The Addon T5 from Swedish manufacturer Audio Pro is a compact speaker with a big, beautiful sound full of clarity, warm tone and good bass.

It’s so impressive that respected British firm What Hi-Fi named it “Best Buy 2017” among Bluetooth-enabled speakers.

The Addon T5, distributed in Thailand by ASH Asia International in a choice of white, pink, orange, grey or black, looks sleek with a handle of genuine leather and the woofer embedded in the centre, flanked by two tweeters.

Capping the attractiveness is an aluminium plate holding the control buttons on top.

The T5 isn’t portable – it needs to be plugged into a wall outlet – but it makes up for that with a USB port for recharging your smartphone or tablet while the speaker is streaming music.

Apart from the Bluetooth connection, the T5 has a 3.5mm stereo jack for connecting to your MP3 player.

The buttons turn the speaker on or off, pair it with another device, switch between Bluetooth and Auxin functions, and adjust the volume.

The big sound comes from a digital Class D amplifier with 2×8 watts for the stereo tweeters and 25 watts for the woofer. It uses a quarter-inch textile dome tweeter and a four-inch woofer and supports a frequency response of 50 to 20,000Hz.

With its outstanding mid-range tones and proper level of bass, the T5 is ideal for easy-listening music with the aural focus on sweet vocals and light melodies – hits for the saxophone, for example. The speaker’s warm tones make it great for small parties.

While I was giving it a test run, I went easy on the ears and the speaker with the albums “Best of Saxophone Christmas Songs” and “Best Audiophile Voices V”. All that sax and all those voices sounded very sweet indeed.

Audio Pro’s Addon T5 costs Bt7,990 at http://www.AShop.com, Munkong, Hi-Fi Loe, B2S, Another Story, Maengpong, Betrend, Central, Siam Discovery and The Mall.

KEY SPECS

– Amplifier: 2×8 watts and 25 watts

– Drivers: Two 1/4-inch textile dome tweeters, one 4inch woofer.

– Inputs: Bluetooth 4.0, 3.5mm stereo jack

– Output: USB for charging devices (5V 1000mA)

– Frequency: 5020,000Hz, crossover: 3,800Hz

– Dimensions: 130x250x150mm

Sony’s RX10 ultra-compact, shockproof, waterproof digital camera carries a 24mm-equivalent Zeiss Tessar T f4.0 lens and a one-inch Exmor RS CMOS sensor with 15.3 megapixels. It can dive 10 metres deep without its housing and withstand a two-metre fall. You can shoot superslow motion video, up to 1,000 frames per second. You pay Bt24,990 and get a 32GB micro SD card too.

For the guitar fans

The Fender Newport Bluetooth speaker looks like a Fender guitar amp, right down to the classic bass, treble and volume knobs. You get 30 watts of power from two woofers and a tweeter. Portable with a rechargeable battery that lasts 12 hours and able to recharge a phone, it retails for Bt9,900.

You can afford this

Highly affordable at just Bt4,290, the Redmi Note 5A smartphone from Chinese manufacturer Xiomi features a quadcore Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. It has a dedicated microSD card slot with Dual-SIM (nano+nano) capabilities, a 5.5-inch HD display with Corning Gorilla Glass, a 13MP f/2.0 rear camera, and a 3080mAh battery.

Gaming’s the name

The compact and powerful Gaming FX503 from Asus is equipped with the latest (seventh-generation) Intel Core i77700HQ processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphic card with 4GB of video memory. The notebook has 4GB of RAM and 1TB on the hard drive and comes with a 15.6-inch IPS Full HD display. The FX503 packs a highlighted WASD key group, Nkey rollover, a broad space bar, isolated arrow keys and 0.25mm keycap curves – enabling fast, accurate and comfortable control that’s essential for intense gaming sessions. The going rate is Bt29,990.

Get more from 1More

1More Quad Driver In-Ear Headphones (E1010) use four separate driver components to deliver unsurpassed clarity and dynamic power with a hires bandwidth. They also feature a streamlined anodised-finish sound chamber with perfected ergonomics, which provides exceptional comfort and noise isolation in a sleek and compact design. Grammy-winning sound engineer Luca Bignardi tuned the phones for a fully balanced and ultrarealistic soundstage. Expect to pay Bt6,300.

The Addon T5 from Swedish manufacturer Audio Pro is a compact speaker with a big, beautiful sound full of clarity, warm tone and good bass.

It’s so impressive that respected British firm What Hi-Fi named it “Best Buy 2017” among Bluetooth-enabled speakers.

The Addon T5, distributed in Thailand by ASH Asia International in a choice of white, pink, orange, grey or black, looks sleek with a handle of genuine leather and the woofer embedded in the centre, flanked by two tweeters.

Capping the attractiveness is an aluminium plate holding the control buttons on top.

The T5 isn’t portable – it needs to be plugged into a wall outlet – but it makes up for that with a USB port for recharging your smartphone or tablet while the speaker is streaming music.

Apart from the Bluetooth connection, the T5 has a 3.5mm stereo jack for connecting to your MP3 player.

The buttons turn the speaker on or off, pair it with another device, switch between Bluetooth and Auxin functions, and adjust the volume.

The big sound comes from a digital Class D amplifier with 2×8 watts for the stereo tweeters and 25 watts for the woofer. It uses a quarter-inch textile dome tweeter and a four-inch woofer and supports a frequency response of 50 to 20,000Hz.

With its outstanding mid-range tones and proper level of bass, the T5 is ideal for easy-listening music with the aural focus on sweet vocals and light melodies – hits for the saxophone, for example. The speaker’s warm tones make it great for small parties.

While I was giving it a test run, I went easy on the ears and the speaker with the albums “Best of Saxophone Christmas Songs” and “Best Audiophile Voices V”. All that sax and all those voices sounded very sweet indeed.

Audio Pro’s Addon T5 costs Bt7,990 at http://www.AShop.com, Munkong, Hi-Fi Loe, B2S, Another Story, Maengpong, Betrend, Central, Siam Discovery and The Mall.

KEY SPECS

– Amplifier: 2×8 watts and 25 watts

– Drivers: Two 1/4-inch textile dome tweeters, one 4inch woofer.

– Inputs: Bluetooth 4.0, 3.5mm stereo jack

– Output: USB for charging devices (5V 1000mA)

– Frequency: 5020,000Hz, crossover: 3,800Hz

– Dimensions: 130x250x150mm

On the theme “The Never Ending Story of Magical Land and Legends”, the festival will introduce the uniqueness of Indonesia’s tourist destinations along with their legendary stories, focusing on five routes: Medan–Aceh, Jakarta–Bandung–Banten, Yogyakarta–Solo–Semarang (Joglosemar), Surabaya–Malang, and Bali–Lombok.

“We want Bangkokians to know our country better and understand its richness of nature and culture. This event is presented not only for Thais but also for many other tourists who visit Thailand,” said I Gde Pitana.

The event features art and cultural performances, a concert, a workshop, culinary and fashion bazaar. Indonesian coffee, batik, wayang (shadow puppets) and angklung traditional music instruments are also on display.

Visitors can join creative workshops on ceramic painting, a unique craftwork from Malang, paperdoll making, or sample an array of traditional dishes such as Kerak Telor, Soto Bandung, Martabak and other traditional snacks.

Also available are games, movie screenings and augmented reality and virtual reality presentations of the country’s highlights. A handicraft market has a selection of items perfect as gifts for the upcoming festive season,

Indonesia has 14,572 islands that possess unique characteristics and Minister of Tourism Arif Yahya recently introduced 10 new spots as an alternative choice to Bali for foreign tourists. They include the Riau Islands, Joglosemar (Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Semarang), the Coral Wonders (Wakatobi, Bunaken and Raja Ampat), Medan, Makassar, Lombok and Banyuwangi.

They are all part of the “Wonderful Indonesia” campaign, which aims to attract 15 million foreign tourists in 2017 and 20 million by 2019.

A new study suggests older adults who practice specific computer training exercises that test how fast they respond to visual stimuli could face a 29 percent lower chance of developing dementia, results deemed encouraging by experts even as more work is needed to confirm the link.

The randomized clinical trial involving more than 2,800 people study was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, and used a specific brain-training exercise called “Double Decision,” a patented program by Posit Science that is available on BrainHQ.com.

The exercises tested a person’s ability to look at an object in the center of the screen, like a truck, and click on an object that popped up in the periphery, like a car.

As the user improves, the exercises move faster and become more difficult.

The idea is to exercise the brain’s ability to change — known as plasticity — and to test skills of perception, decision-making, thinking and remembering.

Study authors say the process is like learning to ride a bike, a skill that doesn’t take long to learn but which drives a long-lasting brain change.

Randomized study

Participants were an average age of 74 when they enrolled in the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly study.

Dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies have been published using ACTIVE data, which has now completed 10 years of follow up.

Participants in the trial were assigned at random to four groups: one did computer exercises, a second one followed a series of traditional memory exercises, another did reasoning exercises, and the fourth, a control group, did nothing at all.

Those enrolled in the computer-game part of the study did at least 10 hours of training in the first five weeks of the program.

Some went on to do more training over the next three years, leading to up to 18 hours of total computer work.

“Speed of processing training resulted in decreased risk of dementia across the 10-year period of, on average, 29 percent as compared to the control,” said lead author Jerri Edwards, a researcher at the University of South Florida.

There was no significant difference in risk of dementia for the strategy-based memory or reasoning training groups.

The findings are published a peer-reviewed journal of the Alzheimer’s Association known as Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions.

– Experts urge caution –

Some outside experts urged a dose of skepticism in interpreting the current study as a magic bullet against dementia, since many previous studies have found little to no benefit in popular online brain-training courses.

“The results reported here, of apparent reduction in risk of dementia after 10 years following only a few hours of cognitive training, are therefore rather surprising and should be treated with caution,” said Rob Howard, professor of old age psychiatry at University College London.

“I find it implausible that such a brief intervention could have this effect.”

According to Doug Brown, director of research at Alzheimer’s Society, the study is “positive” in that it spanned a decade and compared several kinds of brain training.

But it made its conclusions about dementia in patients based on self-reports or from subjects’ families, not clinical diagnoses of the condition.

“This study hints that a particular type of brain training may help people to ward off dementia, but due to limitations of the research, we can’t confidently conclude this,” he said.

Experts say more studies should be conducted to see if the findings can be replicated, and better explained.

There can arguably be no greater threat to the French way of life than a lack of butter.

For months France has been gripped by a slow burning panic that it is running out of the golden ambrosia, which is the base of croissants and pains au chocolat as well as the whole mouth-watering panoply of French patisseries.

Supermarket shelves have been emptied of butter as shoppers worry they will have nothing to put on their breakfast tartines of toasted baguette, while worried bakers fear a “croissant crisis” as prices spiral.

“We always loved butter, but we never knew how much,” sociologist Remy Lucas, says who specialises in people’s relationship with food.

“Now we realise how important it is in our daily lives. Obviously we can replace it nutritionally but the idea that we might be without it is really unbearable,” he adds.

French people eat more butter per capita than anyone else in the world – three times more than Americans – yet still have among the lowest obesity levels of developed countries.

Faced with mounting anxiety about having to go without butter, churn makers say that enquiries from city dwellers who clearly have no access to dairy cows has soared, while a spate of YouTube videos showing people how to make butter have been viewed tens of thousands of times within days of going online.

“It’s been a long time since I did a video which took off so quickly,” says popular recipe blogger Herve Palmieri.

“The last one that went viral with a few million views was ironically about how to make a chocolate cake without butter or sugar,” he adds.

Google says internet searches on how to make butter rocketed 925 per cent between September and October.

Wholesale prices for butter more than tripled over the past year driven by rising demand in Asia, with Chinese consumers in particular reportedly developing a weakness for flaky, butter-rich croissants.

With many French supermarkets refusing to pay higher prices because they tend to fix them annually, butter has gone abroad.

The drop in supplies has been accentuated by panic buying, with the safety net of the EU’s once enormous butter mountain no longer there, having melted away to a mere one percent of its size last year.

Parisian baker Dominique Eury says he has never encountered such a shortage in the 44 years he has been manning his oven in the 17th district of the capital.

“Ten days ago I could not get the butter or cream that I needed. Until now we have got by, what is really worrying me is the holidays. The world has gone mad,” he says.

Eury said he gets through twice as much butter during Christmas as he makes the traditional “buche” chocolate log dessert and the marzipan “galette of the kings” the French eat in January.

With his suppliers only able to get their hands on 80 per cent of the butter they want, Eury says he’s putting stocks aside just in case of a crisis over the Christmas period.

The idea that they could make do with margarine is not something French bakers are prepared to contemplate.

“We make everything with butter,” says Arnaud Delmontel, who has four bakeries in the capital.

Although he believes the shortage is not real, he complained that the rise in prices has become “unreasonable”, and some of the butter he has received had clearly been frozen.

“People are speculating and making a lot of money,” he claims.

Global demand for butter is outstripping supply, according to the US Department of Agriculture, as consumers turn away from vegetable-oil based products in search of something “safer”.

Butter’s image as a cholesterol-choked dietary bad guy has changed radically in recent years. Many scientists now say it is “neutral” health-wise – news that Time magazine celebrated with a 2014 cover proclaiming, “Eat butter”.

All of which further reinforces the French emotional attachment to its creamy comforts, Lucas argued.

Grandmothers in the buttery heartlands of Brittany and Normandy still use it as a cureall for bumps and bruises and Lucas said this “brings us back to our childhood… to the intimate comforts and joy of butter at breakfast and in afternoon snacks. Naturally butter is something that makes us happy.”

“Until the shortage,” he says, “butter was just something in our fridges. We had taken it for granted because we always had it, except during World War II.”

Having to worry about getting enough was “shocking and paradoxical” to French people, the sociologist insists.

“In the ‘Land of Butter’ we find it extremely difficult to imagine that we can live without it.”

Despite their apparent willingness, only 25 per cent have a full digital strategy in place today, 45 per cent are in the process of introducing specific digital transformation initiatives in selected parts of their organisation while 30 per cent still have very limited or no strategy in place.

The Microsoft Asia Digital Transformation Study surveyed 1,494 business leaders from Asia Pacific working in organisations with more than 250 employees from 13 Asia Pacific markets: Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, 247 of them in the healthcare business.

“The study has shown that Asia Pacific’s healthcare industry has started to act on the need for digital transformation to address the challenges and opportunities of the 4th Industrial Revolution in the region. Data play an important role in transforming a reactive “sick care system” into a proactive one that manages individual and population health more effectively and at a lower cost. We urge all business leaders in this space to digitally transform themselves amidst changing demands externally and internally, to stay relevant,” says Tatiana Marushevskaya, Marketing & Operations Director, Microsoft Thailand

In Thailand, Microsoft continues to work with organisations of all sizes to drive digital transformation. Praram 9 Hospital is one of the businesses for which Microsoft is supporting the improvement of effective clinical systems.

“Praram 9 Hospital is a private and standalone hospital with 1,200 employees providing services to approximately 1,100 outpatients a day. The hospital therefore has to expand its facilities and improve its systems to support increasing numbers of patients and respond with world-class standards. With the hospital’s growth, it is necessary for us to perform risk management and data analysis to better protect patient information. That begins with a Disaster Recovery solution that stores hospital and patient information in the cloud to ensure that our operations will not be disrupted even in the face of incidents beyond our control,” says Piyarat Samritpradit, Assistant Director, Information Technology Department, Praram 9 Hospital.

To find out more about how Microsoft is enabling digital transformation for organisations, visit https://blogs.microsoft.com/transform/.

This year, the fair is celebrating its 60th anniversary and, as tradition demands, the 1st Battalion Irish Guards Drums & Pipes Band will welcome the fair’s opening guest, Brian J Davidson, the current British Ambassador to Thailand, who will be attending for the first time.

The entrance fee is Bt150 for adults, Bt50 for children with special all-day ride ticket available

Activities and attractions for all ages will be held through the day including a live stage for entertainment, international food and drink plus games and thousands of prizes to be won by the whole family. While kids are enjoying video game sessions, the adults can shop for New Year gift guides or hampers from Tesco and Boots. There are also heaps of stalls run by the many charities the event supports to sell their arts and crafts.

Find out more at Facebook.com/Ploenchit-Fair-306709079358965/

The pill, called Abilify MyCite (aripiprazole tablets with sensor), is designed for patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, according to the US Food and Drug Administration.

A patient ingests the pill, and a sensor inside the pill activates when it reaches the stomach fluids, sending a message to a wearable patch.

This patch then transmits the information to a mobile app, so that a doctor and up to four caregivers, friends or family members can see the information through a web-based portal.

“Being able to track ingestion of medications prescribed for mental illness may be useful for some patients,” said Mitchell Mathis, director of the division of psychiatry products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a statement Monday afternoon.

“The FDA supports the development and use of new technology in prescription drugs and is committed to working with companies to understand how technology might benefit patients and prescribers.”

Although the sensor can alert caregivers, the makers of Abilify, Japan-based Otsuka Pharmaceutical, said it is unclear whether the tracking device will actually help improve patients’ ability to take their medication daily as prescribed.

The FDA approved Abilify in 2002 to treat schizophrenia, which affects about one percent of the US population.

The ingestible sensor used in Abilify MyCite was first allowed on the market by the FDA in 2012.

The sensor technology and patch are made by Proteus Digital Health, and are approved for use with existing medications in the United States and Europe.

But until now, the FDA had not approved a sensor-pill combination.

Some experts raised questions about the choice of Abilify as the drug in which to test the sensor, and the “Big Brother” connotations of being tracked.

“Patients with a tendency towards paranoia may feel a bit uncomfortable being monitored in this fashion,” said Seth Mandel, chairman of psychiatry at Northwell Health’s Huntington Hospital in New York.

“Patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are very often non-compliant with their medication and the result is almost always a relapse,” he added.

Still, he said the pill may “potentially be a significant advance in our never-ending struggle to improve patient adherence to psychotropic medication.”

Scott Krakower, assistant unit chief of psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, New York, said more research is needed to see how the pill affects people in real life.

“This could be a really helpful device to help some of our patients,” who often “have difficulty with focusing and concentrating and may forget to take their medications,” he told AFP in an email.

“On the other hand, one of the goals we set for patients is to improve quality of overall functioning with their lives.

“In some situations it may hinder the autonomy some patients are working toward in their treatment, or it may enable patients to rely on an instrument instead of themselves for treatment.”

The unique shopping experience will feature a specially curated selection of Wizarding World-inspired merchandise, which will be on display and available for purchase in a holiday-themed setting designed to dazzle families of all ages.

“Christmas in the Wizarding World”, which is open for a limited time only, will be reminiscent of the setting and atmosphere of a wintry Hogsmeade village. Complete with an extensive wand assortment, film-inspired window displays and interactive elements, the themed shopping experience is sure to be a hit with fans of JK Rowling’s Wizarding World. Key features of the experience include:

>> A wide selection of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them inspired merchandise, perfect for holiday gift-giving.

>>Specially designed holiday ornaments and stockings

>> Hogwarts school robes

>> Fan-favourite plush owls

>> Wands, jewellery and branded collectible

Ollivanders will be outfitted with soaring shelves of hundreds of precariously stacked wands boxes, where shoppers will be able to experience a holiday surprise with the help of the Wand keeper.

A memorable photo opportunity, featuring a selection of background options from the “Harry Potter” films and “”Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, where guests can purchase a keepsake of their Christmas in the Wizarding World experience.

An interactive Quaffle Toss game, where guests can score a goal amid a colourful display of Quidditch-themed attire and accessories.

Throughout the retail experience, animated windows will bring the iconic shops from the films to life, delighting fans and shoppers alike

“Christmas in the Wizarding World will redefine the traditional shopping centte holiday offering by creating a themed retail experience inspired by one of the most beloved brands of all time, Harry Potter,” says Eddie Newquist, chief creative officer of GES. “We’ve recreated the magical settings of Hogsmeade village and will bring it to the fans and families in Thailand, so they can experience this innovative retail environment.”

Find out more at http://www.SiamParagon.co.th.