Features

Spine surgeons are noticing an increase in patients with neck and upper back pain, likely related to poor posture during prolonged smartphone use, according to a recent report.

Some patients, particularly young patients who shouldn’t yet have back and neck issues, are reporting disk hernias and alignment problems, the study authors write in The Spine Journal.

“In an X-ray, the neck typically curves backward, and what we’re seeing is that the curve is being reversed as people look down at their phones for hours each day,” said study co-author Dr Todd Lanman, a spinal neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles. 

“By the time patients get to me, they’re already in bad pain and have disc issues,” he told Reuters Health. “The real concern is that we don’t know what this means down the road for kids today who use phones all day.”

Lanman and co-author Dr Jason Cuellar, an orthopaedic spine surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, write that people often look down when using their smartphones, particularly when texting as compared to browsing online or watching videos. Previous studies have also found that people hold their necks at around 45 degrees, and it becomes even worse as they sit, versus standing, the study team writes. 

The impact on the spine increases at higher flexed postures, they add. While in a neutral position looking forward, the head weighs about 4.5 to 5.5 kilogrammes. At a 15-degree flex, it feels like 12 kilos. The stress on the spine increases by degree, and at 60 degrees, it’s 27 kilos.

“For today’s users, will an 8-year-old need surgery at age 28?” Lanman said. “In kids who have spines that are still growing and not developed, we’re not sure what to expect or if this could change normal anatomies,” he told Reuters Health.

Lanman and Cuellar suggest simple lifestyle changes to relieve the stress from the “text neck” posture. They recommend holding cell phones in front of the face, or near eye level, while texting. They also suggest using two hands and two thumbs to create a more symmetrical and comfortable position for the spine. 

Beyond smartphone use, the spinal surgeons recommend that people who work at computers or on tablets use an elevated monitor stand so it sits at a natural horizontal eye level. With laptops, they recommend a similar adaptation by using a separate keyboard and mouse so the laptop can be at eye level and still create a good ergonomic position while typing.

“It is difficult to recommend a proper posture for smartphone users. If we raise the phone at eye level to avoid the look-down posture, it will add new concerns for the shoulder due to the elevated arm posture,” said Gwanseob Shin of the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology Ergonomics Lab in South Korea, who wasn’t involved with the study.

“A more practical recommendation would be frequent rest breaks or some physical exercise that can strengthen the neck and shoulder muscles,” Shin told Reuters Health by e-mail. “Some apps can give alarming signals to users to avoid prolonged looking-down posture.”

Lanman recommends stretches and basic exercises that focus on posture as well. He tells patients to lie on their beds and hang their heads over the edge, extending the neck backward to restore the normal arc in the neck. While sitting, he recommends aligning the neck and spine by checking that the ears are over the shoulders and the shoulders are over the hips. 

“Ask your friend to take a photo of your upper body when you’re texting, then use the picture as the background image on your phone,” Shin said. “That will remind you to take breaks frequently. Even a short break of a few seconds — called a micro-break — can help our tissues recover.”

PARIS — After training a network of telescopes stretching from Hawaii to Antarctica to Spain at the heart of our galaxy for five nights running, astronomers said on Wednesday they may have snapped the first-ever picture of a black hole.

It will take months to develop the image, but if scientists succeed the results may help peel back mysteries about what the universe is made of and how it came into being.

“Instead of building a telescope so big that it would probably collapse under its own weight, we combined eight observatories like the pieces of a giant mirror,” said Michael Bremer, an astronomer at the International Research Institute for Radio Astronomy (IRAM) and a project manager for the Event Horizon Telescope.

“This gave us a virtual telescope as big as Earth — about 10,000 kilometres in diameter,” he told AFP.

The bigger the telescope, the finer the resolution and level of detail.

The targeted supermassive black hole is hidden in plain sight, lurking in the centre of the Milky Way in a region called the Sagittarius constellation, some 26,000 light years from Earth.

Dubbed Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short), the gravity — and light-sucking monster weighs as much as 4 million Suns.

Theoretical astronomy tells us when a black hole absorbs matter — planets, debris, anything that comes too close — a brief flash of light is visible. 

Black holes also have a boundary, called an event horizon.

The British astronomer Stephen Hawking has famously compared crossing this boundary to going over Niagra Falls in a canoe: if you are above the falls, it is still possible to escape if you paddle hard enough. 

Once you tip over the edge, however, there is no going back.

The Event Horizon Telescope radio-dish network is designed to detect the light cast-off when object disappear across that boundary.

“For the first time in our history, we have the technological capacity to observe black holes in detail,” said Bremer.

The virtual telescope trained on the middle of the Milky Way is powerful enough to spot a golf ball on the Moon, he said.

The 30-metre IRAM telescope, located in the Spanish Sierra Nevada mountains, is the only European observatory taking part in the international effort.

Other telescopes contributing to the project include the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in the desert of northern Chile.

All the data — some 500 terabytes per station — will be collected and flown on jetliners to the MIT Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, where it will be processed by supercomputers.

“The images will emerge as we combine all the data,” Bremer explained. “But we’re going to have to wait several months for the result.”

It is worth stopping, thinking and taking stock of the current cloud computing situation, mainly among consumers.

If pundits estimate that the phenomenon as it is known today was launched circa 2006, it is only since 2011 that the wide public has started to be really affected — no negative meaning implied here by the term “affected”.

There has been a noticeable slowdown throughout the entire year 2016. Despite the obvious, constant and insisting push by the industry to make you do more in the cloud all the time, it looks like some plateau value has been reached at this point. 

Take the most obvious example of Microsoft’s Office 365, the cloud-based version of the company’s indispensable Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.). It is not only its maker that is pushing you to use it but also countless online services.

Godaddy, perhaps the world’s largest and most powerful company providing domain name registration, hosting, website hosting and e-mail hosting, wants you to subscribe to its e-mail service that is associated with Office 365. It is only when and if you insist that you only want “regular, plain” e-mail hosting, without Office 365, that Godaddy accepts to provide a subscription with “no cloud attached”.

On www.windowscentral.com John Callaham last week said that “there are now 1.2 billion Office users and 60 million Office 365 commercial customers”. This clearly shows that the vast majority still prefers to use local versions of Office, installed on their computer, and not cloud-based ones.

Whereas some users go for cloud computing, and for parts of their work and data only, the rest chooses to stick to more traditional computing forms and methods. It all looks like some sort of modus vivendi, some equilibrium has been reached at this point in time.

Just storing files and data in the cloud, however, as opposed to working on cloud applications, has certainly gained ground, with more and more people choosing to save data up there, including personal contents such as photos, videos and even accounts.

The two reasons that are preventing consumers from going fully cloud have not changed over the last four or five years. First is the fact that trust in the cloud, when it comes to data confidentiality, is not complete, and it will probably never be so. Second is Internet connectivity that is not as perfect as one would need it to be to make you want to work all the time from the cloud. This second point, understandably, greatly varies from country to country.

I have been experimenting for quite a while with three of the major cloud storage services out there: Dropbox, Google’s Drive and Microsoft’s OneDrive, carrying the experiment in parallel on these three fronts, using actual data, intensively, and on a daily basis. None is perfect and all are useful and practical; I would say they complete each other. The average rating I would give them, the three of them combined, is 8 out of 10. I wish it were more in the range of 9.5 to 10. And this is just about straightforward storage, without any processing at all.

A large number of software products are gradually becoming available exclusively as cloud services. Despite the trend, a large number of users have decided to keep working locally and not remotely. 

Yet, Kim Weins (www.rightscale.com) last year stated that “private cloud adoption increased from 63 per cent to 77 per cent” in 2016. Other analysts estimate that the actual figure is more in the 55 to 58 per cent range.

Considering all the above it is reasonable to say that at this point in 2017 we are in a status quo and that the cloud computing trend is very slow, if not at a standstill.

When it was reported a few years back that Prince Charles talked to plants, I must admit that I laughed the loudest. I found the whole idea both amusing and endearing but later dismissed it as yet another regal eccentricity that the blue blooded royalty occasionally indulged in. Besides, this was nothing compared to some of the bizarre hobbies the various Maharajas and Maharanis of my home country India, had. 

The Nawab of Junagarh was said to have owned 800 dogs, each with its individual human attendant. Also, the last Nizam of Hyderabad used the “Jacob Diamond”, which was the fifth largest diamond in the world, as a humble paperweight. And, King Jai Singh of Alwar had ordered a fleet of Rolls Royce, only to use them as cleaning cars, for transporting the city’s waste. 

If all of the above were irregularities, how could talking to a car be the most natural thing in the world? Well, that was so, because long before cars started speaking to us via the GPS, we were all talking to our cars. Think back to how often you sat in your car, switched it on and prompted a “hey, start up now” encouragement to the engine? Or, if you could not find the windshield wiper knob on the wheel, you asked the car where it was, expecting an immediate response? Or when there was a tiny parallel parking space available in a crowded street, you checked with the car, to somehow get it accommodated there?

In fact, most women also had names for their cars and not all of them were christened “Betsy”. It was said that naming a car, in a sense, gave it a personality.  It was a way for the owner to form some kind of bond with their vehicle and feel a greater sense of responsibility.  

The first car that my parents owned was a black Ambassador, which did not actually have a name but for the longest period my siblings and I referred to it as “Adjust”. That is because despite all the other conversations my father and mother had in the car, that particular word cropped up most frequently. Ours was a spacious automobile where ideally five people could sit comfortably but at any point in time, there were at least four passengers in the back seat alone, with an equal number of kids on their laps, and three folks squeezed in the front, and more willing to be seated. My parents never refused a ride to anyone and simply asked everyone to “adjust”. 

Oh, how I hated being little and could not wait to get old enough to be in the driver’s seat. That was the only place where nobody else sat though there were instances when its leg space had to be “adjusted”. No one wore seat belts and none of the traffic regulations were enforced but surprisingly there were hardly any road accidents then. With so many people inside the vehicle, the engine could not accelerate, I guess. 

I still remember that my mother had performed certain prayers to welcome the car, which also involved splitting of a coconut and burning some incense.

“Don’t wave the incense sticks so close to Adjust,” my brother had warned. 

“You mean the car? Why not?” I asked. 

“She might get burned,” he scolded. 

“What will happen then?” I questioned.

“I will have to pour coconut water on her,” he explained. 

“Good adjusting, I mean, thinking,” I applauded.

BUSIA, Kenya — In this sunny part of Kenya, solar cookers — which trap sunlight to heat food — have surged in popularity in recent years. But a big problem remains: How to cook when the sun doesn’t shine?

Communities are now starting to sort out solutions, from insulated baskets that hold onto heat after the sun disappears to use of back-up fuel-efficient charcoal and firewood stoves.

“Fluctuations in sunshine can hinder cooking using the solar [system] but with the basket we nowadays prepare tea during the day and can drink it after sunset,” said Peter Wanga, whose family has been using a solar cooking system since last year.

The insulated basket “conserves enough heat to cook food even when there is no sunshine” — and is affordable and easy to use, he said.

In Busia County, in western Kenya, as many as 1,500 households have turned to solar cooking, mostly over the last four years, according to county ministry of energy figures. Other families have adopted more efficient charcoal or firewood stoves.

The changes in large part have been driven by Farmers with a Vision, a local community organisation based in Bumala Township.

Over the last four years, “we have sold thousands of solar cookers and energy saving charcoal and wood stoves, and also found a platform to promote use of solar energy appliances such as lighting equipment” said Didacus Odhiambo, the organisation’s chief executive officer.

He said the clean energy effort has faced significant challenges, including as many as 60 per cent of buyers defaulting on loans for equipment — a problem the organisation is still trying to sort out. Many households struggle to find the upfront money to buy the more efficient cooking technology, he said.

Faster cooking, more trees

The switch to more efficient cooking aims to cut deforestation in Kenya, and health problems related to cooking over smoky fires. Those who have bought the new systems say another attraction is that they require only about a third of the usual time to cook food or heat water — a big savings of women’s time.

Julius Magero, an official in the ministry of energy and petroleum in Busia County, said that besides protecting increasingly scarce forests, the stoves also are helping women spend less time searching for fuelwood.

Lilian Nyapola, a member of Farmers with a Vision, said the new technologies — most of which cost on average $25 to $60 — have led to a decline in use of firewood and paraffin, which are costly and emit smoke.

“The uptake of solar cookers and energy saving wood stoves and thermos baskets is high,” she said. She sells around 14 clean cooking devices a month, she said — enough that now virtually all of the homes in her neighbourhood now use them.

Nyapola said her 32-member organisation has worked in schools, churches and homes to train community members on the new technologies, and that men have backed women switching to new cooking technology, not least because food can be cooked faster and rarely burns, and children are not injured in fires.

To afford the equipment buyers can access credit from Farmers With a Vision, or local microcredit agencies, Nyapola said, with loans often paid back over half a year or more.

Odhiambo said the group is in talks with M-Kopa, a money lending scheme owned by Kenya’s leading mobile telephone company, Safaricom, to allow buyers to make payments for equipment via their mobile phones.

‘Battling cloudy days’

Originally the group focused only on selling solar cookers, Odhiambo said, but after complaints about problems using them on rainy or cloudy days, or at night, members broadened their approach.

Now the group offers a range of different solar cooking boxes, parabolic reflector cookers, solar thermos systems and other devices, including clean cookstoves.

Box cookers — designed with help from the Free University of Amsterdam — trap sunlight that shines through the box’s glass top, using it to heat food placed inside. The device “can cook when the sunshine is low and when not much light is available. It retains heat and can cook for additional three hours”, Odhiambo said.

He said his organisation also has partnered with EcoZoom, , a company that builds cast iron improved wood and charcoal stoves.

Daniel Maneno, an official with the national ministry of energy and petroleum in Busia County, called the initiative useful, particularly as training on renewable energy technology is provided free of charge.

He said the ministry is also promoting tree-planting efforts in collaboration with the Kenya Forestry Research Institute as part of a broader effort to protect trees and reduce deforestation.

Launched last year as the Stuttgart tri-star brand’s range-topping gambit into the compact executive coupe segment, the Mercedes-AMG C63 S Coupe is a beguilingly thundering thug with supercar-rivalling performance and a mesmerisingly addictive soundtrack from its twin-turbo V8 engine. A refined and luxurious compact high performance personal luxury coupe on the one hand, the C63 S is also somewhat of a handful when prodded. Direct and balanced dynamically but with brutish output, the C63 S Coupe is perhaps best described as a premium muscle car, not too unlike the Jaguar F-Type SVR sports car, featured recently in these pages.

Shark-fins and flares

The more powerful, wild-eyed and feverishly ferocious of two V8-propelled AMG skunkworks iterations of the more sedate garden variety Mercedes-Benz C-Class family of saloons, estates, coupes and cabriolets. Competes directly with the BMW M4 GTS and a speculated “Plus” version of the soon-to-launch Audi RS5, the C63 S Coupe’s potential is evidenced by its aggressive aesthetic take on the base C-Class Coupe’s fluent and flowing lines and arced roofline. With bigger, deeper and hungrier air intakes, lower front air splitter and sills, quad rear tail pipes, rear air diffuser, discrete spoiler and (non-functional) bulging rear brake vents, the C63 S cuts a muscular figure. 

Reflecting its wider track and reworked rear assembly, the hot C63 S Coupe features more potent and immediately obvious flared wheel-arches, so increases body width by 64mm at the front and 66m at the rear.

Meanwhile, twin bonnet ridges lend the C63 S a moodier and more dramatic presence, whether viewed from outside or protruding and shark fin-like from the driver’s seat. Driven in lairier Edition 1 trim, the C63 S features side race decal and an off-set go-faster contrasting stripe running along the bonnet, roof and boot. Edition 1 versions also receive larger alloy wheels with grippier staggered 255/35R19 front and huge 285/30R20 rear tyres.

Volcanic V8

Nothing short of villainous in the tingling sensations it evokes, the C63 S’ brutal twin-turbocharged direct injection 4-litre V8 engine stirs to life with a crack of thunder that settles to potent gurgling, burbling and crackling note at idle and low revs. Digging deep in its melodic repertoire, it goes through a resonant bass-rich mid-range staccato, intense, pounding growl as it races through towards a lofty turbocharged rev limit in the region of 7000rpm. Developing 503BHP at an urgent yet broad 5500-6250rpm top-end and a gut-wrenching 516lb/ft torque over an accessible 1750-4500rpm mid-range, the C63 S Coupe can attain an electronically-governed 250km/h or 290km/h when de-restricted. 

Of similar ability as its epic and seamlessly high-revving naturally aspirated 6.2-litre V8 predecessor, Mercedes-AMG’s downsized twin-turbo 4-litre V8 is however tuned for more power in the current C63 S. With its turbos positioned within the cylinder banks for short gasflow paths and more instant boost and response, the C63 S suffers from virtually no lag off the line. And digging its vast rear tyres into tarmac, it rockets through the 0-100km/h dash in just 3.9-seconds. Volcanic when driven with intent, the C63 S’ vast mid-range reserves and vicious top-end power make short shrift of steep inclines and overtaking maneuvers, and even when cruising at low revs, it digs deep and pulls with effortless indefatigability.

Crisp and eager

Driving the rear wheels through a 7-speed automatic gearbox with escalating levels of automatic and manual paddle gear change responses from smooth to aggressive, the C63 S is at its best in S+ and Race mode. Shifting cogs with crisp and rapid precision in a sequence, the C63 S’ gearbox is however slower and less inclined to swiftly process more than one input at a time. Putting power to the ground through an electronically-controlled limited-slip rear differential, the C63 S can allocate power to the wheel best able to translate it into forward momentum instead of spin. This makes it more sure-footed, agile and effective through hard-driven corners.

Settled, reassuring and stable at speed with a buttoned down ride over imperfections and uneven textures, the C63 S is however also eager and alert through winding roads. With crisp and tidy turn-in from its quick and direct steering, one feels at the heart of the action when flicking through twists and turns on a winding hillclimb. Similar to many Mercs of recent years, the C63 S’ eager turn-in is reflected by a somewhat more playful — but balanced at the limit — rear, often reined in by electronic interventions if too much sudden power is dialed in. However, when driving with more intent and leaning onto the thick rear tyres and feeding in power more progressively, the C63 S grips hard and true.

Connected comfort 

Providing a more connected and in control feel for the car’s position through its direct steering and seating position than some more disconnected rivals, the C63 S instils confidence that is backed up by a raft of advanced driver assistance and safety assistance systems, and huge and tyrelessly effective ceramic disc brakes in Edition 1 spec. as driven. Well adjustable and highly supportive, the Edition 1’s  quilted leather AMG Performance seats’ high side bolsters do however seem to jab at an overweight driver’s sides on long drives in the C63 S’ taut and firm Sport+ and Race damper settings  and over imperfect road patches.

Switching to more supple Comfort damper mode for long commutes the C63 S glides with relaxed composure, and is more forgiving over urban cobblestone streets and bumps. Well-finished with quality materials and a more minimalist look than its predecessor AMG C-Class variants, the C63 S Edition 1 features grippy suede-like steering and carbon-fibre trim panels. Layouts are stylish and user-friendly, while convenience and infotainment systems generous and advanced. Visibility is generally good, with reversing camera and parking sensors to help, while front space is similarly good for larger drivers. However, nominal 355-litre boot space is significantly reduced by the inclusion of a spare tyre strapped down to the flat boot floor in place of a tyre-repair kit.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 4-litre, twin-turbo, in-line V8-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 83 x 92mm

Compression ratio: 10.5:1

Valve-train: 32-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 7-speed automatic, rear-wheel-drive

Ratios: 1st 4.38; 2nd 2.86; 3rd 1.92; 4th 1.37; 5th 1.0; 6th 0.82; 7th 0.73; R1 3.42; R2 2.23

Final drive: 3.06

Drive-line: Electronically-controlled limited-slip rear-differential

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 503 (510) [375] @5500-6250rpm

Specific power: 126.3BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 279.4BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 516 (700) @1750-4500rpm

Specific torque: 175.8Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 388.8Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 3.9-seconds

Top speed, electronically governed / de-restricted: 250km/h / 290km/h

Fuel consumption, urban / extra-urban / combined: 11.4 / 6.9 / 8.6-litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 200g/km

Fuel capacity: 66-litres

Length: 4750mm

Width: 1877mm

Height: 1402mm

Wheelbase: 2840mm

Overhangs, F/R: 1012 / 1141mm

Shoulder width, F/R: 1392/1212mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficiency: 0.35

Headroom, F/R: 1023 / 905mm

Luggage volume (without spare tyre): 355-litres

Unladen / kerb weight: 1725/1800kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning Circle: 11.29-metres

Suspension: Multi-link, adaptive dampers

Brakes: Ventilated & perforated ceramic discs

Tyres, F/R: 255/35R19 / 285/30R20 (optional)

MIAMI — A common virus in infancy could trigger a life-long allergy to gluten and lead to celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder which affects one in 133 people in the United States, researchers said on Thursday.

Celiac disease is caused when the body has an improper immune response — much like an allergy — to the protein gluten, found in wheat, rye, and barley.

The disease damages the lining of the small intestine, and has no cure. It can only be treated by adopting a gluten-free diet.

But if Thursday’s study in the journal Science — based on experiments using mice — is confirmed in larger studies in people, researchers said a vaccine might be able to prevent celiac disease in the future.

“This study clearly shows that a virus that is not clinically symptomatic can still do bad things to the immune system and set the stage for an autoimmune disorder, and for celiac disease in particular,” said senior author Bana Jabri, director of research at the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Centre.

The study found that intestinal bugs called reoviruses can make the immune system overreact to gluten, a protein that is already difficult to digest.

Given to mice, “one common human reovirus triggered an inflammatory immune response and the loss of oral tolerance to gluten, while another closely related but genetically different strain did not”, said the study.

The virus led to a surge in antibodies that may leave a “permanent mark on the immune system that sets the stage for a later autoimmune response to gluten.”

Most infants eat their first gluten-containing cereals around six months of age, a time when their immune systems are more vulnerable to viruses.

“During the first year of life, the immune system is still maturing, so for a child with a particular genetic background, getting a particular virus at that time can leave a kind of scar that then has long-term consequences,” Jabri said. 

“That’s why we believe that once we have more studies, we may want to think about whether children at high risk of developing celiac disease should be vaccinated.”

Babies cry more in Britain, Canada, Italy and Netherlands than in other countries, while newborns in Denmark, Germany and Japan cry and fuss the least, researchers recently said.

In research looking at how much babies around the world cry in their first three months, psychologists from Britain have created the first universal charts for normal amounts of crying during that period.

“Babies are already very different in how much they cry in the first weeks of life,” said Dieter Wolker, who led the study at Warwick University. 

“We may learn more from looking at cultures where there is less crying — [including] whether this may be due to parenting or other factors relating to pregnancy experiences or genetics.”

The highest levels of colic — defined as crying more than three hours a day for at least three days a week — were found in babies in Britain, Canada and Italy, while the lowest colic rates were found in Denmark and Germany.

On average, the study found, babies cry for around two hours a day in the first two weeks. They then cry a little more in the following few weeks until they peak at around two hours 15 minutes a day at six weeks. This then reduces to an average of one hour 10 minutes by the time they are 12 weeks old.

But there are wide variations, with some babies crying as little as 30 minutes a day, and others more than five hours.

The research, published in the Journal of Paediatrics, was a meta-analysis of studies covering some 8,700 babies in countries including Germany, Denmark, Japan, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain.

Wolker said the new crying chart would help health workers reassure parents whether their baby is crying within a normal range in the first three months, or may need extra support.

Whether you are addicted to smartphones or not, whether you are a die-hard Google Android fan or you only swear by Apple iPhone handsets, you just can’t ignore the news. Even if you think that is but a poor man’s computer you still have to take the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone into consideration – and with some respect I would say.

We all remember the ill-fated predecessor of the S8, the company’s Note 7 that had battery exploding accidents and that had its maker Samsung to withdraw it from the market.

The huge success and the amazing performance of the Korean giant’s previous Galaxy S4, S5 and S6 make me definitely trust the company and eagerly await the actual release of the S8, due in only a few weeks from now. Besides, many are the manufacturers out there that encountered such a misfortune at one time and were forced to withdraw a model. And yes, this includes car makers!

Will the Galaxy S8 be a revolutionary smartphone? It is too early to say of course. that being said, by reading and double-checking the specs on a number of reputable, specialised tech websites, I can pinpoint at least two technical characteristics or features that may well make the S8 a device that will stand out. Provided they are confirmed and that they will operate as announced, naturally.

The first feature is about photo improvement. The Samsung Galaxy S8 will take three photos when you shoot one. They will then be internally processed and the device will choose and keep not the best of the three shots, but a shot that will consist of a combination of what is best in each of the three: the best colours, the best focus, the best exposure, etc. Add to this truly innovative approach the fact that the aperture of the S8 lenses is drastically improved from previous models and you can expect significantly better photos.

Interestingly the company has not increased the megapixels count. By know the consumer has matured and knows very well that the megapixel count does not improve photo quality at all, it merely increases its size.

The second outstanding and innovative feature consists of being able to easily, simply and instantly connect the Galaxy S8 to a small “box” that will display the smartphone’s screen on a large screen, with full physical keyboard and mouse control, this way turning the handset into a real computer, probably able to replace a laptop machine if not a desktop.

Obviously the company wants to promote the fact that a powerful smartphone can also be a real computer. Indeed, the 64GB storage, the 4GB memory, the 256GB microSD disk, the Octa-Core main processor and last but not least the powerful Adreno graphics processor, they all entitle the smartphone to act as a real computer.

Some may rightly argue that the operating system will still be Android and not Windows or Apple OS, as most laptops usually run on.

High-end smartphones are already in the laptop league, if only because of their price. The Galaxy S8 should sell in Jordan for about JD600 to JD700. You can buy a reasonably good laptop for less than this. High-end laptops, however, easily exceed JD1,000.