Entertainment
Anil Kapoor, John to attend 11th Dubai film fest
New Delhi: Hindi film celebrities Anil Kapoor, John Abraham, Nana Patekar and Paresh Rawal will attend the 11th edition of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) along with international stars like Emily Blunt, Kelsey Grammer, Eva Longoria and Olga Kurylenko.
The festival, which runs Dec 10-17, will feature 118 films from 48 countries in 34 different languages, read a statement.
This year’s edition of DIFF will open with the screening of James Marsh’s “The Theory Of Everything!”. The biographic film is inspired by the book “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen” written by Stephen Hawking’s former wife Jane Wilde Hawking.
At the opening ceremony, DIFF will present its Lifetime Achievement Award to prominent Egyptian actor Nour El-Sherif for his work in more than 100 films in a career spanning almost five decades.
Rob Marshall’s “Into the Woods” will be the closing film for this year’s DIFF and will premiere internationally here. The film, featuring Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, and Chris Pine, is a mix of classic stories from “Cinderella”, “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Rapunzel”.
“DIFF has come so far in the past 11 years, introducing new audiences to Arab cinema, fostering talent and welcoming the industry’s greatest directors, producers, writers and actors. I’m proud to say that DIFF has contributed to putting the region’s film industry on the global map,” said Abdulhamid Juma, DIFF chairman.
A panel of renowned directors, including Lee Daniels of Oscar-winning films “Precious” and “The Butler” fame, will comprise the prestigious Muhr Awards jury. The awards aim to recognise talent from the UAE and wider Arab world and have, to date, highlighted over 255 cinematic works.
Daniels will be joined by Dutch cinematographer and film director Leonard Retel Helmrich, acclaimed Algerian director Malik Bensmail, Oscar nominated actress Virginia Madsen and Lebanese director and actress Nadine Labaki.
Arab celebrities like Mervat Amin, Samir Sabri, Daoud Abdel Sayed, Laila Taher, Mohamed Sobhi, Lebleba and Jamal Suliman will also grace the red carpet.
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.
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