Pac 12 Players Say Commissioner Was Dismissive of Their Virus Concerns
Knowing that some schools might balk at the cost of such regular testing, the players urged the conference to ask Stanford, whose medical school recently received federal approval for pooled testing, which greatly increases testing capacity and efficiency, to make it available to the conference’s other schools at wholesale cost.
“This virus doesn’t look at if you’re a professional or amateur; it has the potential to harm,” Daltoso said in explaining why the players want the same protections the N.F.L. is providing when teams begin blocking and tackling and cannot social distance. “We play a full contact sport; I think guys made it very clear that working out is not the issue. We’re 10 days away from practice — we don’t need guidelines, we need mandates, rules that schools all across the conference need to follow.”
The players said Scott told them the conference could not impose testing standards on its universities, and referenced a 17-page pamphlet the conference produced laying out recommendations. If schools do not follow the recommendations, the players said Scott told them: “We hope to discuss that.”
“That’s not enough,” Daltoso said. “We’re asking for the schools to follow concrete mandates.”
The need for such mandates was underscored, the players said, by recent cases in which players have had lengthy and arduous recoveries from the virus — including the case of Brady Feeney, a freshman lineman at Indiana whose mother posted on Facebook that he was facing possible heart issues and his blood work had troubled doctors.
The players said Scott several times urged the players to opt out if they were uncomfortable playing, but that, they said, brought its own concerns. Two players at Washington State, receiver Kassidy Woods and defensive lineman Dallas Hobbs, said that after they aligned themselves with the #WeAreUnited group, Coach Nick Rolovich told them they would be treated differently, and they could not see doctors or trainers or use the dining hall and had been removed from a team messaging app. (Hobbs participated in Thursday’s call.)
On the call, Harlan, the Utah athletic director, told the group that Utah players who opt out would be allowed the same access to mental health, food and health services that the rest of the team had, but that using team facilities to stay in shape could be problematic.
But Nick Ford, a senior offensive lineman at Utah, said that when he sought clarification about whether the policy that Harlan laid out applied more broadly, Scott told him that players who opted out were “not allowed to cherry-pick from services.” Ford added that Scott criticized him directly, saying Ford was “talking out both sides of my mouth.”
Former Angels Employee Charged in Pitchers Overdose Death
A former employee of the Los Angeles Angels was charged with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl in connection with the fatal overdose of Tyler Skaggs, a pitcher for the team, federal prosecutors announced on Friday.
The former employee, Eric Prescott Kay, who worked as the team’s communications director, surrendered himself in Fort Worth and appeared before a judge Friday morning, according to court records. Mr. Kay, 45, was released on bond.
“No one is immune from the deadly addictive nature of these drugs,” Erin Nealy Cox, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said at a news conference Friday morning.
“Suppressing the spread of fentanyl — and preventing tragedies like Tyler Skaggs’s and the thousands of other Americans who die every year from fentanyl overdoses — is a priority of the Department of Justice,” she added.
In July 2019, Mr. Skaggs, 27, was found dead in a hotel room at the Hilton Dallas Southlake Town Square Hotel just before his team was scheduled to play the Texas Rangers. An autopsy report released a month later revealed that Mr. Skaggs had fentanyl and oxycodone in his system at the time of his death.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office later determined that Mr. Skaggs would not have died had he not consumed fentanyl, prosecutors said in a statement on Friday.
“The family is deeply heartbroken to learn that Tyler would be alive today were it not for a pill containing fentanyl that was provided by the director of communications of the Angels,” Rusty Hardin, a lawyer for Mr. Skaggs’s family, said in a statement on Friday.
Michael Molfetta and Reagan Wynn, lawyers for Mr. Kay, said in a statement on Friday that what happened to Mr. Skaggs was a tragedy, and that “addiction is a debilitating and destructive disease.”
“Today, our client, Eric Kay, willingly traveled to Texas from California to surrender himself,” they wrote. “Now he will patiently wait for his opportunity to make his story known.”
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, Ms. Nealy Cox said. While a smaller portion is used for medical settings, the vast majority of fentanyl is illegally produced.
Many who overdose on fentanyl do not even know they took it, because dealers will often produce counterfeit drugs using fentanyl and then stamp on the manufacturer’s markings to make it look like they are pharmaceuticals, like oxycodone, a prescription pain killer, Ms. Nealy Cox said.
A criminal complaint filed on July 30 but unsealed on Friday reveals that investigators found several pills and white residue in Mr. Skaggs’s hotel room. An analysis later found that both a single blue pill that closely resembled a 30-milligram oxycodone tablet and the white residue contained fentanyl.
Five pink pills also found were determined to be legitimately manufactured five-milligram oxycodone pills that did not contain fentanyl. Several white pills were later found to be anti-inflammatories, according to the complaint.
In an initial interview with law enforcement, Mr. Kay said the last time he had seen Mr. Skaggs was when they checked into the hotel on June 30, 2019. He is also said to have denied knowing whether Mr. Skaggs used drugs.
Mr. Skaggs asked Mr. Kay to stop by his room and possibly discussed bringing pills later that evening, a search of Mr. Skaggs’s phone revealed, the complaint said.
Mr. Kay had also allegedly told someone that he had visited Mr. Skaggs’s room on the night he died, contrary to what Mr. Kay initially told law enforcement, the complaint said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration found that Mr. Kay had allegedly dealt the blue pills — variously called “blues” or “blue boys” — to Mr. Skaggs several times and to others. Several people who knew Mr. Kay and Mr. Skaggs allege that Mr. Kay provided 30-milligram oxycodone pills to Mr. Skaggs and others, the complaint said.
A former federal prosecutor conducted an independent investigation for the Angels, the team announced on Friday.
“We learned that there was unacceptable behavior inconsistent with our code of conduct, and we took steps to address it,” the Angels said in a statement. “Our investigation also confirmed that no one in management was aware, or informed, of any employee providing opioids to any player, nor that Tyler was using opioids.”
Mr. Skaggs’s family urged the Angels to make public the report from their investigation, according to Mr. Hardin’s statement.
“We are relieved that no one else who was supplied drugs by this Angels executive met the same fate as Tyler,” the family’s lawyer said. “While nothing will replace the loss of Tyler, we are very grateful to federal prosecutors for their diligent and ongoing work.”
The New York Times surprisingly demolished the mainstream media’s previous narrative that Seattle’s police-free “Autonomous Zone” was a peaceful area with a block party atmosphere by speaking with local business owners who are now suing the city over the damage caused.
Liberal news outlets largely downplayed the six-block downtown area, first dubbed the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) and later Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), because of its location in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. CNN largely dismissed the chaos, while The New York Times itself celebrated the area as “a homeland for racial justice.”
NEW YORK TIMES CELEBRATES SEATTLE PROTESTERS’ ‘AUTONOMOUS ZONE’: ‘A HOMELAND FOR RACIAL JUSTICE’
Townhall senior reporter Julio Rosas, who was on the ground in Seattle at the height of the chaos, told Fox News that the media was downplaying the story.
“I think the biggest misperception in the media is that only good things are happening in and around the autonomous zone,” Rosas said in June.
Two months later, New York Times reporter Nellie Bowles hit Seattle to decide for herself. The result was a report headlined, “Abolish the Police? Those Who Survived the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure,” in which business owners described the “harrowing experience of calling for help and being left all alone” that contradicts the media’s previous narrative.
The Times spoke with a local business owner who had heard the area had a “block party atmosphere,” which Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan famously said on CNN.
“But that was not what he saw through the windows of his Seattle coffee shop. He saw encampments overtaking the sidewalks. He saw roving bands of masked protesters smashing windows and looting,” the Times reported, noting the man saw “young white men wielding guns.”
The area was celebrated by liberal lawmakers and pundits until it turned deadly, even though President Trump and pundits on the right had declared the area unsafe from the beginning. The protest coincided with nationwide calls to “defund the police,” but local business owners don’t seem to think that’s a good idea any longer.
HANNITY BLASTS WASHINGTON GOV. SEATTLE MAYOR AMID CHAZ CHAOS: ‘DOING NOTHING TO PROTECT THEIR PEOPLE’
“Business crashed as the Seattle police refused to respond to calls to the area. Officers did not retake the region until July 1, after four shootings, including two fatal ones,” the Times reported, noting that local businesses owners are now suing the city.
“The lawsuit claims that ‘Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public’ resulted in enormous property damage and lost revenue,” the Times reported.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOWNPLAYS ‘INSANITY IN SEATTLE’ AS CRITICS POINT OUT BIAS, HYPOCRISY
The impact of the occupation on Cafe Argento, whose owner is a part of the lawsuit, has been “devastating,” according to the Times.
“Very few people braved the barricades set up by the armed occupiers to come in for his coffee and breakfast sandwiches. Cars coming to pick up food orders would turn around. At two points, he and his workers felt scared and called 911,” the Times reported.
“It was lawless,” the business owner told the Times.
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The Times report now paints the area as a graffiti-filled mess filled with shattered glass, broken street lights and gun-toting private security guards. A Black Lives Matter community guard told the Times he “was appalled by the violent tactics and rhetoric he witnessed during the occupation.”
The Times went a different route in June, embracing the area with a glowing feature, “Free Food, Free Speech and Free of Police: Inside Seattle’s ‘Autonomous Zone.’”
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The penguins are symbols of Tencent’s iconic messaging platform QQ, which launched five years before Facebook, in 1999
Based in Shenzhen and founded in 1998, the Chinese company Tencent enjoys huge popularity – and profits – in China.
Its cute penguin symbol is as familiar to Chinese children as the McDonalds “golden arches” logo is to children in the West, says the BBC’s China media analyst Kerry Allen.
“Tencent is thought of as so much more than just a Chinese company in China – it has gained a reputation as a family-friendly organisation that connects families, friends and work colleagues in a digital age,” she said.
“It has a business model that other Chinese companies can only envy – it can reach an audience of, basically, everyone.”
But many people in the West have never heard of it.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t present in our everyday lives, though – Tencent also owns chunks of some of Western culture’s most popular games, music and movies.
Like Google’s parent company, Alphabet, Tencent has a broad portfolio of interests, although arguably it remains best known for its messaging services.
US president Donald Trump singled out the app WeChat in his most recent executive order, which demands US firms stop doing business with it.
WeChat has over a billion users, both inside China and around the world – the Chinese version is called Weixin.
It is often compared to WhatsApp – and certainly it is widely used for messaging – several US messaging apps and social media sites are banned by the Chinese state so you can’t (officially) Facebook message a friend in Beijing, for example.
But there’s a lot more to WeChat than messaging.
Image copyright Getty Images
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WeChat has over one billion monthly users
It’s more akin to a separate operating system: just like you might use Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS for a variety of tasks, it is used to read news, pay bills, order transport or food, and run small businesses.
The firm has not revealed just how profitable WeChat is on its own, but it is clear that Tencent – as a whole – is thriving.
Image copyright Getty Images
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Tencent’s headquarters are in Shenzhen
Earning results for the first quarter of 2020 showed a total revenue of 108 billion Chinese yuan ($15.2 billion) – an increase of 26% year-on-year, despite the coronavirus pandemic. Alphabet’s revenue for the same period was $41.2 bn.
Crunchbase’s Tencent entry lists 479 investments, with a fund totalling $6.6bn. It would be tedious to go through them all, but let’s take a quick look at some of them.
Gaming
It is clear that Tencent makes a lot of money via gaming.
Tencent is the largest video games publisher in the world. It has a stake in the two most popular Battle Royale-style games: Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PubG).
Image copyright Fortnite
It owns a 40% stake in Fortnite studio, Epic games, and has the license to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PubG) – although it failed in its own battle to get the game approved for distribution in China.
It also owns the entire League of Legends studio, Riot Games.
In October 2019, PC Gamer published a list of 16 games firms outside of China that Tencent had publicly invested in, including Ubisoft and Discord.
Music and movies
It also invests in Western music and films.
Tencent has recently completed a deal giving it a 10% stake in Universal Music. The record label includes major artists such as Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Drake and Kendrick Lamar on its books.
In addition, Tencent already has its own music division – Tencent Music Entertainment (TME).
And a share-swap in 2017 saw it take a 7.5% stake in streaming giant Spotify (Spotify got 9.5% of TME in return, reported Tech Crunch at the time).
Tencent Pictures, its film and production arm, has been involved in a large number of Hollywood movies, including Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), Wonder Woman (2017) and the upcoming Top Gun sequel, Top Gun: Maverick – scheduled for release in 2021.
Oh – and there’s also the small matter of the Chinese giant owning 5% of the US electric car firm Tesla.
What is the US concerned about?
President Donald Trump says that the spread in the US of mobile apps developed and owned by Chinese firms “threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States”.
The US government says both Bytedance’s TikTok and Tencent’s WeChat “capture vast swaths of information from its users”.
“This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information,” it claims.
Tencent’s chief executive and co-founder Ma Huateng, known as Pony Ma, is widely assumed to support the Communist Party. He is a member of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s national parliament.
Trump’s executive order also claims both WeChat and TikTok gather data on Chinese nationals visiting the US, allowing Beijing “to keep tabs” on them.
Prof Alan Woodward, a cyber security expert from Surrey University, points out that for international users, WeChat data sits on servers outside of China – meaning in theory that it is more protected from state scrutiny.
However, he added that WeChat’s privacy policy openly states that it will “comply with any legal requests from state agencies to hand over data they have in their servers”.
“Just as with TikTok, the concern is that the parent company is Chinese and thus it may be argued that they are indeed subject to the Chinese Intelligence Act,” he said.
Tencent has so far issued the briefest of responses to the news from the US: “We are reviewing the executive order to get a full understanding,” it said.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ban transactions with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance.
The executive order says the US “must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security”.
Under the order, beginning in 45 days, any US transaction with ByteDance will be prohibited.
TikTok denies accusations it is controlled by or shares data with the Chinese government.
On Thursday night, he also took similar action to ban WeChat, an app owned by China-based tech giant Tencent.
In the TikTok executive order, he says he has found “additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain”.
“Specifically,” he adds, “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.
“At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by one mobile application in particular, TikTok.”
Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart has been sharing snapshots of how she has been handling the coronavirus pandemic, and some social media users just aren’t happy about it.
The 79-year-old has finally responded to an Instagram critic who thought her recent lobster photo was out of touch with current events, according to a captured screenshot posted by Comments By Celebs – a popular account that boasts more than 1.5 million followers.
MARTHA STEWART DELIVERED EGGS IN HER ASTON MARTIN DURING CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
The screenshot shows an opinionated, but now deleted comment that was left by one of Stewart’s followers, which said, “I’ve always followed you. Loved your show. But do you ever feel this is all a little tone deaf!”
“There are people lining up for hours for a bag of potatoes,” the Instagram user continued to write under Stewart’s picturesque lobster dish and table setting slideshow. “# let them eat cake”
“The lobsters were $4 each from a fisherman who was happy to be getting more than from his regular buyer. We had potatoes from our own garden. And corn from a local farm which we support,” Stewart wrote in response to the user. “We feed everyone who works for us. We do not waste. We compost. We work. We give generously to many organizations.”
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“We care about the pandemic and observe healthy living and social distancing etc and we wear masks we are good people,” the media mogul added, which notably comes days after she was criticized by multiple Instagram users who accused her of not following social distancing protocols in the age of the coronavirus.
From the Aug. 1 post, users came to their unconfirmed conclusion based on the closeness of each table setting and the fact that Stewart wrote she was having a “fun dinner with friends.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging Americans to “prioritize attending outdoor activities over indoor activities” in addition to wearing face masks when less than six feet apart from other people while indoors according to guidance it last updated on July 30.
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In terms of hunger, the national nonprofit Feeding America estimated that one in six Americans could go hungry as a result of financial hardship caused by the pandemic.
TikTok has said it plans to build a $500m (£375m) data centre in Ireland.
It will store videos, messages and other data generated by European users from the short-form video-sharing app.
Until now all of its users’ records were stored in the US, with a back-up copy held in Singapore.
The announcement comes at a time when President Trump has threatened to ban the app in the US on the grounds its Chinese ownership makes it a national security risk.
TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company Bytedance denies the charge. However, it is in talks to sell its US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand operations to Microsoft.
Like many social media apps, TikTok gathers a wide range of information about its users. Its privacy statement says this covers:
users’ ages, passwords, email addresses and phone numbers
phone numbers in their address books and social network contacts
geo-location logs including GPS coordinates and internet protocol (IP) addresses
details about their devices including the operating system used, handset model and other unique identifiers
comments, photos and videos they have posted or at least part-prepared
browsing and search histories within the app
web browsing data that takes place outside the app and is gathered via cookies and other technologies
payment information
data obtained from third-party services and publicly available sources
keystroke patterns and screen tap rhythms exhibited while using a computer and/or smartphone that are particular to each user
The data is collected to target advertisements, and help tailor its powerful algorithm. But critics say that the Chinese Communist Party could demand access under its National Intelligence Law.
While the Chinese version of the app, Douyin, holds its records within mainland China, TikTok says it keeps all its user data separate and does not give the Chinese government access.
Given the Trump administration’s recent actions, the existing company is unlikely to carry on storing the information within the US.
But the firm said that the decision to set up a European centre was something it had been thinking about “for a long time”.
“It’s a significant investment,” Theo Bertram, the app’s director of public policy for Europe, told the BBC.
“It’s a symbol of our long-term commitment to Europe, and I think that’s an important message for our users and our creators at this time.”
TikTok’s chief data protection officer for Europe is already based in Dublin, so Ireland’s Data Protection Commission already deals with related privacy issues on behalf of other EU nations.
As such, the centre’s creation should not impact European users in any meaningful way.
But the firm said it should create hundreds of new jobs when it goes into operation at an undisclosed location in between 18 to 24 months time.
The decision to base it in Ireland does not, however, mean London is out of the running to host the app’s global HQ.
Security review
There has been speculation as to why TikTok is in talks to sell parts of its business outside of the US.
On the one hand, it had seemed odd that the deal covered all members of the Five Eyes security alliance except the UK.
On the other, Australia’s Prime Minister has said a review by its security agencies found that TikTok did not pose serious national security concerns, and therefore no case for a local ban.
Mr Bertram explained that the reason the business was in talks to sell its operations in Australia, Canada and New Zealand was because they were currently managed along with the US as a single region under the same executive.
Mr Bertram also acknowledged there had been calls for the UK’s security services to review the app, and said TikTok would be willing to let its source code and algorithm be inspected if requested.
“We welcome scrutiny,” he said.
“If the way that we’re judged is for the security services to carry out a factual review of what we are doing, we’re happy with that. We don’t have anything to hide.”
Stéphane Ruffier during PSG-ASSE, August 14, 2018. – JEE / SIPA
AS Saint-Etienne (L1) coach Claude Puel dismissed the iconic Greens goalkeeper Stéphane Ruffier for the entire 2020-2021 season, we learned from the club on Wednesday, confirming information from Infosport +. Ruffier, who has one year of contract to ensure, is not in the trio of players who will keep the cage of ASSE during the next season, the same source adds.
Claude Puel announces that Stéphane Ruffier has been sidelined for the entire 2020-21 season. (@team)
The goalkeeper turned down the number 2 position at the club. pic.twitter.com/d8fqYZ7wv4
– BeFoot (@_BeFoot) August 5, 2020
“I warned the two players. Mon [Jessy Moulin] that he was going to start the season, the other [Stéphane Ruffier] that he would be second. And the second confirmed to me that he would never be the understudy of Jessy Moulin. That’s why we built our trio and Stéphane will not be part of it, ”said the Stéphanois coach in an interview broadcast on Wednesday by the sports channel of the Canal + group.
This interview was carried out on Monday, the management of AS Saint-Etienne told AFP. The latter also indicates that the trio of goalkeepers selected for this season is made up of Jessy Moulin, 34, with Stefan Bajic, 18, as a lining and Etienne Green, 20, as the third goalkeeper.
“One day a club” – Saint Etienne A new cycle for ASSE
All the sport news with INFOSPORT + https://t.co/u6BZuPnEdy pic.twitter.com/jQKVxmOyNZ
– INFOSPORT + (@infosportplus) August 5, 2020
Stéphane Ruffier, 33, returned to training last week, following a layoff sanctioned by a six-day payroll deduction. The club management accuses him of having refused to participate in part of the training on July 10 when he was summoned with the unsuccessful players to play against Nice the next day at the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium.
Free to sign in January wherever he wishes
Asked by AFP, Stéphane Ruffier’s agent did not wish to comment on this formalization of the sidelining of the player, nor wanted to indicate whether he was looking for a new club. Stéphane Ruffier, who has played 383 matches in the Stéphane jersey since his arrival in summer 2011 from Monaco, is the goalkeeper who has played the most with the Greens in the 1st division, ahead of the legendary Ivan Curkovic.
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The Galaxy Z Fold 2’s exterior screen now nearly fills the side of the device
Samsung has tackled one of the biggest criticisms of its original folding-screen smartphone by giving the new version a much bigger external display for use when it is closed.
The original Galaxy Fold’s “cover screen” was a relatively small 4.6in, leading to claims it was fiddly to use.
By contrast, the Galaxy Z Fold 2’s external screen is 6.2in – the same as the best-selling Galaxy S20.
Even so, one expert said its high price would mean sales remained limited.
But he noted it would at least serve as a better “halo device” to generate excitement for the firm’s wider line-up, which also includes updated versions of its stylus-enabled Note handset, as well as a new smartwatch, tablet and wireless earphones.
“Samsung has addressed the biggest shortcoming of the Fold. Its external display was extremely small, which made it difficult to use as a one-handed smartphone,” commented Ben Wood from the CCS Insight consultancy.
“With a larger external display you really do get the best of both worlds with regards to being able to use it closed as a traditional phone and then having the benefit of a mini-tablet when unfolded.
“That said it’ll probably be priced as a super-premium product, so will only have a niche market.”
Image copyright Getty Images
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The previous edition of the Fold had a smaller exterior screen
The South Korean company is in need of an attention boost.
The coronavirus pandemic caused the biggest decline in smartphone sales the sector has ever experienced in the second quarter of the year, but Samsung was even harder hit than its rivals.
Those that can afford the Galaxy Z Fold 2 will also benefit from it having a larger internal display than before, measuring 7.6in – up from 7.3in in the original version. The firm said it had also been given a “firmer snap” action when being shut thanks to an improved hinge.
It did not disclose a price but said more details would be announced on 1 September.
Faster frame rate
In terms of sales, Samsung’s focus will be on its new Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra phones.
Both deliver 5G connectivity, but otherwise represent a more modest revision to their predecessors than the change in the Fold.
Image copyright Samsung
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The Note 20 smartphones allow users to zoom up to 50 times into a subject
The Ultra offers the benefits of a larger screen – 6.9in versus 6.7in – which is also capable of showing up to 120 frames per second, double the rate of the basic model. Samsung suggests this should make it more attractive to gamers.
Other changes centre around the stylus and include:
faster response times when using the S Pen, to help make writing and drawing feel more natural
the addition of five S Pen off-screen gestures to control the device, including flicking to the left in the air to go back a page and a shake to take a screenshot
handwriting recognition that automatically straightens scribbled text
Image copyright Samsung
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The Note 20 phones straighten handwritten text
Additional new features include the ability to stream video to a compatible TV while continuing to let the handset be used for other tasks – similar to the AirPlay function on Apple’s iPhone.
And files can now be transferred wirelessly by pointing one of the phones at another “ultra-wideband-enabled” device, similar to the way Apple’s AirDrop and Huawei’s Share OneHop work.
The Note 20 will start at £849 and the Note 20 Ultra at £1,179 when they go on sale on 21 August.
Image copyright Samsung
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Samsung also unveiled the Galaxy Buds Live wireless earphones, the Galaxy Watch 3 smartwatch and two versions of the Galaxy Tab S7 tablet
Its smartphones saw a much steeper drop in demand than Huawei and other Android competitors over the past quarter, despite the Galaxy 20 family having only been released in March.
And one expert said she did not expect the Note to turn things round.
“There’s now talk of second and third pandemic lockdowns, which is causing people and their employers financial uncertainty,” commented Marta Pinto from the market research firm IDC.
“These are amazing devices, but at this price they are a hard pitch.”
Ms Pinto said that recent price cuts made to the Galaxy S20 range would only make the new Notes a harder sell.
Image copyright Samsung
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The Note 20 can wirelessly transmit video to a TV while the user gets on with other tasks
But she added that one factor in Samsung’s favour was that Apple had said it would release its next iPhones a few weeks later than normal, providing Samsung a slightly longer window of opportunity to promote its phones’ 5G advantages.
Mr Wood also had doubts about the new phones’ appeal, but said Samsung had little choice at this stage but to release them.
“You have to remember that Samsung’s product development cycle takes so long that it was committed to the Note 20 a long time before the pandemic arrived,” said Mr Wood.
“But a broader question is whether there is still enough differentiation to justify having two flagship ranges. The Galaxy S and Note phones now have similar screen sizes, and the only key difference is the S Pen.
“I wonder if it would make sense to converge the two, save money on a second launch, and then focus on other parts of the portfolio like Samsung’s [mid-range] A series.”
Image copyright Samsung
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Samsung launched its new gadgets via a video stream rather than in front of an audience because of the Covid-19 pandemic
Other new products included:
Galaxy Buds Live – wireless noise-cancelling earphones that are designed to double up as remote microphones for video recordings
Galaxy Watch 3 – a smartwatch that can take blood pressure and electrocardiogram (ECG) heart readings, but only if local regulators give approval
Galaxy Tab 7 and Tab S7+ – 11in and 12.4in tablets that can also act as second screens for Samsung PCs
Image caption
Comedy series The Good Place can be seen on Netflix, which saw an increase in new subscribers
Lockdown measures enforced due to the Covid-19 pandemic brought about a surge in TV watching and online streaming, according to media watchdog Ofcom.
Its annual study into UK media habits suggested adults – many stuck indoors – spent 40% of their waking hours in front of a screen, on average.
Time spent on subscription streaming services also doubled during April.
At the height of lockdown, adults spent an average of six hours and 25 minutes each day staring at screens.
Screen time overall was up almost a third (31%) on last year.
People watched streaming services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, for one hour 11 minutes per day, and 12 million people joined a service they hadn’t used previously. Three million of these viewers had never subscribed to any service before.
The majority signed up to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, although Disney+ overtook Now TV as the third most popular paid-for streaming platform.
Older viewers, who typically watch more traditional broadcast TV, increased their use of streaming platforms, too.
One third of 55-64-year-olds, and 15% of people aged 65+ used subscription services in the early weeks of lockdown.
The study, entitled Media Nations 2020, suggested that as lockdown measures eased towards the end of June, the uplift in streaming services held firm – 71% up on the same time last year.
This figure also included people viewing more non-broadcast content on platforms like YouTube and gaming sites.
And more than half of UK adults (55%) with new streaming subscriptions said they will keep them and spend the same amount of time watching streamed content in future.
In contrast, Netflix saw 28 million new subscribers for the whole of 2019.
Media playback is unsupported on your device
Media captionCoronation Street filming has resumed following a break during the pandemic
“Growth is slowing as consumers get through the initial shock of coronavirus and social restrictions,” the company said.
As for the public service broadcasters – BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 – they achieved their highest combined monthly share of broadcast TV viewing (59%) in more than six years in March, as people turned to trusted news services for updates on the virus.
The BBC was the most popular source of news and information about Covid-19 – used by 82% of adults during the first week of lockdown.
Analysis by Amol Rajan, BBC media editor
In the age of information overload, our attention is the most precious resource. These days we devote ever more of it to screens. And that was before lockdown.
The surge in screen viewing through the pandemic is genuinely extraordinary.
It’s important to remember that many of the companies or services that have turned us into screen addicts didn’t exist a decade ago.
Sadly for Britain’s commercial broadcasters, all these eyeballs haven’t turned into revenue, as advertising is in sharp retreat, for now at least.
Before lockdown, the creative industries were growing several times faster than the rest of the economy, albeit powered by US companies.
Never mind “Eat Out to Help Out”; might “Tune In to Help Out” be a slogan to boost Britain’s path out of recession?
Broadcasters’ video-on demand services also received a boost in lockdown. Dramas Normal People and Killing Eve helped BBC iPlayer attract a record 570m programme requests in May 2020 – 72% higher than in May 2019.
Channel 4’s on-demand service, All 4, generated 30% more views among 16-34s in the first two weeks of lockdown compared with the same period in 2019; and viewers spent 82% more time year-on-year watching ITV Hub.
However, the boost to PSBs’ linear audiences was short-lived as coronavirus interrupted production of soaps including EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, as well as major sporting events like the Olympics and entertainment broadcasts such as the Glastonbury Festival.
By the end of June and with lockdown easing, the amount of time viewers spent watching traditional broadcast content fell 44 minutes to three hours and two minutes per day. Broadcast TV viewing is now comparably lower than it was in 2014-2017, although it remains 11% higher than this time last year.
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