Hasta La Gadget!

Last week we brought word that a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 had exploded while charging. Given that the handset is practically brand new, it is rather disturbing news. However it seems that things are getting worse. According to another report, it seems that yet another Galaxy Note 7 has exploded while being charged.

Now we should note that both times might not necessarily have been Samsung’s fault. The first time was apparently due to a third-party micro USB to USB-C cable, and now from what we hear, it might have been a similar issue in this case. According to the report from Business Korea, they quoted the friend of the owner of the exploded Note 7.

The quote reads, “There was another explosion of the Galaxy Note 7. It was my friend’s phone. A Samsung employee checked the site and he is currently in talks over the compensation with Samsung. You should use its original charger just in case and leave the phone far away from where you are while charging.”

So like we said, it sounds like the person might have been using an unofficial charger or cable. If that is the case, it shouldn’t be surprising. There have been reports of USB-C cables that aren’t compliant with the standard, and just recently Anker has issued a recall on some of their cables due to the potential dangers behind it. In any case the device in question is apparently now being looked at by Samsung, but in the meantime just stick to the official charge and cable just to be safe.

Another Galaxy Note 7 Explodes While Charging , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Have you so many apps and documents that you can’t seem to remember where you might have saved it? Or maybe you can multiple messaging apps and you’re trying to look for the message you want? The good news is that you won’t have to comb through each app one by one, thanks to the “In Apps” search feature Google has introduced to Android.

According to Google, “We use apps to call friends, send messages or listen to music. But sometimes, it’s hard to find exactly what you’re looking for. Today, we’re introducing a new way for you to search for information in your apps on your Android phone. With this new search mode, called In Apps, you can quickly find content from installed apps.”

Basically by searching under the “In Apps” tab in the search bar on your Android phone, instead of trying to search the web, it will search within your apps itself. This will be ideal if you’re trying to bring up a particular message, or if you have saved a document and you’re unsure if you saved it in Evernote, Google Drive, Dropbox, in your email, and so on.

However according to Google, not all apps will have access to the feature yet. For now only Gmail, Spotify, and YouTube will support it, but Google will add more apps in the future such as Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn, Evernote, Glide, Todoist and Google Keep, and we presume more will keep being added in the future.

Google Introduces ‘In Apps’ Search Feature To Android , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Keyboards and mice both make sound whether you like it or not. Even rubber-domed keyboards do tend to emit a bit of sound when pressed, although admittedly considerably less compared to their mechanical cousins. But mice, mice don’t really get too noisy save for the occasional click and here and there.

However Logitech believes that there might be a market for people who can appreciate a mouse that is silent, and have since launched the Logitech M330 Silent Plus and the M220 Silent Mouse. Both of these mice are wireless and apparently be pretty quiet with about a 90% noise reduction.

According to Anatoliy Polyanker, global portfolio and brand director at Logitech, “We live in a social world, whether you work in a shared space or at home, but sometimes silence really is golden. That’s why we created the M330 Silent Plus and the M220 Silent mice. Our engineers studied the sources of noise made by a computer mouse and created ways to reduce the decibel level without sacrificing quality.”

Like we said, both mice are wireless and according to Logitech, the M330 will last a good 24 months before needing a recharge, while the M220 will go for 18 months, both of which are pretty impressive durations. They are also priced at $30 and $25 respectively.

Logitech Announces A Mouse That Is Silent , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Apple’s MacBook Pro is rumored to be undergoing a major revamp later this year. It is expected to see the removal of the function keys, and instead it will be replaced by an OLED touchscreen. The idea behind the touchscreen is that it is contextual, meaning that it will change depending on the application being used at the moment.

This notion has been supported by multiple parties, many of whom have had stellar track records when it comes to Apple rumors. Now it looks like those rumors are being further corroborated thanks to a line of code within the Pages app as discovered by French website Consomac (via BGR).

According to the code, it has a phrase which reads, “Customize Function Row”, which like we said, is pretty much the whole idea behind the OLED touchscreen in the first place. It also seems to suggest that while the functions displayed will be contextual depending on the app, users will also be able to customize it further.

Maybe they can move certain buttons around, or maybe display functions or tools that they might use more often and so on. That being said it is entirely possible that it could be in reference to something else, so for now maybe take it with a grain of salt and a dose of skepticism, but if anything this MacBook Pro update is certainly shaping up to be rather exciting.

This Line Of Code Might Have Confirmed The MacBook Pro’s Feature , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

By James M. Dorsey

The Turkish government’s sweeping crackdown across the public services in the wake of a failed military coup in July has highlighted a deep-rooted flaw in Turkish democracy: the politicisation of Turkey’s bureaucracy and judiciary.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nonetheless holds Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled conservative, leader of Hizmet, one of the world’s biggest Islamic movements, exclusively responsible for last month’s attempt to overthrow his democratically elected government. Mr. Erdogan asserts that Mr. Gulen’s followers infiltrated the military, police, judiciary, bureaucracy and education system as well as the media. In response, he has arrested tens of thousands and fired a similar number of military and police officers, judiciary personnel, teachers and professors, and bureaucrats accused of being Gulen sympathisers.

Mr. Erdogan’s claim is not without reason even if elements of the deep state, a cabal of ultra-nationalist politicians, officers and bureaucrats with links to organised crime, may have participated in the failed plot.
Mr. Gulen’s strategy, best described as a version of German student leader Rudi Dutschke’s march through the institutions, amounted to a gradual takeover of the state. To support his strategy, Mr. Gulen, a frail and dour septuagenarian, preached obedience to the state and recognition of the rule of law while at the same time inserting his followers into key institutions and educating a next generation in his ideological mould.

Yet, Mr. Gulen’s strategy was one that Erdogan as prime minister in the first decade of the 21st century wholeheartedly endorsed. It served Mr. Erdogan’s purpose given that his Justice and Development Party (AKP) had no support base within the state apparatus when it first swept to power in 2002.

Mr. Gulen supported Mr. Erdogan’s electoral campaign in an alliance aimed at ensuring the rise of an Islamist government that would use Turkey’s European Union accession process to bring the military under civilian control. Longstanding guardians of the militant secularism of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the visionary who carved modern Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire, the military constituted the main obstacle to greater public religiosity.

As a result, Mr. Erdogan looked the other way as Mr. Gulen’s followers moved into the judiciary where they constructed a legal case based partly on falsified documents against hundreds of military officers as well as journalists who were thrown behind bars. Similarly, the EU and the United States remained silent about the politicisation of branches of the state as long as Turkey was moving towards fulfilment of requirements for EU membership, one of which was civilian control of the armed forces.

While Mr. Erdogan believes he has good reason to crack down on Mr. Gulen’s followers, there is little doubt that he has chosen not to separate the wheat from the chaff. Seemingly caught up in the president’s massive purge are thousands who may have been critics but not Gulenists. Similarly, large numbers may have agreed with Gulenist criticism of Mr. Erdogan’s policies but not been part of what is a power rather than an ideological struggle between the two Islamists.

Mr. Erdogan’s replacement of those purged is in principle no different from what the president accuses Mr. Gulen of: the populating of the bureaucracy, judiciary and armed organs of the state with loyalists whose allegiance is as much to the party or organisation and its leader as it is to the country. Mr. Erdogan’s wholesale population replacements serves to strengthen his power, further Turkey’s march towards illiberalism, and exacerbate problems resulting from a politicised bureaucracy and judiciary stripped of its independence.

Those who move up the ranks to fill the tens of thousands of vacancies are likely to follow the government line rather than risk their predecessor’s fate. Turkish schools and universities will certainly produce less critical minds as many academics who escaped the purge seek employment overseas. The muzzling of the press and broadcast media further ensures that the government’s message dominates.

Over time, loss of confidence in the judiciary’s competence and the rule of law is but one likely consequence. The rise of less experienced personnel to fill the vast number of suddenly vacant jobs and delays in the processing of applications and judicial proceedings is certain to fuel frustration. In many ways, the judiciary’s ability to put up a case for the extradition of Gulen from the United States to Turkey that will stand up in a US court will serve as an indicator of the damage it has suffered as a result of manipulation by both the imam and Mr. Erdogan.

Politicisation further reduces hopes for a return to peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), that came to a grinding halt with the resumption of hostilities in July 2015. Turkey needs an understanding with its own Kurdish community that accounts for up to 20 percent of the country’s population as Kurds in neighbouring, war-torn Syria assert themselves in a country that is unlikely to be restored to its pre-war borders. In doing so, the Syrian Kurds are following in the footsteps of their Iraqi brethren who have been autonomous for the past 25 years.

Mr. Erdogan’s failure to institutionalise independence of the bureaucracy and the judiciary is likely to come to haunt him as he pursues policies that have failed to produce solutions, first and foremost for Turkey’s Kurdish problem. Much like Pakistan’s employment of jihadists to counter its regional rivals has backfired, so has Turkey’s turning a blind eye to the Islamic State (IS) as part of its battle against the Kurds.

Already a popular politician, who has won election after election for the past 14 years, Mr. Erdogan is riding high on a wave of nationalism and national unity in the wake of the failed coup. Nonetheless continued politicisation and the silencing and exodus of critical minds leaves him ultimately with yes-sayers at a time that he needs creative thinkers more than ever to help solve a Kurdish issue that is taking on regional dimensions, curb mounting domestic political violence, and shield Turkey from the fallout of the disintegration of its neighbours as nation states.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a recently published book with the same title, and also just published Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario

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