7 Ways Virtual Reality is a Blessing to Humanity – The Good Men Project (blog)

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Today, virtual reality has become a buzzword in the technology world. Virtual reality or VR is, in simple words, a virtual environment created through technology where our senses can explore it as if they are real.

This technology is immersive in nature because the user can totally be isolated from the outside world and experience the artificial reality as if it is real.

Here are some of the applications of VR in the present world and in the future.

#1: VR Gaming

The concept of VR gaming has been imagined since the days of video games. Virtual reality in games is created through special VR software.

The imaginary gaming reality is then viewed and interacted by the users through VR headsets and other gadgets.

The modern VR gadgets for gaming comes with motion sensor and gyroscope sensors which works in sync with the game and the headsets. The ability to interact with the virtual reality in real time is what makes VR games so fascinating.

#2: Visiting Places

VR technology in the travelling industry is being seen as the next big thing which can revolutionize how human beings experience places.

VR enables us to have an immersive experience. Imagine yourself visiting the Eiffel tower or the pyramid of Giza sitting on your couch, without even having to move an inch!

This is going to be true very soon through the means of wearables.

Wearables are small devices that you can wear which gives you certain information whenever you want it.

For example, Google glasses, which can give you contextual information around a place you visit.

Many popular airlines like Qantas and travelling agencies like Thomas Cook has created VR content for their users. Their customers can experience the popular tourist destinations in immersive VR content before they even visit the place.

#3: VR Flight Simulators

VR flight simulator is a boon for aviation industry, both civilian as well as military.

VR simulators are basically used to train pilots about the various operations of an aircraft, developing skills of handling an aircraft in different circumstances and to learn about a new type of aircraft.

Although VR simulators are highly expensive but if thought in terms of safety, cost of an accident and related losses, it is way too less. And a single VR simulator can train multiple pilots in its lifetime.

#4: Experiential Marketing

The future of marketing is going to transform because of the VR technology.

Consumers can experience firsthand before committing any investment. One of the potential area of application is in the real estate market where agencies can create VR database of all the property listings and conceptualize each property according to the buyers taste.

The buyer can experience the property in virtual reality without having to visiting the place in real. Other potential usage can be for University tour in VR before getting admission, broadcasting live concerts in VR where the audience can feel & enjoy the live concert environment without being present in the concert.

#5: VR for the Disabled

Researchers are experimenting application of VR to help the disabled. VR can be

used to impart skills to disabled persons without any risks. This eliminates the safety issues faced in the real life world.

VR is also being tested to give a lifetime of experience to disabled people by making adventures more immersive through VR gadgets. Now a disabled person can experience the beauty of Himalayas through a VR headset.

#6: Entertainment

Virtual reality is completely reshaping the way we consume entertainment. VR has potential to replace two dimensional experiences.

Reality Lovers is an award winning company and worldwide website that combines adult entertainment with virtual reality. The high-quality videos found on the Reality Lovers website (that are ready to be downloaded and played back via your VR gear/goggles) are immersive, making the overall experience even more realistic and exciting. What makes VR adult entertainment so appealing is the feeling of being present in it and making all your wildest fantasies come true in the comfort of wherever you enjoy from.

The next level of VR entertainment goes beyond passively watching videos. Amusement parksare using VR even on the roller coaster rides to provide a thrilling experience. Also, Chinas Shanda Group is building a VR theme park in association with The Void.

#7: Filmmaking

According to Marcie Jastrow, SVP Immersive Media at Technicolor, VR is a perfect example of technology and art coming together.

Pioneers in this field like HP and Microsoft are working with the creators from the Film industries to make virtual reality similar to real world reality. Experts believe in the next 20 years virtual reality will converge with real world life and become a part of the mainstream.

The breakthrough in VR technology is being complimented by haptic devices, which blends virtual reality with sensory feelings. HP calls this Blended Reality.

The Future of VR

Virtual reality and other types of technology assisted reality is the future where human beings will be able to experience, create and manipulate artificial realities through technology.

The convergence of various other technologies and advancements with virtual reality will usher a new era in mankinds evolution. Some part of the community is worried about the potential misuse of VR and damage to the brain and human psyche but the overall prospects of this technology looks bright.

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7 Ways Virtual Reality is a Blessing to Humanity - The Good Men Project (blog)

Virtual reality tools to teach students about the Gaspee Days | WJAR – Turn to 10

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by Mario Hilario, NBC 10 News

A group of Brown University students, led by Adam Blumenthal, Brown University's Virtual Reality Artist-in-Residence, is creating a virtual reality experience they hope will be a teaching tool for middle and high school students.

The VR experience takes the user back to the colony of Rhode Island in 1772 and the events surrounding the historic burning of the British Schooner, the HMS Gaspee.

"I chose the story of the Gaspee, this great story of pre-Revolutionary America because it's a very dramatic story, it's a story that took place in our neighborhoods here. I think it will play well in VR. When the student puts on the VR glasses, they'll be there," said Blumenthal.

The project, still in production, will combine animation, 3D modeling and reenactments that are shot using a 360 degree camera on loan from Google.

"We place this camera in historic locations around Rhode Island, places that were a part of the story, with dozens of historical reenactors and a script and we're simulating events that happened 245 years ago," said Blumenthal.

He will use the project to study the effect virtual reality can have on student engagement and learning.

"I think we can solve the engagement problem, the thing is can we teach something? Can students learn through the experience?"

Blumenthal hopes to find out that answer soon. He and his students expect to roll out the project in Rhode Island schools in the Fall and eventually take it national, hoping to let students across the country know about Rhode Islands role in sparking the American Revolution.

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Virtual reality tools to teach students about the Gaspee Days | WJAR - Turn to 10

Super Lucky’s Tale brings the virtual reality franchise to Xbox One – Polygon

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The charming fox Lucky wont just be trapped on virtual reality headsets anymore, as Super Luckys Tale is coming to the Xbox One this November.

Luckys Tale, developed by Playful, was originally published by Oculus as a launch title for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The platformer aped Nintendo 64-era games with its cheerful design and colorful environments, and also used virtual reality features like head tracking as game mechanics.

Super Luckys Tale looks like it will take those same vivid worlds and puts them on a flat screen. Lucky is attempting to rescue his sister and the Book of Ages artifact from the evil Jinx, according to Playful.

Super Luckys Tale is due out on Nov. 7 for Xbox One and Windows 10.

E3 2017 begins on June 13, with press conferences starting June 10. For the big announcements, make sure to check out our one-stop shop for the show's streams.

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Super Lucky's Tale brings the virtual reality franchise to Xbox One - Polygon

TRISH DROMEY: Titanic to put Waterford virtual reality firm on the map – Irish Examiner

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Trish Dromey learns of the Waterford virtual reality firm that started with a moon shot product, and is now aiming even higher

David Whelan, the chief executive of Immersive VR Education.

WATERFORD startup Immersive VR Education is preparing for the launch of Titanic VR an immersive experience which allows users to see the events of the doomed ship through the eyes of a survivor, and also to virtually explore the wreck on the seabed.

This follows the release in 2015 of the companys first offering, the Apollo 11 VR a recreation of the 1969 moon landing which now sells on all VR platforms including Playstation VR.

Immersive VR Education has sold 70,000 copies and has also collected seven international awards.

Company co-founder David Whelan said that although these VR experiences are effective showcases for Immersive VR Education, they only form a small part of the companys plan, which is to use VR and augmented reality to revolutionise education globally.

We have created a VR education platform capable of giving hand on lessons anywhere in the world, he said, explaining that the platform called Engage is the first of its kind to use VR in this way.

By creating a virtual classroom you can allow people for all over the world to interact and engage. In a virtual environment you can hold a marine biology class on a sea bed floor or even drop in a dinosaur.

Mr Whelan and his wife Sandra set the company up in 2014, and used Kickstarter funding to develop the Apollo 11 VR which was launched in early 2016.

Signing up for the New Frontiers programme and establishing Immersive VR at Waterford Institute of Technology, Mr Whelan shifted the focus to the development of a distant learning educational platform for universities in 2016. Discovering that a large percentage of people who participate in online education dont finish their courses, he saw an opportunity to create an experience which would be as engaging as a real classroom.

During 2016, the company became an Enterprise Ireland high-potential start-up client and raised just over 1m securing funding from Kernel Capital and Suir Valley ventures. Immersive VR Education has since grown its team from four to 17.

This month it moved to Cleaboy Industrial Park in Waterford where it plans to employ an additional 10 people by the end of this year.

While working on developing the Engage platform, the company has collaborated with Oxford University, New Haven University in Connecticut, and the University of Washington.

Engage allows educators and trainers to create their own immersive content using the tools provided on the platform, said Mr Whelan, explaining that the companys projects include a VR medical training course which simulates the resuscitation of stillborn babies. He says the success of Apollo 11 VR has helped the company attract the skilled developers it needs for current and future projects.

We won the Time Warner Future of Storytelling award which was huge for a small company in South-East Ireland, he added.

The second showcase project, Titanic VR, is an even larger project, for which a Kickstarter campaign was held earlier this year. Mr Whelan says the publicity generated by this campaign is as important as the funding.

Titanic is set for an early release in the summer while the full version will be launched before Christmas. The company has already released an alpha version of the Engage platform and is developing language programmes which will be released early next year.

Offering the Engage platform to universities free of charge, Immersive VR will use a revenue-sharing model and charge a percentage when the universities begin charging for the content next year.

In 2016 there were just half a million high-end VR headsets in the world this is now set to grow to 4m this year and 12m next year, said Mr Whelan, who believes there are vast opportunities in this space for Immersive VR Education.

Plans for 2018 include the commercial launch of the Engage platform, and the company is now looking at options for a third showcase virtual reality experience.

Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

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TRISH DROMEY: Titanic to put Waterford virtual reality firm on the map - Irish Examiner

Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Stanley Cup immortality – Yahoo Sports

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NASHVILLE The first 100 years of the NHL have been filled with iconic images, from Bobby Orrs leap to Gretzkys tears.

Submitted for your approval, as an additionto that pantheon: Evgeni Malkin on the left, Sidney Crosby on the right, and the Stanley Cup being smooched in between them as they hold it together.

For there isnt a more appropriate way to convey how these three championships theyve won for the Pittsburgh Penguins since 2009 are born of two fathers: The hulking 30-year-old Russian who skates like a freight train on one side, and the 29-year-old from Cole Harbour who skates like nothing can stop him from achieving glory on the other. In some ways, total opposites. Yet, together, they carry the championship with the help of the other.

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They are Gretzky and Messier. They are Mario and Jagr. They are the foundation for everything the Pittsburgh Penguins build towards a championship team, for they are the reason the Pittsburgh Penguins know that no matter what adversity visits them, they can be a championship team.

Theyre generational players. Theyre different players, but theyre both elite in their own way, said coach Mike Sullivan. I dont know that you could find two better people to build a team around than these two guys.

GM Jim Rutherford took over the Penguins in 2014 knowing that with Malkin and Crosby there, he could win another Stanley Cup. And now hes won two with them, and couldnt stop singing their praises on Sunday night after their Game 6 win over the Nashville Predators.

In Sids case, I think now we can talk about him being in those top two, three, four guys of all-time. Hes a special player. Hes a special person. Hes won three Cups now. Two Conn Smythe trophies back to back. Hes in that group for me, he said of Crosby, who was recently named as one of the Top 100 NHL players of all-time.

Malkin, infamously, wasnt.

Youd think that Geno could get into the top 100, wouldnt ya? Maybe we can vote again and get him in the top 101 this year. I mean wow, said Rutherford. Ill just leave that alone for now. That was so disappointing for me, but thats a whole nother story.

But thats Crosby and Malkin for you: In many ways equals, in other ways its like theyre in different area codes.

***

There have been times in their careers when Malkin and Crosby were used as linemates, but in the last few seasons its been the Crosby Line and the Malkin Line.

The former has Sid playing with a rotating cast of young player, dispelling the notion that he cant play with everyone by meshing with the likes of Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary and Jake Guentzel during these Cup wins.

The latter has Geno playing with Phil Kessel and a few other wingers, providing near-constant offense and at times dominating play.

Occasionally, hockey fans and punditry will get all Lennon vs. McCartney with these guys, especially the Malkin fans who grumble about him constantly being in the shadow of Crosby. Like, for example, when Malkin ended up leading the NHL playoffs in points (28) this postseason but Crosby won the Conn Smythe with one fewer point his second playoff MVP award in two seasons when falling short of the team lead in points. (Malkin won the Conn Smythe after the Penguins first Cup.)

But if Crosby had a Conn Smythe ballot, who would he vote for?

I think Geno comes to mind right away, he said.

The thing that the Team Geno and Team Sid folks always miss is that one is essential to the others success.

Sid doesnt accomplish what he has in the NHL without Malkin, and vice versa. To have an opponent worrying about a second greatest of all-time player in the lineup changes life for both Malkin and Crosby. Its a luxury no other star has in the modern NHL on the level that Malkin and Crosby have it with due respect for Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.

The other aspect of their coexistence is that they push each other more than any player in the League could push them. This is something Sullivans witnessed in overseeing their consecutive championships.

I really believe in just my time here with both guys, theyve grown to be appreciative for one another and how they help each other have success and this team. And so when there are nights when maybe Sid might not have his A game, that Geno steps up and helps this team win and vice versa. There are other nights where Geno might not have his A game and Sid steps up and makes a big play to help this team win, he said.

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Theyre two players of a very select few in the league that single-handedly have an ability to change the outcomes of games. Thats how good they are. But I do believe that just in my time in Pittsburgh with them, I think theyre appreciative of one another. I would have to think they are.

***

If there is a line to be drawn between Malkin and Crosby, its in leadership.

This isnt to say that Malkin isnt one, because hes gotten more emphatic and vocal behind the scenes as hes grown older. Its just to say that Crosby will go down as one of the greatest players to ever wear the C, because he embodies everything youd ever want in a captain.

I think hes now one of the best to ever play the game. To win three Stanley Cups, and two Conn Smythes in a row is pretty good, said Penguins owner Mario Lemieux, who knows a thing or two about excelling as a Pittsburgh captain.

Hes one of the best leaders to ever play the game.

Lemieux pointed to Crosbys Game 5 performance in the Stanley Cup Final, in which his undeniable drive to win three assists, a critical penalty call earned and just overall dominance propelled the Penguins to an essential victory.

He made a statement in that game. He could feel like we were getting close to the Stanley Cup. He played like it, said Lemieux.

The debate over Crosbys status as the best hockey player in the world has been long-settled.

Hes the best player in the world, theres just no question about it. The way that he rises up to the challenge when the stakes are the highest, its just fun to see. He just drives our engine here, said center Matt Cullen.

Rutherford prefers to see him as an engineer.

You gotta get on the train with him, or youre going to get run over, said the Pittsburgh GM. When you come to the rink you better be ready to go to work. And hes the guy who leads it.

***

Malkin is a goofball. A delightful, wonderful goofball.

For all we know about Sidney Crosby after the Stanley Cup parade, hell be placed back inside his cabinet to recharge his batteries until its time to power up again for the 2017-18 season.

Malkin? Hes going to bring the Cup somewhere in Russia to take silly photos with it. And then hes going to go on a boat, catch an absurdly large fish and Instagram it. Because thats what he does.

Again, its Lennon vs. McCartney. Sid is the next-level musical genius, heightening hockey is something near spiritual; Geno is his equal in many ways, but regarded as the fun one to Crosbys etherial leader.

Crosby drinks from the Cup.

Malkin has a champagne fight with Phil Kessel.

You get the idea.

Its amazing team. We have great chance to win every year, said Malkin, after skating the Cup for the third time.

Malkin is signed through 2022. Crosby is signed through 2025. Their legacy as one of the best duos in the history of hockey is cemented with a third Stanley Cup together. And yet the reason they thrive, the reason they succeed, the reason they get to place their lips on the Holy Grail after two months of battle is because its never going to be enough for either of them.

We just still young, we still hungry. And of course, we want more, said Malkin.

You cant match this. This is what its all about, said Crosby. You have a small window to play and to have a career, and I feel fortunate, but I also understand how difficult it is, so you just want to try to make the best of it.

Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have made the best of it, and in the process, made the Pittsburgh Penguins the best in hockey for the third time. The championship poise this team exhibited in winning four tough rounds is born from them.The confidence that allowed this team to win two Game 7s and close out the Nashville Predators for the Cup begins with them. The notion that someone will make a play when necessary to win a key game comes from the fact that Malkin and Crosby are two players who usually make those plays.

We had a group of guys who knew how to win, said Rutherford.

Including these two:

Sometimes, the pictures just tell the story.

Especially among the immortals.

Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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Griffon helicopter replacement not in the cards for the Liberals anytime soon – Ottawa Citizen

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Ottawa Citizen
Griffon helicopter replacement not in the cards for the Liberals anytime soon
Ottawa Citizen
But the Liberal government's newly released defence policy did not follow through with a Griffon replacement. Instead, the Liberals will embark on what they are calling the CH-146 Griffon Limited Life Extension. They didn't go into details but the ...

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Griffon helicopter replacement not in the cards for the Liberals anytime soon - Ottawa Citizen

‘Orphan Black’ Season 5 Premiere Recap: Life is Tough on and off the Island – BuddyTV (blog)

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Orphan Black's final trip gets off to a wild start, with most of the season 5 premiere taking place on the island of Doctor Moreau P.T. Westmorland. Sarah's injured but determined to find Cosima and a way off the island, while the geek monkey clone is introduced to Revival.

Elsewhere in "The Few Who Dare," Alison, Donnie and Helena are still camping out in a national park, but not for long. Art also gets a new partner and when their paths cross? Uh-oh.

Orphan Black Season 4 Finale Recap: Things Get Crazy and Bloody on the Island>>>

Welcome to the Island Where Stabbing is Part of Animal-on-Animal Violence

Picking up right where the season 4 finale left off, Sarah uses the 2% battery life left on her phone to call and update Felix. Ferdinand took Mrs. S. and Kira. Rachel took over from Susan. She's fine. (And she expects him to ignore the fact that he knows that last bit of information is a lie.) She's not leaving without Cosima, and fortunately, Ira tells her about the village near the boathouse.

After burning a photo of Kira to start a fire and using what she has to bandage her leg, Sarah is attacked by someone (something?!) growling, and she manages to fight him (it?) off before making her way across the island. However, when she finds the boathouse, it's under guard, and one of the men, Cooper, says that the "Old Man" made it clear they don't go home until "she" is back at Revival with "the other one."

Sarah hides after finding game strung up and a dead animal stabbed with a stick. (Cooper tells Amar that a bear killed the latter, even though it was stabbed.) When the men fail to find her before it gets dark, it's time for them to head back to Revival. As for the still missing Sarah? "Good luck to her." (Well, at least she's proven that she can take care of herself.)

Welcome to the Crazy Science of Revival

After waking up in a yurt, Cosima is introduced to Revival by one of its people, Mud. They've been "sustaining life off the grid since 1908" and are almost completely self-sufficient. People are chosen from everywhere and are there to genetically improve the human race. Everyone contributes and everyone benefits. Mud also informs Cosima that Rachel Duncan is in seclusion with the 170-year-old Westmorland and Susan is going to pull through. "P.T. and Susan go way back, but with family feuds, who's to say?" Mud remarks.

"We are all Revival's children. Chosen for a brighter future. Where our frail bodies become so much stronger. And death and aging haunt us no longer," Cosima reads in a book Charlotte was given.

Meanwhile, Delphine uses her work in the clinic to her advantage, hiding Cosima's treatment in a fridge. She also takes the file of a young patient from Afghanistan who came to Revival "for the fountain" before the Messenger retrieves her because "he" wants to see her. When she returns to Cosima, it's only long enough to tell her where her treatment is and about the patient and then say goodbye; she's going on a research trip to Sardinia.

"This is the heart of Neolution," Delphine explains. The entire island is a decades-long prolongevity study. If you want to genetically improve the human race, life extension is key. She leaves Cosima with the key to the clinic, a kiss and a reminder to "follow the crazy science." And those two were just reunited!

Cosima joins the rest of the village when Rachel emerges from her meeting with Westmorland to address them on his behalf. "Like you, I was selected. I know now his hand guided my entire life," she says. "I know Susan Duncan, my mother, once stood here as I am, appointed to move the future forward, and she did. She created me. It is time to be brave, to sacrifice. The fruits of nearly 200 years of Neolution science are now within our grasp, and we here shall drink from the fountain first."

That night, Cosima sneaks into the clinic, where she is reunited with Sarah. But they don't have time for much more than a quick update before the Messenger realizes Cosima's not in her yurt and the village begins looking for her. But Cosima's not leaving with Sarah. This place is the answer, she explains to her sister. She needs to stay for all of them because they'll never be free if she leaves.

Sarah reluctantly leaves, but that means Cosima's left to inject herself in the uterus with her treatment. That is, until Rachel finds her and offers to do it. "I'm as invested in this as you are," she says. "There's no need to be afraid anymore. He wants you to be part of this. You and I are going to cure us all."

Unfortunately, Sarah doesn't make it off the island. Cooper finds her in the boathouse, and just as she's succumbing to the tranquilizer he gives her, Rachel joins them. "It's a new day, Sarah," she tells her. Well, at least that's better than another knife to the leg.

Orphan Black: The 5 Best Reactions to Being Told the Clone Secret>>>

Life Isn't Much Better off the Island

Felix finds a bloody corkscrew at the safe house (pub fighting, classic Siobhan, so that's a good thing, he and Art determine), and he can't contact Mrs. S.' network, so they might be blown too. Art can only do so much since he doesn't even know who can be trusted at the station. And Ira can only be so much help because Susan apparently avoided the subject of Revival.

That's why Scott and Hell Wizard are trying to reach out to Mika, spamming video games with avatars named Sarah Manning. Since she contacted Kira through a game on a laptop at the safe house, Felix heads back there, only to encounter a Mr. Frontenac. Which faction is he from, Felix asks. "There's only one faction now," the man informs him. There's nothing for him to fear because Rachel has taken a special interest in his family, and Felix doesn't really have a choice but to go with him.

Art's life continues to get more complicated thanks to clone business. As his new partner, Detective Enger pulls over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and shows him a file on the Hendrixes. "No cracks," she comments while looking for a reaction from him. "Damn, you're a survivor."

But she bets that they know where "the psycho" (Helena) is, and though he claims to have never met her, she warns him, "you don't know how far we're willing to go to bring all these clones in," showing him a photo of his daughter and advising him to "embrace this new future ... 'cause it's going to be here real soon."

Though Felix and Art decide that the best thing for Alison, Donnie and Helena is to stay where they are, Alison begins packing as soon as she hears what's happening. Donnie uses a loon call to summon Helena back from her hunting, only for Helena to see someone in the woods near her and respond with what he thinks is an emergency loon call.

When he steps away to listen, two men approach Alison, grab her and put a black bag over her head from behind. When Donnie realizes this, he ... takes his suitcase and hurries away. I guess they didn't include "I will not run when my spouse is grabbed by the enemy" in their wedding vows?

Alison is brought in a van to Art and Enger, and Enger questions her as to Helena and Donnie's whereabouts. She was out murdering God's creature, and he abandoned her, the clone says. Supposedly, Neolution wants a truce and for them to all come in, and Enger warns Alison that while she can't hurt a single hair on a single clone head, the same is not true when it comes to Art. She puts a gun to his head, but Alison insists she has no idea where Helena is. Enger believes her. It's time to take her home.

Just as Donnie reaches the car they've hidden and puts his suitcase inside, a man comes up behind him with a gun. "Oh, Jesus" is all Donnie says when Helena shows up because he obviously knows what she's going to do. He even helps out a bit, but after the guy is down, they realize there's a stick in Helena's stomach. Time to get her to the hospital ASAP and hope her babies are okay.

Do you think Cosima made the right decision to stay at Revival? Should Donnie have done something to help Alison? Are you worried about Helena's babies?

Orphan Black season 5 airs Saturdays at 10/9c on BBC America. Want more news? Like our Orphan Black Facebook page.

(Image courtesy of BBC America)

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Iran Swiftly Moving Towards a Knowledge-Based Economy Part 3 – TechRasa (press release) (blog)

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In the two previous articles on the UNCTAD report on Irans standing in science, technology and innovation we summarized the main findings of the report regarding Irans human resource base and infrastructure. Both of which have developed rapidly and have played and will continue to play a significant role in the transition towards a knowledge-based economy. In the final article we will present a general image of Irans STI landscape and discuss actions which Iran can take to further accelerate the transition.

Read the previous articles: Part 1 Part 2

Irans STI policy since 1990 has gone through three stages of change. The first wave of STI policy in Iran was aimed at developing higher education and scientific publications, the implication of which was the development of the significant human resource base discussed in the first part of our report. From the year 2000 came the second wave of STI policy, which intended to develop research and emerging technologies, resulting in increased number of scientific publications and endeavors in nano- and bio-technologies. From 2010, transition towards innovation and a knowledge-based economy has gained pace. The outcome of the third wave today has been the increase in KBFs, S&T parks, VCs and other sources of funding, and the development of laws to support the transition.

The UNCTAD report in 2005 indicated that, at the time, the mostly state-owned economy created very low competitive pressure and very few incentives for technological upgrading and innovation. Before 2005 the private sector accounted for an only 15% share of the value added in GDP and policies were mainly focused on production, rather than innovation.

In an effort to devise policies that intend to support KBFs, Irans government established the Vice Presidency for S&T in 2007. The establishment of this institution along with its 16 technology councils, and the Innovation and Prosperity Fund in 2011, were among the major institutional and structural changes made to assist the growth of KBFs. Other strategies were also used to achieve S&T goals; creating a system to monitor and evaluate institutions of higher education and S&T, increasing the ratio of gross expenditure on R&D by 0.5% every year and including the indicators of S&T, such as the revenue generated from exporting, in government planning.

While government and companies have increased R&D investments, the importance of the structure and type of R&D investments should also be taken into account. The UNCTAD report found that 64% of the R&D investments is associated with buying new equipment and machinery, whereas, collaborative R&D remains largely overlooked. Other forms of R&D investments such as collaboration with foreign companies and acquisition of external knowledge should have a larger share of R&D investments, especially at a time when political tensions have decreased and sanctions have, at least partly, been lifted. The ratio of R&D investment to sales is highest among ICT firms and remains under 0.5% in the food industry and agriculture.

To stimulate knowledge-based economic growth Iran should focus on attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). For many years FDI in Iran remained below 0.5% of the GDP and is still estimated at below 1% of the GDP, compared to the average 2.6% for all developing economies. Most of the FDI is focused on the oil and gas sector and a large proportion is focused on maintaining existing businesses but not developing new leading businesses, export-oriented products or collaborating with existing firms in R&D and innovation. FDI is of great importance in economic growth, however, the government should develop incentives and policies to direct a significant share of FDI to innovation and R&D in high-tech industries. FDI should become means to accessing not only capital, but new technology and know-how.

Analyzing the input and output of STI indicators reveals a significant gap between the level of human resource and infrastructure development, and their contribution to an innovation and knowledge-based economy (high-tech exports account for less than 1% of Irans exports). To achieve this goal, policy making in Iran should be aimed at strengthening the private sector, creating a dynamic ecosystem for innovation in the business sector, creating stronger demand for innovative skills and knowledge-intensive activities in mature industries that are currently using mainly mid-level technologies, and increasing private sector investment in design, engineering, R&D and innovation.

Iranian businesses, startups and entrepreneurs are now extremely hopeful about their future. The macroeconomic context has stabilized significantly. Compared to before 2012, the entrepreneurial culture is spreading and the government has realized the importance of KBFs and has started to take action to enhance the business environment. All that s points to a brighter future for KBFs and a diversified economy less dependent on oil for Iran.

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Iran Swiftly Moving Towards a Knowledge-Based Economy Part 3 - TechRasa (press release) (blog)

In times of automation, job creation biggest challenge: ET India Leadership Council – Economic Times

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MUMBAI: Job creation is the number one challenge for India at a time when digitisation and automation are disrupting traditional roles across all sectors, panellists at the ET India Leadership Council said. The India Leadership council is an exclusive peer group platform working towards bringing change in the country's business environment.

Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra, ICICI Bank MD Chanda Kochhar, Marico chairman Harsh Mariwala, HDFC Bank MD Aditya Puri, YES Bank MD Rana Kapoor, Amazon India country manager Amit Agarwal and BCG Asia Pacific chairman Janmejaya Sinha held the inaugural meeting of the ET India Leadership Council. After the closed-door meeting, Mariwala, Kapoor, Agarwal and Sinha participated in a panel discussion, which focused on the challenges in job creation for India in the next few years.

Speaking at the inauguration, Times Group MD Vineet Jain said, "I am confident that ILC holds the potential to knit the business fraternity together and create 'Change' that will be impactful at multiple levels. Together, we will also enlist the brightest minds, thought leaders, senior academicians and visionaries, as we seek to create the next wave of leaders by encouraging conversations around macro issues like capacity building, innovation and digitisation."

One very real challenge is disruption due to automation which will have to be dealt with by finding new opportunities in areas like design, innovation and creativity, they suggested. Digitisation has already replaced many manual jobs and will continue to do so but there are also new avenues opening up where a different set of skills will be required, the panel felt.

Harsh Mariwala, Rana Kapoor, Amit Agarwal, Janmejaya Sinha at panel discussion.

For instance, the banking sector has already seen an impact due to automation, which is forcing it to change the way bankers work.

"Today the alliances-relationshiptechnology model of a business has been disturbed. We will have to create an economy led by design, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship (DICE) to bring about a transformation," Rana Kapoor said.

Besides banking, another sector grappling with change led by automation is information technology (IT). Falling margins, a changing political environment and automation are forcing these companies to innovate or shed jobs. Marico chariman Harsh Mariwala said flexible labour policies are crucial if companies are to continue to invest. "Labour reform is a state subject.

But in spite of many states being ruled by the NDA government, we have not seen labour reforms taking place in states. There is clearly a hesitation in bringing about radical reforms. What the industry needs now is flexibility in employment so that in case of a downturn, the workforce can be reduced. Otherwise, it tempts you to invest in capital and equipment," Mariwala said.

However, BCG Asia Pacific chairman Janmejaya Sinha said flexibility will prevail if it is rewarded accordingly. "It is important that flexibility in employment is rewarded, in which the flexible workers are taken care of, given appropriate health insurance etc, so it is not a win-loss situation for people engaging in flexible ways of employment and it is a fair and just process," he said.

Amazon country manager Amit Agarwal who has recently been promoted to the position of global vice-president, however, said internet has created a unique method of job creation in non-linear ways.

"Amazon has created close to 1,50,000 jobs in India in the last four years and that has happened because of non-linearity. It was not because of a law that enabled us to do this. It happened because internet, when left barrier-free, lets people innovate," Agarwal said defending the ecommerce sector which he said should not be judged so early for its potential.

There are some areas somewhat immune to effects of automation, the panel felt. "There are three sectors, namely tourism, housing and agriculture and associated sectors, that will not be affected either by automation or lack of labour reforms," Mariwala said.

The government with its various skilling programmes is trying to bridge the gap between eligibility and employability. The panel felt that while some good ideas have been developed on this front, implement is lagging ideation, and regulation needs to be closely looked at in this area.

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In times of automation, job creation biggest challenge: ET India Leadership Council - Economic Times

ISG Research: Automation and AI Use to Triple by 2019 – PR Newswire (press release)

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Overall investment in automation technologies including robotic process automation (RPA), autonomics, virtual customer service agents and personal assistants, natural language processing and machine learning is expected to double in the next two years, the survey finds, as enterprises look to harness technologies that have the flexibility to solve more than one business problem.

"Automation and artificial intelligence are top of mind for business executives and service providers alike and with good reason," said Todd Lavieri, partner and president of ISG Americas. "Robotic process automation, autonomic systems and cognitive agents are making employees more productive by taking over routine, process-oriented tasks. At the same time, data scientists are using machine learning to find patterns and make predictions on vast troves of structured and unstructured data. These technologies, taken together, promise to usher in the next wave of enterprise growth and profitability."

A Strategic Imperative

Some 75 percent of respondents indicate automation and AI will be critical to their ability to deliver products and services competitively, and two-thirds say such technologies will be required to fend off competition from digital disruptors. An equal number say cognitive systems will be central to strategic decision-making.

From a functional perspective, nearly 70 percent say information technology will be most impacted by automation and AI specifically by autonomics in the next two years. Nearly 60 percent believe autonomics will double IT productivity by 2020.

Other key areas of impact are customer care, where more than 60 percent say virtual agents and chatbots will improve customer experience by 2020, and finance and accounting, where more than 50 percent say RPA will automate more than half of F&A processes in the same time frame.

Automation and AI also will force enterprises to completely reimagine their talent acquisition and retention strategies, more than 60 percent of respondents say, particularly for such hard-to-obtain-and-retain skills as software development and data science.

Disruptive to Outsourcing

More than 60 percent believe automation and AI will decrease the need to outsource IT and business-support functions, and more than half say it will enable them to repatriate work now performed offshore.

Among enterprise buyers, 54 percent say they expect providers will need to lower their costs by 25 percent or more as a result of automation and AI, and an even greater number 65 percent say such technologies will reduce the cost to manage their service provider relationships significantly.

Nearly half of enterprise buyers believe service providers are avoiding automation and AI to preserve short-term revenue. Yet, 54 percent say they prefer to buy the business outcomes of automation and AI (cost avoidance, productivity, quality, etc.) from a service provider rather than buy automation and AI software themselves.

"As ITO and BPO buyers increasingly look to automate processes before they outsource them, the need for traditional tower-based outsourcing services will wane as will the need to have a significant number of delivery resources offshore," said Stanton Jones, director and principal analyst at ISG Research, and a co-author of the survey research report. "Buyers also are becoming savvier about the use of automation and are realizing their managed services providers are not always passing savings back to them as services become more automated."

More than 80 percent of respondents say the most important outcomes from enterprise automation and AI are avoiding long-term costs (such as adding new hires), boosting productivity and improving customer experience. The vast majority do not view automation and AI as a way to cut jobs, with nearly 70 percent saying such technologies are focused on automating tasks, not entire roles. Nearly three-quarters feel automation and AI will free up employees to work on more value-added activities.

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About the ISG Automation and AI Survey

The ISG Automation and AI Survey asked 532 IT and business leaders in April 2017 about their current and planned adoption of automation and AI solutions, the reasons behind their adoption, their success to date and how such technologies would impact their talent acquisition and retention strategies both internally and through service providers.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (NASDAQ: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including 75 of the top 100 enterprises in the world, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; technology strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 professionals operating in more than 20 countriesa global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry's most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit http://www.isg-one.com.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/isg-research-automation-and-ai-use-to-triple-by-2019-300471665.html

SOURCE Information Services Group, Inc.

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Why Automation Is the Key to Achieving Drop Shipping Success – Tech.Co

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Thanks to the development of the world wide web, drop shipping has flourished, becoming a financially sustainable industry that successfully meets consumer needs while maintaining a cost-effective business model.

But the nature of drop shipping is such that there are a few things you have to keep in mind for it to be effective. For one, companies will take a cut so you have to sell something that customers are willing to pay high value for. Youll also have to develop some sort of niche in order to attract customers to your business, since youre not selling your own products but essentially consolidating already available products. And finally, you have to make sure you can maximize your sales as quickly as possible, because youre on the internet and growth is the key to survival.

But if you can do that, you can develop a business that is significantly more efficient at moving products, selling money and meeting customer needs than the traditional store model of anticipating inventory need and hoping you dont get it wrong, as well as dealing with overhead costs and protecting your goods.

Drop shipping only works when you can maintain the benefit customers have come to expect always having unique and available inventory you can sell them. This means you have to develop as many sellers as you can, you have to ensure you have inventory available at all times and you always have to be aware of exactly what inventory is available.

All of this data is easily automated nowadays, making it incredibly easy for you to track what you have or switch to a different provider if you run out of a product automatically. This decreases the frequency with which customers see a product is out of stock and ensures they come to rely on your website for consistency and availability.

By choosing to automate features like selecting vendors, updating inventory and processing orders, you do two things: you make your drop shipping business run far more efficiently, and you save yourself the cost of paying someone to do it. These tasks can traditionally take several hours of manpower, which can add up if you have an employee, or eat up significant parts of your day if youre a busy entrepreneur. You can keep several thousand dollars more a year in your pocket and in your business by automating as much as possible.

Simplify your business so you can focus on whats important: making connections with new vendors and growing your customer base through marketing and advertising.

Finally, the most compelling reason to automate your drop shipping? Because all your most successful competitors are doing it. EBay and other major retailers have long since moved into this method and smaller retailers are doing it too. AI is one of the most popular developments that companies can take advantage of, and developments in AI including machine learning have enabled programmers to automate increasingly complex tasks with code. A company in the modern era must take advantage of this development in order to stay in the game.

Several companies are now available that offer automation services for drop shipping businesses, including Spark Shipping, Dropship Commerce and Etail Solutions. Any of these companies is likely to fit your needs, but you can research to see which one is most suited to your particular industry, niche or business size.

Drop shipping is the new era of online business retail. And automated drop shipping is the streamlined, most efficient version of it available. Catch up to the developing trends of AI by implementing this into your business. Improve your productivity, your growth capacity and your bottom line all at once.

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Automation at scale is driving transformative change across insurance – Automotive World (press release)

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While the promise of automationhas been around for years, the pace and the extent of its adoption in the workplace has significantly picked up over the past 12 months. For an industry that barely earns its cost of equity, automation at scale represents a massive competitive advantage for businesses that can get it right.

McKinsey recently moderated a panel discussion on automation at scale in insurance. The panel consisted of Alex Bentley (director of Corporate Development, Blue Prism), Edwin Van Bommel (chief cognitive officer, IPsoft), Eric Musser (managing director, Robotics and Workforce Intelligence, Pega) and Max Yankelevich (CEO and chief architect, WorkFusion).

Edited excerpts from that conversation follow:

Max Yankelevich:Fundamental breakthroughs in quantum computing have already happened, but were now seeing them cross into the mainstream. Machine learning is a good example. Most insurers use people to handle first notice of loss, basic investigation, and data entry. Machines monitoring humans as they perform their computerized tasks can actually develop a cognitive understanding of how to process documents, automating 50 to100 percent of this work in some instances. The impact is very real.

Eric Musser:Were all familiar with machine-learning engines on websites like Amazon, which regularly serve up targeted offers to customers. Were now taking that model into insurance back offices for policy-application review and approval processes, for example. People often make different decisions with similar data, and this inconsistency points to an opportunity. In addition, the average user in the back office interacts with many different types of technology to get their job done, and this naturally raises the notion of using robotics to integrate and automate these systems. We are now exploring how to automatically create rules, centralize them, and make them available to all applications across the organization.

Alex Bentley:We now enjoy the capabilities that allow you to unlock the potential from these automation technologies. Because the execution platform is far more agile and flexible, insurers can better manage constant changes in a complex legacy environment. Cost pressure is increasing, and insurers need to manage the cost to serve.

Organizations that adopt automation are able to reduce the cost to serve, be more responsive to the market, and address growth areas more effectively. So I think there will be winners and losers in that respect. Those organizations that embrace automation can drive tremendous step changes in their productivity, while those who do not will be left behind. So while its not Netflix versus Blockbuster, I think anybody too late to the party will be significantly disadvantaged.

Max Yankelevich:In addition to improving operational efficiency and regulatory compliance, we often forget that automation can drive higher morale within your workforce, because youre freeing people up to perform higher-value activities instead of mundane tasks. A lot of employees mindshare and budgets can be invested in new products, services, and new ways of serving customers. Additionally, customer satisfaction improves, because we can accelerate delivery to our customers and improve quality through the consistency of answers and customer experience.

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Genpact Launches AI-based Drug Safety Automation Program – Pharmaceutical Processing

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Genpact launches an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based solution to usher in a new era of drug safety automation.

Genpact's Pharmacovigilance Artificial Intelligence (PVAI) will be the life sciences industry's first fully-integrated, end-to-end adverse event (AE) processing solution, leveraging intelligent automation to not only reduce the effort of processing adverse events, but also to enable an AI-driven level of real-time predictive analytics and actionable insight not previously possible.

As life sciences companies face escalating AE volumes for their products and increasing pressure to improve quality and compliance while reducing costs, they are looking for breakthrough solutions to help them transform their pharmacovigilance operations.

Genpact's PVAI offering brings together and integrates optical character recognition, robotic process automation, natural language processing, and machine learning technologies to automatically extract and code AE data from unstructured and semi-structured source documentseliminating manual workflow, saving pharmaceutical companies significant time and resources, and helping to establish a scalable PV operating model. The solution continuously builds predictive insights as more and more AE goes through it over time.

"Industry leaders have stated that the current manually-intensive approach to AE processing is simply not sustainable and needs an innovative approach. Through robust pilot testing with clients, our new PVAI solution has proven that the vast majority of case processing can be successfully automated in a fraction of the time and cost,"said Balkrishan 'BK' Kalra, senior vice president and business leader, Consumer Goods, Retail, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Genpact. "We continue to invest in PVAI and are excited to bring this holistic, unique and market-leading, AI-driven digital proposition to the industry."

As part of its investments in PVAI, Genpact recently acquired the assets and team of November Research Group (NRG), aBerkeley, CA-basedprovider of product vigilance software. The transaction added NRG's domain expertise and fully-featured pharmacovigilance Software-as-a-Service, contributing to PVAI's approach to automating drug safety operations in the life sciences industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Genpact currently serves global life sciences companies, helping pharmaceutical and medical devices companies pursue growth, achieve cost reduction, increase speed to market, and improve regulatory compliance by providinga range of digital solutions, analytics services, and business process transformation expertise. Genpact has alife sciencesregulatory servicesbusiness stemming from its acquisition of Pharmalink in 2014.

(Source: PR Newswire)

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The scout system at Oxford must be scrapped – Cherwell Online

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The Fay School is an independent, coeducational boarding school located near Boston, Massachusetts. It enrols students between grades seven to nine in a boarding program, that is, the British equivalent of years eight to ten. Among other things, Fay students are expected at that age (eleven through 14 years old) to take care of their own laundry, clean their own rooms, and dispose of their own trash, as they board year long as the school.

Who knew, that expecting a 12 year old to be able to manage a cordless handheld vacuum cleaner to suck up spilt ramen powder could be such an easy request? Apparently, Oxfords colleges thinks much less of us, and that its students, the supposed best and brightest in all of Britain, if not the world, are less competent at cleaning up their crisp crumbs and bread dust than prepubescent children.

As we know, each college has their own system of housekeepers, known colloquially as scouts. Scouts perform a variety of housekeeping duties for each individual students room typically during morning hours. Scouts also clean and maintain a number of communal living areas, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and showers. The system has existed nearly as long as Oxford has, and well into the 60s and 70s, scouts were still openly referred to as servants, bringing bottles of milk to the doors of students.

To be fair, while Fay might not get parents rolling in to complain of the dreadful living conditions that their students might have to live in, its not entirely unimaginable to picture Oxford mothers railing one out at a college principal for daring to ask their child, god forbid, unclogs their own sink, is it? That being said, this comparison is wholly unnecessary. If we have reduced ourselves to asking each other to perform basic duties such as taking care of ourselves, the same way children half our size and age do, which apparently we have, we should actively recognise that there is something seriously wrong with the way the university is shaping our behaviour and expectations.

The claim, furthermore, that scouts fill a necessary role, is ludicrous. Imagine any other world-renowned institution telling its students that they need to hire cohorts upon cohorts of cleaners to vacuum their floors them and scrub their windows to a shine. They would be laughed at, as Oxford is. A concept straight out of Downtown Abbey, it is, and should be, considered an ancient practice. The practice continues, regrettably so, at Cambridge University, and Durham University, where they are otherwise known as bedders. Outside of these three universities, there is no equivalent at any other major educational institution in the entire world.

Why that is not concerning to the main body of administrators and students at Oxford, I will never understand. The former equivalent system at Trinity College Dublin, where scouts were known as skips, was abandoned in the 70s, when British civilisation also typically abandoned other archaic practices such as restricting university admission to men only. Apparently this idea of progress has been lost on Oxford. The idea that adults, or anyone over a reasonable age, cannot be expected to clean after themselves, and instead, require other grown adults to clean after them, in spaces as small as college rooms, is utterly absurd.

The entire system, thus, reeks of the same problems of potential for human trafficking and wage slavery that the entire housekeeper labour supply industry stinks of. In fact, some members of the administration at Oxford have clearly had the time to think it through and realise the very real grey area that exists. The Oxford University Council Secretariat has its own dedicated page towards compliance issues regarding Modern Slavery in its supply chains, for both labour and material goods. Now thats a term that you wont find, or need to find, in every other universitys websites, no matter how much you Google. It is a well known fact that at many colleges in Cambridge, nearly half of the bedders are Polish.

Related Is Mays snap election in the national interest or political opportunism?

The system of scouts also removes any sense of privacy, and automatically places students and scouts on a hostile ground over this effect. As if the smattering of CCTV cameras that spy on every nook and cranny of your college were not enough, the scout system is the icing on the cake that reminds you that the college you live in will never truly be your home. We are forced to give daily access to our rooms. The positive spin is typically presented as the requirement for scouts and students to develop a trusting relationship. I suppose that is the best way of phrasing the concept of being forced to agree to a system in which the posessions of students, both valuable and not valuable, are constantly accessible. This, along with the fact that many days of the week, scouts often have nothing to do, combine to create a naturally toxic relationship between scouts and students.

This occurs especially potently when scouts have to deal with the vibrant community of the spoiltthey face mockery and judgment from students who are faced with the existential conundrum of wanting everything done for them, but at the same time, naturally desiring privacy over their baubles, and so the cooking pot of rage boils. Reports of students unleashing verbal tirades on scouts, who do not speak English as a first language and thus dont even understand what is being said, are not unheard of. Fortunately, we can see colleges such as Jesus addressing the issue at hand properly, which have been reported in the past to force scouts to adopt Anglicised names, and colleges such as Christ Church who have been reported to force their scouts to learn English. In this manner, these two wonderful colleges have ensured that the scouts can receive a good scolding from entitled students and understand it too!

If all of the above were not concerning enough, what we should be most shocked at is that many scouts are not even paid a living wage. The Oxford Living Wage, separated from the national living wage costs because of the ridiculously high costs of living in Oxford, is 8.93 per hour, below the London living wage of 9.75 per hour. Despite this having been made clear by the Oxford City Council numerous times over the past and visibly declared on their online platforms, Oxford continues to pay its scouts below the Oxford Living Wage. More than 2,000 employers in Oxfordshire have signed up to the living wage scheme, and yet, according to vacancies advertised online, most colleges continue to pay their scouts below said wage. Hertford, which I regret to mention, because I suspect that they pay their scouts above the par in comparison to most other colleges, pay their scouts 8.45 an hour. It is reported that numerous other colleges continue to pay their scouts 7.85 an hour.

Harvard students famously campaigned for living wages for their own staff between 1998 and 2002. This past autumn, 750 workers went on strike, with the support of numerous student groups, to protest minimum wages that were not considered enough to afford a decent living, i.e. below the living wage. As a result, numerous dining halls closed all over Harvard, with the majority of the students on campus standing in solidarity with the workers, until the protest ended all dining halls return to normal operation. Unfortunately, I have the disappointment in believing that the same protest could never happen at Oxford, understandably so, as students study in one of the shortest year long undergraduate programmes ever, with tiny eight week terms.

Related The OxStew: PM criticises OUSU's financial strategy

The existence of terrible treatment outside of already terrible wages is no conspiracy. In a Cherwell investigation two years ago, incidents reported from scouts all over Oxford including instances of being forced to work from nine to 11 overtime with no compensation or apology, contracts that prevent scouts from having a lunch break, scouts forced to wear makeup and skirts, and persistent harassment from managers. Scouts themselves also lack the capacity to bargain or even remotely protest. The scouts at Oxford certainly have not unionised, and I suspect that they fully lack the ability to do so.

Reports at Jesus College of the harassment of scouts and the complete denial and gaslighting of scout concerns goes towards this belief. It is also well understood that scouts often refrain from discussing their wages or their working conditions in fear of losing their job, a state that no labourer should have to experience. Furthermore, while some scouts might be somewhat satisfied with their jobs and colleges, we should remember that is no prerequisite for the acceptance of the conditions and treatment of others, or for the existence of the system in general.

Finally, it is listed as a final resort, often by college principals themselves who relish in receiving housekeeping in their own college accommodations to free up time for their exhausting duties as revered heads of colleges of Oxford, that the colleges need tending to over the holidays. It is heavily ironic that college principals deliver platitudinous sermon after sermon about how learning takes precedence above all at that their colleges are first and foremost institutions of learning. If I were a wanderer with no prior knowledge of the colleges, I would not be able to tell the difference between most colleges at Oxford, and vaguely colonial hotels.

Then again, when colleges become displayed on TripAdvisor and get five star ratings for services, I begin to question myself if I am in a college that I am supposed to call my home, or a Hilton stuffed with tutors and an only somewhat meaningful history. How different really, are term stays from eight-week bookings at the Marriot?

The system of scouts makes a laughingstock out of the University of Oxford and each of its individual colleges. I would say that it contributes to the outsider picture of Oxford students as posh spoilt twats that puts so many off even bothering to apply, but how far would that picture really be from reality? How the system remains to the present day confuses me because I thought that the university had moved past inflting the egos of the talcum-powdered brats that genuinely believe that less time spent scrubbing the mirror clean of last nights spilt Dom Perignon means more time reading Isaiah Berlin and Sartre. Apparently, this is not the case. Get a grip, Oxford.

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Exeter car wash owner in court accused of posing modern slavery risk – Devon Live

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The manager of two car washes in Exeter has appeared in court accused of posing an exploitation risk to his Romanian workforce.

Luan Sinanaj, 44, of Harrington Road, Pinhoe, has been made the subject of an interim slavery and trafficking risk order.

It follows concerns about the poor pay and living conditions of Romanian workers at car washes, run by Mr Sinanaj and his cousin, in Honiton Road and Main Road in Pinhoe.

Mr Sinanaj appeared before magistrates in Exeter on Monday. The case is one of only a handful of its type ever prosecuted in the country.

Prosecutor Emmi Wilson said Devon and Cornwall Police were bringing the application for a risk order under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Mr Sinanaj's cousin, Vladimir Veliaj, has already been made the subject of a full order preventing him from being involved in the transport of workers from within and outside the UK.

Mr Wilson said Mr Sinanaj was responsible for 'arranging for workers to come over to Exeter from Romania', to work at the two car washes which he ran with Mr Veliaj.

They were promised a good wage but were living in poor conditions and not paid much at all," she said.

Mr Sinanaj said he needed more time to get his lawyers involved and the case was adjourned.

Ms Wilson asked magistrates to impose an interim order until a full hearing could take place.

The test today is whether it would be just to make an order," said Mr Wilson.

The police say it is necessary to protect the public from these sorts of activities continuing in the interim."

READ MORE: 'Incompetent burglar' jailed after raiding bride-to-be's Exeter...

Magistrates agreed the interim order was needed.

An application for a full five-year risk order will be made on July 20. Mr Sinanaj is expected to oppose the application by police when he reappears.

Slavery and trafficking risk orders were introduced in the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

The risk order restricts the activity of people who have not been convicted of a modern slavery offence but who pose a risk of committing any such offence.

The recent prosecution of Mr Veliaj was the first of its type in Devon, Cornwall and Dorset.

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Exeter car wash owner in court accused of posing modern slavery risk - Devon Live

The making of the Muslim world – New Statesman

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The Turkish nation, Mehmed Ziya Gkalp wrote, belongs to the Ural-Altai [language] group of peoples, to the Islamic umma, and to Western internationalism. Gkalp was an early-20th-century sociologist, writer, poet and political activist whose work was influential in shaping the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the main figure in the founding of modern Turkey. What is striking about Gkalps argument is that it stitches together three elements that today seem to many to be irreconcilable. Islam and Western internationalism, in particular, are often seen as occupying opposite sides in a clash of civilisations.

This sense of a fundamental separation between Islam and the West has been exacerbated by the rise of Islamism and the emergence of Islamic State. Some Muslims are attracted to IS because of a deep loathing for the West. Many in the West regard that support as evidence for the incompatibility of Western and Islamic values. Christopher de Bellaigues The Islamic Enlightenment and Cemil Aydins The Idea of the Muslim World, in very different ways, try to explain the historical shifts that have made what once seemed necessary and rational now appear impossible and self-deluding.

The starting point of de Bellaigues luminous work is the oft-made claim that Islam needs its Enlightenment. The author argues, on the contrary, that for the past two centuries, Islam has been going through a pained yet exhilarating transformation a Reformation, an Enlightenment and an Industrial Revolution all at once. What is distinctive about the Islamic world today, he writes, is that it is under the heel of acounter-Enlightenment, a development visible in particular through the emergence of Islamism, of which Islamic State the group that has claimed responsibility for terror attacks in Europe, including the latest atrocities in London and Manchester is the most grotesque expression.

The Islamic Enlightenment explores the complex relationship between Muslim-majority countries and modernity, a relationship mediated largely through its relationship with Europe, and more generally the West. De Bellaigue begins in three of the great cities of the Muslim world Cairo, Istanbul and Tehran and guides us through the transformation of their intellectual, political and social worlds in the 19th century. He is a wonderful narrator, and these chapters burst with colour and detail.

Each city and nation confronted modernity and the West in distinctive ways. However, in all cases, de Bellaigue observes, The world of Islam was only ready to shed its superiority complex once its supports were revealed to be rotten. In Egypt, that rottenness was laid bare by Napoleons invasion of 1798. In the shadow of the Pyramids, as the French destroyed the Egyptian forces, the fiction of Christian deference to Muslim superiority fell away.

Napoleon brought to Egypt not only soldiers but scholars, too. In Cairo he set up the Institute of Egypt, which became the meeting point for Islam and the Enlightenment. One of the first Egyptians to visit the institute was Hasan al-Attar, who later became Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar, among the most important clerics in Sunni Islam. Egypts first modern thinker, in de Bellaigues words, al-Attar was a polymath who became intoxicated by the learning he found at the institute. He transformed al-Azhar, one of the oldest centres of Islamic learning, into a vibrant university and encouraged a new generation of thinkers versed in Western thinking.

Most notable of this new generation was Rifaa al-Tahtawi, another Egyptian cleric who made it his lifes work to prove that reason was compatible with Islam. After spending time in Paris, al-Tahtawi returned home in 1831 to help lead the statewide effort to modernise Egypts infrastructure and education. He founded the school of languages in Cairo and supervised the translation of over 2,000 foreign works into Arabic the greatest translation movement since that of the Abbasid period, a millennium earlier. His own works introduced to a new audience Enlightenment ideas about secularism, rights and liberties.

It was not just the intellectual sphere that was upturned. The physical and social worlds were transformed, too, at a pace undreamt of in Europe. From the printing press to female graduates, from steam trains to oppositional newspapers, from theabolition of slavery to the creation of trade unions, in the space of a few decades in Egypt, modernity wrought changes that had taken more than a century to happen in Europe, and transformed Cairo, Istanbul and Tehran from semi-medieval markets into modern, semi-industrial cities. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, Marx observed of the disorienting effect of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution in Europe. How much more so that must have seemed in Islamic states.

Inevitably there was a backlash, as there was in Europe. Yet unlike in Europe, those who promoted Enlightenment values in the Muslim world faced another problem: that of the European powers themselves. European nations may have basked in the light of the Enlightenment but they also insisted that pursuit of ideals such as liberty or democracy should not get out of hand and threaten European imperial interests.

Take Iran. In August 1906, a year-long popular struggle for democracy against the shah and his autocratic government succeeded in establishing an elected national assembly and a new constitution. The radical democrats looked to Europe for their ideals. Iran must both in appearance and reality, both physically and spiritually, become Europeanised and nothing else, claimed one of the leading constitutionalists, Hassan Taqizadeh. But the European powers were fearful that the new, democratic Iran would no longer be a pliant creature, acting in the interest of the West. In August 1907, Britain and Russia signed an accord dividing Iran into two zones of imperial influence. Russian troops invaded Iran, dissolved parliament, and arrested and executed many deputies. Britain established a de facto colony in its area of influence in the south-east of the country.

Four decades later, after democracy had been restored in Iran, Western powers again intervened to destroy it. In 1951 the democratically elected prime minister Muhammed Mossadeq nationalised the oil industry. Britain and the United States engineered a coup dtat that, two years later, overthrew Mossadeq and returned the shahto power and Irans oil industry to Western control.

Such actions of European powers led many people in Muslim countries to see the modernising project as an imperialist imposition. It also led many to elide opposition to imperialism, and defence of the nation, with opposition to Enlightenment ideas of liberty, equality and secularism. Hence the growth of popular support for Islamist groups. The eventual consequence of Western attempts to suppress democracy in Iran was the revolution of 1978-79 and the seizing of power by Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters.

The Islamic Enlightenment is a dazzling feat of erudition and storytelling. It is also a necessary work, challenging many of the assumptions that animate contemporary narratives about Islam. But for all that it unpicks the myths woven into the conventional narratives, de Bellaigues own narrative weaves in its own myths.

Consider the very notion of the Islamic Enlightenment. The European Enlightenment did not emerge ex nihilo. It was the culmination of centuries of development and struggle and the starting point for a new set of struggles and developments. Those struggles gave meaning to the ideas that flowed out of the Enlightenment.

In Egypt, Turkey and Iran, the outpouring of new ideas in the 19th century came suddenly, largely through confrontation (both physical and existential) with Europe. Intellectuals, social reformers and political revolutionaries found hope and inspiration in the same set of ideas as their peers in Europe. And, as in Europe, these ideas became central to the reach towards modernity.

Yet to call this the Islamic Enlightenment is to mistake what the European Enlightenment was about. I am not suggesting that the Enlightenment in some sense belongs to Europe, or that Enlightenment values do not apply to non-Europeans. Far from it. And yet, there are important differences in the historical trajectories that led to the Enlightenment in Europe and those which led Egypt, Turkey and Iran to adopt those ideas. To call the social and intellectual changes of which de Bellaigue writes so eloquently the Islamic Enlightenment is to erase those differences and hence to undermine his own aim of looking more rationally at the Muslim world.

***

If de Bellaigue wants us to have a more nuanced understanding of the Islamic world, Cemil Aydin of the University of North Carolina challenges the very idea that such a world exists. The expression Muslim world does not derive from umma, a concept as old as Islam, which refers to the Muslim religious community. Rather, it began to develop in the 19th century and achieved full flower in the 1870s. Nor is it the case that Muslims were united until nationalist ideology and European colonialism tore them apart. The truth, he suggests, is the very opposite:

"Muslims never dreamed of global political unity until the peak of European hegemony in the late 19thcentury, when poor colonial conditions, European discourses of Muslim racial superiority, and Muslims theories of their own apparent decline nurtured the first arguments for pan-Islamic solidarity."

For much of the history of Islam, Aydin writes, Muslim leaders had no sense of loyalty to fellow Muslims. He tells the story of Tipu, the sultan of Mysore in southern India who in 1798 sought allies to help push back the forces of the British East India Company. He appealed to the Ottoman caliph Sultan Selim III, in the name of Muslim solidarity; and to Napoleon, to help forge an alliance against a mutual enemy. The French were willing to be allies. The Ottomans were not. Shared religion and culture could not sway the Ottomans from their strategic interests, allied as they were with Britain and Russia against Napoleon, who had just invaded Ottoman Egypt, Aydin writes.

The following year the British invaded Mysore in consort with Indian Muslim leaders whose troops joined battle against fellow Muslims. Muslim political experience from the 7th through the 18th century, Aydin notes, tells a story of multiplicity, contestation and change, leaving the idea of the Muslim world to emerge later.

That is true. But it is equally true of the period from the 19th to the 21st centuries, when the notion of the Muslim world became entrenched. From the Muslim Brotherhood to Islamic State, Islamist dreamers of a unified caliphate are hardly reticent in attacking other Muslims. Saudi Arabia and Iran fiercely rival each other as champions of the Muslim world. The morass that is Syria proves that those who promote the clash of civilisations thesis are as eager to butcher those within their civilisation as those without. Aydin is right, however, that modern conceptions of the Muslim world and the clash of civilisations are different from previous notions, and are products of the changes explored by de Bellaigue.

I am sympathetic to Aydins basic thesis, though many of his specific claims such as the importance of racial theory in creating the idea of unified Muslim world are more problematic. His book, however, is more argumentative than empirical. Where de Bellaigue weaves into his narrative stories and facts to undergird his argument, Aydin is far more polemical. The Idea of the Muslim World has the feel of a work in progress rather than a properly fleshed-out thesis.

Where Aydin and de Bellaigue want to retell aspects of the history of the Muslim world, Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies at Oxford, sets himself to describe Islams meaning. Islam: the Essentials is a breezy tour through theology and practice, aimed primarily, it seems, at Western liberals. It is full of vaguely New Agey phrases such as Rediscovery of the Way, in a holistic manner, points to nothing less than an intellectual and psychological revolution. To him, the heart of Islam is diversity. His main criticism is of literalists and traditionalists who ignore the need for the Quran and other prophetic texts to be interpreted in their social and historical context.

There is a defensive tone to the book. I have not sidestepped a single question, no matter how challenging, Ramadan tells us, nor has he attempted to justify the unjustifiable or defend the indefensible.

What he has done, however, is to wish away the difficult issues. Ramadan has two basic manoeuvres. The first is to rewrite history. Take his explanation of why slavery flourished in Muslim societies until the 19th century. The general thrust of the Revelation is a clear requirement to bring the practice of slavery to end, he writes, but God insisted that abolition had to take place step by step, to enable emancipated slaves to find a place in society, rather than ending up free but marginalised and indigent. Hence the timescale for [the abolition of ] slavery is longer than that for alcohol for here nothing less than a thoroughgoing transformation of society was required. This is not quite slavery was maintained for the good of the slaves, but it comes damn close to it.

Ramadans second manoeuvre is to make a distinction between religion and culture. Islamic religious norms (properly understood) are always good. What is questionable about Muslim societies comes primarily from cultural problems. Islam has never placed any limitations on knowledge, the arts and religious diversity, he argues. Hence the great flourishing of Islamic learning between the 8th and 11th centuries. But the cultural and historical context in which Islam found itself forced the faith to turn inwards and put up barriers. Hence the millennium of decay and decline since.

It may be a convenient argument, but it is also one that runs against his own view about the limitations of reason. Ramadans starting point is the revealed truth given to Muhammad, which forms the Quran. Revealed truth, as he has previously observed, is clear and immutable and its legitimacy cannot be challenged by reason. A few years ago, I interviewed Ramadan for a Radio 4 documentary. I asked him about one of the controversies that surround him his refusal to call for an outright ban on the practice of stoning women for adultery, merely recommending a moratorium. Why wont he call for abolition, I asked. Because, he replied, the texts that demand stoning come from God. But isnt that the problem, I asked. Ramadan knows rationally that certain actions are morally wrong but will not say so, because of his attachment to the word of God. Simply to believe in rationality, he responded, is to accept the dictatorship of intelligence and that is a dominant, arrogant posture. Its dangerous.

It is a way of reasoning of which many of the great figures who populate The Islamic Enlightenment would have despaired. Ramadan is often referred to an Islamic moderniser and bridge-builder. Yet the chasm between the vacuity and defensiveness of a contemporary intellectual such as he and the openness and intellectual depth of a 19th-century moderniser and bridge-builder such as Rifaa al-Tahtawi shows how much has been lost.

Kenan Maliks books include From Fatwa to Jihad: How the World Changed from the Satanic Verses to Charlie Hebdo (Atlantic)

The Islamic Enlightenment: the Modern Struggle Between Faith and Reason Christopher de Bellaigue Bodley Head, 432pp, 25

The Idea of the Muslim World: a Global Intellectual History Cemil Aydin Harvard University Press, 304pp, 23.95

Islam: the Essentials Tariq Ramadan Pelican, 336pp, 8.99

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The making of the Muslim world - New Statesman

It’s Time for a Disarmament Race – The Nation.

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Nelson Mandela knew that racism, injustice, and the bomb are inextricably linkedand that the arms race can only end in oblivion.

A mock North Korean Scud-B missile, center, and other South Korean missiles displayed at the Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea. (AP Photo / Ahn Young-joon)

When Nelson Mandela walked free, in 1990, after 27 grueling years behind bars, South Africa began the process of emancipating itself from not only from its brutal apartheid regime but also its arsenal of atomic bombs. Like white-minority rule, these awful weapons had weighed heavily on us all, entrenching our status as a pariah nation. Their abolition was essential for our liberation.

Today, North Korea rightly faces the same kind of stigma over its nuclear weaponry. By pursuing such arms, it is behaving as no respectable member of the family of nations should. But too seldom do we hear strong words of censure for others who wield these abominable devices. On the world stage, they present themselves, oxymoronically, as responsible nuclear powers.

To realize a nuclear weaponfree world, we must acknowledge that nuclear weapons serve no legitimate, lawful purpose.

All of those who wield nuclear weapons are deserving of our scorn. The development and stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction by any state is morally indefensible. It breeds enmity and mistrust and threatens peace. The radiation unleashed by an American or British or French nuclear bomb is just as deadly as that from a North Korean one. The inferno and shock waves kill and maim no less indiscriminately.

With sabres rattling and the specter of nuclear war looming large, the imperative to abolish mans most evil creationbefore it abolishes usis as urgent as ever. Further arms races and provocations will lead us inexorably to catastrophe. The overwhelming majority of the worlds nations understand this, and are now developing a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons under international law.

They began negotiating the accord at the United Nations in March and will resume their work on June 15. Regrettably, however, all of the nuclear-armed nations, along with several of their allies, are refusing to take part. They claim that their bombs help keep the peace. But what peace can be maintained through threats of annihilation? So long as these weapons exist, we will continue to teeter on the brink.

THE STAKES ARE HIGHER NOW THAN EVER. GET THE NATION IN YOUR INBOX.

To realize a nuclear weaponfree world, we must first acknowledge that nuclear weapons serve no legitimate, lawful purpose. That is precisely what the new treaty will do. It will place nuclear weapons on the same legal footing as chemical and biological weapons, anti-personnel landmines, and cluster munitionsall of which the international community has declared too inhumane ever to use or possess.

Some leaders, intent on preserving the status quo, have dismissed this UN process as futile given the resistance of the so-called great powers. But what is the alternative? To wait and hope that the powerful few will one day show enlightened leadership? That would be a very poor strategy indeed for safeguarding humanity. In the absence of tremendous pressure, disarmament will remain but a fantasy.

For too long, the nuclear powers have failed us terribly. Instead of disarmingas they are duty-bound to dothey have squandered precious resources on programs to bolster their nuclear forces. They have held humankind to ransom. But nuclear-free nations are now rising up, asserting their right to live in a safe, harmonious global community, unburdened by this ultimate menace.

Of course, it was not the slaveowners who led the struggle to abolish slavery. Nor was it the Afrikaners who tore down the system of apartheid in South Africa. The oppressed fought for, and ultimately secured, their own freedom. Through collective action, we built the foundations for transformative change, to the benefit of all. This is what we are witnessing today in the arena of disarmament diplomacy.

Every nation will be better off in a world without these terrible and terrifying weapons of mass destruction, as Mandela so aptly described them to the UN General Assembly in 1998. Disarmament was a cause dear to his heart. He saw racism, injustice, and the bomb as inextricably linked, and he knew that the arms race, if not curtailed, could only end in oblivion. What we need now is a disarmament race.

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It's Time for a Disarmament Race - The Nation.

Selfie by Will Storr review me, my selfie and I in an age of ego – The Guardian

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Donald Trump, posing with a supporter, personifies the psychological and moral malady that Selfie investigates. Photograph: Chris Keane/Reuters

Infatuated with his own reflection in a pool, Narcissus pined away and died of self-love. Freud diagnosed this folly as a perversion, a neurotic choice of sterile solitude, but the warning was futile. The iPhone has mechanised narcissism and a gadget meant to facilitate communication with others has caused its most addicted users to behave like long-lost Kardashian cousins, cheesily grinning as they document their unexceptional doings.

In his book on the phenomenon, Will Storr interviews a young woman who has hundreds of thousands of selfies stored on memory cards, a hard drive and a sagging, overburdened iCloud. She frequently works through the night to edit and filter her daily quota of new images in readiness for disseminating them on social media. The unexamined life may not be worth living, but do all lives deserve to be examined in such redundant detail? Storrs informant goes on to confess that she feels most alive when slashing her flesh with a razor blade.

Storr finds no remedy for his self-dislike, and instead concludes that the self is a false divinity

Self-obsession, Storr suspects, is a reflex of self-dissatisfaction or self-dislike, a symptom of social perfectionism that pushes some of its victims towards suicide. His imposing survey traverses centuries of what we thought was progress to show how we reached this psychic dead end. Selfie begins in the tribal wilderness, locally known as Walthamstow. Here, Storr encounters a contemporary version of those alpha chimps that roared and brawled their way to dominance in the jungle: a bouncer and gangland enforcer, now meekly repentant after a religious conversion, who represents the self at its most bestial and atavistic.

The next stop is classical Greece, where the long story of the human began when Aristotle separated the individual from the rest of nature; as a consequence, the idealised self became a living work of art. Christianity then endowed the Greek body with a soul and forced it to chasten the sinful flesh. Storr, conscientiously working his way through the eras, comes to understand the process by suffering a week of medieval self-mortification in a dank Scottish monastery.

From here the book hops to blithe California. On that last frontier, western individualism arrives at its most extreme and absurd development: the old-fashioned idea of what novelists call character, a sober amalgam of virtues and defects, has here given way to the glitzy notion of personality, projected in all those self-made, self-congratulating iPhone images. Storr signs on for a course of humanistic alternative education in a yurt on a cliff beside the ocean at Big Sur and is ordered by a bossy therapist to shed his adult inhibitions and return to being the juvenile delinquent he once was. The experience, as he reports it, is hilarious but unenlightening.

Storrs final stop is in Silicon Valley, whose slick entrepreneurs transformed the computer from a bureaucratic machine into a plaything for the self and its galleries of exponentiating snapshots. Promoters babble about the Synthetic Age, predicting that we will soon evolve into a post-human species, although not everyone is ready for the future. Storr recalls a geeky genius with a scheme for biohacking our DNA. Rehearsing to play God, he devised a means of synthesising probiotics to waft away vaginal odours. He called his formula Sweet Peach, and sold it as a means of personal empowerment. But angry feminists turned on him, unready to have their private parts refreshed, and he ended by hanging himself in his lab. Rather than waiting around for the promised transformation of the universe, Storr comes home to England, where we are grubbily inured to imperfection.

Selfie is as much autobiography as cultural history. Storr was prompted to write it by a slew of personal problems, leftovers from a troubled adolescence combined with middle-aged revulsion at the lardy bib beneath his shirt, the result of weekends sunk into the sofa, surrounded by pizza boxes. He finds no remedy for his self-dislike and, instead, concludes that the self is a false divinity. Worshipping it, we ignore profounder truths. Were connected, Storr reminds us, were a highly social species. Narcissus died because he forgot he belonged to the human family.

This all-seeing book has one blind spot. Caught off guard by Trumps electoral success, Storr mentions him only briefly as a sumptuously narcissistic self-publicist with a liking for Ayn Rands neofascist fiction. The ogre with the gilded quiff, the petulantly pouting mouth and the aggressive elbows merits closer inspection: Trump personifies the psychological and moral malady that Selfie investigates.

One of the experts consulted by Storr refers to a dark power immensely powerful and concerned solely with pursuing its own interests at the expense of everyone else in the world. That quote is a generalised account of the ego; scarily, it also serves as a description of Trump, a puffed-up primate with a nuclear arsenal at his disposal. Storr even indirectly explains Trumps chronic mendacity: at our most crassly selfish, we act on irrational urges or fits of pique that we or brown-nosed apologists such as Sean Sphincter try to justify after the event by confabulating, inventing pretexts for our behaviour that are convenient but patently phoney.

A therapeutic industry caters to the self-esteem or self-delusion of such egomaniacs; it cossets them, Storr suggests, because their competitive frenzy masks an inner hollowness, a noisy denial of their own weaknesses or incompetences. The presidents current state of flailing mayhem could not be more pithily summed up. Trump is obsessed with winning: the worst he can say about jihadis is to insult them as losers, even when they have catastrophically succeeded in slaughtering the innocent.

Politics, for Trump, exemplifies what Storr rather awkwardly calls the gamification of human life. He viewed the presidential campaign as a game show and, after the wonky arithmetic of the electoral college awarded him the prize, assumed that he could look forward to eight years of victory laps and ego-boosting pep rallies, punctuated by recuperative spells watching alt-right rants on his panoramic TV screen. He didnt expect to be exposed to scorn rather than acclaim. Still less did he reckon on having to do an arduous and uniquely complicated job. His former life, he now complains, was easier and more enjoyable: as a celebrity, his sole obligation was self-display.

It remains to be seen whether the superego, policing quaint old-fashioned concerns such as ethics and honesty, will manage to restrain this monster. Surely Trumps permatan isnt armour-plated? On the evidence of Selfie, the world is suffering from a bad case of the DTs and we urgently need detoxing.

Selfie by Will Storr is published by Picador (18.99). To order a copy for 16.14 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99

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Selfie by Will Storr review me, my selfie and I in an age of ego - The Guardian

Global markets slide, led by technology shares – ABC News

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Global stock markets fell on Monday, led by technology shares, as investors look ahead to policy meetings this week by the central banks of the U.S., Britain and Japan.

KEEPING SCORE: France's CAC 40 dropped 1 percent to 5,247, while Germany's DAX dropped 0.9 percent to 12,703. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.1 percent to 7,518. U.S. shares were set to drift lower, with Dow futures slipping 0.2 percent and S&P 500 futures 0.3 percent lower.

TECH SELL-OFF: A drop in technology stocks in the U.S. on Friday echoed through markets on Monday. In Germany, Infineon Technologies was down 5 percent and SAP 3.5 percent. Finland's Nokia was down 2.8 percent. Investors seem spooked the prospect that tech stocks might be overpriced after months of strong gains. The Nasdaq fell 1.8 percent on Friday.

CENTRAL BANKS: Looking ahead, market players are watching central banks' meetings in Britain and the U.S. later this week. Analysts say the Fed is likely to raise interest rates, while the Bank of England is expected to keep them unchanged. The Bank of Japan is also meeting on monetary policy later this week, but little is expected to impact markets, they say.

THE QUOTE: "The start of the week may be quiet, but we'll get monetary policy decisions from the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Japan on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, respectively. The Fed will be of particular interest with markets now fully pricing in a rate hike and instead more concerned with whether they'll signal another this year or focus more on balance sheet reduction," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA.

ASIA'S DAY: Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.5 percent to finish at 19,908.58. South Korea's Kospi slipped 1.0 percent to 2,357.87. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.3 percent to 25,703.83, while the Shanghai Composite index dipped 0.6 percent to 3,139.88. Trading was closed in Australia for a national holiday.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude added 74 cents to $46.57 a barrel. It had gained 19 cents on Friday. Brent crude, used to price international oils, added 85 cents to $49.00 a barrel in London.

CURRENCIES: The pound continued to drop after falling over 2 percent versus the dollar after the Conservatives lost their majority in Parliament. The vote's outcome is creating disarray in Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union, due to start June 19. The pound was down at $1.2680, from $1.2721 on Friday. The dollar weakened to 109.88 yen from 110.36 late Friday. The euro strengthened to $1.1221 from $1.1182.

Yuri Kageyama can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

Her work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/yuri%20kageyama

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Global markets slide, led by technology shares - ABC News

Telcos not investing in technology reason behind financial stress: Reliance Jio – Economic Times

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NEW DELHI: Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio today said telcos not investing in new technology and instead leveraging their balance sheet are themselves to blame for financial difficulties.

Newcomer Reliance Jio, which met the Interministerial Group (IMG) today said operators need to raise funds by selling stake or invest in new technology through internal accruals.

"Operators (excluding Jio) need to invest Rs 1,25,000 crore, payback debt and they need to invest in technology, as growth is happening in data...they can do this by selling stake," said a senior Jio official who did not want to be named.

Stating that the financial stress being faced by operators was "their own creation", the official said the only policy intervention required is in form of reduction in GST rates, licence fee and USO levies.

Lowering of these levies can generate Rs 20,000-25,000 crore additional EBITDA for the industry, the Jio official said after coming out from the 45-minute meeting with the IMG.

The IMG today began consultation with operators as part of efforts to address the financial difficulties being faced by the sector. The telcos are reeling under a massive Rs 4.6 lakh crore debt, and are facing pressure on revenue, profitability and all other financial matrix in face of increasing competition intensified by the entry of Jio.

Over the next few days, the IMG will also meet other operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, as well as top officials of telecom PSUs Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.

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Telcos not investing in technology reason behind financial stress: Reliance Jio - Economic Times