title: Peter Finch

text: Finch continued to appear in the (rare) Australian feature films made around this time including "A Son is Born" (1946) and "Eureka Stockade" (1949). He was a leading contender to play Sir Charles Kingsford Smith in "Smithy" (1946) but lost out to Ron Randell.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch was also involved in some documentaries, narrating "Indonesia Calling" (1946) and helping make "Primitive Peoples" about the people of Arnhem Land.


title: Peter Finch

text: Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh toured Australia in 1948 with the Old Vic Company. They attended the Mercury production of "The Imaginary Invalid" on the factory floor of O'Brien's Glass Factory starring Finch. Olivier was impressed with Finch's acting and encouraged him to move to London, his birthplace. He left Australia permanently in 1948.


title: Peter Finch

text: When Finch arrived in Britain, success came relatively early. Harry Watt arranged for a screen test at Ealing Studios which led to his being cast as a murderous actor in the movie "Train of Events" (1949) under the direction of Basil Dearden.


title: Peter Finch

text: While making the film Olivier cast him as a Pole in a stage play at The Old Vic, James Bridie's "Daphne Laureola" (1949) supporting Edith Evans. This was a significant critical and commercial success and established Finch in London immediately. Olivier signed Finch to a five-year contract. When "Train of Events" came out critic C. A. Lejeune praised Finch's work in the London "Observer" commenting that he "adds good cheekbones to a quick intelligence and is likely to become a cult, I fear." "The Scotsman" said Finch "should be regarded as one of the most hopeful recruits to the British screen."


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch had a small role as an Australian prisoner of war in the World War two drama "The Wooden Horse" (1950), directed by Jack Lee; this film would be the third-most-popular film at the British box office in 1950.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch's performance as a Pole in "Daphne Laureola" led to his casting as a Polish soldier in "The Miniver Story" (1950), the British-filmed sequel to the wartime morale boosting film "Mrs. Miniver"; unlike its predecessor, it was poorly received critically, but it did give Finch an experience of working for a movie financed by a major Hollywood studio.


title: Peter Finch

text: During this time, Finch continued to appear on stage in various productions while under contract to Olivier. He directed a stage production of "The White Falcon" in January 1950. In February 1950 he toured in a production of "The Damascus Blade" by Bridget Boland under the direction of Olivier, co starring with John Mills.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch returned to the London stage in "Captain Carvallo" by Denis Cannan, once more directed by Olivier.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch's closeness to the Olivier family led to an affair with Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh, which began in 1948, and continued on and off for several years, ultimately ending owing to her deteriorating mental condition.


title: Peter Finch

text: In March 1951 Finch replaced Dirk Bogarde for six weeks in a production of "Point of Departure" by Jean Anouilh. Later that year he played Iago opposite Orson Welles in a production of "Othello", directed by Welles.


title: Peter Finch

text: Despite his stage experience, according to the Sunday Times Finch, like his mentor Olivier, had stage fright, and as the 1950s progressed he worked increasingly in film.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch's film career received a considerable boost when cast as the Sheriff of Nottingham in "The Story of Robin Hood" (1952) for Walt Disney, opposite Richard Todd.


title: Peter Finch

text: In 1952 Finch performed at St James's Theatre, King Street, London, in Sir Laurence Olivier's and Gilbert Miller's "The Happy Time" a comedy by Samuel Taylor. He played the part of Papa. He also did "Romeo and Juliet" at the Old Vic, playing Mercutio, to strong reviews.


title: Peter Finch

text: He then made two films for Alexander Korda. In "The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan" (1953) Finch played Richard D'Oyly Carte opposite Robert Morley and Maurice Evans in the lead; the resulting movie was a box office disappointment. In "The Heart of the Matter" (1953), from the Graham Greene novel, Finch played a priest opposite Trevor Howard; his was a critical success.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch returned to the stage at the Old Vic with an appearance in "An Italian Straw Hat" by Eugène Labiche and Marc Michel adapted by Thomas Walton. He then received an offer from Paramount to star in "Elephant Walk" (1954), shot in Ceylon and Los Angeles. The part was intended for Laurence Olivier who turned it down, but Vivien Leigh agreed to play the female lead; Dana Andrews was the other star. The circumstances of production were turbulent; Leigh had a nervous breakdown during production, leading to her being replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. The experience helped sour Finch on a Hollywood career and he would only work occasionally there for the rest of his career.


title: Peter Finch

text: Back in England, Finch was cast as the villain Flambeau in "Father Brown" (1954), receiving superb reviews opposite Alec Guinness in the title role. He narrated a documentary "The Queen in Australia" and had his first real star part in the Group 3/British Lion comedy, "Make Me an Offer" (1954), playing an antiques dealer. He was then a villain in the medieval swashbuckler "The Dark Avenger" (1955), opposite another Australian, Errol Flynn, for Allied Artists.


title: Peter Finch

text: He was much in demand. C.G. Scrimgeour of Associated TV wanted Finch to play a patrol officer in a film based on Colin Simpson's articles about Shangri-La Valley in New Guinea. The Rank organisation wanted him to star in a film directed by Hugh Stewart called "The Flying Doctor".


title: Peter Finch

text: In November 1954 Finch's contract with Olivier (five years extended to six) had expired and he signed a seven-year contract with the Rank Organisation worth £87,500 to make one film a year for them. "We are going to build Peter into a major British star", said Earl St. John, Rank's head of production, at the time.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch's first roles for Rank under the new arrangement gave him star parts but were, on the whole, undistinguished: "Passage Home" (1955), a drama with Anthony Steel and fellow Australian Diane Cilento; "Josephine and Men" (1955), a comedy from the Boulting Brothers with Glynis Johns and Jack Buchanan; and "Simon and Laura" (1955), a comedy with Kay Kendall based on a hit play. None of these films performed particularly well at the box office.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch was then cast as an Australian soldier in "A Town Like Alice" (1956), opposite Virginia McKenna under the direction of Jack Lee from the novel by Neville Shute. The World War II drama, mostly set in Malaya and almost entirely shot at Pinewood Studios, became the third-most-popular film at the British box office in 1956 and won Finch a BAFTA for Best Actor.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch followed it with another war movie, "The Battle of the River Plate" (1956), playing Captain Hans Langsdorff for the team of Powell and Pressburger. This was also hugely popular at home, and British exhibitors voted Finch the seventh-most-popular British star at the box office for 1956.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch returned to Australia to make "The Shiralee" (1957), made for Ealing Studios and MGM from the novel by D'arcy Niland, under the direction of Leslie Norman. It was one of Finch's favourite parts; the resulting movie was critically acclaimed and the tenth-most-popular movie at the British box office that year.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch followed it with another Australian story filmed on location, the bushranger tale "Robbery Under Arms" (1957), which did less well, despite having the same producer and director as "A Town Like Alice". However, exhibitors still voted Finch the third-most-popular British star of 1957, and the fifth most popular overall, regardless of nationality.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch's next two films for Rank were not particularly successful: "Windom's Way" (1957), where he played a doctor caught up in the Malayan Emergency (the film was shot in Corsica and London); and "Operation Amsterdam" (1959), a war-time diamond thriller. Finch returned to the stage for the London production of "Two for the Seesaw" by William Gibson, under the direction of Arthur Penn.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch's career received a boost when Fred Zinnemann cast him opposite Audrey Hepburn in "The Nun's Story" (1959). This was an enormous financial and critical success and established Finch's reputation internationally. In August 1959 he said this and "The Shiralee" were the only two films he had done that he liked.


title: Peter Finch

text: For Disney he played Alan Breck in a version of "Kidnapped" (1960) then went to Hollywood to make "The Sins of Rachel Cade" (shot in 1959, released in 1961), an attempt to repeat the success of "The Nun's Story", with Angie Dickinson.


title: Peter Finch

text: He was much in demand and still owed Rank three films under his contract. They wanted him to appear opposite Dirk Bogarde in "The Singer Not the Song". Instead Finch decided to co-write and direct an award-winning short film, "The Day" (1960). He announced plans to direct a feature – "Dig", about Australian exploration – but it did not eventuate.


title: Peter Finch

text: Then, for a fee of £25,000 he played Oscar Wilde in "The Trials of Oscar Wilde" (1960), winning another BAFTA; the film, however, was not popular. He played a Labour politician in Rank's "No Love for Johnnie" (1961), and won his third BAFTA for Best Actor – although like "Oscar Wilde", the film lost money.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch was originally chosen to play Julius Caesar in "Cleopatra" (1963) opposite Elizabeth Taylor, and filmed some scenes in London, under the direction of Robert Mamoulian. When the film was postponed Finch withdrew; new director Joseph Mankiewicz wanted to still use him, but the actor was unable to make his schedule work, and the role was recast with Rex Harrison.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch made two unsuccessful Hollywood films with director Robert Stevens at MGM: "I Thank a Fool" (1962) and "In the Cool of the Day" (1963). While filming the latter he was reported in the "Los Angeles Times" as saying that the star system was dead and the future lay in independent films. He also said he would direct a second film "The Hero".


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch restored his critical reputation with two highly acclaimed British films: "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964) and "Girl with Green Eyes" (1964). He had an uncredited cameo in "First Men in the Moon" (1964), then had a good role in a tough adventure film for Robert Aldrich, "The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965).


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch's next three films saw him support high-profile female stars: Sophia Loren in "Judith" (1966), Melina Mercouri in "" (1966) and Julie Christie in "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1967). He was reunited with Aldrich for "The Legend of Lylah Clare" (1968). "The Red Tent" (1970) was an expensive international adventure film, with Finch as Umberto Nobile.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch's career received another boost when Ian Bannen dropped out of the lead in "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971). Finch replaced him and his performance was rewarded with another BAFTA for Best Actor and an Oscar nomination.


title: Peter Finch

text: The momentum of this was lost somewhat by "Something to Hide" (1972) and the disastrous musical remake of "Lost Horizon" (1973). He played Lord Nelson in "Bequest to the Nation" (1973) and an opportunistic financier in "England Made Me" (1973). "The Abdication" (1974) was an unsuccessful historical drama.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch was asked to audition for the part of news presenter Howard Beale in "Network" (1976), written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. The movie, with Finch as its star, was his biggest commercial and critical hit in years. His line "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" has become iconic.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch was also an occasional poet. He was encouraged by Kenneth Slessor, who published Finch's poem "Tell them" in "Australian Poetry 1945", of which he was the editor. Slessor also arranged for a volume of Finch's early poems to be published. Finch's biographer Trader Faulkner reported that Finch told him that "no film award ... ever gave him the sense of fulfillment comparable to seeing a poem he'd written in print".


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch was married three times. In 1943, he married Romanian-born French ballerina Tamara Tchinarova; they worked together on a number of films. They had a daughter, Anita, born in 1950. They divorced in 1959, after she discovered his affair with actress Vivien Leigh in California. He then married South African-born actress Yolande Turner (née Yolande Eileen Turnbull); they had two children together, Samantha and Charles Peter.


title: Peter Finch

text: During their marriage, Finch had an affair with the singer Shirley Bassey. Bassey had a daughter, also named Samantha, born in 1963; Bassey's husband at the time, the openly gay film producer Kenneth Hume, believed that Finch was Samantha's biological father. Finch and Turner divorced in 1965. On 9 November 1973 in Rome, Finch married Mavis "Eletha" Barrett, who was known as Eletha Finch. They had a daughter together, Diana.


title: Peter Finch

text: Shortly after "Raid on Entebbe" finished shooting, Finch undertook a promotional tour for "Network". On 13 January 1977 he appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". George Carlin was also on the show that night, he joked about death. The day after, Finch had a heart attack in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel and died at the age of 60. He is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.


title: Peter Finch

text: Finch was nominated for an Oscar for "Network" and went on to posthumously win the award, which was accepted by his widow, Eletha Finch. Although James Dean (twice) and Spencer Tracy had previously been posthumously nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, Finch was the first actor to win the award posthumously, as well as the first Australian actor to win a Best Actor award. He was the only posthumous winner of an Oscar in an acting category until fellow Australian Heath Ledger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2009; there were many earlier posthumous Oscar winners in non-acting categories. Finch also won five Best Actor awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), including one for "Network".


title: Peter Finch

text: Shortly before he died, Finch told a journalist:We all say we're going to quit occasionally. I'd like to have been more adventurous in my career. But it's a fascinating and not ignoble profession. No one lives more lives than the actor. Movie making is like geometry and I hated maths. But this kind of jigsaw I relish. When I played Lord Nelson I worked the poop deck in his uniform. I got extraordinary shivers. Sometimes I felt like I was staring at my own coffin. I touched that character. There lies the madness. You can't fake it.


title: Peter Finch

text: In 1954, the Australian journalist and author George Johnston wrote a well-researched series of biographical articles on Finch, his life, and his work, which appeared in the Sydney "Sun-Herald" on four consecutive Sundays, which were certainly the first detailed account of Finch's life to be published. Finch later provided the inspiration for the character Archie Calverton in Johnston's novel, "Clean Straw for Nothing".


title: Peter Finch

text: In 1980, American author Elaine Dundy published a biography of Finch titled "Finch, Bloody Finch: A Biography of Peter Finch". That year, his second wife, Yolande Finch, also published a posthumous account of their life together, "Finchy: My Life with Peter Finch". Another biography had previously been published by his friend and colleague Trader Faulkner, in 1979.


title: Peter Finch

text: According to an entry in Brian McFarlane's "The Encyclopedia of British Film", republished on the British Film Institute's Screenonline website, Finch "did not emerge unscathed from a life of well-publicised hell-raising, and several biographies chronicle the affairs and the booze, but a serious appraisal of a great actor remains to be written."


title: Peter Finch

text: A profile of Finch at Screenonline asserts that "it is arguable that no other actor ever chalked up such a rewarding CV in British films."


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.


title: Windows Phone

text: It was first launched in October 2010 with Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 8 succeeded it in 2012, replacing the Windows CE-based kernel of Windows Phone 7 with the Windows NT kernel used by the PC versions of Windows (and, in particular, a large amount of internal components from Windows 8). Due to these changes, the OS was incompatible with all existing Windows Phone 7 devices, although it still supported apps originally developed for Windows Phone 7. In 2014, Microsoft released the Windows Phone 8.1 update, which introduced the Cortana virtual assistant, and Windows Runtime platform support to create cross-platform apps between Windows PCs and Windows Phone.


title: Windows Phone

text: In 2015, Microsoft released Windows 10 Mobile, which promoted increased integration and unification with its PC counterpart, including the ability to connect devices to an external display or docking station to display a PC-like interface. Although Microsoft dropped the Windows Phone brand at this time in order to focus more on synergies with Windows 10 for PCs, it was still a continuation of the Windows Phone line from a technical standpoint, and updates were issued for selected Windows Phone 8.1 devices.


title: Windows Phone

text: While Microsoft's investments in the platform were headlined by a major partnership with Nokia (whose Lumia series of smartphones, including the Lumia 520 in particular, would represent the majority of Windows Phone devices sold by 2013) and Microsoft's eventual acquisition of the company's mobile device business for just over US$7 billion (which included Nokia's then-CEO Stephen Elop joining Microsoft to lead its in-house mobile division), the duopoly of Android and iPhone remained the dominant platforms for smartphones, and interest in Windows Phone from app developers began to diminish by mid-decade. Microsoft laid off the Microsoft Mobile staff in 2016, after having taken a write-off of $7.6 billion on the acquired Nokia hardware assets, while market share sunk to 1% that year. Microsoft began to prioritize software development and integrations with Android and iOS instead, and ceased active development of Windows 10 Mobile in 2017.


title: Windows Phone

text: Work on a major Windows Mobile update may have begun as early as 2004 under the codename "Photon", but work moved slowly and the project was ultimately cancelled. In 2008, Microsoft reorganized the Windows Mobile group and started work on a new mobile operating system. The product was to be released in 2009 as Windows Phone, but several delays prompted Microsoft to develop Windows Mobile 6.5 as an interim release.


title: Windows Phone

text: Following this, Windows Phone was developed quickly. One result was that the new OS would not be compatible with Windows Mobile applications. Larry Lieberman, senior product manager for Microsoft's Mobile Developer Experience, told eWeek: "If we'd had more time and resources, we may have been able to do something in terms of backward compatibility." Lieberman said that Microsoft was attempting to look at the mobile phone market in a new way, with the end user in mind as well as the enterprise network. Terry Myerson, corporate VP of Windows Phone engineering, said, "With the move to capacitive touch screens, away from the stylus, and the moves to some of the hardware choices we made for the Windows Phone 7 experience, we had to break application compatibility with Windows Mobile 6.5."


title: Windows Phone

text: From the beginning of Windows Phone until at least 2015, Joe Belfiore was the head of development and the face of the platform's initiatives.


title: Windows Phone

text: On February 11, 2011, at a press event in London, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced a partnership between their companies in which Windows Phone would become the primary smartphone operating-system for Nokia, replacing Symbian. The event focused largely on setting up "a new global mobile ecosystem", suggesting competition with Android and iOS with the words "It is now a three horse race". Elop stated the reason for choosing Windows Phone over Android, saying: "the single most important word is 'differentiation'. Entering the Android environment late, we knew we would have a hard time differentiating." While Nokia would have had more long-term creative control with Android (note that MeeGo as used by Nokia resembles Android more than it does Windows Phone 7 as both Android and MeeGo are based on the Linux kernel), Elop enjoyed familiarity with his past company where he had been a top executive.


title: Windows Phone

text: The partnership involves "funds changing hands for royalties, marketing and ad-revenue sharing", which Microsoft later announced as "measured in billions of dollars". Jo Harlow, whom Elop tapped to run Nokia's smartphone business, rearranged her team to match the structure led by Microsoft's VP of Windows Phone, Terry Myerson. Myerson was quoted as saying, "I can trust her with what she tells me. She uses that same direct and genuine communication to motivate her team."


title: Windows Phone

text: The first Nokia Lumia Windows Phones, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, were announced in October 2011 at Nokia World 2011.


title: Windows Phone

text: At the Consumer Electronics Show in 2012 Nokia announced the Lumia 900, featuring a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display, a 1.4 GHz processor and 16 GB of storage. The Lumia 900 was one of the first Windows Phones to support LTE and was released on AT&T on April 8, 2012. An international version launched in Q2 2012, with a UK launch on May 11, 2012. The Lumia 610 was the first Nokia Windows Phone to run the Tango Variant (Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh) and was aimed at emerging markets.


title: Windows Phone

text: On September 2, 2013, Microsoft announced a deal to acquire Nokia's mobile phone division outright, retaining former CEO Stephen Elop as the head of Microsoft's devices operation. The merger was completed after regulatory approval in all major markets in April 2014. As a result, Nokia's hardware division became a subsidiary of Microsoft operating under the name Microsoft Mobile.


title: Windows Phone

text: In February 2014, Nokia released the Nokia X series of smartphones (later discontinued) using a version of Android forked from the Android Open Source Project. The operating system was modified; Google's software was not included in favour of competing applications and services from Microsoft and Nokia, and with a user interface highly modified to resemble Windows Phone.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone 7 was announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, on February 15, 2010, and released publicly on November 8, 2010 in the United States.


title: Windows Phone

text: In 2011, Microsoft released Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango". The update included a mobile version of Internet Explorer 9 that supports the same web standards and graphical capability as the desktop version, multi-tasking of third-party apps, Twitter integration for the People Hub, and Windows Live SkyDrive access. A minor update released in 2012 known as "Tango", along with other bug fixes, lowered the hardware requirements to allow for devices with 800 MHz CPUs and 256 MB of RAM to run Windows Phone.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone 7 devices can not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8 due to hardware limitations. Windows Phone 7.8 was released as a stopgap update in 2013 to include some of the user interface features from Windows Phone 8.


title: Windows Phone

text: On October 29, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Phone 8, a new generation of the operating system. Windows Phone 8 replaced its previously Windows CE-based architecture with one based on the Windows NT kernel with many components shared with Windows 8.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone 8.1 was announced on April 2, 2014, after being released in preview form to developers on April 10, 2014. New features added include a notification center, support for the Internet Explorer 11 web browser, with tab syncing among Windows 8.1 devices, separate volume controls, and the option to skin and add a third column of live tiles to the Start Screen. Starting with this release, Microsoft dropped the requirement that all Windows Phone OEMs include a camera button and physical buttons for back, Start, and Search.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone 8.1 introduced Cortana, a voice assistant similar to Siri and Google Now. Cortana replaced the previous Bing search feature, and was released as a beta in the United States in the first half of 2014, before expanding to other countries in early 2015.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows 10 Mobile was announced on January 21, 2015, as a mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets running on ARM architecture. Its primary focus is unification with Windows 10, its PC counterpart, in software and services; in accordance with this strategy, the Windows Phone name has been phased out in favor of branding the platform as an edition of Windows 10, although it is still a continuation of Windows Phone, and most Windows Phone 8.1 devices can be upgraded to the platform.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows 10 Mobile emphasized software using the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), which allowed apps to be designed for use across multiple Windows 10-based product families with nearly identical code, functionality, and adaptations for available input methods. When connected to an external display, devices could also render a stripped-down desktop interface similar to Windows on PCs, with support for keyboard and mouse input. Windows 10 Mobile featured Skype message integration, updated Office Mobile apps, notification syncing with other Windows 10 devices, support for the Microsoft Edge web browser, and other user interface improvements. Microsoft developed a middleware known as Windows Bridge to allow iOS Objective-C and Android C++ or Java software to be ported to run on Windows 10 Mobile with limited changes to code.


title: Windows Phone

text: With the diminishing interest and application development for the platform, Microsoft discontinued active development of Windows 10 Mobile in 2017, and the platform was declared end of life on January 14, 2020.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone features a user interface based on Microsoft's "Metro" design language, and was inspired by the user interface in the Zune HD. The home screen, called the "Start screen", is made up of "Live Tiles", which have been the inspiration for the Windows 8 live tiles. Tiles are links to applications, features, functions and individual items (such as contacts, web pages, applications or media items). Users can add, rearrange, or remove tiles. Tiles are dynamic and update in real time – for example, the tile for an email account would display the number of unread messages or a tile could display a live update of the weather. Since Windows Phone 8, live tiles can also be resized to either a small, medium, or large appearance.


title: Windows Phone

text: Several features of Windows Phone are organized into "hubs", which combine local and online content via Windows Phone's integration with popular social networks such as Facebook, Windows Live, and Twitter. For example, the Pictures hub shows photos captured with the device's camera and the user's Facebook photo albums, and the People hub shows contacts aggregated from multiple sources including Windows Live, Facebook, and Gmail. From the hub, users can directly comment and 'like' on social network updates. The other built-in hubs are Xbox Music and Video, Xbox Live Games, Windows Phone Store, and Microsoft Office.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone uses multi-touch technology. The default Windows Phone user interface has a dark theme that prolongs battery life on OLED screens as fully black pixels do not emit light. Alternatively, users may choose a light theme in their phone's settings menu. The user may also choose from several accent colors. User interface elements such as links, buttons and tiles are shown in the user's chosen accent color. Third-party applications can be automatically themed with these colors. Windows Phone 8.1 introduces transparent tiles and a customizable background image for the Start screen. The image is visible through the transparent area of the tiles and features a parallax effect when scrolling which gives an illusion of depth. If the user does not pick a background image the tiles render with the accent color of the theme.


title: Windows Phone

text: Users input text by using an on-screen virtual keyboard, which has a dedicated key for inserting emoticons, and features spell checking and word prediction. App developers (both inhouse and ISV) may specify different versions of the virtual keyboard in order to limit users to certain character sets, such as numeric characters alone. Users may change a word after it has been typed by tapping the word, which will invoke a list of similar words. Pressing and holding certain keys will reveal similar characters. The keys are somewhat larger and spaced farther apart when in landscape mode. Phones may also be made with a hardware keyboard for text input. Users can also add accents to letters by holding on an individual letter. Windows Phone 8.1 introduces a new method of typing by swiping through the keyboard without lifting the finger, in a manner similar to Swype and SwiftKey.


title: Windows Phone

text: Internet Explorer on Windows Phone allows the user to maintain a list of favorite web pages and tiles linking to web pages on the Start screen. The browser supports up to 6 tabs, which can all load in parallel. Other features include multi-touch gestures, smooth zoom in/out animations, the ability to save pictures that are on web pages, share web pages via email, and support for inline search which allows the user to search for a word or phrase in a web page by typing it. Tabs are synced with Windows 8.1 devices using Internet Explorer 11.


title: Windows Phone

text: Contacts are organized via the "People hub", and can be manually entered into contacts or imported from Facebook, Windows Live Contacts, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and Outlook. A "What's New" section shows a user's Facebook news feed and a "Pictures" section show pictures from those social networks, while a "Me" section within the "People" hub shows a user's own social network status and wall and allows them to view social network updates. Contacts can also be pinned to the Start Screen. The contact's "Live Tile" displays their social network status and profile picture on the homescreen. Clicking on a contact's tile or accessing their card within the "People" hub will reveal their recent social network activity as well as the rest of their contact information.


title: Windows Phone

text: If a contact has information stored on multiple networks, users can link the two separate contact accounts, allowing the information to be viewed and accessed from a single card. As of Windows Phone 7.5, contacts can also be sorted into "Groups". Here, information from each of the contacts is combined into a single page which can be accessed directly from the Hub or pinned to the Start screen.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone supports Outlook.com, Exchange, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail natively and supports many other services via the POP and IMAP protocols. Updates added support for more services such as iCloud and IBM Notes Traveler. Contacts and calendars may be synced from these services as well. Users can also search through their email by searching in the subject, body, senders, and receivers. Emails are shown with threads, and multiple email inboxes can be combined into a single view (a feature commonly referred to as "combined inbox") or can viewed separately.


title: Windows Phone

text: Xbox Music and Xbox Video are built-in multimedia hubs providing entertainment and synchronization capabilities between PC, Windows Phone, and other Microsoft products. The two hubs were previously combined until standalone apps were released in late 2013, shortly before Windows Phone 8.1 debuted. The hubs allow users to access music, videos, and podcasts stored on the device, and links directly to the "Xbox Music Store" to buy or rent music and the "Xbox Video Store" to purchase movies and TV episodes. Xbox Music also allows the user to stream music with an Xbox Music Pass. When browsing the music by a particular artist, users are able to view artist biographies and photos. The Xbox Music hub also integrates with many other apps that provide video and music services, including, but not limited to, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Vevo. This hub also includes Smart DJ which compiles a playlist of songs stored on the phone similar to the song or artist selected.


title: Windows Phone

text: The Pictures hub displays the user's Facebook and OneDrive photo albums, as well as photos taken with the phone's built-in camera. Users can also upload photos to social networks, comment on photos uploaded by other people, and tag photos posted to social networks. Multi-touch gestures permit zooming in and out of photos.


title: Windows Phone

text: An official file manager app called Files, which is available for download from the Windows Phone Store, enables users to move and rearrange documents, videos, music and other files within their device's hard drive or to an external SD card.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone supports WAV, MP3, WMA, AMR, AAC/MP4/M4A/M4B and 3GP/3G2 standards. The video file formats supported on WP include WMV, AVI, MP4/M4V, 3GP/3G2 and MOV (QuickTime) standards. These supported audio and video formats would be dependent on the codecs contained inside them. It has also been previously reported that the DivX and Xvid codecs within the AVI file format are also playable on WP devices.


title: Windows Phone

text: Note that Windows Phone does not support DRM protected media files that are obtained from services other than Xbox Music Pass.


title: Windows Phone

text: Users can also add custom ringtones which are less than 1MB in size and less than 40 seconds long. DLNA streaming and stereoscopic 3D are also supported.


title: Windows Phone

text: The "Games hub" provides access to games on a phone along with Xbox Live functionality, including the ability for a user to interact with their avatar, view and edit their profile, see their achievements and view leaderboards, and send messages to friends on Xbox Live. The hub also features an area for managing invitations and turn notifications in turn-based multiplayer games. Games are downloaded from Windows Phone Store.


title: Windows Phone

text: Bing is the default search engine on Windows Phone handsets because its functions are deeply integrated in the OS (which also include the utilization of its map service for location-based searches and queries). However, Microsoft has stated that other search engine applications can be used.


title: Windows Phone

text: In the area of location-based searches, Bing Maps (which is powered by Nokia's location services) provides turn-by-turn navigation service to Windows Phone users, and Local Scout shows interest points such as attractions and restaurants in the nearby area. On Nokia devices, Nokia's Here Maps is preinstalled in place of Bing Maps.


title: Windows Phone

text: Furthermore, Bing Audio allows the user to match a song with its name, and Bing Vision allows the user to scan barcodes, QR codes, and other types of tags.


title: Windows Phone

text: Every Windows Phone has either a dedicated physical Search button or an on-screen Search button, which was previously reserved for a Bing Search app, but has been replaced on Windows Phone 8.1 devices and later in the United Kingdom and United States by Cortana, a digital personal assistant which can also double as an app for basic searches.


title: Windows Phone

text: Cortana allows users to do tasks such as set calendar reminders and alarms, and recognizes a user's natural voice, and can be used to answer questions (like current weather conditions, sports scores, and biographies). The app also keeps a "Notebook" to learn a user's behavior over time and tailor reminders for them. Users can edit the "Notebook" to keep information from Cortana or reveal more about themselves.


title: Windows Phone

text: All Windows Phones come preinstalled with Microsoft Office Mobile, which provides interoperability between Windows Phone and the desktop version of Microsoft Office. Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and SharePoint Workspace Mobile apps are accessible through a single "Office Hub", and allow most Microsoft Office file formats to be viewed and edited directly on a Windows Phone device. The "Office Hub" can access files from OneDrive and Office 365, as well as files which are stored locally on the device's hard drive. Although they are not preinstalled in Windows Phone's "Office Hub", OneNote Mobile, Lync Mobile, and OneDrive for Business can be downloaded separately as standalone applications from the Windows Phone Store.


title: Windows Phone

text: Multitasking in Windows Phone is invoked through long pressing the "back" arrow, which is present on all Windows Phones. Windows Phone 7 uses a card-based task switcher, whereas later versions of Windows Phone utilize true background multitasking.


title: Windows Phone

text: Zune Software manages the contents on Windows Phone 7 devices and Windows Phone can wirelessly sync with Zune Software.


title: Windows Phone

text: Syncing content between Windows Phone 8 and 8.1 and Windows PCs or Macs is provided through the Windows Phone App, which is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. It is the official successor to Zune software only for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1, and allows users to transfer content such as music, videos, and documents.


title: Windows Phone

text: Users also have the ability to use a "Tap and Send" feature that allows for file transfer between Windows phones, and NFC-compatible devices through NFC.


title: Windows Phone

text: Software updates are delivered to Windows Phone users via Microsoft Update, as is the case with other Windows operating systems. Microsoft initially had the intention to directly update any phone running Windows Phone instead of relying on OEMs or wireless carriers, but on January 6, 2012, Microsoft changed their policy to let carriers decide if an update will be delivered.


title: Windows Phone

text: While Windows Phone 7 users were required to attach their phones to a PC to install updates, starting with Windows Phone 8, all updates are done via over-the-air downloads. Since Windows Phone 8, Microsoft has also begun releasing minor updates that add features to a current OS release throughout the year. These updates were first labeled "General Distribution releases" (or GDRs), but were later rebranded simply as "Updates".


title: Windows Phone

text: Microsoft has also launched an advertising platform for the Windows Phone platform. Microsoft's General Manager for Strategy and Business Development, Kostas Mallios, said that Windows Phone will be an "ad-serving machine", pushing advertising and brand-related content to the user. The platform will feature advertising tiles near applications and toast notifications, which will bring updating advertising notifications. Mallios said that Windows Phone will be able to "preserve the brand experience by going directly from the web site right to the application", and that Windows Phone "enables advertisers to connect with consumers over time". Mallios continued: "you're now able to push information as an advertiser, and stay in touch with your customer. It's a dynamic relationship that is created and provides for an ongoing dialog with the consumer."


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone BTF support is available from Windows Phone 7.8, but is limited to the transferring of pictures, music and videos via a 'Bluetooth Share' app.


title: Windows Phone

text: Microsoft keeps a site where people can submit and vote on features they would like to see added to Windows Phone.


title: Windows Phone

text: The Windows Phone Store was used to digitally distribute music, video content, podcasts, and third-party applications to Windows Phone handsets. The store was accessible using the Zune Software client or the Windows Phone Store hub on devices (though videos were not downloadable through the store hub and must be downloaded and synced through the Zune software). The Store was managed by Microsoft, which included an approval process. As of March 2012, the Windows Phone Store was available in 54 countries.


title: Windows Phone

text: Xbox Music offered approximately 50 million songs up to 320 kbit/s in DRM-free MP3 format from the big four music groups (EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group), as well as smaller music labels. Xbox Video offered HD movies from Paramount, Universal, Warner Brothers, and other studios and plus television shows from popular television networks.


title: Windows Phone

text: Microsoft offered the "Xbox Music Pass" music subscription service, which allowed subscribers to download an unlimited number of songs for as long as their subscription was active and play them on current Microsoft devices.


title: Windows Phone

text: Third-party applications and games for Windows Phone can be based on XNA, a Windows Phone-specific version of Silverlight, the GUI-based Windows Phone App Studio, or the Windows Runtime, which allows developers to develop an app for both the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store simultaneously. App developers can develop apps using C# / Visual Basic.NET (.NET), C++ (CX) or HTML5/JavaScript.


title: Windows Phone

text: For Windows Phone apps to be designed and tested within Visual Studio or Visual Studio Express, Microsoft offers Windows Phone Developer Tools, which run only on Windows Vista SP2 and later, as an extension Microsoft also offers Expression Blend for Windows Phone for free. On November 29, 2009, Microsoft announced the Release-to-web (RTW) version of its Visual Basic .NET Developer Tool, to aid development of Windows Phone apps in Visual Basic.


title: Windows Phone

text: Later versions of Windows Phone support the running of managed code through a Common Language Runtime similar to that of the Windows operating system itself, as opposed to the .NET Compact Framework. This, along with support for native C and C++ libraries, allows some traditional Windows desktop programs to be easily ported to Windows Phone.


title: Windows Phone

text: Registered Windows Phone and Xbox Live developers can submit and manage their third-party applications for the platforms through the App Hub web applications. The App Hub provides development tools and support for third-party application developers. The submitted applications undergo an approval process for verifications and validations to check if they qualify the applications standardization criteria set by Microsoft. The cost of the applications that are approved is up to the developer, but Microsoft will take 20% of the revenue (the other 80% goes to the developer). Microsoft will only pay developers once they reach a set sales figure, and will withhold 30% tax from non-US developers, unless they first register with the United States Government's Internal Revenue Service. Microsoft only pays developers from a list of thirty countries. A yearly fee is also payable for developers wishing to submit apps.


title: Windows Phone

text: In order to get an application to appear in the Windows Phone Store, the application must be submitted to Microsoft for approval. Microsoft has outlined the content that it will not allow in the applications, which includes content that, among other things, advocates discrimination or hate, promotes usage of drugs, alcohol or tobacco, or includes sexually suggestive material.


title: Windows Phone

text: Windows Phone 7 devices were first produced by HTC, LG and Samsung. These hardware partners were later joined by Acer, Alcatel, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Nokia, and Chinese OEM ZTE.


title: Windows Phone

text: At the 2014 Mobile World Congress, Microsoft announced that upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 devices would be manufactured by Celkon, Gionee, HTC, Huawei, JSR, Karbonn, LG, Lenovo, Longcheer, Micromax, Microsoft Mobile, Samsung, Xolo, and ZTE among others. Sony (under the Xperia or Vaio brand) had also stated its intention to produce Windows Phone devices in the near future. Yezz announced two smartphones in May, and at Computex 2014 BYD, Compal, Pegatron, Quanta and Wistron were also named as new Windows Phone OEMs.


title: Windows Phone

text: The Metro UI and overall interface of the OS were highly praised for their style, with ZDNet noting its originality and fresh clean look. Engadget and ZDNet applauded the integration of Facebook into the People Hub as well as other built-in capabilities, such as Windows Live, etc. However, in version 8.1 the once tight Facebook and Twitter integration was removed so that updates from those social media sites had to be accessed via their respective apps.


title: Windows Phone

text: For the first months, market specialists were optimistic about its adoption, with IDC forecasting that Windows Phone would surpass IPhone by 2015.


title: Windows Phone

text: According to Gartner, there were 1.6 million devices running Microsoft OS sold to customers in Q1 2011 worldwide. 1.7 million smartphones using a Microsoft mobile OS were sold in Q2 2011, for a 1.6% market share. In Q3 2011, Microsoft's worldwide market share dropped slightly to 1.5%. In Q4 2011 market share increased to 1.9%, and it stayed at 1.9% for Q1 2012. Reports for Q2, Q3 and Q4 of year 2011 include both Windows Phone and small part of Windows Mobile marketshare under the same "Microsoft mobile OS" banner, and do not make the distinction of separating the marketshare values of the two. According to Nielsen, Windows Phone had a 1.7% market share in Q1 2012, and then dropped back to 1.3% in Q2 2012.


title: Windows Phone

text: After the release of Windows Phone 8, Gartner reported that Windows Phone's marketshare jumped to 3% in Q4 2012, a 124% increase over the same time period in 2011.


title: Windows Phone

text: In mid-2012, IDC had suggested that Windows Phone might surpass the faltering BlackBerry platform and potentially even Apple iOS, because of Nokia dominance in emerging markets like Asia, Latin America, and Africa, as the iPhone was considered too expensive for most of these regions and BlackBerry OS possibly going to feature a similar fate as Symbian. IDC's projections were partially correct, as in Q1 2013 Windows Phone shipments surpassed BlackBerry shipment volume for the first time. IDC had to slash the Windows Phone predictions once again, to 7 percent of total market in 2018, because of the slow growth.


title: Windows Phone

text: As of the third quarter of 2013, Gartner reported that Windows Phone holds a worldwide market share of 3.6%, up 123% from the same period in 2012 and outpacing Android's rate of growth. According to Kantar's October 2013 report, Windows Phone accounted for 10.2% of all smartphone sales in Europe and 4.8% of all sales in the United States. Some analysts have attributed this spike in sales to both Windows Phone 8 and Nokia's successful push to market low and mid-range Windows Phones like the Lumia 520 and Lumia 620 to a younger audience. Gartner reported that Windows Phone market share finished 2013 at 3.2%, which while down from the third quarter of 2013 was still a 46.7% improvement from the same period in 2012.


title: Windows Phone

text: IDC reported that Windows Phone market share, having peaked in 2013 at 3.4%, had dropped to 2.5% by the second quarter of 2014.


title: Windows Phone

text: In August 2017, the New York Police Department ordered Apple iPhone products to replace its deployment of 36,000 Lumia 830 and Lumia 640 XL Windows Phone devices, partly citing Microsoft's end of support for Windows Phone 8.1 on July 11, 2017, and its minuscule market share.


title: Windows Phone

text: Microsoft's developer initiative programs and marketing have gained attention from application developers. As of Q3 2013, an average of 21% of mobile developers use the Windows Phone platform, with another 35% stating they are interested in adopting it. Some reports have indicated that developers may be less interested in developing for Windows Phone because of lower ad revenue when compared to competing platforms. The main criticism of Windows Phone was the lack of applications when compared to iOS and Android. This also affected Microsoft's largest partner in the platform, Nokia, whose vice president showed his frustration at the lack of apps for the platform.


title: Windows Phone

text: A few developers refused to develop apps while preventing third-party alternatives. A well known example was Snapchat, which announced a crackdown on third-party apps of its service and its users in November 2014. Microsoft was forced to remove third-party Snapchat apps (including the popular "6snap") from the Windows Phone Store a month later, while Snapchat never developed an official app for those users. A petition from users requesting an official Snapchat app reached 43,000 signatures in 2015. In addition, Google twice blocked Microsoft's own YouTube app for violating its terms of service, objecting to the app's ability to download videos and prevent ads. The app returned in October 2013 but stripped of many features.


title: Windows Phone

text: By 2014, Windows Phone was losing share and relevance; between that year and 2015 it was reported that developers were backing out of the platform and retiring apps because of the low market share. Many high-profile apps were discontinued by 2015 such as American Airlines, NBC, Pinterest and others. In addition, Microsoft itself retired some of its own first-party apps.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Riddick Lamont Bowe (born August 10, 1967) is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1989 and 2008. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion in 1992, and as an amateur he won a silver medal in the super heavyweight division at the 1988 Summer Olympics.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: After turning professional in 1989, Bowe went on to become a two-time world heavyweight champion. In 1992 he won the undisputed WBA, WBC and IBF titles by defeating then-unbeaten former undisputed heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield. That same year, Bowe was named Fighter of the Year by "The Ring" and the Boxing Writers' Association of America. Bowe vacated the WBC title later that year in protest, instead of defending the title against their number one contender, Lennox Lewis. This left the undisputed championship fragmented until 1999. In a rematch with Holyfield in 1993, Bowe narrowly lost the WBA and IBF titles in what would be his only professional defeat.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: He later regained a portion of the world heavyweight championship in 1995, defeating Herbie Hide for the WBO title. In doing so, Bowe became the first boxer in history to win the titles of all four major sanctioning bodies: the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO. Later that year, Bowe vacated the WBO title in order to fight Holyfield for a third time, and won decisively by being the first boxer to defeat Holyfield by knockout. 1996 saw Bowe engage in two brutal slugfests with Andrew Golota, both of which ended controversially when Golota repeatedly hit him with low blows.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe retired from boxing after the Golota fights, making low-key comebacks in 2004 and 2008. In a 2010 article by Boxing Scene, Bowe was ranked the 21st greatest heavyweight of all time. In 2015, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe was born on August 10, 1967, the twelfth of his mother Dorothy Bowe's thirteen children. Bowe was born and raised in the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York City. His brother Henry died of AIDS, and his sister Brenda was stabbed to death by a drug addict during an attempted robbery.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe was in the same elementary school sixth-grade class with Mike Tyson. "We went to school together the sixth grade in P.S. 396 (in Brownsville.) I really didn't know him," Bowe recalled.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe was training at the Bedford-Stuyvesant Boxing Association Gym or the "Bed-Stuy BA" for short. As an amateur, Bowe won the prestigious New York Golden Gloves Championship and other tournaments. In 1984, age 17, he knocked out opponent James Smith in just 4 seconds. In 1985, at the National Golden Gloves championships, he lost to Fort Worth heavyweight Donald Stephens. Apart of boxing he attended Kingsborough Community College, where he studied drama — in hopes of an acting career after boxing — also he took up a business administration study.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: His friends called him "Don King" because of his hairstyle. Bowe said he was emulating Mark Breland, "I got a majority of my experience with Mark, I'm inspired by what he's accomplished. It makes it possible for me to do the same," said Bowe in an interview.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe won four New York Golden Gloves Championships. He won two bouts as a 178-pounder in 1984 before failing to show for a third bout. He won the 1985 178 lb Novice Championship, 1986 178 lb Open Championship and the 1987 and 1988 Super Heavyweight Open Championship. Already in 1985 Bowe was ranked #1 light heavyweight in the United States.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: He was a light heavyweight runner-up for the 1986 World Championships and 1986 Goodwill Games but for some reason didn't qualify. Meanwhile, during the year-and-a-half hiatus he gained well above thirty pounds and jumped from light heavyweight to super heavyweight, coming back for the 1987 United States Olympic Festival.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Prior to 1987 Pan American Games, Bowe said he had suffered a hairline fracture in his right hand during one of his two fights at the Olympic Festival in July 1987. The injury, he said, was revealed in X-rays he had taken at home. Roosevelt Sanders, the head coach, said he was aware that Bowe's hand was being treated, but had not known it was broken. Bowe said he kept those injuries secret from the U.S. team coaching staff for fear of being kept out of the tournament.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: At first, Bowe was dismissed from the Olympic-year training camp, because U.S. Olympic boxing Coach Ken Adams didn't like him.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: U.S. Army superheavyweight Robert Salters, a Brooklyn-born 25-year-old artilleryman of Fort Bragg, NC, who took up boxing in 1986, and had less than twenty amateur fights in his 16-months-long record before they first met at the 1988 AAU National finals, where Salters floored Bowe twice before ref stopped the fight, became a real nemesis for Bowe during his amateur career, as they fought each other to nearly a draw in the 1988 Olympic Box-offs at Caesars Palace, after Bowe lost to Salters in the Olympic Trials (Bowe came in at 231 lbs, Salters at 247.). "He was talking' trash about me, and that helped me mentally," Salters said. Bowe had been boxing reportedly with ligament damage on the middle knuckle of his right hand, which he got the day before the Box-offs, and with a damaged right ankle, eventually managed to win, for the judges had to pick up a winner despite the even 58–58 score. The fifth unidentified judge, who scored the bout 58–58, gave it to Bowe on unidentified subjective grounds. Despite giving Bowe a hard time on four occasions in a row, Salters never turned pro.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe won the silver medal in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, outpointing Soviet Alex Miroshnichenko in the semifinals, and losing a controversial match in the finals to future world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis. Bowe had a dominant first round, landing 33 of 94 punches thrown (34%) while Lewis landed 14 of 67 (21%). In the first round the referee from East Germany gave Bowe two cautions for headbutts and deducted a point for a third headbutt, although replay clearly showed there was no headbutt. Commentator Ferdie Pacheco disagreed with the deduction, saying they did not hit heads. In the second round, Lewis landed several hard punches. The referee gave Bowe two standing eight counts and waved the fight off after the second one, even though Bowe seemed able to continue. Pacheco disagreed with the stoppage, calling it "very strange," but Marv Albert said Bowe took "a pounding."


title: Riddick Bowe

text: New York Golden Gloves (light heavyweight), Elks Club, Queens, New York, and Madison Square Garden, New York City, February 1985:


title: Riddick Bowe

text: New York State Golden Gloves, novice division (light heavyweight), Madison Square Garden, New York City, March 1985:


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Pan Am Box-offs (super heavyweight), International Center of the Broadmoor, Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 1987:


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe turned professional after his Olympic loss. Highly regarded trainer Eddie Futch took on the job of developing Bowe, as he saw the talent. Eddie would say that Bowe had more potential than any boxer he had ever trained.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe turned professional in March 1989 and knocked out Lionel Butler. His then manager, Rock Newman, kept Bowe active, fighting 13 times in 1989, beating journeymen — the most notable being Garing Lane, whom he beat twice. In September 1990, Bowe made his first step up in class, fighting faded ex-champion Pinklon Thomas, whom he dominated until Thomas gave up after eight rounds. The following month, Bowe knocked out Bert Cooper in two rounds, which added to his reputation and high ranking.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In March 1991, Bowe knocked out 1984 Olympic Super Heavyweight Gold medalist Tyrell Biggs. In Bowe's next fight, ex-champion Tony Tubbs appeared to outbox and outsmart Bowe in a close bout, only to have the judges award Bowe a unanimous decision. In August 1991, Bowe knocked out future world heavyweight champion Bruce Seldon in one round. In July 1992, he knocked out South African Pierre Coetzer in the seventh round of a world title eliminator.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe fought two interesting bouts against Elijah Tillery in 1991. Their first fight was in Washington D.C. at the Washington Convention Center was known as the 'crazy fight' for its bizarre conclusion. Bowe dominated the first round and dropped Tillery. After the round ended, Tillery walked toward Bowe and taunted him, and Bowe responded by punching Tillery. Tillery then threw several low kicks at Bowe, who then unleashed a flurry of punches on Tillery as he lay on the ropes. Bowe's trainer Rock Newman grabbed Tillery from behind on the ring apron and pulled him over the ropes as Bowe continued to throw punches. Tillery somersaulted over the ropes, and was quickly detained by security. After order was restored and the fighters returned to the ring, Tillery and Bowe continued a war of words, and minor incidents continued until the ring was cleared. Tillery was controversially disqualified for kicking Bowe, with Bowe getting the win, much to the surprise of the television announcers. The referee, Karl Milligan, had stepped between the two fighters to separate them and stepped forward as he did so, inadvertently missing the action behind him after the bell between the combatants. The fighters fought a rematch two months later at Convention Hall in Atlantic City, with Bowe dominating and stopping Tillery in four rounds.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In November 1992 he fought reigning champ Evander Holyfield for the undisputed heavyweight title. Bowe won a unanimous decision in an entertaining fight, flooring Holyfield in the 11th round. However, it was the tenth round most boxing fans will remember. The epic brutal back and forth exchanges helped make it Ring Magazine's "Round of the Year." Commentator Al Bernstein exclaimed, "That was one of the greatest rounds in heavyweight history. Period!"


title: Riddick Bowe

text: A couple of weeks earlier in London, Bowe's old Olympic rival, Lennox Lewis, knocked out Canadian Donovan "Razor" Ruddock in two rounds, establishing himself as the World Boxing Council's number one contender. The Bowe-Holyfield and Lewis-Ruddock fights were part of a mini-tournament, whereby all four fighters agreed the two winners would meet each other for the undisputed world heavyweight championship. Bowe's manager Rock Newman made a proposal: the $32 million purse HBO was offering should be split 90–10 in Bowe's favor, an 'absurd' offer which Lennox Lewis rejected. Lewis's manager, Kelley Maloney (known as Frank Maloney at the time), rejected another offer of two million for Lewis to fight on a Bowe undercard, citing his distrust of the Bowe camp after the aforementioned financial negotiations. Bowe responded by holding a press conference in which he dumped the WBC world heavyweight championship belt into a trash can and relinquished it in order to protest the actions of the WBC and WBC President José Sulaimán concerning the fight payoff.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe's first defense of his remaining titles came on February 6, 1993, when he fought 34-year-old former champion Michael Dokes at Madison Square Garden and knocked him out in the first round. In February 1993, Bowe met Pope John Paul II during the pope's general audience at the Vatican, a day after Bowe completed a goodwill mission to Somalia. In Bowe's next fight, May 22, 1993 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., Bowe knocked out Jesse Ferguson in the second round to retain the title. This set up a rematch with Evander Holyfield.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In the rematch with Holyfield, Bowe looked overweight. He had entered training camp at a 266 lbs and weighed in at 246 lbs, eleven pounds heavier than in the first fight with Holyfield.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe and Holyfield exchanged hard punches. Bowe ended up losing the belts to Holyfield by a majority decision. This fight was also known for a bizarre stunt in which parachutist James "Fan Man" Miller dropped into the open air arena, landing in the ropes by Bowe's corner. This surreal scene delayed the fight in the seventh round by nearly a half-hour. Bowe stated afterwards he thought the bout should have declared a 'technical draw' or a 'no contest' owing to the unfair delay.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In August 1994, Bowe fought two comeback fights. He faced the much smaller Buster Mathis Jr and, after struggling to connect with his bobbing and weaving target, hit Mathis while he was down with what was ruled an accidental blow, and the bout was ruled a 'No Contest' by referee Arthur Mercante, Sr. In December 1994, Bowe punched Larry Donald at a prefight press conference, later beating him by 12 round unanimous decision for the WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight title, giving the 16-0 heavyweight contender Donald his first loss.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In March 1995, Bowe won the WBO version of the world heavyweight championship by knocking down England's Herbie Hide six times en route to scoring a sixth-round knockout.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In June 1995, after a heated build up, Bowe defended the WBO heavyweight title against his archrival in the amateurs, Jorge Luis González, At the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The prefight hype contained bizarre trash talk, which included Gonzalez declaring a desire to eat Bowe's heart and likening himself to a lion while making Bowe out to be a hyena. Bowe won by sixth-round knockout over Gonzalez. He vacated the WBO championship soon after.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: After the Gonzales fight, Bowe fought a rubber match with Evander Holyfield, their third and final meeting. Holyfield knocked Bowe down during the fight, but Bowe maintained his composure, and persevered to score an eighth round stoppage victory.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: After defeating Holyfield in the third bout of their trilogy, Bowe was matched against undefeated heavyweight contender Andrew Golota at the Madison Square Garden in an HBO Boxing event. Bowe's weight problem again resurfaced, as the favorite entered the ring at a career high of 252 lbs. Though ahead on points, Golota was penalized several times for low blows, and was finally disqualified in the seventh round after a volley of punches to Bowe's testicles. Seconds after Golota was disqualified, Bowe's entourage rushed the ring, attacked Golota with a two way radio (Golota traded punches with one of them, requiring 11 stitches to close the wound caused by the radio) and assaulted Golota's 74-year-old trainer Lou Duva, who collapsed in the ring and was taken out of The Garden on a stretcher. The entourage began rioting, fighting with spectators, staff and policemen alike, resulting in a number of injuries before they were forced out of the arena in what evolved into a lengthy televised ring spectacle.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: The fight made many sports shows, including "SportsCenter", and there was a good amount of public interest in a rematch. The rematch was on Pay Per View. Golota, after dropping Bowe in the second round, and being dropped himself later, was leading on the scorecards, only to be disqualified in the ninth round, once again for repeated shots to the testicles. Despite not having another riot, this fight also proved to be controversial, with an unsuccessful protest filed by Golota's camp to try to overturn the fight's result.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: On September 25, 2004, after seven and a half years away from boxing, Bowe returned with a second-round knockout over Marcus Rhode. In a second comeback fight, in April 2005, an overweight Bowe narrowly defeated journeyman Billy Zumbrun by ten round split decision.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: On December 13, 2008, with the help of new manager Bob Bain, Bowe, 41, returned to the ring for the first time in over three and a half years on the undercard of the Wladimir Klitschko versus Hasim Rahman world heavyweight title bout in Mannheim, Germany and won an eight-round unanimous decision over Gene Pukall.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Riddick Bowe's boxing record stands at 43 wins and 1 loss, with 33 knockouts. In the autobiography of veteran former referee Mills Lane, "Let's Get It On", who had officiated at some of Bowe's fights, he professed that Bowe could have been one of boxing's greatest boxers but foolishly squandered the opportunity through immaturity and lack of discipline.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe's fighting weight during his career ranged from . His prime fighting weight was . It was within this weight span that Bowe achieved all of his most notable victories.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: BoxRec ranks Bowe as the 32nd best heavyweight of all time. Noted for his in-fighting skills, jab and combination punching, Bowe's first fight with Evander Holyfield is considered one of the greatest world heavyweight title fights of all time. Following this victory, he met Nelson Mandela during a visit to South Africa. Bowe's trainer at the time, Eddie Futch, lamented that upon his return, Bowe failed to ever achieve the same physical condition for his subsequent fights. Yet, as late as 1995 and past his peak, Bowe was good enough to become the first man to stop Evander Holyfield, outclass former amateur standout and undefeated pro, Jorge Luis González, and bludgeon over-matched Herbie Hide to win the then lightly-regarded WBO version of the world heavyweight championship.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In 2017, "The Ring" magazine ranked Bowe as the 19th best heavyweight of all time in a poll of a panel of 30 trainers, matchmakers and members of the boxing media. The consensus was that Bowe, described as both a "super talent" and a "super waste", only had one great fight, when winning the title from Holyfield, and ultimately disappointed in squandering his obvious natural ability due to laziness.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe is the first boxer in any division to hold all four major versions of the world championship (WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO) during his career, an accomplishment emulated in the heavyweight division only by Tyson Fury.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe's sole loss, to Evander Holyfield in 1993, was avenged in 1995, meaning that he finished their trilogy 2-1 ahead. With the exception of a 1994 no-contest with Buster Mathis Jr., Bowe defeated every opponent he faced as a professional.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Alongside Gene Tunney, Rocky Marciano, Sultan Ibragimov and Nikolai Valuev, Bowe is one of five former heavyweight champions to have never suffered a stoppage defeat during his career.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In March 2013, Bowe announced his Muay Thai debut, having trained under Kru Airr Phanthip and Kru Chan in Las Vegas. He faced Levgen Golovin for the WPMF Super Heavyweight World Title in Pattaya, Thailand. On June 14, 2013, Bowe was knocked down five times from kicks to his leg. The championship match was called to a stop halfway through the second round.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: After the Golota fights, Bowe retired from boxing and decided to join the United States Marine Corps Reserve. He said he made the decision both to make his mother proud and to rededicate himself to training, with the intention of returning to boxing shortly after.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on February 10, 1997. On his first day of recruit training, Bowe discussed leaving the Corps with Marine commanders, and quit after three days of heavy physical training with his platoon in Parris Island, South Carolina on February 21, 1997.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Shortly after winning his first title against Evander Holyfield, Bowe saw a news story on television that revealed a million dollars worth of medicines donated to the Somali refugees and orphans were not able to be transported to the war-torn region due to a lack of funds to pay for the charter aircraft needed. Bowe immediately had his representatives contact AmeriCares, the NGO leading the effort, and pledged the 100,000 dollars needed to fund the trip - on the condition he could go to the country with the goods, and make sure they got to their intended recipients. While in Somalia, he visited U.S. Marines and an orphanage on the Kenyan border. He was accompanied by several members of his management team, including manager Rock Newman and Head of International Sales Alexis Denny (CEO of an independent media distributor).


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe also took action when he heard news of other tragedies. In 1995, when Alexis Denny was in Indonesia on other business, she read Asian news coverage of Rodolfo Yap, a young man in the Philippines who was electrocuted while positioning his antenna so his family could watch a Riddick Bowe fight. She relayed this news to Bowe, and explained to the media at the time 'The heavyweight champion was very moved by the story and having lost a brother and a sister earlier in life, decided to make a financial contribution to the family of Mr. Yap."


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe authorized her to fly to the Philippines and try to locate the man's family, make a contribution to their expenses, and also provide funds to support the Philippine boxing Team training for the Olympics (in the name of the deceased).


title: Riddick Bowe

text: Bowe was convicted of the February 1998 kidnapping of his estranged wife Judy, and their five children. Thinking it would reconcile his marriage, Bowe went to his wife's Cornelius, North Carolina home and threatened her with a knife, handcuffs, duct tape, and pepper spray. He forced her and their children into a vehicle and set out for his Fort Washington, Maryland home. During the kidnapping, Bowe stabbed his wife in the chest. Police captured Bowe in South Hill, Virginia, freeing his family. Bowe agreed to a plea bargain of guilty to "interstate domestic violence", and was sentenced to 18 to 24 months in prison. Despite the agreed sentence, on February 29, 2000, the judge sentenced Bowe to only 30 days, due to a claim of brain damage by Bowe's defense. This sentence, counter to the plea agreement, was later overturned. Bowe served 17 months in Federal prison. On February 8, 2001, Bowe was arrested in Long Island after a domestic dispute with his new wife. Bowe allegedly dragged his wife and left her with cuts on her knees and elbows.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In 2013, Riddick Bowe announced his intentions to start training to be a professional wrestler. He was to make his debut for the UK-based Preston City Wrestling organization on March 1, 2014. On December 14, 2013, Preston City Wrestling announced on their Facebook Page that Bowe would no longer be appearing due to a disagreement with Bowe's new agent.


title: Riddick Bowe

text: In 1993, a video game entitled "Riddick Bowe Boxing" was released for various platforms. Also that year, Bowe appeared in an episode of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", entitled "You Bet Your Life", as a bully named "Bo".


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the United States and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan coined the expression "the medium is the message" in the first chapter in his "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man" and the term "global village." He even predicted the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it was invented. He was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, though his influence began to wane in the early 1970s. In the years following his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. However, with the arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web, interest was renewed in his work and perspectives.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan was born on July 21, 1911, in Edmonton, Alberta, and was named "Marshall" after his maternal grandmother's surname. His brother, Maurice, was born two years later. His parents were both also born in Canada: his mother, Elsie Naomi (née Hall), was a Baptist school teacher who later became an actress; and his father, Herbert Ernest McLuhan, was a Methodist with a real-estate business in Edmonton. When the business failed at the break out of World War I, McLuhan's father enlisted in the Canadian Army. After a year of service, he contracted influenza and remained in Canada, away from the front lines. After Herbert's discharge from the army in 1915, the McLuhan family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where Marshall grew up and went to school, attending Kelvin Technical School before enrolling in the University of Manitoba in 1928.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: After studying for one year as an engineering student, he changed majors and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (1933), winning a University Gold Medal in Arts and Sciences. He went on to receive a Master of Arts degree (1934) in English from the university as well. He had long desired to pursue graduate studies in England and was accepted to the University of Cambridge, having failed to secure a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Though having already earned his B.A. and M.A. in Manitoba, Cambridge required him to enroll as an undergraduate "affiliated" student, with one year's credit towards a three-year bachelor's degree, before entering any doctoral studies. He entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in the autumn of 1934, where he studied under I. A. Richards and F. R. Leavis, and was influenced by New Criticism. Years afterward, upon reflection, he credited the faculty there with influencing the direction of his later work because of their emphasis on the "training of perception", as well as such concepts as Richards' notion of "feedforward". These studies formed an important precursor to his later ideas on technological forms. He received the required bachelor's degree from Cambridge in 1936 and entered their graduate program.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: At the University of Manitoba, McLuhan explored his conflicted relationship with religion and turned to literature to "gratify his soul's hunger for truth and beauty," later referring to this stage as agnosticism. While studying the trivium at Cambridge, he took the first steps toward his eventual conversion to Catholicism in 1937, founded on his reading of G. K. Chesterton. In 1935, he wrote to his mother:Had I not encountered Chesterton I would have remained agnostic for many years at least. Chesterton did not convince me of religious faith, but he prevented my despair from becoming a habit or hardening into misanthropy. He opened my eyes to European culture and encouraged me to know it more closely. He taught me the reasons for all that in me was simply blind anger and misery.At the end of March 1937, McLuhan completed what was a slow but total conversion process, when he was formally received into the Catholic Church. After consulting a minister, his father accepted the decision to convert. His mother, however, felt that his conversion would hurt his career and was inconsolable. McLuhan was devout throughout his life, but his religion remained a private matter. He had a lifelong interest in the number three (e.g., the trivium, the Trinity) and sometimes said that the Virgin Mary provided intellectual guidance for him. For the rest of his career, he taught in Catholic institutions of higher education.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Unable to find a suitable job in Canada, he returned from England to take a job as a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for the 1936–37 academic year. From 1937 to 1944, he taught English at Saint Louis University (with an interruption from 1939 to 1940 when he returned to Cambridge). There he taught courses on Shakespeare, eventually tutoring and befriending Walter J. Ong, who would write his doctoral dissertation on a topic that McLuhan had called to his attention, as well as become a well-known authority on communication and technology.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan met Corinne Lewis in St. Louis, a teacher and aspiring actress from Fort Worth, Texas, whom he married on August 4, 1939. They spent 1939–40 in Cambridge, where he completed his master's degree (awarded in January 1940) and began to work on his doctoral dissertation on Thomas Nashe and the verbal arts. While the McLuhans were in England, World War II had broken out in Europe. For this reason, he obtained permission to complete and submit his dissertation from the United States, without having to return to Cambridge for an oral defence. In 1940, the McLuhans returned to Saint Louis University, where they started a family as he continued teaching. He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in December 1943.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: He next taught at Assumption College in Windsor, Ontario, from 1944 to 1946, then moved to Toronto in 1946 where he joined the faculty of St. Michael's College, a Catholic college of the University of Toronto, where Hugh Kenner would be one of his students. Canadian economist and communications scholar Harold Innis was a university colleague who had a strong influence on his work. McLuhan wrote in 1964: "I am pleased to think of my own book "The Gutenberg Galaxy" as a footnote to the observations of Innis on the subject of the psychic and social consequences, first of writing then of printing."


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: In the early 1950s, McLuhan began the Communication and Culture seminars at the University of Toronto, funded by the Ford Foundation. As his reputation grew, he received a growing number of offers from other universities. During this period, he published his first major work, "" (1951), in which he examines the effect of advertising on society and culture. Throughout the 1950s, he and Edmund Carpenter also produced an important academic journal called "Explorations". McLuhan and Carpenter have been characterized as the Toronto School of communication theory, together with Harold Innis, Eric A. Havelock, and Northrop Frye. During this time, McLuhan supervised the doctoral thesis of modernist writer Sheila Watson on the subject of Wyndham Lewis. Hoping to keep him from moving to another institute, the University of Toronto created the Centre for Culture and Technology (CCT) in 1963.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: From 1967 to 1968, McLuhan was named the Albert Schweitzer Chair in Humanities at Fordham University in the Bronx. While at Fordham, he was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor, which was treated successfully. He returned to Toronto where he taught at the University of Toronto for the rest of his life and lived in Wychwood Park, a bucolic enclave on a hill overlooking the downtown where Anatol Rapoport was his neighbour.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: In 1970, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1975, the University of Dallas hosted him from April to May, appointing him to the McDermott Chair. Marshall and Corinne McLuhan had six children: Eric, twins Mary and Teresa, Stephanie, Elizabeth, and Michael. The associated costs of a large family eventually drove him to advertising work and accepting frequent consulting and speaking engagements for large corporations, including IBM and AT&T.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Woody Allen's Oscar-winning "Annie Hall" (1977) featured McLuhan in a cameo as himself. In the film, a pompous academic is arguing with Allen in a cinema queue when McLuhan suddenly appears and silences him, saying, "You know nothing of my work." This was one of McLuhan's most frequent statements to and about those who disagreed with him.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: In September 1979, McLuhan suffered a stroke which affected his ability to speak. The University of Toronto's School of Graduate Studies tried to close his research centre shortly thereafter, but was deterred by substantial protests. McLuhan never fully recovered from the stroke and died in his sleep on December 31, 1980. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: During his years at Saint Louis University (1937–1944), McLuhan worked concurrently on two projects: his doctoral dissertation and the manuscript that was eventually published in 1951 as a book, titled "The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man", which included only a representative selection of the materials that McLuhan had prepared for it.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan's 1942 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation surveys the history of the verbal arts (grammar, logic, and rhetoric—collectively known as the trivium) from the time of Cicero down to the time of Thomas Nashe. In his later publications, McLuhan at times uses the Latin concept of the "trivium" to outline an orderly and systematic picture of certain periods in the history of Western culture. McLuhan suggests that the Late Middle Ages, for instance, were characterized by the heavy emphasis on the formal study of logic. The key development that led to the Renaissance was not the rediscovery of ancient texts, but a shift in emphasis from the formal study of logic to rhetoric and grammar. Modern life is characterized by the re-emergence of grammar as its most salient feature—a trend McLuhan felt was exemplified by the New Criticism of Richards and Leavis.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan also began the academic journal "Explorations" with anthropologist Edmund "Ted" Carpenter. In a letter to Walter Ong, dated 31 May 1953, McLuhan reports that he had received a two-year grant of $43,000 from the Ford Foundation to carry out a communication project at the University of Toronto involving faculty from different disciplines, which led to the creation of the journal.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: At a Fordham lecture in 1999, Tom Wolfe suggested that a major under-acknowledged influence on McLuhan's work is the Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose ideas anticipated those of McLuhan, especially the evolution of the human mind into the "noosphere." In fact, McLuhan warns against outright dismissing or whole-heartedly accepting de Chardin's observations early on in his second published book "The Gutenberg Galaxy":


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: In his private life, McLuhan wrote to friends saying: "I am not a fan of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The idea that anything is better because it comes later is surely borrowed from pre-electronic technologies." Further, McLuhan noted to a Catholic collaborator: "The idea of a Cosmic thrust in one direction ... is surely one of the lamest semantic fallacies ever bred by the word 'evolution'.… That development should have any direction at all is inconceivable except to the highly literate community."


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Some of McLuhan's main ideas were influenced or prefigured by anthropologist like Edward Sapir and Claude Lévi-Strauss, arguably with a more complex historical and psychological analysis. The idea of the retribalization of Western society by the far-reaching techniques of communication, the view on the function of the artist in society, and the characterization of means of transportation, like the railroad and the airplane, as means of communication, are prefigured in Sapir's 1933 article on "Communication" in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, while the distinction between "hot" and "cool" media draws from Lévi-Strauss' distinction between hot and cold societies.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan's first book, "" (1951), is a pioneering study in the field now known as popular culture. In the book, McLuhan turns his attention to analysing and commenting on numerous examples of persuasion in contemporary popular culture. This followed naturally from his earlier work as both dialectic and rhetoric in the classical trivium aimed at persuasion. At this point, his focus shifted dramatically, turning inward to study the influence of communication media independent of their content. His famous aphorism "the medium is the message" (elaborated in his "", 1964) calls attention to this intrinsic effect of communications media.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: His interest in the critical study of popular culture was influenced by the 1933 book "Culture and Environment" by F. R. Leavis and Denys Thompson, and the title "The Mechanical Bride" is derived from a piece by the Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Like his later "The Gutenberg Galaxy" (1962), "The Mechanical Bride" is composed of a number of short essays that may be read in any order—what he styled the "mosaic approach" to writing a book. Each essay begins with a newspaper or magazine article, or an advertisement, followed by McLuhan's analysis thereof. The analyses bear on aesthetic considerations as well as on the implications behind the imagery and text. McLuhan chose these ads and articles not only to draw attention to their symbolism, as well as their implications for the corporate entities who created and disseminated them, but also to mull over what such advertising implies about the wider society at which it is aimed. Roland Barthes's essays 1957 "Mythologies", echoes McLuhan's "Mechanical Bride", as a series of exhibits of popular mass culture (like advertisements, newspaper articles and photographs) that are analyzed in a semiological way.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Written in 1961 and first published by University of Toronto Press, "" (1962) is a pioneering study in the fields of oral culture, print culture, cultural studies, and media ecology.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Throughout the book, McLuhan efforts to reveal how communication technology (i.e., alphabetic writing, the printing press, and the electronic media) affects cognitive organization, which in turn has profound ramifications for social organization:


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: [I]f a new technology extends one or more of our senses outside us into the social world, then new ratios among all of our senses will occur in that particular culture. It is comparable to what happens when a new note is added to a melody. And when the sense ratios alter in any culture then what had appeared lucid before may suddenly become opaque, and what had been vague or opaque will become translucent.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan's episodic history takes the reader from pre-alphabetic, tribal humankind to the electronic age. According to McLuhan, the invention of movable type greatly accelerated, intensified, and ultimately enabled cultural and cognitive changes that had already been taking place since the invention and implementation of the alphabet, by which McLuhan means phonemic orthography. (McLuhan is careful to distinguish the phonetic alphabet from logographic or logogramic writing systems, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs or ideograms.)


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Print culture, ushered in by the advance in printing during the middle of the 15th century when the Gutenberg press was invented, brought about the cultural predominance of the visual over the aural/oral. Quoting (with approval) an observation on the nature of the printed word from William Ivins' "Prints and Visual Communication", McLuhan remarks:


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: In this passage [Ivins] not only notes the ingraining of lineal, sequential habits, but, even more important, points out the visual homogenizing of experience of print culture, and the relegation of auditory and other sensuous complexity to the background.…The technology and social effects of typography incline us to abstain from noting interplay and, as it were, "formal" causality, both in our inner and external lives. Print exists by virtue of the static separation of functions and fosters a mentality that gradually resists any but a separative and compartmentalizing or specialist outlook.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: The main concept of McLuhan's argument (later elaborated upon in "The Medium Is the Massage") is that new technologies (such as alphabets, printing presses, and even speech) exert a gravitational effect on cognition, which in turn, affects social organization: print technology changes our perceptual habits—"visual homogenizing of experience"—which in turn affects social interactions—"fosters a mentality that gradually resists all but a…specialist outlook". According to McLuhan, this advance of print technology contributed to and made possible most of the salient trends in the modern period in the Western world: individualism, democracy, Protestantism, capitalism, and nationalism. For McLuhan, these trends all reverberate with print technology's principle of "segmentation of actions and functions and principle of visual quantification."


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: In the early 1960s, McLuhan wrote that the visual, individualistic print culture would soon be brought to an end by what he called "electronic interdependence" wherein electronic media replaces visual culture with aural/oral culture. In this new age, humankind would move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a "tribal base." McLuhan's coinage for this new social organization is the "global village".


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: The term is sometimes described as having negative connotations in "The Gutenberg Galaxy", but McLuhan was interested in exploring effects, not making value judgments:


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.… Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the time.…In our long striving to recover for the Western world a unity of sensibility and of thought and feeling we have no more been prepared to accept the tribal consequences of such unity than we were ready for the fragmentation of the human psyche by print culture.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Key to McLuhan's argument is the idea that technology has no "per se" moral bent—it is a tool that profoundly shapes an individual's and, by extension, a society's self-conception and realization:


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Is it not obvious that there are always enough moral problems without also taking a moral stand on technological grounds?…Print is the extreme phase of alphabet culture that detribalizes or decollectivizes man in the first instance. Print raises the visual features of alphabet to highest intensity of definition. Thus, print carries the individuating power of the phonetic alphabet much further than manuscript culture could ever do. Print is the technology of individualism. If men decided to modify this visual technology by an electric technology, individualism would also be modified. To raise a moral complaint about this is like cussing a buzz-saw for lopping off fingers. "But", someone says, "we didn't know it would happen." Yet even witlessness is not a moral issue. It is a problem, but not a moral problem; and it would be nice to clear away some of the moral fogs that surround our technologies. It would be good for morality.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: The moral valence of technology's effects on cognition is, for McLuhan, a matter of perspective. For instance, McLuhan contrasts the considerable alarm and revulsion that the growing quantity of books aroused in the latter 17th century with the modern concern for the "end of the book." If there can be no universal moral sentence passed on technology, McLuhan believes that "there can only be disaster arising from unawareness of the causalities and effects inherent in our technologies".


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Though the World Wide Web was invented almost 30 years after "The Gutenberg Galaxy", and 10 years after his death, McLuhan prophesied the web technology seen today as early as 1962:


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: The next medium, whatever it is—it may be the extension of consciousness—will include television as its content, not as its environment, and will transform television into an art form. A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individual's encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: Furthermore, McLuhan coined and certainly popularized the usage of the term "surfing" to refer to rapid, irregular, and multidirectional movement through a heterogeneous body of documents or knowledge, e.g., statements such as "Heidegger surf-boards along on the electronic wave as triumphantly as Descartes rode the mechanical wave." Paul Levinson's 1999 book "Digital McLuhan" explores the ways that McLuhan's work may be understood better through using the lens of the digital revolution.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan frequently quoted Walter Ong's "Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue" (1958), which evidently had prompted McLuhan to write "The Gutenberg Galaxy". Ong wrote a highly favorable review of this new book in "America". However, Ong later tempered his praise, by describing McLuhan's "The Gutenberg Galaxy" as "a racy survey, indifferent to some scholarly detail, but uniquely valuable in suggesting the sweep and depth of the cultural and psychological changes entailed in the passage from illiteracy to print and beyond." McLuhan himself said of the book, "I'm not concerned to get any kudos out of ["The Gutenberg Galaxy"]. It seems to me a book that somebody should have written a century ago. I wish somebody else had written it. It will be a useful prelude to the rewrite of "Understanding Media" [the 1960 NAEB report] that I'm doing now."


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan's "The Gutenberg Galaxy" won Canada's highest literary award, the Governor-General's Award for Non-Fiction, in 1962. The chairman of the selection committee was McLuhan's colleague at the University of Toronto and oftentime intellectual sparring partner, Northrop Frye.


title: Marshall McLuhan

text: McLuhan's most widely-known work, "" (1964), is a seminal study in media theory. Dismayed by the way in which people approach and use new media such as television, McLuhan famously argues that in the modern world "we live mythically and integrally…but continue to think in the old, fragmented space and time patterns of the pre-electric age."