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Mobile Specification Comparison Between Moto G4 Plus & YU Yunicorn June 2016
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If you’re after a tablet in 2016 you broadly speaking have three choices: Android, Apple’s iPad or Microsoft’s Windows 10 tablets.
While the first two are mobile born and bred, spawned from smartphone operating systems, Windows 10 comes from the other side of computing – the traditional desktop.
So-called two-in-one PCs, which are half tablet, half laptop, with the ability to transform in some fashion between the two, are about the only sector of PCs and tablets that’s growing. They seem like the perfect combination between a tablet and a computer without having to buy two devices.
Manufacturers such as Microsoft, Samsung and Huawei have are starting to make hardware that’s up to scratch with the best of Google and Apple. The Samsung TabPro S, which triggered this article, is a well built, snappy and attractive tablet. As a PC it is a great thin and light laptop replacement, but while Microsoft has made huge leaps with Windows 10’s look and feel there are still some big things holding its tablets back.
Some problems Microsoft can and should do something about, others aren’t that easy to fix.
The app gap
The Windows Store appears to be a second-class citizen in the eyes of developers. What third-party apps are there aren’t updated.Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
People talk about the “app gap” between Android and iOS – there are more tablet-specific apps for Apple’s iPad than there are for Android tablets – but Windows 10 is miles behind both of them.
I’m not talking about the sheer number of apps. Having the right apps available is much better than having many shoddy ones. I’m also not talking about the availability of Windows desktop apps, which is Microsoft’s ace in the hole compared to machines running Android or iOS.
It is the third-party apps that make using a tablet fun and enjoyable that Windows 10 lacks. The classic example is video consumption apps. Netflix is available in the Windows Store, as is All 4 and Demand 5, which is good, but the BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub and Amazon Prime video are not. To access those services you’re forced back into the browser and a desktop-like experience.
The same hit-and-miss selection extends to almost all other app areas. There’s a Facebook app, but no Instagram one, a Kindle app, but no ComiXology or Marvel Unlimited. When it comes to music apps you’re forced to use Windows desktop apps from Spotify, iTunes and others in the browser.
When there are apps they aren’t updated in line with apps on other platforms – for example the Twitter app still hasn’t gotten built-in Giphy support.
And while desktop apps are great when using a Windows device as a laptop, they’re just not a good experience on a touchscreen tablet.
Blurry mess
The desktop app situation is made worse by Microsoft’s poor handling of high-resolution screens. Five years ago a high resolution display provided increased screen real estate by making everything tiny. Today the density of screens has increased so that text, images and icons look pin-sharp, not microscopic in size.
Windows Store apps scale fine with crisp text on the good-looking screens tablets such as the Samsung TabPro S have. But Windows desktop apps often look like blurry mess, simply magnified without increasing the pixel density. It’s a very poor experience, particularly on a tablet. It makes me actively avoid using desktop Windows apps, but it’s almost impossible to exclude them all in favour of Windows Store apps because of the app gap.
Battery death
A day’s working battery from the TabPro S is great, but standby battery life can be woeful. You end up seeing this screen a lot, even with Windows 10’s ‘battery saver’ feature enabled.Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
Apps and resolutions aside, the real big flaw for Windows 10 tablets is battery life. I’m not talking about active use battery life – I got a full day of work without plugging in the TabPro S – but standby time.
When you hit the power button to put an iPad or Android tablet running Marshmallow to sleep you can be sure when you come back a day later that it’ll still have charge. Time and time again I’ve put Windows 10 tablets to sleep over night only to find them dead by the morning.
Microsoft’s built-in battery saver mode helps, but Windows 10 needs much tighter control over the power state of the device when asleep, particularly when users expect an instant-on response when coming back to their tablets.
Both Android and iOS excel here. The iPad Pro lasts a week on standby, as does Google’s Pixel C. I’m lucky if I managed to get a day of standby out of the TabPro S, which has one of the longest battery lives of any Windows 10 tablet I have tested.
The tablet market is waning, 2-in-1s are rising and with them the use of Windows 10 on tablets. Microsoft has an excellent opportunity to claim back some share of the mobile market, but it needs to work hard to crush the problems and narrow the app gap. Windows 10 tablets could be amazing, and while the hardware is getting there, the software isn’t right now.
“Dials and buttons, knobs and switches; they’re very charming,” says James Ball, the digital art director behind a new photography series called Guide to Computing, which celebrates early computers. Ball, who works under the pseudonym Docubyte, began the project after developing a fascination and affection for such retro devices.
“It’s rare now to find any machine that you can touch and interact with,” he says. “Computers now are all touch screens, slick and super-slim.” Ball feels that computers that pre-date the Apple era aren’t widely considered to be design pieces, and his nostalgia for this earlier, more “naive” aesthetic led him to seek out and photograph a range of machines that date from the latter half of the 20th century, representing them as if they were new and desirable products.
Harwell Dekatron: This enormous, still functional machine predates the use of punch cards.Photograph: docubyte/INK
After shooting the machines, which he largely found in the Science Museum in London, the Dresden Technical Collections and the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, Ball painstakingly enhanced the images with the help of his colleagues at INK studio to make the computers look new.
“The retouching is quite important to the piece”, he says, taking as an example the Pilot ACE, an early 1950s computer designed by Alan Turing, now in a state of semi-disrepair. “There are no colour photographs of it when it was new, so in a way we were making a new history, presenting the past in a new context.”
ICL 7500: the user command console that accompanied a range of popular, British-designed mainframe computers during the 1970s and 1980s.Photograph: docubyte/INK
“They look nice,” says Ball, “but I’d still like to do a comprehensive, quite nerdy book which is actually a guide to computing history.” With an air of affectionate poignancy, he points out that each of his images, rendered as a jpeg, is about 5mb in size – larger than any file that the individual computers could sustain. “Without sounding woefully pretentious,” he says, “they’re beautiful in their obsolescence.”
CDC 6600: Designed by the ‘father of supercomputing’ Seymour Cray and first used in the Cern laboratory in 1965. It was the fastest computer for many years, humiliating its IBM rivals.Photograph: docubyte/INK
On 18 May 2016 Google I/O 2016 live streaming accross the globe through several medium. Some highlights include the new messaging app Allo, the Video calling app Duo, the latest in Developer Platform innovation with Firebase, What’s new in Android N, Android Wear 2.0 updates, and Android Instant Run.
Special Note is the largest Attendance for the live steam event outside USA is Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The first rule of mindfulness might be to switch your smartphone off. From checking emails at bedtime to constant, needy push notifications from mobile games, our phones can often feel like they amplify our daily stress.
Turning to your smartphone for respite from the digital clutter may feel as ridiculous as holding an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in a pub, with your inbox, social networks and Candy Crush Saga just a couple of taps away.
Still, mobile meditation apps are trying to help. There are hundreds available, although the pool of genuinely useful ones is much smaller. Here are five of the best to try out.
This British app comes with an endorsement from Emma Watson, and has a straightforward approach that will appeal if you’re harbouring fears that meditation is a bit hippy-dippy. The spoken-word exercises are designed to be used for around 10 minutes a day, starting with a 10-session pack that comes free with the initial download. If you want to continue after that, it’ll cost you £9.99 a month or £74.99 a year, with a simple, clear stats screen tracking your progress.
Calm is similar to Headspace in its setup: here, the free element is a seven-day course of guided-meditation exercises, while the monthly subscription costs £7.99 and the yearly option £29.99 – the latter is thus a pretty good deal. Once you pay, the available sessions include a 21-day program for general wellbeing, and a week-long series focusing on helping you get better sleep. There are also individual sessions lasting between two and 20 minutes, and “unguided” sessions using music and nature sounds.
This is one of the few meditation apps that you pay for entirely upfront: it costs £3.99 for iOS and £1.99 for Android, with no in-app purchases. Its meditation sessions are organised by theme according to what you’re up to: from waking up, taking a work break or waiting around through to feeling stressed, dealing with difficult emotions and struggling to get to sleep. There are more than 80 tracks to explore, so you should find a fair few that suit you.
The Mindfulness App is one of the most accessible apps, offering a decent catalogue of meditation tracks with and without narrators, ranging from three to 30 minutes in length. As with Headspace and Calm there’s an introductory series to get you up and running, with a number of other meditations included in the download price. There’s also a premium library for which you’ll have to pay extra: £7.99 a month for unlimited access or £0.79 for individual tracks.
Smiling Mind is slightly different to the other apps in this roundup, in that it was originally designed for children and young people – even though adults are welcome too. Its programs are divided by age, starting at 7-11 years: if you have children who are struggling with their emotions, it could be helpful alongside whatever other methods you and they are using. The app is clear, easy to use and completely free.
Have you used these or other meditation apps? What did you think and what would you recommend to other readers? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Billionaire Silicon Valley investor, Donald Trump delegate and Facebook board member Peter Thiel has made secrecy his brand. So when it emerged that Thiel appeared to be bankrolling former wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker, many people were surprised.
Yet by publicly outing him as gay in 2007, Gawker founder Nick Denton shattered the privacy of Thiel’s fiercely guarded personal life and techno-libertarian vision. And Thiel, it turns out, can hold a grudge.
In April 2016, a Florida judge awarded Hogan $140m in damages against Gawker, which had published a clip from a sex tape involving the wrestler, but the suit was tailored specifically to skirt Denton’s publishing insurance. If triggered, the insurance could have meant a higher payout for Hogan but would have protected Denton from personal financial ruin. Hogan (and now it turns out Thiel) wanted it to be Denton himself who paid for the damages.
On Wednesday, Thiel’s spokesman said he would update journalists if the venture capitalist decided he wanted to discuss the Gawker matter. With the story in the public domain for 24 hours, his aides have neither confirmed nor denied the assertion, first reported by Forbes.
The episode marks the latest unexpected twist in Thiel’s political efforts, which are both representative of and at odds with Silicon Valley’s broader political awakening; people close to the billionaire describe his worldview as a mix of extreme laissez-faire and mainstream Republicanism. Thiel has backed a variety of causes, from Ron Paul’s and Trump’s presidential bids, to government-less forms of currency such as bitcoin and 3D-printed gun startups.
The mix of ideology was evident after his support of the Gawker suit became public. In Silicon Valley, his cadre of young, techie, libertarian followers immediately went into a defensive crouch when contacted by reporters. At the same time, self-described white nationalists and Trump backers on Twitter started promoting the hashtag “#thankyoupeter”.
So, who is Peter Thiel?
In Silicon Valley lore, Thiel occupies a curious position. He’s hugely influential and has been present at pivotal moments in the tech world, funding political projects but remaining little known and deeply private. A violation of that privacy could be what spurred his anger in the first place – in 2007, then Gawker writer Owen Thomas published a piece outing Thiel, headlined: Peter Thiel is totally gay, people.
Thiel was one of 13 men, including Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, who founded the digital payments company PayPal in 1998.
Nick Denton.Photograph: POOL/Reuters
Part of Thiel’s enthusiasm for PayPal in its early years was that it was a way to conduct secure transactions outside of national banking systems, people familiar with the matter said, though this was before the payment system came under regulation.
Since PayPal, Thiel has taken a different tactic, investing in various projects that promote his vision of a deeply conservative utopia.
His activism goes back to 1999, when he and David Sacks, now CEO of human resources startup Zenefits, penned the book The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus. As the title suggests, the book was a takedown of political correctness and wear-it-on-your-sleeve identity politics conservatives associate with the left.
He made money when PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5bn, though he really made his fortune as the first outside investor in Facebook, where he acquired a 10.2% stake in 2004 for $500,000. Facebook today is worth more than $341bn. His net worth is now estimated at $2.7bn.
Thiel then founded Palantir, a secretive data analytics company that got its start by helping US spies hunt terrorists in 2004. Most recently valued at $20bn despite some recent problems, Thiel says he founded the company to make the world safer while helping people maintain personal freedom through technological safeguards. “I felt we were drifting to a place in the US [where] we’d have a lot fewer civil liberties and no real effective protection,” Thiel said at the time.
In recent years, Thiel took a particular interest in bitcoin technology as a way to ensure private, secure transactions that were untouched by the state. A few years ago Thiel told associates that he saw promise in young entrepreneur Cody Wilson, a self-described antiestablishment techie working on a project to make bitcoin untraceable for authorities. Wilson, most famous for making 3D-printed guns that can evade metal detectors, had been a guest at Thiel’s private Wyoming estate.
But it has been through his passion projects and writing that Thiel has begun fully articulating his techno-libertarian vision. In 2009 he wrote about how capitalist politics have struggled because women are allowed to vote. “The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics,” Thiel wrote at the time.
“Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”
At the startup conference TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010, Thiel announced the Thiel Fellowship, which pays 20 young people $100,000 to drop out of college each year. He started investing in Seasteading, an effort to build a lawless utopian island in the ocean.
Thiel may be more of a loyal Republican than he lets on.Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images
“In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms – from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called ‘social democracy’,” he wrote.
Since 2000, he’s been making regular donations to Republican politicians, the national party and other conservative groups, according to public records. During the 2012 election alone, he spent $2.7m backing libertarian-prone Republican Ron Paul’s quixotic presidential campaign. This election, he played adviser and would-be moneyman for Paul’s son, Rand, before he dropped out of the race early. In August, he cut a $2m check for Republican Carly Fiorina’s Super Pac.
The Trump campaign in May announced the Silicon Valley billionaire would serve as a delegate for the presumptive Republican nominee in Cleveland this summer.
Thiel, however, may be more of a loyal Republican than he lets on. In 2014, during an interview with the Daily Caller, he talked about the GOP using possessive pronouns and praised Ted Cruz at length. “One of the challenges we have in the Republican party is … our representatives, our senators, are somewhat lower IQ than the people on the other side,” he told the conservative news outlet.
Denton in 2007 presaged this in a comment on the article outing Thiel. “He was so paranoid that, when I was looking into the story, a year ago, I got a series of messages relaying the destruction that would rain down on me, and various innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, if a story ever ran.”
Thiel said in 2009: “Valleywag [a then Gawker Media blog] is the Silicon Valley equivalent of al-Qaida.” In 2014 he published a book of business and life advice called Zero to One. In it, he has a section on the importance of secrets.
“Every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator,” he wrote.
As Silicon Valley breeds its next generation of young entrepreneurs, Thiel has helped spread an idea that companies can only succeed if they know how to keep secrets. It’s a basic lesson he teaches his young Thiel fellow acolytes. When reporters contacted people in Thiel’s orbit, it’s not uncommon to have basic facts questioned. When a Guardian reporter mentioned Thiel’s role as a delegate for Donald Trump, one person close to the billionaire asked if that was “real” and if Thiel had publicly confirmed it.
As Thiel wrote in his book: “Unless you have perfectly conventional beliefs, it’s rarely a good idea to tell everybody everything that you know.”
Social media is often called out as an outlet for bragging. Or its spin-off, the #humblebrag. We hear all the time about how the pressure to keep up with the shiny, happy people we see on Facebook is making our mental health suffer.
It can seem that everyone else’s existence is all #marbs, postcoital selfies, and smug invitation acceptances. Except for my Instagram feed, which is literally just pictures of Hampstead Heath.
That very sort of self-deprecation, however, is becoming a thing. A popular internet trope is now the antisocial individual, the homebody, the push back from scenesters. It’s now all about revelling in singledom, jokes about therapy sessions, the terror of being an adult or putting it out there that hitting a club can actually be pretty hellish. And slumming it on the couch? Heaven.
The most popular memes on humour and pop-culture-based Instagram and Twitter accounts such as The Fat Jewish and Girl With No Job et al? Pictures of cats chilling on couches, confessions of a sub-par life and vignettes of people expressing a (sort of) joking disdain for other people. Or as one poster puts it: “God bless Uber drivers that don’t attempt small talk”.
A picture of a cat meme on missing outPhotograph: Instagram/The Fat Jewish/@friend_of_bae
Claudia Oshry, who runs the hugely popular Girl With No Job Instagram account (2 million followers), which consists of collated memes and tweets, tells me that self-deprecating posts are the most popular because we like to feel that we’re not alone in not living the perfect life.
“Everyone is surprised to realise that other people feel the same way about staying in and watching Netflix. Most people wouldn’t admit out loud that they’d prefer to binge watch TV and eat pizza instead of going out to the fanciest dinner or club. It’s nice to know you’re not the only one.”
When Caterina Fake popularised the idea of (FOMO) or the fear of missing out, she wrote that the internet itself exacerbated this anxiety, and I’m sure she is right. But, in a world of constantly switched-on, ostentatious displays of popularity and people having an ostensibly TOTALLY AWESOME TIME, perhaps it isn’t surprising that things would start to pitch in the opposite direction (known as JOMO, joy of missing out).
Girl With No Job has 2 million followers. Who can’t relate to this feeling?Photograph: Instagram @girlwithnojob
Also: we’re increasingly comfortable with being a bit rubbish, or as the Twitter account with 350,000 followers (and now book) has it: So Sad Today. The Nailed It meme is a perfect example of this. Life isn’t Goop. Real life is not Photoshopped, and life hacks almost never work.
The Expectation v Reality memes continue this theme – a visual representation of what psychologists call “the incongruence gap”. In short: this celeb with perfectly coiffed hair versus your matted tangled beehive when you try to copy it.
An example of the hugely popular Expectation v Reality memesPhotograph: Buzzfeed
There’s the sense that, and perhaps it’s even stronger among millennials, we’re all somewhat inadequate as adults. We’re awful at cooking, we don’t understand pensions, and we just wanna be left alone to watch marathons of Broad City. When we realise, as Oshry says, that other people feel this way too, we feel better.
Maggy van Eijk, the social media editor of Buzzfeed UK agrees. She explains how the process there works:
“We have a group of photoshop wizards and illustrators called the distribution squad and we all create one-off memes, jokes, [and] illustrations that work as standalone pieces for Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter. The best of them and most viral are the self-deprecating.
“I think this is because it makes people either go ‘this is so me’ or they tag their best friend and go ‘this is so you’ or best-case scenario they say ‘this is so us’ and tag a bunch of their friends so it gets shared more widely.”
Van Eijk tells me top themes are being “shit at make-up, loving dogs more than humans, eating pizza, not showering or exercising, and not going to the gym”.
“One of our most recent comics that really went wild had to do with ‘shaving your legs for summer’ and how that really only means you shave your ankles because you can’t be bothered with the rest, and I thought that was so telling. It’s unlikely you’re going to write a Facebook status that says: ‘HEY GUYS I’m only shaving my ankles because this is what I feel is the norm and the rest of me is fucking hairy get over it’ but by sharing the comic they can hide behind the meme while also making a bit of statement.”
The British have always been quite good at this dry sense of humour (just look at the success, for instance, of toilet books like Crap Towns) but it’s perhaps surprising to see the take up in America. Or perhaps it is just that with millennials being screwed in the job and housing markets, we can’t do much but laugh instead of cry online.
Even social media stars such Essena O’Neill have revealed that their perfect online presence is just a ruse. Oshry says that the glamorous party photo pics are still popular too (“the internet has enough room for all types of content”). And psychotherapist and writer Philippa Perry cautions that these posts becoming more and more popular might just be a knock-on effect of people trying to cash in on the likes. Perry tells me:
“People find [it] brave and attractive so more people experiment with being ‘real’ but I cynically suggest that perhaps rather than being ‘real’ it’s just that this type of self-depreciation has been proven to be attractive so it’s becoming more popular.”
This also crops up when I speak to the creator behind the @friend_of_bae account, who mentions that these type of dgaf posts have indeed become “trendy”.
But Perry also says that she recently posted a picture with “four unwashed mugs to show how not great I am at work”, which is comforting to those of us with three empty Coke cans on their desk.
Even if some posts are a facade or it is all a backlash to Rich Kids of Instagram – that it’s cool to be uncool – one thing is for sure, being more and more OK with the fact we’re all socially anxious animals, competing for who has the most banal life and poorest life skills is probably a damn sight more healthy (and easier) than attempting to out-glam each other or #eat the #cleanest.
I declare our new love of self-deprecation to be a positive thing. Now excuse me while I brush the Doritos crumbs off my shirt, and go hang out on Hampstead Heath because I have been invited to precisely zero parties.
Adele’s new video is about to be beamed in and she accepts the award with a short video message which is chirpy and longer than all the other acceptance speeches combined
Soon there will an awards show every week and they never get boring, at all.
With a name like that it’s hard to know if this is ironic or not …
DNCE play Cake By The Ocean
DNCE: missing more than a vowelPhotograph: Shutterstuck/REX/Shutterstock
This is easily the worst section of the show so far. Maroon 5 impersonators DNCE are here to bore everyone with their balloon-laden performance. It was written by Joe Jonas and Nick Jonas is singing along gamely in the front row #loyal.
Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton perform
Gwen StefaniPhotograph: Joe Scarnici/WireImage
The real life couple sing Go Ahead and Break My Heart, and it’s hideously schmaltzy. I can’t believe I’m missing Game of Thrones for this.
Lukas Graham performs 7 Years
… which is this generation’s Hmm Hmm Hmm by the Crash Test Dummies
Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato perform
Demi LovatoPhotograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato have a massive tour starting at the end of June, according to Ludacris. Who also knows the details of their new singles. Jonas is performing first and is doing the whole thing through gritted teeth. Then Tove Lo shows up and sings at Jonas through some glass. It’s a bit steamy and actually quite interesting and they end the whole thing with a snog, or do they … the lights go down just at the right time.
Lovato is here to belt out Cool For The Summer. There’s not much of a performance. she walks around the stage interacting with her backing singers who look like they just want to get through the song.
Justin BieberPhotograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Jessica Alba is here to tell us that Bieber has done it.
He’s not really a talker, he says. Before delivering the shortest acceptance speech of the evening and walking off. He’s probably still tired to be fair.
Pink performs Just Like Fire and channels Wild Wild West
PinkPhotograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Pink is here, looking like Annie Lennox as she flies across the stadium. This is completely ridiculous. That was like a WWE entrance.
Now she’s being carried around by a small army of helpers, I’ll call them helpers, but they don’t look like they want to be there. This is the song from Alice Through The Looking Glass. Bieber isn’t into this at all, he looks like Pink just stole his hoverboard.
She flies around AGAIN, this time on a clock. It’s like a steampunk fantasy. Brilliantly bonkers.
Updated
DJ Khaled introduces Justin Bieber
Justin BieberPhotograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Remember when I asked who was going to stir things up? Well, DJ Khaled just did the most overblown introduction for a performance ever. In his immutable style he left the floor open for Bieber who was performing new track company in almost pitch darkness. He emerges out of the darkness as the chorus kicks in, I believe people will call that his Tropical House track.
Then he segues into Sorry. People are losing their minds in the fan section, and even the celebrities are singing along and genuinely look like they are loving this. The stage has gone a bit Wizard of Oz with emeralds everywhere as Bieber does the bogle.
Updated
WINNER! Thomas Rhett – Die a Happy Man (Top country artist)
Thomas RhettPhotograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Miss America and some guy off Shark Tank (Mark Cuban) are here to give another award. There’s some stilted banter about Mark Cuban running for President. That was painful.
Thomas Rhett thanks god and his lovely wife … and that’s it.
So the usual crowd patting themselves on the back then……
Well, Meghan Trainor is here so there are some outliers.
Updated
JUSTIN BIEBER PERFORMS SORRY IN 12 MINUTES
Justin BieberPhotograph: Kevin Winter/BBMA2016/Getty Images for dcp
That’s what is flashed up on the screen just as Meghan Trainor starts to perform. Sorry Meghan but there’s one person everyone is here to see and it aint you.
Our first collaboration of the night sees girl group Fifth Harmony and R&B crooner Ty Dolla $ign link up. Fifth Harmony rise up from a load of dry ice.
Ty shows up and proceeds to get a very short private dance from each member of Fifth Harmony, some are more enthusiastic than others and then, well, he just strolls off. Easiest $50,000 he’s ever made!
NB – I have no idea how much he’s getting paid for this.
Updated
30 minute marker
Millennium Award recipient Britney SpearsPhotograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
So … we’re 30 minutes in and things have been pretty conservative so far. Britney did an abridged version of her Vegas show which she performs around the corner from where the awards are being held. The Weeknd cried some crocodile tears and Wiz Khalifa was really really polite. Who’s going to stir it up?
Updated
WINNER! – Wiz Khalifa ft Charlie Pugh (Top Hot 100 Song)
A winner: Wiz KhalifaPhotograph: David Becker/Getty Images
Ashton Kutcher lets the crowd know that Wiz Khalifa has done it. He’s won the Top Hot 100 Song! He shouts out all the other artists who were nominated and his mum.
Shawn Mendes performs Stitches
Selfie stitch: Shawn MendesPhotograph: Jeff Kravitz/BBMA2016/FilmMagic
Jojo Fletcher from the Bachelorette is here to introduce teenthrob sensation Shawn Mendes. He’s doing a sullen number while sat at a stool with an acoustic guitar.
There’s a TV in the background and now he moves to a bedroom scene where he sits at a grand piano – there’s a really nice rug in that room too. He’s performing Stitches and the kids are loving it. This man shifts units as they say in the trade.
WINNER! – The Weeknd (Top Hot 100 Artist)
The WeekndPhotograph: RMV/REX/Shutterstock
The Weeknd, who is the only nominee in the building, rather predictably wins and then talks about how much Prince means to him while almost crying. He holds it together somehow – it’s only the first award!
Ludacris and Ciara
Co-hosts Ludacris (L) and CiaraPhotograph: David Becker/Getty Images
Hosts Ludacris and Ciara declare that Britney Spears was “great” and Luda reminds everyone this is the third time he’s hosted the show before they go into a tortured gag about threesomes. This might be a long night.
After paying homage to her legs, Ludacris plugs Ciara’s various projects and says he’s known her for ten years. Ciara mentions Luda’s charity work without doing the obvious gag linked to his hit Area Codes.
Updated
Britney SpearsPhotograph: Jeff Kravitz/BBMA2016/FilmMagic
Slave For You sees Britney and her backing dancers form a weird congo on the ground before she directs them to a stripper pole.
The director cuts to Nick Jonas who looks pretty non-plussed. He’s got nothing to be smug about, I still remember his turn at the pre-Grammy show …
Things slow down with the forgettable Touch Of My Hand, before she launches into Toxic. And … that’s it. Not a bad start at all.
Updated
Britney SpearsPhotograph: Jeff Kravitz/BBMA2016/FilmMagic
She starts with Work Bitch, which is the song she starts her Vegas show (I know this because I’ve seen the thing). Then she segues into Womanizer after ripping off a layer of clothing – she’s definitely not singing live btw.
Her backing singers have some light sabers and there’s a screen that looks a bit like something from Tron. It’s not exactly mind blowing but if you want a competent run through of an artist’s biggest numbers, while she mimes and plays really bad air guitar, this is the one for you!
Updated
We’re off … Britney is here
Britney Spears at the Billboard Music AwardsPhotograph: Bryan Haraway/AFP/Getty Images
We’ve just had a breathless introduction to the evening with an extensive list of artists who all seem to be making comebacks. First up, Britney. Although, she never really went away.
Welcome to the Billboard Music Awards liveblog
Ariana Grande attends the 2016 Billboard Music AwardsPhotograph: David Becker/Getty Images
Hello everyone,
I’m sat in a room in New York following all the action from the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas. It should be an interesting evening with Kesha’s first performance in years (and since her legal disputes with Dr Luke) and Madonna (and friends) are performing a tribute to Prince.
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Soon there will an awards show every week and they never get boring, at all.