Robert Zemeckis has been hit or miss for almost two decades. But in the eighties, he was on fire. Along with Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is just one of those movies that remains great no matter how many years pass and its technical achievements are still a marvel. But why does it work so well?
BlackBerry announced not too long ago that it has signed away the global licensing rights to its brand to China’s TCL. What this means is that BlackBerry will no longer be making its own smartphones. TCL is going to develop, manufacture, and sell BlackBerry-branded handsets in most markets across the globe. TCL showed off its first BB device earlier this year at CES 2017 codenamed BlackBerry Mercury and has made it official today at MWC 2017. BlackBerry Mercury has been officially launched today as the BlackBerry KEYone. Find out all of the details about its specs, price, and release date after the jump.
The BlackBerry KEYone’s specs are nothing to write home about, it’s not a flagship smartphone by any stretch of the imagination. It has a 4.5 inch full HD display with 3:2 aspect ratio and 434ppi. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s 2.0 GHz Snapdragon 625 processor coupled with Adreno 506 graphics processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB of onboard storage with microSD support up to 2TB. The handset has a 12 megapixel 1.55 micron f/2.0 rear camera with dual-tone LED flash that supports HDR and is capable of recording 4K video at 30fps. It also has an 8 megapixel f/2.2 1.12 micron pixels front camera with selfie flash and the ability to record 1080p/30 video.
It did spend a considerable amount of time talking about the KEYone’s ‘Smart keyboard,’ which is basically an evolution of the touch-sensitive keyboard that it introduced with the BlackBerry Passport a couple of years ago. The full QWERTY keyboard doubles as a trackpad for scrolling through emails and web pages or when you need to use predictive typing. It has been improved, though, as every single one of the 52 keys is programmable meaning that you can configure the letter “I” to launch Instagram when it’s long-pressed. You get the idea.
BlackBerry obviously talked up the security credentials of this device which runs on Android 7.1 Nougat. The company’s DTEK app, already seen before in previous Android handsets like the DTEK60, allows users to fine-tune the security parameters of their device. BlackBerry also touts additional security announcements and claims that they enable the KEYone to provide the most secure Android experience. TCL has committed to working with BlackBerry to send out monthly security patches for the KEYone.
The handset has the biggest battery ever in a BlackBerry smartphone – 3,505mAh – and comes with Boost which is basically BlackBerry’s take on fast-charging. The battery is non-removable. Additional features include Quick Charge 3.0 support, USB Type-C, FIPS 140-2 Full Disk Encryption, Android For Work, Google Play for Work and BlackBerry Hub which combines emails, social media, calendar appointments, and more in one app.
The BlackBerry KEYone will be available across the globe starting April 2017 at a recommended retail price of $549/£499/€599. The phone only comes in one color – black.
BlackBerry KEYone Official: Price, Specs, And Release Date , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Earlier this week a video began circulating on the internet of an iPhone 7 Plus experiencing its own Galaxy Note 7 moment: emitting a large amount of smoke as it partially explodes. The device belonged to Arizona-based Brianna Olivas, who shared video of the event on Twitter. Fortunately no one was injured, and the 18-year-old says it the phone was … Continue reading
What was once known as the BlackBerry “Mercury” is now the KEYone. (Yeah, I don’t like the name either.) At a press conference in Barcelona, TCL — the new steward of BlackBerry’s hardware efforts — introduced, or rather re-introduced, its first And…
With a global launch in the works and the hopes of diehards at an all-time high, the pressure was on BlackBerry and TCL to deliver on all that Mercury hype. We can’t render an official verdict yet, but my gut tells me they’re onto something. Say hell…
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25 (Reuters) – Malaysia said on Saturday it would issue an arrest warrant for a North Korean diplomat wanted for questioning over the murder of Kim Jong Nam if he doesn’t voluntarily cooperate with the police.
“Reasonable” time will be given for the diplomat to come forward before police take further action, said Abdul Samah Mat, the police chief for Selangor state.
On Wednesday, Malaysia said 44-year-old Hyon Kwang Song, a second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, was wanted for questioning over the death of the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Samah said if the person concerned did not cooperate the police would issue a notice under Malaysian law, “compelling” them to appear before the investigation team.
“And if he failed to turn up upon given this notice, then we will go to the next step by getting a warrant of arrest from the court,” he told reporters.
Eight North Koreans are wanted in connection with the case, including the diplomat. One has been detained by the Malaysian police, four are believed to have fled to North Korea, while two others are still in Malaysia.
Kim Jong Nam was murdered on Feb. 13 at the Kuala Lumpur international airport by VX nerve agent, classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, Malaysian police said on Friday.
Two women – one Indonesian and one Vietnamese – have also been detained. Police had said on Friday that one of them had suffered from the effects of VX and had been vomiting.
Samah also confirmed that authorities raided an apartment in an upscale Kuala Lumpur suburb on Wednesday in connection with the killing.
Investigators were still looking for any traces of chemicals in the apartment, he added.
(Reporting by Christophe Van Der Perre in KUALA LUMPUR, Writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race to head the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, just minutes before the vote. He did not endorse another candidate.
Buttigieg made his announcement at the meeting of the 442 eligible voting members of the DNC in Atlanta. He had trailed badly throughout the race, which has been dominated by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and former Labor Secretary Thomas Perez. Buttigieg secured several high-profile endorsements, however, including former DNC Chair Howard Dean.
“After speaking non-stop with voters who have been kind enough to give us the most serious consideration, I now realize that it is time for this process to move on without me,” Buttigieg said, eliciting murmurs from the surprised audience. “It is time for this process to move towards a solution that we can all get on board with, and that means it’s time, for the party, that I step aside.”
Although he lacked the name recognition of the top contenders, Buttigieg impressed party leaders with his compelling and open speaking style. He cast himself as an outsider whose experience as a red-state mayor made him uniquely qualified to lead Democrats in the Trump era.
Buttigieg also presented himself as an alternative to Ellison and Perez, whose contest is widely viewed as a proxy battle between supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Hillary Clinton.
“I didn’t love living through the 2016 primary the first time,” Buttigieg said in a CNN-sponsored debate on Wednesday night. “I don’t know why we as a party would want to live through it a second time.”
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MOSUL, Iraq, Feb 25 (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Iraqi forces pushed deeper into western Mosul on Saturday, advancing in several populated southern districts after punching through the defenses of Islamic State’s last major urban stronghold in Iraq a day earlier.
About 1,000 civilians walked across the frontlines, the largest movement since the new offensive launched last week to deal the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim group a decisive blow.
In the capital Baghdad, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in the first such visit in more than a decade between Sunni Muslim-ruled Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite-led Iraq.
The new push in Mosul comes after government forces finished clearing Islamic State from the east of the city last month, confining the insurgents to the western sector across the Tigris river.
Commanders expect the battle there to be more difficult, in part because tanks and armored vehicles cannot pass through the narrow alleyways that crisscross ancient districts.
But Iraqi forces have so far made quick advances on multiple fronts, capturing the northern city’s airport on Thursday, which they plan to use as a support zone, and breaching a three-meter high berm and trench set up by Islamic State.
The advancing forces are less than three kilometers (two miles) from the mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria in 2014, sparking an international military campaign to defeat the group.
Losing Mosul would likely deal a hammer blow to the militants’ dream of statehood, but they still control territory in Syria and patches of northern and western Iraq from where they could fight a guerrilla-style insurgency in Iraq, and plot attacks on the West.
Federal police and an elite Interior Ministry unit known as Rapid Response have recaptured Hawi al-Josaq along the river and begun clearing the Tayyaran district north of the airport, said Brigadier General Hisham Abdul Kadhim.
Islamic State resisted with snipers and roadside bombs, he said. A Reuters correspondent saw two militants’ corpses outside a mosque in Josaq.
Counter-terrorism forces also pushed on two fronts towards Wadi Hajr and Mamoun districts, said Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi, a senior commander.
“Clearing operations are ongoing and our forces have entered those areas,” he told Reuters on a hill overlooking the battle. Saadi said a suicide car bomb had been destroyed before reaching its target. The militants also launched mortars.
A Mamoun resident reached by phone said militant fighters had flooded the area in recent days while moving their families to relative safety in other districts.
Islamic State broadcast messages via mosque loudspeakers in some areas encouraging locals to resist the “infidels’ attack” while elsewhere they threatened to kill anyone who refused to retreat deeper into the city, according to several residents.
A woman forced to leave Wadi Hajr district said the militants had climbed to her roof and knocked holes in the walls in order to move undetected.
Several thousand militants, including many who traveled from Western countries to join up, are believed to be holed up in the city with practically nowhere to go, which could lead to a fierce standoff amid a population of 750,000.
Ziyad, a 16-year-old living in Hawi al-Josaq, told a Reuters correspondent he had seen foreign IS militants withdraw as Iraqi forces advanced, leaving only local fighters behind.
“They were really scared,” he said. “They were calling to each other and saying, ‘Let’s go’.”
Abu Laith, 49, said he overheard disagreements between local and foreign fighters.
“(The locals) said, ‘Tomorrow you will withdraw and we will be under the hammer’. (The foreigners) said, ‘That’s your problem. We are not in charge, the order is from the caliph’.”
Iraq’s counter-terrorism service put a statement online last week offering leniency to local fighters who killed foreigners, though the legal framework for such a deal was unclear.
A police spokesman said a Russian member of Islamic State had been captured on Wednesday near Mosul airport.
The Iraqi campaign involves a 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Shi’ite militias and Sunni tribal fighters backed by a U.S.-led coalition that provides vital air support as well as on-the-ground guidance and training.
Western advisors are increasingly present close to the frontline, helping coordinate air strikes and advising Iraqi forces as the battle unfolds.
Kurdish journalist Shifa Gardi was killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday while covering the battle.
About a thousand civilians, mostly women and children, walked out of southwestern parts of Mosul on Saturday and climbed into military trucks taking them to camps further south.
The United Nations says up to 400,000 people may have to leave their homes during the new offensive as food and fuel runs out in western Mosul. Aid groups warned on Friday that the most dangerous phase of the offensive was about to begin.
Some of the people fleeing Mamoun said they were originally from Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, but were forced to move as Islamic State retreated north into the city four months ago.
“They began shelling us arbitrarily, so we hid in the bathrooms. When the security forces came, they yelled to us so we fled to them,” said civilian Mahmoud Nawwaf.
The government is encouraging residents to stay in their homes whenever possible, as they did in eastern Mosul where fewer people fled than expected.
A Reuters correspondent near the airport saw nine families living in a house where residents with full beards served trays of tea to security forces. Some said Islamic State had forced them to move from Samarra, 250 km (160 miles) south of Mosul.
Abu Naba, 37, said he was surprised how quickly the militants had been driven out.
“We could hear their voices outside and 15 minutes later they were gone,” he said.
A woman with a baby wrapped in a blanket on her lap said she had given birth in the house 22 days ago because it was too dangerous to reach a hospital.
(Additional reporting by Reuters TV south of Mosul; writing by Stephen Kalin; editing by David Clarke and Ros Russell)
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When I was a high school freshman in Honolulu, I would sit with my girlfriends on the bleachers of the school amphitheater every morning. We’d meet in the same spot and chat for an hour, before homeroom began. We’d gossip and giggle, swoon over Justin Timberlake and sip from our coffee cups, which made us feel so adult. It was our version of Central Perk on “Friends.”
I felt like any other student, just one of the girls, until one morning when a vice principal, who had always looked at me curiously, blocked me as I followed my friends into the girls’ restroom. The administrator told me to come with her. We walked to the nurse’s office, a five-minute trip from my homeroom, where she pointed to a single-stall restroom.
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A $148 Chromebook, an AmazonBasics cat tree, and Criterion’s Guillermo del Toro collection lead off Saturday’s best deals.
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