If you liked A Star Is Born, you’ll love A Star Is Korn. Probably.
The stunningly funny parody trailer is a lot like that of the hit film starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, except it focuses on the musical rise of Jonathan Davis, lead vocalist of the metal band Korn. Lmao.
We can see how A Star Is Korn might not sound like a trailer everyone wants to see, but stick with it until 1:11 at least. Trust us.
Comedians @badcomixbyanna and @HhiggZ — who star as Bradley Cooper and Jonathan Davis — were sadly snubbed by the Oscars on Sunday. But hey, maybe Korn will see this comedic masterpiece and show them some love.
Defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons (Mississippi State) tore his ACL
Safety Deionte Thompson (Alabama) had wrist surgery
Potential top-15 pick Marquise Brown had Lisfranc surgery
Senior Bowl tape review shook up the rankings
Now, in the final pre-NFL Scouting Combine draft board update, there is information coming in daily that will cause ripple effects throughout the rankings.
What will the combine do to the board when it starts Tuesday in Indianapolis? Hopefully, not much.
The drills at the combine should theoretically be used as tiebreakers or to confirm what was seen during game-tape evaluation. We know Kyler Murray is fast; a 40-yard-dash time won’t change that. We know Devin White, the linebacker from LSU, is incredibly agile; a great three-cone time won’t shoot him up the board.
Instead, I will be watching drills to look at technique, paying attention to official measurements and using drills as positional tiebreakers. Where there is a logjam at wide receiver, the combine can help break down those tiers and start to let a top player emerge. That’s what I’ll be watching this week. Here are the top players at each position you can watch too.
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Joe Robbins/Getty Images
1. Nick Bosa, EDGE, Ohio State
2. Quinnen Williams, DL, Alabama
3. Josh Allen, EDGE, Kentucky
4. Rashan Gary, DL, Michigan
5. Josh Jacobs, RB, Alabama
6. Devin White, LB, LSU
7. Jeffery Simmons, DL, Mississippi State
8. Ed Oliver, DL, Houston
9. Jonah Williams, OL, Alabama
10. T.J. Hockenson, TE, Iowa
11. Clelin Ferrell, EDGE, Clemson
12. Montez Sweat, EDGE, Mississippi State
13. Dwayne Haskins, QB, Ohio State
14. Kyler Murray, QB, Oklahoma
15. A.J. Brown, WR, Ole Miss
16. Brian Burns, EDGE, Florida State
17. Jawaan Taylor, OT, Florida
18. Taylor Rapp, S, Washington
19. Jachai Polite, EDGE, Florida
20. Christian Wilkins, DL, Clemson
21. Andre Dillard, OT, Washington State
22. Byron Murphy, CB, Washington
23. Devin Bush, LB, Michigan
24. Greedy Williams, CB, LSU
25. Cody Ford, OG, Oklahoma
26. Johnathan Abram, S, Mississippi State
27. Deandre Baker, CB, Georgia
28. Trayvon Mullen, CB, Clemson
29. Drew Lock, QB, Missouri
30. Irv Smith Jr., TE, Alabama
31. Noah Fant, TE, Iowa
32. D.K. Metcalf, WR, Ole Miss
33. Marquise Brown, WR, Oklahoma
34. Daniel Jones, QB, Duke
35. Jaylon Ferguson, EDGE, Louisiana Tech
36. Deionte Thompson, S, Alabama
37. Nasir Adderley, S, Delaware
38. Rock Ya-Sin, CB, Temple
39. Oshane Ximines, EDGE, Old Dominion
40. Devin Singletary, RB, Florida Atlantic
41. Jerry Tillery, DL, Notre Dame
42. Elgton Jenkins, OC, Mississippi State
43. Mack Wilson, LB, Alabama
44. David Montgomery, RB, Iowa State
45. N’Keal Harry, WR, Arizona State
46. Hakeem Butler, WR, Iowa State
47. Greg Little, OT, Ole Miss
48. Dre’Mont Jones, DL, Ohio State
49. Riley Ridley, WR, Georgia
50. Sean Bunting, CB, Central Michigan
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Alika Jenner/Getty Images
Biggest Riser:Drew Lock, Missouri
Biggest Faller: Will Grier, West Virginia
Most NFL-Ready:Dwayne Haskins, Ohio State
Best Arm:Lock
Best Runner:Kyler Murray, Oklahoma
Best Potential: Murray
Biggest Question Mark: Murray
Biggest Sleeper: Jarrett Stidham, Auburn
1. Dwayne Haskins, Ohio State
2. Kyler Murray, Oklahoma
3. Drew Lock, Missouri
4. Daniel Jones, Duke
5. Jarrett Stidham, Auburn
6. Will Grier, West Virginia
7. Clayton Thorson, Northwestern
8. Tyree Jackson, Buffalo
9. Ryan Finley, NC State
10. Brett Rypien, Boise State
11. Gardner Minshew II, Washington State
12. Easton Stick, North Dakota State
13. Jordan Ta’amu, Ole Miss
14. Trace McSorley, Penn State
15. Kyle Shurmur, Vanderbilt
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Jamie Schwaberow/Getty Images
Biggest Riser:Josh Jacobs, Alabama
Biggest Faller: Benny Snell Jr., Kentucky
Most NFL-Ready:Jacobs
Best Third-Down Back: Trayveon Williams, Texas A&M
Best Speed: Darrell Henderson, Memphis
Best Power:David Montgomery, Iowa State
Best Potential: Rodney Anderson, Oklahoma
Biggest Question Mark: Anderson
Biggest Sleeper: Mike Weber, Ohio State
1. Josh Jacobs, Alabama
2. Devin Singletary, Florida Atlantic
3. David Montgomery, Iowa State
4. Damien Harris, Alabama
5. Elijah Holyfield, Georgia
6. Darrell Henderson, Memphis
7. Justice Hill, Oklahoma State
8. Trayveon Williams, Texas A&M
9. Dexter Williams, Notre Dame
10. Ryquell Armstead, Temple
11. Mike Weber, Ohio State
12. Miles Sanders, Penn State
13. Rodney Anderson, Oklahoma
14. Bryce Love, Stanford
15. Alexander Mattison, Boise State
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Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Biggest Riser: A.J. Brown, Ole Miss
Biggest Faller:Hakeem Butler, Iowa State
Most NFL-Ready: Preston Williams, Colorado State
Best Outside Receiver: Williams
Best Slot Receiver:Brown, Ole Miss
Best Hands: N’Keal Harry, Arizona State
Best Route-Runner: Riley Ridley, Georgia
Best Potential: D.K. Metcalf, Ole Miss
Biggest Question Mark: Williams, Colorado State
Biggest Sleeper: Anthony Johnson, Buffalo
1. A.J. Brown, Ole Miss
2. D.K. Metcalf, Ole Miss
3. Marquise Brown, Oklahoma
4. N’Keal Harry, Arizona State
5. Hakeem Butler, Iowa State
6. Riley Ridley, Georgia
7. Kelvin Harmon, NC State
8. Deebo Samuel, South Carolina
9. Parris Campbell, Ohio State
10. Mecole Hardman, Georgia
11. J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, Stanford
12. Anthony Johnson, Buffalo
13. David Sills V, West Virginia
14. Dillon Mitchell, Oregon
15. Preston Williams, Colorado State
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Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Biggest Riser: T.J. Hockenson, Iowa
Biggest Faller:Caleb Wilson, UCLA
Most NFL-Ready: Hockenson
Best Slot Tight End: Noah Fant, Iowa
Best Hands: Hockenson
Best Route-Runner:Irv Smith Jr., Alabama
Best Blocker: Hockenson
Best Power: Hockenson
Biggest Question Mark: Keenen Brown, Texas State
Biggest Sleeper:Isaac Nauta, Georgia
1. T.J. Hockenson, Iowa
2. Irv Smith Jr., Alabama
3. Noah Fant, Iowa
4. Dawson Knox, Ole Miss
5. Kaden Smith, Stanford
6. Isaac Nauta, Georgia
7. Kahale Warring, San Diego State
8. Caleb Wilson, UCLA
9. Zach Gentry, Michigan
10. C.J. Conrad, Kentucky
11. Jace Sternberger, Texas A&M
12. Josh Oliver, San Jose State
13. Drew Sample, Washington
14. Trevon Wesco, West Virginia
15. Keenen Brown, Texas State
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Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Biggest Riser: Jawaan Taylor, Florida
Biggest Faller:David Edwards, Wisconsin
Most NFL-Ready:Jonah Williams, Alabama
Best Run-Blocker: Taylor
Best Pass-Blocker:Williams
Best Potential: Andre Dillard, Washington State
Biggest Question Mark: Tyler Roemer, San Diego State
Biggest Sleeper: Bobby Evans, Oklahoma
1. Jonah Williams, Alabama
2. Jawaan Taylor, Florida
3. Andre Dillard, Washington State
4. Greg Little, Ole Miss
5. Dalton Risner, Kansas State
6. Yodny Cajuste, West Virginia
7. Tytus Howard, Alabama State
8. David Edwards, Wisconsin
9. Bobby Evans, Oklahoma
10. Max Scharping, Northern Illinois
11. Dennis Daley, South Carolina
12. Isaiah Prince, Ohio State
13. Tyler Roemer, San Diego State
14. Kaleb McGary, Washington
15. Chuma Edoga, USC
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Mark Brown/Getty Images
Biggest Riser: Cody Ford, Oklahoma
Biggest Faller: Connor McGovern, Penn State
Most NFL-Ready: Ford
Best Run-Blocker: Ford
Best Pass-Blocker: Chris Lindstrom, Boston College
Best Potential: Ford
Biggest Question Mark: Lindstrom
Biggest Sleeper: Dru Samia, Oklahoma
1. Cody Ford, Oklahoma
2. Chris Lindstrom, Boston College
3. Connor McGovern, Penn State
4. Michael Deiter, Wisconsin
5. Michael Jordan, Ohio State
6. Beau Benzschawel, Wisconsin
7. Ben Powers, Oklahoma
8. Nate Herbig, Stanford
9. Ryan Bates, Penn State
10. Dru Samia, Oklahoma
11. Deion Calhoun, Mississippi State
12. Zack Bailey, South Carolina
13. Hjalte Froholdt, Arkansas
14. Nate Davis, UNC Charlotte
15. Javon Patterson, Ole Miss
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Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Biggest Riser:Erik McCoy, Texas A&M
Biggest Faller:Alec Eberle, Florida State
Most NFL-Ready: Elgton Jenkins, Mississippi State
Best Run-Blocker:McCoy
Best Pass-Blocker: Jenkins
Best Potential:Jenkins
Biggest Question Mark: Nick Linder, Indiana
Biggest Sleeper: Keegan Render, Iowa
1. Elgton Jenkins, Mississippi State
2. Garrett Bradbury, NC State
3. Erik McCoy, Texas A&M
4. Ross Pierschbacher, Alabama
5. Lamont Gaillard, Georgia
6. Keegan Render, Iowa
7. Alec Eberle, Florida State
8. Jon Baker, Boston College
9. Jesse Burkett, Stanford
10. Nick Linder, Indiana
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Jamie Schwaberow/Getty Images
Biggest Riser: Christian Wilkins, Clemson
Biggest Faller:Dexter Lawrence, Clemson
Most NFL-Ready: Quinnen Williams, Alabama
Best Run-Stopper: Lawrence
Best Pass-Rusher: Ed Oliver, Houston
Best Potential: Rashan Gary, Michigan
Biggest Question Mark: Jeffery Simmons, Mississippi State
I didn’t really fit into the world I was born into. Everything that came so naturally to my older sisters seemed impossible for me, the quiet one who always came across as a fish out of water.
Most of girlhood was spent wishing to be part of another world — a world where my body felt less awkward, where what I liked wasn’t considered weird, where people weren’t so overwhelming, where I didn’t always say and do the wrong thing, where adventures made me brave.
I found that world, but only in an underwater kingdom I created from my own imagination whenever I swam to the bottom of the ocean.
As a kid growing up in Brazil, I’d wrap my legs together tightly before diving under, so the shadow cast on the sandy rocks below gave me a finned tail. After transforming into a mermaid, I stopped being the shy girl with an ill-fitting body and personality. I became a force of nature, braving the boundless unknowns of the open water, flipping through forests of seaweed with only stray fish for company.
It’s no wonder why my Disney princess was and always will be Ariel.
Like me, she was the youngest of King Triton’s perfect princess daughters, the oddball problem child who wasn’t winning any popularity contests. She was even as voiceless as me, though her inability to speak was a sea witch’s curse instead of a spell cast by crippling social anxiety. The classic Little Mermaid song ‘Part of your world’ is, after all, an anthem for all those with an overwhelming need to belong.
Decades later, I see now how pretending to be Ariel gave me permission to want something more — a magical place where a fish out of water is loved, seen, understood. But on The Little Mermaid’s 30th anniversary, with the hindsight of today’s social progress, it’s embarrassing to admit just how much our Disney princesses meant to us as girls.
We’re grown-ass women in 2019. It’s silly if not downright socially irresponsible to lose ourselves to the princess fantasies we now recognize as problematic. I mean, how do I reconcile feminist beliefs with idolizing a protagonist who gives up her voice, family, species, and agency to marry some hot guy she saw once?
Yet when Disney offered to teach me how to swim like Ariel at a Santa Monica hotel pool, I forgot all about outgrowing girlish dreams. And floating in a blue-and-green sequined tail and seashell top, I tried to reconcile with the conflict at the heart of wanting to be my problematic fav.
I won’t lie: The reality of becoming an IRL mermaid is less idyllic than the fantasy. Mermaiding is tough work, despite appearances.
Following a makeup session (with lots of “sealing” to ensure I didn’t become Ursula the Sea Witch), I was wrestled into my fin. Trying to maneuver with it on land was an immersive experience, to say the least. I was awkwardly wheeled in a cart to the heated pool like a beached whale.
Once in the water though, I was instantaneously transported back to the underwater kingdom of my childhood. The chill of Los Angeles’ atypically frigid weather last week melted away as that familiar sense of belonging warmed me all over.
My finstructor Virginia first advised me on the basic mermaid stroke: the dolphin kick, an athletic yet delicate move that requires a simultaneously fluid and controlled motion. Mermaids are serene, Virginia reminded me, their poses languid and playful.
There was the unfortunate hurdle of breath, though. Mermaids don’t need air, but I had to release all oxygen before my body could even sink low enough. My tail, while obviously superior to the plain, old human legs I used as a kid, acted at times like an unhelpful flotation device.
In truth, though, the small annoyances were nothing compared to the sensation of unfettered freedom as I swam, body weightless and powerful all at once.
Where I was born in Bahia, Brazil, the ocean is inextricably linked to womanly power. In the pantheon of Afro-Brazilian gods (or orixhas), the sea goddess Iemanjá reigns over all like Zeus reigns over the Greeks. On New Year’s Eve, Brazilians honor her by wearing white and leaving offerings on the beach like flowers, mirrors, candles, and seashells.
In myths about women of the sea, their femininity becomes a force of nature to be reckoned with. Iemanjá’s waves give life, as much as they take it away. Mermaids (or sirens) in other cultures are seductive ideals of femininity — luring sailors to their deaths. The story of The Little Mermaid might be a patriarchal, Disney-fied adaptation of these legends, but the pull of that particular empowerment fantasy is far more ancient.
Throughout my all-too-brief hour of mermaid metamorphosis, I realized something. I’m a 26-year-old woman still playing pretend in an imaginary kingdom with imaginary fish friends. And I’m proud that I’ll never outgrow the dream of being Ariel.
In the past (and still even now), girls have had no choice but to subsist on media made for them by men unwittingly pedaling idealized male conceits of our fantasies. Part of me continues to feel cheated by that. But a bigger part of me rejects the notion that we should feel any shame over the icons who defined our girlhood.
Despite how disempowering fairytale princesses can often be, many of us made their stories our own. From within the confines of male-created girlhood media, we carved out spaces for our actual wants, desires, and power fantasies.
As a whole, Ariel’s story didn’t age very well. But the reasons why we idolized her are more timeless than any of that.
What draws little girls to Disney princesses usually has very little to do with the handsome prince at the end. The sheer popularity of Frozen’s Elsa and Anna prove that, especially when contrasted with how those same super fans couldn’t care less about Kristoff.
My desire to be Ariel was almost in spite of her cardboard cutout of a prince whose name I can’t even remember. The real fantasy was being part of a world where I was free of the pressures every girl faces growing up in a patriarchal society.
At mermaid school, gliding weightlessly through the water, I allowed myself to return to that magical place that once felt so potent.
My mom used to call me peixinha, her little fish. Because while my older princess-perfect sisters would tan on the sand, she would watch me dive nonstop for hours upon hours, a golden head in the waves occasionally resurfacing for air before diving right back under.
My grandma claimed that at three years old, I nearly gave her a heart attack when she took her eyes off me for a single second by a pool once, and heard a splash. I’d jumped in and, legend has it, was already doggy paddling into the deep end before she could even reach me.
On land, I was never very good at being the little girl I was supposed to be: obedient, gracious, and charming (despite my best interest). So I made my own world instead, where I reigned as a different kind of princess: wild and fearless and unfettered.
In my underwater kingdom, I didn’t have to listen to the voices in my head telling me how I was supposed to act. At the bottom of the ocean, all the overwhelming noise from the surface world above went quiet, and I could finally hear my own voice.
Big and empty, the seabed became a canvas on which I could paint the universe that had been living inside me but was impossible to articulate at home. I began to accept who I was and what I wanted when no one else was around.
We will always need to look back at the formative stories of girlhood and imagine a better world. But in our haste to usher in this progress, we’ve inadvertently developed a belittling disdain for the Disney princesses we loved — rejecting what they meant to us instead of just what they tell us about what’s wrong with society.
But loving those princess fantasies doesn’t make you a bad feminist. Especially since, for better or and worse, those same princesses helped shape us into the women we are now.
Today’s Disney princesses are like Black Panther’s Suri, technological super-genius warriors. The girls who will build themselves on those princess fantasies can grow into unimaginably powerful women. But that doesn’t invalidate the princesses who came before them, and the women who grew up with them only to realize that we all deserved better.
There’s no shame in dreaming along with Ariel to be part of their world. But what’s more powerful is showing others what it’s like to be part of ours.
You can catch the The Little Mermaid on Walt Disney Signature Collection Digital and Blu-ray, out Feb. 26, 2019.
London, United Kingdom – Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Monday the Labour Party is ready to back calls for a second Brexit referendum to “prevent a damaging Tory Brexit being forced on the country”.
This marks a shift in Labour’s Brexit stance, which has been ambiguous in its support for a second referendum for fear of alienating the minority of Labour constituencies that voted to leave, particularly in the north of England.
The move was welcomed by some MPs who want Britain to remain in the European Union. It will also be seen as good news by Labour supporters who have been campaigning for a “people’s vote” while growing disillusioned with what they see as the party’s feeble handling of Brexit.
Nearly 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.
What did Corbyn say?
The Labour leader said the party would “put forward or back” an amendment supporting a people’s vote should parliament fail to pass Labour’s alternative plan, which will be put to a vote in the House of Commons this week.The plan is likely to be defeated.
Why the shift?
Corbyn is trying to hold his party together.
Nine Labour MPs have defected over the party’s Brexit policy as well as alleged anti-Semitism. Eight joined a newly-formed Independent Group comprising both Labour and Conservative MPs. The group, which is opposed to leaving the EU without a deal and backs a second referendum, met for the first time on Monday.
Corbyn’s move came as Prime Minister Theresa May announced yet another deferral on a “meaningful vote” on her Brexit deal. It was due for this week and is now scheduled to take place by March 12 – just two weeks before the UK is due to leave the EU.
To stem a rebellion within her party, May is also likely to promise MPs who are eager to rule out a no deal that they will have the chance to vote for a two-month extension of Article 50 in a fortnight, should she fail to reach a deal by then.
Meanwhile, the EU, which has been firm in its refusal to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement, signalled it is also eager to avoid a no deal, with European Council President Donald Tusk saying on Monday that “an extension would be a rational solution” in light of the current situation.
Labour MP Ben Bradshaw warned last week that the trickle of defecting MPs could “become a flood” if Corbyn failed to deliver on the party’s conference policy for a second Brexit referendum.
What was Labour’s Brexit stance before?
At the party’s annual conference last autumn, Labour agreed to campaign for a people’s vote should it fail to secure a general election.
But Corbyn lost his bid to remove May from power after the prime minister won a no-confidence vote, just a day after a resounding defeat on her Brexit deal in January.
As the prime minister headed back to Brussels with a parliamentary mandate to renegotiate the agreement, Corbyn put forward Labour’s five demands for Brexit.
These would keep the UK more closely bound to the EU than May’s deal. They include a permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union, close alignment with the single market and on rights and protections, participation in EU agencies and funding programmes, and more guarantees on security arrangements.
The Labour leader will put his Brexit plan to parliament this week by tabling an amendment to the PM’s Brexit motion. The party also said it would support a proposal to delay Brexit if the prime minister can’t get her deal approved by March 13.
The round of voting on March 12 is also when a possible referendum amendment is expected to be put forward.
Will there be a second referendum, and what would Britons be voting on?
In a briefing to its MPs on Monday, Labour said the options for a new referendum should allow voters to choose between a credible leave deal or remain.
The party would not support no deal as an option. However, these would ultimately have to be decided by parliament.
But even if Labour backs a second referendum, it is not clear that there is a parliament majority. There are more Labour MPs opposed to it, compared with Conservatives who support it. The Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Liberal Democrats would support a second vote.
Any plan for another referendum would require an official request to the EU to extend negotiations to make time for it to be organised – something the EU is likely to grant.
But the shift could also push the hard Brexiteer, eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party towards voting for May’s deal, fearing that a long delay and the prospect of a new vote could mean reversing the result of the 2016 referendum.
In short, it doesn’t mean that a referendum is actually going to happen.
“Both politically and procedurally, the conditions that apply make it unlikely that [a second referendum] is going to go through the House of Commons,” John Curtice, a politics professor at Strathclyde University and Senior Research Fellow at NatCen Social Research, told Al Jazeera.
“If you have to get this through the House you have to make it more attractive to leave voters, and Labour have done the opposite,” Curtice added.
Jimmy Fallon just celebrated five years of hosting The Tonight Show with an episode like no other.
The anniversary special, featuring celebrity guests Tina Fey, Ben Stiller, and Australian TV personality Robert Irwin – all being really, really mean to Fallon – was more like an darkly funny episode of sitcom than the regular upbeat talk show. Per Esquire, the whole episode was in fact an homage to the ’90s sitcomThe Larry Sanders Show.
The Larry Sanders Show, starring comedian Garry Shandling, centred around the behind-the-scenes operations of a talk show, and was in fact inspired by The Late Show in the years when Johnny Carson hosted the talk show.
Fallon’s five year anniversary episode gave viewers a staged look at the behind the scenes of the show, and featured some seriously funny and very passive aggressive celebrity interviews. All centred around Fallon as the talk show host with the big ego that his entire crew talks badly about behind his back.
The whole thing started with Fallon running into guests Ben Stiller and Tina Fey before the show, finding them both in a very, very bad mood.
Then, as Fallon delivered his anniversary monologue, his crew and writers room talked delivered snarky comments.
Ben Stiller then showed up to deliver his surprise appearance as Tonight Show mascot Hashtag the Panda, all while being very… unenthusiastic.
Fallon was then joined by a very angry Tina Fey, who just couldn’t stop muttering insults under her breath like “maybe if you weren’t popping so many pills you’d have a better sense of yourself,” and “Trump got elected because of you.”
Next, Fallon himself was the one to lose his temper, as he blamed “animal boy” Robert Irwin for causing a massive cockroach infestation of the studio, before panicking when he realised that he had been scolding a minor on a hot mic.
The writers room then played a prank on Fallon when he had to do the intro for Spanish language network Telemundo. The writers had Fallon, who doesn’t speak Spanish, say “I pretend to speak your language, though in truth I only know the song “Despacito.””
A conflict then broke out, when Fallon denied the musical guests, Florida Georgia Line, a couch interview.
Finally, the last celebrity guest Robert De Niro, had to storm out of the studio when he encountered the aforementioned cockroaches.
But while every tech company is now rushing to release their own foldable device this year to compete with the Mate X and Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, TCL, which you may know for its excellent TVs sold at bargain prices, is taking a wait-and-see approach.
Rather than spring a half-baked foldable device on consumers, the company’s spending more time exploring new form factors a flexible display could enable, like a phone that bends in half like a stack of cash.
First, there’s the hinge. How do you make a hinge that looks good and doesn’t fail after repeated folding and unfolding? Similar to screen technologies, every company is developing its own proprietary hinge.
Second, there’s the crease. Almost all foldable phones I’ve seen have a visible crease running down the display where it’s folded. The crease is ugly and distracting. It’s a visual reminder that the device you’re holding in your hands is essentially a first-gen product that’s not quite perfected yet.
And third, there’s the design. Does a device unfold to reveal a larger screen on the inside like the Galaxy Fold? Or does it unfold to reveal a larger display on the outside like the Mate X?
With so many unknowns, it’s clear as day foldable phones are an ongoing work-in-progress and will be for the near future.
TCL’s concept foldable devices at MWC 2019.
Image: Raymond wong/mashable
These challenges are precisely why TCL’s waiting before it releases its own foldable device(s). What if Samsung and Huawei are completely wrong with their approaches and foldable devices end up becoming a fad much quicker because they were rushed out before they were ready?
At Mobile World Congress, TCL previewed several foldable devices it’s exploring, but was quick to remind people they’re all concepts and prototypes.
One of the prototype devices uses the company’s proprietary “DragonHinge” mechanism to fold and unfold the screen. The device was less of a phone and more like a small paperback that folded open into a tablet.
TCL’s concept foldable display still needs a lot of work.
Image: raymond wong/mashable
The device had a 7.2-inch AMOLED screen with 2,048 x 1,536 resolution, and while cool-looking (like all foldable devices at MWC), I could see the screen had issues with maintaining a consistent picture, especially at the crease. The outside of the screen used LEDs to display the time.
Another concept device on display was a phone with the DragonHinge and folded in half like you would do with a stack of cash. Though not functional, the foldable phone gives us an idea of what it would be like to use a foldable display to make phones more compact.
This concept device uses TCL’s DragonHinge mechanism to fold a phone in half to make it more compact.
Image: Raymond wong/mashable
I’m not sure how well this would fit in your pocket, but it’s still interesting nonetheless.
That gap is not pretty, tho.
Image: raymond wong/mashable
If TCL ever launches a device like this, it’d capture attention for sure.
Looks cool.
Image: raymond wong/mashable
Huawei and Samsung are trying to convince people they’ve figured foldable phones out. But that’s not true at all. There’s still a ways to go before anyone nails the form factor. And by the looks of it, we’re nowhere close to even seeing what flexible and foldable screens will enable.
So many concepts.
Image: raymond wong/mashable
Just look at all the concepts TCL’s exploring. The battle for foldable phone supremacy is only beginning.
Conventional wisdom says Trump sluiced through the fractious late 1960s relatively unmoved, shirt-and-tie focused on the family’s real estate business and trying to turn his father’s wealth into some of his own. Even now, at the start of his third year as president, and heading to Hanoi for his second summit with North Korean despot Kim Jong Un, conversations about Trump and Vietnam typically start and finish with how he skirted getting drafted, or what he said about John McCain, or perhaps his habit of likening his sexual promiscuity to the dangers of combat.
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But over the years, as the United States as a whole struggled to move on from the psychological trauma of his generation’s signature conflict, Trump did not let go of Vietnam. In his invocations of the place, the war and its resonance as a fissure in modern American history, Trump has mined a rich and useful vein, presenting himself variously as charitable, virile, lucky and tough. But more than even that, Trump has deployed Vietnam as a bedrock tenet of his rudimentary worldview: We don’t win anymore.
“Weakness,” Tony Schwartz, who spent hundreds of hours with Trump while writing the words for The Art of the Deal, told me, “is Trump’s greatest fear.” As such, in the estimation of Schwartz, the takeaway of the war in Vietnam was viscerally unsettling, “his worst fear writ large—that the enemy, with far less money and resources, would figure out a way to outwit the Goliath.” In this telling, the Goliath is the U.S., but Trump himself, too—and the humbling retreat in 1975 was not only a national wound, Schwartz suggested, but a personal affront. And over time he has turned that grievance into an appeal that clicked with a constituency that shared his frustration. “He is always trolling for sore spots, unresolved issues, places to egg on grudges and resentments,” biographer Gwenda Blair told me, “and Vietnam is no exception.”
Trump graduated from college at the utter apex of the war. The day of his 1968 commencement at the Wharton business school, at the University of Pennsylvania, 40 American soldiers were killed. That year would become the bloodiest of the war. More than half a million of his peers were fighting in Vietnam. Trump, 22, fit and strong, didn’t join them. He “wasn’t a fan of the Vietnam War,” and he also “wasn’t a marcher,” he hassaid. “I had other things to do.” He has often cited the fortune of a high draft lottery number, but that’s not the reason he didn’t go; the lottery didn’t even begin until December 1969. Trump didn’t go, like many men his age, because of four education deferments—and then, more consequentially, a medical deferment in the fall of ‘68 due to a since–much–discussed set of heel spurs. In any event, while a Princeton-educated lieutenant named Robert Swan Mueller III was leading a platoon of Marines in the thick of searing combat, Trump was back in his father’s office in Brooklyn, collecting rent and planning his move to Manhattan.
“Trump was AWOL from the Vietnam generation. He didn’t protest in the streets of America or go to Southeast Asia,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told me. This, however, Brinkley quickly added, did not mean Trump was unaware of what was happening. The country seemed to be cleaving into two, and President Richard Nixon remained popular at the time, and those two things were not unrelated. Trump is not a conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan, said Brinkley, assessing his most important political influences. “He’s a Nixonian culture wars guy.”
And Vietnam, the war, its veterans and what citizens of this country thought of them or did or didn’t do for them became the crucible of those culture wars.
In the middle of the 1980s, in the wake of the career-making opening of Trump Tower, Trump co-chaired the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission and gave his time (albeit sporadically, somesaid) and money ($1 million) in the effort to build the city’s memorial along the East River. “I was a very strong opponent of the Vietnam War,” he told the Times at the dedication in May of 1985, “but I also recognized that the people who went to fight were great Americans. I always thought they got a bad shake in life and never got their just recognition.”
A decade later, though, on the Howard Stern Show, Trump compared that service and sacrifice with his post-divorces dating capers.
“Dating is like being in Vietnam,” he said in 1993.
The danger of dating, he said in 1997, was the possibility of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. “My own personal Vietnam,” he explained. “I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”
Two years after that, when he was talking about running for president as a Reform Party candidate, Trump for the first time was asked about Vietnam in a specifically political context.
“Did you serve in the military,” Tim Russert asked him on “Meet the Press” in October of 1999.
“I did not.”
“What reason?”
“Well, I got very lucky. We had lottery numbers, and I guess this was my biggest factor of luck in my life …”
“The Vietnam War build-up in 1965,” Chris Matthews said to Trump the following month on MSNBC. “Would you have done that?”
His blunt response in retrospect was an initial glimpse at two of the animating themes of his zero-sum foreign policy. Brawn. With a strain of isolationism. “Vietnam was a disaster,” Trump told Matthews. “It was too far away. It didn’t affect us. I guess if you do it, you have to go to win. We didn’t go to win. But I think Vietnam would have been a good place for us to stay out of.”
In 2005 and ’06, enjoying his spiking, Apprentice-amped celebrity and talking again to shock jocks instead of political pundits, Trump commented on America’s growing crisis in Iraq with additional references to Vietnam.
“Remember in Vietnam when we used to say, there used to be a certain group that would say, ‘Declare victory and leave’?” Trump told Don Imus. “Well, that sounds like one here—‘declare victory and leave,’” he said, advocating essentially for the military version of a familiarTrumptactic.
“Iraq is the biggest disaster ever,” he said to Stern.
“Disaster?” Stern said.
“It’s making Vietnam look like a good war,” Trump said.
Finally, in 2008, in what now feels like a frivolous interlude, Miss Universe, which Trump at the time co-owned with NBC, held its annual pageant in Nha Trang, Vietnam. The winner was Miss Venezuela. Rounding out the top five were Miss Colombia, Miss Dominican Republic, Miss Mexico and Miss Russia. For the second straight year, during the evening gown portion of the competition, Miss USA slipped and fell. An ascendant Lady Gaga sang a song. Jerry Springer was one of the hosts. Donald Trump Jr. was one of the judges. His famous father, though, wasn’t there, later explaining to Stern that the plane flight was too long.
It wasn’t until Trump started to really run for president that the primacy of Vietnam’s role in his life began to come into fuller focus. The ways he used it were revealing. “It’s not like he’s particularly interested in Vietnam as a country,” Charlie Laderman, a historian at King’s College London and one of the authors of the 2017 book, Donald Trump: The Making of a World View, told me. “It’s something he’s able to utilize.”
First, he recalled on occasion his work on the memorial in New York. “Every time I see a vet, and especially a Vietnam vet, they say, ‘Mr. Trump, thank you for the memorial,’” he said at a rally in Iowa, for instance, six weeks into his candidacy. (That was exactly a week after he had said McCain was “not a war hero” and was considered one “because he was captured” but that he preferred people who “weren’t captured.”)
Second, and throughout his erratic but effective campaign, he cast Vietnam as the latest addition to the roster of countries taking advantage of the U.S. “Another one,” he said in a speech in Iowa. “A new one,” he said in South Carolina. “A new hot one,” he said in Connecticut.
More than anything else, though, he used the war in Vietnam and its sad, wrenching consequences to undergird the gut-level oomph of Make America Great Again.
For Trump the setting and the stakes were new. The thought certainly was not. At New York Military Academy, the stern, upstate school he attended from 8th grade on, Trump imbibed the mantra of “in it to win it,” Peter Ticktin, one of his classmates, told me. That, Ticktin said, applied to Americans and America. “It was the feeling of supremacy that this country had in the 1950s,” Trump said to graduating students in a speech at Lehigh University in 1988. “It was a feeling of supremacy. It really was. And I had—I didn’t know it well—I was very young at that point—and I didn’t know the feeling of supremacy. I’ve known that since the Vietnam War …”
Now, though, as his bid for president built, he bored down on this idea.
“So,” he said in New Hampshire, “when I was young and went to school, I had always heard we never lost, this country, we never lost a war, you know, World War I, World War II, we—we just didn’t lose wars. And since then, I mean, when you think of it, you look at Vietnam …”
“Prior to Vietnam, we never lost a war, right?” he said in Tennessee. “Vietnam was a loss. Nothing else you can call it. And then after that, we now—we don’t even think about winning.”
“Since Vietnam,” he said in Ohio, “we don’t win anymore.”
As president, in addition to attackingonTwitter Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, whom he’s dubbed “Da Nang Dick,” Trump has hosted the Vietnamese prime minister at the White House, where he credited Nguyen Xuan Phuc with having “done a spectacular job.” This will be Trump’s second visit to Vietnam, where he’s more popular than he is at home. On his first visit, in November of 2017, he met again with Phuc and also met with some American veterans. They were, he said, “special, special people,” “great, great warriors” and “tough, smart cookies.”
“Like many of that era, he has been fixated on Vietnam ever since,” Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio told me this week. “Those who didn’t serve carry guilt and resentment over the feelings of guilt. Trump isn’t the type to get over anything let alone this issue.”
And he continues to process it in the way he processes nearly everything. “In a way,” added fellow biographer Blair, “it’s as if he’s an ongoing, one-man focus group, constantly trying things out and seeing how they play in terms of his own self-interest.”
What struck Laderman the most in his research for his book was the apparent lack of importance of ideals or values in the formation of Trump’s foreign policy and overall view of the world. With respect to Vietnam specifically, according to Laderman, what seemed to trouble Trump was not that the defeat was (as many conservatives saw it) a setback in the broader Cold War struggle or (as many liberals saw it) an undermining of America’s positioning as a global promoter of human rights. “It all really does,” Laderman said, “come back to power in a very naked sense.”
Does the world really need a blockchain phone? HTC thinks the answer is yes, and it’s got hardware to back it up.
I’ve spent a few days with the HTC Exodus 1, and while I do think that phones need to get friendlier with the blockchain, I’m not sure that the Exodus 1 distinguishes itself enough to become *the* blockchain phone.
The HTC Exodus 1 is a fairly powerful device, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chip, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a 16/12-megapixel rear camera and an 8/8-megapixel dual selfie camera, as well as a 3,500mAh battery. Not quite up to par with the best phones right now, but not that far off either.
The HTC Exodus 1 is the nicest phone I’ve had — if you don’t flip it over to the front side.
Image: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
In design terms, the HTC Exodus 1 is a mixed bag. It has a transparent back that lets you see some of the phone’s parts. This is partially fake; some of the chips are merely drawings, but some of it is real, and overall I love the aesthetic. In fact, based on its rear side alone, it’s probably the nicest phone I’ve had.
On the front, however, the Exodus has a 6-inch screen with huge bezels on top and bottom. Two years ago, there would’ve been nothing wrong with that — and, technically speaking, there’s still nothing wrong with that — but it’s 2019, and the phone looks obsolete.
The Exodus has a dual selfie camera, but don’t expect miracles from its bokeh mode.
Image: STAN SCHROEDER/MASHABLE
Some of HTC’s special features did make the Exodus a bit more interesting to use than your standard run-of-the-mill Android phone. I liked the haptic keys on the phone’s sides and I actually used Edge Sense a lot (by default, it’s set to fire up the camera when you squeeze the phone, and this is indeed fast and convenient). It also has the nicest packaging of any phone I’ve had.
Other things were not so great. Face recognition often failed. The fingerprint sensor on the back was hard to find on the phone’s slippery surface (you do get a transparent case with the phone, and you should definitely use it). The phone is running Android 8, which at this point just should not happen. Some elements of its UI, for example the screen you get when you’re receiving a call, were just plain ugly.
A couple more things to note. The phone is IP68 water and dust resistant, which is great. It doesn’t have a headphone jack, which isn’t that great.
When it comes to performance, some aspects of the Exodus were surprisingly good. I’ve used it as a primary phone, and I’ve shared its Wi-Fi hotspot with another phone and a laptop, and still the battery lasted for a full day.
But the phone’s camera was often slow, and the photos varied in quality a lot. I did manage to capture some great ones, but some aspects of the camera, like bokeh mode, were pretty awful. Check out some of the photos I’ve captured in Zagreb and Barcelona, below.
Image: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Image: STAN SCHROEDER/MASHABLE
Image: STAN SCHROEDER/MASHABLE
Image: STAN SCHROEDER/MASHABLE
Blockchain phone
The HTC Exodus 1 should not be judged as just another phone, though. It’s strongly advertised as a blockchain-friendly phone, with a “Secure Enclave” element that protects your crypto keys, a built-in cryptocurrency wallet and a couple more features to come at a later date.
Unfortunately, all this mostly boils down to some pre-installed, third-party software. The Zion wallet, which comes with the phone, supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and sixtyish other coins. It’s alright, but if you’re working with cryptocurrencies, you likely already have a wallet that you like, and, since Zion is pretty basic, you probably won’t want to switch.
The Zion wallet is alright, but cryptocurrency users probably have a favorite wallet of their own.
Image: STAN SCHROEDER/MASHABLE
Zion does have a cool feature called “social key recovery,” which uses some clever cryptography to let you securely store your crypto private keys with your friends (without any of them individually being able to see them), but that’s about it.
As for the Secure Enclave, in theory it should make Zion safer than a regular, software-only wallet. It’s basically a chip that operates separately from the rest of the phone, and nothing on the Android OS (except Zion) can access the private keys stored within. It will take time and some testing from third party researchers to determine whether this is really the case.
Other crypto-friendly apps are built-in, like the Brave browser and cryptocurrency portfolio tracker Blockfolio — but then again, you can install them on any phone. In fact, some major manufacturers have already caught on; Samsung’s Galaxy S10 comes with a pre-installed crypto wallet as well.
The blockchain phone.
Image: STAN SCHROEDER/MASHABLE
The company just announced its partnership with the Opera browser, which can now take advantage of the Zion wallet API to interact with crypto services online while keeping your private keys safe. The company also announced a store for decentralized apps (dApps) that play nice with the phone. It’s a good start, and if more apps join in, it’ll be put HTC and its Exodus ahead in the crypto game.
The HTC Exodus 1 is available for purchase for $699, which is not a horrible price for what you get, but given the price of some pretty powerful phones that came out this week, it’s not exactly an amazing deal, either. Ultimately, if you trust HTC’s Secure Enclave, the Exodus 1 might be worth the price; if not, you’re probably better off with any other phone and a separate hardware crypto wallet.
Israel’s far-right Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel and a number of Jewish settlers forced their way into occupied East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Tuesday, according to a Palestinian official.
“They stormed the Al-Aqsa compound and toured the area under the protection of Israeli forces,” Firas al-Dibs, a spokesperson for Jerusalem’s Jordan-run Religious Endowments Authority, told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday.
The move comes amid tensions in Jerusalem after a series of Palestinian protests and the subsequent arrest of dozens of Palestinian activists by Israeli forces earlier this week.
Israeli police had also briefly detained the head of the Religious Endowments Authority Sheikh Abdelazeem Salhab, along with his deputy, after he prayed with other Palestinians near al-Rahma gate at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the first time in 16 years.
Palestinian protesters streamed into the area that Israel had sealed off in 2003 because it was home to a heritage organisation allegedly connected with an armed group.
Israeli police accused the Waqf, the Islamic authority that oversees the compound, of attempting to change the status quo at the sensitive site by convening in the closed area.
According to local media reports, Ariel, who was under Israeli police protection and accompanied by tens of settlers, made his way to the al-Rahma gate where he took photos of the area that continues to remain restricted to Palestinian worshipers.
Last week, Israeli authorities closed the al-Rahma gate with chains, preventing hundreds of Palestinian worshippers from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex after a group of Palestinians had opened it.
The contested site, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the al-Haram al-Sharif (or the Noble Sanctuary), is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The compound is the third-holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina, and is the holiest site for Jews. It has been a flashpoint of violence in the past.
Palestinians have long feared that Israel plans to take over the site so it can build the Third Temple, allegations denied by the Israeli government, which says it has no plans to change the status quo.
Since Temple activists have admitted that praying at the compound is the first step in achieving their goal of building the Third Temple in the Noble Sanctuary, Palestinians remain concerned about Jewish visitors to the compound, many of whom attempt to pray there.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It proceeded to annex the entire city in 1980 in a move that was never recognised by the international community.
In late 2000, a visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sparked what later became known as the second Intifada, or uprising – a five-year-long popular uprising in which thousands of Palestinians were killed.
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