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Sunday, 19 February, 2017
ARTS
Lenovo launches Moto Z Smartphone in Pakistan KARACHI STAFF REPORT
Lenovo, through its subsidiary, Motorola Mobility, has announced the availability of Moto Z Smartphone in Pakistan. The Moto Mods Family includes the detachable JBL SoundBoost speakers, Insta-Share Projector, power packs from Incipio and Hasselblad True Zoom. “With Moto Mods, Lenovo has entered the next era of mobile technology. Consumers can transform their Moto smartphone into exactly what they need it to be, and the possibilities are endless,” said Sharay Shams, General Manager for Smartphones, Lenovo Middle East. Made from military aircraft-grade aluminum and stainless steel Moto Z is thin just 5.2 millimeters ultra-light with a 5.5” Quad HD AMOLED display. The Smartphone is equipped with a powerful Qualcomm SnapdragonTM 820 processor, 4GB of RAM and 32 GB or 64 GB of storage inside. For more storage micro SD card up to 2 TB can be added. Moto Z has a high-resolution 13MP camera with optical image stabilization and laser autofocus. The frontfacing 5MP camera includes a wide-angle lens and an extra flash on the front camera. The smartphone also has water-repellant coating, which shields the phone from rain, splashes or spills and fingerprint reader. Moto Z supports up to 30 hours of battery, it also has TurboPower Mod which can provide up to 8 hours of power in just 15 minutes. Moto teamed up with Hasselblad and added advanced imaging capabilities to the phone in a snap, and create and share. The phone has Featuring 10x Optical Zoom and a Xenon flash. With True Zoom, users will also get free access to Hasselblad’s Phocus software for streamlined editing control. Users will also be able to share results with family and friends while still in the moment with automatic backup and unlimited free storage for two years with Google Photos. Moto Z has offered a high-quality JBL SoundBoost a built-in kickstand that which makes videos and music more immersive. JBL SoundBoost includes 10 hours of battery life that allows people to listen longer without using their phone’s battery. The Moto Insta-Share projector snaps easily onto the Moto Z phone and enables instant sharing of photos and videos. The Mod can project up to 70” on any flat surface with the integrated kickstand people can project at any angle. The Insta-Share projector comes with built-in battery that provides users with up to one extra hour of screen time before using the phone’s battery.
HitLer’S ‘deStructive’ wArtiMe PHoNe uP for AuctioN WASHINGTON
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AGENCIES
DOLF Hitler’s personal telephone, which the Fuehrer used to dictate many of his deadly World War II commands, will hit the auction block this weekend, the US house selling it announced. Originally a black Bakelite phone that was later painted crimson and engraved with Hitler’s name, the relic was found in the Nazi leader’s Berlin bunker in 1945 following the regime’s defeat. Auction house Alexander Historical Auctions estimates its worth between $200,000 and $300,000. On Sunday, the company, located in the eastern US coastal state of Maryland, will auction off more than a thousand items — including the Siemens rotary telephone embossed with a swastika and the eagle symbolic of the
Struggle against evil sparks China ritual FANGSHAN AGENCIES
Villagers in eastern China have a unique way of washing away the taint of evil spirits – by bathing in a shower of scorching sparks. The ritual takes place in the city of Putian in Fujian province, where China’s Hakka people are concentrated and hold extended celebrations for the annual Lantern Festival, which officially fell on February 11. The ceremony in the village of Fangshan begins when eight local men selected by village elders don ancient-style Chinese dress to pray in a temple for protection from the Buddha. Afterwards, they remove the costumes and are escorted barechested to an adjacent square. With eyes closed, they lean their faces into fireworks that spit out white sparks, which has given the ceremony its local name, “eat-
SpaceX poised to launch cargo from historic NASA pad MIAMI AGENCIES
ing flowers”. Later, some of them twisted and turned to expose more of their bodies to burn away evil. “I wasn’t myself when I was doing it,” said Zheng Yinquan, alluding to his trance-like state. Zheng, who left his college studies
to take part after hearing that he had been selected, said he felt no pain. “This is not a performance. It is a very serious ritual. We hope by doing this, we can pray for the safety of all families in the village,” Zheng said.
Facebook CEO warns against reversal of global thinking SAN FRANCISCO AGENCIES
Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision of his company serving as a bulwark against rising isolationism, writing in a letter to users that the company’s platform could be the “social infrastructure” for the globe. In a 5,700-word manifesto, Zuckerberg, founder of the world’s largest social network, quoted Abraham Lincoln, the US president during the country’s 19th century Civil War known for his eloquence, and offered a philosophical sweep that was unusual for a business magnate. Zuckerberg’s comments come at a time when many people and nations around the world are taking
Third Reich. Alexander House dubbed the phone — which Hitler received from the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s armed forces — as “arguably the most destructive ‘weapon’ of all time, which sent millions to their deaths.” It said Hitler used it to give most of his orders during the last two years of World War II. Russian officers gifted the device to British Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner during a tour of the bunker shortly after Germany’s surrender. Rayner’s son inherited the phone and is selling it, its paint now peeling to reveal its original synthetic black resin surface. Andreas Kornfeld of Alexander House told a foreign media agency the estimates are set based on a number of factors, including “rarity and uniqueness,” with the expectation that sale prices will exceed opening bids. “It would be impossible to find a more impactful relic than the primary tool used by the evilest man in history,” the auction house said in a statement. “This was not a staid office telephone.” “This was Hitler’s mobile device of destruction.”
an increasingly inward view. US President Donald Trump pledged to put “America first” in his inaugural address in January. That followed Britain’s decision last June to exit the European Union. “Across the world, there are people left behind by globalisation, and movements for withdrawing from a global connection,” Zuckerberg wrote, without naming specific movements. The question, the 32-year-old executive said, was whether “the path ahead is to connect more or reverse course,” adding that he stands for bringing people together. Quoting from a letter Lincoln wrote to Congress in the depths of the Civil War, he wrote to Facebook’s 1.9 billion users: “The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.”
Zuckerberg said that Facebook could move far beyond its roots as a network for friends and families to communicate, suggesting that it can play a role in five areas, all of which he referred to as “communities,” ranging from strengthening traditional institutions to providing help during and after crises to boosting civic engagement. In comments on Facebook, some users praised Zuckerberg’s note for staying positive, while others declared “globalism” dead. Facebook has been under pressure to more closely police hoaxes, fake news and other controversial content, although the concerns have had little impact on its finances. The company reported 2016 revenue of $27.6 billion, up 54 per cent from a year earlier. One area where Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook would do better would be suggesting “meaningful communities.” Some 100 million users are members of groups that are “very meaningful” to them, he wrote, representing only about 5 per cent of users. Facebook is also using artificial intelligence more to flag photos and videos that need human review, Zuckerberg wrote. One-third of all reports to Facebook’s review team are generated by artificial intelligence, he wrote. Zuckerberg’s letter was “a bit more ambitious and a bit more of the 30,000-foot view than I see from most tech company CEOs,” Peter Micek, global policy and legal counsel at Access Now, an international digital rights group, said in a phone interview. But Zuckerberg stayed away from certain subjects on which Facebook could be vulnerable to criticism, mentioning the word “privacy” only once, Micek.
An unmanned SpaceX spaceship carrying food and equipment to the astronauts living at the International Space Station is poised to blast off from a historic NASA launch pad on Saturday. The launch of the Dragon cargo ship is scheduled for 10:01 am from Cape Canaveral’s launch pad 39A, which was built and used for the US space agency’s pioneering missions to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s. It was also the blastoff point for sending American space shuttles into orbit until the shuttle program came to an end in 2011. SpaceX, headed by billionaire internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, managed to negotiate a lease with NASA for the launchpad in 2013, beating out its competitor Blue Origin, which is headed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. By the time the launch pad is completely outfitted for sending astronauts to space in 2018, the company will have spent over $100 million to outfit it for modern day spaceflights, said SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell. “I wouldn’t say we saved a bunch of money here,” she told reporters but added that the launchpad’s singular place in American space lore made the price tag worthwhile. “My heart is pounding to come out here today,” she told an outdoor press conference near the launchpad, recalling how she watched the Apollo 11 mission’s July 1969 lunar landing on television with her father as a child. “I can tell you it is an extra special launch tomorrow, for sure. Maybe extra nerve-wracking,” she added. SpaceX has endured two costly disasters in the past two years — a launchpad blast that destroyed a rocket and its satellite payload in September, and a June 2015 explosion after liftoff that obliterated a Dragon cargo ship packed with goods bound for the space station. The Hawthorne, California-based company has already made one successful return to flight in January of this year, from Vandenberg Air Force base in California. Saturday’s planned launch was left somewhat in question after SpaceX discovered a “very small” leak in the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on Friday, Musk tweeted. “I believe we found it,” Shotwell said, adding the problem involved a helium leak and that engineer were still working to figure out the root cause. “As far as I know right now, we are going to proceed with the count.”