2019 Smartphones: Tech savvy Joe Issa Mulls What’s Coming In

Businessman and founder of Cool Market online Joe Issa, says he is gearing to respond to the demands of the smartphone market in 2019.

“As I understand, we can anticipate a 5G environment in 2019 with new smartphone features like folding screens, hole-punch selfie cams, fingerprint scanners and bigger screens.

Fingerprint scanners will be popular in 2019.

“I think we can also expect to see the price of new super expensive smartphones reaching new highs, which should create greater demand for  those at the opposite end of the market,” said Issa, whose online retail business is said to be the largest in Jamaica.

Issa referenced a Guardian article which claims that 2019 looks set to transform the smartphone in more ways than one, from the launch of 5G to phones with large folding screens, more cameras and fingerprint scanners under the screens.

It said 2018 produced phones with notches hiding selfie cameras and sensors in the top of the screen. While not quite the innovation most were likely seeking, notches allowed manufacturers to remove everything from the front that wasn’t screen.

Now that the smartphone is essentially all screen on the front and a slab of glass on the back, it begs the question: what’s next for phone innovation?

Joe Issa, Founder Cool Group of Companies

Hole-punch cameras

Notches are an ugly necessity at the moment – everyone but Apple agrees – as the camera has to go somewhere. But they don’t have to be large intrusive bars.

According to the article, 2019 will see new hole-punch screens, which literally have small holes in the display through which the selfie camera pokes. Huawei has already announced two phones with a diminutive hole in the display, as has Samsung with its Galaxy A8s.

With more devices expected to follow, it appears 2019 will be the year of the punch-hole display, it said.

The fingerprint scanner

What was long seen as the holy grail of biometric systems, the fingerprint scanner embedded into the screen finally became a reality in the mass market at the end of 2018 with the OnePlus 6T and Huawei Mate 20 Pro, it said.

Strictly speaking, the scanners are under the display, reading the ridges on your thumb or finger through the pixels of your screen. The current generation optical sensors are to be joined by improved ultrasonic sensors next year in a variety of phones, according to the article.

When all you have is a screen on the front and camera on the back, there’s not much to differentiate one model from the next in terms of design.

“The rectangular touchscreen has become the dominant design for smartphones and there is little sign of that changing anytime soon,” says Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight.

If you were hoping for a radical new design in 2019, you might be out of luck.

Cameras, cameras, cameras

Having killed off the compact camera, smartphones are said to be coming for the big, expensive digital SLRs and their ilk.

First we had dual cameras on the back, then triple and now even quadruple. Some have up to 10x zoom that doesn’t look like a distorted mess, while most sport ever improving portrait modes for that pleasing shallow depth of field bokeh effect, said the Guardian story.

“Cameras are a major battleground when it comes to competitive differentiation,” says Wood.

Expect to see even greater use of computational photography, where multiple images from single or multiple cameras are combined to create a photo with algorithms, improving your candid snaps, particularly in low light.

5G and super expensive phones

5G will finally launch in 2019 with faster data and ever more expensive phones. But it won’t just be 5G phones pushing up the price. The cost of phones in the top-end market dominated by Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S series is expected to continue to rise, the article claims.

“Don’t be surprised to see the £2,000 phone in 2019 – the advent of 5G, premium materials, perhaps foldable devices and more will see the emergence of a new ultra-premium segment,” says Wood. “Apple has let the way on smartphone inflation and we expect manufacturers to keep pushing the boundaries – particularly as people hold on to their phones for longer.”

If you can’t stomach paying £1,000 for a phone, there is hope. With a new super-premium category, the market for slightly more competitive devices that offer top-performance is likely to expand.

According to the report, OnePlus has proved the niche exists with top-end phones costing under £500 in UK. Now it has been joined by Chinese rival Xiaomi and it aggressively priced top end phones, alongside the increasing sales of Honor, Huawei’s cheaper sub-brand.

Gender Equality Advocate Says New Study Could Make Movie Making More Inclusive, Urges More Women Participation

Encouraged by a study which found that films with female leads that pass the Bechdel test did better than male-led equivalents at every budget level, Champion for gender equality Joe Issa is urging more women to enter traditional male-dominated professions.

Frozen

“I think the study should encourage more women to enter the male-dominated profession both in front and behind the camera. It should also inform the decisions of movie executives and help remove the stigma that women are a risk in a male-dominated world,” said Issa

The report, which is compiled by media research agency Shift7 in collaboration with leading agency CAA, assessed the revenue for 350 high-grossing films released between 2014 and 2017, and found that the average results for female-led films did best, at every budget level.

Joe Issa, Founder Cool Group of Companies

CAA agent Christy Haubegger reportedly said in a statement: “Women comprise half the box office, yet there has been an assumption in the industry that female-led films were generally less successful. We found that the data does not support that assumption.”

In reinforcing the findings, the report also reportedly analysed films that passed the Bechdel test – the informal measure that records if female characters interact and have agency in films independent of male characters.

The report reportedly concluded that, again, Bechdel test-passing films also outperformed those that failed. These included all the films that passed $1 billion at the global box office in the time period (though not all are female-led), including three Star Wars films (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and Rogue One), Beauty and the Beast and Finding Dory. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey from 2012 was the last $1 billion-plus film not to pass the Bechdel test.

Amy Pascal, former head of Sony Pictures, reportedly said: “This is powerful proof that audiences want to see everyone represented on screen … Decision-makers in Hollywood need to pay attention to this.”

Producer Liza Chasin is said to have added: “The Bechdel test is a low bar to clear, and it’s surprising how many movies don’t clear it. Understandably, the studios think about the bottom line, so it’s great to see a growing body of data that should make it easier for executives to make more inclusive decisions.”

The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ BEK-dəl) is a measure of the representation of women in fiction. It asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added.

Sometimes called the Mo Movie Measure or Bechdel Rule, the test was popularized by Alison Bechdel’s comic Dykes to Watch Out For, in a 1985 strip called The Rule.

It sounds like a simple enough request that all movies should be able to pass with flying colors, but a surprising number fall flat. (The entire original Star Wars trilogy, for one, only contains three female characters — and none of them ever say a word to each other.)

Many films are said to have passed the Bechdel Test and they include classic movies like Mean Girls, Bring It On, The Princess Diaries, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Titanic and Frozen.

Some Blockbuster films that fail the Bechdel Test are The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003), Ratatouille (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Avatar (2009), The Social Network (2010), 21 Jump Street (2012), The Avengers (2013), and The Imitation Game (2014).

Issa Tipped To Head St. Ann Chamber

Ocho Rios, St. Ann – The St. Ann Chamber of Commerce is to hold its annual general meeting at the Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios this Saturday, and for the first time in three years it will be electing a new president.

Joseph “Joey” Issa Founder Cool Group of Companies

Senior vice-president of the SuperClubs chain and 1994 Young Hotelier of the World awardee, 31-year-old Joseph J. Issa, is the man set to replace outgoing president, St. Ann businesswoman. Jeanne Dixon.

A past student of Campion and the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, USA where he graduated cum laude in Accounting and Economics. Mr. Issa is said to have the backing of most Chamber members, and is, according to one member, ‘a virtual lock” to secure the St. Ann Chamber’s top post.

The Gleaner caught up with Issa at his Ocho Rios office and though he expressed confidence in being elected, cautioned that he is not about to “open the champagne bottles” as the votes are still not yet tallied.

Mr. Issa, however, had high praise for the departing president, calling Mrs. Dixon the best leader the Chamber has ever had. “Jeanne has been an inspiration to all of us,” he emphasized. “Personally, I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.”

He sees the St. Ann Chamber at a crossroads and promised that, if elected, his first priority as president would be to bring about peace between business factions in the St. Ann community. “For some time now, there have been too many conflicts involving the business people in this parish,” Issa said. “We need to promote peace and start healing the wounds. To that the new Chamber board, despite the huge tasks ahead, will be the catalyst
to achieve this endeavor.”

Pica Chairman Wishes Jamaicans Safe Travel In Festive Season

Joe Issa, Chairman of the St. Ann Development Company (SADCO) which, like its parent company the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), seeks to transform Jamaica’s most viable urban centers and strategic rural towns while preserving the natural environment and spurring economic development, has welcomed the elevation of one of Jamaica’s forests — Dolphin Head in Hanover — to the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy (QCC).

Joseph Issa — Founder Cool Group of Companies

“I think it (listing on the OOC) is good news for Jamaica’s tourism …Over the years, the country has shown to lack protected areas for heritage tourism and that constitutes an impediment to the industry’s competitiveness.

“Moreover, heritage tourism is an area which we at SADCO and UDC are seeking to develop with the assistance of investment partners,” Issa says, stating that the listing of Dolphin Head forest “is a big accolade coming from The Queen.  It will help promote our natural resource pillar internationally and enhance the competitiveness of our tourism product.”

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) report which benchmarks countries in five main pillars including the Human, Cultural & Natural Resources pillar, have shown that between 2007 and 2015, Jamaica’s competitiveness slipped 28 places.

The report has also noted that lower than expected performance on the Natural Resources pillar is partly due to a lack of UNESCO Natural Heritage sites and a low percentage of land being officially protected.

Issa suggests, therefore, that Dolphin Head, which is said to harbor many endemic species and is part of the last piece of closed broad leaf forest, along with the Blue and John Mountains National Park already inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage Site, will help Jamaica capture a larger share of the lucrative nature and heritage tourism markets.

Jamaica was not only among the 20 successful countries of the 52-nation Commonwealth which had applied for acknowledgement on the QCC, but was also one of only three countries selected to showcase the significance of Dolphin Head to Jamaica, at a reception to announce the winners, held in Buckingham Palace hosted by Her Majesty The Queen, accompanied by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, the Gleaner reported, stating it is “a shot in the arm for Jamaica’s forests.”

The QCC, which was launched at last year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta, is said to be undertaken by the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS), along with the Commonwealth Forestry Association.

It was designed “to create a network of forest conservation initiatives throughout the 52 nations of the Commonwealth to mark Her Majesty The Queen’s service and dedication as Head of the Commonwealth”.

Its objectives are to generate awareness of the value of forests and preserve them for future generations, create a unique network of forest conservation projects with credibility and integrity, and raise the profile of the Commonwealth as having the capacity to unify to ensure forest conservation.

The RCS was reported as saying “it will use the Commonwealth network to facilitate a programme of knowledge exchange activities, to share best practice and to create new, collaborative initiatives that contribute to forest conservation across the globe.”

SADCO is said to manage several of UDC’s assets in the parish of St. Ann including the popular Green Grotto Caves, the Ocho Rios Bay Beach also known as Turtle Beach near the Cruise Ship Pier, Turtle River Park at the entrance of the town, Pearly Beach, Laughing Waters, Roaring River, Malvern Park Property, the Ocho Rios Craft Market, and some undeveloped lands.

The assets are spread throughout the island including western Jamaica, which is home to the newest addition to Jamaica’s internationally recognized natural sites.