Who said digital cameras need to be all about serious business? With smartphones eating at their profits, camera makers have been piling up serious features for their cameras. But cameras can be just as fun to use as smartphones. Maybe even more. Like the new COOLPIX W100 from Nikon, which has enough colors and features to make even the younger … Continue reading
Next week marks the kickoff for the 2016 summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The games will see thousands of athletes competing to win one of the three medals offered in their events. With all the sports going on virtually around the clock it can be hard for fans of the Olympic Games to keep up with what athletes … Continue reading
iOS users with Google Maps on their devices haven’t been able to use something that Android users of Google Maps have taken for granted for a while in the form of the ability to setup navigation for road trips that have more than one stop. iOS users can now make those multi stop road trips using the iOS Google Maps … Continue reading
By forcing startups like Google X, Fiber and Nest to behave like companies and take financial accountability, Alphabet believes that its subsidiaries are more likely to invest in projects that will ultimately make it money. Being in the expensive hea…
As popular as Uber is around the world, its business model has also inspired others to come up with alternatives. In the US alone we have several alternatives to Uber, and the same can be said in other countries, such as China where the country has its own take on Uber called Didi. In fact in China, it seems that Didi is more popular than Uber.
So much so that as much as Uber has tried, they have not managed to surpass their Chinese rival to the point where according to a report from Bloomberg, they have decided to sell their business in China to Didi. So far neither Uber nor Didi have confirmed anything, but if the reports are true, part of this deal will see Didi invest a whopping $1 billion into Uber.
Bloomberg also obtained a blog post that was allegedly penned by Travis Kalanick, Uber’s CEO, which reads, “As an entrepreneur, I’ve learned that being successful is about listening to your head as well as following your heart. I have no doubt that Uber China and Didi Chuxing will be stronger together.”
It certainly sounds that way, especially when you consider that last year, Didi and their rival Kuaidi merged to form Didi Chuxing, so if the reports of them absorbing Uber’s business in China, there would certainly be no mistaking who is the dominant ride-hailing service in the country.
Uber Will Be Selling Its Business To Didi In China , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Tomorrow the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 will be unveiled in full, so the question is, are you excited enough to tune into the stream? The good news is that Samsung will not be limiting the stream to just the media as they have announced that everyone and anyone who is so inclined can check out the unveiling themselves.
According to Samsung, there will be 3 different options for users who are interested in watching the stream. The first will be to watch it on their phone or check out their YouTube channel. Users will also be able to watch it on their PC by surfing down to Samsung’s website, and last but not least, there will be the option to watch the stream in VR.
All users have to do is go to the Oculus Store, download and install the Unpacked 360 View app, launch it using the Gear VR headset and they’ll be good to go! Just in case you forgot when the event will start, it will kick off on the 2nd of August at 11am EST, so remember to mark that time and date down if you don’t want to miss it.
We’ll also be doing our own coverage of the announcement so if you do miss out, remember to check back with us for all the official details.
Galaxy Note 7’s Unpacked Event Can Be Streamed By Everyone , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Voters in the Japanese capital elected their first woman governor on Sunday, after two predecessors stepped down over scandals that clouded the city’s preparations to host the 2020 summer Olympic Games.
Yuriko Koike, Japan’s first female defense minister, beat former bureaucrat and fellow member of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s party Hiroya Masuda, as well as liberal journalist Shuntaro Torigoe, according to an exit poll by public broadcaster NHK.
Koike, 64, angered the Tokyo branch of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party by not getting its approval before announcing her candidacy for city governor. The LDP instead drafted Masuda, 64, who once served as governor of a rural prefecture.
“Taking this result very heavily, as the new governor I would like move forward firmly with the administration of the metropolis,” Koike, an experienced politician fluent in English and Arabic, told supporters.
“I would like to move forward with a metropolitan administration such as has never happened, never been seen, together with all of you.”
The NHK exit poll showed Masuda was in second place, with Torigoe, a 76-year-old cancer survivor who was backed by several opposition parties, trailed both.
The sprawling city of some 13.5 million people faces a plethora of problems such as an aging population, daycare shortage, and the ever-present possibility of a big earthquake.
But a big issue in the campaign was the 2020 Olympics, which Japan hopes will spur its economy, struggling to escape decades of deflation.
Construction of the main stadium has been delayed and the original logo for the games had to be scrapped after plagiarism accusations.
After the resignations of the city’s two previous governors, Koike will be responsible for saving Tokyo’s reputation as host for the games.
One of her first duties will be to travel to Rio de Janeiro when the curtain comes down on next month’s games there to accept the Olympic flag as the next host.
“The Olympics are right in front of us. I want to use them as a chance to build a new Tokyo for beyond 2020,” Koike said when the campaign began.
Though the LDP and its coalition partner backed Masuda, fallout for Abe will likely be minimal despite Masuda’s loss.
“This is basically a Tokyo issue,” said Kenji Yumoto, vice chairman of the Japan Research Institute think-tank. “Abe’s prestige probably won’t be damaged and support for the LDP won’t fall.”
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The American mood is difficult in a time rife with worrying about the future and concern about “the other”, amid resentment against the political establishment, fear of terror, and a sense of escapism regarding the definition and purpose of the US superpower and its responsibilities on the international arena. The general mood reflects the lack of confidence in the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. This week, the Democratic National Convention focused its efforts on marketing Hillary the approachable woman, in the hope this win over the hearts of the Americans who have not been comfortable with her “robot-like” demeanor. Indeed, Hillary had worked hard to enter history with cold calculations, giving little care to her lack of charisma, compared to her husband former president Bill Clinton. Hillary is an experienced candidate who has assumed public office, climbing up the ladders of power gradually and with tact, forging close ties to the poles of the ruling US establishment in the military and the civilian institutions, inside and outside government. She is the antithesis of the Republican nominee Donald Trump, who snatched the nomination against the will of most traditional Republicans and jumped on the White House-bound train amid dismissal by the political class and intellectuals. But the media grew fond of covering Trump’s entertaining and sensational news, or so they thought until the joke stopped being funny. A mysterious class of Americans had turned against the elitist class, proving that solidarity with the establishment is a failed bet. I say mysterious because the followers of Donald Trump are a combination of angry and scared voters, as well as xenophobes, isolationists, and those who are eager to teach the politicians in Washington a lesson. Many are also blue-collar workers, who accuse Washington of exploiting them, and are in awe of Trump’s wealth, success, and lifestyle as though he was of the working class like them despite having received a one-million-dollar check from his father at the start of his life. Yet a segment of white-collar educated Americans will vote Trump because they cannot stand Hillary, and see her as an extension of Barack Obama and her husband Bill Clinton. There are also Americans who are categorically opposed to turning the Clintons into a ruling dynasty in America, especially after Bush’s dreams of becoming one were shattered.
The calculus behind the election of the 45th president of the United States is then related to the personality, ambitions, and domestic concerns of the American people, rather than foreign policy, at least so far. Interestingly, it is Donald Trump who has brought in national security, terrorism, and immigration into the calculations of American voters, manipulating their fears and concerns. This week, Trump set a new precedent by inviting Russia to hack his opponent’s email and expose her scandals. Donald Trump wants the Russian president Vladimir Putin to be an honorary voter in the US elections, and has praised him repeatedly and hinted they would agree on many issues. Trump wants to stoke fear of groups like ISIS to present himself as the president who will shut down immigration and protect America from foreigners, taking isolationism to a new terrifying level.
The isolationism of Barack Obama and the exclusionism of Donald Trump benefit Putin, because both approaches put him in a stronger position to lead in more than one region of the world. Putin has been lucky ever since Obama decided that Iran is a priority for him, to the point of forging an implicit partnership with Tehran in Syria to fight ISIS and similar groups.
In Syria, Putin is now the master player, having intervened there militarily to settle the civil war and settle the political outcome. In Syria too, there is a silent partnership between the US and some in the coalition it leads, and the Damascus Axis comprising Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, the Kurds, and other militias. While Saudi Arabia cries foul, US and Iranian intelligence collaborate secretly in European capitals, to determine Syria’s fate. However, Putin is not comfortable about this; he does not trust the US in principle, and has differences with Tehran regarding the future of the Syrian army and the regime backed by Iran, as the latter seems to prefer the militias to take over in order to retain control of Syria.
Perhaps Donald Trump wants to assign Putin to represent him in Syria, because he is not interested in the fate of Syria and in the cost Russia would pay in its war on ISIS, Nusra Front, and similar groups. Trump’s recipe to protect the US homeland and national security from terror is to banish Muslims from the country and prevent immigration. At the same time, he has hinted that he welcomes others’ wars on others’ territories, or at least, does not mind it in the least. And if the strategic Russian-Iranian partnership in Syria turns into rivalry, this would be good news for Trump, who has claimed he has the opposite position on Iran of that of Barack Obama, who is almost in love with the Islamic Republic.
This does not mean that the CIA would stop cooperating secretly with Tehran. But in truth, this is where one can find convergence or divergence between the administrations that rule and the establishment that remain long term, and that includes vital departments such as defense, national security, and intelligence.
In other words, the United States is not susceptible to becoming a fully-fledged dictatorship. There is no comparison between the powers of the US president and those the Russian or Turkish presidents have gifted themselves. In the United States, there are checks and balances, and the system does not give absolute powers to the executive branch represented by the elected administration or the legislature represented by Congress. The president may veto Congress, but the Supreme Court remains the highest constitutional authority in the country.
If Donald Trump becomes president, the institutions of power will not collapse. He will not become overnight a president with extraordinary powers. However, any US president has immediate global authority. If he is an arbitrary, exclusionist, and isolationist president, the foundations of the global order could be undermined, from NATO to the UN and its agencies. If he is a provocative, trigger-happy president, the instability this will cause will be of a global scale. The whole world could enter into unchartered territory, as mysterious as the rise of Trump and his proximity to the Oval Office.
Indeed, Trump’s story may not be strictly one of an anomaly of the democratic electoral process. As suggested by far, one of the key elements in Trump’s foreign policy is Vladimir Putin. There are many things in common between them: not only hatred for Islamism but also joint business projects. Intriguingly, the “brotherhood” between Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and his US counterpart the Democrat John Kerry, could become a feature of the relationship between Putin and Trump, especially if Putin accepts the Donald’s invitation to intervene in the US elections in his favor.
In any case, from now until the president-elect assumes office in January, Putin will have completed his project in Syria, for example, where he is poised to achieve victory in Aleppo for his axis, in silent partnership with the United States under the pretext of defeating terrorism. Lucky Putin will force the Turkish President Erdogan to meet his demands in Syria, including consenting to Assad remaining in power and cutting off supplies to the Syrian rebels. For one thing, Erdogan needs Putin now, and the Russian president is preparing a list of demands in Syria, Europe, and as concerns Islamic movements inside Russia and its vicinity.
Putin has little cause for concern these days. The Obama administration has given him the green light to draw Syria’s future as he sees fit, regardless of what is said by US defense secretary Ashton Carter, apparently contradicting the suggestions of his colleague John Kerry, desperate to appease Lavrov around the clock.
The main headline of the coming stage will be military settlement in certain areas, such as Aleppo, and the start of overt military cooperation between the US and Russia. At the same time, vague features of a transition will be drawn in which Assad remains in power for a long time, while the Syrian opposition represented by the HNC is practically dismantled and replaced with another approved by Moscow, in parallel with a partnership on the ground with the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Back to Trump, a visitor to Moscow quoted a Russian official as saying the Russians prefer Trump as president, because he would be America’s Yeltsin, in reference to the former Russian president who helped marginalize Russia and completed the dismantling of the Soviet Union.
Putin may indeed prefer Trump over Hillary, because he would well benefit from his arbitrary decision-making process. Yet he won’t fear a Clinton presidency, because by the time she enters the White House, he will have imposed the fait accompli he wants during Obama’s presidency.
Nevertheless, Clinton was once Lavrov’s counterpart, however, and she has accused him of duplicity. Their relations are different from the kind of relations between Lavrov and Kerry. Lavrov remembers well Clinton’s personal role in Libya, when the Obama administration used a UN Security Council as an excuse to intervene militarily, in a way that Moscow saw as a betrayal and an insult.
Putin may have made amends with Obama, but he probably thinks the same would be more difficult with Clinton. Putin recalls Obama and Clinton’s support for the rise of Islamists to power in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria. But his reluctant rapprochement with Obama began in Syria, when Obama decided to let Putin take the lead there. Clinton could prove more difficult to coax than Obama.
Donald Trump, in the Russian view, therefore, is an easier president to handle than Clinton, especially in terms with US relations with the Arab Gulf states. To be sure, Clinton may attempt to mend US-Gulf relations, while Trump could make them more tense. Russia may be willing to improve its relations with the Gulf, but it is not prepared to make concessions that Saudi Arabia wants in Syria or with regard to Russian-Iranian relations.
Russia sees Trump as a good partner who shares its hatred for radical Islam. Russia also sees Trump as someone who might be willing to continue Obama’s policy of stoking Sunni-Shia tensions, while Clinton may seek to extinguish them. Putin, after all, is complicit in inflaming these tensions.
The absurd has become reasonable, and the unlikely has become inevitable. The temperamental acrobatic septuagenarian could enter the White House even though he has no experience in policy, let alone decision making and foreign affairs. Any attack by ISIS or a terrorist group linked to the Arab or Islamic world in the US could double Trump’s chances to win the presidency, because the popular base will become isolationist and exclusionist and press for a closure of the border – as Trump has called for.
However, it seems that Vladimir Putin is also a voter in these elections, not only because the hacking of the emails of the DNC originated in Russia, but also because Donald Trump has sought his help to prevent the election of the first woman president in US history.
The mood of the Americans could bring Donald Trump to the White House. But the temper of Donald Trump could awaken the majority of voters to the dangers of having a reckless president. Today, despite the logic choice in voting for Clinton, she faces a fierce battle and she will need all help she can get to win over Americans and restore trust in her, both among the most important elements in any US presidential election.
Translated by Karim Traboulsi
Original article
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Gloria DeHaven, the perky singing actress who starred in a parade of breezy Hollywood musicals in the 1940s and 1950s and gave Frank Sinatra his first big-screen kiss, has died at age 91, her agent said on Monday.
DeHaven, who appeared in more than two dozen films starting as a child in a bit role in Charlie Chaplin’s last silent movie, died on Saturday in hospice care in Las Vegas, Scott Stander said in an email.
The actress suffered a stroke a few months ago, the agent said.
A versatile singer from a show business family, she thrived in Hollywood musicals, mostly from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, until the genre fell out of fashion in the 1950s.
DeHaven starred in “Two Girls and a Sailor” (1944) with Van Johnson, June Allyson and Jimmy Durante; “Summer Holiday” (1948) with Mickey Rooney; “Yes Sir That’s My Baby” (1949) with Donald O’Connor; “Summer Stock” (1950) with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly; and “So This Is Paris” (1955) with Tony Curtis.
In the musical “Step Lively” (1944), DeHaven gave a young Sinatra his first on-screen smooch.
In the late 1950s, DeHaven’s film career stalled and she turned to acting on television and in stage musicals and singing in nightclubs. She returned to the big screen for the 1997 comedy “Out to Sea” with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
She was born in Los Angeles on July 23, 1925, to parents who were vaudeville performers. She made her film debut with a small role in Chaplin’s “Modern Times” (1936) co-starring Paulette Goddard, a silent gem released in the era of talkies, exploring the pitfalls of modern industrialized society.
“Chaplin needed two kids to play Paulette Goddard’s ragamuffin sisters,” DeHaven told the Toronto Star in 1989. “All we had to do was wear tattered clothes, eat bananas and do big takes. I thought, ‘If this is show business, count me in.’”
Her breakout role was in the Lucille Ball musical comedy “Best Foot Forward” (1943), a film that also boosted Allyson’s fortunes.
DeHaven’s marriage to actor John Payne, best known as the co-star of the classic “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947), ended in divorce. She was married four times to three different men (one twice) and she had four children.
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There are perks to having a close, working relationship with Google, especially after making not one, not even just two, but three Nexus smartphones. That is something that LG is now boasting as it reveals, to no one’s surprise really, that there will, indeed, be an LG V20 coming soon. Sometime in September, in fact. More than that, LG is … Continue reading
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