Asus Reportedly Halts Smartphone Launches ‘Temporarily’ to Focus on AI Robots, Smart Glasses

Asus's Chairman, Jonney Shih Chong-Tang, reportedly announced on January 16 at the company's 2025 Year-End Gala at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center that the Taiwanese tech giant will no longer launch new smartphones. The company is said to redirect its research and development (R&D) resources towards developing AI hardware, specifically AI robots and AI smart glas...

Poem of the week: Now, Mother, What’s the Matter? by Richard W Halperin

An exploration of what constitutes the literary arts – plus all the ‘troubled hearts’ and demons that accompany it – through the lens of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Now, Mother, What’s the Matter?

Only the monsters do not have troubled hearts.
Life is for troubled hearts. Art is for troubled
hearts. For my whole life, Hamlet has been
a bridge between. Hamlet’s ‘Now, mother,
what’s the matter?’ is life on earth. Something
is always the matter, and not just for mothers.
(As I write this, the Angelus rings.) Every
character in Hamlet is troubled, there are
no monsters in it. I render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s — everything is
troubled there and, if I am lucky, Caesar
is troubled. I render unto God the things
that are God’s and feel — want to feel? Do feel —
that God is troubled. I also render unto art.
But I have no idea what art is. What
Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’ is. What
the luminous chaos of The Portrait of
a Lady is. What The Pilgrim’s Progress is.
My feet knew the way before I opened
the book: that just before the gate to heaven
is yet another hole to hell.

Continue reading...

JioHotstar Announces Monthly Subscription Plans Across Mobile, Super, and Premium Tiers

JioHotstar on Monday announced a revised subscription structure for new users, introducing monthly plans across all tiers starting from as little as Rs. 79 per month. As per the streaming platform, this move is aimed at making the platform and its content more accessible, while also aligning pricing with changing viewing habits and rising large-screen consumption of J...