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CES is traditionally the time when home theater products make their debut, and CES 2021 was no different. Yet it's also the time when we get a "state of the union" regarding the latest cutting-edge technologies, and the standard practice in TV tech is to spark a fire in consumer excitement by way of hyperbole: every year, TVs are claimed to be bigger, brighter, more colorful, and better than ever.

Some years it simply isn't true, but as certain technologies become more mainstream, a positive correlation begins where it becomes more likely. In 2021, Samsung is reinventing its QLED TVs linetraditionally the best of the best of Samsung TVsunder the moniker Neo QLED. The difference is a new(er) technology called mini-LED, and it could just make Samsung's Q90A Neo QLED TV one of the best we see this year.

Credit: Samsung

Samsung's Neo QLED line combines quantum dot color, mini-LED backlight technology, and advanced processing to deliver next-level LED TV picture quality.

Of course, this backlight technology is not unique to Samsung. TCL has been utilizing it for a few years, in fact, and LG's new QNED lineup uses it as well. Samsung is calling it "Quantum Mini LED," and it's controlled by "Quantum Matrix Technology" and a "Neo Quantum Processor." Whoa. Sounds like a holy trinity to me.

But underneath all the branding that TV companies are doing, the buried lede is that mini-LEDor MiniLED, or Mini-LED, however you want to designate itis a huge leap forward for LED TVs. TCL first debuted this technology around three years ago, and is continuing to use it to ramp up the horsepower of its 2021 models. Now that Samsung and LG have both dedicated a full lineup to mini-LED, it's safe to say it's going mainstream.

What makes OLED displays so incredible is that the lighting element and the transducing element are one and the same. Usually dubbed "emissive," this panel style made its debut (for most consumers) in the form of the incredible plasma TVs (PDPs) on the market back around 2010. LED TVs ("transmissive") eventually outpaced plasma, but "emissive" caught up again in the form of OLED televisions.

Credit: Samsung

Mini-LEDs as much as 1/40th the size of traditional LEDs mean Neo QLED TVs may be almost as thin as OLED TVs.

However, while OLED has dominated "Best Of" TV lists for the last half-decade or so, LED R&D has continued to close the gap. A quantum dot film over the backlight array allows light to strike nanocrystals, producing rich reds and greens that are on par with OLED's natural color ability. (Samsung also debuted another emissive TV at the show that uses MicroLED, but that technology is still in its early stages.)

With the arrival of mini-LED TVs, OLED no longer has such a death-grip on incredible contrast: with so many more LEDs to work with, sets like the Q90A are closing the gap. The latest mini-LED TVs may boast higher brightness this year, but more importantly, they boast an enhanced ability to control for backlight bleed ("flashlighting"), bloom, and other backlight-related issues. When Samsung claims a quantum leap forward in picture quality, we're more inclined to believe it's possible.

We don't expect Samsung's Q90A 4K Neo QLED flagship to catch up to OLED in picture quality this year. But might it offer contrast that looks as good as the entry-level OLED models? It's very possible.

Will the top-tier LED TVs of 2021 look as good as entry-level OLED TVs?

We won't know for sure until we get the Q90A into the lab. Many incredible display technologies are becoming mainstream, and the models lacking these cutting-edge upgrades should be more affordable than ever. But if you want the cutting-edge in LED TVs this year, Samsung's Q90A (and the Neo QLED TV lineup) may be your best bet.

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Samsung's Q90A Neo QLED offers impressive new tech - Reviewed

To be able to dissect the triumph of Biden, and traditional partisan politics over Trumps new right wing populism, we need to step back, and re-examine what the contestation was all about. Only then can we get what has been achieved, and what lessons it holds for India.

First let us consider what classical liberalism was all about. In the words of Francis Fukuyama: While classical liberalism sought to protect the autonomy of equal individuals, the new ideology of multiculturalism promoted equal respect for cultures, even if those cultures abridged the autonomy of the individuals who participated in them.

Classical liberalism was always focused sharply on the individual, as opposed to the collective. It was an individuals capacity for moral agency, enterprise, and change, that brought progress; and that was always being crushed by collectives, ranging from tribal patriarchy, through oppressive religiosity, to states tyranny.

To offset these pressures from the collective, it was imperative to set the individual free. And classical liberalism sought to do so, without diminishing the tribe, religion, society or state. Instead, it sharply defined some inalienable rights against these very collectives, and sought to harness the state in their protection.

But in the long journey since Renaissance, something more happened.

Again to quote Fukuyama: The left continued to be defined by its passion for equality, but that agenda shifted from its earlier emphasis on the conditions of the working class to the often psychological demands of an ever-widening circle of marginalized groups.

What Fukuyama defines here is the Left-Liberal creep for what needs to be protected in a liberal democracy. Again, it drifted away from the individual, to collectives.

First, in the name of the individuals, the definition of individual itself was expanded from the strictly personal, to the groups in which individuals often associate with, for instance, religious or cultural. When you allow this, you have the absurd position where you are defending a fascist version of Islam in the name of protecting the individual, while denouncing the majority religion on the very same ground.

This happened in India as well, with some misguided liberals vociferously supporting the most outrageous religious demands of some Muslim clerics regarding divorce, right to pray, polygamy, or whatever, while insisting that Hindus shun the very same practices.

Clearly you cant have such an absurd position, and the Right Wing pounced on the absurdity to build a whole new campaign of religious resentment against the liberal state.

Secondly, note what happened to equality in the process of expanding the sphere of the individual. The right to equality of individuals, itself morphed from being about fraternity, to equality for various groups of individuals; some valid, some gross distortions of the very notion of liberalism, in as much as they came to mean a demand for equality between Christianity and Islam in say the US, to take just one example.

Guaranteeing the right of an individual to pray to a God of her choosing is not the same as asking to place Christianity and Islam on an equal footing in the US. This creep in the scope of lefts idea of equality between two cultural groups, flies in the face of the liberal idea of an individual.

But this glaring contradiction was ignored, and the left and liberals combined to create a plethora of new entitlements that werent anchored in the classical liberal idea of liberating an oppressed individual from oppressive collectives.

No wonder, this inflamed passions on the majority side, as unwarranted molly-coddling of minorities, in a manner that would change the very identity of the polity. The Left and the Liberals had walked into a moral and existential quagmire, and in the process, abandoned the individual, in search of new windmills to equalise.

So, the first lesson from the US for Indian liberals is to understand the basic nature of the conundrum; and not to draw false conclusions from Trumps defeat in a hurry. Very few philosophers and thinkers have actually put out the flaws in the liberal case in popular press, though I guess that will happen in due course. There is lot to learn here. The India debate on populism and fascism continues to be singularly uninformed.

In India there is scant realisation why and where the liberals went wrong in aping the USs cultural tropes. We need to understand liberal creep, its inherent logical fallacies, and the consequent popular resentment that fascists have harnessed for taking their evil ideology main stream. Unless we understand why fascism is popular, and fed by hate and resentment grounded in liberal creep, we will not be able to fight them.

Now that we have the conceptual field clear, lets us see how the US was able to hold populism in check and not cede further ground to it.

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Media & courts in US did not bend and Republicans & Democrats are not fighting to overthrow democracy - National Herald

Pfizer will temporarily reduce deliveries of its Covid vaccine to the UK and across Europe from next week, according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH).

The move will mean countries will receive fewer vaccines than expected while the pharmaceutical giant upgrades its production capacity.

Read more: Minister insists vaccine works against Brazilian Covid variant as travel ban begins

Pfizer told Norway this morning it would receive 18 per cent fewer doses than expected next week, according to Geir Bukholm, director of infection control at NIPH.

This temporary reduction will affect all European countries, he said. It is as yet not precisely clear how long time it will take before Pfizer is up to maximum production capacity again.

It comes as Pfizer upgrades its production capacity to meet international demand for its coronavirus vaccine. It will soon be able to produce 2bn vaccine doses per year up from 1.3bn currently.

Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission chief, said the Pfizer CEO had today said it is doing everything possible to reduce the time of the delays.

The US firm warned that estimated volumes of coronavirus vaccine doses delivered to each country may need to be adjusted.

Britain has ordered 30m doses of the Pfizer vaccine enough to vaccinate 15m people while the EU last week upped its order to 600m doses of the jab.

The UK is currently leading the continents vaccination race, after becoming the first country to approve the Pfizer jab.

Documents accidentally published by the Scottish government yesterday suggested Britain may be on track to administer more than 500,000 vaccines each day by next week.

Read more: Exclusive: Government scraps game-changing antibody tests at NHS sites

Vaccines deployment minister Nadhim Zahawi earlier this week said he was absolutely confident the UK will meet government targets to vaccinate the 14m most-vulnerable by mid-February.

A total of 2.6m people in the UK have been given their first dose of the vaccine, according to government data.

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Pfizer to temporarily reduce vaccine deliveries to UK and EU - City A.M.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. Seth Jones knew that the Stop The Steal rally in Washington D.C. was going to be big when early that morning on January 6 he saw swarms of people convening around transportation stops, on the mall and nearby Lafayette Square.

The city seemed prepared for the event as well, he said.

DC is prepared for and looks almost like a war zone, said Jones during a Zoom interview on Wednesday. My office building where I work is boarded up. Restaurants are boarded up. I mean people are prepared for, businesses are prepared for this kind of activity.

However, he said law enforcement was not. Jones is a senior vice president and the director of the International Security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank that tracks terrorism both domestic and abroad. His office is located a few blocks away from the Capitol. When he saw protesters and Trump supporters storm into the Capitol building, he wondered where was law enforcement.

As Im watching whats going on at the Capitol building, I mean its the number of law enforcement there, where is everybody? Jones asked rhetorically. Its very different from what we saw from much of 2020 where some of the demonstrations saw a larger police presence. They were generally peaceful demonstrations but theres a much larger police presence. Its striking how small that presence was with such a large crowd at the Capitol building.

Jones said he was perplexed and considered the riots to be an act of domestic terrorism.

However, it was a prediction that came to pass. Back in October, after the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was foiled by the FBI and Michigan State Police, Jones told FOX 17 in an interview then that increased demonstrations and violence may happen around Inauguration time, especially if Joe Biden wins.

Were in for a haul, he said back on October 9. There are a lot of people creeping out of the woodwork right now and theyre heavily armed.

Today, he said we can expect more activity in cities and state capitols across the country of extremists protesting the Inauguration and president-elect Joe Biden. The FBI warned earlier this week of potential violence at Capitol buildings as well.

There are an infinite number of conspiracy theories. Many of them will not be violent and many of them will just be disillusioned and ill-informed, Jones said. But some percentage of them as weve already seen may be violent and at the very least will be armed if things get out of control. Whats also possible, again short-term, is that crowds of what you might call violent far-right extremists does bring out this on the far left.

He added that the violence that stemmed from the 2017 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville may happen again. There may be attacks on Black American churches and synagogues, and this time around, law enforcement agencies.

You could see this in Washington start to transform as people shouted at police on the Capitol steps that they were now the enemies. They were protectors of an illegitimate government, Jones said. If that turns out to be the direction that this goes that does raise the possibility of gun-related incendiaries, explosive attacks against government installations, police, including police locations, national guard and military bases.

Jones said to combat extremism he believes the FBI should focus its attention and resources away from international terrorism, like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and onto domestic terrorism. Sometimes, these groups are hard to track because theyre leaderless and decentralized. There's dozens of them. However, they dont last forever.

If theres a silver lining in a sense these kinds of groups over time, and networks, they peter out, Jones said. The U.S. government and its various law enforcement agencies have decimated historically The Covenant, The Sword, The Arm and The Lord, Jones said, referencing a far-right militant group of the 1970s.

He added that extremist ideologies have to be combated digitally. Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies have already removed extremist and fringe groups or Stop The Steal speech from its platforms. Jones said that was the main way they were meeting and concocting plans.

Jones also said that politicians, both democrat and republican, must denounce extremism and acts of violence. In the meantime, the government has got to tighten security in case future attacks happen.

Theres got to be better preparation and riot-control to deal with what will almost certainly be armed individuals, Jones said. If someone crosses that line and uses violence, the full weight of the U.S. government has to come down on them.

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D.C. terrorism expert: Theres got to be better preparation, riot control' - Fox17

In early January, Nali Gillespie watched her social media feeds fill with vaccine selfies: Photo after photo of her peers at other medical schools around the country posed proudly next to a syringe with their dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

But Ms. Gillespie who is in her third year at Duke University School of Medicine and is focused on research rather than clinical training knew she wouldnt be able to join them yet.

Because she volunteers in an outpatient clinic just once a week, she has less direct exposure to Covid patients and is waiting in line behind classmates who are working in intensive care units and emergency rooms.

You hear that at some schools, students are already getting their second dose, and then theres some of us who havent even been scheduled for our first, Ms. Gillespie said.

When she goes in for her weekly clinic shifts, she knows she is still vulnerable to exposure to the coronavirus. Youre increasingly aware that an asymptomatic patient can come into the clinic and youre seeing them in a small exam room, she said. The risk is very real.

In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced guidelines establishing priorities of who should get the vaccines first as the rollout began. Although the guidelines were broad, medical students learned that they could be included among the first wave of health care workers, especially those involved with care of Covid patients. But the rollout has varied widely across the countrys 155 medical schools, which have each set priorities based on the availability of vaccine doses in their state.

This has caused stress for some medical students continuing their clinical rotations. Although some schools bar students from treating Covid patients, that rule can be difficult to enforce, especially with asymptomatic cases.

While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.

Life will return to normal only when society as a wholegains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, theyll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But its also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing theyre infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists dont yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.

Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially get authorized this month clearly protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical trials that delivered these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. That remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected by the coronavirus can spread it while theyre not experiencing any cough or other symptoms. Researcherswill be intensely studying this question as the vaccines roll out. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will need to think of themselves as possible spreaders.

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection wont be any different from ones youve gotten before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. But some of them have felt short-lived discomfort, including aches and flu-like symptoms that typically last a day. Its possible that people may need to plan to take a day off work or school after the second shot. While these experiences arent pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and mounting a potent response that will provide long-lasting immunity.

No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell's enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.

At some institutions, like Duke School of Medicine, students working in intensive care units and emergency departments were placed in the highest level priority group, 1A, while all others were told they would be vaccinated under group 1B. At Yale School of Medicine, all medical students, regardless of their level of patient exposure, were told they would be vaccinated in reverse alphabetical order (by the first letter of their last name, starting at the end of the alphabet).

Those who were at the later stages of the alphabet were happy but a bit confused as to how arbitrary it was, said Sumun Khetpal, a fourth-year student.

Students at Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Worth said that for weeks they had received no communication from the school about when they would receive their vaccines, so some drove hours across the state looking for private pharmacists who would give them shots. And at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, students said they also had to take matters into their own hands, and reach out to private pharmacies to inquire about getting vaccinated because until last weekend, they were not told how to receive vaccines from their school.

The C.D.C. guidelines did not have the level of granularity needed for hospitals and schools to make decisions, said Dr. Alison Whelan, chief academic officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Theres been a fair amount of variability because of the lack of a national plan.

Adding to the confusion, the vaccines were allocated to states according to their populations, which do not always reflect their populations of health care workers, added Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief health care officer of the association. There are 21,000 med students in the country.

For some of them, theres a sense of guilty relief as they receive the vaccine knowing some of their peers still have not.

One of my close friends is a dental student and is in peoples mouths on a regular basis, but she hasnt received the Covid vaccine, said Azan Virji, a second-year medical student at Harvard who got his first dose in late December. It feels like theres a disparity.

Still, Mr. Virji said he has treated Covid-19 patients many times and felt a weight lifted knowing he is now inoculated.

My parents in Tanzania may not have access to this vaccine until 2022, and now Im one of the first people to have access to it, he said. Its bittersweet, but essential for me to feel calmer in the hospital.

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Some Medical Students Wait in Line for Covid Vaccine, While Others Share Selfies of Shots - The New York Times