isn’t perfect, but if you can walk up to this grinning Disney character of a car without smiling, you’re having a lousy day. Add enjoyable performance and good value, and the new Fiat is a welcome newcomer. — Detroit Free Press/MCT* Price and technical specifications may vary in locally available models.

By Dan Nakaso Liz Azevedo, who’s 23 and single, has been using a new flirting/dating application called Twine to electronically connect with men here even though she does not know their names and has no idea what they look like.Twine, which launched July 31, wants its users to form substantive connections based on common interests, instead of relying on appearances like most of the other dating apps on the market.“At first I was a little turned off by it,” Azevedo said. “But after using the app, I like the fact that you’re actually getting to know people. With Twine you’re having real conversations and forming relationships before you even see them.”In a digital dating world filled with an estimated 200 to 300 dating apps, San Francisco-based Twine stands out by initially hiding members’ identities and appearances, according to Mark Brooks, an Internet-dating industry analyst and consultant who has worked with Plentyoffish, DatingFactory, MeetMe, FriendFinder and Friendster.Twine has members from San Francisco to Houston to Miami to New York and as far away as Singapore, Mumbai and London. It vows to keep an even ratio of men to women in each city, which solves a criticism of digital dating that women get “inundated by guys and guys are often ignored,” Brooks said. “Twine seems to have hit on two major elements: The privacy issue, which is very important for women concerned about safety, and the ignoring/inundation element.”The dating app industry didn’t even exist before 2009, but today is exploding, according to two recent studies by IBISWorld.While companies such as Twine closely guard the number of their members, some of the more popular apps today include Badoo, Tinder, OkCupid, Plentyoffish and Grindr, said Marc Lesnick, who organises the annual iDate conference of digital dating companies in Las Vegas, along with a couple of smaller iDate conferences around the world.In 2011, for the first time, men and women spent more time on dating apps than on dating websites, according to IBISWorld. This year, the combination of growing niche markets — especially for aging baby boomers looking for dates — and increased interest in mobile dating apps is expected to generate “a robust” additional 4.1 percent in revenue for the online dating industry. This year apps are expected to represent up to 12 percent of the online dating industry’s $2 billion in revenue, according to IBISWorld.IBISWorld projects growth of just under 5 percent each year through 2018 for dating apps. But the online dating industry considers them “a temporary stop-gap,” Lesnick said. “This app world we live in now is not going to be around forever.”Users continue to complain about the limited features available on their smaller smartphone screens, along with advertisers who don’t like the size of their ads, Lesnick said.Several of the most popular apps are also based on the “freemium” business model of allowing users free, limited use then charging them for “premium” features, such as the ability to send virtual flowers.“The braggarts will tell you that they’re converting 10 percent of their users into paid customers,” Lesnick said. “They’re completely lying. There’s no way that 10 percent of the consumers on a free dating site actually pay for premium services. Most are seeing between 1 and 3 percent. Some might be seeing between 3 and 5 percent.”San Francisco-based Sourcebits, an international technology development company, received $10 million from Sequoia and IDG to develop products that include Twine.Twine is free to download for Android and iOS users and bucks the popular practice of hosting ads to generate revenue, and also foregoes membership fees charged by some other apps, according to its designers.Etan Berkowitz, who co-founded Twine with CEO Rohit Singal, vowed that Twine “will always be advertising-free.”Asked how he expects to make money from Twine, Berkowitz said, “As they say in the tech world, we’ll figure that out later. Perhaps we’d monetise, but it’s not on the table now.”Azevedo describes herself as “super-outdoorsy” and connected with an avid rock climber. She also discovered a music connection with a man who, like Azevedo, attended San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival.“I like that they pair you with three people per day,” she said. “It’s more quality over quantity and it’s not overwhelming.”But the most unusual aspect about Twine is the restriction it places on members’ ability to see one another, or even know each others’ names.Through Twine, Azevedo was introduced virtually to one man, in particular, who has her attention. Someday, maybe soon, they might even decide to reveal each other’s identities and pictures, which has Azevedo worried.“I think that will be interesting,” she said. “Obviously, appearance matters, so I’m nervous about seeing the person and not being attracted to them. At some point there does have to be a physical attraction. It’s exciting and scary at the same time.” — San Jose Mercury News/MCT MOBILE DATING From 2009 to 2012, revenue from mobile dating applications grew at an average annual rate of 70.3 percent.The US market for mobile dating apps generates an estimated $212.6 million in revenue.Between 2012 and 2017, revenue from mobile dating apps is expected to rise at an annual rate of 14.3 percent to $415.3 million.In 2010, men and women spent 3.7 minutes on dating apps compared to 8.4 minutes on dating websites.In 2011, they spent 8.4 minutes on dating apps compared to 8.3 minutes on dating websites.Between 2010 and 2011, the number of unique users for all smartphone apps grew 125 percent. During the same period, the number of unique visitors for dating apps grew 150 percent.Source: IBISWorld

Nancy Huen, left, the in-vitro fertilisation lab supervisor, and embryologist Salu Ribeiro check storage records at the Reproductive Science Center in San Ramon, California.By Lisa M KriegerBaby Liam Burke is just learning to crawl. But he was conceived when Bill Clinton was president, the World Trade Center stood tall and home computers had the newfound ability to dial into something called the World Wide Web.Suspended 19 years in deep freeze, Liam is the beloved new son of Kelly Burke — and one of the oldest embryos ever thawed and restored to life. “He is the most awesome baby there is,” said Burke, 45. “He is a happy, healthy baby, a little bundle of joy, smart and interactive.”What’s more intriguing, Liam is adopted. An Oregon couple who had twins two decades ago through San Ramon’s Fertility Sciences Center kept his embryo frozen for years, keeping open the option of expanding their own family. Ultimately, they decided to donate the embryo to Burke for her own pregnancy — a profound example of technology’s extension of life.Like Liam, about 10,000 embryos a year are thawed and join families, thanks to advances in the field of cryopreservation. Others linger, sometimes for a decade or more, raising medical and ethical dilemmas never imaginable a generation ago.Infertile couples create embryos using in-vitro fertilisation, which joins eggs and sperm in a petri dish. They typically create as many as possible to maximise their chances for parenting — but if the first attempt results in a baby, other embryos are left over.In 1985, there were 285 frozen embryos in the entire US. Now an estimated 400,000 to 600,000 human embryos live as souls on ice, carefully held in liquid nitrogen tanks.Of these, about half will eventually be implanted into their mothers, according to ReproTech, a company that specialises in long-term storage of embryos for $400 a year in its facilities in Nevada, Minnesota, Texas and Florida.Most of the rest are discarded or donated to research.A lucky few — 1.5% — are, like Liam, gifted to women like Burke.The research scientist at Nasa in Hampton, Virginia, has five university degrees — two bachelors, two masters and a doctorate. Education deferred her dream of motherhood, then her own attempts at in-vitro fertilisation ended in two heartbreaking miscarriages. But she’s a big believer in the power of science to solve problems, and she held out hope. “Technology is my world,” she said.Locating Liam proved much harder. For emotional reasons, doctors say, few couples are willing to surrender their embryos. Burke was pursuing adoption when her attorney discovered the Oregon couple — with college-age twins — finally had decided not to use their saved embryos. The couple are not named to protect their confidentiality. “They decided they wanted to give those embryos a chance at life,” Burke said.She began an application process, assembling a portfolio — describing herself and her struggle to create a family — that she hoped would make her stand out among the many applicants. Then, over the next four months, by e-mail and phone, she answered tough questions about politics, spirituality and her views on education. They agreed to an open adoption, which means Liam will get to know the couple who gave him life and his siblings. Last year, Burke flew from Virginia to San Ramon for the procedure.It ended in joy: Liam, born last November in a natural birth, weighed a robust 8lbs, 5oz. “I was so grateful,” she said. “One of the reasons I’ve gone public is to give people hope. I hope to help people consider the option of donation.”Freezing embryos has gained popularity because of its many advantages, said Seattle Reproductive Medicine lab director David Ball, a spokesman for the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.Rather than subjecting women to surgery each time they need to get an egg, doctors now retrieve a dozen or more eggs at once. They can be implanted in the womb one or two at a time — or saved indefinitely. The San Ramon centre has one embryo it estimates is 27 years old.What transformed the practice is a flash-freezing innovation called vitrification, which cools the embryos so quickly that their water molecules don’t have time to form ice crystals, which could slice delicate cells like a knife, said Burke’s physician, Dr Deborah Wachs, a reproductive endocrinologist.Scientists also have discovered the optimal age for freezing: five days after fertilisation, when the embryo has grown to 150 to 200 cells.The embryos are transferred into thin straws that are suspended in liquid nitrogen freezers and preserved at minus 196 degrees Fahrenheit, Wachs said. At this temperature, growth literally freezes to a halt.“It’s not generating, it’s not degrading, it is suspended in time,” Wachs said. When thawed, “it becomes big and plump.”Scientists can also cull the weak from the strong, selecting those embryos whose cells are most tightly packed — boosting the odds that it will survive the long nine months to birth.Extensive paperwork is completed before the fertilisation, to answer tough questions: If a couple divorces, should the embryos be divided up, like silverware? What if a couple die, move away or declare bankruptcy?Embryo abandonment is a problem every clinic faces. As long as the freezer bill is paid, the embryo is safe — for years, decades, maybe generations. That growing longevity on ice raises an ethical issue. “Imagine in a thousand years someone doing IVF with a long-frozen embryo just to see what a 21st century — or, in this case, 20th century — human being was like,” said Hank Greely, director of Stanford University’s Center for Law and the Biosciences. “Just keeping them frozen — kicking the can down the road a little farther — seems wrong to me. Use them, destroy them, donate them for research, or donate them for adoption. But make a decision. If you keep putting it off by keeping the embryos in liquid nitrogen limbo, who knows how they may eventually be used?”Someday, Liam will be told about his fortunate journey, “when he’s old enough to understand,” Burke said.He’ll meet his siblings, 19 years his senior. And perhaps one day he’ll meet a younger sibling or two. Two of the couple’s leftover embryos remain frozen in San Ramon, preserved for an unknown future. — San Jose Mercury News/MCT

 Technology can also be more consistent in its instruction and less emotional than a human.By Katie HumphreyIt used to be that Mom harped “Sit up straight!” when you slouched. Now there’s a smartphone app with a belt that gives you a buzz if your posture slips.Other apps send reminders — by e-mail, text message or pop-up, on-screen alerts — to take medications, go for a run, get an oil change or clean out the refrigerator.As technology aims to help us solve all sorts of mundane problems, smartphones have morphed into digital nags. Repeated “suggestions” from a spouse can grate on the nerves, but users say it’s easier — and less abrasive — to let a device issue the orders.“I’ve set up an alert for my husband for garbage day,” said Sara Swenson, of Cannon Falls, Minnesota, who uses the app Cozi to help keep her family on track. “It’s about trying to get away from the nagging and make it be more of an electronic reminder that it’s garbage day every Tuesday.”Such digital reminders are catching on. Evernote, an organisation app that claims more than 50mn users worldwide, added pop-up reminders in May, saying they were one of the most requested features.Yet it’s unclear whether digital nagging is any more effective than the face-to-face kind. While devices may help us remember the little things, and be less likely to prompt eye rolls, the electronic alerts themselves can become overwhelming.Greg Osterdyk gets five to 10 alerts on his smartphone each day, some from his calendar app, others from a task management app called Remember the Milk.As mayor of Carver, Minnesota, and a business owner, he’s got a lot to remember. “It’s what enables me to handle more projects,” he said. “I can’t keep track of them in my head on my own.”He enters to-dos into the apps, and when the tasks are due, he gets an alert. “I had one today that was telling me there was an advertisement due to the newspaper,” he said recently. “A couple others were calls I need to make, people I need to contact.”For such real-time reminders, a little digital nagging is probably helpful, said Dr Sheila Jowsey, a psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic. She’s a particular fan of alerts sent by some airline apps that note updated flight information and gate changes.But it is unclear whether nudges from a smartphone alone can alter more important behaviours, such as establishing a fitness routine or quitting smoking, she said.“If you are significantly ambivalent and not quite ready to make that change, after a few reminders you’ll deactivate it,” Jowsey said. “It has to be something where you’ve come to the point in your own mind where you say, ‘Ok, I’m ready for this.’”Then there’s the annoyance factor.Being constantly interrupted, even by reminders that you programmed, can derail productivity, said Audrey Thomas, owner of Organized Audrey. “If I’m focusing on something else and my phone is going off, then I lose focus on what I was working on,” she said.She recommends using technology for communication and organisation, but turning off the alerts, especially for incoming e-mails, which she likens to needy toddlers. “Toddlers come up to you and pull on your pant leg and they never stop until you give them your full attention,” she said. “Put the nagging toddler in the playpen.”Fans of digital alerts say that ability to turn them off is a key difference from human nagging.“The nice thing about these reminders is that we, as individuals, can control them,” said Mark Henderson, division chair for information technology at Mayo, who has been involved in developing its mobile app for patients, which includes a reminder features for upcoming appointments.Technology can also be more consistent in its instruction and less emotional than a human.Everybody has dealt with (and dished out) unrequested reminders, especially with family members. Researchers have found that repeated nagging can cause stress among couples, and even contribute to divorce.“The digital delivery of something just cuts through all those innuendos, hidden meanings that sometimes are included in the spoken word but not in the pop-up text message that you get,” Henderson said.People interested in getting fit are often drawn to apps because the digital nudges offer accountability without any shame or blame, said Shannon Fable, director of exercise programming for Anytime Fitness. The Hastings, a chain of fitness centres offers apps and online tools for tracking workouts, including a feature that lets you schedule specific workouts in advance, and then send an e-mail reminder that day.Other fitness apps, like MapMyRun, will send an alert if it’s been awhile since the last jog. There are even wearable fitness gadgets like FitBit Flex and Jawbone Up that will buzz to remind people to get up and move at set intervals.“Where a device is better than a person, it can be anonymous,” Fable said. “It’s not judging me. It might nag me, but I can turn it off if I hate it.”Indeed, Monisha Perkash, CEO and co-founder of posture app LumoBack, said some people turn to the buzzing belt and related app because the verbal reminders in their lives are getting to be too much.“There are a lot of customers we have who do want their mothers or wives to stop nagging them,” Perkash said. “This is a more gentle way.” — Star Tribune/MCTApple unveils iPhone 5S, 5CBy Dan Nakaso  & Troy WolvertonConfirming weeks of rumours, Apple Inc executives unveiled a new, gold-coloured iPhone 5S and a cheaper iPhone 5C designed to appeal to overseas markets.The iPhone 5C borrows a page from Apple’s iPods and will come in multiple colours. Prices start at $99 for a 16GB model and $199 for a 32GB model — both with two-year contracts in the US. The 5C features a case made of plastic, which Apple’s design guru, Jony Ive, described as “beautifully, unapologetically polycarbonate.”Apple marketing head Phil Schiller called the 5C’s higher-end brother, the iPhone 5S, the “most forward-thinking phone ever” that’s been designed to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications and will include an upgraded camera and a new fingerprint sensor to provide convenient security.Several analysts embraced Apple’s upgraded 5S. “You can’t underestimate how important security has become for consumers,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies. “The camera clearly delivers a new set of features, larger pixels, a wide space for images and all these filters. It’s just absolutely stunning. It’ll make the iPhone 5S one of the best smartphone cameras available.”Investors and advertisers also may be impressed by the new phone’s 64-bit upgrade, which Bajarin called the “kind of new processing power that will allow software developers to create even more interesting and powerful applications, not just games. It’ll provide a more intense experience and increase the speed of video and the quality.”The iPhone 5S will cost $199 for a 16GB model, $299 for a 32GB version and $399 for a 64GB model — all for two-year contracts. An “unlocked and contract-free” version carried by T-Mobile will be available for $549 for the 16GB version and $649 for a 32GB model. The iPhone 5S will come in silver, gold and “space grey”.Pre-orders for the iPhone 5C will begin today, and the phones will be available for sale later this month. Apple also will keep its 8GB iPhone 4S, which will be available for free on a two-year contract.“There were no surprises at all,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst at technology research firm IDC. “Some people are going to be disappointed.”The iPhone 5C is not a “cheap” version of the iPhone, noted Avi Greengart, an analyst with market research firm Current Analysis. “It’s an iPhone 5, just made out of different material,” Greengart said.Apple’s announcements came as the company arguably needs another hit product. As a company, Apple’s sales growth has slowed to a crawl and its profits have slumped. Meanwhile, its stock price, despite recovering recently, is still down more than 30% from the highs it set last year.While Apple’s iPhone sales have held up better than its tablet and computer sales, they still have been hit by the slowdown in the company’s business. And thanks to that slowing growth, Apple’s market share in smartphones has slumped. In the second quarter, Apple held about 14% of the worldwide smartphone market, compared with about 19% a year earlier, according to Gartner.One of the attention-grabbing aspects of the iPhone 5S is its new level of security aimed at preventing anyone else from accessing the phone. Apple’s fingerprint recognition “Touch ID” sensor, built into the phone’s home button, is designed to scan through the sub-epidermal layer of skin.Fingerprint information will be encrypted and stored inside the A7 chip and will not be backed up to the iCloud or to Apple’s servers, according to an Apple video.The Touch ID technology also can be used to make purchases at any of Apple’s iPhone stores — to buy books, music, movies and apps — without entering a password.Forrester analyst Frank Gillett called the new fingerprint security system “jaw-droppingly easy” and “the first painless biometric I’ve seen.”Tony Cripps, principal device analyst at Ovum, said, “Apple is certainly offering meaningful innovation here. Moving to a 64-bit architecture means Apple can genuinely claim to have brought something new to the smartphone party. It should certainly help the company further cement its lead as a mobile gaming platform and will give the Android fraternity something to think about in a space whose significance is sometimes downplayed beyond the gaming world.”Apple executives began their presentation by announcing that the iOS 7 operating system will be available for download next Wednesday for iPhone 4 models and above and for iPad 2 models and above. — San Jose Mercury News/MCT

By Theodore SchleiferAt 1:01pm on March 13, 2008, David Thomsen gained either a passion or a problem. He isn’t sure which.That day, Thomsen made a single Wikipedia edit on the page for the expression “Holy cow,” then walked away from editing for two months.Fast-forward five years, and on March 13, Thomsen spent the day editing discussion pages on the soccer players, pairs skaters and other celebrities of Estonia while occasionally turning his attention to the neglected Wikipedia pages for some antebellum Maryland congressional elections and a Korean pop song.It was about four hours, and 90 edits, worth of digging in the Wikipedia weeds.Nowadays, that is a light load.Five years after Thomsen made his first edit, 100,000 had flowed from his fingertips. A word is misspelled. A discussion page isn’t categorised. A link is broken.He’s on it.Thomsen, 74, a retired computer programmer from Fairmount, is a king of the Philadelphia Wikipedia world. With more than 120,000 edits and an eagerness to dive deep into the details of the digital encyclopedia, Thomsen spends about 10 hours each weekday behind the scenes to make the site better.“You get caught up in this whole concept that this thing is not as well-organised as it should be, and I’m going to do better,” he said.Thomsen’s edits, which put him in the top 200 of Wikipedians, escape the spotlight reserved for prolific article creators, but are crucial for the success of the site, observers said.“The gnomes are like the cleaners that come in at night and clean the office at the business,” said Mary Mark Ockerbloom, who worked for the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia on a special Wikipedia project. “You don’t necessarily see them, but, boy, if they weren’t there, it’d be a different place.”Thomsen agrees. But since he suffered a stroke in January, he has begun to question whether his legacy could be more than that of a Wikignome.“There’s no point in doing more of those,” he said, adding that he had been thinking of focusing on writing entries.Many of Thomsen’s early edits focused on his alma mater, Lafayette College. After graduating and serving two years in the Army in West Germany, Thomsen spent 26 years working in Philadelphia for Sunoco. He was also at various times a Republican ward chairman and president of his local civic association.Retiring has given Thomsen, who was married 10 years ago and has no children, plenty of time to apply his computer skills to Wikipedia’s 4.3 million articles.He knows he can’t mine the minutiae of Wikipedia all by himself, though. Anyone, regardless of whether he or she creates an account, can edit nearly all entries.“I’m like a kind of missionary, kind of getting people to get involved,” he said.Thomsen even uses his attire to call for help. When he’s outside the house and not at his computer, he usually wears one of the 15 blue-and-tan “Wikipedia Editor” caps he had made in South Philadelphia.People who express interest in the cap are potential co-editors, he said, though few join him in the cause.“You mean you’re using it just like the old set of World Book Encyclopedias, and what are you paying?” he asks them.When he ran out of the caps, he bought 15 more. Those went to Philadelphia Wikipedians who attended a picnic — or a Wicnic — he helped organise.Jake Orlowitz, who helped with the Philadelphia picnic, said although he did not know Thomsen’s particular habits, many Wikignomes simply cannot stop making edits.“For people for whom Wikipedia consumes that kind of time, it is an absolutely addictive combination of a puzzle and a passion and a hobby, and, literally, in some cases, an addiction,” Orlowitz said.A 2012 Wikipedia study of heavy editors found many of their edits were made due to a sense of compulsion, though more edits were motivated by self-fulfillment.With a tendency to ramble about the same historical trivia that finds its way into his entries, Thomsen several times avoided directly answering the fundamental question behind his compulsive editing:Why?He says he does not think he’s addicted. Frequently, using a computer program to accelerate editing and taking breaks during days that can involve up to 15 hours of edits, he says he finds the technical gnomish activities just plain fun.Editing entries takes him across Philadelphia — to add photographs of every Carnegie library in the city with a fellow Wikipedian — and across the world — to a young woman in Guyana to collaborate on a series about Guyanan bridges.Thomsen also buys into the Wikipedia credo that information should be free. He’s not just a Wikignome; he’s a public servant, he said.As part of the Article Rescue Squadron, Thomsen rehabilitates weak articles that have a kernel of value.“You got to worry about deletionists,” he warned.Jonathan Lansey, 27, who met Thomsen at Wikimania, the site’s annual conference, is a fan of Thomsen’s work.“He’s basically a knight in shining armor saving these poor, helpless articles that are notable but don’t have sources,” Lansey said.After the July 2012 conference, Lansey was so impressed he dedicated a blog post to “Wikipedia celebrity Dthomsen8.” That’s Thomsen’s Wikipedia “username.”Six months later, the celebrity hit a roadblock that few of the 20-somethings he edits with would understand: health problems.A January stroke has jolted Thomsen’s gnomish tendencies. Now that he’s topped 100,000 edits, he says, what is to gain with a couple thousand more?He wants the time to craft a legacy — a real, tangible legacy — and that may mean leaving Wikipedia fixing behind.“Wikipedia is already a legacy which I feel I am already close to the top,” he said. “I have other goals in life.”His wife is pushing him to spend time on other things, he said.“Men don’t like to hear things from their wives sometimes, and they hurt more when they’re exactly true than when they’re over the wall,” he said.With the time he does spend on Wikipedia, he wants to focus more on article creation rather than minor edits. His hope is eventually to be on the list of the top 100 article creators.He might not have the discipline to do it, he said, but that would be a real legacy.Last week, the page for the vanquished logging town of Cross Fork, Pa., went live. He’s on his way. — The Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT

By Troy WolvertonAssuming the rumours are true, we already have a pretty good idea of what Apple Inc’s new iPhones will look like and what their key features will be. But I’m still hoping for a few pleasant surprises.According to the rumours, Apple is slated to unveil two new iPhone models at its media event today: a flagship model dubbed the iPhone 5S and a less expensive model called the iPhone 5C.The iPhone 5C will be made of plastic and come in a variety of colours. The iPhone 5S, meanwhile, will resemble last year’s iPhone 5, but will come in one additional colour — gold — and will include a fingerprint reader that owners will likely be able to use to secure their phone or make payments without needing to enter passwords. It will also likely have a faster processor and better camera than its predecessor.I’m eager to test both phones and, as an iPhone user, am excited about iOS 6, which will come installed on the new phones. I’m also interested to see how Apple uses the new fingerprint reader.But I’m also hoping against hope that Apple has made some more mundane improvements to its phones — or at least has upgrades on the schedule for next year. Here are some things I’d like to see:Better battery life: Apple promises 8 to 10 hours of talk time or Internet use on the iPhone 5, but I find it hard to believe that anyone really gets that much. My iPhone 5 rarely makes it through a day without needing a charge, and if I play a game or two or use its turn-by-turn navigation feature, it typically needs to be recharged much sooner than that.Theoretically, I could get better battery life by more actively managing my phone, such as turning off the Bluetooth radio when I’m not using it or shutting off its push-mail feature. But much of the appeal of the iPhone is that it’s supposed to make such things simple, and I don’t want to have to figure out what will extend my battery life. Apple ought to do that for me — or offer a device whose battery truly can endure an entire day of use.Apple’s rivals have already figured this out. Motorola’s new Moto X, for example, promises up to 24 hours of use.Simultaneous talking and surfing. IPhone users on Sprint or Verizon (in the US) still can’t surf the Web while talking on the phone over those carriers’ networks.The reason is technical. Those companies’ older networks didn’t support simultaneous talking and surfing. While their newer networks do support the feature, they currently require phones to have two cellular radios — one to handle the voice call and another to handle data — to be able to accomplish it. That’s something the iPhone 5 lacks.Eventually Verizon and Sprint’s networks are supposed to support simultaneous talking and surfing without requiring two antennas by transmitting voice calls over the data network. But that could be a year or two away. It would be great if the iPhone could support the feature right now, like its rivals do.Bigger screen. This is something that almost certainly won’t be a feature of either of the new iPhones. I’m hoping, though, that Apple will include it in the iPhone 6.True, the iPhone 5 had a bigger screen than its predecessors, but it’s still much smaller than those of its rivals. That means it can’t display as much information and graphics, and text can be smaller and harder to see.Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of jumbo phones; I generally agree with Apple that it’s important to have a phone that’s easy to use with one hand. Samsung’s Galaxy Note, with it whopping 5.5-inch screen, fails that test. But many of the larger-screen phones are about as thin as the iPhone and only slightly wider, making them much easier to handle than the Galaxy Note.And phones with larger screen typically have an added bonus: room to fit a bigger and longer-lasting battery.More storage space, less cost. I asked for this last year. Here’s hoping Apple finally listens.Apple has offered the past four iPhones in at least two basic models: a 16-GB version for $200 and a 32-GB version for $300, both with a two-year wireless service contract. With the two most recent iPhones, Apple also offered a 64-GB version for $400 with a contract.But people are doing more things — and needing to store more stuff — on their devices these days. Users are downloading more applications, and those apps have grown larger, in part because they need to offer data-hogging high-resolution graphics to look good on the iPhone’s screen. Also, the device’s ever higher-resolution cameras take pictures and videos that consume ever more space.In short, users need more space. And they shouldn’t have to pay as much for it. Flash memory prices have plunged. You can get a 16GB memory card for a camera for less than $10 and a 32GB one for less than $20. So Apple could easily afford to offer more memory in the iPhone for lower prices. I’d love to see Apple start its line off with a 32GB model for $200. — San Jose Mercury News/MCT In a nutshell New iPhone colours and a fingerprint reader will likely get the headlines, but I’m hoping for some more modest changes. Among them:Extended life. The current iPhone’s battery just doesn’t last long enough.Talk and surf. You still can’t do those two things if you’re using the iPhone on Sprint or Verizon.Bigger screen. Even though it’s bigger than before, the iPhone’s display is still too small.More storage space for less money. The iPhone needs more space for pictures, videos and applications — at a reasonable price.Get set for Galaxy Gear By Salvador RodriguezSamsung has kicked off the smartwatch race by unveiling the Galaxy Gear.The South Korean tech giant introduced the device last week in Berlin. Users wear the Galaxy Gear on their wrists like any other watch, but this watch is capable of making voice calls, running apps, taking photos, displaying alerts and more.Here are 10 things you need to know about the Galaxy Gear:It connects with Samsung devices.Samsung said the Galaxy Gear connects with the Galaxy Note III and 2014 edition of the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, both of which will come out in the next few weeks. The Galaxy S4 will also soon receive an update to be compatible with the Galaxy Gear, and in the future, other Samsung devices will too.The Galaxy Gear connects to those devices using Bluetooth in order to perform its numerous functions.It has a small touchscreen.The Galaxy Gear uses a small 1.63-inch touchscreen. The display has a 320 by 320 pixel resolution.It will show you notifications.Whenever you receive a new message, e-mail or alert on your smartphone, the Galaxy Gear will display a notification. If you want to see the full message, simply pick up the Samsung device that the Galaxy Gear is connected to and that smartphone or tablet will automatically open to the message.It can make calls.The Galaxy Gear will also alert you when you have an incoming call. But you don’t have to pull out your phone to pick up; the smartwatch has a speaker and microphone on its wristband that you can use to talk.It responds to voice commands.You can use that microphone to also give the Galaxy Gear instructions. The device runs S Voice, which is Samsung’s version of Siri, so you can give voice commands such as “Is it going to rain today?” or “Set a reminder” and the Galaxy Gear will respond appropriately.It can also take pictures.Besides a microphone and speaker, the Galaxy Gear’s wristband also has a small 1.9MP camera attached. The camera can be used to quickly take pictures or shoot video.It runs apps.Like a smartphone, the Galaxy Gear is also capable of running apps. For now, there are only a handful of apps specifically designed for Samsung’s smartwatch — they include the Path social network and read-it-later app Pocket — but the company said more will come soon.Its battery lasts a full day.You won’t have to worry about charging the Galaxy Gear often — Samsung said the smartwatch can last 25 hours on just one full charge.It comes in six colours.Trying to appeal to all kinds of consumers, Samsung will release the Galaxy Gear in black, grey, orange, beige, rose gold and green colours.It won’t come out until October, and there’s no price for it yet.Although 149 countries will get the Galaxy Gear this month, US customers will have to wait until October. Samsung also did not disclose a price for their new product. — Los Angeles Times/MCTAsk the geekPutting video in the cloud can take hoursI’m part of an educational group that teaches real estate professionals. To become a certified real estate instructor in our group, candidates must submit a 50-minute video of themselves teaching a class. But I can’t find a way for them to upload such a long video, because the video files are too large for services such as YouTube. Is there a way to buy some cloud computing service where candidates could drag and drop their video files?There is a way. But it might not be practical.What you’re looking for is called a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) service, which can upload and store big files in a remote data centre. Despite its mysterious name, “the cloud” is just made up of remote data centres.Companies that offer FTP service include OpenDrive, Dropbox and SkyDrive. For comparisons of several FTP services, and tips on what to look for, see http://tinyurl.com/kzd26gt.But here’s the problem. It takes a long time to upload a 50-minute video, even with today’s Internet speeds.A 50-minute video shot at 1080p high-definition contains about 4GB (billion bytes) of data. If you have a fast home data connection — say, Comcast service with 25 megabit (million bits per second) downloads and 5 megabit uploads — it will take about two hours to upload a 4GB data file. For a person with a much slower Internet upload speed, say 1.5 megabits, the upload time will be between six and seven hours.It might be a better idea to have your students burn their 50-minute videos to DVDs and send them to you via US mail.The most common DVD format is the single-sided, single-layer DVD that holds 4.7GB of data, just right for the 50-minute videos you want submitted.Are there any downloads available (either free or for a nominal fee) for creating return address labels? I’m using OpenOffice, which does have an application for making labels, but the software makes it difficult to add clip art to the labels. (It places the clip art either above or below the address, not to the left of the address where I want it.)Here are a few label-making programmes I found at CNET’s Download.com, a database of software that has been scanned to make sure it contains no malicious code. All offer free trial periods.Label Maker Pro ($60) at http://tinyurl.com/nypa37jEasy Mail ($35) at http://tinyurl.com/kfxmlesLabel Designer Plus Deluxe ($40) at http://tinyurl.com/lrqaze4Small Business Publisher ($55) at http://tinyurl.com/jwt9evzPrint Designer Gold ($60) at http://tinyurl.com/mpf752c — By Steve Alexander, Star Tribune/MCT

Tank collector Paul Benzin in the driver’s hatch of a BMP OT-90 tank formerly used by the Czech Armed Forces. He owns four tanks and keeps them in a shed near Templin, Germany.By Ana Mia NeumannMillions of people in Germany collect something or other, be it postage stamps, beer-mats or the cute plastic figures that pop out of Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs. These all fit easily into a living-room display cabinet.But not the heavyweight items treasured by Paul Benzin. He collects army tanks which can weigh up to 43 tonnes apiece. They squat in a garage on his land in the Brandenburg village of Storkow near Templin. “Every time I come home I go into the garage and stroke one of them,” said the 53-year-old in his dark red dungarees.Benzin, a sun-tanned scrap dealer, has four tanks to call his own — three Russian ones and an American vehicle. A number of four-wheel-drive, jeep-like vehicles dating from the 1940s to the ’80s also form part of the collection, most of them obtained in swaps with like-minded enthusiasts.“A lot of energy goes into all this,” said Benzin.Back in the days when former East Germany was a state in its own right, Benzin served with the communist country’s National People’s Army (NVA).“For 18 months I did virtually nothing else but repair tanks,” he said. When the Wall that divided the two Germanies finally came down, Benzin came across his first tank in a local forest. It had been abandoned by the Soviets and was in a poor state of repair.  “That was when things took off.”Benzin simply adopted the elderly fighting machine — a T34 tank — and no one stopped him from winching it onto a low-loader with a pal and taking it first of all, to a scrap-metal yard. These days the fearsome Soviet medium-sized tank with its metal tracks and dummy rocket launchers is parked in his garage. On the door hangs a sign “Restricted military area” and next to it are bales of hay.Around the corner is a row of stables. Benzin earns his money by running a pony riding school in Storkow and a scrapyard in Templin.Collecting or gathering is one of man’s basic instincts, according to an expert who should know, Wolfgang Peschel who works for the German Philatelist’s Federation.“Collecting ensures our survival and it continues to fascinate many people today,” said Peschel. “It is like a virus that takes hold of your head.” Collectors always want to know more, to expand their collection and yet are still reliant on chance.“They are a bit like athletes notching up records”.Benzin spends a lot of his spare time tinkering with his tanks. He repairs them, bends dented panels back into shape and gives them a coat of fresh paint. In the corner of his sizeable property he has heaped up sand to make a miniature proving ground.“This is my tank course,” he said proudly. The local authority allows him to use the land to put his tanks through their paces.Tanks are not allowed to trundle along public roads in Germany unless there is a national emergency or for military reasons. Exceptions require specific permission from transport authorities.Benzin enjoys firing up one of his treasures for a weekend spin around his home-grown range, walloping through huge puddles and storming hills in a cloud of dust.“On Father’s Day we were out with some friends and acquaintances and then again to mark a pal’s 60th birthday.”In Germany collecting tanks is not as unusual as might be thought. “Around a 1,000 of them are in private hands,” said Benzin. Fans meet up regularly to help each other or exchange tips.Most deals are conducted as swaps or trade-ins — tanks are seldom sold on the open market.Benzin is currently embroiled in negotiations with an Austrian to exchange his US tank for an elderly ex-Soviet machine.  “My idea is to have a collection solely from the east,” said Benzin, his cheeks glowing as he warms to the subject. “You know tanks are just the thing for me — they give me a feeling of freedom.” — DPA