Entertainment
Long-time desire to do a period film: Dulquer Salmaan
Chennai, Sep 18 (IANS) Actor Dulquer Salmaan, who plays veteran star Gemini Ganesan in upcoming Telugu-Tamil bilingual biopic “Mahanati”, on the legendary southern actress Savitri, says it has been his desire for long to be part of a period film.
“Amazing period is being captured in films and even in TV series in the West. For long, I have desired to be part of a period drama. Unfortunately, in the Malayalam film industry, we don’t have huge budgets to make such films. ‘Mahanati’ is being made on a massive scale and I’m lucky to be part of this project,” Dulquer told IANS.
Talking about the project, being directed by Nag Ashwin, Dulquer said he is thrilled to be working with a young team.
“Both the director and the producer are younger than me. It’s a young team with so much of energy. I have always been against the idea of bilinguals but it made a lot of sense to make this film in two languages,” he said.
On playing Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan in the film, Dulquer said: “I’m not going to look like him. I can’t, honestly, and I don’t want to wear prosthetic. My approach is simple. I would like to be me in the 1950s if I was a big movie star.”
“I don’t think I should attempt to play Gemini Ganesan. You don’t really have any off-screen footage of him. You don’t know what kind of person he was off-screen. We only know his persona on screen and I can’t use that to play him off-screen,” he added.
The film stars Keerthy Suresh as Savitri, apart from Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Prakash Raj, Mohan Babu and Vijay Devarakonda.
–IANS
hp/rb/sac
Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
Content provided by Adverloom