OLD AND NEW TECHNOLOGY MEET IN CAFÉS OF LEBANON

Lebanon’s outdoor café culture

is one of the city’s great features, where people relax over strong coffee and cigarettes. Or these days, maybe with a vape. But now, even the faux- cigs may be replaced by a hooked- up hookah pipe. According to a BBC tech report, a Beirut startup called Nara ( Arabic for flame) has created a way to measure the optimal combination of tobacco flavour, temperature, moisture and air flow, “all elements for a perfect smoke.” Nara uses the technology of a battery and Internet- connected sensors to keep everything in the hookah bowl in the right balance. Say you frequent a local café for your daily puff. The barista can learn your preferred blend and serve it to you again and again. Meanwhile, another Beirut startup wants to help you quit. Its Slighter is a lighter that records your smoking habits in the first week of use; the next week it starts telling you when it’s alright to have another, slowly increasing the length of time between cigarettes.