Washington, United States---A connected workout shirt from designer Ralph Lauren is hitting the market this month, promising to deliver "smart" fashion, at a hefty price.

The new "PoloTech smartshirt," which goes on sale at $295, includes "real-time biometric technology" which pairs with a smartphone application.

Using silver fibers woven into the fabric, the form-fitting crew-neck shirt can read the wearer's heart rate, breathing depth, intensity of movement, energy output, stress levels, steps taken and calories burned.

The new shirt is the latest entry in the growing market of wearable technology that allow users to monitor health and fitness with sensors next to the skin.

"The Ralph Lauren PoloTech shirt will change the way you look at fashion and apparel. It will give you knowledge you can use to lead a better life," said David Lauren, executive vice president at Ralph Lauren Corporation, in a statement Thursday.

"This is a bridge between technology, fitness and style that approaches wellness and well-being in comprehensive and complementary ways. It will touch many parts of your life."

PoloTech wearers will also need an iPhone or iPad: the shirt, made of 70 percent polyester, 21 percent nylon and nine percent spandex, will communicate to an application available on Apple's iOS mobile operating system.

It transmits the data via a detachable, Bluetooth-enabled "black box."

Qufu, China---In the countryside outside the birthplace of the Chinese sage Confucius, 35 students -- the vast majority of them foreigners -- battle the elements as well as exhaustion at a remote kung fu training academy.

The students in Qufu, from as far afield as Brazil, Ukraine, Spain and France, vary in age from six -- a young boy who accompanied his mother on a summer holiday -- to 50.

It is a disciplined, regimented regime, with activities beginning at 6.00 am every day and featuring several hours of practice.

This includes runs up and down thousands of steps through the steep hills of a neighbouring national park, interspersed with meals.

The students are divided into three groups based on their ability, with each group assigned a kung fu master who blows a whistle at the start of every activity.

They line up to pay their respects to him each time.

The learners can choose how long to stay, from those taking short breaks to one Dutch man who has been training for a year to become a kung fu master and open his own academy in Holland.

Qufu, in the eastern province of Shandong, is best known as the birthplace of Confucius, and the town is dominated by his family's sprawling residence. 

At times the school can feel like a holiday camp. But the kung fu masters do not hesitate to punish those who fail to follow instructions to the letter -- including by assigning students to clean the gym for a week.

Washington, United States---A cooling of smartphone sales in China suggests the world's biggest market for the devices has reached a saturation point, posing challenges for manufacturers, a research report said.

A report by Gartner research firm said worldwide smartphone sales in the second quarter showed the slowest growth rate since 2013, increasing 13.5 percent to 330 million units.

But sales in China were down four percent from a year ago, as growth shifted to other Asian markets and emerging markets in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the report.

"China is the biggest country for smartphone sales, representing 30 percent of total sales of smartphones in the second quarter of 2015. Its poor performance negatively affected the performance of the mobile phone market in the second quarter," said Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta.

"China has reached saturation -- its phone market is essentially driven by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers. Beyond the lower-end phone segment, the appeal of premium smartphones will be key for vendors to attract upgrades and to maintain or grow their market share in China."

The survey confirmed earlier reports on market share: Samsung remained the top seller with a 21.9 percent market share, but its overall handset sales fell five percent to 72 million units.

Apple boosted its market share to 14.6 percent as iPhone sales jumped to 48 million units.

Three Chinese makers rounded out the top five, Gartner found: Huawei at 7.8 percent, Lenovo at 5.0 percent and Xiaomi at 4.9 percent.

The Google Android operating system remained dominant with 82.2 percent of the market, but dipped from 83.8 percent a year earlier, Gartner said. Apple's iOS accounted for 14.6 percent.

 Seoul, South Korea---With a 45-minute set that included cover versions of "Edelweiss" and "Do-Re-Mi" from the "Sound of Music", the avant-garde Slovenian group Laibach  became the first foreign rock band to play a gig in North Korea.

Foreigners who attended the evening concert in Pyongyang said the Slovenian rockers were accorded a warm, if slightly muted, reception by the 1,500-capacity crowd at the capital's Ponghwa Arts Theatre.

"They seemed to really enjoy it. It wasn't an audience pulling faces of distrust or confusion," said Simon Cockerell, general manager of Beijing-based Koryo Tours which arranged a special trip for foreign tourists to see the show.

It was the first of two Laibach gigs in Pyongyang arranged as part of 70th anniversary celebrations of the Korean peninsula's liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

Apart from around 150 foreigners -- including diplomats, NGO workers and tourists -- the rest of the audience was made up of North Koreans.

"Hard to say exactly who they were, but it wasn't a load of military uniforms or high-ranking officials," said Cockerell, who spoke to AFP from Pyongyang after the concert.

Founded in 1980 in the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia's best-known music export has courted controversy with its deliberately ambiguous use of political and nationalist imagery.

While some accuse the rockers of being fascist, others argue that their work is a critique of totalitarian ideology.

Either way, their stage persona and gutteral sound made them a surprising choice as the first foreign rock band to perform in one of the world's most isolated states.

The North Korean popular music scene, such as it is, is largely limited to state-approved bands making state-approved sounds, although foreign music -- especially from South Korea -- is becoming more accessible with the spread of portable media players. These can play music smuggled into the country on CDs or USB sticks. 

Deviating quite significantly from their normal repertoire, Laibach offered the Pyongyang crowd a medley of songs from "The Sound of Music", which is well known in the North.

As well as "Edelweiss", "Do-Re-Mi" and "The Hills Are Alive", they also sang the best-known Korean folk song "Arirang" -- accompanied by a North Korean pianist.

The lyrics to the group's original songs were subtitled in Korean onto a screen above the stage.

"Everyone sat in their seats the whole time and there wasn't really any clapping along or singing along, but then that's the norm at concerts here anyway," said Cockerell, who has been to North Korea around 150 times.

"I imagine most of the people there really had no idea what to expect, but the whole show seemed to be well received," he added.

Pyongyang's official news agency lauded the unusual concert, noting: "Performers showed well the artistic skill of the band through peculiar singing, rich voice and skilled rendition".

Rome, Italy---Italy announced the appointment of seven foreigners to head national museums as part of moves to revive some of the hallmarks of Italian culture.

The seven -- three Germans, two Austrians, a Briton and a Frenchman -- are among 20 new names to oversee the institutions, some of which are among world's most popular museums but which have suffered from an out-of-date image in recent years.

They will be tasked with instituting reforms sought by Culture Minister Dario Franceschini to promote the country's exceptional art collections, including expanding opening hours, renovating the buildings and developing new products.

The culture ministry said the 10 men and 10 women include 14 art historians and four archeologists. Of the 20 appointees, 13 are Italian. 

Eike Schmidt, a 47-year-old German art historian, will take over at he famous Uffizi Gallery in Florence, while another German, Cecilie Hollberg, 48, will head the city's Accademia Gallery.

France's Sylvain Bellenger, 60, an art historian, is to take charge of the vast Capodimonte Museum in Naples, and German Gabriel Zuchtreigel, a 34-year-old archeologist, will oversee the Paestum archaeological site near the city. 

The prestigious Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan will be headed by a 59-year-old Briton, James Bradburne.

Austrian Peter Aufreiter, 40, will take over the National Gallery of the Marches in Urbino, while his compatriot Peter Assman, 61, will be in charge of the Ducal Palace in Mantua.

With these 20 appointments "the organisation of Italian museums will turn a page and recover from decades of delay," said Franceschini.

Berlin, Germany---Half a million ants were enlisted at a German zoo Tuesday by ecologists from the conservation group WWF to call for the protection of the Amazon rainforest, ahead of a trip by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel to Brazil.

At what the group described as a demonstration, leafcutter ants -- a species indigenous to the world's biggest forest -- were seen carrying leaves bearing slogans cut out by WWF activists such as "Save the Amazon" and "Help, Merkel".

The action organised by the zoo in Cologne aims at calling on the German leader to push for the protection of the Amazon when she meets Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff .

"The German government should use this meeting to redouble collective efforts at protecting the Amazon tropical forest," said Christoph Heinrich, a board member of WWF Germany.

The Amazon, the largest forest in the world, has been slowly eaten away by deforestation as well as illegal mining.

Miami, United States---A study of high school students in California out has shown that those who have tried e-cigarettes are more likely to also try traditional cigarettes or cigars.

However, the findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association stop short of showing that e-cigarettes cause teens to try other forms of tobacco, and scientists said more research is needed to explore any such link.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat a nicotine-containing liquid that is inhaled by the user, a process known as "vaping."

They are not currently subject to the same regulations as tobacco cigarettes, and some health experts are concerned that their use will balloon in the coming years, particularly among vulnerable youths worldwide.

The JAMA study was based on a pool of 2,530 students, with an average age of 14, from 10 public high schools in Los Angeles.

At the beginning of the study, all reported never having used combustible tobacco, such as cigarettes, cigars or hookahs.

A total of 222 said they had tried e-cigarettes.

Students answered surveys after six months and then again after one year of enrollment, describing their use of any combustible tobacco products.

Those who used e-cigarettes were more likely than students who did not try the devices to report smoking cigarettes, cigars or hookahs during the study period.

In all, 31 percent of e-cigarette users tried other forms of tobacco, compared to eight percent of non-vapers, after six months of follow up.

Some experts stressed that the findings do not show cause and effect.

"The new study does not show that vaping leads to smoking," said Peter Hajek, professor of clinical psychology at the University of London.

"It just shows that people who are attracted to e-cigarettes are the same people who are attracted to smoking," he added. 

"Despite the headlines this study will generate, there is no evidence to suggest that experimentation with vaping among non-smokers leads to even regular vaping, let alone to smoking."

London, United Kingdom ---Melbourne, Australia, is the world's most liveable city but conflict and terrorism have led to a fall in global urban living conditions more generally, according to a respected British study published.

For the fifth year running, the Australian city came out on top of the annual Liveability Ranking study of 140 cities, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ahead of Austrian capital Vienna and Vancouver, Canada, which came out top in 2011.

The survey scores cities on five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education and infrastructure.

It found that mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with a relatively low population density scored highly, with Canada and Australia accounting for seven of the top ten cities.

Although offering a "big city buzz", the study concluded that global centres such as London, New York, Paris and Tokyo suffered overstretched infrastructure and higher crime rates as a result of their size.

Tokyo was ranked at 15, Paris at 29, London at 53 and New York at 55.

Although the top five cities remain unchanged, more than a third overall saw a change in their score, with the majority of those suffering a fall in standards "reflecting a deterioration in stability in many cities around the world."

"High-profile terrorist shootings in France and Tunisia and the ongoing actions of Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East have created a further heightened threat of terrorism in many countries," said the report.

"Meanwhile, protests over matters like police brutality, democracy and austerity have also raised the threat of civil unrest in many countries, notably the US," it added.

Hong Kong also slipped down the rankings in the wake of mass protests and clashes with the police last year.

The three cities falling furthest in the rankings were Libyan capital Tripoli, Ukrainian capital Kiev and Syrian capital Damascus, all as the result of ongoing conflicts.

In contrast, Harare in Zimbabwe, Nepal's capital Kathmandu and desert metropolis Dubai recorded the most improved scores.

San Francisco, United States---Google has got a good look at your roof, and can tell you if it is worth the investment to install solar energy panels.

The US tech giant said its "Project Sunroof" online tool is now available in the area around San Francisco and Fresno in California and around Boston, Massachusetts.

The new tool "uses high-resolution aerial mapping (the same used by Google Earth) to help you calculate your roof's solar energy potential, without having to climb up any ladders," Google engineer Carl Elkin said in a blog post.

The website "figures out how much sunlight hits your rooftop throughout the year, taking into account factors like roof orientation, shade from trees and nearby buildings, and local weather patterns" and then "combines all this information to estimate the amount you could potentially save with solar panels," Elkin said.

It can also connect homeowners with local solar providers.

Elkin said the effort aims to overcome consumer concerns and encourage the use of green energy that reduces carbon emissions.

"The cost of solar power is at a record low," he said.

"A typical solar home can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year on their electricity bill.

But, as a volunteer with the Boston-based solar program Solarize Massachusetts and a solar homeowner myself, I've always been surprised at how many people I encounter who think that 'my roof isn't sunny enough for solar,' or 'solar is just too expensive.'"

Google hopes to expand the project to additional regions "in the coming months," Elkin said.

Madrid, Spain---Spain's northeastern city of Tarragona plans to use DNA analysis of dog droppings to track down errant owners who fail to clear up their pet's mess, local officials.

The coastal Mediterranean city will work with a local university to create a DNA database of registered dogs that could be used to identify its owner, Ivana Martinez, the city's city councillor for public spaces, told news radio Cadena Ser.

Dropping a found on the street or in parks can then be matched through the DNA database to a registered pet and its owner issued with a fine, she said.

"Right now, unless the police is at the scene and the right moment, it is very difficult to know who is breaching the rules," Martinez said.

Pet owners will have to cover the cost of the DNA testing in addition to paying a fine.

Martinez said the city wanted the database to be up and running "as soon as possible" but did not provide a date.  

Tarragona, a city of some 135,000 people which is known for its wealth of Roman ruins including a seaside amphitheatre, has just over 2,800 registered dogs, according to city hall.