Jika bocoran sebelumnya menyajikan dua foto yang diduga warna hitam dari HTC One M9 Plus (yang diharapkan diperkenalkan di MWC 2015 bersama One M9). Nah, bocoran foto kini kembali terkuak, bukan cuma dua tapi empat foto, yang berasal dari sumber yang sama di Tiongkok, kali ini nampak menunjukkan warna silver/gold.
Jika foto tersebut memang One M9 Plus, tampak bahwa HTC telah melengkapinya dengan tombol home fisik, jika rumor sebelumnya benar, tombol fisik tersebut mencakup pemindai sidik jari. Selain itu, bagian depan M9 Plus tidak terlihat terlalu berbeda dari One M9, speaker BoomSound, dan tampak terdapat kamera yang cukup besar. Namun, dikatakan bahwa M9 Plus akan mengusung layar Quad HD bukannya panel 1080p seperti yang ditawarkan One M9.
Tidak jelas apakah One M9 Plus adalah perangkat yang sama dengan HTC A55 yang bocor sebelumnya. Menurut @upleaks, HTC A55 diluncurkan sebagai HTC One E9 di Tiongkok (meskipun kabar lain mengatakan bahwa mungkin akan dirilis sebagai smartphone Desire). Mudah-mudahan saja, HTC akan segera mengumumkan smartphone tersebut.
These guys think the iPhone 6S (or iPhone 7, even) is coming in Spring 2015.
They are wrong. Why? Because (a) Apple has only just ramped up production enough on the 6 and 6 Plus to meet demand, a hugely expensive (and profitable in the long-run) process that it would not up-end just for the sake of it.
And also, the press ALWAYS gets this wrong.
To whit:
So there's this story that the iPhone 6S is coming in Spring 2015.
Daily Mail
Funny that. Rumours said the said thing about the iPhone 6.
It was announced in September.
Justin Sullivan via Getty Images
And the iPhone 5S.
It was announced in September.
AFP via Getty Images
And the iPhone 5.
It was announced in September.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
And the iPhone 4S. Which was announced in October.
Virgin founder and deputy prime minister argue that ‘war on drugs’ has failed and urge UK to follow Portuguese example
A drug dealer poses with cannabis products as he waits for customers in downtown Lisbon. Photograph: Francisco Seco/AP
Patrick Wintour, political editor
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Sir Richard Branson and Nick Clegg are urging the UK to begin decriminalising the use and possession of almost all drugs, following the example of Portugal.
The Virgin founder and deputy prime minister are to address a conference on fighting drug addiction on Wednesday, and in a Guardian article they argue that the “war on drugs” has failed.
“As an investment, the war on drugs has failed to deliver any returns,” they write. “If it were a business, it would have been shut down a long time ago. This is not what success looks like.
“The idea of eradicating drugs from the world by waging a war on those who use them is fundamentally flawed for one simple reason: it doesn’t reduce drug taking.
“The Home Office’s own research, commissioned by Liberal Democrats in government and published a few months ago, found there is no apparent correlation between the ‘toughness’ of a country’s approach and the prevalence of adult drug use.
“This devastating conclusion means that we are wasting our scarce resources, and on a grand scale.”
Branson has always made a point of not endorsing party politics, but is willing to endorse specific campaigns, and as a member on the global commission on drugs policy has called for an international rethink on drugs laws.
In their article, they argue: “The status quo is a colossal con perpetrated on the public by politicians who are too scared to break the taboo.”
Portugal decriminalised all drugs at the turn of the century. In the nearly 15 years since, the country has seen drug abuse drop by half, with the money previously spent on prohibition enforcement spent instead on reconnecting drug addicts with society.
In Clegg’s clearest endorsement of the Portuguese experiment, they say: “We should look to Portugal which removed criminal penalties for drug possession in 2001.
“Portugal’s reforms have not – as many predicted – led to an increase in drug use. Instead, they have allowed resources to be re-directed towards the treatment system, with dramatic reductions in addiction, HIV infections and drug-related deaths.
“Drugs remain illegal and socially unacceptable, as they should be, but drug users are dealt with through the civil rather than the criminal law.
“Anyone who is arrested for drug possession is immediately assessed and sent for treatment or education. If they fail to engage, they have to pay a fine.”
Portuguese citizens are allowed to purchase and possess 1g of heroin, 2g of cocaine, 25g of marijuana leaves or 5g of hashish.
They write: “The Portuguese system works, and on an issue as important as this, where lives are at stake, governments cannot afford to ignore the evidence. We should set up pilots to test and develop a British version of the Portuguese model.”
But the Centre for Social Justice, a charity closely associated with the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, claimed charities on the front line in the struggle against drug addiction are opposed to decriminalisation.
In recent CSJ research, nearly three-quarters of charities surveyed were concerned about the effect cannabis use had on their clients and families. More than half (56%) felt the decriminalisation of cannabis would lead to an increase in its use. Less than a quarter (23%) thought it would not.
Commenting on the findings, Christian Guy, director of the CSJ, said: “Drug addiction is ripping Britain’s poorest communities apart. Our network of 300 front-line charities sees this on a daily basis.
“Many are right to be worried that liberalising cannabis laws will lead to more people taking drugs and developing harder use.
“Politicians need to listen to these experts. They are the people who witness the devastating impact of drugs in our poorest neighbourhoods day in, day out.”
" Middle-earth : Shadows of Mordor " - a game of new generation , the events that take place in the famous Middle-earth. You will find a fascinating story of revenge and redemption. Played the role of Ranger Talion , whose family was killed at the hands of the servants of Sauron. Talion himself did not escape the cruel fate , but the Spirit of vengeance brought him back to life and gave supernatural powers . Now returned from the dead Ranger will go into the depths of Mordor , to fulfill the oath and destroy those who destroyed his life. Over time, it will reveal the truth that for the Spirit brought him into the world, he learns about the rings of power and fight with your enemy . Each opponent who met the player will be unique - with its own characteristics , strengths and weaknesses ." Middle-earth : Shadows of Mordor ," mind you , responds to your decisions and adapt to them. Here , each player will live his own - unique - adventure.
InformationGeneral information: Release Date : September 30, 2014 Genre : RPG, Action Games , Adventure Games Developer : Monolith Productions, Inc. Publisher : WB Games Language : Russian / English / French / Italian / German / Spanish / Polish / Brazil (Portuguese) Language{Voice Set} : English / French / Italian / German / Spanish / Brazilian (Portuguese) Subtitle Language : English / Russian / French / Italian / German / Spanish / Polish / Brazil (Portuguese) Version of the game : v1951.6 ( 18 February 2015 ) Platform : PC (Steam) Publication Type : License Tablet : Is present (FTS | ALI213 | 3DM | CODEX | SKIDROW)
Screenshot Gameplay
System Requirements
Operating System : Windows 7 / Windows 8 (64 -bit) Processor : Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz | AMD FX- 8350 , 4.0 GHz Memory : 8 GB Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460-660 | AMD Radeon HD 5850-7950 Sound card : compatible with DirectX 11 Free space on hard disk : 55 GB
The United States places 17th in the developed world for education, according to a global report by education firm Pearson.
Finland and South Korea, not surprisingly, top the list of 40 developed countries with the best education systems. Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore follow. The rankings are calculated based on various measures, including international test scores, graduation rates between 2006 and 2010, and the prevalence of higher education seekers. (See the list of top 20 countries in the slideshow below)
Pearson's chief education adviser Sir Michael Barber tells BBC that the high ranking countries tend to offer teachers higher status in society and have a "culture" of education.
The study notes that while funding is an important factor in strong education systems, cultures supportive of learning is even more critical -- as evidenced by the highly ranked Asian countries, where education is highly valued and parents have grand expectation. While Finland and South Korea differ greatly in methods of teaching and learning, they hold the top spots because of a shared social belief in the importance of education and its "underlying moral purpose."
The study aims to help policymakers and school leaders identify key factors that lead to successful educational outcomes. The research draws on literacy data as well as figures in government spending on education, school entrance age, teacher salaries and degree of school choice. Researchers also measured socioeconomic outcomes like national unemployment rates, GDP, life expectancy and prison population.
The report also notes the importance of high-quality teachers and improving strong educator recruitment. The rankings show, however, that there is no clear correlation between higher pay and better performance. The bottom line findings:
There are no magic bullets: The small number of correlations found in the study shows the poverty of simplistic solutions. Throwing money at education by itself rarely produces results, and individual changes to education systems, however sensible, rarely do much on their own. Education requires long-term, coherent and focussed system-wide attention to achieve improvement.
Respect teachers: Good teachers are essential to high-quality education. Finding and retaining them is not necessarily a question of high pay. Instead, teachers need to be treated as the valuable professionals they are, not as technicians in a huge, educational machine.
Culture can be changed: The cultural assumptions and values surrounding an education system do more to support or undermine it than the system can do on its own. Using the positive elements of this culture and, where necessary, seeking to change the negative ones, are important to promoting successful outcomes.
Parents are neither impediments to nor saviours of education: Parents want their children to have a good education; pressure from them for change should not be seen as a sign of hostility but as an indication of something possibly amiss in provision. On the other hand, parental input and choice do not constitute a panacea. Education systems should strive to keep parents informed and work with them.
Educate for the future, not just the present: Many of today's job titles, and the skills needed to fill them, simply did not exist 20 years ago. Education systems need to consider what skills today's students will need in future and teach accordingly.
To be sure, South Korea's top spot doesn't come without a price. Stories of families divided in the name of education are all too common, to the extent that the phenomenon has bequeathes those families with a title of their own -- kirogi kajok, or goose families, because they must migrate to reunite.
But America's average ranking doesn't come as a surprise. A report recently published by Harvard University's Program on Education Policy and Governance found that students in Latvia, Chile and Brazil are making gains in academics three times faster than American students, while those in Portugal, Hong Kong, Germany, Poland, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Colombia and Lithuania are improving at twice the rate. Researchers estimate that gains made by students in those 11 countries equate to about two years of learning.
What gains U.S. students posted in recent years are "hardly remarkable by world standards," according to the report. Although the U.S. is not one of the nine countries that lost academic ground for the 14-year period between 1995 and 2009, more countries were improving at a rate significantly faster than that of the U.S. Researchers looked at data for 49 countries.
The study's findings echo years of rankings that show foreign students outpacing their American peers academically. Students in Shanghai who recently took international exams for the first timeoutscored every other school system in the world. In the same test, American students ranked 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading.
A 2009 study found that U.S. students ranked 25th among 34 countries in math and science, behind nations like China, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Finland. Figures like these have groups like StudentsFirst, headed by former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, concerned and calling for reforms to "our education system [that] can't compete with the rest of the world."
Just 6 percent of U.S. students performed at the advanced level on an international exam administered in 56 countries in 2006. That proportion is lower than those achieved by students in 30 other countries. American students' low performance and slow progress in math could also threaten the country's economic growth, experts have said.
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