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Bangladesh must score 226 to beat England and prevent them from automatically qualifying for the World Cup quarter-finals.
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The soldier was part of a group trying to disrupt insurgent activity in Helmand province A soldier from 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday was from Northern Ireland, the BBC has learnt.
The soldier was taking part in an operation in the Nad Ali area of Helmand province when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
An MoD spokesman said his next of kin had been informed.
The soldier’s death brings the total number of UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 359.
Lt Col David Eastman, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said the soldier had been part of a group working to disrupt insurgent activity when the blast happened.
“The soldier gave his life pursuing peace and stability for a people that had been dominated by insurgent subjugation, threats and intimidation,” he said.
“We vow to carry on his vital work in the face of such cowardly and indiscriminate attacks.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family at this deeply sad time.”
The 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment is based in Tern Hill, Shropshire.
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‘Explosion’ in short-term loans raises debt fears
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A powerful earthquake has struck off Japan, shaking buildings in Tokyo for several minutes and forcing people out of their homes.
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As Colonel Gaddafi’s forces intensify their onslaught against Libyan rebels, Deborah Haynes of the Times reports from Zawiya, 30 miles from Tripoli.
She describes walking through Zawiya’s main square which had, until Wednesday, been in rebel hands.
“An army of labourers loyal to the Libyan leader were clearing evidence of terrible violence,” she writes.
Bill Neely in the Guardian likens it to combining a huge IRA bomb with a tank battle and an artillery barrage.
The Sun says two of its men, reporter Oliver Harvey and photographer Dan Charity, came under attack from one of Col Gaddafi’s bombers.
The paper says they were just 100 metres away as a missile struck in Libya, but escaped the blast.
The Financial Times reports that France is talking to its allies about air strikes on Libyan airfields.
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s suggestion, however, gained little traction with some other EU leaders, the FT notes.
The Daily Express says “ministers are determined to crush a mass revolt” by trade unions over plans to cut public sector pensions.
Union chiefs warned that millions of workers will walk out in a series of co-ordinated strikes, says the Express.
The paper fears that such action could jeopardise economic recovery.
Daily Telegraph cartoonist Matt has a pensions adviser asking a concerned client: “Have you considered befriending a wealthy despot?”
Elsewhere, the Telegraph reports that BAA chief executive Colin Matthews has been awarded a £150,000 pay rise.
This, the paper says, is despite Mr Matthews apologising to MPs earlier this week for BAA’s failings in coping with the heavy snow before Christmas.
A group of 26 prominent historians has written to the Times to argue against a change to the Alternative Vote system.
This would destroy the notion of “one person, one vote”, on which modern democracy is built, they say.
However, the pro-AV president of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, replies that under the current system, for three-quarters of the electorate “their vote counts for nothing”.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Danny Shaw
Police officers were warned not to take “heavy-handed action” The Metropolitan Police believed it had a “cunning plan” to deal with last year’s tuition fee protests, according to a briefing document seen by the BBC.
The Scotland Yard paper said police needed to respond “quickly and effectively” to outbreaks of disorder.
Its unnamed author said: “To do this, we have developed a cunning plan: the essence of which is flexibility.”
But during the protests police could not stop a breakaway mob attacking a convoy carrying Prince Charles.
The paper which echoed the phrase used by the hapless Baldrick in the TV series Blackadder was called Students’ Action 8/9th December 2010 and written by an unidentified senior officer.
It detailed the police’s preparations and was circulated before the protests. It was obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act.
During the protests police were unable to stop a mob breaking away from the main demonstration in Westminster and attacking a convoy carrying Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall in the West End.
The incident was deeply embarrassing for the Met and prompted an internal investigation and an apology from the force’s Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson.
Under another section of the document, headed “negative photo opportunities”, police were advised not to draw attention to themselves when waiting around in police vans:
“Avoid hasty actions or taking the bait – this will require nerve, discretion and discipline”
Met police briefing document
“If drinking coffee or reading the paper when embussed (sic), please be discrete (sic).”
The briefing paper also said police vehicles, sometimes known as carriers, should be parked with the driver remaining inside or “out of harm’s way” – a reference to what had happened two weeks earlier when officers left a police van in Whitehall where it was smashed up, daubed with graffiti and looted.
“Ideally we want to be able to use our carriers again in the future,” the document said.
The first student demonstrations against tuition fees took place on 10 November 2010 when protesters stormed the office complex housing the headquarters of the Conservative Party.
Scotland Yard was criticised for the way it responded and admitted later that it had not been expecting violence.
Briefing documents drawn up beforehand confirmed this and showed that police officers would not initially have full protective clothing and equipment.
In a police “draft tactical plan”, Chief Superintendent Andy McKechnie writes: “There is no intelligence to suggest the need for public order kit at this stage.”
Further briefing notes suggest police believed there had been an increase in “militant activism” and that some students would try to “goad” officers into taking “heavy-handed action”.
“Avoid hasty actions or taking the bait,” the document said. “This will require nerve, discretion and discipline.”
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Mitochondria provide the energy cells need to function Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has asked the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to assess a controversial new fertility treatment.
The “three-parent IVF” technique pioneered at Newcastle University involves the transfer of human genetic material between two fertilised eggs.
It offers couples at risk of passing on serious inherited disorders a way to have a healthy child.
The move by the health secretary could lead to licensing of the technique.
Scientists at Newcastle University announced last year they had perfected a technique that could help couples affected by a group of potentially devastating conditions – known as mitochondrial diseases – to have healthy children.
Mitochondria are found in every cell in the human body and provide the energy cells need to function.
But because mitochondrial DNA is only passed down the female line, and is not present in the nucleus of a fertilised human egg, it is possible to extract the nucleus and transplant it into a second, donor egg.
The resulting embryo has the nuclear DNA of the mother and father, but the mitochondrial DNA of the donor.
The amount of genetic material contained in mitochondrial DNA is very small – just 13 protein-producing genes compared to the 23,000 genes inherited from parents.
But even this limited genetic relationship to a “third parent” has raised ethical concerns.
However, Mr Lansley has taken the first step towards licensing the technique by asking the fertility regulator to assess its safety and effectiveness.
A panel of experts will submit a report to the Department of Health by the middle of April.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Naoto Kan’s administration has been beset by problems Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has admitted that his political campaign fund received donations from a foreigner, in breach of Japanese law.
Mr Kan told a parliamentary committee that at the time he had been unaware that the donor was a South Korean citizen, resident in Japan.
He told cabinet colleagues he would not be resigning.
Japanese law bans political donations from foreigners to prevent politicians being influenced from abroad.
“I thought he was a Japanese national as he had a Japanese name,” Mr Kan told a parliamentary committee about the reported donations.
“I wasn’t aware at all that he is a foreign national as the report says.”
He promised to “return all the money if it is confirmed that he is a foreign national”.
Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan has been under pressure for weeks. The opposition is demanding a snap general election, some within his own party are calling for him to go.
The government’s chief spokesman said Mr Kan would not resign. The timing, though, is particularly unfortunate. The opposition is blocking bills to finance the budget with the new fiscal year just three weeks away.
Earlier this year ratings agencies downgraded Japan saying political uncertainty meant the country lacked a coherent strategy for tackling its massive public debt.
When asked if Mr Kan would resign, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference: “I have heard that the prime minister is absolutely not thinking about such a thing.”
Mr Kan was given support by his finance minister, Yoshihiko Noda, who said “as it wasn’t intentional, I don’t see any legal problems there”, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
Under Japanese law, knowingly receiving political donations from foreigners can lead to a five-year ban from public office, but if a lack of intention can be demonstrated, there may not be legal problems.
Mr Kan would become the fifth Japanese prime minister to leave his job after a year or less in office if he resigned.
His departure would also further delay the passage of bills necessary to implement the national budget and curb the deficit.
The resignation of Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara on Sunday – over donations he had received from a South Korean – has added to the impression of a government in disarray.
Mr Maehara had been seen as a potential successor to Mr Kan but had to step down after just six months in the job.
He had admitted taking a 50,000 yen ($610) political donation from a South Korean national resident in Japan.
At the time, Mr Kan told parliament that he intended to fulfil his duties until elections, which must be held by late 2013.
“Carrying out the administration’s duties for a four-year term and then letting the people decide at the ballot box is best for the people themselves,” Mr Kan told an earlier parliamentary session.
“I intend to firmly fulfil my duty until that time comes.”
The opposition, which controls the upper house, wants an early poll and is threatening to block budget bills.
Mr Kan has also been fighting an internal party battle with power-broker Ichiro Osawa.
Mr Ozawa, a founder member of the DPJ, was indicted on 31 January for alleged false reporting by his fund management company.
He is widely credited with overseeing the DPJ’s 2009 election victory, which ended half a century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Info
It’s the Magazine’s 7 days, 7 questions quiz – an opportunity to prove to yourself and others that you are a news oracle. Failing that, you can always claim to have had better things to do during the past week than swot up on current affairs.
1.) Multiple Choice Question
More than 40% of police officers should have their basic salary cut, a review said this week. Bobbies have a higher starting salary than both nurses and firefighters. A mere £19 divides their initial wage, but who gets the most?
FirefighterNurse
2.) Multiple Choice Question
The United Nations expressed alarm at the huge decline of what this week?
Blackbirds
Bluebells
Bees
3.) Multiple Choice Question
After speculation this week that she is to design Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, Sarah Burton showed her latest collection for the Alexander McQueen label at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. It was inspired by someone regal, but whom?
An ice queenA Russian princessA mistress of Henry VIII
4.) Multiple Choice Question
“Then I saw that horrific moment.” Who said?
Anti-smoking campaigner on seeing Kate Moss light up on a Paris catwalk on No Smoking Day
Scottish national park boss on seeing ‘offensive’ names, like Giro Bay, printed on new maps
King’s Speech co-producer Simon Egan on his daughter smashing the film’s best picture Oscar
Info
Moss caused a stir smoking a cigarette as she modelled a creation by US designer Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton at Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday. It was No Smoking Day. Bosses at Loch Lomond National Park destroyed 3,000 copies of a new map which used controversial names for local landmarks.
5.) Multiple Choice Question
The 2011 Census forms have been sent out to 26 million households across England and Wales. This week also marks the anniversary of the first ever census in 1801. What was the estimated population of England and Wales at the time?
4.9 million8.9 million12.9 million
6.) Missing Word Question
Worker has ‘I love * ‘ tattoo on his leg
skivingArgospay day
7.) Multiple Choice Question
Wednesday was the start of Lent for Christians, when they traditionally give up something they like for 40 days. Chocolate is the most popular thing people abstain from, but what is the second most popular?
SexAlcoholSocial networkingSugar
Answers
It’s a nurse, who starts on £21,176. A firefighter gets £21,157. Police officers get a starting salary of £23,259. It’s bees. In a report it called for an international effort to save them. It said out of the 100 crops which provide 90% of the world’s food, around 71% are pollinated by bees. Bee numbers have declined by up to 85% in some areas. It’s an ice queen. Burton was McQueen’s right-hand woman for 15 years and was made creative director of the label after his death last year. She has denied she is making the dress. It’s Simon Egan on his 15-month-old daughter Lara smashing the film’s best picture Oscar. She was given the statuette to hold for a photograph at a post-Oscars party, but it slipped from her hand and landed on the concrete floor. It is now being repaired. It.s 8.9 million. The estimated population of Scotland was 1.6 million. It’s Argos. Wayne Page, 37, from Colchester, Essex, had the tattoo done to help raise vital funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust. It’s alcohol. Sugar is at number four, sex is at number seven, and social networking is at number nine, according to the Independent. By observing Lent, Christians replicate Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for 40 days.
Your Score
0 – 3 : Sinner
4 – 6 : Trying to be better
7 – 7 : Saint
For past quizzes including our weekly news quiz, 7 days 7 questions, expand the grey drop-down below – also available on the Magazine page (and scroll down). You can also do this quiz on your mobile device.
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Collection that captures the beauty of the bicycle
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Sinclair ZX81 was small, black with only 1K of memory, but 30 years ago it helped to spark a generation of programming wizards.
Packing a heady 1KB of RAM, you would have needed more than 50,000 of them to run Word or iTunes, but the ZX81 changed everything.
It didn’t do colour, it didn’t do sound, it didn’t sync with your trendy Swap Shop style telephone, it didn’t even have an off switch. But it brought computers into the home, over a million of them, and created a generation of software developers.
Before, computers had been giant expensive machines used by corporations and scientists – today, they are tiny machines made by giant corporations, with the power to make the miraculous routine. But in the gap between the two stood the ZX81.
“If you had an extension pack you had to hold it in place with Blu-Tack, because if it wobbled a bit you’d lose everything”
Richard Vanner
It wasn’t a lot of good at saving your work – you had to record finished programming onto cassette tape and hope there was no tape warp. It wasn’t even that good at keeping your work, at least if you had the 16K extension pack stuck precariously into the back.
One wobble and your day was wasted. But you didn’t have to build it yourself, it looked reassuringly domestic, as if it would be happy sitting next to your stereo, and it sold in WH Smiths, for £69.95.
“It started off a proud tradition of teenage boys persuading their parents to buy them kit with the excuse that it was going to be educational,” recalls Gordon Laing, editor of the late Personal Computer World and author of Digital Retro. “It was no use for school at all, but we persuaded our parents to do it, and then we just ended up playing games on them.”
The ZX81 was a first taste of computing for many people who have made a career out of it. Richard Vanner, financial director of The Games Creators Ltd, is one.
“I was 14,” he says, “and my brain was just ready to eat it up. There was this sense of ‘Wow, where’s this come from?’ You couldn’t imagine a computer in your own home.
The machine could get very hot, recalls Vanner.
“The flat keyboard was hot to type on. If you had an extension pack you had to hold it in place with Blu-Tack, because if it wobbled a bit you’d lose everything. You’d have to unplug the TV aerial, retune the TV, and then lie down on the floor to do a bit of coding. And then save it onto a tape and hope for the best.
“But because it was so addictive, you didn’t mind all these issues.”
Many a teenaged would-be programmer spent hours pouring over screeds of code in magazines.
The thermal printer was loaded with a shiny toilet roll “It would take hours and hours to type in, and if you made just one mistake – which might have been a typing error in the magazine – it didn’t work,” says Laing.
“Also there was the thermal printer for it, with shiny four-inch paper like till receipts, and as soon as you got your fingers on it you could wipe it off. One fan site described it as ‘a rather evil sort of toilet roll’.”
In fact, the very limitations of the ZX81 are what built a generation of British software makers. Offering the ultimate in user-frostiness, it forced kids to get to grips with its workings.
“I taught myself to program with the manual,” says Vanner, “which was quite difficult. It was trial and error, but I got things working. Then magazines started to come out, and there we were, game-making with 1K.”
That lack of memory, similarly, was a spur to creativity.
“Because you had to squeeze the most out of it,” says Vanner, “it forced you to be inventive. Someone wrote a chess game. How do you do chess with 1024 bytes? Well the screen itself took up a certain amount of memory, so they loaded the graphics onto the screen from the tape. There was no programme for that, but people got round these things with tricks.”
Charles Cecil, managing director of Revolution Software which produced the Broken Sword and Dr Who games, discovered computing at university when a friend invited him to write a text adventure game for the ZX81.
“It took two or three days and was quite fun. It was called Adventure B. He sold it and it did really well. He’d actually looked at the memory in the ROM, and worked out what was going on so he could write much more efficient code.
“We did the most extraordinary things – a game that really played chess in 1K. The Americans had the Commodore 64 [with 64K] but we were forced to programme very very tightly and efficiently. That’s defined our style of programming up until today. The UK has some of the best programmers in the world, thanks to those roots.”
Some feel that the amount of memory on today’s computers can make programmers lazy and profligate. Sir Clive Sinclair himself told the Guardian last year: “Our machines were lean and efficient. The sad thing is that today’s computers totally abuse their memory – totally wasteful, you have to wait for the damn things to boot up, just appalling designs. Absolute mess! So dreadful it’s heartbreaking.”
The name combined the two most futuristic letters in the alphabet with a number that rooted it in the present day – though that doesn’t seem to have been particularly deliberate. The designer Rick Dickinson says they named its predecessor, the previous year’s ZX80, after its processor, the Zilog Z80, with an added X for “the mystery ingredient”.
Dickinson visited Dixons to consider which existing products it should look like, he says. “But I don’t know that I came up with any answers. Most of this stuff was just blundering through, and hitting on something that just seemed right.
“We wanted it to be small, black and elegantly sculpted. Beyond that the main thing was the cost, so the keyboard had just three parts compared to hundreds today. And some keys had six or even seven functions, so there was the graphics exercise of getting that amount of data onto the keypad.
But why it so captured the public imagination, Dickinson finds hard to say.
“They liked the design of it, and they liked the price, but beyond that you’d have to ask a psychologist. It created its own market.
“No-one knew they wanted a computer. It was just the right product, at the right time, at the right price.”
The ZX81 “changed everything”? By my recollection, it was the Apple 2 computer (launched 4 years before the ZX81) that changed everything. Then there was the VIC20 (launch 1980), which did do colour and sound. In 1981, I had access to all 3 machines, and the ZX81 was far more primitive than the other two. It was horrible to use, and the keyboard alone was appalling.
14. llanman10
I remember downloading a series of clicks to my cassette tape recorder from an edition of Tomorrow’s World and then feeding it into the ZX81. I had small book of 50 progammes which could be written in 1K. It cost my about 100pounds or was it 70 anyway it was fun – what a great way to get someone interested in programming
13. BrickInDaWall
I have an emulator on my PC that runs old Spectrum games.
12. Leiston Bill
My Dad brought our ZX81 home from the shops, sat it on the kitchen table and we all just looked at it, not really knowing why we’d bought it. Our version came with a star trek game which was just asterisks and zeros on the screen. Spent hours copying code from magazines…ahhhhh innocent days, a long way from playing Cal of Duty on your iphone!
11. GibMeister
My friend had one, I remember being amazed by 3D Monster Maze! I had the last laugh as my parents bought me the ZX Spectrum a year or so later and that was light years ahead!
Comments 5 of 15
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The government hopes to reduce administrative costs to help tackle the deficit An increase in the number of middle managers means the civil service is facing a growing pay bill, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned.
Staff numbers have fallen by 1% over the past decade, but there has been a 10% real-terms rise in staff costs, which now stand at £16.4bn a year.
A 67% rise in the numbers in middle management grades accounts for half of that increase in costs.
The report also highlighted the growth in performance-related pay.
It said this had risen from “virtually zero” ten years ago to £200m, accounting for 1% of pay.
The report said the growth in the number of managers came as junior administrative staff were being cut, with overall staff numbers falling from 497,000 to 493,000 over the ten years to 2009-2010.
“These weaknesses could hamper the government’s ability to make the right choices”
Margaret Hodge Chairman, Public Accounts Committee
This means work previously done by junior officials is increasingly taken on by more highly paid senior grades.
The NAO warned that the inability of Whitehall departments to control their staff costs could undermine the Government’s attempts to cut administrative spending to help reduce the deficit.
Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee which oversees the NAO, said: “It is just not acceptable for management layers and bureaucracy to build up in the Civil Service with nobody in government controlling what was happening.
“These weaknesses could hamper the government’s ability to make the right choices, at a time when further cuts in staff numbers are looming.”
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President Santos warned firms not to pay extortion or ransom money to the rebels Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has threatened to expel multinational companies who pay ransom money for the release of kidnapped employees.
Mr Santos was speaking three days after 23 employees of a Canadian oil company were kidnapped by Colombia’s largest left-wing rebel group, the Farc.
All but one of the kidnapped employees were freed on Tuesday.
Some of them said they heard the rebels speak of a ransom deal with the company, which it has denied.
President Santos said that during their debrief by the security forces, some of the kidnapped employees had mentioned the deal allegedly made by the company and the rebels.
“The rebels apparently mentioned 5,000 million pesos ($2.62m) and hinted that the sum had already been agreed with the company,” the president said.
“We have to investigate further what that is about, but I have this warning: any company which pays a single peso to these bandits, leaves the country,” he added.
“We can’t allow anyone to keep feeding these bandits, because the only thing they’re going to do with the money is create more violence and insecurity,” Mr Santos said.
However, a representative of the company targeted in the recent kidnapping, Talisman Energy, told the BBC that the company would never “contact, or negotiate with illegal armed groups, much less pay a ransom”.
Multinational companies have been known to pay large sums in ransom and extortion money to Colombian armed groups.
In 2007, the fruit company Chiquita admitted paying almost $2m in protection money to right-wing paramilitaries.
Operation Minotaur
The 23 kidnap victims, subcontracted by Talisman, were abducted on Monday in Puerto Principe de Guerima, in eastern Vichada province.
The workers, all of them Colombian nationals, were based at an oil camp in the region.
Twenty-two were freed on Tuesday, but there are conflicting reports as to whether the rebels let them go or whether the armed forces rescued them.
Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said intense military pressure had brought about their release.
Head of the Armed Forces Adm Edgar Cely said the security forces were continuing their efforts to free the remaining hostage, a topographer.
He said bad weather on Thursday meant the troops had not been able to gather much information on the whereabouts of the hostage.
Adm Cely also said that there were indications that the guerrillas had infiltrated the oil company’s workforce and that someone on the inside had provided the rebels with information on the workers’ movements.
He said that the mass kidnapping had been carried out after the Canadian firm refused to pay protection money to the rebels.
He urged all firms who were being threatened to refuse to pay and to turn to the armed forces for protection.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Jorn Madslien
You may soon own a talking car, though the open shirt will be optional Remember the Knight Rider car? The one declaring “scanner indicating danger ahead”, “your reflexes are slow” or “I shall activate a turbo-boost”?
A similarly futuristic car might hit the road sooner than you think, according to Klaus Draeger, BMW’s head of research and development.
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Many cars are already connected to computer systems, making drivers’ and passengers’ lives both more comfortable and safer.
But until now they have mainly been receiving information, so as yet they are not really engaging in dialogues, Mr Draeger says.
BMW’s so-called Connected Drive concept, currently on show at the Geneva motor show, aims to change that.
BMW’s system brings together more than 50 communication functions.
They include sophisticated satellite navigation systems and a self-drive technology that helps the car move safely from the fast lane to the hard shoulder on its own if the driver has a heart attack.
There are also more trivial technologies such as wireless links between the car’s entertainment systems and home computers.
Cars that communicate with the world around them are safer, more entertaining and more comfortable. “It’s the way you get information into and out of the the car and what you can do with the information that is important,” says Mr Draeger.
In future, your car will not only spot motorway traffic jams, it will also be able to calculate whether any delays on alternative routes make them even slower. And then the car will recommend whether or not you should get off the motorway.
The system will be helped by information received from other cars, which will be sending information about the road ahead back to you.
For instance, if drivers of other cars are suddenly using their window wipers and their brakes, the system might conclude that the road they are driving on is wet and slippery and perhaps that visibility is reduced. It will then warn you, before communicating your response to other system users.
Such information should help business travellers cut journey times whilst at the same time making them both safer and more comfortable.
“So whereas satellite navigation may initially be about comfort and efficiency, once moving about, once it starts identifying obstacles, it becomes a safety issue as well,” reasons Mr Draeger.
Other features include close connectivity between a driver’s desktop computer and the computer in the car.
If you schedule a meeting in the office, the information can be sent directly to your car.
“This is an area where we can create luxury in the premium segment”
Stefan Jacoby Volvo Cars’ chief executive
Directions will be automatically entered into the satnav. Nearby hotels will be identified and an electronic booking can be made from the car. An electronic diary in the car can alert you to make sure you leave on time to be at the appointment as scheduled.
The car will also synchronise your emails, which can be read out aloud, or let you respond to Facebook messages while waiting for traffic lights to turn green.
Parking the car can be done with the assistance of a bird’s-eye view of the car on a screen – or remotely, while you are standing outside the car watching it glide into a parking space.
Other carmakers are also making their cars more intuitive and better connected with the world around them.
Audi’s latest satnav system is linked to the internet, providing “real-time traffic information, traffic-influenced turn-by-turn directions and alerts to accidents and other incidents along their route”.
Recent models from Mercedes will tell you when you seem tired and when the car in front is slowing down. Volvo, meanwhile, is trying to make its cars’ electronics easier to understand and use.
Don’t talk and drive. Let the car do it for you. “To have a machine that is easy to control, like an iPhone or an iPad, is luxury these days,” says Volvo Cars’ chief executive Stefan Jacoby
“This is an area where we can create luxury in the premium segment. I think there will be more intelligent choices.”
Safety implications
The list of applications goes on and on and over time it will get even longer, according to Tim Routsis, chief executive of engineering company Cosworth.
“The younger generation is always connected when they are at home or in the office, and increasingly they want the same in their cars,” he says.
Giving them what they want is not an easy task, however, not least because of the safety implications of introducing some of these technologies to drivers whose attention should be on the road.
Some applications may improve safety, but others may distract, so a major challenge will relate to how and when communication should take place.
Solutions will need to become much more sophisticated than they are today, Mr Routsis reasons.
“Increasingly, it’s starting to drive buying decisions”
Tim Routsis Cosworth’s chief executive
For instance, a blanket ban on reprogramming satnavs or writing Twitter messages whilst the car is in motion will be irritating for a passenger who should be able to engage with the electronics without disturbing the driver.
“So to facilitate this, the system will need to detect whether it is the driver or the passenger using the system,” he says.
Hence, as the list of applications gets longer, so does the list of challenges facing the industry, Mr Routsis believes.
And yet, he expects carmakers to do all it can to deliver.
“In-car technologies offer new points of differentiation,” he continues.
“And increasingly, it’s starting to drive buying decisions.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Previous research argued that being overweight and ‘apple shaped’ greatly increased the risk of heart disease Doubts have been raised over the idea that being overweight and “apple shaped” increases heart attack risk.
A study in the Lancet found the risk of heart attack was not increased by fat being concentrated around the waist.
It contradicts previous work that found overweight people with “apple shaped” bodies were three times as likely to suffer heart attacks than those with more generally distributed fat.
But experts warned obesity was bad for the heart, no matter where the fat was.
The authors of the study say that obesity is still a major risk factor for heart disease, but they argue there is confusion about the best way to measure it.
One well known measure is the Body Mass Index (BMI) which relates weight to height.
But previous research had also suggested that people with fat deposits in the middle of their body – known as an “apple shape” – were at much greater risk.
“This study suggests that measuring your waist is no better than calculating your BMI but it’s not time to throw away the tape measure just yet”
Dr Mike Knapton British Heart Foundation
This method uses the “waist-to-hip” ratio and compares the distance around the hips and waist to measure what is known as central obesity.
It can tell if someone is “apple shaped – with a bulging middle – or “pear shaped”, with a narrower waist and fatter hips and bottom.
Others have suggested concentrating on a measurement of the waist alone.
But this new study, which looked at 220,000 people over almost 10 years, found that all three measures indicated risk of heart attack or stroke.
The study was led by Professor John Danesh from Cambridge University and concluded that none of the measures on their own improved the prediction of heart disease, especially when doctors could also assess other warning signs like blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Writing in the Lancet, Professor Danesh said: “Whether assessed singly or in combination, body-mass index, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio do not improve prediction of first-onset cardiovascular disease when additional information exists on blood pressure, history of diabetes, and cholesterol measures.”
The study was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
The BHF’s associate medical director Dr Mike Knapton said it was clear that no matter how you measure it, obesity is bad for your heart.
“This study suggests that measuring your waist is no better than calculating your BMI but it’s not time to throw away the tape measure just yet.
“We tend to underestimate our body shape and size, so measuring our waist or checking our BMI are both quick and easy ways we can check our health at home.
“We should also remember there are other heart risk factors we need to think about too, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and smoking.
“Anyone over 40 who’s worried about their waist measurement or BMI should ask at their GP surgery for a heart health assessment, which will take into account all cardiovascular risk factors and provide practical advice on how you can reduce your risk.”
Professor Stephen Holgate of the MRC said the main worry about obesity was that it led to other illnesses.
“Around three-fifths of type 2 diabetes and one-fifth of heart disease cases are attributable to excess body fat. Six cancers are also linked to obesity.
“The percentage of UK adults who are obese has increased by 50% in the last decade, and obesity in children continues to grow at an alarming rate.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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