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from the what-goes-around...gets-smaller dept.
Laptop bezels are dead, and IFA killed them
In the past few years, IFA has become a laptop show. It may not be the place where companies like Apple or Microsoft show off their flashiest hardware, but when it comes to the midrange, workhorse laptops that dominate the shelves at Best Buy and desks at schools, IFA is where you'll find them. That's why it's so interesting that there's been what feels like an overnight revolution in laptop screens at this year's show: bezels are dead, and IFA killed them.
[...] These new laptops are pushing the screen-to-body ratio higher than ever: the Swift 5 is 87.6 percent screen, while the newly teased Swift 7 checks in at 92 percent. And Asus' ZenBooks feature a new ErgoLift hinge design, which is (in theory) to improve typing, but it also cleverly hides the lower bezel so that Asus can claim it's up to 95 percent screen.
Removing bezels isn't just about aesthetics. Yes, bezel-less screens look fantastic, but that's only a piece of the puzzle. The real advantages lie in the fact that, suddenly, companies can fit bigger screens into the existing form factors we have now. Take Acer's new Swift 5, which fits a 15.6-inch display into the old 14-inch form factor, resulting in what the company claims is the lightest 15-inch class laptop ever. On the flip side, we're also getting computers like Asus' 13-inch ZenBook. By killing the bezels, it's possible to shrink the entire laptop down, giving users a dramatically smaller 13-inch class laptop than ever before.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @03:42PM (7 children)
Thank you for that. I googled and couldn't find anything except other articles about IFA and things like the International Fiscal Association.
I've never once heard IFA mentioned before anywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @04:52PM (6 children)
Quite likely, if you live in America. Foreign happenings are only covered in US media if strife is involved. Part of the strategy of fooling you that only the US is normal and livable.
The IFA is the world's preeminent consumer electronics show. Historically about receiving equipment, I am surprised that laptops steal the show now.
That said, I wonder why the organizers haven't Americanized the name yet. After all, only more than 100m people speak German, so we Germans should realize it is a dying language and just give up and assimilate to what US popular culture gets dumped on our land.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @05:23PM
The only people who watch US media are 55 years or older and that age is increasing.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday September 02 2018, @06:34PM (4 children)
I think you are rather missing the point. The Internationale Funkausstellung is being covered in the news [google.com] as well as any comparable event.
Unlike the CES or GDS or RSA, however, the initials don't spell out anything in English, the One True Language™ for most English-speakers, and so, pfft, who would care what they stand for? It's the "what does that stand for" that doesn't get covered (or even mentioned) in the English-language press coverage.
And who would care? Answer: Anyone who does not believe that there is only one world language. Which is not nearly as many people as you would hope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 03 2018, @12:19AM
Thanks to the Internet, you can get global news now. If you are in the industry, the trade press should cover it. But I don't see mass media even cover the CES, let alone the IFA. There's been traditionally more coverage in popular European media; I heard of this years iteration via BBC world service.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday September 03 2018, @04:26AM (2 children)
Shouldn't be one world language, every culture should have a language to help preserve their identity and that which is unique. But having a common language, be it English or otherwise for commerce and trade is not a bad thing either. Being multi lingual is a good thing at any level. Is ASL or IS counted as a language ?
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Monday September 03 2018, @02:46PM (1 child)
An extension of this being that many cultures have as their language mutually comprehensible dialects or variants of the same language.
It seems that in most cultures, there is a two-to-three-language/dialect base comprised of:
Some examples:
Russia: Perhaps Russian-Russian-English
This gives a good base for seeing and making comparisons between cultures; a lens into other cultures and languages.
Contrast with monolingual areas:
This doesn't give a good base for seeing and making comparisons between cultures, nor any useful lens into other cultures and languages.
In such a situation, your press, for example, might whistle nervously while semi-believing "This abbreviation has no English expansion and therefore no meaningful expansion" and so failing to report on it. It might be very, very rare for members of your population to learn even a second language, much less a third or fourth; they might be determined that "the world should learn $MY_LANGUAGE so we can communicate" while ignoring the fact that learning a second or third language would enable that same communication.
It's not just language, but the cultural ideas behind it, that can enable and ease (or impede and prevent) communication and understanding.
Knowing more than one language (even if you don't know the language of the culture of who you're trying to communicate with) gives you skills that make that easier and more natural--because having made that bridge and used that lens once, you know how to do it in general and so you are more apt to be able to do it.
Learning either ASL or IS provides a basis for interpreting words and ideas more than "one true way" and therefore gives benefits just as learning any other language would. IS is a language, wide in understanding if limited in vocabulary; ASL is a fully-formed, expressive and complete language (or is it a dialect of English? The line can be blurry.).
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday September 03 2018, @09:02PM
Perhaps it is just my general location in the West/Southwest of the US but a lot of people speak Spanish here. Granted there are many localizations of Spanish depending on the country of origin but it is still a very commonly spoken tongue here. In my summer home in the SF east bay, you can commonly hear Tagalog, Korean, many dialects of Chinese, Vietnamese, and of course Spanish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
I speak English, I sign ASL, and get along in Caddo, and Spanish. Although speaking Caddo is difficult as many concepts in modern society just don't have a word or a place in the native tongue.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge