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NEW YORK – Young people are smoking fewer cigarettes these days, but their cigar use is rising, which may partly be due to the popularity of flavoured cigars, according to a new study.

“The cigar market is the most heavily flavoured of all tobacco products,” said Cristine D. Delnevo, who led the research. “For decades, tobacco industry internal documents have highlighted that flavours appeal to youth and young people.”

Delnevo, who directs the Center for Tobacco Surveillance and Evaluation Research at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick, and colleagues from the National Institutes of Health investigated recent market and survey data on flavoured cigar use among young people.

Delnevo and her coauthors analysed an annual survey of drug and alcohol use among Americans ages 12 and up. For this study, the researchers selected the 6,700 survey responders in 2010 and 2011 who reported smoking cigars in the previous month and had noted their usual brand.

They found that 8 per cent of men and 2 per cent of women said they had smoked a cigar in the past 30 days, but 11 per cent of people between ages 18 and 25 years old had smoked a cigar — more than any other age group.

Three quarters of cigar smokers reported a usual brand that offers flavoured varieties, according to the results published in the journal Tobacco Control.

People who smoked cigarettes or those who smoked cigars daily were more likely to report using a flavoured brand. Flavoured varieties were also more popular among females, African Americans and people under age 35.

By 2011, flavoured cigars made up almost half of all cigar sales from convenience stores, according to Nielsen market scanner data. Between 2008 and 2011, revenue from cigar sales went up by 30 per cent, driven largely by flavoured cigar sales, which increased by 53 per cent.

Flavoured cigars increased from 42 per cent of the cigar market in 2008 to 50 per cent of the cigar market in 2011.

“It is important to remember that youth experiment with multiple tobacco products, not just cigarettes,” Delnevo told Reuters Health by e-mail. “In fact, the most recent data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey show that rates of current cigarette and cigar use do not differ among adolescent males.”

Public health messaging in the past largely focused on cigarettes, she said.

Cigars have been flavoured for decades, but may be appealing to youth more now as a substitute for cigarettes, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Brian King told Reuters Health.

King is the senior scientific advisor to the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health in Atlanta.

“Little cigars and cigarillos are the same size and shape and have similar filters as cigarettes,” he said. “They are essentially cigarettes in disguise.”

The Food and Drug Administration has banned flavourings other than menthol in cigarettes, but that restriction does not apply to cigars.

“A lot of times they’re bubble gum or chocolate or candy flavoured, and in many cases the packages are also framed in a manner to appeal to kids,” King said.

They are also less expensive than cigarettes because they are not subject to the same taxes, all of which combines to give cigars a “glaring loophole” in tobacco regulation, he said.

“In many states these products can be purchased for mere pocket change,” he said.

The price differential could potentially encourage cigarette smokers to switch to a cheaper alternative when they might otherwise have quit, Delnevo said.

It’s important for parents and schools to remember that cigars contain the same carcinogens as cigarettes, and they are not a safe alternative, King said.

“We should use the same public health messaging for cigarettes and cigars,” he said.

NEW YORK – For people recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, eating lots of olive oil, fish and whole grains slows progression of the disease more than restricting fat, according to a new analysis.

In a trial that followed participants for more than eight years, those following a so-called Mediterranean diet went significantly longer before needing diabetes medication and more of them had their diabetes go into remission, compared to those on a low-fat diet.

"There's been lots of epidemiology suggesting that a Mediterranean diet was beneficial with metabolic syndrome and diabetes," Dr Leanne Olansky told Reuters Health.

"But this was a randomised controlled trial, so we know it really was the diet causing the results," she said. "This is the kind of evidence that we use to determine if drugs are effective."

"Everybody thinks of fat as being bad, but this shows that it depends on what kind of fat," said Olansky, an endocrinologist at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved in the new study.

People diagnosed with diabetes should aim to have a healthy diet, and a Mediterranean diet is a good, healthy option, lead study author Katherine Esposito told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

Cutting calories is important, and cutting fat is an easy way to cut calories, but according to this study, maintaining the right levels of healthy fats is important, she said.

"One of the main aspects of the Mediterranean diet is the percentage of daily fat, which is higher than 30 per cent of daily calories, however, the main fat is monounsaturated, usually from olive oil in the Mediterranean basin," said Esposito, of the diabetes unit at University Hospital at the Second University of Naples in Italy.

She and her colleagues continued to follow participants in a previous study who had been divided into two groups — one assigned to follow a Mediterranean diet and the other a low-fat diet — when they were first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Both diets were designed to help prevent the disease from getting worse and to keep blood sugar under control without medication for as long as possible.

On both diets, women aimed to consume 1,500 calories per day and men aimed for 1,800 per day. Mediterranean dieters ate lots of vegetables and whole grains and replaced most red meat with poultry and fish. Monthly sessions with nutritionists helped them keep less than half of their calories coming from carbohydrates and at least 30 per cent of calories from fat, mainly olive oil.

The low-fat diet restricted fatty or sugary snacks, limiting fats to less than 30 per cent of daily calorie intake.

At the end of a four-year study period, some of the participants in each group still hadn't gone on medication.

At the six-year mark, all the people in the low-fat diet group had gone on diabetes medication, but it wasn't until the eight-year mark that all people in the Mediterranean diet group needed medication.

Diabetes "remission", in which blood sugar levels appear healthy with no signs of diabetes, was rare overall but slightly more common in the Mediterranean group, according to the results published in Diabetes Care.

Avoiding saturated fat, which often comes from red meat, could be important for diabetics, Olansky said.

"Although we don't know exactly what it is about Mediterranean diets that helps control blood sugar, it likely has to do with high levels of fibre, less red meat, and more olive oil and fish, a good source of protein with unsaturated fat," she said.

"The Mediterranean diet represents an easy way to combine healthy foods with taste and flavour," Esposito said. "Most of our patients continue to follow Mediterranean diet, even after the study ended."

People on the Mediterranean diet tended to lose more weight than those on the low-fat diet, which may be because the Mediterranean diet is easier to stick to, Olansky said.

"Patients often ask us what they can do besides medication," Olansky said.

"Often they want to try a lifestyle intervention before medicine, and this is a great example of something you could offer a patient."

HELSINKI – Finnish telecom company Nokia on Thursday recalled 30,000 chargers for its Lumia 2520 tablet due to risk it could give customers an electric shock.

The AC-300 charger, manufactured by a third-party supplier, was sold in Austria, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Russia, Switzerland and the US.

The Lumia 2520 is the first tablet by Nokia, once the world leader in the mobile phone industry but which lost its top place to South Korea’s Samsung in 2012.

“The plastic cover of the charger’s exchangeable plug could come loose and separate,” the company said in a statement.

“If loose and separated, certain internal components pose a hazard of an electric shock if touched while the plug remains in a live socket.”

The Finnish company said the problem was detected during an internal quality control process and that no consumer incident had been reported so far.

Nokia advised all customers to “suspend use of the charger until further notice”.

“We’re working with all our suppliers to minimise the inconvenience,” the firm said on its website.

The sale of Nokia’s mobile phone and tablet business to US giant Microsoft is expected by the end of this month.

The unit, once a pioneer of the mobile phone world but now relegated behind the likes of Apple and Samsung, reported losses of 780 million euros ($1.08 billion) last year.

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook on Thursday began rolling out a feature allowing users of its mobile app to use smartphone location to discover friends near them.

The optional “nearby friends” feature “helps you discover which friends are nearby or on the go”, said product manager Andrea Vaccari in a blog announcement.

“If you turn on Nearby Friends, you’ll occasionally be notified when friends are nearby, so you can get in touch with them and meet up,” Vaccari said.

“For example, when you’re headed to the movies, Nearby Friends will let you know if friends are nearby so you can see the movie together or meet up afterward.”

With the feature, Facebook takes a page from other location-based services including the network Foursquare, numerous dating apps and the recently launched social network aggregator SocialRadar.

With the Facebook feature, Vaccari said, “You can choose who can see if you’re nearby (for example: your friends, close friends, or a specific friends list) and you can turn it on and off at any time.”

He added that the location sharing must be mutual: “You and your friends both have to turn on Nearby Friends and choose to share with each other to see when you’re nearby. Your friends will only be able to see that you’re nearby if you share this info with them and vice versa.”

Facebook will also allow users to share a precise location with the particular friends for a set period of time.

“When you share your precise location, the friend you choose will see exactly where you are on a map, which helps you find each other,” said Vaccari.

Facebook had an estimated 1.23 billion users at the end of December, and more than one billion who use the social network on a mobile device.

The “nearby friends” feature will be available for Android and iPhone users in the United States over the coming weeks.

Consider the following technical computer characteristics. A blazing Intel i7 processor at 3MHz, a massive 16GB of memory, a gigantic 1TB hybrid hard disk, superfast NVidia 2MB graphics, USB3.0 ports aplenty, a crystal-clear and sharp monitor with true colours, HDMI output, high definition sound and image, and last but not least, a BluRay player. This is not a dream-like checklist for a server machine for a large corporation but a humble though powerful modern-day laptop computer.

If you are thinking Dell, then its XPS series will easily match the above. If Lenovo is more your cup of tea, you may want to go to its T-Series for sheer power. If you like Toshiba better, then its muscular Qosmio X Series might be just what you are looking for. As for Apple and HP they offer, respectively, the magnificent Macbook Air and the stunning Spectre models.

If you think that only tablets and smartphones are attractive and come with trendy, glitzy features, think twice and remember that laptops today are at least as gorgeous if not more, albeit with a significant difference. This difference lies in the fact that laptops are more “genuinely”great, with fewer gimmicks than their physically smaller counterparts.

Admitted, today smartphones and tablets have taken centre stage in the media and occupy most social talk after hours.However, these otherwise nice devices come with a smokescreen of not-so-useful features, often astutely used by the manufacturerto hide weaknesses and shortcomings. Laptops on the other hand have considerably matured and constitute portable powerhouses with well-tested features and functionality, free from passing trends and gadgets.

Moreover many laptop models today come with touch screens, thus challenging smartphones and tablets on their own turf and unleashing all of the functionalities of Windows 8.1, especially those that distinguish it from its predecessors, Windows 7 and the versions that came before.

Virtually every single weakness of previous laptop computer design has been addressed by the industry, eventhe dreaded battery life question. Laptop batteries now last clearly longer than what it used to be a few years ago and we’re almost at the one full day of use landmark that smartphones and tablets have set. Actually Apple Macbook Air 13-inch already claims 12 hour and Lenovo T-530 15 hours. There is no question here about the fact that every aspect of a laptop is great and has been noticeably improved with time.

Power still comes first, of course. This is what mainly sets laptops miles ahead of smartphones and tablets. This is particularly true when you are running several applications at one time, which most of us do most of the time. Even the excellent Apple iPhone 5S or Samsung Galaxy S5 are no match for a good, solid laptop.

Clarity of display and screen size, memory capacity, storage capacity, speed of the wireless connection, everything works well and fast with a high-end laptop. And even if the prices in this league start at about $1,200 and go all the way up to $4,000 or $5,000, it’s still worth it.

Virtualisation, the possibility to create additional “virtual” machines on one physical computer, used to be only doable on big servers. It is today possible with high-end laptops. I know it for doing it all the time.

I like my tablet, my smartphone and my laptop. But if I always find a good use for each of them, depending on the context and the moment, I’d say I could perhaps live without the first but not without the last two: the smartphone because we all absolutely need a device that is that small and can be carrying around all the time, despite any lack of power; the second because it does everything that needs to be done in the digital world we are living in, and because it does it well and fast.

TOKYO –– In 1997, Toyota caught its competitors by surprise with the revolutionary Prius, the first commercially successful gasoline-electric hybrid car. Now, the Japanese firm is trying to do the same with a technology that seems straight out of science fiction.

Toyota Motor Corp. will next year launch a hydrogen-powered car in the US, Japan and Europe. For now, people at Toyota are calling it the 2015 FC car, for fuel-cell.

Fuel-cell cars use a “stack” of cells that electro-chemically combine hydrogen with oxygen to generate electricity that helps propel the car. 

Their only emission, bar heat, is water vapour; they can run five times longer than battery electric cars, and it takes just minutes to fill the tank with hydrogen –– far quicker than even the most rapid charger can recharge a battery electric car.

The 2015 launch culminates a 20-year zig-zag quest during which Toyota first struggled to get the technology to work and then strained to lower manufacturing costs enough to permit realistic pricing. It has also been playing catch-up to rival Honda Motor Co., which has set the early pace with its FCX Clarity, a sleek, purpose-built hydrogen car.

The cost-cutting continues, though Toyota thinks it has cracked the code with incremental design improvements, such as using wider, flatter “fettuccine-style” copper in coils that make the motor more powerful, and thus smaller and cheaper.

“With the 2015 FC car we think we’ve achieved a degree of dominance over our rivals,” Satoshi Ogiso, a Toyota managing director, said in a recent interview at the group’s global headquarters. “With the car, we make a first giant step” toward making fuel-cell vehicles practical for everyday use.

What’s more, executives and engineers say Toyota is willing to sell the car at a loss for a long while to popularise the new technology — just as it did with the Prius, which, with other hybrids, now accounts for 14 per cent of Toyota’s annual sales, excluding group companies, of around 9 million vehicles.

As a result, drivers in key “green” markets such as California may be able to buy the car for a little more than $30,000-$40,000, after government subsidies — if management approves a pricing strategy put forward by a group of managers and engineers. General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Volt, a near-all-electric plug-in hybrid, for comparison, starts at around $35,000 in the US.

The stakes are high — for global automakers, oil producers, economies and the environment.

Infrastructure roadblocks 

As with battery electric cars, a major challenge for fuel-cell automakers is a lack of infrastructure, with few hydrogen fuel stations in the world. Estimates vary, but it costs about $2 million to build a single hydrogen fuel station in the US, according to Toyota executives.

Safety is also a concern. Hydrogen is a highly flammable element when not handled properly.

The Toyota launch pits fuel-cell technology against battery electric in a race to capture the hearts and wallets of drivers looking for engines that are easier on the environment. Automakers are under pressure to invest in so-called “zero-emission” cars as tougher rules globally demand lower harmful emissions and better fuel economy. 

It’s a polarising debate.

Takeshi Uchiyamada, the 67-year-old “father of the Prius” whose success catapulted him from mid-level engineer to Toyota board chairman, says technology inefficiencies will make the battery electric car little more than an “errands car” — a small run-around for shopping, dropping the kids at school and other short-haul chores.

Other global automakers in the fuel-cell camp include Daimler AG, Hyundai Motor Co. and Honda, which plans to introduce an upgraded FCX Clarity next year with seating for five, a smaller fuel-cell stack, greater power and a longer driving range.

Those betting on battery electric cars include Nissan Motor Co., Tesla Motors Inc., Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chinese automakers backed by the country’s industrial policy makers. China offers generous purchase incentives for those buying battery electric cars and aims to have 5 million “new energy” vehicles — mostly all-electric and near all-electric plug-in hybrids — on the road by 2020. Several of these will be exhibited at the Beijing auto show from April 20.

Even Toyota only expects tens of thousands of fuel-cell cars to be sold each year a decade from now as the new technology will need time to gain traction.

NEW YORK –– Major US wireless carriers and smartphone makers have agreed to introduce tools to enable users to lock their devices and wipe them clean of data if stolen, responding to pressure on the telecommunications industry to do more to stem theft.

Starting in July 2015, all smartphones manufactured by the companies will come with free anti-theft tools preloaded on the devices or ready to be downloaded, according to wireless association CTIA, which announced the agreement on Tuesday.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney, George Gascon welcomed the voluntary agreement but said it fell short of what they have advocated to prevent theft.

The prosecutors have urged manufacturers and carriers to carry the tools as a default in their devices, rather than having users download them.

“While CTIA’s decision to respond to our call for action by announcing a new voluntary commitment to make theft-deterrent features available on smartphones is a welcome step forward, it falls short of what is needed to effectively end the epidemic of smartphone theft,” the prosecutors said in a joint statement.

In 2012, 1.6 million Americans were victimised for their smartphones, according to Schneiderman’s office.

The 10 device makers signing the voluntary agreement included Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. , Google Inc. and HTC America Inc. The wireless carriers included Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., Sprint Corp., T-Mobile US Inc. and US Cellular.

“This flexibility provides consumers with access to the best features and apps that fit their unique needs while protecting their smartphones and the valuable information they contain,” said Steve Largent, chief executive of the CTIA.

The agreement extends individual decisions by Apple and Samsung to include features in their new mobile software that require a legitimate owner’s ID and password before a phone can be wiped clean or re-activated after being remotely erased.

It is easy to find angry people around you these days. There are so many of them, seething with rage, that it is a wonder our planet has not gone up in smoke. Scenes of anger are visible everywhere, whichever way you turn. 

On the roads: the horn-tooting motorists whizzing past you, sometimes overtaking you from the wrong side. In the airports or on railway platforms: If the flights/ trains are delayed or cancelled, the passengers hopping in sheer indignation. In shopping centres, restaurants, movie halls, hospitals, hotels and even educational institutions, the sound of fury is unmistakable. 

Anger, as defined by the dictionary, is an emotional response related to one’s psychological interpretation of having been offended, wronged or denied. It is a feeling of great annoyance or antagonism as a result of some real or perceived grievance. 

So, in other words, a whole lot of people are antagonistic because of false interpretation? And if the wrong perception is corrected, they will cool down? 

Honestly, I don’t know the answer. Personally when I was younger, I did not encounter too many wrathful persons. I was raised in a small town whose inhabitants had patience and empathy in large doses.  The closest I came to the term “anger” was when one Indian movie by the unlikely name of “Why does Mr. Pinto get angry” was released. Where quirky named films go, this one was a sure winner. People flocked to the theater just to see the answer to the query that the picture posed. 

My parents were cheerful and mild-mannered folks. Our mother was the stricter one, but she was more firm than furious while disciplining us. Our father had all the time in the world for every inane inquiry, and each discussion was laced in humour. I remember going to him with a math question when I was seven years old. He looked at me in complete surprise and absent-mindedly asked me when I had started school. He then drew a large kitty in my book and wrote my name on top of it. You go and colour this picture, he instructed me. The time for problem solving can wait. 

It was only when I started living in big cities that I encountered rage like never before. The weirdest part of this was the anger that strangers exhibited towards, well, strangers. 

Subsequently, I was informed about the term “fake fury”. Loosely described, this is apparently something that people indulge in to get themselves out of a sticky situation. You know, for example, if you are caught speeding and you exhibit a hyped version of this condition, there is a chance you might be left off without a ticket. 

I took this information with a pinch of salt and did not believe in anger games. But the other day I surprised myself. I had stopped my car in a no parking zone. The traffic warden was at my window in an instant. 

“That green van took my slot,” I accused even before he could say anything.

“Driving licence please?” the cop requested.

“Why don’t you fine the van driver?” I asked frowning. 

“Don’t teach me my job,” the officer said firmly.

“You are yelling at me? You see an innocent lady driver and want to fine her because some awful inconsiderate man bullied his way into her parking?” I screamed. 

“Oh, Ok! Just go, go,” he waved me away. 

“It works,” I muttered, hiding my smile.

FRANKFURT – Daimler is set to revive Maybach, a brand once coveted by oligarchs, rap stars and royals, to woo a growing class of ultra-wealthy clients in Asia and the United States, a person familiar with the company’s plans said.

The brand will be used to adorn an exclusive version of its S-Class limousine fitted with soft-touch leather and bespoke materials to help lure clients from other high-end brands like Rolls Royce and Bentley.

The Maybach will be showcased at both the Guangzhou and the Los Angeles auto shows in November and cost more than double the 165,000-euro ($228,000) asking price of its current flagship, the Mercedes-Benz S600, the person said.

Not to be outdone, rival BMW is expected to unveil a concept version of its top-of-the-line 7-series limousine at the Beijing auto show later this week, as it seeks to attract Chinese clients who are snapping up German premium cars.

The Mercedes Maybach will have a wheelbase that is 20 centimetres longer than even the extended version of its S-Class, allowing for extra leg space and making it the longest limousine in the Mercedes range until the expected launch of an even longer Pullman version, the source said.

Daimler stopped making bespoke Maybach limousines in 2012 after efforts to sell cars based on a unique design and costing around $380,000 failed to gain traction with clients.

Only 200 Maybachs were sold in 2011, but the cars were coveted by celebrities including Russia’s Roman Abramovich, hip hop musician Jay-Z and King Juan Carlos of Spain.

Since mid-2012, the number of millionaires worldwide has grown by nearly 2 million, the vast majority of them in the United States and Asia, Credit Suisse said in its World Wealth Report.

There are 98,700 individuals with assets worth more than $50 million each, and by 2018, global wealth will jump a further 40 per cent to reach $334 trillion, the Swiss bank’s study shows.

A Mercedes-Benz Pullman “state limousine” designed to ferry around politicians is also under development and is set to cost up to $1 million in its armour-plated version, said the person familiar with Daimler’s plans.

The car is expected to have a wheelbase that is a full metre longer than that found in the current S-Class, to allow for an extra row of rear-facing seats in the passenger compartment.

The original Mercedes-Benz Pullman 600, launched by Mercedes-Benz at the Frankfurt auto show in 1963, was over six metres in length and had a top speed of 200 kilometres per hour (124 mph). It gained notoriety as a “dictator ship” because it proved so popular with despots.

Owners of the Pullman, which had a complex hydraulic suspension that allowed it to hustle along at high speeds on bad quality roads, included Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, Shah Reza Pahlavi of Persia, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito.

At the time, Mercedes wanted to show rivals Rolls-Royce and Cadillac that it could make a car that was comfortable even at high speeds, a feat that was difficult for armour-plated vehicles weighing over 3.4 tonnes.

NEW YORK – The shortest path to the Internet for some remote corners of the world may be through the skies.

That is the message from US tech giants seeking to spread the online gospel to hard-to-reach regions.

Google took a step in that direction this week with the acquisition of Titan Aerospace, a maker of solar-powered drones that can help boost Internet access to remote areas.

“It’s still early days, but atmospheric satellites could help bring Internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like deforestation,” said a Google spokesman.

Titan’s drones are able to run for five years at an altitude of some 65,000 feet (20,000 metres). They can perform similar functions to geostationary satellites, but are less costly.

Drones are just one of several ideas being explored by Google, Facebook and others that may involve satellites, high-altitude balloons, blimps or other flying machines.

Google has already begun work on Project Loon, which uses large balloons for transmitting Internet signals to regions that are not now connected.

Tests were carried out last year in New Zealand, and one balloon circumnavigated the world in 22 days.

Google’s plan is to keep the balloons aloft in the stratosphere for 100 days, with movements guided by an algorithmic formula.

A similar idea comes from Facebook, which last month unveiled its “Connectivity Lab” aimed at spreading the Internet with drones, satellites and solar-powered planes.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said recently that he sees a potential in drones because they “have more endurance than balloons, while also being able to have their location precisely controlled”.

“And unlike satellites, drones won’t burn up in the atmosphere when their mission is complete,” he added.

Facebook is working with global partners, including Samsung, Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm, in a group called Internet.org that seeks to improve Internet access to lesser developed regions.

Question marks 

It’s not quite clear if these ideas are merely pie in the sky.

“It’s all very interesting but the technology is very unproven,” said Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies.

Kay said Google appears to outflank Facebook for Titan and that “it’s a bit of a defensive move, but it’s also possible that this will not bear practical fruit.”

Jack Gold, analyst with J. Gold Associates, was more skeptical.

“People have played with it for years and it is not going anywhere,” Gold said.

“I don’t think it’s cost-effective for companies like Google and others to put up a thousand drones just to get people access.”

Gold maintained that Google “can do all kinds of experiments, they’ve got the cash and money to do that. But I’m not sure I would at this point look at it as a serious way for them to deliver Internet.”

Google has a ground game as well as an air game, however. The California giant is expanding its Google Fibre project to dozens of US cities.

And sources familiar with Google’s plans say the work in the skies is not merely a pipe dream: Data from Loon and Titan drones may be integrated into other projects, notably efforts to fine-tune services such as Google Maps.