Automakers in alliance to speed fuel-cell development

Ford Motor Co. is joining with Daimler and Renault-Nissan to speed development of cars that run on hydrogen, with hopes of bringing a vehicle to market in as little as four years.

Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles generate electricity after a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is stored in special high-pressure tanks, and the only emissions are water vapor and heat.

Under the alliance, each company will invest equally in the technology. They plan to develop a common fuel cell system that the companies will use to power their own vehicles. The companies also plan to take advantage of their combined size to reduce costs.

Many automakers have been testing the hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles for years but haven't been able to bring costs down enough to sell the vehicles in mass markets. The zero-emissions cars have the potential to cut pollution and reduce the world's reliance on oil for transportation.

"Working together will significantly help speed this technology to market at a more affordable cost to our customers," Raj Nair, Ford's group vice president for global product development, said in a statement issued Monday. "We will all benefit from this relationship, as the resulting solution will be better than any one company working alone."

The companies said engineering work on the individual fuel cells and the overall hydrogen system will be done jointly by the companies at several locations around the world. They also are studying joint development of other parts for fuel-cell vehicles in an effort to bring down costs.

Work will be done at the site of a previous fuel-cell joint venture between Ford and Daimler in Vancouver, Canada, as well as at a Daimler facility in Nabern, Germany, and a Nissan operation in Oppama, Japan, Ford spokesman Alan Hall said. He was not aware of an executive being appointed to run the joint venture.

The automakers each have several years of experience developing fuel-cell vehicles. Their test vehicles have traveled more than 6.2 million miles.

The alliance among Ford of Dearborn, Mich., Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler of Germany, and the joint operations of France's Renault and Japan's Nissan Motor Co. is another example of global automakers combining forces to develop engines and other new technologies. The companies are trying to share expensive development costs yet keep their products different.

Nissan and Renault have had combined operations for years. Toyota Motor Corp. and BMW said this month that they are working together on next-generation batteries for green vehicles called lithium-air. Their collaboration, first announced in late 2011, also is working on fuel cells, with hopes of completing a vehicle by 2020.

French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen and General Motors Co. have a deal to share in purchases of parts and services to cut costs. Toyota has a joint venture with Peugeot Citroen to make small cars in Europe.

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Fire Department is the hot topic at mayoral candidates forum

Residents in Pacific Palisades were deeply critical when cuts to the Los Angeles Fire Department were proposed nearly four years ago. At a forum for mayoral hopefuls there on Sunday, community members arrived with a question: What would the candidates do to beef up emergency operations and bring down response times?

Front-runners Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti each portrayed themselves as fighters for the beleaguered department, which has been under scrutiny since fire officials admitted they'd released misleading performance data for years.

Greuel, who conducted an audit of emergency response times as city controller, blamed the City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for slow responses since the budget reductions began.

She complained that the city hasn't hired a new firefighter in four years and said firefighters have told her: "I don't understand why the mayor and council cut us … and didn't expect it to be a problem."

Councilman Eric Garcetti tersely pointed out that Greuel played a role in the cuts while serving on the council before she was elected controller in 2009.

"We both voted for $56 million in cuts to the Fire Department along with cuts to all of our departments," Garcetti said.

Lawmakers had no choice, he said. When the economy bottomed out during the economic recession, Garcetti said, the cuts helped the city stay afloat. "I will never apologize for balancing the budget in those years."

"The question now," he said, "is what are we doing to restore?" He pointed out that he approved increases to the department's budget last year and has pushed Fire Chief Brian Cummings to draw up a plan mapping out where he would like to add back resources.

"You've seen me hold this chief's feet to the fire," Garcetti said.

Two years ago, the department closed units at more than one-fifth of the city's stations, including in Pacific Palisades, which lost an engine company. Residents feared the cuts would mean longer waits in the hard-to-reach hilly neighborhoods.

Last year, a Times analysis of Fire Department response times found that residents in many of the city's hillside communities wait twice as long as those who live in more dense areas in and around downtown.

Garcetti and Councilwoman Jan Perry said the department needs to focus on upgrading its technology. Plans to install GPS devices in city firetrucks have been in the works for years but slow to be implemented.

Candidate Emanuel Pleitez pledge to install "an in-house roving engineering team" that would look at data in the Fire Department and across the city.

The forum was sponsored by the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club. A fifth candidate, Kevin James, was excluded because he is a Republican.

After the forum, the club's board of directors held a vote to decide whom to endorse in the mayor's race. Garcetti was the winner, receiving at least 60%.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

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In Asia’s trend-setting cities, iPhone fatigue sets in

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s iconic iPhone is losing some of its luster among Asia’s well-heeled consumers in Singapore and Hong Kong, a victim of changing mobile habits and its own runaway success.

Driven by a combination of iPhone fatigue, a desire to be different and a plethora of competing devices, users are turning to other brands, notably those from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, eating into Apple‘s market share.

In Singapore, Apple’s products were so dominant in 2010 that more devices here ran its iOS operating system per capita than anywhere else in the world.

But StatCounter http://gs.statcounter.com, which measures traffic collected across a network of 3 million websites, calculates that Apple’s share of mobile devices in Singapore – iPad and iPhone – declined sharply last year. From a peak of 72 percent in January 2012, its share fell to 50 percent this month, while Android devices now account for 43 percent of the market, up from 20 percent in the same month last year.

In Hong Kong, devices running Apple’s iOS now account for about 30 percent of the total, down from about 45 percent a year ago. Android accounts for nearly two-thirds.

“Apple is still viewed as a prestigious brand, but there are just so many other cool smartphones out there now that the competition is just much stiffer,” said Tom Clayton, chief executive of Singapore-based Bubble Motion http://www.bubblemotion.com, which develops a popular regional social media app called Bubbly.

Where Hong Kong and Singapore lead, other key markets across fast-growing Asia usually follow.

“Singapore and Hong Kong tend to be, from an electronics perspective, leading indicators on what is going to be hot in Western Europe and North America, as well as what is going to take off in the region,” said Jim Wagstaff, who runs a Singapore-based company called Jam Factory http://www.jamfactoryonline.com developing mobile apps for enterprises.

Southeast Asia is adopting smartphones fast – consumers spent 78 percent more on smartphones in the 12 months up to September 2012 than they did the year before, according to research company GfK http://www.gfkrt.com.

IN WITH THE YOUNG CROWD

Anecdotal evidence of iPhone fatigue isn’t hard to find: Where a year ago iPhones swamped other devices on the subways of Hong Kong and Singapore they are now outnumbered by Samsung and HTC Corp smartphones.

While this is partly explained by the proliferation of Android devices, from the cheap to the fancy, there are other signs that Apple has lost followers.

Singapore entrepreneur Aileen Sim, recently launched an app for splitting bills called BillPin http://www.billpin.com, settling on an iOS version because that was the dominant platform in the three countries she was targeting – Singapore, India and the United States.

“But what surprised us was how strong the call for Android was when we launched our app,” she said.

Indeed, 70 percent of their target users – 20-something college students and fresh graduates – said they were either already on Android or planned to switch over.

“Android is becoming really hard to ignore, around the region and in the U.S. for sure, but surprisingly even in Singapore,” she said. “Even my younger early-20s cousins are mostly on Android now.”

BillPin launched an Android version this month.

Napoleon Biggs, chief strategy officer at Gravitas Group http://www.gravitas.com.hk, a Hong Kong-based mobile marketing company, said that while Apple and the iPhone remained premium brands there, Samsung’s promotional efforts were playing to an increasingly receptive audience.

For some, it is a matter of wanting to stand out from the iPhone-carrying crowd. Others find the higher-powered, bigger-screened Android devices better suited to their changing habits – watching video, writing Chinese characters – while the cost of switching devices is lower than they expected, given that most popular social and gaming apps are available for both platforms.

“Hong Kong is a very fickle place,” Biggs said.

Janet Chan, a 25-year-old Hong Kong advertising executive, has an iPhone 5 but its fast-draining battery and the appeal of a bigger screen for watching movies is prodding her to switch to a Samsung Galaxy Note II.

“After Steve Jobs died, it seems the element of surprise in product launches isn’t that great anymore,” she said.

To be sure, there are still plenty of people buying Apple devices. Stores selling their products in places such as Indonesia were full over the Christmas holidays, and the company’s new official store in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay has queues snaking out of the door most days.

But the iPhone’s drop in popularity in trendy Hong Kong and Singapore is mirrored in the upmarket malls of the region.

“IPhones are like Louis Vuitton handbags,” said marketing manager Narisara Konglua in Bangkok, who uses a Galaxy SIII. “It’s become so commonplace to see people with iPads and iPhones so you lose your cool edge having one.”

In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, an assistant manager at Coca Cola’s local venture, Gatot Hadipratomo, agrees. The iPhone “used to be a cool gadget but now more and more people use it.”

There is another influence at play: hip Korea. Korean pop music, movies and TV are hugely popular around the region and Samsung is riding that wave. And while the impact is more visible in Hong Kong and Singapore, it also translates directly to places like Thailand.

“Thais are not very brand-loyal,” says Akkaradert Bumrungmuang, 24, a student at Mahidol University in Bangkok. “That’s why whatever is hot or the in-thing to have is adopted quickly here. We follow Korea so whatever is fashionable in Korea will be a big hit.”

(Additional reporting by Lee Chyen Yee in Hong Kong; Khettiya Jittapong and Amy Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok, and Andjarsari Paramaditha in Jakarta; Editing by Emily Kaiser)

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'Argo' on a roll with big win at SAG Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A few weeks ago, the Oscar race looked wide open. The stately, historical "Lincoln" seemed like the safe and likely choice, with the provocative "Zero Dark Thirty" and the quirky and inspiring "Silver Linings Playbook" very much in the mix for the Academy Award for best picture.

But now, an "Argo" juggernaut — an "Argo"-naut, if you will — seems to be rolling along and gathering momentum as we head toward Hollywood's top prize.

The international thriller from director Ben Affleck, who also stars as a CIA operative orchestrating a daring rescue during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, received the top honor of best ensemble cast in a movie at Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards, their equivalent of the best-picture Oscar. It's a decent indicator of eventual Academy Awards success, with the two matching up about half the time.

The film, which also stars John Goodman and Alan Arkin as Hollywood veterans who help stage a fake movie as a cover, has received nearly unanimous critical raves and has proven to be a box-office favorite, as well, grossing nearly $190 million worldwide.

But "Argo" also won the Producers Guild of America Award on Saturday night, which is an excellent Oscar predictor, and it earned best picture and director statues from the Golden Globes two weeks earlier. The Directors Guild of America Awards next Saturday will help crystallize the situation even further.

The one tricky thing at work here: Affleck surprisingly didn't receive an Academy Award nomination in the director category, which most often goes hand in hand with best picture. (There are nine best-picture nominees but only five slots for directors.) Only once in modern times has a film won best picture without a directing nomination: 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy." The other two times came in the show's early years, at the first Oscars in 1929 with "Wings" and for 1932's "Grand Hotel."

Asked backstage at the SAG Awards what might happen when the Oscar winners are announced Feb. 24, Affleck said: "I don't do handicapping or try to divine what's going to happen down the road with movies.

"I didn't get nominated as a director and I thought, 'OK, that's that.' Then I remembered that I was nominated as a producer," said Affleck, who already has an original screenplay Oscar for writing 1997's "Good Will Hunting" with longtime friend Matt Damon. "Nothing may happen but it's a wonderful opportunity to be on the ride and I'm really honored."

Many of the usual suspects throughout the lengthy awards season heard their names called again Sunday night, including Daniel Day-Lewis as best actor for his intense, deeply immersed portrayal of the 16th U.S. president in "Lincoln." Accepting the prize on stage, he gave thanks to several of his colleagues including "The Master" star Joaquin Phoenix (who did not receive a SAG nomination), Leonardo DiCaprio and Liam Neeson.

Backstage, Day-Lewis elaborated for reporters that DiCaprio urged him to stick with Steven Spielberg's project, which was in the works for many years.

"He said, 'Don't give up, he's the greatest man of the 19th century,'" Day-Lewis said. "So this is all Leo's fault."

His co-star, Tommy Lee Jones, also won again in the supporting-actor category for his lacerating portrayal of abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens in Spielberg's Civil War epic.

Anne Hathaway, the front-runner for best supporting actress at the Oscars and a winner already at the Golden Globes, won at the SAGs for her performance as the doomed prostitute Fantine in the gritty musical "Les Miserables."

"I'm just thrilled I have dental," Hathaway joked on stage.

But in the already-tight best actress race, Jennifer Lawrence made things a little more interesting in winning for the drama "Silver Linings Playbook." The 22-year-old plays a damaged young widow opposite Bradley Cooper, whose character is fresh out of a mental institution. Jessica Chastain, the winner at the Golden Globes, has been her main competition as a driven CIA operative searching for Osama bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty."

Lawrence said on stage that she got her SAG card at 14 — which was only eight short years ago — for a promo for the MTV reality series "My Super Sweet 16," which she said felt like the best day of her life.

"And now I have this naked statue which means that some of you even voted for me, and that is an indescribable feeling," she said.

On the television side, the popular PBS series "Downton Abbey" bested more established shows like "Mad Men" to win the TV drama cast award in just its first nomination. "Modern Family" won the comedy cast prize for the third straight year.

And Dick Van Dyke received the guild's life-achievement award, an honor he presented last year to his "The Dick Van Dyke Show" co-star, Mary Tyler Moore.

After receiving a lengthy standing ovation from the audience, he asked his fellow actors, "Aren't we lucky that we found a line of work that doesn't require growing up?"

____

Contact AP Movie Writer Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire

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Well: Keeping Blood Pressure in Check

Since the start of the 21st century, Americans have made great progress in controlling high blood pressure, though it remains a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure and kidney disease.

Now 48 percent of the more than 76 million adults with hypertension have it under control, up from 29 percent in 2000.

But that means more than half, including many receiving treatment, have blood pressure that remains too high to be healthy. (A normal blood pressure is lower than 120 over 80.) With a plethora of drugs available to normalize blood pressure, why are so many people still at increased risk of disease, disability and premature death? Hypertension experts offer a few common, and correctable, reasons:

¶ About 20 percent of affected adults don’t know they have high blood pressure, perhaps because they never or rarely see a doctor who checks their pressure.

¶ Of the 80 percent who are aware of their condition, some don’t appreciate how serious it can be and fail to get treated, even when their doctors say they should.

¶ Some who have been treated develop bothersome side effects, causing them to abandon therapy or to use it haphazardly.

¶ Many others do little to change lifestyle factors, like obesity, lack of exercise and a high-salt diet, that can make hypertension harder to control.

Dr. Samuel J. Mann, a hypertension specialist and professor of clinical medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, adds another factor that may be the most important. Of the 71 percent of people with hypertension who are currently being treated, too many are taking the wrong drugs or the wrong dosages of the right ones.

Dr. Mann, author of “Hypertension and You: Old Drugs, New Drugs, and the Right Drugs for Your High Blood Pressure,” says that doctors should take into account the underlying causes of each patient’s blood pressure problem and the side effects that may prompt patients to abandon therapy. He has found that when treatment is tailored to the individual, nearly all cases of high blood pressure can be brought and kept under control with available drugs.

Plus, he said in an interview, it can be done with minimal, if any, side effects and at a reasonable cost.

“For most people, no new drugs need to be developed,” Dr. Mann said. “What we need, in terms of medication, is already out there. We just need to use it better.”

But many doctors who are generalists do not understand the “intricacies and nuances” of the dozens of available medications to determine which is appropriate to a certain patient.

“Prescribing the same medication to patient after patient just does not cut it,” Dr. Mann wrote in his book.

The trick to prescribing the best treatment for each patient is to first determine which of three mechanisms, or combination of mechanisms, is responsible for a patient’s hypertension, he said.

¶ Salt-sensitive hypertension, more common in older people and African-Americans, responds well to diuretics and calcium channel blockers.

¶ Hypertension driven by the kidney hormone renin responds best to ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, as well as direct renin inhibitors and beta-blockers.

¶ Neurogenic hypertension is a product of the sympathetic nervous system and is best treated with beta-blockers, alpha-blockers and drugs like clonidine.

According to Dr. Mann, neurogenic hypertension results from repressed emotions. He has found that many patients with it suffered trauma early in life or abuse. They seem calm and content on the surface but continually suppress their distress, he said.

One of Dr. Mann’s patients had had high blood pressure since her late 20s that remained well-controlled by the three drugs her family doctor prescribed. Then in her 40s, periodic checks showed it was often too high. When taking more of the prescribed medication did not result in lasting control, she sought Dr. Mann’s help.

After a thorough work-up, he said she had a textbook case of neurogenic hypertension, was taking too much medication and needed different drugs. Her condition soon became far better managed, with side effects she could easily tolerate, and she no longer feared she would die young of a heart attack or stroke.

But most patients should not have to consult a specialist. They can be well-treated by an internist or family physician who approaches the condition systematically, Dr. Mann said. Patients should be started on low doses of one or more drugs, including a diuretic; the dosage or number of drugs can be slowly increased as needed to achieve a normal pressure.

Specialists, he said, are most useful for treating the 10 percent to 15 percent of patients with so-called resistant hypertension that remains uncontrolled despite treatment with three drugs, including a diuretic, and for those whose treatment is effective but causing distressing side effects.

Hypertension sometimes fails to respond to routine care, he noted, because it results from an underlying medical problem that needs to be addressed.

“Some patients are on a lot of blood pressure drugs — four or five — who probably don’t need so many, and if they do, the question is why,” Dr. Mann said.

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First subject: Paying for college

Several websites can give loan and college cost information to parents. Above, Cal State Long Beach students head to classes as the spring semester gets underway. (Christina House, For The Times / January 28, 2013)

By Reid Kanaley

College acceptance letters are starting to arrive, and families now must figure out how to pay the tuition. Here are some sites that offer guidance to the world of financial aid:

•The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A relatively new federal agency, the bureau has a beta site on college finances. One of the bureau's goals is to make students' borrowing costs clearer. Near the top of the page is a college-prep timeline showing the steps from researching schools to repaying college debt. Along the way, one presumably gets an education.

•Federal student aid. The first step in requesting federal aid for school is to fill out the Federal Application for Student Aid. You have to do it only once a year, no matter how many colleges you apply to. And the earlier the better. As soon as you file the electronic form, you'll see what is likely to be a shocking ballpark number for the education expenses you're expected to pay out of pocket.

•U.S. News & World Report college roundup. The section on paying for an education is meant to explain some of the terminology and procedures that students and families will encounter. Take note of the "overlooked ways to pay for college," which include getting an early start on college savings accounts called 529 plans and digging around for otherwise-overlooked community sources of scholarship money.

•College Board. This group, which runs the SAT college-entrance examination system, also offers advice on financing your higher education. This page includes a link to the board's scholarship-search service. Many scholarships have obscure criteria, so how would you even find all the ones that might fit you? Fill out a questionnaire that can help match students to what the board says is $6 billion available in scholarships through 2,200 programs.

Kanaley writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

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Death toll in Brazil nightclub fire reported at 180

A firefighter carries a body as he runs from a fire that broke out at a disco in Santa Maria, Brazil, early Sunday. (Germano Rorato / EPA / January 27, 2013)

From the Associated Press

January 27, 2013, 5:02 a.m.

BRASILIA, Brazil—

Firefighters say that the death toll from a fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil has risen to 180.

Officials say the fire broke out at the Kiss club in the city of Santa Maria while a band was performing. At least 200 people have been injured, said police spokesman Sandro Meinerz.

The cause of the fire is not yet known.

Civil Police and regional government spokesman Marcelo Arigoni told Radio Gaucha that a truck carrying 70 bodies had arrived at the Municipal Sports Centre, which was being used as an improvised morgue. 

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'Argo' wins Producers Guild Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Argo" continues to shake up the Oscar race by taking the top honor at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday.

Ben Affleck, coming off winning Golden Globe Awards for best motion picture drama and director for the real-life drama, received the award handed out at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

"I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I'm still working as an actor," he said in his acceptance speech.

Affleck also stars in "Argo" as the CIA operative who orchestrated a daring rescue of six American embassy employees during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. George Clooney and Grant Heslov share the producer award with Affleck as "Argo" beat out the Civil War saga "Lincoln," which has a leading 12 Academy Awards nominations.

Other nominees in the PGA movie category were "Les Miserables," ''Zero Dark Thirty," ''Beasts of the Southern Wild," ''Django Unchained," ''Life of Pi," ''Moonrise Kingdom," ''Silver Linings Playbook," and Skyfall."

Along with honors from other Hollywood professional groups such as actors, directors and writers guilds, the producer prizes have become part of the preseason sorting out contenders for Academy Awards.

The big winner often goes on to claim the best-picture honor at the Oscars on Feb. 24.

Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph" won the guild's animation category, beating "Brave," ''Frankenweenie," ''ParaNorman" and "Rise of the Guardians."

"Searching for Sugar Man" took the documentary prize, beating "A People Uncounted," ''The Gatekeepers," ''The Island President," and "The Other Dream Team."

Showtime's "Homeland" won the producer's award for television drama series, which beat out "Breaking Bad," ''Downton Abbey," ''Game of Thrones," and "Mad Men."

The ABC sitcom "Modern Family" took the prize for best comedy series for the third straight year, beating "30 Rock," ''The Big Bang Theory," ''Curb Your Enthusiasm," and "Louie."

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Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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Rules to simplifying life come up short

Los Angeles-area author Matthew E. May has hit upon an attractive theme in his recent book, "The Law of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything" published by McGraw-Hill.

Who does not yearn for a guide to simplifying, synthesizing and subtracting some of the clutter, overload and demands of the "Age of Excess Everything"?

He has also cleverly subtracted from his own workload by inviting others, mostly authors and consultants like him, to contribute about a third of the material for his six laws for doing more with less in the form of summaries of their views.

Mind you, it took fellow author Daniel Pink to point out the appeal of the subject. "Subtraction is your meme. It's out there; it's growing," he told May just before he took the stage at a corporate conference, urging him to "own" it. "Best. Advice. Ever," writes May.

This exchange is itself a little guide to what the book is like. Not only is it full of people talking in a slightly artificial, visionary way about common sense objectives, it is also filled with contradictions. "Subtraction is growing" is only the first.

The book does contain good examples of the less-is-more theme, some well-known, some less so. May's opener (illustrating Law No. 1: "What isn't there can often trump what is") is the FedEx logo, featuring an arrow created by the blank space between the E and X. Lindon Leader, its designer, explains how he "didn't overplay it, didn't mention it" when pitching the idea. (He makes up for that here.)

May, who lives in Westlake Village, also provides a brief history of how Lockheed Corp. put a team of design engineers in a circus tent next to a foul-smelling plastics factory to design a jet fighter: the secret Skunk Works became a byword for how to foster innovation. (Law No. 5: "Break is the important part of breakthrough.")

He cites J.K. Rowling, who was inspired for the idea for Harry Potter on a long, boring train journey, in support of Law No. 6. ("Doing something isn't always better than doing nothing.").

My favorite came from contributor Bob Harrison, a retired police chief, who introduced an "unplan" to withdraw officers directing traffic after a July 4 fireworks display and discovered everyone got home more quickly. (Law No. 2: "The simplest rules create the most effective experience.")

But I find every subtractive success story has an additive counterweight, some of which are explicit in May's examples.

It is true that "creativity thrives under intelligent constraints" (Law No. 4), but Michelangelo — ordered to work on a fresco for the Sistine Chapel, not a sculpture, his preferred medium — then "expanded the job's scope," covering the walls as well as the ceiling.

Steve Jobs was a great simplifier, who "handed control to us" as users of Apple devices. But he was also a control freak when it came to designing the same artifacts, supervising fine detail, adding features and forcing his team to work all hours, rather than giving them time for "purposeful daydreaming," as May advocates elsewhere in his book.

"The Artist," the silent, black-and-white film that provides May with the book's coda, was a worthy Oscar winner — but so was 2008's "Slumdog Millionaire," with its cast of thousands and Bollywood-style excess.

May does not avoid these contradictions, but he does not really address them, either. He prefers to list examples of his six laws rather than explore how employers or their staff could reconcile the daily conflict between constraints and freedom, perspiration and inspiration.

In the interests of "owning" his Zen-inspired meme, May subtracts these complexities. Instead he offers tips, such as his invitation to take "long, languid showers" — No. 8 on a list of ways to relax the mind. This point "needs no explanation," May writes, "which is good, because I could find no research on the subject."

For most people at most companies, where the pressure to add customers, revenue and value is intense, it is as difficult to "subtract" as it is for most grown-ups to follow the advice of one of the book's contributors and live out of a suitcase in a near-empty apartment.

It is a pity, given the need to simplify many business processes, that May adds so little to the sum of knowledge about how to do it.

Hill is the management editor of the Financial Times of London, in which this review first appeared.

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