South Korean smartphone maker LG has launched the company's latest flagship smartphone V35 ThinQ. The smartphone comes with IP68 rating which makes the device dust and water resistant. Along with this, it also has MIL-STD 810G certification for reliability of equipment performance in harsh environments. The LG V35 ThinQ comes in New Aurora Black and New Platinum Gray colour options and is priced at $900. The smartphone will be available in US in June followed by Asia, Middle East and Africa. The LG V35 ThinQ comes with a 6-inch QHD+ OLED display with 1440x2880 pixel resolution.
The display offers 18:9 aspect ratio and is covered with a coating of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The smartphone runs Android 8.0 Oreo operating system topped with the company's own layer of LG UX and is powered by Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 845 processor. The LG V35 ThinQ offers 6GB of RAM and 64GB/128GB internal storage. Users can further expand the storage up to 2TB by inserting a microSD card. The smartphone comes equipped with a fingerprint sensor and dual rear camera setup. The rear of the handset houses a 16MP primary sensor with f/1.6 aperture and 16MP secondary sensor with f/1.9 aperture and LED flash. The front of the smartphone packs an 8MP shooter with f/1.9 aperture for selfies.
The company has incorporated the AI CAM which offers 19 shooting modes, Portrait Mode for both the front and rear cameras, 2D and 3D stickers with facial recognition. It also offers new Super Bright camera which claims to offer four times bright images of photo captured in dim light. The camera works with the combination of pixel binning and software processing. The AI in the camera adjusts the settings when the image is being captured in low light. The smartphone comes with Advanced Hi-Fi Quad DAC and surround sound support. Along with this, it comes with Super Far Field Voice Recognition which allows the user to listen to their voice anywhere in the room. Measuring 151.7 x 75.4 x 7.3mm, the smartphone is backed by a 3300 mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 and Wireless charging support. In terms of connectivity it offers 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5 LE, GPS, NFC and USB Type-C.
After being in the news for a while, the LG K30 is now official in the United States for a price of $225 (approx. Rs 14,998). The K30 looks exactly similar to the LG X4+ smartphone that was unveiled a while back in South Korea. The LG K30 is exclusive to T-Mobile in the US market and the users can purchase the device under contract too at $9 (approx. Rs 599) per month for a period of 24 months. Also, it's unknown at the moment whether LG is planning to launch this device in the Indian market or other Asian markets. The highlights of the LG K30 are the Snapdragon 425 SoC, 13MP rear camera and the presence of a fingerprint scanner at the back.
Most of the smartphone brands including LG stopped offering fingerprint scanners on entry-level and budget devices in favour of the trendy Face Unlock feature, but the K30 boasts a biometric sensor at the rear. The LG K30 sports a 5.3-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, and there's no mentioning of the protective layer used on the smartphone. At the heart of the phone, we get the Snapdragon 425 chipset, paired with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. There's a microSD card slot as well for storage expansion up to 2TB. The smartphone measures 8.6mm in thickness. Optics in the LG K30 include a 13MP sensor on the back which also comes with PDAF and LED flash support.
There's a 5MP front-facing camera. Both the front and rear cameras are capable of recording 1080p videos. The RAM on the smartphone is an LPDDR3 one. LG has topped the smartphone with Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box with LG UX 6.0+ on top. Connectivity options in the device include 4G LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS and a micro USB port is placed at the bottom. The phone is fuelled with a 2800mAh battery, and thankfully LG has added fast charging support to the device. If LG launches this device in India, it will compete with the Xiaomi Redmi 5A and Tenor D in terms of specifications, but the pricing of the device will be in-line with Samsung's Galaxy J2 (2018) and Vivo's Y53i.
LG appears all set to unveil its latest budget smartphone in the US, albeit with sub-par specifications. The LG K30, coming to T-Mobile, has been spotted on the mobile carrier's support portal with partial specifications mentioned in the listing. To recall, the phone's launch was recently said to imminent, courtesy reputed tipster Evan Blass on Twitter. While all rumours point towards this, there is currently no confirmation on whether the smartphone will be exclusive to T-Mobile, or make its way to other markets across the globe. The LG K-Series has several models in India.
LG K30 specifications The LG K30 will run Android 7.1 Nougat out-of-the-box. The handset is expected to sport a 5.3-inch HD (720x1280 pixels) TFT display, and be powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core unnamed Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC. The listing suggests the phone will get 2GB of RAM and 32GB of inbuilt storage, expandable via microSD card (up to 2TB). As for camera specifications, the LG K30 is reported to bear a 13-megapixel rear sensor with autofocus, 4X digital zoom, and flash, and a 5-megapixel front-facing sensor with face detection. The phone is slated to feature a 2880mAh battery under the hood, with a claimed standby time of 10 days. Connectivity options on the LG K30 are said to include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, USB Type-C, Bluetooth 4.2, and stereo audio.
Features of the smartphone include T-Mobile video calling, Wi-Fi Calling 2.0, tethering APN, anti-theft capabilities, system manager, T-Mobile's 600MHz band, and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. LG recently announced the launch of its latest flagship smartphones - the LG G7 ThinQ and LG G7+ ThinQ - at simultaneous events in New York and Seoul this week. Both variants of the smartphone come with features such as AI Camera, face recognition, Hi-Fi Quad DAC, and an extra physical virtual assistant-triggering button.
LG has announced its first true flagship smartphone for 2018, and it's called the LG G7 ThinQ. That's a weird name for a smartphone, but that's LG giving us a hint of what its future releases will be called. Basically, the ThinQ moniker refers to AI on this smartphone and any other LG products. The device is now official after being in the leaks for more than a couple of months. The G7 ThinQ packs top-of-the-line specifications and comes with basic features which we have seen on other smartphones, but in some areas such as the display and speaker, the G7 ThinQ kills the competition. Also, LG chose to add an additional hardware button specially for activating the Google Assistant, and the company says the phone comes with 30 custom commands to make full use of the Google Assistant. LG says that it designed the smartphone keeping three things in mind: Meaningful AI, solid fundamentals, continuous upgrades. Right out of the bat, the LG G7 ThinQ has a 6.1-inch display with QHD+ resolution and 3120 x 1440 pixels. The display has an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and offers an incredible 1000-nits of brightness levels, which is an industry first from the South Korean company.
The display can be set to six different viewing modes: Auto, Eco, Cinema, Sports, Game and Expert. There's a notch on top of the screen, which by now you must have figured it out after reading the aspect ratio. The next highlight of the G7 ThinQ is the loudspeaker it packs. The smartphone comes with a Boombox speaker which delivers double the bass of conventional smartphones for powerful "boombox" sound without the need for external speakers. When placed on a solid surface or box, the smartphone utilises its resonance chamber as a woofer to amplify the bass effect even more. It is also the first smartphone with DTS:X that's used to deliver virtual 3D sound for all content, up to 7.1 channel audio with earphones. It also packs a Hi-Fi Quad DAC. Internally, the smartphone is powered by the high-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC. The phone comes in a couple of RAM and storage options- one with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage and the other one with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.
The high-end variant will be launched only in some markets such as South Korea and India. There's a microSD card slot for storage expansion up to 2TB. The device boots Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box with several new AI features. It measures 7.9mm in thickness and has a weight of 162grams. Another key feature of the G7 ThinQ is the cameras. The phone packs two 16MP sensors at the back with the primary one having a f/1.6 aperture and the secondary sensor having a f/1.9 aperture. The secondary sensor comes with 107° field-of-view. Up front, it has an 8MP wide-angle sensor. The camera specs are in-line with those of LG V30 smartphone, but the camera app offers various AI features. LG's AI Camera app now offers 19 shooting modes, up from the eight modes we saw on the earlier devices. And this time, there's a Super Bright Mode which tweaks the images captures in low-light. Other features such as the Portrait mode, AR Stickers are also present on the smartphone. Another change which LG made after years is the power button placement. The power button is now on the right side and it now more acts a fingerprint scanner. The biometric sensor is still on the rear.
The smartphone is IP68, and MIL-STD 810G certified, same as previous LG devices. The LG G7 ThinQ also comes preloaded with Google Lens features, which is the new way to search anything. The Google Lens is bundled inside the Google Assistant and Google Photos. LG says that Google has a lot more to share about the Lens at the upcoming Google I/O event. As mentioned, there's a dedicated button to trigger the Google Assistant which is located on the left side below the volume rockers. A single tap of this button will launch the Google Assistant while two quick taps will launch Google Lens, which is a first on any phone. Users can also hold down the button to start talking to the Google Assistant. The LG G7 ThinQ will be available in New Platinum Gray, New Aurora Black, New Moroccan Blue and Raspberry Rose colours. The Indian launch of the device is unknown at the moment, but it might happen at the end of this month or early next month.
We are yet to see the latest flagship smartphones from a couple of brands. Both OnePlus and LG have already confirmed to launch their 2018 flagship smartphone in the month of May. Apart from flagship smartphones, we will also see quite a few budget-centric launches in India. Most of these newly launching smartphones will also be sold in the Indian market.
OnePlus 6 OnePlus 6 will be officially unveiled on May 16th in London and the India launch is scheduled for May 17th. The first look and key specifications are already revealed in the numerous leaks. With the OnePlus 6, the company is opting for the glass back body. Based on the leaks, we might also see a special variant with the ceramic body. The device will be coming notch display and Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor. It offers up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The company might also unveil the Dash Charge V2 which should improve the already faster charging speeds offered with current gen Dash Charge. It runs on the latest Oxygen OS based on Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. The Alert Slider will be now placed on the right edge instead of the left edge. The company is also retaining the 3.5mm audio jack.
Honor 10 Honor launched the Honor 10 smartphone last week in China and the global launch for the same device is scheduled for May 15th. Just like its predecessors, the new Honor 10 also continues to come with the glass sandwich design. The new Honor 10 sports the notch display with Full HD+ resolution and 19:9 aspect ratio. Under the hood is the HiSilicon Kirin 970 octa-core processor with a dedicated NPU for processing the AI tasks. It comes with 6GB of RAM and will be available in different storage options. Talking about the cameras, there are 24MP and 16MP dual rear cameras on the rear with f/1.8 aperture and a single 24MP camera on the front with f/2.0 aperture. It comes with Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box with the customized EMUI 8.1 laid on top. The Honor 10 is backed by a 3,400mAh battery and supports up to 5V/4.5A (22.5W) super fast charging.
Xiaomi Mi A2 Xiaomi is rumored the launch the Mi 6X as Mi A2 in the international markets. While the Mi 6X is already on sale in China, there is no official confirmation about the Mi A2 launch by the company. The design of the Mi 6X looks similar to that of Redmi Note 5 Pro. Even the upcoming Redmi S2 also comes with the similar design. However, the Mi A2 will be missing the 3.5mm audio jack for connecting regular earphones. It sports a 5.99-inch Full HD+ (2160 x 1080 pixels) display and is backed by a Snapdragon 660 octa-core processor. The dual rear cameras on the rear use the 20MP Sony IMX376 and 12MP Sony IMX486 sensors with f/1.8 aperture. On the front is a 20MP Sony IMX376 sensor for capturing selfies. It is backed by a 3,010mAh non-removable battery that also supports Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging.
LG G7 ThinQ LG has already confirmed launching the LG G7 ThinQ smartphone on May 2nd in New York. It will be first LG smartphone to come with notch display. Just like the LG V30 ThinQ smartphones, the new LG G7 ThinQ will also offer AI-based camera features. There will be no rear facing power button and also features a new button dedicated to trigger Google Assistant. It is mentioned to come with a 6.1-inch display that will be offering Quad HD+ resolution and 19:9 aspect ratio. The LG G7 ThinQ is also the first smartphone to offer Super Bright Display with up to 1000 nits brightness. Even with 1000 nits brightness, the Super Bright Display is also said to be power efficient than other displays with same screen size and resolution. Under the hood, it will come powered by 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform. It will also bring new AI features like Voice AI and Vision AI.
Xiaomi Redmi S2 Xiaomi will be soon launching a new budget Redmi smartphone with dual rear cameras and 18:9 displays. As per leaks, the device will be named as Redmi S2 and comes with a 6-inch HD+ (1440 x 720 pixels) display and Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor. The device will be available with different RAM and storage options. On the rear, the Redmi S2 will be offering dual cameras featuring 12MP & 5MP sensors with EIS and LED flash. For selfies, there will be a 16MP front-facing camera with portrait mode. It will be running on the latest Android 8.1 Oreo-based MIUI 9.5 out of the box. Along with the fingerprint sensor, the Redmi S2 will also offer Face Unlock. It will be backed by a 3,080mAh battery and might offers 10W fast charging. It measures 160.7 x 77.3 x 8.1 mm and weighs 170 grams. The device will be made available in Indian and China in the coming weeks.
Nokia X At an event held in China, HMD Global showcased the all-new Nokia X smartphone. The device will be officially launched on May 16th, the same day as the OnePlus 6 global launch. Initially, the Nokia X availability might be limited to the Chinese market. The Nokia X is first Nokia branded smartphone to embrace the notch. As seen on many other Android smartphones with notch display, there is also bottom chin which holds the Nokia logo. On the rear, the device sports dual rear cameras and a fingerprint sensor. Unlike other newly launched Nokia smartphones, there is no ZEISS branding on the Nokia X. The device is expected to be launched in two different variants. While the Snapdragon 636 powered variant packs 6GB RAM and 128GB storage, the Helio P60 powered variant will be offering 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. It will be running on the latest Android Oreo out of the box.
Honor 7A & Honor 7C After launching the Honor 7A and Honor 7C in China, the company recently introduced them in Europe. Now in May, both these devices are expected to be made available in India. Both these devices come with an affordable price tag and offer 18:9 displays. While the Honor 7C sports metal unibody design, the Honor 7A comes with a polycarbonate shell. In terms of design, both these devices look almost similar. There are 13MP + 2MP dual rear cameras and an 8MP single front camera. While the Honor 7C packs Snapdragon 450 octa-core processor, the Honor 7A comes with Snapdragon 430 processor. Honor is also offering fingerprint sensor and face unlock to securely unlock these devices. The devices will be running on Android 8.0 Oreo-based EMUI 8.0 out of the box. Till date, the company launched the budget 18:9 smartphones only with Kirin 659 processor.
Moto G6, Moto G6 Plus, & Moto G6 Play Motorola has officially launched the Moto G6, Moto G6 Plus, and Moto G6 Play smartphones. As of now, the company is selling the new Moto G6 smartphones only in Brazil. All these smartphones feature 18:9 displays and Snapdragon processors. They run on the Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. While the Moto G6 and G6 Plus comes with 12MP + 5MP dual rear cameras, the Moto G6 Play sports only a single 13MP rear camera. Both the front and rear cameras on these devices come accompanied by a LED flash. While the Moto G6 and G6 Plus come with a front facing fingerprint sensor, the fingerprint sensor on the Moto G6 Play is embedded into the Moto dimple on the rear. The devices also support Turbo Power fast charging technology. Unlike the US and European pricing, we expect the company to launch these devices with a bit more aggressive price tag in India.
While much about the LG G7 ThinQ had been revealed up until now, the next-generation LG flagship has now surfaced on Geekbench database to detail its key specifications. The benchmark listing also confirms top-notch scores of the smartphone that is arriving in New York on May 2. The latest revelations emerge just after LG confirmed the presence of a 6.1-inch QHD+ (1440x3120 pixels) LCD panel with brightness of 1,000 nits and a 19.5:9 aspect ratio.
The handset is also expected to come with a notch design and a 'Second Screen' that debuted on the LG V20 in September 2016. As per the Geekbench listing, the LG G7 ThinQ (model number LGE LM-G710) is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC that has eight processing cores with a base frequency of 1.7GHz, coupled with 4GB of RAM. The latter part puts a question mark on the performance part as most of the flagship devices nowadays come with at least 6GB of RAM - OnePlus flagships have been sporting 8GB RAM for over a year now. However, despite low RAM capacity, the benchmarked LG G7 ThinQ received scores in line with the Snapdragon 845 SoC-powered Samsung Galaxy S9 variant. It garnered 2,312 single-core score and 8,979 multi-core score.
We need to wait for the official launch of the LG G7 ThinQ to see its real-life performance. But in the meantime, LG is also in the headlines for preparing the LG Q7 as the successor to its last year's Q6. The smartphone was recently spotted on the FCC site with a couple of screenshots that hinted the presence of an 18:9 aspect ratio-featuring display. It is expected that the LG Q7 will join the launch of the LG G7 ThinQ next month.
LG is expected to launch the LG G7 with the latest Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform at MWC 2018. However, it came up with the LG V30S ThinQ and V30S+ ThinQ smartphones powered by last year's Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform. The recent leaks confirmed the company to launch the LG G7 ThinQ as its new flagship smartphone. It will be competing with the likes of Samsung Galaxy S9 and Huawei P20 smartphones.
LG's Upcoming Flagship Smartphone to Launch as LG G7 ThinQ Instead of launching a new flagship smartphone at the MWC 2018, LG came up with an upgraded variant of the last year's LG V30 smartphone. This new device is named as LG V30S ThinQ and included the AI-centric camera features. The company introduced the ThinQ brand in December 2017 for launching the products with AI features. With the LG G7, the company seems to integrate the flagship devices within the ThinQ brand. While the information came from the reliable leakster Evan Blass, the company is yet to confirm the name change.
However, there are earlier leaks suggesting the company might launch its new flagship smartphone with a new name. Based on the leaks from Korea, LG is said to launch the LG G7 ThinQ in April. It will first go on sale in South Korea starting mid-May.
We might see two variants of the upcoming LG flagship smartphone. It is said to sport dual rear cameras with f/1.5 aperture and will also be a dedicated AI button. While the LG V30S ThinQ smartphones came with Snapdragon 835 chipset, the LG G7 ThinQ will be powered by the Snapdragon 845 chipset. Talking about the build quality, it will come with metal frame and glass back body. As seen on earlier launched LG smartphones, the fingerprint sensor will be integrated into the power button. The device will be running on the latest Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. The AI features seen on the LG V30S ThinQ should also be offered with its upcoming smartphone.
Latest: LG G7 ThinQ Leaked Photos Reveal Key Details A few days back, we got to know the upcoming flagship smartphone from LG will be called as LG G7 ThinQ. Now, the leaked photos of the device reveal some key specifications. It comes with the model number LG-G710TM and it is currently being tested by the U.S carriers. The LG G7 ThinQ is now expected to launch in May and might go on sale in the same month. It will be the first smartphone from LG to come with a display notch. It is mentioned to come with a 6.1-inch display that will be offering Quad HD+ resolution and 19:9 aspect ratio.
Under the hood, it will come powered by 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform. The LG G7 ThinQ will be offering 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. However, we can expect the company to also launch the LG G7+ ThinQ with 6GB RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. Stay tuned on PhoneRadar for more details.
Instead of launching a new flagship smartphone at the MWC 2018, LG came up with an upgraded variant of the last year's LG V30 smartphone. This new device is named as LG V30S ThinQ and included the AI-centric camera features. The company introduced the ThinQ brand in December 2017 for launching the products with AI features.
With the LG G7, the company seems to integrate the flagship devices within the ThinQ brand. While the information came from the reliable leakster Evan Blass, the company is yet to confirm the name change.
However, there are earlier leaks suggesting the company might launch its new flagship smartphone with a new name. Based on the leaks from Korea, LG is said to launch the LG G7 ThinQ in April. It will first go on sale in South Korea starting mid-May. We might see two variants of the upcoming LG flagship smartphone. It is said to sport dual rear cameras with f/1.5 aperture and will also be a dedicated AI button. While the LG V30S ThinQ smartphones came with Snapdragon 835 chipset, the LG G7 ThinQ will be powered by the Snapdragon 845 chipset.
Talking about the build quality, it will come with metal frame and glass back body. As seen on earlier launched LG smartphones, the fingerprint sensor will be integrated into the power button. The device will be running on the latest Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. The AI features seen on the LG V30S ThinQ should also be offered with its upcoming smartphone. Stay tuned on PhoneRadar for more details.
Last week, I penned a quick opinion piece about how embarrassing it is that in 2018, Android vendors are still willing to copy Apple's iPhone designs so blatantly. It was titled "Good lord, Android phone makers, please just stop," and it was a plea to Android phone makers to, you know, please just stop.
It's fine to take cues from rivals on occasion, but to shamelessly clone each new design borders on pathetic. Many of these companies have huge R&D budgets, so why aren't they researching and developing? That opinion piece triggered Android fanboys, and I got a ton of teary-eyed emails soon after it ran.
Some of them complained that Apple is the copycat, and it always has been. Fair enough, Apple copies plenty of things from rivals. Other emails whined that Essential released a phone with a notch before Apple, which is also true. Of course, even if we play make-believe and pretend that Apple hadn't finalized the iPhone X's design long before Essential's PH-1 was announced, one need only look at a single picture to see two important things.
Not only is Apple's design is nothing like Essential's, but it's beyond apparent that Android phone makers are copying Apple, not the Essential phone. While we're on the subject of companies that copy Apple's designs, two pieces of news on Thursday morning prompted me to revisit this tiresome topic. First, news comes from reliable leaker Evan Blass that the LG G7 is indeed a real phone that will be released this year. Blass had reported earlier that the G7 would never see the light of day, but it appears as though that isn't the case.
The LG G7, as you'll recall, is a pitiful iPhone clone. It has almost the same design as the iPhone X, but it's not exactly the same. LG surely wanted it to be exactly the same, but it couldn't pull off the brilliant internal design that allows Apple to extend the display almost all the way to the bottom of the phone. This, of course, is half the reason the notch exists on the iPhone X — it allows the bezel surrounding the phone's screen to be uniform on the sides, the bottom, and in the top corners.
This isn't the case on the LG G7. The phone still has a big "chin" on the bottom, so the notch at the top of the screen isn't at all about maintaining a consistent bezel width. Nope, it's about copying Apple, plain and simple. Next up, we have the newly announced Vivo V9.
We'll never see it in the United States, thankfully, but it's still worth mentioning because it's so damn hilarious. So, the Vivo V9 is a pretty standard upper mid-range Android phone in terms of specs (and in terms of design, since almost every notable Android phone is an iPhone clone this year).
It features a Snapdragon 626 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 6.3-inch display, and Android 8.1 Oreo. It also has a notch just like the iPhone X, and it's once again pointless just like the notch on the LG G7, since the phone still has a "chin" at the bottom.
For good measure, he V9 also blatantly copied the iPhone X's vertically oriented dual-lens rear camera. Sure, why not? But here's the kicker. Vivo wasn't content merely copying the iPhone X's design… Do these companies have no shame? Do they have any pride at all? I'm sure I'll get plenty more emails once this post is published, but man oh man this is getting more tiresome by the day. I've been covering consumer tech for 15 years, and I've never seen anything like this.
Rival companies have followed Apple's lead in the smartphone market ever since the iPhone was first introduced in 2007. But the extent to which Apple is now being copied, and the brazenness with which dozens of Android phone makers are cloning Apple's iPhone, is completely unprecedented. The best part? We'll get to watch all of these notched displays start to vanish — coincidentally, of course — as soon as Apple ditches the current iPhone X design, which could happen as soon as next year.
The LG G7, which was allegedly said to have cancelled is now back in the news as a new poster of the smartphone has spotted online. The ad poster, as you can see in the image is spotted at the LG MWC booth. Alongside this poster, complete specifications of the smartphone have leaked online along with the purported release date.
The LG G7 will arrive in June 2018 carrying flagship specifications and stunning design. Let's speak about that design first. The poster leaked shows the G7 in green colour with a notch on the front.
The green coloured G7 looks stunning, but it's sad to see LG copying design from other brands. Being a top-tier brand, we expect LG to come out with its own design, however, it seems like manufacturers are left only with the notch to give more real estate.
There's a noticeable chin that houses the LG branding. To the back, we get the dual camera setup and dual LED flash enclosed in a module. Below the camera module, there's a fingerprint scanner, and the phone seems to be sporting glass body. Moving onto the specifications, the LG G7 will rock a 6.1-inch FullVision display with 19:9 aspect ratio, carrying a resolution of 3120 X 1440 pixels. The display will be an MLCD+ and not an OLED panel as seen on the LG V30 to reduce the cost of the smartphone.
Besides, the phone will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC, which is an expected thing. The chipset will be mated to 4GB of RAM on the standard LG G7 and 64GB of internal storage. There will be an LG G7+ with increased RAM and storage of 6GB RAM and 128GB, same as the LG V30 and V30+. The poster also states the phone will come with LG ThinQ Mods, details of which are unknown at the moment. The G7 will have a dual camera setup at the back- two 16MP sensors with the second one being a wide-angle lens.
The primary sensor will have a f/1.6 aperture. The device will feature additional features such as IP68 certification, IRIS Scanner (probably one of the reasons for the delay of launch), and HDR10 support. This entire package will be backed by a 3000mAh battery. LG is also considering to reduce price of the smartphone, which is the reason why the company is going with an LCD panel, not OLED panel.
One of the most talked-about feature of Apple's tenth anniversary edition smartphone, iPhone X, is the notch on its screen. It has been both loved and hated by iPhone users. Now this notch seems to have become one of the most-popular design trends among many of the flagship Android smartphones set to launch in the coming months. So much so that Google too has embraced it in the next version of its Android OS, Android P. So, here's a look at 10 'iPhone X-lookalikes' set to launch.
1. OnePlus 6 According to a report by Android Central, the upcoming OnePlus smartphone -- expected to be called OnePlus 6 -- is also going to feature the iPhone X-like notch with a 19:9 aspect ratio display. The report also revealed that the handset is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. As per the image leaked by ithome, the OnePlus 6 also has a vertically placed dual-rear camera setup and a glass backed design, a first for any OnePlus device.
2. Oppo F7 The Chinese smartphone maker is all set to lunch its next flagship smartphone with an iPhone X-like notch. The company has shared an image of the upcoming handset that clearly sports Apple's flagship iPhone's notch on the top. As part of the rumoured specs, the handset is likely to sport a 6.2-inch full HD+ display with 19:9 aspect ratio. Other key highlights of the device include a 25MP front camera with Artificial Intelligence like real-time HDR, AR stickers feature as well as beauty mode for selfies.
3. Huawei P20 Huawei's upcoming flagship smartphone P20, scheduled to launch on March 27, has been the subject to several leaks for a while now. The most recent of them showed the handset in its full glory. As per an image posted by famous tipster Evan Blass, the handset has a very small centrally placed notch. Also there is a vertically placed protruding dual rear camera setup, like we saw on iPhone X.
4. LG G7 South Korean tech giant LG too is expected to launch its upcoming handset with a notch just like the iPhone X. The render images leaked by TechnoBuffalo give a good look at what the handset may look like. These concept images show that LG is planning to place the notification bar to the left and right so there is more screen space. Even at the MWC 2018, LG showcased its upcoming flagship handset to few invitees. This was leaked by Israeli publication Ynet in a form of a video that also showed the LG G7 (Neo) with the notch.
5. Vivo V9 Vivo too is all geared up to launch its first handset with a notch. The company has teased an image from its Malaysia handle clearly showing the notch. Also images shared by Anzhou.cn on Weibo show the notch on the smartphone.
6. Huawei P20 Lite Along with the P20, Huawei is also expected to launch a toned-down version likely to be called the P20 Lite. An image posted by Evan Blass shows the handset from all angles, revealing that it has a notch similar to the P20 and a rear mounted fingerprint sensor.
7. Oppo R15 F7 is not the only smartphone that Oppo is planning to launch with the notch. The company is also planning to launch the R15. As per several leaks and render images, the successor to the R11 also has an iPhone X-like notch. According to a report by GSMArena, the handset is expected to sport a 6.28-inch display with 19:9 aspect ratio with 1080x2280p display.
8. Huawei P20 Pro The last and expected to be the most-powerful handset of the P20 series from Huawei, the P20 Pro is also said to feature the notch design. This can be seen in an image posted by Evan Blass, that also shows the back panel of the image showing that the handset has a triple rear camera setup.
9. Asus Zenfone 5Z Although already launched at the Mobile World Congress 2018, the Asus Zenfone 5Z comes with the iPhone X-like notch, marking a major design change for the Zenfone series smartphone. In terms of specs, the handset has a 6.2-inch full HD+ IPS display with 19:9 aspect ratio. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, coupled with 8GB RAM and 256GB inbuilt storage.
10. Asus Zenfone 5 Launched along with the Zenfone 5Z at MWC 2018, Asus Zenfone 5 has the iPhone X-like notch and a vertically placed dual rear camera setup. The handset runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, clubbed with 4GB RAM or 6GB RAM and 64GB inbuilt storage.
LG has launched a new smartphone called LG X4 in the X-series. Just like the earlier launched X-series smartphones, this new smartphone will also be exclusive to South Korea. The LG X4 looks exactly similar to the LG X4+ launched in January this year. Except for the rear camera, the specifications also remain same both the LG X4 devices.
The device comes with a metal body and will be available in Black and Gold color options. On the front is a 5.3-inch HD (1280 x 720 pixels) display with 16:9 aspect ratio and 2.5D curved glass laid on top. Under the hood is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 Mobile Platform coupled with Adreno 308 GPU and 2GB of RAM. There is 16GB of internal storage and it can be further expanded using the MicroSD card slot.
While the LG X4+ came with a 13MP sensor on the rear, the new LG X4 only offers an 8MP sensor. For selfies, the device comes with the same 5MP front-facing camera. Instead of the latest Android 8.0 Oreo, the device runs on Android 7.1.2 Nougat out of the box. On the rear, the LG X4 also comes with a circular fingerprint sensor. Since it is only limited to South Korea, the LG X4 also supports HD DMB TV for watching live TV without internet.
The device also supports LG Pay for making mobile payments. With all these specifications and features, the LG X4 is backed by a 3,000mAh battery. Connectivity options include 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, GPS, NFC, and MicroUSB Type-C Port. It measures 148.6 x 75.1 x 8.6 mm and weighs 164 grams. The LG X4 is currently available for KRW 297,000 (approx $275 / Rs. 17,850) via three major South Korean carriers.
As expected, we have seen several new smartphone launches at the Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, Spain. However, only a few of them will be hitting the markets in the month of March. We are also expecting a few new devices to launch in the next few weeks. Below is the list of top smartphones that are going on sale for the first time or making their debut in new markets.
• Samsung Galaxy S9 & Galaxy S9+ Mor than anything else, the new Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones bring a major upgrade to the cameras. While the Galaxy S9 comes with a 12MP single rear camera, the Galaxy S9+ offers 12MP dual rear cameras. The company now moved the fingerprint sensor to the bottom of the camera sensor. Both the Galaxy S9 devices will be offering the dual aperture mode where the user can physically choose f/1.5 or f/2.4 aperture. Both these devices are rumored to be launch on March 6th in India. The base variants of the Galaxy S9 & Galaxy S9+ will come with an MRP of Rs. 65,900 & Rs. 72,900 respectively. Unlike the U.S variants, the Indian variants of the Galaxy S9 will be powered by the in-house Exynos 9810 octa-core processor.
• Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S & BlackShark Xiaomi is long rumored to unveil the Mi MIX 2S smartphone at the 2018 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Just before the MWC began, the company confirmed the Mi MIX 2S to launch on March 27th in China. It is already confirmed to come powered by the latest Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor and might even offer dual rear cameras. Last year's Mi MIX 2 came with the Snapdragon 835 processor and a single rear camera. A few leaks also hint the company might also unveil the Black Shark gaming smartphone on the same stage. As of now, there is no confirmation whether the Black Shark smartphone will have Xioami (Mi) branding or not. However, the Antutu listing revealed it to pack Snapdragon 845 processor and 8GB of RAM.
• Huawei P20 & P20 Pro Huawei has already confirmed to launch the Huawei P20 smartphones on March 27th in Paris, France. As seen with the newly launched smartphones at the MWC 2018, the upcoming Huawei smartphones will also embrace the iPhone X-like notch. The company will be naming the high-end variant as Pro instead of Plus. These new smartphones will sport a triple-lens camera on the rear featuring an RGB sensor, a Monochrome sensor, & a Telephoto sensor. Both the front and cameras on these devices will be developed in partnership with Leica. Under the hood, the devices will be powered by the Kirin 970 AI chipset.
• Micromax Bharat Go & Lava Z50 At the MWC 2018, Google showcased both the upcoming Android Go smartphones. The list includes the Micromax Bharat Go & Lava Z50. Both the devices will run on the latest Android 8.1 Oreo Go Edition out of the box. The devices come with a polycarbonate body and sports a 4.5-inch display with FWVGA resolution. Talking about the internals, the smartphones include a MediaTek quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, & 8GB of expandable storage. Even with the basic specifications, the Android Go smartphones should offer seam-less experience compared to entry-level smartphones with the regular version of Android OS. Airtel will be offering additional cashback on these two smartphones through the "Mera Pehla 4G Smartphone" initiative.
• Asus Zenfone 5 Lite At the MWC 2018, Asus unveiled the Zenfone 5, Zenfone 5Z, and Zenfone 5 Lite smartphones. Expect the Zenfone 5 Lite, the other two smartphones are almost similar in terms of specifications and design. The company only mentioned the Zenfone 5 Lite will be going on sale in the month of March. It comes in two different variants powered by Snapdragon 630 & Snapdragon 430 processors. It sports a 6″ Full HD+ display with 18:9 aspect ratio and is covered by a 2.5D curved glass. It packs a total of four camera sensor, 16MP dual cameras on the rear & 20MP dual cameras on the front.
• LG V30S ThinQ As rumors suggested, LG unveiled the LG V30S ThinQ smartphones as an upgrade to last year's LG V30 smartphones. The new devices will be running on Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box and brings new AI features onboard. While the LG V30S ThinQ comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, the LG V30S+ ThinQ includes 6GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. In the camera app, the new smartphones will be including QLENS and AI CAM options. As of now, LG has only confirmed to launch these two new smartphones in South Korea in March. However, the company is yet to reveal the pricing of the LG V30S ThinQ smartphones.
• Vivo APEX Vivo surprised everyone at the MWC by announcing the Vivo APEX concept smartphone. It comes with very minimal bezels on all the four sides and offers highest screen-to-body ratio ever seen on a smartphone. Even though the device was showcased at the MWC 2018, the company has scheduled an event in China on March 5th. Just like the original Mi MIX concept smartphone, Vivo is also rumored to launch the APEX concept smartphone in limited numbers. It will be mostly sold exclusively for the Chinese consumers. The pricing and exact availability dates will be known in the next few days.
As rumors suggested earlier, LG is not going to launch the successor to LG G6 at the MWC 2018. The company will be coming with the LG V30s that offers more storage and new AI-based camera features. According to VentureBeat, the South Korean company will be launching an all-new flagship smartphone in June this year. As of now, there is no name for this new LG flagship smartphone, but it mentioned to codenamed as Judy.
Based on the new leak, this new LG smartphone is said to offer a 6.1-inch 18:9 display that also supports HDR10 playback. Instead of the POLED display offered with the LG V30 and V30 Plus, the 2018 flagship device from LG will be coming with a new MLCD+ display technology.
It will be one of the brightest smartphone displays with 800-nit brightness and will consume 35% less power than a standard IPS LCD display. Under the hood, the device comes packed with Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform and Adreno 630 GPU. Even other Android manufacturers will be opting for the same Snapdragon 845 chipset for their 2018 flagship devices. The base variant will be offering 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.
However, we also expect to see the Plus variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Talking about the cameras, the smartphone will be sporting 16MP dual rear cameras with f/1.6 aperture. As of now, there is no information about the front-facing camera. Just like the LG V30, this new smartphone will also come with IP68 certification and military-grade durability. It will support wireless charging and offers the new AI-based camera features that will be soon introduced with the LG V30s smartphone.
The stereo speakers on the LG Judy will be called as Boombox speakers. Coming to the build quality, it might sport glass sandwich design with the metal frame in the middle. It should be running on Android Oreo-based LG UX UI out of the box. We can expect more leaks to follow soon. Stay tuned on Phone Radar for more details!
The user can point at an object to get the complete details of it. While the Bixby Vision never showed the accurate results, we are also skeptical about the upcoming LG Lens feature. The company will also add AI-based features to its camera app for better results. While the LG V30 and V30+ came with 64GB and 128GB of internal storage, the new LG V30s will be offering 256GB of onboard storage. There will also be a MicroSD card slot for further expansion of storage.
Recently, the company launched the LG V30 Signature Edition in South Korea with Ceramic body and 6GB RAM. It also offered 256GB of internal storage and came with a whopping price tag of KRW2 million (approx $1800). Just like any other ceramic body smartphones, there are LG V30 Signature Edition also comes in very limited units.
Google's biggest problem of Android fragmentation continues. According to latest distribution numbers, the company's latest operating system Android Oreo, which rolled out in October last year, runs only on 0.5% smartphones globally. The most-used version of Android is Marshmallow, the operating system that launched almost three years ago in the year 2015. And if you thought that the problem of Android smartphones running on older versions of the operating system is confined to budget or mid-range smartphones, you got it wrong. Some of the top-end/flagship smartphones too run on older versions of Android OS. Here are 10 top-end smartphones running on Android Nougat (the Android OS variant that launched in the year 2016) ... Note: Some of these smartphones are expected to get update to Android Oreo in the coming days.
1. LG V30+ LG V30+ is the South Korean smartphone brand's second flagship smartphone for the year 2017. Launched in December last year, the smartphone comes with Android Nougat out-of-the-box. The device features a 6-inch Full Vision QHD+ display and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor. It offers 4GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. LG V30+ comes with a dual rear camera setup with 16MP and 13MP modules.
2. OnePlus 5T OnePlus 5T is the first flagship smartphone from OnePlus to sport a bezel-less display. The device runs Android 7.1 Nougat operating system and the company has not yet revealed any details about it Oreo update. The handset sports a 6.01-inch full HD+ display and comes with dual rear camera setup with 16MP and 20MP modules. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor paired with 6GB/8GB of RAM and 64GB/128GB internal storage. The smartphone is backed by 3,300 mAh battery which supports company's fast charging technology – Dash charging.
3. Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 Mi Mix 2 is Xiaomi's most expensive smartphone to launch in India so far. It is also the bezel-less display phone of the company in the country. The smartphone runs Android 7.0 Nougat operating system and there is no news about its Oreo update. The device is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and sports a 5.99-inch full HD+ display. Mi Mix 2 offers 6GB RAM, 128GB internal storage and 12MP rear camera.
4.  HTC U11 The next top-end smartphone running on older version of Android is HTC U11. It is the first HTC smartphone to come with squeezable bezels and runs on HTC Edge Sense user interface based on Android 7.1 Nougat. Launched in June last year, the smartphone has not yet received Android Oreo update. The device is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor along with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. It houses a 12MP rear camera and 16MP front shooter and packs a 3,000 mAH battery.
5.  Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ Samsung is still to roll out Android Oreo update to its flagship smartphone lineup -- Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+. The company, however, has said that it is planning to roll out the Oreo update by January end to these smartphones. The company launched the Galaxy Note 8 last year in September. The smartphone comes with dual rear camera setup with two 12MP modules and 6.3-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED 'Infinity' display. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor paired with 6GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. On the other hand, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ were launched in April are powered by an octa-core Exynos Series 9 processor along with 4GB RAM and 64GB inbuilt storage. Both the smartphones have the same camera specifications -- 12MP dual-pixel camera with f/1.7 aperture and OIS on the back and 8MP autofocus camera with f/1.7 aperture on the front.
6.  LG G6 LG too is still to roll out Android Oreo update to its 2017 flagship smartphone G6 in India. The smartphone runs Android 7.0 Nougat operating system and the company recently revealed that it has began testing Android Oreo on the device. LG G6 is the first LG smartphone to sport a unique' 5.7-inch 'FullVision' display that has a resolution of 1440x2880 pixels. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage. LG G6 comes with a dual-camera setup at the back comprising two 13MP sensor modules and a 5MP secondary camera.
7.  Asus Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro Asus launched its Selfie Pro smartphone last year as part of its Zenfone 4 series. One of the high-end offering from the company, the smartphone runs Android 7.0 Nougat operating system and the company has not revealed any plans about its Oreo update. The smartphone is powered by octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor and features a 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display. The smartphone comes with dual selfie cameras with two 12MP modules and a 16MP rear shooter. It offers 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage.
8.  Moto Z2 Play Moto Z2 Play is the successor of the Moto Z Play smartphone which comes under the modular smartphone series of the company. Launched in June last year, the device runs Android Nougat out-of-the-box. The company has announced that the smartphone will receive Android Oreo but it has not specified any timeline for it. The Moto Z2 Play has a 5.5-inch Full HD and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 processor. It offers 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage and is backed by a 3,000 mAh battery.


[EAN: 9783931126827], Gebraucht, guter Zustand, [PU: Die Gestalten Verlag], A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include previous owner inscriptions. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.
Since 1991, young German design group 3deluxe has been working on a fluid interface between graphic design, industrial design, architecture and popular culture. In the process, projects from the worlds of music, fashion and virtual reality provide each other with mutual inspiration. 3deluxe was the first to explore what they call Genetic Architecture. These are multipurpose in- and outdoor environments which have not only been created by using the most advanced technologies in fabrication, but multimedia technology and material. As architects or interior designers, 3deluxe creates the global sometime gigantic presentations of companies like MTV, EXPO 2000 or Volkswagen as well as being invited to art festivals. As graphic designers, they design the snow-, skate- and whateverboards of the famous company Fanatic as well as shaping the company's visual appearance throughout catalogs and ads.Projects presents their finest works and explains their conceptual background. The accompanying DVD features drawings, 3D structures, blueprints and applications, as well as films in order to document the environments, scapes, and spaces 3deluxe has created lately. Check out: www.3deluxe.de.


BodyTite is InMode's latest minimally-invasive body contouring procedure that provides superior internal and external lipolysis, delivering results only achieved through more extensive excisional surgical procedures. BodyTite is powered by RFAL (Radio-Frequency Assisted Lipolysis) resulting in three-dimensional remodeling.
Patients today want to avoid surgery when possible. With BodyTite and FaceTite, your patients can reduce fat without leaving behind saggy, wrinkly skin. They are left with surgical-like results with no scars, less downtime and long-lasting, beautiful results.


text:
Whoopi Goldberg, View Hosts Offer Bizarre Defense of Creepy Joe Biden: 'He Is a Hands-On Kind of Guy'
By Ben Marquis April 1, 2019 at 4:53pm
Former Vice President Joe Biden hasn't even officially announced his candidacy yet, and already his anticipated bid for the Democratic Party's 2020 presidential nomination has hit a potentially substantial roadblock.
Allegations emerged over the weekend from a Democratic politician in Nevada, who accused Biden of having acted inappropriately toward her during a fundraising event in 2014.
Former Assemblywoman Lucy Flores claimed he placed his hands on her shoulders from behind, smelled her hair and kissed her head without her consent … something there are reams of video clips showing Biden doing similarly with other women over the years.
Somewhat surprisingly, given the vociferous manner in which the women of ABC's "The View" have jumped on any and all accusations against President Donald Trump and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, those same women largely dismissed the allegations against Biden as no big deal at all.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that some of the co-hosts defended Biden's history of questionable contact with women as being normal and acceptable for a career politician of his stature, while other co-hosts questioned the motives of Flores and others who have raised the issue in the increasingly heated and still developing primary battle on the left.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg said that while she accepted Flores' word that she had felt uncomfortable by Biden's closeness and touching, she defended the former vice president and said, "Joe is a hands-on kind of guy."
Co-host Joy Behar echoed that sentiment as well, and said, "It's a long way from smelling your hair to grabbing your hoo-ha." The obvious implication of her remark was to suggest that Flores' complaint did not rise to the same level as allegations of sexual assault.
Behar added later, "It would be unfortunate if we got rid of everybody who's just an affectionate kind of person."
Do you think Joe Biden should be called out for his inappropriate touching?
No: 6% (69 Votes)
Co-hosts Abby Huntsman and Meghan McCain both defended Biden in their own ways — McCain by vouching for him personally — by questioning the political motives of Flores in speaking out about the incident now, instead of five years ago when it happened. It was duly noted that Flores has expressed her support for Democratic 2020 candidates Robert "Beto" O'Rourke and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Co-host Sonny Hostin, to her partial credit, lent credence to Flores' claim by empathizing with the power dynamic that was at play which would have prevented Flores from expressing her discomfort at the time toward the vice president.
However, she also suggested it was a minor issue in the big scheme of things, and perhaps even a lesson learned for Biden that would compel him to refrain from acting similarly in the future with unsolicited touching, hugs and kisses.
That suggestion earned sharp pushback from Goldberg and McCain, who stated emphatically that they didn't want Biden to change at all, as they viewed his tendency to be touchy-feely as little more than the sort of standard retail politics that others routinely engage in.
Now, compare the manner in which these co-hosts just defended Biden with how those same women have responded to unsubstantiated allegations put forward against President Trump or Justice Kavanaugh.
Even with loads of visual evidence of Biden acting inappropriately with obviously uncomfortable women and young girls in the same way as was described by Flores, his actions were defended, while baseless and evidence-free accusations of misconduct, and worse, against Trump and Kavanaugh were seized upon and held up as all that was necessary to utterly destroy the respective political and career aspirations of those two men.
It was already well-known that the women of "The View" were incredibly biased, and their wholehearted and uncritical defense of Biden only served to underscore the disparate coverage they provide on certain issues, depending upon whether the subject is a Republican or Democrat.
Whether this allegation of inappropriate behavior by Biden will actually ruin his yet to be declared candidacy remains unclear, but it will be interesting to see how the women of "The View" will react if there are more, potentially even worse, allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior lodged against the former vice president in the near future.
2020 election, Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Meghan McCain, politics, sexual harassment, The View, Whoopi Goldberg
Ben Marquis
Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. He has written about current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments.
Ben Marquis has written on current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. He reads voraciously and writes about the news of the day from a conservative-libertarian perspective. He is an advocate for a more constitutional government and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, which protects the rest of our natural rights. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with the love of his life as well as four dogs and four cats.
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FBI Halting Gun Sales? Reportedly Breaking Law, Keeping Americans from Arming Selves
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Retail news round-up on February 29, 2016: Churches against extension of Sunday trading hours and Sainsbury's mulls higher bid for Argos.
The leaders of the UK's major Christian denominations have joined forces to oppose the extension of Sunday opening hours.
For the first time, senior Roman Catholic, Church of England, Church in Wales, Methodist, United Reform Church and Salvation Army figures have issued a joint statement against the Government's plans to relax Sunday trading laws.
The six faith organisations, in a letter to The Telegraph, warned that plans to let large stores open for longer on Sundays will damage family life and do nothing to boost the economy.
"As leaders of Christian communities in England and Wales, we oppose the Government's plans to further deregulate Sunday Trading laws," they said.
Sainsbury's is considering tabling an increased bid for Home Retail Group, following an 11th-hour offer by South African retailer Steinhoff, This is Money reported.
The board of Sainsbury's and its advisers are believed to be using the extra time to review the £120m annual cost savings that shareholders have been told it could make from a tie-up.
Tesco is eyeing 39,000 job cuts over the next three years as the embattled grocer attempts to curb plunging profits.
The potential job losses were revealed in a leaked document, The Guardian reported.
The supermarket giant confirmed the validity of the document but said it had modelled various scenarios and had no plans to announce further redundancies.
Discount retailer Poundworld's boss and founder, Chris Edwards, is looking to quit after spending 40 years at the company.
Edwards is to hand the reins to Gerry Gray, who has until recently been Tesco's UK operations director, later this year.


I did a whole series on "quickles" where I quick pickled five different vegetables (my favorite was pickled pineapple). The best way to do a quick pickle is to make a brine (any kind of vinegar you like, salt, sugar, and spices or herbs). Heat it up to dissolve the salt and sugar, then pour it over your very thinly sliced vegetables (use a mandoline if you have one) in a jar. Once your brine has cooled, your vegetable will be pickled. Good luck, and let me know how it goes!


It's the 2030 and in the USA the political division becamed daily bread for the population.
USA : The nation suffered internal crisis due to debts and a political division in the parliament, the decision of the president doesn't make it easy.
The extremist part of the parliament allied with the army decide do coup the actual government.
New American Government: Born to Overthrow the already existent american government, the NAG allied with the National Guard of the USA and in few weeks occupied a quarter of the nation, the NAG get supported by 3rd positionist and the Right Sector of the Nation.
Mexican Occupation: In the exact moment of the division, Mexico mobilzed their army and started the occupation of the now divided and weak USA occupaying hal of Texas, New Mexico, and the coast of Florida, and the Mexican Government will not stop his armies until the old territories of the Mexican Empire return to them.


text:
Build a New Home
Kelly Murphy - REALTOR®
Kelly Murphy SL-3504478
Curri Properties
NameKelly Murphy
Cell508-717-4233
Work Phone321-259-1003
Kelly was born and raised in Melbourne Beach, Florida. She attended and graduated from Brevard County Public Schools, and she grew up playing fast-pitch softball on Flutie Fields in the South Beaches. As a young adult, Kelly moved to New England where she met her husband, Dan and her stepson, Daniel. Kelly and Dan are also proud parents to two amazing boys, Tyler and Ethan. In 2018, after many years in Massachusetts. Kelly moved home to raise her sons in Brevard County.
Kelly has dedicated her entire career to customer service and relationship building as well as teaching, training, and mentoring countless individuals entering the hospitality industry. Kelly clearly has a passion for people and it shows through her 25 years of serving the public.
Whether you are looking to sell or buy a home, Kelly would love to share her personal knowledge and experiences as a native of Brevard County while assisting you in fulfilling your dreams. Kelly has returned home and knows firsthand that Florida's east coast is truly a little piece of paradise.
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Curri Properties, 1097 S Patrick Dr FL , 32937
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1097 S Patrick Dr
Satellite Beach, FL 32937
Satellite Beach , FL 32937
Information is deemed to be reliable, but is not guaranteed. © 2022 MLS. Last Updated January 17, 2022 5:54 PM UTC The information on this sheet has been made available by the MLS and may not be the listing of the provider. Listing data provided by the Daytona Beach Area Association of REALTORS® Internet Data Exchange (IDX) program. Data is believed to be accurate but not warranted.
These listings are provided by the IDX Program of Brevard County, Florida. Real Estate listings held by brokerage firms other than Curri Properties are marked with the IDX Logo and detailed information about them includes the name of the listing brokers. IDX information is provided exclusively for consumers' personal, non-commercial use, and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed. Copyright 2022 Space Coast Association of REALTORS, Inc Show More...


text:
Mountain Dew, the neon-yellow-green soft drink brand owned by PepsiCo, evidently failed to consult anyone in Scotland before it introduced its new ad slogan, "Epic thrills start with a chug." If it had, it would have learned that chug is Scottish slang for masturbate. (Jelisa Castrodale for Vice, via Language Log)
That word: It does not mean what you think it means. Not in Scotland, anyway. (Via @jaysebro)
Posted at 06:00 AM in Acronyms, Advertising, Airlines, Books, Errata, Fashion, Food and Drink, How They Got That Name, Linkfest, Marketing, Naming, Signs, Slang, Spelling, Story, Technology, That Word, Titles, Trademark, Typeface, Web/Tech, Writing | Permalink | Comments (2)
Word of the Week: Sad Internet
Sad Internet: "A place full of unwatched videos, unliked photographs, unheard music, tweets that no one cared about, and crowdfunding projects that nobody backed." – Rob Walker.
In an article for Yahoo! Tech published last week, Rob Walker takes a mournful look at websites that fit neither of the Internet's dominant tropes: Happy ("delightful and hilarious memes and GIFs and videos made by GoPro-wearing puppies") and Angry ("nasty troll attacks, flame wars, and outrage galore"). "Some manifestations of the Sad Internet," Walker writes, "make a mockery of the pervasive cliché of the magical technology that connects us all, builds community, and generally permits the 'crowd' to find and reward the wonderful."
Among those manifestations (with my naming notes):
Forgotify: Walker writes that this site "plumbs Spotify's unheard depths to present you with a random m selection from the zero-listen archives." The -ify name, overplayed as it is, seems perfectly ironic here. And I appreciate the rhyme with Spotify.
No Likes Yet: "All the photos on Instagram with no likes yet." I agree with Walker about the agreeable "note of optimism, or at least yearning" in that Yet. But the name suffers a little for not riffing more directly on Instagram. (Instagrump? Un-stagram? Disinstergram?)
Sad Tweets: "Connect the application to your Twitter account, and it presents you with a lowlights reel of your attempts at 'sharing' that attracted no likes, and no retweets." Another brutally descriptive name, which probably is as it should be.
Kickended: What happens to Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns that don't raise a single dime? Kickended happens. Walker: "It's a useful, albeit bleak, reality check. Yes, the Internet makes magic and wondrous and unprecedented things occur. But only sometimes, and not for everyone." The name falls short of its goal, too: Kicked to the Curb is more to the point.
Read the rest of Walker's column for additional Sad Internet examples.
Posted at 06:27 AM in -ify, Naming, Technology, Twitter, Web/Tech, Word of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)
Word of the Week: Fukubukuro
Fukubukuro: Grab bag or mystery bag containing unidentified items and sold at a substantial discount. Literally "lucky bag." From Japanese fuku ("lucky") and fukuro ("bag"); fukuro changes to bukuro because of a Japanese morphological phenomenon called rendaku, which affects the initial voicing of consonants.
A Japanese New Year's custom since the late Meiji period (early 20th century), fukubukuro were introduced by Tokyo's Ginza Matsuya department store and later spread to other retail establishments. Merchants in Honolulu's Ala Moana Shopping Center adopted the tradition in 2004, and many Sanrio stores in the United States observe it as well.
A fukubukuro bag is one of the rewards offered by the Kickstarter campaign for a new daily-deals site, Meh.
Meh logo.
Meh—an interjection meaning "I'm unimpressed" whose coinage is often attributed to the cartoon character Lisa Simpson—is the deliberately under-promising name for a site whose creators say will "keep it simple and stupid" by presenting a single deal each day:
It may amuse you. It may perform a necessary function in the digestive system of capitalism. Once in a while, it may even offer a kick-ass deal on something you actually want. But it isn't going to change your life, or give you more powerful orgasms.
As for the fukubukuro reward, it's
a century-old tradition we're borrowing from the Japanese, where people buy crap in bags sight unseen and then are crushed by the inevitable, certain disappointment. (And for this Kickstarter-edition fukubukuro, we created a custom, original, one-page comic that you could call collectible if you have little understanding of that word.)
"The possibilities are literally unlimitless!" the copy concludes with feigned, oh-so-ironic enthusiasm.
Meh is a project of Mediocre Laboratories, whose low-expectations name I wrote about last year. Matt Rutledge, Mediocre's founder, "founded e-commerce site Woot a decade ago and is generally considered the granddaddy of the daily deal," writes TechCrunch reporter Ryan Lawler. Amazon bought Woot for $110 million in cash in 2010.
Posted at 07:22 AM in Japanese, Web/Tech, Word of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)
M Is for the Many Ways We Brand Her
Mother's Day, as you surely know, is Sunday, May 11. Let's celebrate in our own special way: with a roundup of "Mom" and "Mother" brands. (Skip to the end if you'd rather read about the semantic shadings of "mom" vs. "mother.")
Smile Mom is an Android and iOS app that's "a mobile social community for moms" as well as a "social baby book" that "guides you through important milestones of your child while organizing family videos and photos." It was launched in 2013 by the Korean software company Smile Family.
Coincidentally (or not?), "Smile, Mom" was also the name of a TV drama that aired in Korea in 2010.
Mom Meet Mom "is a Match.com for the stroller crowd," TechCrunch reported in January 2014. As the company itself puts it: "We have created a sophisticated matching algorithm designed exclusively for Mom Meet Mom to help you find local moms with similar interests, schedules, families, and personalities."
Momdoms—a mashup of "mom" and "condoms"—was conceived (sorry) to give parents "a clever, yet funny tool to start the sex conversation with their kids." Fast Company reported last December that Momdoms condoms "come in tins featuring 1940s and '50s-style women—i.e., the moms—and classic bits of mom wisdom: 'Don't Make Me Come In There!'" Also available personalized with your own (or your mom's picture).
You've heard the old advice about never eating at a place called Mom's. (It's not really all that old: Barry Popik tracks it back to Nelson Algren's 1956 novel A Walk on the Wild Side.) Plenty of restaurants blithely ignore the warning. One of the newer ones: Dear Mom, a hipster-ish joint (kale tacos; a dessert called The Dude) in San Francisco's Noe Valley.
Café Mom doesn't serve food: it's a virtual watering hole, established in 2006, "where moms come for conversation, advice, friendship, and entertainment." No mom-and-pop outfit this: "We are the premier strategic marketing partner to the best brands, offering innovative custom solutions, contextually relevant media, and performance-driven targeting in order to help advertisers win with our audience."
Save the Mom sounds like an earnest nonprofit, but—hello!—it's another "social" website and app. Founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, Save the Mom "was born to help modern families in their daily communication needs, trying to aggregate in one place all the information shared within a family that now are scattered among sms, phone calls, emails, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and the likes [sic]."
Let's not forget the most sinister mom of all: MomCorp, the creepy corporate behemoth (beheMother?) on "Futurama" (Comedy Central).
MomCorp owns Mom's Friendly Robot Company, Mom's Friendly Delivery Company, and Mombil, which collects and sells dark matter. MomCorp also manufactures the LPad. (Should that be a lower-case L?)
MomCorp is not to be confused with Mom Corps, "a professional staffing and career development firm" founded in 2005.
Here's a tip: whenever you see a brand called Mother rather than Mom, furnish your own air quotes.
To be sure, there's still a sweetly single-entendre Mother's Cookies. Founded in Oakland in 1914—and named to honor the new holiday of Mother's Day—it went bankrupt in 2008 (corporate bonds scandal), and was relaunched as a Kellogg's brand.
Old Mother's Cookies logo. The mother is considerably younger-looking now.
But the newest incarnations of Mother take maternity a bit less literally.
Mother, from Sen.se ("Sense"), is a device that "imbues everyday objects with the gentle nagging power of our awesome moms" (according to TechCrunch). The gizmo stands about 6 inches tall, weighs 1 pound (450 grams), and bears a striking resemblance to the Shmoo from Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" comic strip. (Like Mother, self-sacrificing Shmoos live to please.) In exchange for $222 you receive one Mother and four Motion Cookies—tiny sensors that can be affixed to toothbrushes, flowerpots, espresso makers, and other objects (or people) to check whether they're being used properly.
The more I read about Mother, the more familiar its story sounded. Here are the opening paragraphs from the "Meaning of Life" page:
In 2003, we founded Violet based on this vision: all things will be connected. Violet led the way creating a Wi-Fi rabbit with an unpronounceable name. Its statement: from now on, anything can be connected to the Internet, anything, even rabbits.
Ten years have passed. Day after day, our 2003 dream is becoming more of a reality. Ten years have passed, but our vision has changed. This why we have created Sen.se. Back then, we thought the key words were things and connection. Today, we are convinced that the real issues are called life and meaning.
Aha! I wrote about that "Wi-Fi rabbit with an unpronounceable name"—Nabaztag—back in 2007.
Other Mother brands are even more arch. Take the related ad agencies Mother New York and Mother London. Here's how the former's website describes its offerings (capitalization and punctuation verbatim):
Misc. festivities, Short films, Longer films, Puppetry, Fine spirits, Internet things, Video games, High quality still photography, Business cards, Sausage making, General Knowledge.
The denim brand called MOTHER—all caps—is based in Los Angeles and sells $200 jeans (but not, you know, mom jeans) at Nordstrom, Piperlime, ShopBop, and Revolve. The styles have names like The Looker and The Cruiser.
Finally, some observations about mother, mom, and mama:
"Gradually, over the past couple of decades, mom has become an acceptable synonym for mother in journalism — no longer thought to be too casual, informal or personal." – John McIntyre, The Baltimore Sun, July 29, 2010
"This week Pew Research Center announced that, after decades of decline, an increasing amount of American women are "stay-at-home mothers. … Pew avoids 'mom' throughout their study, instead opting for the more venerating mother. (While moms make beef stroganoff, mothers are busy being matriarchs.)" – Katy Steinmetz, Time, April 11, 2014
"People hearing tot mom for the first time sometimes ask if it's connected to another parenting-related compound word that has gained prominence in recent years: baby mama. Like tot mom, it means more than just a mother whose child is still a baby. A baby mama is an unwed mother, often one who makes trouble for her 'baby daddy' with her 'baby mama drama.' Where did these extra meanings come from?" – Neal Whitman, "Tot Moms and Baby Mamas," in the Visual Thesaurus, July 11, 2011. (Neal goes on to answer the question.)
"Mom is everywhere and everything and damned near everybody, and from her depends all the rest of the U. S. Disguised as good old mom, dear old mom, sweet old mom, your loving mom, and so on, she is the bride at every funeral and the corpse at every wedding. Men live for her and die for her, dote upon her and whisper her name as they pass away, and I believe she has now achieved, in the hierarchy of miscellaneous articles, a spot next to the Bible and the Flag, being reckoned part of both in a way." – Philip Wylie on "Momism" in A Generation of Vipers (1942)
Posted at 07:55 AM in Advertising, Fashion, Holidays, Names in the News, Naming, Restaurants, Web/Tech, Women | Permalink | Comments (0)
HBO's "Silicon Valley" Gets into Naming Trouble
The trouble isn't the unimaginative name of HBO's new comedy series, which the pay-cable network has just renewed for a second season, just three episodes into Season 1. Rather, I'm talking about the major plot point of Episode 3, "Articles of Incorporation," which aired Sunday night.
The business and tech bloggers who covered the episode found nothing amiss in the story. But to anyone who knows how business names work, it betrays the naïveté of the show's creators.
The protagonist of "Silicon Valley" is a programmer, Richard, who's inadvertently developed a file-compression algorithm. For reasons that haven't yet been explained (and may never be), he named the algorithm—and the start-up he creates around it—"Pied Piper."
Everyone but Richard hates the name. But that's not his biggest headache.
Continue reading "HBO's "Silicon Valley" Gets into Naming Trouble" »
Posted at 10:40 AM in Domains, Fictional Names, Naming, Sloganclones, Slogans and Taglines, Startups, Television, Trademark, Twitter, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (4)
How Amazon Got Its Name
In 1994, a Princeton graduate named Jeff Bezos left the New York hedge fund D.E. Shaw, where he had quickly risen through the ranks, to start a new venture. As Brad Stone tells the story in his new book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, Bezos went with a close friend, Jeff Holden, to a barbecue restaurant on 44th Street to strategize. They talked about the name of the business they wanted to start:
Bezos had tentatively decided to call his company Cadabra Inc., but was not committed to the name. Holden filled both sides of a piece of notebook paper with alternatives. The one Bezos liked best on the list was MakeItSo.com, after Captain Picard's frequent command in Star Trek.
But MakeItSo didn't stick. In August 1994, when Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, had moved to the Seattle area and was beginning to hire developers "to help pioneer commerce on the Internet," he revisited the naming project:
The magical allusions of Cadabra Inc., as Todd Tarbert, Bezos's first lawyer, pointed out after they registered that name with Washington State in July of 1994, were too obscure, and over the phone, people tended to hear the name as Cadaver. So later that summer, after renting a three-bedroom ranch house in the East Seattle suburb of Bellevue, Bezos and MacKenzie started brainstorming. Internet records show that during that time, they registered the Web domains Awake.com, Browse.com, and Bookmall.com. Bezos also briefly considered Aard.com, from a Dutch word, as a way to stake a claim at the top of most listings of websites, which at the time were arranged alphabetically.
Aard means "earth" in Dutch. Aardvark—from Afrikaans, which is related to Dutch—means "earth pig."
Bezos and his wife grew fond of another possibility: Relentless.com. Friends suggested that it sounded a bit sinister. But something about it must have captivated Bezos: he registered the URL in September 1994, and he kept it. Type Relentless.com into the Web today and it takes you to Amazon.1
Still, Cadabra.com lived on through the fall, while Bezos set up his headquarters in a converted garage. Shel Kaphan, a founding employee, arrived in Seattle from California and "immediately began worrying about the company's name":
"I was once part of a little consultancy called the Symmetry Group, and people always thought we were the Cemetery Group," says Kaphan. "When I heard about Cadaver Inc., I thought, Oh God, not this again."
The final name selection occurred in late October 1994:
Bezos pored through the A section of the dictionary and had an epiphany when he reached the word Amazon. Earth's largest river; Earth's largest bookstore. He walked into the garage one morning and informed his colleagues of the company's new name. He gave the impression that he didn't care to hear anyone's opinion on it, and he registered the new URL on November 1, 1994.
Later in the book, Stone tells the story of the Kindle, which was developed by an Amazon division dubbed Lab126 headed by Gregg Zehr. (Stone: "The 1 stood for a, the 26 for z; it's a sublte indication of Bezos's dream to allow customers to buy any book every published, from a to z." The arrow in the Amazon logo also reinforces the a-to-z association.)
Lab126 reported to Steve Kessel, who had joined Amazon in 1999 and took over the new digital initiative in 2004.
In those waning months of 2004, the early Lab126 engineers selected a code name for their new project. On his desk, Zehr had a copy of Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, a futuristic novel about an engineer who steals a rare interactive textbook to give to his daughter, Fiona. The early Lab126 engineers thought of the fictitious textbook in the novel as a template for what they were creating. Michael Cronan, the San Francisco-based graphic designer and marketing executive who baptized the TiVo, was later hired to officially brand the new dedicated reading device, and he came up with Kindle, which played off the notion of starting a conflagration and worked as both a noun and a verb.2 But by then Kessel's team was devoted to the name Fiona and the group tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Bezos to keep it. In a sense, the knowledge-starved Fiona of Stephenson's fictional world became Amazon's patron saint in its risky journey into the digital frontier.
The code name for the Kindle 2, released in 2009, was Turing, "after a castle in The Diamond Age," Stone writes. That castle was in turn named for Alan Turing, the pioneering British computer scientist best known for the Turing test, considered the foundation of artificial intelligence.
Read my 2008 post about how the Kindle got its name, and my January 2013 remembrance of Michael Cronan.
1 Confirmed.
2 Strictly speaking, "kindle" is only a verb; the noun form is "kindling." But through association with the device, Kindle has become a proper noun.
Posted at 08:00 AM in How They Got That Name, Naming, Renaming, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)
One Who Readers
Last week Google announced that it's pulling the plug on Google Reader, which for years has allowed people like me to subscribe to, organize, and quickly scan dozens or even hundreds of blogs and websites with RSS feeds. "While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined," was the summary judgment. Cue gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.
I recall going through a similar period of mourning a few years ago when Bloglines shut down. After I made the switch to Google Reader I figured I was safe, which proves how little I know about capitalism and its discontents. Now, like the rest of the loyal followers, I'm searching for a Google Reader replacement. Suggestions welcome.*
In the meantime some eager minion at Prismatic noticed my public jeremiad and solicited my business via tweet. Here's what I saw when I clicked the link:
Hey there, Prismatic: You're missing a comma after "Hey there."
Prismatic isn't what I'm looking for – I want lists and folders, not a newspaper layout – but I do admire "Readerer." I've written about other -erers – funnerer, gooderer, creamier-er, closerer, Maker's-er, dumberer, et al. – but "Readerer" is the first agentive -erer that's caught my attention.
* Non-iOS only, please.
Posted at 08:27 AM in Comparatives, Current Affairs, Neologisms, Web/Tech, Words | Permalink | Comments (12)
Word of the Week: Fiberhood
Fiberhood: A neighborhood that has Internet access via fiber-optic cable. A blend of fiber and neighborhood.
Word Spy gives credit for the coinage of fiberhood to Google, which in July 2012 announced in its official blog that the company was introducing Google Fiber "to bring ultra-high [Internet] speeds to Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo." Milo Medin, Google's vice president of access services, wrote:
When we asked people what they value in their Internet service, the majority of them simply said, "choice." So we listened. Kansas Citians will choose where we install and when. We've divided Kansas City into small communities we call "fiberhoods." To get service, each fiberhood needs a critical mass of their residents to pre-register. The fiberhoods with the highest pre-registration percentage will get Google Fiber first. Households in Kansas City can pre-register for the next six weeks, and they can rally their neighbors to pre-register, too. Once the pre-registration period is over, residents of the qualified fiberhoods will be able to choose between three different packages (including TV).
Although Word Spy is usually the definitive source for such things, I found a much earlier antedating: a May 12, 2005, post by Om Malik in his blog, GigaOM:
Now this might come as a surprise to many, but the number of communities with fiber-to-the-home has gone up sharply in past 15 months or so, according to a study by TIA.* I am going call these fiberhoods.
Google's blog post didn't mention costs for Google Fiber: a $10 "expression-of-interest" fee, $70 a month for Gigabit Internet, and $120 a month for Gigabit Internet plus TV service. The "free" tier requires a $300 construction fee.
In the April 2013 issue of Harper's magazine (access restricted to subscribers), Whitney Terrell and Shannon Jackson take a closer look at Google Fiber. To qualify, Kansas City had to give Google access to "underground conduits, fiber, poles, rack space, nodes, buildings, facilities, and available land." It provided Google with free offices, meeting spaces, and a showroom, and it paid the company's electric bill. Kansas City had no say in Google's pricing and no guarantee that Google would deliver the service to all residents. "The mayor, moreover, is barred from commenting on Google's activities without the express permission of Google," Terrell and Jackson write.
From their article, "Only Connect":
…Google's fiberhood map bisected the city at Troost Avenue, a historical racial divide. It soon became clear that most lower-income black areas would fail to meet the preregistration quotas. Local teachers and librarians began canvassing door-to-door with Google employees, urging residents to sign up, and charitable groups raised money for registration fees. A majority of these fiberhoods ultimately qualified for service. But the frenzied volunteer push revealed an uncomfortable truth behind the city's "real partnership" with Google: Kansas City had left itself powerless to guarantee service for its most vulnerable constituents. And it could not compel Google to redraw its maps in a less discriminatory way. (Of course, the vegan bakery, Pilates studio, and Italian deli next door to Google's subsidized offices received their fiber service for free.)
* The TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association) link is broken and I haven't been able to find a working substitute.
Posted at 07:49 AM in Portmanteaus, Web/Tech, Word of the Week | Permalink | Comments (1)
Word of the Week: MOOC
MOOC: An acronym for "massive open online course," an educational offering in which students and instructors are distributed (i.e., not in the same geographic location), enrollment is unrestricted ("open"), and course materials are dispersed across the Web.
MOOCs (rhymes with "flukes") are seen by advocates as tools for democratizing education:
While the vast potential of free online courses has excited theoretical interest for decades, in the past few months hundreds of thousands of motivated students around the world who lack access to elite universities have been embracing them as a path toward sophisticated skills and high-paying jobs, without paying tuition or collecting a college degree. And in what some see as a threat to traditional institutions, several of these courses now come with an informal credential (though that, in most cases, will not be free). – "Instruction for Masses Knocks Down Campus Walls," by Tamar Lewin, New York Times, March 4, 2012.
The oldest player in the MOOC world is Khan Academy, founded in 2006 by Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard. Khan Academy currently offers more than 3,200 free videos on a wide range of subjects in the sciences and humanities. Newer rivals include Udacity ("You learn by solving challenging problems and pursuing udacious projects"; founded in 2011 as an outgrowth of free computer-science classes at Stanford); edX (a joint venture between MIT and Harvard that will offer its first classes in Fall 2012); Udemy, a platform for taking and creating courses (both free and paid), launched in 2010 by two Turkish developers who moved to Silicon Valley; and Coursera (founded in 2011 by two Stanford computer-science professors; most classes are free). Last week, Coursera announced a major expansion in which a dozen major research universities—including Caltech, Duke, and UC San Francisco—will participate.
Related: MOOSe, a massive open online seminar. "Next year," wrote the Times's Lewin in her March 4 article, "Richard DeMillo, director of Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities, hopes to put together a MOOSe, or massive open online seminar, through a network of universities that will offer credit."
The "massive" in MOOC and MOOSe may be influenced by the "massive" in MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) and MMOG (massively multiplayer online game). Those acronyms first appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively.
For more on the Americanization of "massive," see Ben Yagoda's Not One-Off Britishisms blog.
Posted at 07:54 AM in Acronyms, Education, Web/Tech, Word of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
New Name Beat: Schemer
Last month Google launched Schemer, an "activities recommendation engine" that—I'm quoting Mashable here—"promises to become Google's version of Facebook Events."
From the About page:
Whether it's exploring a new city, checking out a friend's movie recommendation, or just finding new activities for your weekends, Schemer lets you discover new things to do, share schemes with friends, and make the most of your day.
"Scheme" seems a bit hyperbolic for a plan shared with friends. A scheme—from Latin schema, "figure"—can be "a systematic plan of action," "a chart or diagram," or "a secret or devious plot." I'm supposing that Google prefers the third definition; ergo "You're looking diabolical!"
But I have another problem with Schemer: I keep seeing it as a Yiddish word. As in, "You want some schemer with that bagel?"
Schmear game from JET (Jewish Educational Toys). More on the meaning and derivation of "schmear" here.
Alternatively: "He's a schmendrick, he's a schmo, he's a schmuck. What a schemer!" Yiddish is, after all, full of words that begin with sch- and have an m somewhere in the word. (See my post about Libros Schmibros.)
I mentioned my problem on Twitter and got this response:
Which made me remember (not verbatim, of course; I had to look it up) this Philip Roth passage from Portnoy's Complaint:
The novelist, what's his name, Markfield, has written in a story somewhere that until he was fourteen he believed "aggravation" to be a Jewish word. Well, this was what I thought about "tumult" and "bedlam," two favorite nouns of my mother's. Also "spatula."
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, that gonif, took Roth's idea and put it in the mouth of that nice Gentile girl Donna Moss in Season 2 of The West Wing. He has Donna say to Toby Ziegler, "You know what word should be Yiddish but isn't? 'Spatula.' Also, 'far-fetched.'" (Right—as if Donna would know!)
Even if you're not bringing a Yiddish-y, bagel-inflected bias to the pronunciation, "Schemer" still strikes me as a little off-kilter. There's nothing overtly furtive—or schematic, for that matter—about the sorts of activities that get through Schemer's filters: baking cookies, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, reading the Steve Jobs biography, etc.
VentureBeat probes a little deeper and detects something sneaky after all:
Oh Google, your aptly named new product Schemer doesn't have us fooled. We know you're calling it a new way to discover things to do, but we see this for what it really is — an assault against Foursquare and the company's hold over quality location-based content, city tips and to-dos.
Diabolical indeed! Clearly, in its pursuit of Internet domination, Google won't settle for anything less than the whole schmear.
Posted at 08:16 AM in Naming, New Name Beat, Web/Tech, Yiddish | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)


text:
Attract Indian investments, Sushma Swaraj tells African nations
Edited By Odishatv Bureau Published By IANS Last updated Oct 28, 2015 - 10:54 PM
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday expressed the union government's support to the Indian companies investing in Africa and urged countries from that continent to take steps to attract Indian investments, particularly in manufacturing and processing industries.
"Indian investors are aware of Africa's potential – with its large land mass, rich natural resources and a youthful demography – as an important destination for financial and technological investment," Sushma Swaraj said while inaugurating the India-Africa Business Forum held here as part of the ongoing third India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS).
"Our business persons are continually travelling to all corners of Africa, seeking new business and investment opportunities. The governments of India and our states welcome and encourage such initiatives," she said.
"I would also encourage Indian and African business enterprises to take advantage of our 'Make in India' initiative to work towards mutually beneficial joint business ventures," she said.
"I would urge African governments and businesses to organise road shows and related events to inform and attract investors and business persons from India to your respective countries," she said.
The minister highlighted the fact that India was a destination for a variety of commodities as well as finished and semi-finished inputs for various products.
According to Sushma Swaraj, nowhere is the impact of economic growth and development more visible than in Africa, a continent of 54 countries and over a billion people.
"Trade and economic exchanges between India and Africa are a vital component of our all-round relationship with this rising continent. The total trade figure of about $72 billion in 2014-15 – though impressive as it signifies more than ten-fold growth in a decade – is still below its potential considering the size of India and Africa and a combined population of over 2.3 billion people, representing a huge consuming market for all sorts of goods and services," she said.
"The fact is that we are not trading sufficiently with each other. Consequently, this commercial space is being ceded by us to third parties."
It was because of this, she said, that India was among the first developing countries to offer duty-free tariff preference scheme in 2008, open to 34 least developed countries in Africa.
"It has been designed to provide access for processed and manufactured goods from Africa under preferential terms to the Indian market," she said.
She also praised the role of the Indian diaspora in Africa.
"The business acumen of the Indian diaspora who made Africa their home played a significant role in the growth and development story across the continent. Today, it is estimated that investments of $32-35 billion are spread all across Africa in multiple sectors of agriculture, manufacturing and services," Sushma Swaraj said.
The minister said with India's economy growing and maturing, "considerable amount of capital generated in India seeks new destinations outside the country, including Africa".
A report 'Africa-India: Facts and Figures 2015', jointly prepared by United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and Indian industry chamber Confederation of Indian Industry was released on the occasion.
"Africa accounted for over 11 percent of India's exports and nine percent of its imports. Trade between India and Africa currently stood at $75 billion, making India Africa's third largest trading partner after the European Union and China," said Carlos Lopes, executive secretary, UNECA, on the report findings.
He said Africa received over $2 billion of Indian overseas development assistance in 2014.
The compendium is based on an acknowledgement that India and Africa share a common understanding of a number of key sectoral issues such as micro, small and medium-scale enterprises and on importance of regulatory frameworks to spawn new ways of doing business.
Wednesday is the third day of the ongoing 2015 IAFS. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will share the stage with heads of government and state for the summit meeting.


i love this one, because it reminds me preimpresionistic william turner's work. great atmosphere, very well done.
Yup, 'nother piece o' fine art. wonderful balance.
Very painterly...Hudson River School. I come to your site every now and then for inspiration.