Fast Technology

Marketed as "the world's thinnest and lightest 10.1in tablet", Toshiba's AT200 certainly looks the part. Despite its razor thin credentials, however, the AT200 isn't as well built as it looks and is still waiting for the latest Android software update to address a number of issues.

Ultralight and super-thin. That's how Toshiba describes the AT200. While this is definitely marketing speak, it's hard to argue with the company once you've held the AT200 in your hands. At just 535g and only 7.7mm thin, the tablet is simply a featherweight to hold. It is without a doubt the most comfortable tablet we've ever used single-handedly. While the weight difference may not sound like much compared to the new iPad, the difference is immediately noticeable and something you'll quickly come to love.

Aiding the design is the fact that the AT200 looks the part, too. It has an attractive magnesium alloy finish on the rear, a gloss black bezel surrounding the screen on the front, and a recessed edge that has a gloss silver strip running through it. The latter in particular immediately sets is apart from the many bland, black slabs that make up most other Android tablets on the market.

Sadly, there are a number of flaws with the design of the AT200 that detract from its overall appeal. The rear casing noticeably creaks towards the bottom when pressed. The metallic finish scratches way too easily. Worst of all, the outer rim on the back of the device has a sharp edge that digs into your fingers when holding the tablet. If you look closely along the edges you'll see that this finish is uneven, with the gap noticeably wider in some areas than others. This lack of attention to detail simply isn't good enough on a device commanding almost $600.

The Toshiba AT200 does have some other redeeming features. Users looking for flexibility will be pleased with the microSD card slot, a micro-HDMI port and a micro-USB cable. We like how none of these ports are hidden behind annoying plastic flaps or doors. What we don't like is the ungainly, chunky charger Toshiba includes. The charging connector is thicker than the tablet itself and seems overkill when many other tablets charge via a regular micro-USB connection. You can at least choose to charge the Toshiba AT200 via its micro-USB port, but charging time is significantly slower.

The Toshiba AT200 has a 10.1in Gorilla glass screen with a resolution of 1280x800. The screen isn't going to win any awards and certainly isn't as bright or crisp as the new iPad, or even the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime. We also dislike the small, visible square shapes all over the screen. This imprint appears to be on the layer directly below the outside of the screen and is very noticeable at certain angles, particularly if there is light shining on the screen.

OPINION

The phenomenal success of Kenya's M-PESA system, which allows people to store and transfer funds via electronic accounts that they access via mobile phones, has raised hopes that mobile money may provide a way for the poor to access basic banking services.

In an earlier post, I presented findings from my recent working paper with Aaron Thegeya, showing that a remarkable 73pc of Kenyan adults use mobile money, and nearly a quarter use it every day.

We also show that savings with a simple M-PESA account is common, with 2/3 of M-PESA users reporting that they save in some form with M-PESA. We see some mild evidence that M-PESA may increase savings: controlling for various characteristics, those who are registered for M-PESA are 32 percent more likely to report some savings activity.

Why do people save with M-PESA when it doesn't pay interest? A possible explanation comes from an experimental study on health savings (not involving M-PESA). In that study, just providing participants with a simple metal box with a lock and a deposit slit in the top increased savings by 68 percent.

The authors conclude that this effect was due to "mental accounting," meaning that with the funds set aside, it was easier to refuse requests or limit consumption knowing that the funds were mentally allocated to savings. M-PESA may serve a function similar to the box. This matches the results from a focus group study in which Kenyans highlight the value of M-PESA as a place to store funds, safe from the dangers of theft and inaccessible to family members.

M-PESA's success has inspired efforts to go beyond simple no-interest money storage and provide more sophisticated "branchless banking" services via mobile phone. In our paper, Aaron and I look at one prominent attempt to launch such a system in Kenya. M-KESHO provides an interest-bearing savings account as its core feature, supplemented by microloans and small-scale personal accident insurance. All of this is accessible through a simple mobile phone, and customers can sign up at agents across the country. M-KESHO was launched in mid-2010 to a barrage of excitement.

We examine the experience of M-KESHO six months after its launch. We show that actual use of M-KESHO was very low in a national household survey: just 0.6pc of Kenyan adults said they saved with M-KESHO, and these savers were concentrated at the high end of the wealth distribution, with almost none among the Kenyan poor.

M-KESHO may not have caught on because the marginal gain to using it versus saving with M-PESA is low. M-KESHO currently pays a maximum interest rate of 3 percent, which is better than zero, but not that impressive when overall inflation in Kenya is over 16 percent.

This begs the question of why M-KESHO's interest rates are so low. We speculate that the answer may lie in part in the complex technical and institutional arrangements the system requires. Bank-integrated savings products such as M-KESHO require two players in order to operate: a mobile phone service provider and a bank. (Mobile survey providers are not licensed by Kenyan law to provide banking services, and similar restrictions are found in other countries.) The cooperation required between the bank and the mobile service provider has two likely outcomes.

First, the fact that both organizations must profit out of the arrangement reduces the surplus for consumers and in the case of M-KESHO may explain why the interest rates it offers are so low. Second, the shared arrangement between the two companies may create challenges for the two to work together. Although released to much fanfare, M-KESHO has not been widely promoted subsequently, which may reflect difficulties Equity Bank and Safaricom have had in managing the partnership. The bottom line is that sophisticated "branchless banking" via mobile phone remains an unproven approach in Kenya. This is not to say that such efforts are doomed: other similar experiments are under way, and we may eventually see one succeed.

Demombynes is Senior Economist in the Nairobi office of the World Bank.

A $50 kitchen appliance feature has become the answer to a millennia-old challenge for observant Jews.

The so-called “Sabbath mode” for most stoves and some fridges allows owners to warm food and use their fridge between Friday and Saturday nights, because Jewish law prohibits working on the Sabbath.

When the eight days of Passover begin on the Sabbath, as it does this year, modern appliances make it possible for Orthodox Jews to serve preprepared, labour-intensive Seder meals without breaking the rules.

Michael Gnat of the wholesaler Midnorthern Appliances says almost all popular brands of stoves and ovens have a Sabbath mode feature – essentially a switch that disengages automatic safety shut-offs, allowing ovens to maintain a low heat for extended periods.

High-tech refrigerators are a bit trickier if you happen to be an observant Jew: merely opening a door causes lights, defrost cycles and digital readouts to come on and compressors to engage — all signs and symbols of work. Yet even here, technological solution was introduced more than 10 years ago. “It’s a bypass switch worth about $50 to $100,” he says. But for many Observant Jews it’s priceless. “We have a large Orthodox clientele and the Sabbath mode feature is critical for them.”

There are some applicances in the kitchen that just have to be left alone on the Sabbath — microwaves or dishwashers, for example, which can’t be left running.

Every Jew determines their own level of compliance — often under the guidance of their Rabbi.

Rabbi Leslie Lipson of Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda synagogue says it can be traced back to God’s decision to rest on the 7th day as written in the second chapter of Genesis. “So we rest on the seventh day,” he says.

There are 39 categories of work listed in the Torah, says Rabbi Lipson. But the nature of work has changed over the years. Mostly we are not an agrarian society and many of us do not cook with fire. In modern times completing an electrical circuit is tantamount to lighting a fire, explains Lipson.

Observant Jews can decide not to use their microwaves. As well, they can disable the light in their fridge so the electrical circuit is not completed.

When Vaughan couple Joshua Oerbach and his wife Melissa were shopping for appliances for their new home in 2010, they looked for fridges and stoves with Sabbath mode kits. He had not been brought up in an Orthodox environment; she had been. They finally settled on a GE Café stove and an Electrolux fridge with Sabbath-mode technology.

“Everyone draws their own boundary,” says Joshua.

General Electric, Electrolux, Sub-Zero, Frigidaire, Whirlpool, Maytag and Viking have developed Sabbathmode features. (A list of Star-K-approved appliances — fridges and stoves that are compliant with Jewish law, can be found at star-k.org.

GE spokesperson Kim Mann isn’t assuming there will be a run on Sabbath mode appliances as Passover approaches. “This is not market driven. It’s culturally driven,” she says. “All ranges manufactured since the late ’90s have a Sabbath mode,,” says Mann.

It’s a phenomenon that’s been building since the 1980s, says Mann.

Frances Goldstein is a fundraiser for the United Jewish Appeal who remainxs content with her “20 year old appliances”.

“I consider myself Orthodox,” she says. “I’m an old-fashioned girl.”

She’ll spend the weekend at her daughter’s home because she won’t drive on the Sabbath.

At 60, she’s not tempted by the technology that make observing the Sabbath easier. “You need to be a rocket scientist,” she jokes.

She is certain, however, that these are important celebrations. “It’s a wonderful time for family, a time for children to ask questions. We don’t look at is as a chore.”

Still, she’s thankful that appliance manufacturers are paying attention.

“They are listening and they are making changes.”

bgraham@thestar.ca