#Chinese smartphone company

[techqanswerdotin]

Maximum of the indigenous company! Powerful smartphone at Rs 6,999 to answer Chinese companies

Maximum of the indigenous company! Powerful smartphone at Rs 6,999 to answer Chinese companies

A few days ago Lava company introduced the cheapest 5G phone in India. 11,000 budget, the company has introduced the Lava Blaze 5G, which packs powerful specs like a MediaTek Dimensity 700 processor, a 5,000mAh battery and a 50MP camera. Now the company has launched its new budget smartphone in India, which is called Lava X3. This is the company’s new entry-level segment smartphone. The Lava X3…

[scarlett-v-the-fox]

WarioWare Move It! Japanese profile entires part 1

As of today, there are only a few profiles of the characters. These are Wario, Jimmy T, Mona, Ashley, Red, Dr. Crygor, Mike, and Penny. I am sharing what they say to you in English.

Disclaimer: My Japanese isn’t perfect, and I had to look up some of words used. But I’m confident 95% of this is correct!

President of the very great Wario Company

WARIO

CV: Hironori Kondo

(Translator’s notes: Wario uses the first person pronoun “ore” and uses the suffix “sama” after it.)

[Image of Wario in front a pile of gold] Today is also a great day! I'm cool, intelligent, and handsome!

WAHAHAHA! You had a good idea that you were interested in me! Take a close look at me from my head to my butt!

This is my profile!!

Favorite letter of the alphabet:

W

Most hated letter of the alphabet:

M

Charm point:

You’ll know it when you see it! Everything!

What made me happy recently:

I went to scrub myself today, and what a surprise! I lost 20 kilograms! That’s amazing!

What surprised me recently:

There was a type of canned food that I thought was delicious and became addicted to, but when I looked closer, it turned out to be for dogs! I got angry!

Things I am not good at:

Nothing! I am perfect!

Recommended movies:

There’s “The Wario Movie” starring me! ...Hmm? There’s no such movie? Hey Nintendo! Make it quickly!

Favorite proverb:

Be on the toilet bowl for three months.

Future aspirations:

Hey! That's enough! That's it for my profile!

~

Energetic high school girl

MONA

CV: Ruriko Aoki

(Translator’s notes: Mona uses the first person pronoun “atashi.” She also uses the “ojisama” suffix for Wario and Dr. Crygor.)

[Image of Mona in a city with her pets in the background] Isn’t Wario wonderful!? That nose and mustache!

Hi~! I’m Mona! I'm busy with my part-time job and club activities every day, but I'm going to run through it with high energy today too!

Profile:

My dream for the future:

To become an adventurer!

Person I admire:

I guess I’d say Wario after all! That big and wild nose… super awesome!

Transportation:

[Image of Mona’s bike. Below it reads “Mona Bike!”] Dr. Crygor made it for me!

Part time jobs I’ve done:

I've done a lot of things! I was a gelato shop clerk, a diner waitress, a pizza delivery girl, a rock band's vocalist and guitarist, a Chinese restaurant's poster girl, an amusement park staff member, a reporter, a cameraman, and even a spy... Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said this? [picture of strawberry gelato]

Family:

My papa is an artist and my mama is a supermodel! I'm an only child, but I wish I had an older sister.

My favorite animal:

Baby moth larvae with fluffy fur!

What I’ve been into lately:

I keep an observation record of the flowers I saw today! I like that they’re bumpy, hairy, and shiny!

Introduction from the president (Wario):

Mona thinks I'm cool, and I'm a guy with quite good taste! …however! As an adventurer, she’s not even close to my level! Even if she finds treasure, it's mine, of course! Because the president is amazing! Wahahaha!

~

Cool dancer

JIMMY T.

CV: Yuma Kametani

(Translator’s notes: Jimmy uses a lot of English words. He also uses the first person pronoun “boku.”)

[Image of Jimmy on a lit up dance floor] Oh YEAH~!! Let’s dance together until the morning, YO!

Everybody! I’m glad you came to visit my page, YO! Let's get feverish with COOL steps!

Profile:

How to spend the night:

Dancing until the morning at a nightclub, YO! [Image of Jimmy P]

Hobby:

Checking my emails! YEAH!

Special skill:

I might be second to none when it comes to high-speed flick input on smartphones.

A little boast:

For some reason, cats tend to like me, YO!

Relationship with Wario:

He’s my email friend! We are also childhood friends!

Favorite way to spend my weekends:

Watching the pigeons in the park, YO! And those kids there have some pretty good BEAT and VIBES, YO!

A secret I’ll only share here:

Actually, my afro, well… No, it’s nothing. Forget it.

Introduction from the president (Wario):

Jimmy is my e-mail friend and childhood friend! He teaches me how to make money with blogs like “Afro Eight” and is a very helpful guy! That's why I made him a special employee of the company, but I’ve never paid him a salary! Wahahaha!

~

Apprentice witch

ASHLEY

CV: Ayaka Fukuhara

(Translator’s notes: She speaks using third person in Japanese at times.)

[Image of Ashley with a mansion in the background] …I’m Ashley, the world’s witch.

…I’m Ashley… What do you want? …If I don’t have any use for you, can I use you as an ingredient?

Profile:

Hobby:

…Research on cursed magic.

Specialty:

…To make magic and potions.

What I think is cool:

…Monsters and carnivorous plants.

Things I don’t like:

Cute dresses… sweets… colorful things… I hate them.

Eating style:

…I eat what I like for last.

What I want most right now:

…Frie—… Nothing really.

How many times have you been called cute?:

Tsk…

Introduction from the president (Wario):

Ashley is always with her familiar, Red! She may be a bit perverse, but she's actually lonely!? Since she's an employee of the Wario Company, I'll take care of her! Looks like she can use magic to find treasure! Wahahaha!

~

Ashley’s partner

RED

CV: Mako Muto

(Translator’s notes: Red uses Kansai dialect, and uses the first person pronoun “ore.” He also talks like a kid.)

[Image of Red with Ashley in the background] Alright! Leave the transforming to me!

Yahoo! I am Red! I am Ashley’s partner, as well as her best friend! You came all the way to visit us, so take your time!

Profile:

Where I live:

In a haunted mansion on the edge of town! But I'm actually really scared of this place...

Special skill:

I can transform into something about the same size as me! Like a magic wand or broom! It’s amazing, isn’t it?!

Personality:

I am quite skittish…

What scared me recently:

When I saw my own reflection in the mirror, I freaked out… Eep…

What I think about Ashley:

Ah, it looks like she’s really shy. She remembered her parents from back home and looked into the distance.

Recent thing Ashley did:

She was practicing smiling in front of the mirror the other day! She was so scared! Ah, this is definitely a secret I should keep!

The scariest thing in this world:

Ashley when she’s angry…

Introduction from the president (Wario):

Even though Red is a monster, he's still taking care of Ashley! And I don't know where he learned to speak Kansai dialect! ...That means he might have some talent for business! Okay, me. Let's sell your game all over the world! Of course, we won't give him any rewards! Wahahaha!

~

Mad scientist

DR. CRYGOR

CV: Kensuke Matsui

(Translator’s notes: A gappori machine is a machine that gives loans in cash)

[Image of Dr. Crygor in a green lit laboratory] People call me a genius scientist... And I am actually a genius!

Here... it seems like you got lost on my page. This must also have something to do with me. Could you let me use your body as a test subject?

Profile:

Occupation:

I am a genius scientist that everyone recognizes.

Someone you hang out with often:

My granddaughter Penny, and my assistant Mike.

Hobby:

Dancing flamenco for inspiration.

My secret to youth:

Modifying my own body and wearing a life-prolonging suit. However, I forgot to extend the life of my scalp and ended up going bald.

Recent research:

I am devoting all my energy and research into promoting my hair regrowth.

Representative inventions:

Wario’s Bike, Wario’s Car, Mona’s Bike, Dribble’s Taxi, Kat and Ana's high-tech swords, 9-Volt's skateboard, Jimmy's cell phone, the Karaoke Robot Mike... You can see how genius I am.

About Wario:

I see him as an interesting research subject. I shall do some human experiments on him someday.

Introduction from the president (Wario):

Dr. Crygor is an old man, but he seems to be doing well! He is also the inventor of my Wario Car and my Wario Bike! But it's disgusting that he’s still bragging about that! ...Well, whatever. Someday, I'll have him make a gappori machine that will give me an infinite amount of money! Wahahaha!

~

Karaoke robot

MIKE

CV: Ryota Suzuki

(Translator’s notes: Robot characters use katakana in their visualized speech. They are also polite and use simple sentences.)

[Image of Mike in a room full of viles] I want to sing more and more!

I’m the karaoke robot Mike! What do you think, would you like to sing a song after?

My profile, lyrics and music by Mike:

Creator:

I was created by Dr Crygor.

Body structure:

I have microphones on my head and speakers on my body.

Hobbies:

I like cooking! My fruit punch is very good.

Special skill:

Karaoke, obviously. But for some reason, when I start singing, everyone covers their ears.

My dissatisfaction:

Why does the karaoke robot have to do all the cleaning?

A secret I’ll share only here:

I want to be independent.

Things I’ve been curious about lately:

Those meal serving robots for family restaurants...

Introduction from the president (Wario):

Mike is Dr. Crygor’s assistant! He seems to be good at cooking and doing the laundry, but he seems to have run away from home in disgust once! If he's going to be used badly, he'd be happier being used by me! Next time you run away from home, I’ll use you as my butt wiper! Wahahaha!

~

Future scientist

PENNY

CV: Maya Enokichi

(Translator’s notes: Penny uses the “chan” suffix for her grandpa. She also uses the term “scientist’s egg” which just means she’s a future scientist)

[Image of Penny in a park] My dream is to become the best singing idol scientist in the world!

Hello, nice to meet you! My name is Penny! My grandpa is a fantastic scientist!

Profile:

Occupation:

I’m a Diamond City junior high school student! I’m also a future scientist!

Someone I admire:

Dr. Crygor! He’s my grandpa!

Hobby:

I love singing in front of people! I wish I could be a singer...

My invention masterpiece:

"Sparkly Voice Ultimate" allows anyone to have a beautiful voice!

Things I’m not good at:

Actually, I'm not good at reading music sheets... just looking at the treble clef makes me dizzy...

About my hair accessory:

You can take the heart-shaped hair clip I'm wearing!

A secret I’ll share only here:

I've been checking all the information about idol auditions, but I'm scared. I haven't been able to apply yet...

Introduction from the president (Wario):

Penny is Dr Crygor’s granddaughter! She's a future scientist, but for some reason the minibike she sent to me ended up turning into a mini-mini myself while riding it! What on earth does that mean!? Well, she also has a geeky side. However, if she comes up with an invention that will make money, I will make a lot of money! Wahahaha!

[zvaigzdelasas]

[TIME is US Media]

U.S. and European officials are growing increasingly concerned about China’s accelerated push into the production of older-generation semiconductors and are debating new strategies to contain the country’s expansion. President Joe Biden implemented broad controls over China’s ability to secure the kind of advanced chips that power artificial-intelligence models and military applications. But Beijing responded by pouring billions into factories for the so-called legacy chips that haven’t been banned. Such chips are still essential throughout the global economy, critical components for everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to military hardware.

That’s sparked fresh fears about China’s potential influence and triggered talks of further reining in the Asian nation, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. The U.S. is determined to prevent chips from becoming a point of leverage for China, the people said.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo alluded to the problem during a panel discussion last week at the American Enterprise Institute. “The amount of money that China is pouring into subsidizing what will be an excess capacity of mature chips and legacy chips—that’s a problem that we need to be thinking about and working with our allies to get ahead of,” she said.[...]

Legacy chips are typically considered those made with 28-nm equipment or above, technology introduced more than a decade ago. Senior E.U. and U.S. officials are concerned about Beijing’s drive to dominate this market for both economic and security reasons, the people said. They worry Chinese companies could dump their legacy chips on global markets in the future, driving foreign rivals out of business like in the solar industry, they said.[...]

domestic producers may be reluctant to invest in facilities that will have to compete with heavily subsidized Chinese plants. [...]

“The United States and its partners should be on guard to mitigate nonmarket behavior by China’s emerging semiconductor firms,”

While the U.S. rules introduced last October slowed down China’s development of advanced chipmaking capabilities, they left largely untouched [sic] the country’s ability to use techniques older than 14-nanometers. That has led Chinese firms to construct new plants faster than anywhere else in the world. They are forecast to build 26 fabs through 2026 that use 200-millimeter and 300-mm wafers, according to the trade group SEMI. That compares with 16 fabs for the Americas.

So what's the problem? is it that you suck at manufacturing & want more neoliberalism? That's what it seems like to me [31 Jul 23]

[frank-olivier]

Semiconductors: The Driving Force Behind Technological Advancements

The semiconductor industry is a crucial part of our modern society, powering everything from smartphones to supercomputers. The industry is a complex web of global interests, with multiple players vying for dominance.

Taiwan has long been the dominant player in the semiconductor industry, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) accounting for 54% of the market in 2020. TSMC's dominance is due in part to the company's expertise in semiconductor manufacturing, as well as its strategic location in Taiwan. Taiwan's proximity to China and its well-developed infrastructure make it an ideal location for semiconductor manufacturing.

However, Taiwan's dominance also brings challenges. The company faces strong competition from other semiconductor manufacturers, including those from China and South Korea. In addition, Taiwan's semiconductor industry is heavily dependent on imports, which can make it vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.

China is rapidly expanding its presence in the semiconductor industry, with the government investing heavily in research and development (R&D) and manufacturing. China's semiconductor industry is led by companies such as SMIC and Tsinghua Unigroup, which are rapidly expanding their capacity. However, China's industry still lags behind Taiwan's in terms of expertise and capacity.

South Korea is another major player in the semiconductor industry, with companies like Samsung and SK Hynix owning a significant market share. South Korea's semiconductor industry is known for its expertise in memory chips such as DRAM and NAND flash. However, the industry is heavily dependent on imports, which can make it vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.

The semiconductor industry is experiencing significant trends, including the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), and the increasing demand for 5G technology. These trends are driving semiconductor demand, which is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

However, the industry also faces major challenges, including a shortage of skilled workers, the increasing complexity of semiconductor manufacturing and the need for more sustainable and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.

To overcome the challenges facing the industry, it is essential to invest in research and development, increase the availability of skilled workers and develop more sustainable and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. By working together, governments, companies and individuals can ensure that the semiconductor industry remains competitive and sustainable, and continues to drive innovation and economic growth in the years to come.

Chip War, the Race for Semiconductor Supremacy (2023) (TaiwanPlus Docs, October 2024)

Dr. Keyu Jin, a tenured professor of economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that many in the West misunderstand China’s economic and political models. She maintains that China became the most successful economic story of our time by shifting from primarily state-owned enterprises to an economy more focused on entrepreneurship and participation in the global economy.

Dr. Keyu Jin: Understanding a Global Superpower - Another Look at the Chinese Economy (Wheeler Institute for Economy, October 2024)

Dr. Keyu Jin: China's Economic Prospects and Global Impact (Global Institute For Tomorrow, July 2024)

The following conversation highlights the complexity and nuance of Xi Jinping's ideology and its relationship to traditional Chinese thought, and emphasizes the importance of understanding the internal dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party and the ongoing debates within the Chinese system.

Dr. Kevin Rudd: On Xi Jinping - How Xi's Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World (Asia Society, October 2024)

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

idk why but I though of you when having this issue so here goes nothing. I need a new mobile, and I make a point of getting myself one with removable battery. The thing is, I can't seem to find a single smartphone with removable battery that's not from a Chinese manufacturer. I'm really tired of companies being so obsessed with planned obsolence. Do you happen to know any smartphone with removable battery that's not from a Chinese brand, by any chance? My current mobile is 8 years old and it is begging for retirememnt.

Here are a few I found. There are some Chinese ones thrown in, like the TCL, but most seem to be Japanese or Korean. They're all old though, and some are hard to get in the US. The thing about phones is they all have Chinese parts, though, since the rare Earth minerals that are used to make phones pretty much all come from China. So it's very hard to divest fully from China when getting a phone.

[mariacallous]

Recently, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump posted a series of photos that appeared to show fans of pop star Taylor Swift supporting his bid for the US presidency. The pictures looked AI-generated, and WIRED was able to confirm they probably were by running them through the nonprofit True Media’s detection tool to confirm that they showed “substantial evidence of manipulation.”

Things aren’t always that easy. The use of generative AI, including for political purposes, has become increasingly common, and WIRED has been tracking its use in elections around the world. But in much of the world outside the US and parts of Europe, detecting AI-generated content is difficult because of biases in the training of systems, leaving journalists and researchers with few resources to address the deluge of disinformation headed their way.

Detecting media generated or manipulated using AI is still a burgeoning field, a response to the sudden explosion of generative AI companies. (AI startups pulled in over $21 billion in investment in 2023 alone.) “There's a lot more easily accessible tools and tech available that actually allows someone to create synthetic media than the ones that are available to actually detect it,” says Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, founder of the Tech Global Institute, a think tank focused on tech policy in the Global South.

Most tools currently on the market can only offer between an 85 and 90 percent confidence rate when it comes to determining whether something was made with AI, according to Sam Gregory, program director of the nonprofit Witness, which helps people use technology to support human rights. But when dealing with content from someplace like Bangladesh or Senegal, where subjects aren’t white or they aren’t speaking English, that confidence level plummets. “As tools were developed, they were prioritized for particular markets,” says Gregory. In the data used to train the models, “they prioritized English language—US-accented English—or faces predominant in the Western world.”

This means that AI models were mostly trained on data from and for Western markets, and therefore can’t really recognize anything that falls outside of those parameters. In some cases that’s because companies were training models using the data that was most easily available on the internet, where English is by far the dominant language. “Most of our data, actually, from [Africa] is in hard copy,” says Richard Ngamita, founder of Thraets, a nonprofit civic tech organization focused on digital threats in Africa and other parts of the Global South. This means that unless that data is digitized, AI models can’t be trained on it.

Without the vast amounts of data needed to train AI models well enough to accurately detect AI-generated or AI-manipulated content, models will often return false positives, flagging real content as AI generated, or false negatives, identifying AI-generated content as real. “If you use any of the off the shelf tools that are for detecting AI-generated text, they tend to detect English that's written by non-native English speakers, and assume that non-native English speaker writing is actually AI,” says Diya. “There’s a lot of false positives because they weren’t trained on certain data.”

But it’s not just that models can’t recognize accents, languages, syntax, or faces less common in Western countries. “A lot of the initial deepfake detection tools were trained on high quality media,” says Gregory. But in much of the world, including Africa, cheap Chinese smartphone brands that offer stripped-down features dominate the market. The photos and videos that these phones are able to produce are much lower quality, further confusing detection models, says Ngamita.

Gregory says that some models are so sensitive that even background noise in a piece of audio, or compressing a video for social media, can result in a false positive or negative. “But those are exactly the circumstances you encounter in the real world, rough and tumble detection,” he says. The free, public-facing tools that most journalists, fact checkers, and civil society members are likely to have access to are also “the ones that are extremely inaccurate, in terms of dealing both with the inequity of who is represented in the training data and of the challenges of dealing with this lower quality material.”

Generative AI is not the only way to create manipulated media. So-called cheapfakes, or media manipulated by adding misleading labels or simply slowing down or editing audio and video, are also very common in the Global South, but can be mistakenly flagged as AI-manipulated by faulty models or untrained researchers.

Diya worries that groups using tools that are more likely to flag content from outside the US and Europe as AI generated could have serious repercussions on a policy level, encouraging legislators to crack down on imaginary problems. “There's a huge risk in terms of inflating those kinds of numbers,” she says. And developing new tools is hardly a matter of pressing a button.

Just like every other form of AI, building, testing, and running a detection model requires access to energy and data centers that are simply not available in much of the world. “If you talk about AI and local solutions here, it's almost impossible without the compute side of things for us to even run any of our models that we are thinking about coming up with,” says Ngamita, who is based in Ghana. Without local alternatives, researchers like Ngamita are left with few options: pay for access to an off the shelf tool like the one offered by Reality Defender, the costs of which can be prohibitive; use inaccurate free tools; or try to get access through an academic institution.

For now, Ngamita says that his team has had to partner with a European university where they can send pieces of content for verification. Ngamita’s team has been compiling a dataset of possible deepfake instances from across the continent, which he says is valuable for academics and researchers who are trying to diversify their models’ datasets.

But sending data to someone else also has its drawbacks. “The lag time is quite significant,” says Diya. “It takes at least a few weeks by the time someone can confidently say that this is AI generated, and by that time, that content, the damage has already been done.”

Gregory says that Witness, which runs its own rapid response detection program, receives a “huge number” of cases. “It’s already challenging to handle those in the time frame that frontline journalists need, and at the volume they’re starting to encounter,” he says.

But Diya says that focusing so much on detection might divert funding and support away from organizations and institutions that make for a more resilient information ecosystem overall. Instead, she says, funding needs to go towards news outlets and civil society organizations that can engender a sense of public trust. “I don't think that's where the money is going,” she says. “I think it is going more into detection.”

[denmark-street]

How Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ reached millions online

By Wednesday night, the letter had become a point of discussion among left-wing creators on the video app, with some saying its critiques of American foreign policy had opened their eyes to a history they’d never learned.

But the letter didn’t rank among TikTok’s top trends. Videos with the #lettertoamerica hashtag had been seen about 2 million times — a relatively low count on a wildly popular app with 150 million accounts in the United States alone.

Then that evening, the journalist Yashar Ali shared a compilation he’d made of the TikTok videos in a post on X, formerly Twitter. That post has been viewed more than 38 million times. By Thursday afternoon, when TikTok announced it had banned the hashtag and dozens of similar variations, TikTok videos tagged #lettertoamerica had gained more than 15 million views.

The letter’s spread sparked a deluge of commentary, with some worrying that TikTok’s users were being radicalized by a terrorist manifesto, and TikTok’s critics arguing it was evidence that the app, owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, had been secretly boosting propaganda to a captive audience of American youth.

But the letter’s spread also reflected the bedeviling realities of modern social media, where young people — many of whom were born after 9/11 — share and receive information on fast-paced smartphone apps designed to make videos go viral, regardless of their content.

It also showed how efforts to suppress such information can backfire. Many of the videos on TikTok were posted after the British newspaper the Guardian, which had hosted a copy of bin Laden’s letter, removed it. Some TikTokers said the removal was proof of the letter’s wisdom and importance, leading them to further amplify it as a result.

“Don’t turn the long-public ravings of a terrorist into forbidden knowledge, something people feel excited to go rediscover,” Renee DiResta, a research manager at the Stanford internet Observatory who has advised Congress on online disinformation, wrote Thursday in a post on Threads. “Let people read the murderer’s demands — this is the man some TikTok fools chose to glorify. Add more context.”

TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek said Thursday that the company was “proactively and aggressively” removing videos promoting the letter for violating the company’s rules on “supporting any form of terrorism” and said it was “investigating” how the videos got onto its platform.

Haurek said that the #lettertoamerica hashtag had been attached to 274 videos that had garnered 1.8 million views on Tuesday and Wednesday, before “the tweets and media coverage drove people to the hashtag.” Other hashtags, for comparison, dwarfed discussion of the letter on the platform: During a recent 24-hour period, #travel videos had 137 million views, #skincare videos had 252 million views and #anime videos had 611 million views, Haurek said.

Ali said he made the compilation video Wednesday after seeing “thousands” of the videos and intentionally left out the “most incendiary examples” because he didn’t want the compilation to be removed from Instagram, where he also posted it.

He agreed the hashtag had never trended on TikTok but disputed the idea that the number of videos posted there had been “small,” saying, “Sure, in the context of a global platform. But not small enough to be minuscule or not important.”

Most of the videos have since been removed by TikTok, making it difficult to get a full tally. But a search for the letter Thursday morning by a Washington Post reporter revealed around 700 TikTok videos, only a few of which got more than 1 million views.

Such high view counts are common on TikTok, where videos are served up in rapid fashion and the average U.S. user watches for more than an hour a day. One viral video last month, in which a young woman discussed the pain of a 9-to-5 job, has more than 3 million views and 280,000 likes.

The videos featured many people saying they’d known little about bin Laden and were questioning what they’d been taught about American involvement around the world. Some said they were “trying to go back to life as normal” after reading it; in one video, a user scrolled through the full letter and said, “We’ve been lied to our entire lives.”

But while many pointed to bin Laden’s comments on the Palestinian issue, few highlighted the letter’s more extreme criticism of Western “immorality and debauchery,” including “acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling and trading with interest.”

Many commenters also criticized giving the letter attention or worked to remind people that bin Laden had preached an antisemitic, sexist ideology that led to thousands of deaths. On the “_monix2” video, one commenter said, “You guys Bin Laden wrote this. Do y’all know what he did. What is wrong with y’all [oh my God. I guess] we’re supporting terrorism these days.” (Attempts to reach the @_monix2 account were unsuccessful.)

Charlie Winter, a specialist in Islamist militant affairs and director of research at the intelligence platform ExTrac, said in an interview Thursday that he was “frankly really quite surprised at the response” to the letter, which he described as “a kind of core doctrinal text” for both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State terrorist group.

In addition to long-standing grievances, the letter contains “blatant language that is clearly calling for acts of genocide … [and] for killing noncombatants in any nation that is democratic and is fighting against a Muslim-majority state,” he said.

“It’s not the letter that is going viral. It’s a selective reading of parts of the letter that’s going viral,” he said. “And I don’t know whether it’s because people aren’t actually reading it or, when they’re reading it, they’re reading the bits that they want to see.”

The letter’s spread online was celebrated Thursday by users on al-Qaeda forums, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online extremism. One user Thursday wrote that Islamist militants should capitalize on the opportunity, saying, “I hope you all are seeing ongoing storm on Social Media. … We should post more and more content.”

Some of the TikTok creators who shared the letter posted follow-up videos saying they did not support terrorism or violence. One of the first TikTok creators to share it, and who spoke to The Post on the condition that her name not be included in the story, said she had encouraged people to read it for “educational purposes.”

She said she did not “condone nor justify” bin Laden’s actions and was “distancing [herself] from this entire situation.” “It’s a sad world if we cannot even read a public document, simply to educate ourselves, without being smeared online,” she said.

TikTok has faced criticism and calls for a nationwide ban due to the popularity of pro-Palestinian videos on the app compared with pro-Israel content, even though Facebook and Instagram show a similar gap. In a video call organized by TikTok on Wednesday, first reported by the New York Times, some Hollywood actors and TikTok creators pushed company executives to do more to crack down on antisemitic content.

But the idea that the “Letter to America” discussion solely began on TikTok is challenged by Google data, which show that search interest in the “bin Laden letter” began gathering last week, days before it became a topic of TikTok conversation.

And TikTok is far from the only place where the letter has been discussed. Though Instagram blocked searches for some hashtags, some videos related to the letter — including those critical of it — remained publicly viewable Thursday on the Meta-owned app.

On Thursday afternoon, searches for “letter to America” on Instagram were still being given a “Popular” tag. One post, a series of screenshots of the letter, had more than 10,000 likes as of Thursday afternoon.

On Thursday, the letter and bin Laden’s name were also “trending topics” on X, the social network owned by Elon Musk. One tweet there from Wednesday — in which the writer said reading the letter was like feeling a “glass wall shatter,” and asks, “Is this what ex cult members feel like when they become self aware” — remained online Thursday, with nearly 3 million views.

The letter — a nearly 4,000-word translation of the al-Qaeda leader’s comments — had been originally posted in Arabic on a Saudi Arabian website used to disseminate al-Qaeda messages. The Guardian originally published an English translation in 2002 alongside a news article that offered more detail on how it had begun circulating among “British Islamic extremists.”

Though the Guardian removed the letter on Wednesday, its replacement, a page called “Removed: document,” had by Thursday become one of the most-viewed stories on the newspaper’s website. Some TikTokers voiced anger at the newspaper for, in the words of one, “actively censoring” information.

A spokesperson for the Guardian said in a statement that the letter had been removed after it was “widely shared on social media without the full context.”

The editors of the Guardian faced a “no-win scenario” once interest in bin Laden’s letter began to grow, Marco Bastos, a senior lecturer in media and communication at City, University of London, said in a phone interview.

“If they don’t take down the content, the content will be leveraged and it will be discussed, potentially shared and is going to go viral — if not out of context, then certainly outside of the scope of the original piece,” Bastos said. “If they take it down, they’re going to be accused, as they are right now, of censorship.”

At the time of publication, the editors “expected that this letter would be read critically, you know, adversarially … that you would process this within the view — or the bias, if you prefer — of the Western side of the events,” Bastos added. “And now it’s being consumed, distributed and shared to push an agenda that’s precisely the opposite of the one that it was originally intended for.”

Winter, the Islamist militant affairs specialist, said he found it “kind of ironic” that the letter was being shared uncritically around the web.

“People who consider themselves to be critical consumers of mainstream media are consuming this very uncritically and not thinking about the context around it,” he said. “Not thinking about everything that happened just over a year before it was published as well, in any meaningful way.”

Bisset reported from London.

[murumokirby360]

My Family's Old Film Camera (from the 90s) [feat. my Paper Dolls]

🟢dA Version [CLICK ME!]🟢

Hello, August! Let's step aside my 2023 problem, for now, and set back to the old memory lane with this careful piece and prize possession memory yet outdated device, shall we? And no, I won't make a full ledge review about this.

My deviation work & 1st to 4th Image(s): ↑

• What you see here is a "Focus-35" 35mm focus-free film camera from the 90s 📷🎞️ (or 2000s?), with the old logo of "Chowking" restaurant [1985 - 1999] (a famous Filipino-Chinese style restaurant [CLICK ME!]). It's a generic film camera that can be used during the aforementioned year, and during my early age, I don't know how to use it except by clicking the buttons pretending that I'm shooting a picture without a film. Yes, I did that back when the 90s; were shined from TV shows, commercials, cheap food, and awesome moments unlike now. No offense, 2023.

• Nonetheless, we usually have 2 or 3 of these, but now there are scrap & and forgotten, but not this one! Thank goodness, we have that in our family's possession, and you can see it is 100% intact from front to back and even the interior. Hmmm... You know, this might be useful if only I have a fresh spare of film cameras, after all, some companies have decided to produce old-style film cameras for the nostalgic hipsters/users who want it over modern style counterparts. But, purchasing a film camera of today could be hard to swallow for my wallet. Although, there are cheap prices, but the image quality could be subpar & and not worth the price tag. *sigh* Maybe someday, my good'ol camera. And did I mention, that we have an older film camera than this generic one? However, I'm not sure where my parents put it. No worries, though, I'll look around & and I'll save it for September. (Just in case, that my PC replacement part is not yet found)

5th to 8th Image(s): ↑

• Right now, I'm still stuck at my mom's laptop, while my paper dolls are having fun with my family's old film cam. Pretending that I'm taking snapshots at them, even though I don't have a real roll-on negative film. But hey, I have camera on my smartphone, duh. hehe 📸📲😅

Well, that's all for now! And the end of my topic.

If you haven't seen my previous topic, then please click down below. ↓

• RIP My GPU Card (7/24/23)

Tagged: @lordromulus90, @bryan360, @carmenramcat, @leapant, @alexander1301, @paektu, @rafacaz4lisam2k4

[alfa-rent-a-car-cluj]

This is Xiaomi SU7 Pro Max

In an era where technology and innovation continue to redefine the boundaries of the industry, the Alfa Rent a Car Cluj Napoca office is here to inform you that Xiaomi, the giant best known for the production of high-quality smartphones, has taken a brave step in the automotive direction. With about a decade of rumors about Apple's possible entry into the automotive segment, here the scenario has changed and Xiaomi has taken the initiative. Launching its first electric car, called the Xiaomi SU7 (pronounced Sue-Qi, where "Qi" in Chinese means seven), the Chinese company aims to compete with big names like Porsche and Tesla. In English, the acronym SU stands for Speed Ultra.

[techqanswerdotin]

Indian company launches strong smartphone for Rs 6,999, Chinese brand will be Dabba Gol

Indian company launches strong smartphone for Rs 6,999, Chinese brand will be Dabba Gol

Highlights MediaTek’s Helio A22 processor has been given in the Lava X3 smartphone. Lava X3 has been launched for Rs 6,999. This Lava phone has 8MP dual rear camera and 5MP selfie camera. Lava has launched its new budget smartphone in India. The latest smartphone from Lava is Lava X3. The Indian Smartphone Market has recently launched two new smartphones in India. Now the company has brought a…

[ultramaga]

While I was walking, a guy crashed on the road nearby. His front wheel came off on an ebike. I helped him home, getting lovely reminders from my back all the ways.

It was the first time I have seen one up close.

It's an electric motorbike, going over 60 kph on the flat without pedalling, and requires no license or rego plates.

Try doing that on a motorcycle and you can go to jail, but the government is pushing these ebikes to replace cars, so they are willing to cut corners.

I had an elderly relative who bought a robot vacuum. It requires a smartphone, which they don't have and could not possibly use, or it stops working.

You have to run the app, which is probably full of spyware. The current Chinese business model is to double bill the customers. You pay up front, then pay with privacy as they harvest your data.

Recently, there was a scandal because it turns out the robot vacuum cleaners are programmed to upload footage of weak points in security, children changing clothes, etc, and by an amazing coincidence, that data is then auctioned off to pedos and thieves.

It would not surprise me if they turned out to have microphones as well, but they definitely can take photos, or at least the model they were talking about could.

Maybe I am just getting old, but it just seems like the world is steadily getting worse.

[quickscaleup]

Best Ecommerce Website Designing Company in Patna

The website design is a really important tool for creating an appealing website that attracts users and customers. These ecommerce website designs represent your product, and what you are selling.

Thus, you need to make sure your website is relevant to the services you’re providing and can make a lasting impression.

Now, being said that, are you looking for some inspiration for your website designs? If yes, you’ve stumbled into the perfect solution, the website designing company in Patna, Quick Scaleup is your one-way stop. 

Ecommerce website designs 

The best ecommerce website design examples are those that can benefit you in boosting your sales and communicating with the brand and products. Some of the ecommerce website examples are the following,

Theseus is an online shoe store that promises customers the best online shopping experience. It has options such as shopping and return policy and even gives the users the opportunity to pay in installments.

Welly is a band aid campaign and website supplying catchy, funky, and aesthetic band aids. Children die for such cute band-aids and it comes with cute packaging too.  

Hebe’s website is mind blowing in terms of beauty. Its photography stands out compared to other websites. The high-quality photos ensure grabbing the customer’s attention and increasing the sales. 

Now, the ecommerce website examples in India are 

Amazon tops the ecommerce website list considering it is one of the country’s best ecommerce players since it rolled out in 2013. It has grown its market by covering everything from groceries to toys to furniture. 

Flipkart comes second on the list, always competing with Amazon in terms of quality and prices. It was founded in 2007, and is now acquired by Walmart. 

Meesho is a social commerce platform wherein the small business or merchants can deal with the users directly showcasing their products. 

Myntra is the one-stop online fashion destination that supplies with all the brands like Mango, H&M, Chemistry, Allen Solly etc. Myntra was acquired by Walmart making it a live commerce site with a lot of Indians depending on the site. 

OLX has products from cars to electronic goods and even real estate. People can buy or sell on this website according to their preferences. 

Snapdeal was a sinking company ready to be acquired by Flipkart in 2017. But, they did the needful surviving the takeover, and now focuses on products for fashion and home and personal care. 

Jio Mart is an online player that launched in 2020. It became known quickly in over 200 cities in India. 

Shopsy is a social commerce platform launched by flipkart. It’s a marketplace selling jewelry, grocery and home goods. 

Realme store is an online shopping site of the chinese smartphone brand realme. It even sells other electronic accessories.  

Mi store is another chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi selling mobile phones and other products. 

FirstCry is India’s shopping platform for baby products such as diapers, tous, cribs etc. Everything that can be termed a baby is being sold by them. 

Top 10 ecommerce websites 

The best ecommerce website design 2023 comprises of the following ecommerce website list and companies like 

Amazon tops as the world's best retailer and website designs. 

Ebay is the best marketplace with all the best features and products available. 

Aliexpress is the site offering the funkiest and catchy products with cheap prices. 

Walmart consists of an unlimited supply of organic products.

Wildberries is a popular Russian site known for clothes and household products. 

Ozon is like Russia’s Amazon, offering all kinds of products. 

Flipkart is an Indian ecommerce site dealing with all products like clothes, furniture, electronic devices. 

Samsung is the world's leader when it comes to electronics.

Etsy is another one of the popular sites specializing in handmade, vintage and unique goods. 

Rakuten is another one of the ecommerce sites dealing with cashback programmes.

The ecommerce website design templates that work well with any kind of website design such as apparel, fashion, jewelry or other ecommerce products. These templates create responsive, flexible and retainable online stores. Following is the list of best ecommerce website templates 

Pillowmart can be used for business purposes.

Capitalshop for fashion and accessories.

Fashi’s templates are available for fashion 

The Coza store is for business and ecommerce. 

eCommerce websites are the people’s go to sites for business and online shopping. People don’t like going around comparing products from shop to shop.

For such individuals, these websites are a piece of heaven.

To make sure that your website designs and products are appealing enough to the customers, you can take help from the website designing company, Quick Scaleup.

They have one of the best services available tailored to your customer’s needs.

[thisislizheather]

Museum of Failure in NYC

“Museum of Failure is a collection of failed products and services from around the world. The majority of all innovation projects fail and the museum showcases these failures to provide visitors a fascinating learning experience. Innovation and progress require an acceptance of failure. The museum aims to stimulate productive discussion about failure and inspire us to take meaningful risks.”

God, I love a fun museum. There’s absolutely nothing better. I went to the Museum of Failure when it opened a few weeks ago in Brooklyn and I can’t recommend it enough. The space it’s displayed in is a bit of a failure in itself (on purpose maybe?), but once you get past that it’s a great way to spend an hour. Some highlights below!

As soon as you enter, there’s the Share Your Failure wall that visitors can contribute to. Best ones I read: not getting divorced, not kissing him, not wearing sunscreen when I was young.

Above Photo: Share Your Failure wall at the Museum of Failure, NYC

Above Photo: If this doesn’t remind you of the Toronto Science Center in the mid 90s, I don’t know what to tell you

Okay, Orbitz was not actually a good drink, but it completely paved the way for bubble tea to take off.

Above Photo: Diet candy AYDS, 1937-1980s

“Why take diet pills when you can enjoy AYDS?" HOW WAS THIS REAL? And how on earth was it successful for decades?? This appetite-suppressant candy was successful with the help of Hollywood celebrities and its popularity peaked in the 1970s. Obviously when the AIDS epidemic emerged in the 1980s the weight-loss product was doomed.

Above Photo: Atari ET Game & Console, 1982-1983

This is basically known as the worst video game of all time and Atari reported a $536 million loss in 1983 because of it. There’s a great documentary about it called Atari: Game Over about the urban legend that unsold copies were buried.

Above Photo: Low blow, museum. Low blow.

Is it funny that there’s a Titanic reference? Absolutely. Horrid, but funny.

Above Photo: Pinky Gloves, 2021

Oh no, these came out in 2021. A male trio of German inventors created gloves to wear when taking out tampons so that women wouldn’t get blood on their hands and have a “discrete way to dispose of the used product.” WOW.

Above Photo: Little Miss No Name, 1965

Firstly, I apologize for introducing this image into your subconscious. I really am. The brand Hasbro designed this unusual doll to be an alternative to the hugely popular Barbie. “In keeping with the climate of the mid-sixties, they wanted to teach little girls compassion and the realities of life for homeless people.”

Above Photo: Trump SECTION at the Museum of Failure, NYC

There’s a whole Trump wing in the museum, which is just *chef’s kiss*.

Above Photo: Spray On Condom, 2006-2008

This German product was supposed to be the solution to the problem of condoms being either too small or too big. Its instructions: “Simply insert penis into an apparatus to coat with melted latex and then wait 3 minutes for the latex to dry.” It failed because the idea of inserting one's penis into the apparatus scared men and the three-minute hardening time proved too long to wait.

Above Photo: Shared Girlfriend, 2017

Developed by Chinese company Taqu Ltd., the Shared Girlfriend service rented sex dolls for $45 a day. They were made of high-quality silicon and dolls were ordered with a smartphone app then delivered to your door. “After each rental, the dolls were disinfected, and the more heavily used and damaged parts were replaced.” ICK.  Amazingly, the service was suspended only four days after its launch due to public outrage.

There were so many other incredible pieces on display (grass skis, the hula chair, the Elon Musk wall), you really should make an afternoon of it and see for yourself. I showed a few videos of the exhibit over on my spring ‘23 highlights on Instagram, if you’re interested in seeing even more. Such a fun time. Tickets available over here.

Now I beg you, world: bring back Pepsi Blue.

[selloldmobile]

Vivo X100 Series Launch in China - Launch Date, Specifications, Pricing & More

Vivo X100 Series Launch in China: Launch Date, Specifications, Pricing & More

Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has begun to hype its upcoming flagship smartphones – the X100 Series. The X100 Series is reportedly set to succeed the Vivo X90 series and will be photography-focused. The X100 Series is expected to come with impressive camera capabilities and large batteries with fast charging, among other features. Interestingly, the new X100 Series smartphones could be powered by the latest flagship processors from both Qualcomm and Mediatek. The X100 Pro, for instance, is rumoured to feature a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 while the X100 Pro+ might have a MediaTek Dimensity 9300.

The X100 Series smartphones are also rumoured to come with periscope zoom lenses for up to 10x optical zoom. In terms of display, the X100 Series smartphones are likely to offer an AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and curved design. The phones may also feature a punch-hole cutout on the front for the selfie camera. In addition to this, the X100 Series smartphones are expected to have large batteries with support for 50W wireless charging.

Vivo X100 Series smartphones are expected to be launched on 13 November in China. The company has confirmed the event on Weibo, China’s microblogging platform. During the event, Vivo will reportedly unveil its new flagship smartphones and vivo Watch 3. The vivo Watch 3 is expected to be the company’s first smartwatch that runs on Blue OS, its custom mobile operating system.

Aside from revealing the launch date of the X100 Series, Vivo has also released an official poster for the smartphones. The posters give us an idea of the design and overall look of the upcoming flagships. The smartphones are also expected to feature an unibody metal construction.

The Vivo X100 Series will be available in two models – the X100 and the X100 Pro. The X100 will be the entry-level model while the X100 Pro is expected to be the premium offering. Both models are expected to be available in multiple colour options. The X100 Pro is also rumoured to feature a dual rear camera setup that includes a 1-inch Sony IMX989 primary sensor, a Samsung JN1 ultra-wide sensor, and an OmniVision OV64B telephoto shooter for a up to 4.3x optical zoom. The X100 series is also rumoured to have a 20MP tele-macro lens for close-up shots.

If you are thinking of getting a new phone, then sell your old Vivo phone now and that too at a good price, search recycledevice.com, sell your phone, hurry up.

[mundagenta]

Knock knock, KaiOS.

The ephemeral taste of innovating nearly obsolete bricks might be reaching its inevitable demise.

Nokia 8110 4G displayed in a kiosk at Mobile World Congress 2018. Image courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns.

Despite the recent boom of feature phone sales over digital minimalism and dopamine detox trends, the future for KaiOS remains bleak as they fail to be consistent with their promises, thus miserably lagging against established giants in the market.

The good start

KaiOS is a partially open-source operating system developed by the Hong Kong-based company, KaiOS Technologies Inc. It was initially released in October 2017 and was forked from Boot 2 Gecko. Their name is from the Chinese for open – 开 (kāi) which “captures the idea of being inclusive.”

In just one year, they have overtaken Apple’s iOS as the second most popular operating system in India, with Android remaining on top, despite losing their 9% market share. In that same timeframe as well, they managed to sell around 450 million devices worldwide. Furthermore, their platform is compatible to WhatsApp, Twitter, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Assistant.

To oversimplify things, KaiOS took the Boot 2 Gecko code (based from FirefoxOS) and modified it to run on hardware similar to that of feature phones and added the KaiOS Store. Other than that, they also implemented recent innovations that are becoming today’s standard, like 4G LTE and 5G, GPS, and Wi-Fi. By doing so, they effectively just created a separate phone segment, which some people call as the quasi-smartphones or smart feature phones.

KaiOS specifically chose the hardware present in their devices for an appealing approach to developing markets, like India and Pakistan, to bridge the digital divide and bring cheaper internet access. They removed the touch screen which they consider as the most costly part of the device, and replaced it with a cheaper T9 keypad input. Additionally, their devices only need 256MB to work and are also compatible with cost-efficient Spreadtrum chipsets.

What went wrong

By doing so, they effectively avoided the mistakes that Mozilla made. They chose a target audience first and offered them a product. They made an operating system out of the web but used that as a tool rather than the end goal, the latter being their approach to the digital divide. But not all products are perfect on their own, as their approach is a double-edged sword.

The T9 keypad meant that the apps had to be optimized to work on such inputs. Likewise, dissimilar to FirefoxOS, not all webpages can run on KaiOS devices due to hardware restraints. Such disadvantages make it an appealing short-term solution while their users save up for better entry-level Android devices.

Platform immaturity

The platform is still quite immature, despite five years since its initial launch. Some users claimed that their devices sometimes cannot receive calls, and crashes on related functions constantly. The battery also does not live up to its expectations and provides a ‘disappointing’ performance. Additionally, the calendar’s sync and date functionality is unstable, the alarm clock doesn’t ring from time to time, and the lack of note-taking, file browsing, multitasking, and wide audio format support. Besides, the platform lacked proper app quality control, bug reports, and feedback system, along with a slew of advertisements. Perhaps, the most lambasted functionality of the platform is the T9 input. Users characterized the input as slow and unreliable, thus ineffective for efficient user interface navigation. The predictive text input, which might sound good, is something they’d rather have disabled due to its restraints such as inaccurate suggestions and buggy input.

Some have mentioned that users may be over-estimating KaiOS and pitching it against smartphone platforms. Then on, we can’t deny that a platform still has to be stable and reliable, albeit hardware-restricted. Some went on to compare the system to its older counterparts such as Nokia’s Series 40, Microsoft’s Lumia, Vodafone’s MobiWire, and Blackberry’s Blackberry 10, which the users characterized as more ‘stable.’

Unfortunately, version 2.5.4 onwards faced a downward trend as certain apps were no longer maintained and supported, due to the decrease of development activity. For instance, the optimized Google and YouTube apps have been pulled out from the app store, around the same time as the update. In version 3, WhatsApp support has already been dropped and new app submissions to the store also plummeted. Google Assistant, the primary tool for users to voice type and issue commands (albeit stripped-down in comparison to Android), also dropped KaiOS support last June 30, 2021. Some users reached out to the company regarding this matter, to which they replied that they are developing an in-house voice assistant alternative. Until now, it is nowhere near worldwide coverage, given the limited devices it was shipped upon.

The company and its partners

Even more worse, the problem rests beyond that. The project development of has been consistent enough until the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the company’s blog statement “the growth was still not like how we achieved in the pre-COVID times, but these numbers and new partnerships are going up and in the right direction in this second year of the pandemic.”

In 2022, the project updates has since then plummeted. There weren’t any major announcements across all their social media platforms, even from the company website. Their Github repositories are no exception as well, as they still haven’t received any commits until now. Their only active repo is the gecko-b2g, which serves as the operating system base.

It is not implicit that their users are complaining about the bugs and speculating on the project’s downfall but it seems that they have no proper public relations and customer support as the company fails to actively respond to these messages.

Nokia

Nokia, or should we say, HMD Global has been a primary partner of KaiOS Technologies over the years. They manufactured the higher-end devices of the platform that were considerably the most popular in KaiOS’ lineup, such as the Nokia 6300 4G, Nokia 2780 Flip, and the Nokia 8110 4G.

Regardless, their approach is somehow vague as enthusiasts are confused over what their target audience is supposed to be, and what were they trying in the first place. Their approach started with the reboot of their classic devices, so it’s safe to assume that their target consumers are the ones who are nostalgic over their retro bricks. HMD, for a matter of fact, might have just been the worst example of a KaiOS partner.

Their devices are the most expensive ones of the platform, almost close to the entry-level Android Go smartphones. HMD Global has also been long criticized over the failure to deliver software updates from KaiOS to their devices, as they provide only about a year of support for these. The users also cannot help to complain over the significant bloatware present in such a limited hardware they provide.

Just recently, HMD Global took a step back from this approach and cherished their barebones Series 30 and Series 30+ platforms once again. Their last KaiOS device is the 2780 Flip from November 2022 and was then on followed by a series of Android Go and dumbphones from their C and 1xx series. In a reply to a user inquiry, they reportedly blamed KaiOS as the Google Assistant support for the platform was dropped.

Alcatel and TCL

Alcatel and TCL are also major partners of KaiOS. In fact, TCL Corporation is the largest shareholder of KaiOS Technologies. Both of them are popular for their Go Flip line. Despite the successes of Go Flip 1, 2, 3, and V, they didn’t get to experience the luxury of getting updated to the latest version of the OS, unlike the Go Flip 4. A user reached out to the company, to which they replied that they are still planning to serve these said updates to such devices, although there is still no update to talk of until now. 

Unfortunately, similar to HMD Global, they seem to be diverging away from the platform as recent releases from both manufacturers are focused on midrange to high-end Android devices, as well as the Tab series of TCL.

Jio

The Indian telecommunications company, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited is the catalyst of KaiOS’ takeover against Apple in the country, all thanks to their aggressive marketing approach. They offered the competitively priced JioPhone for free to their users who are subscribed to their data plans.

Unluckily, even Jio is also straying away from KaiOS. There have been rumors that the JioPhone and the JioPhone 2 have been discontinued, as they are no longer sold. They last received the version 0258 update back on May 22, 2021, and clearly missed version 3.0 by a long shot. On June 24, 2021, Reliance Jio announced the JioPhone Next, a budget Android Go smartphone made in collaboration with Google. Recently this year, they partnered with Karbonn to release the Jio Bharat K1 Karbonn and V2 to provide access to UPI payments, Jio ecosystem, and cheaper 4G to the rural areas of India that remain untapped by recent advancements in technology.

What happened?

Fast forward to August 2023, users speculate that the project has already died out due to lack of activity and stagnation since the release of 3.0. Their company's social media platforms are inactive, except for the usual, seemingly AI-generated content every national holiday across countries. On the other hand, KaiOS Technologies partnered with the cybersecurity firm Trustonic to expand their device affordability efforts in Africa. There have also been infrequent new device releases for the platform, such as the AT&T Cingular Flex in February, Cricket Debut Flex in June, and Logan Technology’s Panita this August. Truth be told, I find this section rather short and lacking. Unfortunately, I could say the same for the company’s recent efforts. Nonetheless, I hope that things eventually get better. As users worldwide expected a reliable feature phone platform, all these issues contributed to a downward trend of interest for KaiOS. It seems that they might end up like FirefoxOS, failing to keep up and desolate in the past. Whether they wake up to innovate again, or continue dormant and inevitably die out is up for them to decide.

For now, one thing’s for sure, if they fail to address these issues, they’ll be no better than the obsolete bricks of the bygone era.