title: Merlin

text: The name "Merlin" is derived from the Brythonic "Myrddin", the name of the bard who was one of the chief sources for the later legendary figure. Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinised the name to "Merlinus" in his works. Medievalist Gaston Paris suggests that Geoffrey chose the form "Merlinus" rather than the expected "*Merdinus" to avoid a resemblance to the Anglo-Norman word "merde" (from Latin "merda") for feces. A more plausible suggestion is that 'Merlin' is an adjective and that consequently we should be speaking of "The Merlin", from the French "merle" meaning "blackbird", or that the "many names" deriving from Myrddin stem from the : myriad. Other suggestions derive the name Myrddin from Celtic languages, including that of a combination of *"mer" ("mad") and the Welsh "dyn" ("man"), to mean "madman". In his "Myrdhinn, ou l'Enchanteur Merlin" (1862), La Villemarqué wished to derive the form "Marz[h]in" from "marz", the Breton word for "miracle"; Villemarqué furthermore associated it with the marte, a type of fairy being from the French folklore.


title: Merlin

text: Clas Myrddin or "Merlin's Enclosure" is an early name for Great Britain stated in the Third Series of Welsh Triads. Celticist A. O. H. Jarman suggests that the Welsh name "" () was derived from the toponym "Caerfyrddin", the Welsh name for the town known in English as Carmarthen. This contrasts with the popular folk etymology that the town was named after the bard. The name Carmarthen is derived from the town's previous Roman name Moridunum, in turn derived from Celtic Brittonic "moridunon", "sea fortress".


title: Merlin

text: Geoffrey's composite Merlin is based mostly on the North Brythonic poet and seer Myrddin Wyllt, that is "Myrddin the Wild" (known as Merlinus Caledonensis or Merlin Sylvestris in later texts influenced by Geoffrey). Myrddin's legend has parallels with a Welsh and Scottish story of the mad prophet Lailoken (Laleocen), and with "Buile Shuibhne", an Irish tale of the wandering insane king Suibihne mac Colmáin (Sweeney). In Welsh poetry, Myrddin was a bard driven mad after witnessing the horrors of war, who fled civilization to become a wild man of the wood in the 6th century. He roams the Caledonian Forest, until cured of his madness by Kentigern (Saint Mungo). Geoffrey had Myrddin in mind when he wrote his earliest surviving work, the "Prophetiae Merlini" ("Prophecies of Merlin", c. 1130), which he claimed were the actual words of the legendary poet, however revealing little about Merlin's background.


title: Merlin

text: Geoffrey was also further inspired by Emrys (Old Welsh: "Embreis"), a character based in part on the 5th-century historical figure of the Romano-British war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus. When Geoffrey included Merlin in his next work, "Historia Regum Britanniae" (c. 1136), he supplemented his characterisation by attributing to Merlin stories concerning Ambrosius, taken from one of his primary sources, the early 9th-century "Historia Brittonum" attributed to Nennius. In Nennius' account, Ambrosius was discovered when the British king Vortigern attempted to erect a tower at Dinas Emrys. More than once, the tower collapsed before completion. Vortigen's wise men advised him that the only solution was to sprinkle the foundation with the blood of a child born without a father. Ambrosius was rumoured to be such a child. When brought before the king, Ambrosius revealed that below the foundation of the tower was a lake containing two dragons battling into each other, representing the struggle between the invading Saxons and the native Celtic Britons. Geoffrey retold the story in his "Historia Regum Britanniæ", adding new episodes that tie Merlin with King Arthur and his predecessors. Geoffrey stated that this Ambrosius was also called "Merlin", therefore Ambrosius Merlinus, and kept him separate from Aurelius Ambrosius.


title: Merlin

text: Therefore, Geoffrey's account of Merlin Ambrosius' early life is based on the story from the "Historia Brittonum". Geoffrey added his own embellishments to the tale, which he set in Carmarthen, Wales (Welsh: Caerfyrddin). While Nennius' "fatherless" Ambrosius eventually reveals himself to be the son of a Roman consul, Geoffrey's Merlin is begotten by an incubus demon on a daughter of the King of Dyfed (Demetae, today's South West Wales). Usually, the name of Merlin's mother is not stated, but is given as Adhan in the oldest version of the Prose "Brut", the text also naming his grandfather as King Conaan. The story of Vortigern's tower is the same; the underground dragons, one white and one red, represent the Saxons and the Britons, and their final battle is a portent of things to come. At this point Geoffrey inserted a long section of Merlin's prophecies, taken from his earlier "Prophetiae Merlini". He told two further tales of the character. In the first, Merlin creates Stonehenge as a burial place for Aurelius Ambrosius, bringing the stones from Ireland. In the second, Merlin's magic enables the new British king Uther Pendragon to enter into Tintagel Castle in disguise and to father his son Arthur with his enemy's wife, Igerna (Igraine). These episodes appear in many later adaptations of Geoffrey's account. As Lewis Thorpe notes, Merlin disappears from the narrative subsequently. He does not tutor and advise Arthur as in later versions.


title: Merlin

text: Geoffrey dealt with Merlin again in his third work, "Vita Merlini" (1150). He based it on stories of the original 6th-century Myrddin, set long after his time frame for the life of Merlin Ambrosius. Geoffrey asserts that the characters and events of "Vita Merlini" are the same as told in the "Historia Regum Britanniae". Here, Merlin survives the reign of Arthur, about the fall of whom he is told by Taliesin. Merlin spends a part of his life as a madman in the woods and marries a woman named Guendoloena (a character inspired by the male Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio). He eventually retires to observing stars from his house with seventy windows in the remote woods of Rhydderch. There, he is often visited by Taliesin and by his own sister Ganieda (Geoffrey's character based on Myrddin's sister Gwenddydd), who has become queen of the Cumbrians and is also endowed with prophetic powers.


title: Merlin

text: Nikolai Tolstoy hypothesized that Merlin is based on a historical personage, probably a 6th-century druid living in southern Scotland. His argument was based on the fact that early references to Merlin describe him as possessing characteristics which modern scholarship (but not that of the time the sources were written) would recognize as druidical, the inference being that those characteristics were not invented by the early chroniclers, but belonged to a real person. If so, the hypothetical Merlin would have lived about a century after the hypothetical historical Arthur. A late version of the "Annales Cambriae" (dubbed the "B-text", written at the end of the 13th century) and influenced by Geoffrey, records for the year 573, that after "the battle of Arfderydd, between the sons of Eliffer and Gwenddolau son of Ceidio; in which battle Gwenddolau fell; Merlin went mad." The earliest version of the "Annales Cambriae" entry (in the "A-text", written c. 1100), as well as a later copy (the "C-text", written towards the end of the 13th century) do not mention Merlin. Myrddin/Merlin furthermore shares similarities with the shamanic bard figure of Taliesin, alongside whom he appears in the Welsh Triads and in "Vita Merlini", as well as in the poem "Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin" ("The Conversation between Myrddin and Taliesin") from "The Black Book of Carmarthen", which was dated by Rachel Bromwich as "certainly" before 1100, that is predating "Vita Merlini" by at least half century while telling a different version of the same story. According to Villemarqué, the origin of the legend of Merlin lies with the French figure of Saint Martin of Tours.


title: Merlin

text: Sometime around the turn of the following 13th century, Robert de Boron retold and expanded on this material in "Merlin", an Old French poem presenting itself as the story of Merlin's life as told by Merlin himself to the author. Only a few lines of what is believed to be the original text have survived, but a more popular prose version had a great influence on the emerging genre of Arthurian-themed chivalric romance. In Robert's account, as in Geoffrey's "Historia", Merlin is created as a demon spawn, but here explicitly to become the Antichrist intended to reverse the effect of the Harrowing of Hell. The infernal plot is thwarted when a priest (and the story's narrator) named is contacted by the child's mother. Blaise immediately baptizes the boy at birth, thus freeing him from the power of Satan and his intended destiny. The demonic legacy invests Merlin (already able to speak fluently even as a newborn) with a preternatural knowledge of the past and present, which is supplemented by God, who gives the boy a prophetic knowledge of the future. The text lays great emphasis on Merlin's power to shapeshift, on his joking personality, and on his connection to the Holy Grail, the quest for which he foretells. Inspired by Wace's "Roman de Brut", an Anglo-Norman adaptation of Geoffrey's "Historia", "Merlin" was originally a part of a cycle of Robert's poems telling the story of the Grail over the centuries. The narrative of "Merlin" is largely based on Geoffrey's familiar tale of Vortigern's Tower, Uther's war against the Saxons, and Arthur's conception. What follows is a new episode of the young Arthur's drawing of the sword from the stone, an event orchestrated by Merlin. Merlin also earlier instructs Uther to establish the original order of the Round Table, after creating the table itself. The prose version of Robert's poem was then continued in the 13th-century "Merlin Continuation" or the "Suite de Merlin", describing King Arthur's early wars and Merlin's role in them, as he predicts and influences the course of battles. He also helps Arthur in other ways, including providing him with the magic sword Excalibur through a Lady of the Lake. Here too Merlin's shapeshifting powers feature prominently.


title: Merlin

text: The extended prose rendering became the foundation for the "Lancelot-Grail", a vast cyclical series of Old French prose works also known as the Vulgate Cycle. Eventually, it was directly incorporated into the Vulgate Cycle as the "Estoire de Merlin", also known as the Vulgate "Merlin" or the Prose "Merlin". A further reworking and continuation of the Prose "Merlin" was included within the subsequent Post-Vulgate Cycle as the Post-Vulgate "Suite du Merlin" or the Huth "Merlin". All these variants have been adapted and translated into several other languages, and further modified. Notably, the Post-Vulgate "Suite" (along with an earlier version of the Prose "Merlin") was the main source for the opening part of Thomas Malory's English-language compilation work "Le Morte d'Arthur" that formed a now-iconic version of the legend. Compared to his French sources, Malory limited the extent of the negative association of Merlin and his powers, relatively rarely being condemned as demonic by other characters such as King Lot. Conversely, Merlin seems to be inherently evil in the so-called non-cyclic "Lancelot", where he was born as the "fatherless child" from not a supernatural rape of a virgin but a consensual union between a lustful demon and an unmarried beautiful young lady, and was never baptized. The Prose "Lancelot" further relates that, after growing up in the borderlands between Scotland (Pictish lands) and Ireland (Argyll), Merlin "possessed all the wisdom that can come from demons, which is why he was so feared by the Bretons and so revered that everyone called him a holy prophet and the ordinary people all called him their god."


title: Merlin

text: As the Arthurian myths were retold, Merlin's prophetic aspects were sometimes de-emphasised in favour of portraying him as a wizard and an advisor to the young Arthur, sometimes in struggle between good and evil sides of his character, and living in deep forests connected with nature. Through his ability to change his shape, he may appear as a "wild man" figure evoking that of his prototype Myrddin Wyllt, as a civilized man of any age, or even as a talking animal. In the "Perceval en prose" (also known as the Didot "Perceval" and too attributed to Robert), where Merlin is the initiator of the Grail Quest and cannot die until the end of days, he eventually retires after Arthur's downfall by turning himself into a bird and entering the mysterious "esplumoir", never to be seen again. In the Vulgate Cycle's version of "Merlin", his acts include arranging consummation of Arthur's desire for "the most beautiful maiden ever born," Lady Lisanor of Cardigan, resulting in the birth of Arthur's illegitimate son Lohot from before the marriage to Guinevere. But fate cannot always be changed: the Post-Vulgate Cycle has Merlin warn Arthur of how the birth of his other son will bring great misfortune and ruin to his kingdom, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Eventually, long after Merlin is gone, his advice to dispose of the baby Mordred through an event evoking the Biblical Massacre of the Innocents leads to the deaths of many, among them Arthur.


title: Merlin

text: The earliest English verse romance concerning Merlin is "Of Arthour and of Merlin", which drew from the chronicles and the Vulgate Cycle. In English-language medieval texts that conflate Britain with the Kingdom of England, the Anglo-Saxon enemies against whom Merlin aids first Uther and then Arthur tend to be replaced by the Saracens or simply just invading pagans. Some of the many Welsh works predicting the Celtic revenge and victory over the Saxons have been also reinterpreted as Merlin's (Myrddin's) prophecies, and later used by propaganda of the Welsh-descent king Henry VIII of England in the 16th century. The House of Tudor, which traced their lineage directly to Arthur, interpreted the prophecy of King Arthur's return figuratively as concerning their ascent to the throne of England that they sought to legitimise following the Wars of the Roses.


title: Merlin

text: Many other medieval works dealing with the Merlin legend include an unusual story of the 13th-century "Le Roman de Silence". The "Prophéties de Merlin" (c. 1276) contains long prophecies of Merlin (mostly concerned with 11th to 13th-century Italian history and contemporary politics), some by his ghost after his death, interspersed with episodes relating Merlin's deeds and with assorted Arthurian adventures in which Merlin does not appear at all. It pictures Merlin as a righteous seer chastising people for their sins, as does the 13th-14th Italian story collection "Il Novellino" which draws heavily from it. Even more political Italian text was Joachim of Fiore's "Expositio Sybillae et Merlini", directed against Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor whom the author regarded as the Antichrist. The earliest Merlin text written in Germany was Caesarius of Heisterbach's Latin "Dialogus Miraculorum" (1220). Ulrich Füetrer's 15th-century "Buch der Abenteuer", in the section based on Albrecht von Scharfenberg's lost "Merlin", presents Merlin as Uter's father, effectively making his grandson Arthur a part-devil too. Merlin's unnamed daughter appears in the First Continuation of "Perceval, the Story of the Grail" to guide Perceval towards the Grail Castle.


title: Merlin

text: In the prose chivalric romance tradition, Merlin has a major weakness that leads him to his relatively early doom: young beautiful women of "femme fatale" archetype. His apprentice is often Arthur's half-sister Morgan le Fay. In the "Prophéties de Merlin", he also tutors with Sebile and two other witch queens and the Lady of the Isle of Avalon (Dama di Isola do Vallone); the others who have learnt sorcery from Merlin include the Wise Damsel in the Italian "Historia di Merlino", and the male wizard Mabon in the Post-Vulgate "Merlin Continuation" and the Prose "Tristan". While Merlin does share his magic with his apprentices, his prophetic powers cannot be passed on. As for Morgan, she is sometimes depicted as Merlin's lover and sometimes as just an unrequited love interest. Contrary to the many modern works in which they are archenemies, Merlin and Morgan are never opposed to each other in any medieval tradition, other than Morgan forcibly rejecting him in some texts; in fact, his love for Morgan is so great that he even lies to the king in order to save her in the Huth "Merlin", which is the only instance of him ever intentionally misleading Arthur. Instead, Merlin's eventual undoing comes from his lusting after another of his female students: the one often named Viviane, among various other names and spellings, including Malory's (or really his editor Caxton's) now-popular form Nimue (originally Nymue). She is also called a fairy (French "fee") like Morgan and described as a Lady of the Lake (the "chief Lady of the Lake" in case of Malory's Nimue). Malory's telling of this episode would later become a major inspiration for Romantic authors and artists of the 19th century.


title: Merlin

text: Viviane's character in relation with Merlin is first found in the "Lancelot-Grail" cycle, after having been inserted into the legend of Merlin by either de Boron or his continuator. There are many different versions of their story. Common themes in most of them include Merlin actually having the prior prophetic knowledge of her plot against him (one exception is the Spanish Post-Vulgate "Baladro" where his foresight ability is explicitly dampened by sexual desire) but lacking either ability or will to counteract it in any way, along with her using one of his own spells to rid of him. Usually (including in "Le Morte d'Arthur"), having learnt everything she could from him, Viviane will then also replace the eliminated Merlin within the story, taking up his role as Arthur's adviser and court mage. However, Merlin's fate of either demise or eternal imprisonment, along with his destroyer or captor's motivation (from her fear of Merlin and protecting her own virginity, to her jealously for his relationship with Morgan), is recounted differently in variants of this motif. The exact form of his either prison or grave can be also variably a cave, a hole under a large rock (as in "Le Morte d'Arthur"), a magic tower, or a tree. These are usually placed within the enchanted forest of Brocéliande, a legendary location often identified as the real-life Paimpont forest in Brittany.


title: Merlin

text: Niniane, as the Lady of the Lake student of Merlin is known as in the "Livre d'Artus" continuation of "Merlin", is mentioned as having broken his heart prior to his later second relationship with Morgan, but here the text actually does not tell how exactly Merlin did vanish, other than relating his farewell meeting with Blaise. In the Vulgate "Lancelot", which predated the later Vulgate "Merlin", she (aged just 12 at the time) makes Merlin sleep forever in a pit in the forest of Darnantes, "and that is where he remained, for never again did anyone see or hear of him or have news to tell of him." In the Post-Vulgate "Suite de Merlin", the young King Bagdemagus (one of the early Knights of the Round Table) manages to find the rock under which Merlin is entombed alive by Niviene, as she is named there. He communicates with Merlin, but is unable to lift the stone; what follows next is supposedly narrated in the mysterious text "Conte del Brait" ("Tale of the Cry"). In the "Prophéties de Merlin" version, his tomb is unsuccessfully searched for by various parties, including by Morgan and her enchantresses, but cannot be accessed due to the deadly magic traps around it, while the Lady of the Lake comes to taunt Merlin by asking did he rot there yet. One notably alternate version having a happier ending for Merlin is contained within the "Premiers Faits" section of the "Livre du Graal", where Niniane peacefully confines him in Brocéliande with walls of air, visible only as a mist to others but as a beautiful yet unbreakable crystal tower to him (only Merlin's disembodied voice can escape his prison one last time when he speaks to Gawain on the knight's quest to find him), where they will then spend almost every night together as lovers. Besides evoking the final scenes from "Vita Merlini", this particular variant of their story also mirrors episodes found in some other texts, wherein Merlin either is an object of one-sided desire by a different amorous sorceress who too (unsuccessfully) plots to trap him or it is actually Merlin himself who traps an unwilling lover with his magic.


title: Merlin

text: Unrelated to the legend of the Lady of the Lake, other purported sites of Merlin's burial include a cave deep inside Merlin's Hill (), outside Carmarthen. Carmarthen is also associated with Merlin more generally, including through the 13th-century manuscript known as the "Black Book" and the local lore of Merlin's Oak. In North Welsh tradition, Merlin retires to Bardsey Island (), where he lives in a house of glass () with the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain (). One site of his tomb is said to be Marlborough Mound in Wiltshire, known in medieval times as "Merlebergia" (the Abbot of Cirencester wrote in 1215: "Merlin's tumulus gave you your name, Merlebergia"). Another site associated with Merlin's burial, in his 'Merlin Silvestris' aspect, is the confluence of the Pausalyl Burn and River Tweed in Drumelzier, Scotland. The 15th-century "Scotichronicon" tells that Merlin himself underwent a triple-death, at the hands of some shepherds of the under-king Meldred: stoned and beaten by the shepherds, he falls over a cliff and is impaled on a stake, his head falls forward into the water, and he drowns. The fulfilment of another prophecy, ascribed to Thomas the Rhymer, came about when a spate of the Tweed and Pausayl occurred during the reign of the Scottish James VI and I on the English throne: "When Tweed and Pausayl meet at Merlin's grave, / Scotland and England one king shall have."


title: Merlin

text: Merlin and stories involving him have continued to be popular from the Renaissance to the present day, especially since the renewed interest in the legend of Arthur in modern times. As noted by Arthurian scholar Alan Lupack, "numerous novels, poems and plays centre around Merlin. In American literature and popular culture, Merlin is perhaps the most frequently portrayed Arthurian character." Diverging from his traditional role in the legends, Merlin is sometimes portrayed as a villain, as in Mark Twain's humorous novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1889). According to Peter H. Goodrich in "Merlin: A Casebook:"


title: Merlin

text: Merlin's primary characteristics continue to be recalled, refined, and expanded today, continually encompassing new ideas and technologies as well as old ones. The ability of this complex figure to endure for more than fourteen centuries results not only from his manifold roles and their imaginative appeal, but also from significant, often irresolvable tensions or polarities [...] between beast and human (Wild Man), natural and supernatural (Wonder Child), physical and metaphysical (Poet), secular and sacred (Prophet), active and passive (Counselor), magic and science (Wizard), and male and female (Lover). Interwoven with these primary tensions are additional polarities that apply to all of Merlin's roles, such as those between madness and sanity, pagan and Christian, demonic and heavenly, mortality and immortality, and impotency and potency.


title: Merlin

text: In 2011, Merlin was one of eight British magical figures that were commemorated on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail. Things named in honour of the legendary figure have included the asteroid 2598 Merlin, the metal band Merlin, and the literary magazine "Merlin".


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Penmetsa Ram Gopal Varma (born 7 April 1962), often referred to by his initials RGV, is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer, known for his works in Telugu cinema in addition to Hindi, Kannada language films, and television. Varma has directed films across multiple genres, including parallel cinema and docudrama noted for their gritty realism, technical finesse, and craft. Regarded as one of the pioneers of new age Indian cinema,


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: he was featured in the BBC World series "Bollywood Bosses" in 2004. In 2006, Grady Hendrix of Film Comment, published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center cited Varma as "Bombay's Most Successful Maverick" for his works on experimental films.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Starting his career as a civil engineer, he made an entry into Telugu cinema with the path-breaking crime thriller, "Siva" (1989) featured at the 13th IFFI' 90 "Indian Panorama" mainstream section, and has won Varma, the state Nandi Awards for Best direction, Best first film of a director, and the Filmfare Award for Best Film – Telugu. Subsequently, the film was included in CNN-IBN's list of 100 greatest Indian films of all time. Varma's next directorial was "Kshana Kshanam" (1991), the neo-noir heist film being featured at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, won him another Nandi Award for Best Direction, and the Nandi Award for Best Screenplay Writer. The 1993 political drama, "Gaayam" received six state Nandi Awards. In 1999, he directed "Prema Katha" for which he received his third Nandi Award for Best Director.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Varma is known for directing and presenting pan-Indian works casting actors across the country, such as the Indian Political Trilogy, and the Indian Gangster Trilogy; film critic Rajeev Masand had labelled the latter series as one of the "most influential movies of Indian cinema. The first installment of the trilogy, "Satya", was also listed in CNN-IBN's 100 greatest Indian films of all time. Varma also received the National Film Award for scripting the political crime drama, "Shool" (1999). His recent avant-garde works include hits such as the dramatised re-enactment of "Rayalaseema factionism" in "Rakta Charitra" (2010), the "2008 Mumbai attacks" in "The Attacks of 26/11" (2013), the "Operation Cocoon" in "Killing Veerappan" (2016), the "Vijayawada riots" in "Vangaveeti" (2016), N. T. R. in "Lakshmi's NTR" (2019), and Konda politics in "Konda" (2022).


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Varma was born into a Telugu speaking family, and did his schooling at St. Mary's High School, Secunderabad and completed his BE degree in Civil engineering from V.R. Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada. Even during this period, Varma remained a film buff, through his uncle. Varma would skip classes often and watch films instead. He would watch the same film repeatedly "just to watch certain scenes which interested him." According to him, that is how he learned film direction.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: In an interview to "Tehelka", Varma talked about his relationship with his parents and the reasons behind his decision to become a filmmaker.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: After a brief stint as a site engineer for Krishna Oberoi hotel in Hyderabad, he put his dreams on the back burner and decided to go to Nigeria to make some money. It was at this moment that he visited a video rental library in Hyderabad. He loved the idea and decided to start one of his own at Ameerpet in Hyderabad, through which he slowly developed connections with the film world. Without being successful as a fourth assistant director in B. Gopal's film "Collector Gari Abbai", Varma directly ventured into film direction, with the 1989 Telugu film, "Siva".


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Rachel Dwyer, a reader in "world cinema" at the University of London-Department of South Asia, marked Varma's "Satya" as an experiment with a new genre, a variation of film noir that has been called "Mumbai Noir", of which Varma is the acknowledged master. In 2010, Varma received critical acclaim at the Fribourg International Film Festival, Switzerland; a retrospective of his filmography, highlighting "Mumbai Noir" was staged by film critic Edouard Waintrop, a delegate in the Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival. "Satya" and "Company", in particular, were cited by British director Danny Boyle as influences on his Academy Award-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), for their "slick, often mesmerizing portrayals of the Mumbai underworld", their display of "brutality and urban violence", and their gritty realism.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: In 2005, Varma directed the Godfatheresque-"Sarkar", another super-hit thriller inspired by the life of Bal Thackeray and North Indian politics, which was screened to special mention at the New York Asian Film Festival, along with its sequel "Sarkar Raj", which premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and the 9th IIFA World Premiere-Bangkok, and was archived at the Academy of Motion Pictures library. In 2013, he directed a docudrama, "The Attacks of 26/11", showcased to critical acclaim at the Berlin International Film Festival, in the Panorama as well as the Competition section, and was premièred at Films Division of India. The film received highly positive reviews, with critics praising Varma's narrative of assistant commissioner N. R. Mahale, and the discrepancies associated with Mahale's interaction with Ajmal Kasab on anti terrorism.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Varma's philosophy is influenced by Russian-American Novelist Ayn Rand, Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and authors like James Hadley Chase and Frederick Forsyth, as well as by "Mad" magazine. Varma's first runaway hit in Hindi cinema was "Shiva" (1990), the remake of his 1989 film "Siva". Varma introduced the steadicam to Indian cinema with "Siva". Later, he garnered attention in Bollywood with the romantic comedy film, "Rangeela" (1995) starring Aamir Khan. The film won seven Filmfare Awards. Rangeela was later remade in Hollywood as Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: He then directed "Satya" (1998), which won six Filmfare Awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film, In 2005, "Indiatimes Movies" included "Satya" in its list of "25 Must See Bollywood Movies". Satya was showcased among the Indian panorama section, at the 1998 International Film Festival of India, Varma received the Bimal Roy memorial award for best direction for this film. In the same year, he co-produced "Dil Se..", directed by Mani Ratnam, screened at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival, and won the Netpac Award, as well as two National Film Awards and six Filmfare Awards. "Satya", together with his 2002 film "Company" (which he directed, won three IIFA Awards, seven Filmfare Awards, and a Bollywood Movie Award for best direction, and was premiered at the 2004 Austin Film Festival) and the 2005 film "D" (which he produced), were also featured in the Fribourg International Film Festival, and the New York Asian Film Festival.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: In 1991, Varma experimented with the supernatural thriller, Raat, and the 1992 Neo-noir, crime film Drohi, and gained positive reviews from critics. During the years between his trilogy, from "Satya" in 1998 to "D" in 2005, Varma implemented different film genres in his craft. In 1999, he directed "Kaun", a suspense thriller set entirely in one house and featuring only three actors, and "Mast", a subversion of Hindi cinema's masala genre. In 2000, he directed "Jungle", set entirely in a jungle, for which he was nominated for the Star Screen Award for Best Director. In 2003 he directed another supernatural thriller "Bhoot" on the lines of his earlier hit "Raat". "Bhoot" became a major hit at the box office, and Varma was nominated for the Filmfare Best Director Award for the film.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: "Bhoot" was followed by even more horror movies, including hit films such as "Darna Mana Hai" (2003), "Darna Zaroori Hai" (2006), and "Phoonk" (2008), gaining Varma the status of ster of the Indian horror genre. Other experimental productions of Varma include "Ek Hasina Thi" (2003), a psychological thriller, and "Ab Tak Chhappan" (2004), a film about an inspector in the Mumbai Encounter Squad noted for having killed 56 people in encounters, featured at the Fantastic Fest.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: In 2006, he re-made a new installment of "Shiva", which was screened at the New York Asian Film Festival, where in a retrospective featuring Varma's experimental hits such as "Company", "Ek Hasina Thi", "Ab Tak Chhappan", "Sarkar", "Contract", and "Shabri" was staged. "Shabri" was also screened at Rome Film Festival.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Varma started his career in the Telugu film industry as an assistant director on the sets of films such as "Collector Gari Abbai" and "Rao Gari Illu". His father Krishnam Raju Varma, was a sound recordist at the Annapurna Studios. Varma met Nagarjuna Akkineni at the studio and narrated a scene to the actor which impressed him. The result of their collaboration was a film on the criminalisation of student politics – "Siva". It was a commercially successful film that gave Varma an opportunity to demonstrate his technical expertise and story telling skills.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: "Kshana Kshanam" with Venkatesh, "Gaayam" with Jagapathi Babu and "Anaganaga Oka Roju" with J.D. Chakravarthy were successful, "Govinda Govinda" with Nagarjuna proved to be a moderate success at the box office. During this period, Varma produced films such as "Money" and "Money Money". Other films by Varma in Telugu include "Gulabi" (1995); "Madhyanam Hathya" (2004); "Rakta Charitra" (2010), "Dongala Mutha "(2011), "Rowdy"(2014), "Ice Cream"(2014). Varma introduced online auction based film distribution model for this venture, and tasted success.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Varma's notable mainstream works in Hindi cinema include "Daud" (1997), "Darna Zaroori Hai" (2006), "Nishabd" (2007), "Darling" (2007), and "Phoonk" (2008). Bollywood film makers such as Anurag Kashyap, Madhur Bhandarkar, Puri Jagannadh, E. Nivas, Prawaal Raman, Krishna Vamsi, Vishram Sawant, and Hansal Mehta assisted Varma, before venturing into direction. In 1993, he scripted the Tamil thriller "Thiruda Thiruda", screened at Toronto International Film Festival. In 2015, Varma was fined for Rs 10 Lakhs, for an alleged copyright violation with the film "Aag" (2007). He made his directorial debut in Kannada cinema with the thriller "Killing Veerappan".


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Ram Gopal Varma made his début in Television through a Talk Show titled Ramuism. The show is being aired on a Telugu channel since September 2014. The show is noted for its fresh and witty appeal. The show focuses on Varma's Point of View on social issues such as Education, Religion, Mythology, Children, Crime, Death, Anger, Godmen, Woman, Philosophy, Cinema etc. The show is hosted by Swapna, the managing editor of Sakshi TV.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Varma wrote an autobiography titled "Na Ishtam", which discusses his life experiences and philosophy. 'Naa Ishtam' was released in December 2010 at Taj Banjara, Hyderabad. "Sirasri", poet, lyricist and writer wrote a biographical book on the interactions he had with Ram Gopal Varma with the title "Vodka With Varma". Director Puri Jagannadh launched the book in December 2012.


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: In November 2015, Varma published his book "Guns and Thighs: The Story of My Life", which discusses a wide range of subjects, from the influences and circumstances that drew him to cinematic techniques, his successful and unsuccessful films, his Bollywood idols, his live in relationship with Suchitra Krishnamoorthy his relationship with the media and the controversies dogging him, his philosophy of life, and Indian cinema. On this occasion, Varma said "I dedicated my book to Ayn Rand, Bruce Lee, Urmila Matondkar, Amitabh Bachchan, and a few gangsters."


title: Ram Gopal Varma

text: Varma has garnered the National Film Award, the Bimal Roy Memorial National Award, seven state Nandi Awards, two Bollywood Filmfare Awards, and five Bollywood Movie Awards.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011. Motorola Solutions is the legal successor to Motorola, Inc., as the reorganization was structured with Motorola Mobility being spun off. Motorola Mobility was acquired by Lenovo in 2014.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola designed and sold wireless network equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Motorola's home and broadcast network products included set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and network equipment used to enable video broadcasting, computer telephony, and high-definition television. Its business and government customers consisted mainly of wireless voice and broadband systems (used to build private networks), and, public safety communications systems like Astro and Dimetra. These businesses (except for set-top boxes and cable modems) are now part of Motorola Solutions. Google sold Motorola Home (the former General Instrument cable businesses) to the Arris Group in December 2012 for US$2.35 billion.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola's wireless telephone handset division was a pioneer in cellular telephones. Also known as the Personal Communication Sector (PCS) prior to 2004, it pioneered the "mobile phone" with DynaTAC, "flip phone" with the MicroTAC as well as the "clam phone" with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s. It had staged a resurgence by the mid-2000s with the RAZR, but lost market share in the second half of that decade. Later it focused on smartphones using Google's open-source Android mobile operating system. The first phone to use the newest version of Google's open source OS, Android 2.0, was released on November 2, 2009, as the Motorola Droid (the GSM version launched a month later, in Europe, as the Motorola Milestone).


title: Motorola

text: The handset division (along with cable set-top boxes and cable modems) was later spun off into the independent Motorola Mobility. On May 22, 2012, Google CEO Larry Page announced that Google had closed on its deal to acquire Motorola Mobility. On January 29, 2014, Google CEO Larry Page announced that pending closure of the deal, Motorola Mobility would be acquired by Chinese technology company Lenovo for US$2.91 billion (subject to certain adjustments). On October 30, 2014, Lenovo finalized its purchase of Motorola Mobility from Google.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola started in Chicago, Illinois, as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (at 847 West Harrison Street) in 1928 when brothers, Paul V. and Joseph E. Galvin, purchased the bankrupt Stewart Battery Company's battery-eliminator plans and manufacturing equipment at auction for $750. Galvin Manufacturing Corporation set up shop in a small section of a rented building. The company had $565 in working capital and five employees. The first week's payroll was $63.


title: Motorola

text: The company's first products were battery-eliminators, devices that enabled battery-powered radios to operate on household electricity. Due to advances in radio technology, battery-eliminators soon became obsolete. Paul Galvin learned that some radio technicians were installing sets in cars, and challenged his engineers to design an inexpensive car radio that could be installed in most vehicles. His team was successful, and Galvin was able to demonstrate a working model of the radio at the June 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He brought home enough orders to keep the company in business.


title: Motorola

text: Paul Galvin wanted a brand name for Galvin Manufacturing Corporation's new car radio, and created the name “Motorola” by linking "motor" (for motorcar) with "ola" (from Victrola), which was also a popular ending for many companies at the time, e.g. Moviola, Crayola. The company sold its first Motorola branded radio on June 23, 1930, to H.C. Wall of Fort Wayne, Indiana, for $30. The Motorola brand name became so well known that Galvin Manufacturing Corporation later changed its name to Motorola, Inc.


title: Motorola

text: Galvin Manufacturing Corporation began selling Motorola car-radio receivers to police departments and municipalities in November 1930. The company's first public safety customers (all in the U.S. state of Illinois) included the Village of River Forest, Village of Bellwood Police Department, City of Evanston Police, Illinois State Highway Police, and Cook County (Chicago area) Police.


title: Motorola

text: Many of Motorola's products have been radio-related, starting with a battery eliminator for radios, through the first hand-held walkie-talkie in the world in 1940, defense electronics, cellular infrastructure equipment, and mobile phone manufacturing. In the same year, the company built its research and development program with Dan Noble, a pioneer in FM radio and semiconductor technologies, who joined the company as director of research. The company produced the hand-held AM SCR-536 radio during World War II, which was vital to Allied communication. Motorola ranked 94th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola went public in 1943, and became Motorola, Inc. in 1947. At that time Motorola's main business was producing and selling televisions and radios.


title: Motorola

text: In October 1946, Motorola communications equipment carried the first calls on Illinois Bell telephone company's new car radiotelephone service in Chicago, Illinois. The company began making televisions in 1947, with the model VT-71 with 7-inch cathode ray tube. In 1952 Motorola opened its first international subsidiary in Toronto, Canada to produce radios and televisions. In 1953, the company established the Motorola Foundation to support leading universities in the United States.


title: Motorola

text: In 1955, years after Motorola started its research and development laboratory in Phoenix, Arizona, to research new solid-state technology, Motorola introduced the world's first commercial high-power germanium-based transistor. The present "batwing" logo was also introduced in 1955, which was created by award-winning Chicago graphic designer Morton Goldsholl in late 1954.


title: Motorola

text: Beginning in 1958, with Explorer 1 Motorola provided radio equipment for most NASA space-flights for decades, including during the 1969 moon landing. A year later it established a subsidiary to conduct licensing and manufacturing for international markets. Motorola created numerous products for use by the government, public safety officials, business installments, and the general public. These products included , laptops, computer processors, and radio communication devices.


title: Motorola

text: In 1960, it introduced the world's first large-screen portable (19-inch), transistorized, cordless television. According to the 1962 Illinois Manufacturers Directory (50th anniversary edition), Motorola had 14,000 employees worldwide of which at least 5,823 employees in 6 plants were located in Illinois. The company headquarters were at 9401 West Grand Avenue in Franklin Park and it listed TV receivers, Stereo-Hi Fi equipment as the products at this plant made by 1,700 employees. The Communications Division was in Chicago at 4545 West Augusta Blvd. where 2,000 employees made electronic communications equipment. The Military Electronics Division was at 1450 North Cicero Avenue, Chicago where 923 employees made microwave and industrial equipment. Two more Chicago locations were listed at 4900 West Flourney Street and at 650 North Pulaski but no employee count was listed for these. The last plant was listed in Quincy, Illinois at 1400 North 30th Street where 1,200 employees made radio assemblies for both home and automobile.


title: Motorola

text: In 1963, it introduced the first rectangular color picture tube. In 1964, the company opened its first Research and development branch outside of the United States, in Israel, under the management of Moses Basin. The modular Quasar brand was introduced in 1967.


title: Motorola

text: In 1969, Neil Armstrong spoke the famous words "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" from the Moon on a Motorola transceiver.


title: Motorola

text: In 1974, Motorola introduced its first microprocessor, the 8-bit MC6800, used in automotive, computing and video game applications. That same year, Motorola sold its television business to the Japan-based Matsushita – the parent company of Panasonic.


title: Motorola

text: In 1980, Motorola's next generation 32-bit microprocessor, the MC68000, led the wave of technologies that spurred the computing revolution in 1984, powering devices from companies such as Apple, Commodore, Atari, Sun, and Hewlett Packard.


title: Motorola

text: In September 1983, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the DynaTAC 8000X telephone, the world's first commercial cellular device. By 1998, cellphones accounted for two thirds of Motorola's gross revenue. The company was also strong in semiconductor technology, including integrated circuits used in computers. In particular, it is known for the 6800 family and 68000 family of microprocessors and related peripheral ICs; the processors were used in Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Color Computer, and Apple Macintosh personal computers and in the early HP laser printers, and some 6800-family peripheral devices were used in the IBM PC series of personal computers. The PowerPC family was developed with IBM and in a partnership with Apple (known as the AIM alliance). Motorola also has a diverse line of communication products, including satellite systems, digital cable boxes and modems.


title: Motorola

text: In 1986, Motorola invented the Six Sigma quality improvement process. This became a global standard. In 1990 General Instrument Corporation, which was later acquired by Motorola, proposed the first all-digital HDTV standard. In the same year the company introduced the Bravo numeric pager which became the world's best-selling pager.


title: Motorola

text: In 1991, Motorola demonstrated the world's first working-prototype digital cellular system and phones using GSM standard in Hanover, Germany. Later that same year, Motorola along with Apple and IBM formed the AIM alliance which help created the PowerPC CPUs. In 1994, Motorola introduced the world's first commercial digital radio system that combined paging, data and cellular communications and voice dispatch in a single radio network and handset. In 1995, Motorola introduced the world's first two-way pager which allowed users to receive text messages and e-mail and reply with a standard response.


title: Motorola

text: In 1996, Motorola released the Motorola StarMax, which was a Macintosh clone that was licensed by Apple and it came with System 7. However, with the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997, Apple released Mac OS 8. Because the clone makers' licenses were valid only for Apple's System 7 operating system, Apple's release of Mac OS 8 left the clone manufacturers without the ability to ship a current Mac OS version without negotiation with Apple. A heated telephone conversation between Jobs and Motorola CEO Christopher Galvin resulted in the termination of Motorola's clone contract, the discontinuation of the Motorola StarMax, and the long-favored Apple being demoted to "just another customer" mainly for PowerPC CPUs. Apple (and Jobs) didn't want Motorola to limit the PowerPC CPU supply so as retaliation, Apple and IBM expelled Motorola from the AIM alliance and forced Motorola to stop producing any PowerPC CPUs, leaving IBM to make all future PowerPC CPUs. However, Motorola was later reinstated into the alliance in 1998.


title: Motorola

text: On September 15, 1999, Motorola announced it would buy General Instrument in an $11 billion stock swap. General Instrument had long been the No. 1 cable TV equipment provider, supplying cable operators with end-to-end hybrid fiber coax cable solutions. This meant that GI offers all cable TV transmission network components from the head-end to the fiber optic transmission nodes to the cable set-top boxes, now at the availability of Motorola. GI's acquisition created the Broadband Communications Sector (BCS).


title: Motorola

text: In 1999, Motorola separated a portion of its semiconductor business—the Semiconductor Components Group (SCG)-- and formed ON Semiconductor, whose headquarters are located in Phoenix, Arizona.


title: Motorola

text: In June 2000, Motorola and Cisco supplied the world's first commercial GPRS cellular network to BT Cellnet in the United Kingdom. The world's first GPRS cell phone was also developed by Motorola. In August 2000, with recent acquisitions, Motorola reached its peak employment of 150,000 employees worldwide. Two years later, employment would be at 93,000 due to layoffs and spinoffs.


title: Motorola

text: In 2002, Motorola introduced the world's first wireless cable modem gateway which combined a high-speed cable modem router with an ethernet switch and wireless home gateway. In 2003, Motorola introduced the world's first handset to combine a Linux operating system and Java technology with "full PDA functionality". In 2004, Motorola divested its whole semiconductor business to form Freescale Semiconductor and left the AIM alliance.


title: Motorola

text: The Motorola RAZR line sold over 120 million units, which brought the company to the number two mobile phone slot in 2005.


title: Motorola

text: In June 2005, Motorola overtook the intellectual property of Sendo for $30,000 and paid £362,575 for the plant, machinery and equipment.


title: Motorola

text: In June 2006, Motorola acquired the software platform (AJAR) developed by the British company TTP Communications plc. Later in 2006, the firm announced a music subscription service named "iRadio". The technology came after a break in a partnership with Apple Computer (which in 2005 had produced an iTunes compatible cell phone ROKR E1, and most recently, mid-2007, its own iPhone). iRadio has many similarities with existing satellite radio services (such as Sirius and XM Radio) by offering live streams of commercial-free music content. Unlike satellite services, however, iRadio content will be downloaded via a broadband internet connection. As of 2008, iRadio has not been commercially released and no further information is available.


title: Motorola

text: In 2007, Motorola acquired Symbol Technologies to provide products and systems for enterprise mobility solutions, including rugged mobile computing, advanced data capture, and radio frequency identification (RFID).


title: Motorola

text: In 2010, Motorola sold its cellular-infrastructure business to Nokia Siemens Networks for $1.2 billion.


title: Motorola

text: In January 2011, Motorola split into two separate companies, each still using the word Motorola as part of its name. One company, Motorola Solutions (using a blue version of the Motorola logo), is based in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois, and concentrates on police technologies, radios, and commercial needs. The other company, Motorola Mobility (using a red logo), is based in Chicago (formerly in the Chicago suburb of Libertyville, Illinois), and is the mobile handset producer. The split was structured so that Motorola Solutions was the legal successor of the original Motorola, while Motorola Mobility was the spin-off.


title: Motorola

text: On August 15, 2011, Google announced that it would purchase Motorola Mobility for about $12.5 billion.


title: Motorola

text: On November 17, 2011, Motorola Mobility stockholders “voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposed merger with Google Inc”.


title: Motorola

text: On May 22, 2012, Google announced that the acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. had closed, with Google acquiring MMI for $40.00 per share in cash. ($12.5 billion)


title: Motorola

text: On October 30, 2014, Google sold off Motorola Mobility to Lenovo. The purchase price was approximately US$2.91 billion (subject to certain adjustments), including US$1.41 billion paid at close: US $660 million in cash and US$750 million in Lenovo ordinary shares (subject to a share cap/floor). The remaining US$1.5 billion was paid in the form of a three-year promissory note.


title: Motorola

text: After the purchase, Google maintained ownership of the vast majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio, including current patent applications and invention disclosures, while Lenovo received a license to the portfolio of patents and other intellectual property. Additionally Lenovo received over 2,000 patent assets, as well as the Motorola Mobility brand and trademark portfolio.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola's handset division recorded a loss of $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, while the company as a whole earned $100 million during that quarter. It lost several key executives to rivals, and the website TrustedReviews called the company's products repetitive and un-innovative. Motorola laid off 3,500 workers in January 2008, followed by a further 4,000 job cuts in June and another 20% cut of its research division a few days later. In July 2008, a large number of executives left Motorola to work on Apple Inc.'s iPhone. The company's handset division was also put on offer for sale. Also that month, analyst Mark McKechnie from American Technology Research said that Motorola "would be lucky to fetch $500 million" for selling its handset business. Analyst Richard Windsor said that Motorola might have to pay someone to take the division off the company's hands , and that Motorola may even exit the handset market altogether. Its global market share has been on the decline; from 18.4% of the market in 2007 the company had a share of just 6.0% by Q1 2009, but at last, Motorola scored a profit of $26 million in Q2 and showed an increase of 12% in stocks for the first time after losses in many quarters. During the second quarter of 2010, the company reported a profit of $162 million, which compared very favorably to the $26 million earned for the same period the year before. Its Mobile Devices division reported, for the first time in years, earnings of $87 million.


title: Motorola

text: In 1974, Motorola divested itself of its television and radio-manufacturing division, which included the Quasar brand of electronics. This division was acquired by Matsushita, already known under its Panasonic brand in North America, where it was looking to expand.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola developed the global communication network using a set of 77 satellites. The business ambitions behind this project and the need to raise venture capital to fund the project led to the creation of the Iridium company in the late 1990s. While the technology was proven to work, Iridium failed to attract sufficient customers and it filed for bankruptcy in 1999. Obligations to Motorola and loss of expected revenue caused Motorola to divest the ON Semiconductor (ONNN) business August 4, 1999, raising about $1.1billion.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola manufactured two satellite phone handsets for this network – the 9500 and 9505 as well as transceiver units. Some of these are still in production by an OEM but sold under the Iridium brand.


title: Motorola

text: Due to declines in business in 2000 and 2001, Motorola spun off its government and defense business to General Dynamics. The business deal closed September 2001. Thus GD Decision Systems was formed (and later merged with General Dynamics C4 Systems) from Motorola's Integrated Information Systems Group.


title: Motorola

text: On August 4, 1999, Motorola, Inc.'s Semiconductor Components Group, manufacturing Motorola's discrete, standard analog and standard logic devices was spun off, recapitalized and established as an independent company named ON Semiconductor.


title: Motorola

text: On October 16, 2004, Motorola announced that it would spin off its Semiconductor Products Sector into a separate company called Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. The new company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on July 16 of the following year.


title: Motorola

text: On January 29, 1988, Motorola sold its Arcade, New York facility and automotive alternators, electromechanical speedometers and tachometers products to Prestolite Electric.


title: Motorola

text: In July 2006, Motorola completed the sale of its automotive business to Continental AG. Motorola's automotive unit had annual sales of $1.6billion (€1.33billion) and employed 4,504. The divisions products included telematics systems – like GM's OnStar used for vehicle navigation and safety services, engine and transmission control electronics, vehicle control, electronics and sensors used in steering, braking, and power doors and power windows.


title: Motorola

text: In 2000, Motorola acquired Printrak International Inc. for $160 million. In doing so, Motorola not only acquired computer aided dispatch and related software , but also acquired Automated fingerprint identification system software.


title: Motorola

text: In October 2008, Motorola agreed to sell its Biometrics business to Safran, a French defense firm. Motorola's biometric business unit was headquartered in Anaheim, Calif. The deal closed in April 2009. The unit became part of Sagem Morpho, which was renamed MorphoTrak.


title: Motorola

text: On March 26, 2008, Motorola's board of directors approved a split into two different publicly traded companies. This came after talk of selling the company to another corporation. These new companies would comprise the business units of the current Motorola Mobile Devices and Motorola Broadband & Mobility Solutions. Originally it was expected that this action would be approved by regulatory bodies and complete by mid-2009, but the split was delayed due to company restructuring problems and the 2008–2009 extreme economic downturn.


title: Motorola

text: On February 11, 2010, Motorola announced its separation into two independent, publicly traded companies, effective Q1 2011. The official split occurred at around 12:00 pm EST on January 4, 2011. The two new companies are called Motorola Mobility (now owned by Lenovo; cell phone and cable television equipment company) and Motorola Solutions (; Government and Enterprise Business). Motorola Solutions is generally considered to be the direct successor to Motorola, Inc., as the reorganization was structured with Motorola Mobility being spun off. Motorola Solutions retains Motorola, Inc.'s pre-2011 stock price history, though it retired the old ticker symbol of "MOT" in favor of "MSI".


title: Motorola

text: On August 15, 2011, seven months after Motorola Mobility was spun off into an independent company, Google announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, subject to approval from regulators in the United States and Europe.


title: Motorola

text: According to the filing, Google senior vice president Andy Rubin first reached out to Motorola Mobility in early July 2011 to discuss the purchase by some of Google's competitors of the patent portfolio of Nortel Networks Corp., and to assess its potential impact on the Android ecosystem.


title: Motorola

text: Google boosted its offer for Motorola Mobility by 33% in a single day in early August, even though Motorola wasn't soliciting competing bids. The aggressive bidding by Google showed that the search engine company was under considerable pressure to beef up its patent portfolio to protect its promising Android franchise from a growing number of legal challenges.


title: Motorola

text: According to the filing, Google and Motorola began discussions about Motorola's patent portfolio in early July, as well as the "intellectual property litigation and the potential impact of such litigation on the Android ecosystem".


title: Motorola

text: Although the two companies discussed the possibility of an acquisition after the initial contact by Mr. Rubin, it was only after Motorola pushed back on the idea of patent sale that the acquisition talks picked up steam.


title: Motorola

text: The turning point came during a meeting on July 6. At the meeting, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha discussed the protection of the Android ecosystem with Google senior vice president Nikesh Arora, and during that talk Jha told Arora that "it could be problematic for Motorola Mobility to continue to exist as a stand-alone entity if it sold a large portion of its patent portfolio".


title: Motorola

text: In connection with these discussions, the two companies signed a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement that allowed Google to do due diligence on the company's patent portfolio.


title: Motorola

text: On July 21 and 23, Jha met with Arora and Rubin to discuss strategic options between the two companies, agreeing to continue to discuss a potential sale. On the morning of August 15, the two companies entered into a merger agreement at the offered price of $40. On November 17, Motorola Mobility stockholders approved the proposed merger with Google Inc. On April 17, 2013, ARRIS Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARRS) announced that it completed its acquisition of the Motorola Home business from a subsidiary of Google Inc.


title: Motorola

text: On January 29, 2014, Google announced they would sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for approximately $2.91 billion (subject to certain adjustments), including $1.41 billion paid at close: $660 million in cash and $750 million in Lenovo ordinary shares (subject to a share cap/floor). The remaining $1.5 billion will be paid in the form of a three-year promissory note.


title: Motorola

text: Google maintained ownership of the vast majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio, including active patent applications and invention disclosures. As part of its ongoing relationship with Google, Lenovo received a license to this rich portfolio of patents and other intellectual property. Additionally Lenovo received over 2,000 patent assets, as well as the Motorola Mobility brand and trademark portfolio. On October 30, 2014, Lenovo finalized its purchase of Motorola Mobility from Google.


title: Motorola

text: Cambium Networks was created when Motorola Solutions sold the Canopy and Orthogon businesses in 2011. Cambium Networks has evolved the platform and expanded it to three product lines: Point to Point (PTP) (formerly Orthogon), Point to Multipoint (PMP) (formerly Canopy) and ePMP.


title: Motorola

text: The Six Sigma quality system was developed at Motorola even though it became best known through its use by General Electric. It was created by engineer Bill Smith, under the direction of Bob Galvin (son of founder Paul Galvin) when he was running the company. Motorola University is one of many places that provide Six Sigma training.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola, Inc., along with the Arizona Water Co. has been identified as the sources of trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination that took place in Scottsdale, Arizona. The malfunction led to a ban on the use of water that lasted three days and affected almost 5000 people in the area. Motorola was found to be the main source of the TCE, an industrial solvent that is thought to cause cancer. The TCE contamination was caused by a faulty blower on an air stripping tower that was used to take TCE from the water, and Motorola has attributed the situation to operator error.


title: Motorola

text: Of eighteen leading electronics manufacturers in Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics (October 2010), Motorola shares sixth place with competitors Panasonic and Sony).


title: Motorola

text: Motorola scores relatively well on the chemicals criteria and has a goal to eliminate PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), though only in mobile devices and not in all its products introduced after 2010, despite the fact that Sony Ericsson and Nokia are already there. All of its mobile phones are now PVC-free and it has two PVC and BFR-free mobile phones, the A45 ECO and the GRASP; all chargers are also free from PVC and BFRs.


title: Motorola

text: The company is also increasing the proportion of recycled materials that used in its products. For example, the housings for the MOTO W233 Renew and MOTOCUBO A45 Eco mobile phones contain plastic from post-consumer recycled water cooler bottles. According to the company's information, all of Motorola's newly designed chargers meet the current Energy Star requirements and exceed the requirements for standby/no-load modes by at least 67%.


title: Motorola

text: Motorola sponsored Scottish Premier League club Motherwell F.C. for 11 years. This long-term deal ended after the company started to reduce its manufacturing operations in Scotland. The company also sponsored Livingston F.C. between 1998 and 2002. The company also had a plant on the edge of the town. However, this closed down at the same time as their sponsorship with the club ended. The South Stand at Livingston's Almondvale Stadium, was named after the company, during their time of sponsorship. The company also sponsored a cycling team that counted Lance Armstrong amongst its members. Motorola was also a sponsor of Danica Patrick, David Beckham, and Fergie. It also sponsored the Richmond Football Club in the Australian Football League from 2004 to 2007. Motorola sponsored São Paulo FC from 2000 to 2001. Motorola also sponsored Club Bolívar since 2008. Motorola awarded TrackIT Solutions for being "The company with most Innovative Enterprise Mobility Solution" in 2010.publisher=CNNMoney.com


title: Motorola

text: Robby Gordon was sponsored by Motorola in 2007 and 2008. Motorola is on Gordon's car in NASCAR 07 and NASCAR 08.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Melissa Arnette Elliott (born July 1, 1971), better known as Missy Elliott or Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. She embarked on her music career with R&B girl group Sista in the early-mid 1990s and later became a member of the Swing Mob collective along with childhood friend and longtime collaborator Timbaland, with whom she worked on projects for American R&B acts Aaliyah, 702, Total, and SWV. Following several collaborations and guest appearances, she launched her solo career in 1997 with her debut album "Supa Dupa Fly", which spawned the top 20 single "Sock It 2 Me". The album debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200, the highest charting debut for a female rapper at the time.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott's second album, "Da Real World", was released in 1999 and produced the singles "She's a Bitch", "All n My Grill", and top five hit "Hot Boyz". The remix of the latter song broke the record for most weeks at number-one on the US R&B chart on the issue dated January 15, 2000, as well as spending 18 weeks at number one on the Hot Rap Singles chart from December 1999 to March 2000. With the release of "Miss E... So Addictive" (2001), "Under Construction" (2002), and "This Is Not a Test" (2003), Elliott established an international career that yielded hits including "Get Ur Freak On", "One Minute Man", "4 My People", "Gossip Folks", and "Work It". The latter won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Rap Solo Performance. She released her first extended play, titled "Iconology" in 2019.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott has been referred to as the "Queen of Rap" by media outlets. She has sold over 30 million records in the United States. Her accolades include four Grammy Awards. She is the best-selling female rapper in Nielsen Music history, according to "Billboard" in 2017. She became the first female rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and received the MTV VMAs Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for her impact on the music video landscape. In 2020, "Billboard" ranked her at number five on the 100 Greatest Music Video Artists of All Time. In 2021, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Melissa Arnette Elliott was born on July 1, 1971, at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Portsmouth, Virginia. She is the only child of mother Patricia Elliott, a power-company dispatcher, and father Ronnie, a former U.S. Marine. Elliott grew up in an active church choir family, and singing was a normal part of her youth. At the age of four, she wanted to be a performer, and, as biographer Veronica A. Davis writes, she "would sing and perform for her family". In later years, she feared no one would take her seriously, because she was always the class clown. While her father was an active Marine, the family lived in Jacksonville, North Carolina, in a manufactured home community. Elliott blossomed during this part of her life. She enjoyed school for the friendships that she formed even though she had little interest in schoolwork. She would later get well above average marks on intelligence tests, and she was advanced two years ahead of her former class. Her move in grades caused isolation, and she purposely failed, eventually returning to her previous class. When her father returned from the Marines, they moved back to Virginia, where they lived in extreme poverty.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Life in Virginia saw many hardships. Elliott talks about domestic abuse by her father. She refused to stay over at friends' homes out of fear that on her return home she would find her mother dead. When Elliott was eight, she was molested by a cousin. In one violent incident, Ronnie Elliott dislocated his wife's shoulders and during another, Elliott herself was threatened with a gun. At the age of fourteen, Elliott's mother decided to end the situation and fled with her daughter on the pretext of taking a joyride on a local bus. In reality, the pair had found refuge at a family member's home where their possessions were stored in a loaded U-Haul truck. Elliott tells her that she feared her father would kill them both for leaving.


title: Missy Elliott

text: She later stated, "When we left, my mother realized how strong she was on her own, and it made me strong. It took her leaving her home to be able to realize that."


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott and her mother lived in the Hodges Ferry neighborhood of Portsmouth, Virginia. Elliott graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School (Now known as Manor High School) in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1990.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In 1991, Elliott formed an all female R&B group, called Fayze (later renamed Sista), with friends La'Shawn Shellman, Chonita Coleman, and Radiah Scott. She recruited her neighborhood friend Timothy Mosley (Timbaland) as the group's producer and began making demo tracks, among them included the 1991 promo "First Move". Later in 1991, Fayze caught the attention of Jodeci member and producer DeVante Swing by performing Jodeci songs a cappella for him backstage after one of his group's concerts. In short order, Fayze moved to New York City and signed to Elektra Records through DeVante's Swing Mob imprint and also renaming the group Sista. Sista's debut song was titled "Brand New", which was released in 1993 Elliott took Mosley—whom DeVante re-christened Timbaland—and their friend Melvin "Magoo" Barcliff along with her.


title: Missy Elliott

text: All 20-plus members of the Swing Mob—among them future stars such as Ginuwine, Playa, and Tweet—lived in a single two-story house in New York and were often at work on material both for Jodeci and their own projects. While Elliott wrote and rapped on Raven-Symoné's 1993 debut single, "That's What Little Girls Are Made Of", she also contributed, credited and uncredited, to the Jodeci albums "Diary of a Mad Band" (1993) and "The Show, the After Party, the Hotel" (1995). Timbaland and DeVante jointly produced a Sista album, entitled "4 All the Sistas Around da World" (1994). Elliott met R&B artist Mary J. Blige while Blige was in sessions for her second album "My Life". Though videos were released for the original and remix versions of the single "Brand New", the album was shelved and never released. One of the group's tracks, "It's Alright" featuring Craig Mack did however make the cut on the soundtrack of the 1995 motion picture "Dangerous Minds" but by the end of 1995, Swing Mob had folded and many of its members dispersed. Elliott, Timbaland, Magoo, Ginuwine, and Playa remained together and collaborated on each other's records for the rest of the decade as the musical collective The Superfriends.


title: Missy Elliott

text: After leaving Swing Mob, Elliott and Timbaland worked together as a songwriting/production team, crafting tracks for acts including SWV, 702, and most notably Aaliyah. The pair wrote and produced nine tracks for Aaliyah's second album, "One in a Million" (1996), among them the hit singles "If Your Girl Only Knew", "One in a Million", "Hot Like Fire", and "4 Page Letter". Elliott contributed background vocals and/or guest raps to nearly all of the tracks on which she and Timbaland worked. "One in a Million" went double platinum and made stars out of the production duo. Elliott and Timbaland continued to work together for other artists, later creating hits for artists such as Total; "What About Us?" (1997), Nicole Wray; "Make It Hot" (1998), and Destiny's Child; "Get on the Bus" (1998), as well as one final hit for Aaliyah, "I Care 4 U", before her death in 2001. Elliott also wrote the bulk of Total's second and final album "Kima, Keisha, and Pam" and Nicole Wray's debut "Make It Hot" (both released in 1998). Elliott began her career as a featured vocalist rapping on Sean "Puffy" Combs's Bad Boy remixes to Gina Thompson's "The Things That You Do", (which had a video featuring cameo appearances by Notorious B.I.G and Puff Daddy), MC Lyte's 1996 hit single "Cold Rock a Party" (backup vocals by Gina Thompson), and New Edition's 1996 single "You Don't Have to Worry". In 1996, Elliott also appeared on the Men of Vizion's remix of "Do Thangz" which was produced by Rodney Jerkins (coincidentally the producer of the original version of "The Things That You Do").


title: Missy Elliott

text: Combs had hoped to sign Elliott to his Bad Boy record label. Instead, she signed a deal in 1996 to create her own imprint, The Goldmind Inc., with East West Records, which at that time was a division of Elektra Entertainment Group, for which she would record as a solo artist. Timbaland was again recruited as her production partner, a role he would hold on most of Elliott's solo releases. Missy continued to work with other artists and appeared on LSG's song "All the Time" with Gerald Levert, Keith Sweat, Johnny Gill, Faith Evans, and Coko in 1997 on Levert Sweat Gill classic album. The same year, she rapped in "Keys To My House" with old friends group LeVert. In the center of a busy period of making guest appearances and writing for other artists, Elliott's debut album, "Supa Dupa Fly", was released in mid-1997; the success of its lead single "The Rain" led the album to be certified platinum. Elliott wore an oversized trash-bag looking jumpsuit in the music video, and at Lilith Fair, an outfit media articles have considered one of her most recognizable "fashion moments".


title: Missy Elliott

text: The success was also a result of the music videos of her single releases, which were directed by Harold "Hype" Williams, who created many groundbreaking hip hop, Afro-futuristic videos at the time. The album was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 1998 Grammy Awards, but lost to Puff Daddy's "No Way Out". The year also saw Elliott perform live at the MTV Video Music Awards show on a remix to Lil' Kim's "Ladies Night" with fellow rappers Da Brat, Angie Martinez and TLC-rapper Left Eye. Elliott continued her successful career in the background as a producer and writer on Total's single "Trippin'", as well as working with several others in the hip-hop and R&B communities. Elliott co-wrote and co-produced two tracks on Whitney Houston's 1998 album "My Love Is Your Love", providing vocal cameos for "In My Business" and "Oh Yes". Elliott also produced and made a guest appearance on Spice Girl Melanie Brown's debut solo single, "I Want You Back", which topped the UK Singles Chart in Brown's native United Kingdom and is Elliot's only chart-topping song in that country.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Although a much darker album than her debut, Elliott's second album was just as successful as the first, selling 1.5 million copies and 3 million copies worldwide. She remarked, "I can't even explain the pressure. The last album took me a week to record. This one took almost two months…I couldn't rush it the second time because people expect more." "Da Real World" (1999) included the singles "All n My Grill", a collaboration with Nicole Wray and Big Boi (from OutKast), a remix to "Hot Boyz" and "She's a Bitch". Also in 1999, Elliott was featured, alongside Da Brat, on the official remix to a Mariah Carey single "Heartbreaker". A music video was filmed for the remix, shot in black and white and featuring a cameo appearance by Dogg. The Desert Storm Remix is acclaimed by music critics and became a cult remix .


title: Missy Elliott

text: Missy Elliott next released "Miss E... So Addictive" on May 15, 2001. The album debuted at number two in the United States and sold 250,000 copies in its first week. It spawned the massive pop and urban hits "One Minute Man" (as to which MTV wrote: "Missy Elliott Plays Dr. Ruth On New Single"), featuring Ludacris and Trina, and "Get Ur Freak On", as well as the international club hit "4 My People" and the less commercially successful single "Take Away". The double music video for "Take Away/4 My People" was released in the fall of 2001, shortly after the sudden death of Elliott's close friend Aaliyah on August 25 and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The "Take Away" video contained images of and words about Aaliyah, and the slow ballad acted as a tribute to her memory. The remainder of the video was the more upbeat "4 My People", contained scenes of people dancing happily in front of American flags and Elliott dressed in red, white and blue. Though "Take Away" was not a success on radio, "4 My People" went on to become an American and European club hit due to a popular remix by house music duo Basement Jaxx in 2002.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Tweet's appearance on Elliott's "Take Away" as well as her cameo at Elliott's house on "MTV Cribs" helped to create a buzz about the new R&B singer. Tweet's own debut single, "Oops (Oh My)", was co-written by Elliott and released through Goldmind in February 2002. The single was a top ten hit, thanks partially to Elliott's songwriting and guest rap, and to Timbaland's unusual production on the track. Elliott co-produced the Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mýa and Pink cover of "Lady Marmalade" for the album "Moulin Rouge! Music from Baz Luhrmann's Film", which went to number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 2001.


title: Missy Elliott

text: For her next outing, Elliott and Timbaland focused on an old school sound, utilizing many old school rap and funk samples, such as Run–D.M.C.'s "Peter Piper" and Frankie Smith's "Double Dutch Bus". Elliott's fourth album, 2002's "Under Construction" (see 2002 in music) is known as the best selling female rap album with 2.1 million copies sold in the United States. In 2002, Elliott won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance for "Get Ur Freak On". In 2003, "Under Construction" received Grammy nominations for Best Rap Album and Album of the Year. "The New York Times" designated "Under Construction" "this year's best hip-hop album". Elliott released two singles off of Under Construction. The lead single, "Work It" reached No. 2 on "Billboard"s Hot 100 chart and won the "Video of the Year" award at MTV's Video Music Awards. The second single, "Gossip Folks" featuring Ludacris, became a Top 10 hit on "Billboard"s Hot 100 chart, was one of the most-played music videos on MTV, MTV2, MTV Jams, and BET in 2003 and was embraced by the dance community, as well as the mainstream, due to a Fatboy Slim remix. A third single was never released, though a video was shot for "Back In The Day" featuring Jay-Z and Elliott was.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In between albums, Elliott produced the "American Dream Remix" (featuring Tweet's additional vocals) of Madonna's single "American Life", was featured rapper on Timbaland & Magoo's return single, "Cop That Shit", and produced "Fighting Temptation" (featuring herself, Beyoncé, Free and MC Lyte) for the soundtrack to the Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé Knowles movie of the same name. The track reached No. 1 in Japan but failed to chart in the U.S. Hot 100. Elliott was also featured on Wyclef Jean's "Party to Damascus" and Ghostface Killah's "Tush" singles, the latter of which became a minor 2004 dance hit, and had a pivotal role in the film "Honey". Gap approached Elliott later in the year to co-star in a commercial with Madonna, which received much media attention. Elliott furthered her relationship with Madonna by performing the controversial 2003 MTV Video Music Awards show opening alongside Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Also in September 2003, Elliott performed the theme song "The Opposite Sex" for the UPN sitcom "Eve" starring her good friend and fellow rapper Eve. It lasted for three seasons.


title: Missy Elliott

text: A year after Elliott's most successful album to date was released, Elliott felt pressured by her label to release another album hoping to capitalize on her recent success. Elliott's singles, "Pass That Dutch" and "I'm Really Hot", from her fifth album, "This Is Not a Test!" (released November 2003), both rose the urban charts. However, both were not as successful at pop radio in comparison to many of her previous efforts. "This Is Not A Test" sold 690,000 copies in the United States and has been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Elliott has since stated that "the album "This Is Not A Test" came out extremely too quickly for me. I didn't want it to come out when it did." In 2004, Elliott was featured on Ciara's hit single "1, 2 Step", with her verse interpolating Teena Marie's single, "Square Biz". Elliott premiered her own reality show on the UPN Network, "The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliott" in 2005 even though it was not renewed for a second season. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, she sold more than 7.6 million copies in the United States, being the female rapper with best-selling albums in the country, followed by Lauryn Hill (seven million), Lil' Kim (four million), and Eve (four million) at the time.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott wanted to "give people the unexpected" by utilizing producers other than Timbaland and a "more to the center" sound not as far left as her other music. Her sixth solo album, "The Cookbook" was released on July 4, 2005, debuted at number two on the U.S. charts and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), selling 645,000 copies in the United States. Elliott's work during "The Cookbook" era was heavily recognized. Elliott received 5 Grammy nominations in 2005, including one for Best Rap Album for "The Cookbook". The album's first single, "Lose Control", won a Grammy for Best Short Form Video and was nominated for Best Rap Song. "Lose Control" also garnered Elliott six 2005 MTV VMA award nominations (winning Best Dance Video and Best Hip-Hop Video). Elliott won Best Female Hip Hop Artist at the 2005 American Music Awards, and was nominated for Best International Female Artist at the 2006 BRIT Awards.


title: Missy Elliott

text: "Lose Control" featuring Ciara and Fatman Scoop, became a Top 5 hit in the midyear (peaking at number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100). The second single, Teary Eyed, did not chart, although the video charted on MTV's "TRL" for a few weeks, and BET's "106 & Park" for a few days. The third single, "We Run This", was released with heavy airplay on VH1, MTV, and BET. It served as the lead single for the soundtrack to the gymnastics-themed film "Stick It." The song was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Rap Solo Performance category in 2006. "Respect M.E.", Elliott's first greatest hits album, was released outside the United States and Canada on September 4, 2006, only in South Africa, Australia, Europe, Japan, and Brazil. The collection became her second top ten album in the UK and her highest-charting album to date, peaking at number seven there.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott was an honoree of the 2007 VH1 Hip Hop Honors. In honor of her career, many artists performed some of her biggest hits. Timbaland and Tweet performed "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", Eve and Keyshia Cole performed "Hot Boyz" and "Work It", Fatman Scoop and Ciara performed "Lose Control", and Nelly Furtado performed "Get Ur Freak On (The Remix)". Since 2007, Elliott's seventh studio album has had several different forms with extensive delays. In 2007, she worked with Timbaland, Swizz Beatz, Danja, T-Pain and DJ Toomp and planned to release an album at the beginning of 2008. In January 2008, "Ching-a-Ling" was released as the lead single for the "" soundtrack, which also featured "Shake Your Pom Pom" produced by Timbaland. Elliott released the song "Best, Best" in the same year and renamed the albums previous title "FANomenal" to its tentative title "Block Party". She later decided against "Block Party" and four years later, in 2012, Elliott released two Timbaland-produced singles ("9th Inning" and "Triple Threat") exclusively to iTunes. Though the songs managed to chart on "Billboard" Hot Digital Songs, in an interview with Yahoo's The Yo Show, Missy talked about her hiatus from making records: "Your brain needs time to refresh! Things happen in your life where you can then write something else instead of the same three topics. Like, how many times we gonna talk about the club? I gotta feel like what I'm giving the fans is 100 percent and that it's game-changing. I don't just throw out microwave records."


title: Missy Elliott

text: In between the recording of her seventh album, Missy Elliott found success behind the scenes. Elliott's writing and production helped her reach No. 1 on "Billboard"s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs with Keyshia Cole's "Let It Go" (2007), Jazmine Sullivan's "Need U Bad" (2008), and Monica's "Everything to Me" (2010). Since 2008, songs written and/or produced by Elliott for Fantasia ("Free Yourself"), Jennifer Hudson ("I'm His Only Woman"), Monica ("Everything to Me"), Keyshia Cole ("Let It Go"), and Jazmine Sullivan ("Need U Bad" and "Holding You Down (Goin' in Circles)") have all received Grammy nominations. Both Fantasia's "Free Yourself" (2005) and Sullivan's "Holding You Down (Goin' In Circles)" reached No. 3 on "Billboard"s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. In mid-2010, Elliott embarked on a two-part tour with stops in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, while she also performed at VH1's "Hip Hop Honors: The Dirty South" in a tribute to Timbaland, performing "Get Ur Freak On" and "Work It". In 2008 she made an appearance in "Whatcha Think About That" by The Pussycat Dolls, and performed live in different places with them. In 2011 and 2012, Elliott made guest appearances on "All Night Long" by Demi Lovato, "Nobody's Perfect" by J. Cole, the remix of "Why Stop Now" by Busta Rhymes with Chris Brown and Lil Wayne, and a remix of Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" that helped catapult "T.G.I.F". to No. 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. She also produced Monica's singles "Anything (To Find You)" and "Until It's Gone".


title: Missy Elliott

text: Throughout 2013, Missy Elliott was featured on Eve's album cut "Wanna Be", as well as international artists singles, Little Mix's "How Ya Doin'?" and "NiLiria" with K-pop musician G-Dragon, which was named by "Complex" magazine as one of the "50 Best Songs of 2013". Elliott also contributed to her protégée Sharaya J's two releases, "Banji" and "Smash Up The Place/Snatch Yo Wigs". In December 2013, Elliott received a Grammy nomination with Fantasia and Kelly Rowland for their song "Without Me". As early as July 2013, Missy Elliott and Timbaland held recording sessions for Kat Dahlia's debut, "My Garden" (2015). In August 2013, R&B singer Faith Evans revealed that Missy Elliott would be featured on her sixth studio album, tentatively titled "Incomparable". In March 2014, Evans revealed one of the tracks was named "I Deserve It", featuring Missy and her protégée Sharaya J, in which Evans cited it as a "banger" and "feel good" record. Evans also revealed that in total Elliott contributed three tracks to her album. On July 7, 2014, fellow R&B singer Monica confirmed that Elliott would be a feature on her upcoming eighth studio album. On July 29, 2014, a snippet of a Missy Elliott–produced song, nickname "I Love Him", premiered on Monica's official Instagram account.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In 2015, Elliott performed at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show with Katy Perry. Elliott performed a medley of "Get Ur Freak On", "Work It", and "Lose Control". The performance was well-received, and boosted digital sales of Elliott's work that week, with a twenty-five-fold increase in album sales (to 2,000 units) and a ten-fold increase in sales of the three songs she performed (to 71,000 units) compared to the week before. It also became the most watched Super Bowl halftime show in NFL history, receiving 118.5 million viewers in the United States. On February 3, 2015, it was confirmed that Elliott would be a feature on the upcoming remix to Diplo and Skrillex's "Take Ü There". On February 11, Elliott stated that she was still in the process of recording her seventh studio album, "Block Party", with Timbaland. On April 2, 2015, Pharrell Williams confirmed that he was working on Elliott's album during an episode of "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon". On November 12, 2015, "WTF (Where They From)" and its music video were simultaneously released to digital outlets. By November 19, the song and its video had been streamed 6.1 million times in the US alone, with an additional count of 16 million views per YouTube viewing.


title: Missy Elliott

text: On February 7, 2016, the day of the fiftieth Super Bowl, Elliott released a promotional single, "Pep Rally". Later that month, Elliott reunited with former protégée Tweet and frequent collaborator Timbaland on the cut "Somebody Else Will" taken from the former's third studio album, "Charlene". By March 15, 2016, First Lady Michelle Obama proclaimed that she had assembled a collaborative track featuring vocals from Missy Elliott, Kelly Clarkson, Janelle Monáe and Zendaya alongside production credit from pop songwriter Diane Warren and Elliott titled "This Is for My Girls". The iTunes-exclusive record will be used to both coincide with Ms. Obama's SXSW speech and to promote her third-world educational initiative Let Girls Learn.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Following a surprise appearance with TLC on the 2016 televised special "Taraji's White Hot Holidays", Elliott announced plans to release a documentary chronicling her impact on the production scene in both audio and video. The midnight of January 27, 2017, saw the full-length release to a new Elliott single titled "I'm Better", featuring production and vocal assistance from recurring sideman Lamb and shared directing credit by Elliott and longtime colleague Dave Meyers.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In July 2018, Missy Elliott teased fans by appearing on a snippet nicknamed "ID" by Skrillex, a release date for the single has yet to be announced. One month later, Elliott appeared on the Ariana Grande number "Borderline", taken from the singer's fourth studio album "Sweetener" (2018). In October 2018, Elliott announced that she is working on her new album, which would be released in 2019. On March 20, 2019, Lizzo released a collaboration with Elliott titled "Tempo".


title: Missy Elliott

text: On June 13, 2019, Elliott was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, becoming the first female rapper to receive this honor. Elliott received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. She was also the first female rapper to receive the award. Elliott received the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Music Pioneer Award at the United Nations in 2019 in recognition for her achievements in music and being a leader. This award was placed in the Congressional Record.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott released her first extended play on August 23, 2019, titled "Iconology". The five-track EP features a variety of musical genres that cover the breadth of her career as an artist and has received favorable reviews from critics. Upon release of the album, she also released the lead single, "Throw It Back", with a music video featuring Teyana Taylor. Musically, "Iconology" is a pop, hip hop and R&B EP reminiscent of Elliott's previous work. The opening track, "Throw It Back" contains "trap snares and a serpentine bassline", which along with the second track, "Cool Off", were described as "woozy, futuristic romps" containing "distorted bass lines and frenetic production". Lyrically, "Throw It Back" contains references to Elliott's history, as well as previous collaborators Tweet and Heavy D. Maura Johnson of "Entertainment Weekly" described "Cool Off" as calling "back to hip-hop's two-turntables-and-a-mic early days". "DripDemeanor" has been described as a slow jam that explores Elliott's "sensuous side". Musically, it contains "plush synths [that] skip-step underneath" the song's beat. "Why I Still Love You" is a doo-wop song with gospel influences and jazz influence that lyrically chronicles the singer's "conflicted emotions about holding on to a cheating lover". The EP closes with an a cappella version of "Why I Still Love You".


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott was motivated to write uplifting music to counter mainstream trends and encourage more dance music to feel good. "DripDemeanor" was released as the album's second single on October 22. "Why I Still Love You" was released as the third single on January 17, 2020. "Cool Off" was released as the fourth and final single from the EP on April 21, 2020.


title: Missy Elliott

text: On August 13, 2020, Elliott appeared on the remix single "Levitating" by Dua Lipa which also featured Madonna. The remix was produced by The Blessed Madonna. Unlike Madonna, Elliott appeared in the video. The music video was directed by Will Hooper.


title: Missy Elliott

text: On January 11, 2021, Elliott appeared on the single "ATM" by Bree Runway. She directed the music video for "Twerkulator" by the City Girls in July 2021.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott said in 2008 that she wanted to start a family, but was afraid of giving birth, stating, "I don't know if I can take that kind of pain [of labor]. Maybe in the year 2020 you could just pop a baby out and it'd be fine. But right now I'd rather just adopt."


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott and her father speak occasionally, but she says she has not forgiven him for abusing her mother.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In June 2011, Elliott told "People" magazine that her absence from the music industry was due to a hyperthyroidism disorder known as Graves' disease. She was diagnosed after she nearly crashed a car from having severe leg spasms while driving. She experienced severe symptoms from the condition, and she could not even hold a pen to write songs. After treatment, her symptoms stabilized.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott has been referred to as the "Queen of Rap", the "Queen of Hip Hop", and the "First Lady of Hip Hop" by several media outlets. Elliott's experimental concepts in her music videos changed the landscape of what a hip-hop video had as themes at the time. Her catalogue of songs have included themes of feminism, gender equality, body positivity and sex positivity since the beginning of her career, being one of the first to center on these topics among hip-hop and R&B performers. "The Guardian" and "The Observer" considered her America's first Black female music mogul, as she gained in 2001 total control over her image and music, and the opportunity to sign artists. "The Observer"s Ted Kessler stated that, with her studio albums, she has "revolutionized the sound of R&B and hip-hop" and reintroduced the notion "of fun and fantasy" to urban Black music—a style that matched the "futuristic, much-copied new sound" of her 1997 debut album, "Supa Dupa Fly". Destiny's Child, Eve and Macy Gray have credited her for "clearing a path" in the American music industry towards "their own pop pre-eminence" as Black female R&B/hip-hop performers. The Recording Academy and "Evening Standard" have called her a "hip hop icon". "The Economist" considered that Elliott "is to rap what Prince was to R&B" due to their "impact upon the genre" and her ability to "weave in styles and strands from outside it."