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The Weekly Authority: A week of Pixel Watch leaks – Android Authority

Published

3 weeks ago

April 30, 2022

Harry Miller

⚡ Welcome to The Weekly Authority, the Android Authority newsletter that breaks down the top Android and tech news from the week. The 192nd edition here, with Android 13’s public beta, Musk’s Twitter purchase, Sony’s subscription stacking clampdown, and more…

🍦 I’m enjoying the UK’s long Mayday weekend — hoping for some sunshine so we can have ice cream at the beach!

Reviews

Eric Zeman / Android Authority

Weekly Wonder

This week, settle in for a bit of a long read.

I’ve just finished listening to the podcast Hoax’s episode “Jimmy’s World,” about 26-year-old Pultizer Prize-winning (and losing) Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke. In case you haven’t heard of her, her story’s a pretty interesting one.

On September 28, 1980, Washington Post readers were greeted with artwork for a story entitled “Jimmy’s World.”
The story’s subtitle: “8-Year-Old Heroin Addict Lives For a Fix” made waves throughout the country.
But it later became one of the largest journalism scandals of all time, something that we like to think wouldn’t happen today, with all the technology we have at our disposal for fact and background checking…

From the original article:

“Jimmy is 8 years old and a third-generation heroin addict, a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes, and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms.

He nestles in a large, beige reclining chair in the living room of his comfortably furnished home in Southeast Washington. There is an almost cherubic expression on his small, round face as he talks about life — clothes, money, the Baltimore Orioles, and heroin. He has been an addict since the age of 5.”

Shocking. But was any of it true?

Who was Janet Cooke?

Janet Cooke had worked as a reporter for The Toledo Blade for a little over two years when she wrote to executive editor Ben Bradlee, enquiring about a job at The Washington Post, attaching her resume and six articles she’d written for The Blade.

Bradlee was impressed that Cooke was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vassar in 1976 and offered her an interview.
Two weeks later, Cooke impressed everybody she met. She was an articulate, well-dressed, striking black woman who seemed ideal for the job, particularly given the pressures to hire women and minorities.
Cooke started work at The Post on January 3, 1980.
Everyone had been so impressed by her, that nobody could really remember carrying out anything more than a cursory check of her references.

Cooke began working for The District Weekly under Vivian Aplin-Brownlee.

Cooke wrote her first byline two weeks after she was hired — a story about a black beauty contest.
It wasn’t until February 21 that her first major article was published — a story about Washington’s drug-infested riot corridor, thrusting Cooke firmly into the drug reporting scene.
Cooke went on to write 52 more stories before “Jimmy’s World.”
But behind the scenes, she was known for her dramatic flair. She was conspicuous, wearing designer clothes and “consumed by blind and raw ambition.”
She even told others of her ambitions to win a Pulitzer Prize in three years and to be on the national staff in three to five years.

The story itself

Aplin Brownlee had heard talk of a new type of heroin on the streets. Cooke was sent to look into it, interviewing drug rehabilitation experts and social workers about heroin abuse in Washington.

Cooke amassed two hours of tape-recorded interviews and 145 pages of handwritten notes, which landed on the desk of Milton Coleman, who’d worked at the Post since May 1976 and had taken over the City desk on May 26, 1980.
By this point, heroin stories were running regularly, but when Cooke talked over the material with Coleman and mentioned an 8-year-old addict, he immediately knew it was a front-page story.

Cooke supposedly went on to have dinner with the heroin addict’s mother and visited their house, but nobody asked the boy’s or family’s name or address, and Cooke was promised confidentiality for her sources. She even claimed to have been threatened at knifepoint by the boy’s stepfather, and was sent to stay with another Post employee for two nights after the story was published.

The story’s details were extensive, with the first draft coming in at 13.5 pages long, describing the child, his clothes, and the family home in great detail. Somewhere along the way, everybody assumed Coleman knew who the kid was, but nobody ever asked about him.

When the story was published on Sunday, September 28, 892,220 copies of the paper ran “Jimmy’s World” on the front page.
Unlike today, when we could easily use the latest tech to check references, verify sources, and find out where this family lived, in the 1980s this was all taken at face value. There was no reason to debate whether this well-written story was true.
Readers were outraged and wondered what was being done to find the boy. The story was sent to Nancy Reagan, the nation’s first-lady-t0-be, and letters came from all over the country demanding the police take action.
Washington Police Chief Burtell Jefferson launched a citywide search for “Jimmy” the day after publication, offering a reward of up to $10,000.

There’s a lot more to the story than we can get into here, but the podcast episode is the best place to dive deep…

Uncovering the hoax

One person never believed the story: Vivian Aplin-Brownlee said, “I never believed it, and I told Milton (Coleman) that. I knew her so well and the depth of her. In her eagerness to make a name she would write farther than the truth would allow.”
Others, including Coleman and Woodward, never doubted Cooke, even following another of her sensational stories about a 14-year-old prostitute.
When the paper was threatened with legal action, Coleman decided to visit Jimmy’s home with Cooke. A day later, Cooke claimed she’d gone to the house alone and found it vacant: the family had supposedly moved to Baltimore.
On April 13, 1981, Cooke was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Jimmy’s World.

It seemed Cooke had committed the perfect crime until she was exposed just two days later. After the editors of the Post discovered Cooke had lied about her academic credentials, they demanded proof of Jimmy’s existence.

On April 15, in an interview with David Maraniss, Cooke finally admitted that her story was fictitious and offered her resignation.

The Post, humiliated, returned the Pulitzer.

Tech Calendar

May 3: Blizzard reveals first Warcraft mobile game @ 10 AM PT
May 9-11: Qualcomm 5G Summit (San Diego)
May 11: Sony Xperia event @ 3 AM ET (Xperia 1 IV?)
May 11-12: Google I/O 2022
June 6-10: Apple WWDC 2022

Tech Tweet of the Week

Enjoy the spring weather!

Paula Beaton, Copy Editor.

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Wordle game help: 5-letter words with 'AME' in the middle – Dot Esports

Published

5 hours ago

May 20, 2022

Harry Miller

Since its October 2021 release, Josh Wardle’s Wordle seems to have become the internet’s most popular word game.

Each day, a new five-letter word is the answer to the challenge, and players need to guess it in up to six tries. The word is the same for all players on the same calendar day and there are no clues but the letters themselves, which change colors depending on where they are in the word—and if they are in the word at all.

While Wordle may be a simple challenge on most days, there are times when you could get stuck. Maybe you found two or three letters, but you have no idea what your next guess should be, either because you can’t remember any words with that specific combination or because there are too many options to choose from. If that is the case today and all you have is “AME” right in the middle of the word, you can check the list below for inspiration.

Five-letter words with “AME” in the middle to try on Wordle

CAMEL
CAMEO
CAMES
DAMES
FAMED
FAMES
GAMED
GAMER
GAMES
GAMEY
HAMES
KAMES
LAMED
LAMER
LAMES
MAMEE
MAMEY
NAMED
NAMER
NAMES
RAMEE
RAMEN
RAMET
SAMEK
SAMEY
TAMED
TAMER
TAMES
WAMES
YAMEN

There are not that many options, but you will still need to narrow down the list to get the answer right. The first thing you can do is check all the letters that appear gray in your previous guesses, then eliminate all words that contain any of them. A second tip is to avoid plural forms. They are valid guesses if you need them, but Wordle will never pick a plural form as the answer to the daily puzzle.

If you’re still unsure and don’t want to wait until Wordle resets at midnight local time, you can always look up the answer to today’s puzzle (which we update around 12am CT) to avoid losing your streak.

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New LoL champion Bel'Veth is a transforming Void nightmare – PCGamesN

Published

6 hours ago

May 20, 2022

Harry Miller

The next champion coming to League of Legends is a powerful, menacing empress from deep within the heart of the Void. Bel’Veth, who Riot Games calls a ‘God of Oblivion,’ has debuted in her official cinematic trailer, and she is a terrifying and Lovecraftian monster capable of mimicking human features – but only as a lure, since her primary motivation is to consume everything and everyone.

The cinematic, which you can view below, begins with Daughter of the Void Kai’Sa alighting in the ruined city of Belveth, which is now completely overgrown with eerily luminescent Void flora. Led by a toy ship carried aloft by glowing butterflies, Kai’Sa enters a natural chamber – only to discover the walls are alive with Void-infused, skeletal arms.

Bel’Veth approaches her from a rift that opens behind Kai’Sa. “I am everything the Void has consumed,” she says ominously, striding forward. Bel’Veth is tall, and shrouded with a cape that wraps around her in tight layers. Two huge horns emerge from a piece of armour on her upper back. “Just as I devoured this city, I will devour your world.”

Here’s the cinematic.

Kai’Sa’s attacks are useless against Bel’Veth, whose face begins to peel apart to reveal a glowing fungal flower… which is positioned over her true face. It’s revealed as Bel’Veth’s cape opens: a monstrous maw lined with razor-sharp teeth. Terrifying.

You can read more about Bel’Veth’s background in the short story Pinwheel, written by Jared Rosen. It’s available on the official League of Legends site.

Leaks suggest Bel’Veth is an ability power/attack damage hybrid jungler champion, with her ultimate ability being her transformation into her ‘true’ Void form. However, none of that’s been confirmed yet, as Bel’Veth has yet to appear on the Leage of Legends PBE.

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Experience Parallel Search Capabilities on the HUAWEI Mate Xs 2 with Petal Search – Canada NewsWire

Published

16 hours ago

May 20, 2022

Harry Miller

Adapting to the always-on lives of today’s consumers, Petal Search allows users to double their efficiency experience a new layout of a search engine.

With Petal Search now optimised for foldable screens, users can search for an array of topics ranging from news, apps, shopping, nearby services, and many more on the 7.8-inch True-Chroma foldable display of the new HUAWEI Mate Xs 2. With one tap on the search bar, the Parallel Search function is automatically activated as details of the search is smoothly displayed across both screens in a dual-window layout. This interactive design allows users to multitask on larger screens improving efficiency even during leisure browsing.

Petal Search provides consumers with the Parallel Search function, allowing different portions of the search services that the consumer is using to be displayed on both screens at the same time. Valuable information will be doubled, complicated operations will be reduced by half, and the efficiency will be improved by 100%.

Parallel Search allows users to instantly view search results on one screen while still scrolling through for further options on the other. For example, scroll through nearby food options on one screen, while displaying detailed information of a selection option on the other, deals, menu, food photos , reviews, ordering online, etc. With such a versatile layout, consumers are able to experience a smooth and efficient browsing experience.

With online shopping being the go-to for most, research shows that roughly 51% of consumers visit up to 4 sites before deciding to purchase a product (Source: People Comparison Shop). To aid consumers in their search, the new search function can display product details all on one page allowing easy comparison between 2 items. Furthermore, Petal Search allows users to run 2 search services simultaneously, such as video-streaming apps on one screen of the HUAWEI Mate Xs 2 while reading up on the latest news on the other.

All-In-One Search for an immersive search experience

With Petal Search’s Parallel Search function, consumers are able to choose between 2 different viewing modes. With the dual-window mode, consumers view different parts of the search on each screen increasing efficiency. Or if consumers require a better view, single-window mode provides a larger view for a more immersive search experience.

Enjoy an immersive search experience on the large screen of the new HUAWEI Mate Xs 2 with Petal Search’s All-In-One Search. By partnering up with over 3,000 top e-commerce, travel and local merchants, Petal Search optimizes shopping, travel and more than 20 other vertical search categories for users to search from.

Experience true search power when it comes to leisure. Find interesting deals, compare items and prices and much more without having to open additional tabs, when shopping online with Petal Search. Also plan your next holiday with Petal Search by comparing prices of flights and hotels all on one page. Come and take your search experience to the next level!

Based on Huawei’s 1+8+N all-scenario strategy and the adaptation capability of hardware and software, Petal Search aims to provide users with a seamless and consistent search experience.

To download and experience Petal Search, please visit: https://bit.ly/3rpGYGY

SOURCE Petal Search, Huawei