Launching a search engine business has long "been a nearly impossible hill to climb", said industry news site Digiday, because new contenders are "up against" the "Mt. Everest" of Google. 

But a new start-up called Perplexity AI is aiming to reach that peak by using artificial intelligence to offer answers to questions rather than simply links.

What is the new product?
Recently valued at $1 billion, Perplexity AI is the creation of Aravind Srinivas. After interning at OpenAI and Google's DeepMind, both of which became leaders in generative artificial intelligence, Srinivas co-founded his challenger tool, which provides fast, Wikipedia-like responses to search queries. So it's "bye bye" to the "10 blue links" of Google, said The Verge, and "hello direct answers to all my weird questions about the world".

By "gleaning answers from a variety of large language models, both closed and open-source", said The Economist, Perplexity AI "can take advantage of each model's analytical strengths", as well as "their varying pricing structures", to "improve performance and lower costs".

What do the experts say?
Srinivas has "openly thrown down the gauntlet to Google", said The Economist. "Upstarts are supposed to win over underserved customers with cheap, scrappy technology", but Perplexity, with a subscription model that may eventually include ads, "can be more expensive than Google, and its answers tend to be far more polished (if not always accurate)".

Impressive, said The Verge, but the "thing you have to understand about a search engine is that a search engine is many things". People use Google to "find important and hard-to-access scientific information", but also to "find their email inbox", or shop websites, or to "remember who was president before Hoover".

The "real question in front of all these would-be Google killers" is "not how well they can find information" but rather "how well they can do everything Google does". Although the "10 blue links" of Google "isn't the answer for search", neither is "an all-purpose text box". 

"Search is everything, and everything is search", so "it's going to take a lot more than a chatbot to kill Google". 

Five babies in England have died from whooping cough this year – the first such deaths since 2019 – as cases increase across Europe. 

About 2,800 cases have been reported in England so far in 2024 – more than three times the 858 recorded in the whole of last year. There have also been "sharp rises" in several European countries, said Sky News.

The "retro infection" is the "latest Victorian-era ailment to stage a comeback in the West," said Politico, following an increase in measles, gout and leprosy. 

What is whooping cough?
Whooping cough is a bacterial infection of the lungs and respiratory system that is "as infectious as measles, and more infectious than Covid-19", Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, told Sky News. 

As well as a runny nose and sore throat, the tell-tale symptom is the coughing bouts, which often feature a distinctive "whoop" sound as the patient gasps for air. 

Whooping cough can be particularly serious for infants. In most of Europe, babies get their first two doses of a combined whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus vaccine between the ages of two months and a year.

Why is whooping cough on the rise?
Whooping cough is a "cyclical disease", with natural peaks every few years. However, falling vaccine uptake is likely to be exacerbating the problem. A British Medical Journal report said that only 58% of pregnant women had been vaccinated in September 2023, down from more than 70% in September 2017. The number of two-year-olds who had completed their routine vaccinations was 92.9% in 2023, down from 96.3% in 2014.

"We saw a lot of misinformation from the anti-vax lobby across the pandemic," Head told Politico. The concern was that this would "spread into hesitancy around routine immunisation".

What next? 
Pregnant women are being urged to take up the vaccine.  It is also "vital that families come forward" to get their children vaccinated, said Professor Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director. For anyone who has symptoms, seek an urgent GP appointment or contact NHS 111.

Gloucestershire: Chantry Cottage, Syde
This characterful Grade II cottage dates back to the 14th century and sits in an idyllic position close to Syde, a small Cotswolds village between Cirencester and Cheltenham. Originally built as a chapel in 1343, this historic property was probably converted into a house after the Reformation in the mid-16th century. 3 beds, family bath, shower, kitchen, dining room, 2 further receps, garden, parking. £1.5m; Savills

Devon: The Manor House, Bradninch
Built in 1547, this grand Grade I manor house is set in 7 acres and boasts many original features, such as decorative plaster ceilings and carved wood panelling. 6 beds, 2 baths, shower, kitchen, 5 receps, study, swimming pool, landscaped gardens, lake, parking, self-contained 1-bed flat. £2m; Wilkinson Grant

Surrey: Great Tangley, Wonersh, Guildford
A substantial wing in this handsome Grade I Tudor-fronted property with 11th century origins. Main suite, 4 further beds, 2 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, library, study, garden, parking. OIEO £2.95m; Strutt & Parker

Is Dominic Cummings' 'start up party' a non-starter?
Nigel Jones in The Spectator
Dominic Cummings is back in the headlines after offering "an insight into his latest project", a proposed new political party to rival the Tories, says Nigel Jones. Yet Boris Johnson's former right-hand man "is very vague on the mechanics of actually building an alternative". Unless he "puts more meat on the bones of his idea, his start up scheme is likely to stay, well, a non starter".

Why is Britain's mental health so incredibly poor? It's because our society is spiralling backwards
George Monbiot in The Guardian
The latest "map of mental wellbeing" from the Global Mind Project reveals that mental health has "plummeted in the UK further than in any comparable nation", writes George Monbiot. "Smartphones and ultra-processed food" have been blamed, but "they're hardly peculiar to the UK". Instead, surely a key reason is that "life here is, visibly and obviously, spiralling backwards" and "almost everything has gone to shit" amid a litany of "broken promises and dysfunctions".

Politics is spared the full Monty – for now
Martin Samuel in The Times
Monty Panesar won't be "bringing his singular interpretation of world politics" to the "parliamentary arena" after all, writes Martin Samuel, "and this is a good thing". The former cricketer withdrew as a candidate for George Galloway's Workers Party after suggesting that "the way to control immigration and Britain's borders was to pull out of Nato". Fortunately, Panesar then apparently "realised that this is an extraordinarily serious time for our country and that he was extraordinarily unsuited to deliver on it".