title: Times Square Ball

text: The conclusion of the drop is followed by fireworks shot from the roof of One Times Square, along with the playing of the first verse of "Auld Lang Syne" by Guy Lombardo, "Theme from New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra, "America the Beautiful" by Ray Charles, "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong, and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.


title: Times Square Ball

text: Since the 2005–06 edition of the event, the drop has been directly preceded by the playing of John Lennon's song "Imagine" at 11:55 p.m. Until 2009–2010, the original recording was used; since 2010–2011, the song has been performed by the headlining artist;


title: Times Square Ball

text: At least of confetti is dropped in Times Square, directed by Treb Heining (who has been well known for his involvement in designing balloon decorations for Disney Parks, and balloon and confetti drops at other major U.S. events and celebrations, such as the presidential nominating conventions) and thrown by a team of 100 volunteers (referred to internally as "confetti dispersal engineers") lining the rooftops of eight Times Square buildings at 11:59:40 p.m. The individual pieces of confetti are meant to be larger than normal confetti in order to achieve an appropriate density for the environment. Some of the pieces are inscribed with messages of hope for the new year, which are submitted via a "Wishing Wall" put up in Times Square in December (where visitors can write them directly on individual pieces of confetti), and via online submissions.


title: Times Square Ball

text: After the conclusion of the festivities and the dispersal of attendees, cleanup is performed overnight to remove confetti and other debris from Times Square. When it is re-opened to the public the following morning, few traces of the previous night's celebration remain: following the 2013–14 drop, the New York City Department of Sanitation estimated that it had cleared over 50 tons of refuse from Times Square in eight hours, using 190 workers from their own crews and the Times Square Alliance.


title: Times Square Ball

text: The first New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square was held on December 31, 1904; "The New York Times" owner, Adolph Ochs, decided to celebrate the opening of the newspaper's new headquarters, One Times Square, with a New Year's fireworks show on the southern roof of the building to welcome 1905. Close to 200,000 people attended the event, displacing traditional celebrations that had normally been held at Trinity Church. However, following several years of fireworks shows, Ochs wanted a bigger spectacle at the building to draw more attention to the area. The newspaper's chief electrician, Walter F. Palmer, suggested using a time ball, after seeing one used on the Western Union Telegraph Building, near Trinity Church.


title: Times Square Ball

text: Ochs hired sign designer Artkraft Strauss to construct a ball for the celebration; it was built from iron and wood, illuminated by a hundred incandescent light bulbs, weighed , and measured in diameter. The ball was hoisted on the building's 70 foot flagpole with rope by a team of six men. The ball would begin to drop at 10 seconds before midnight. Once it hit the roof, the ball completed a circuit that lit 5-foot-tall signs on the sides of the building to signal the new year, and triggered a fireworks show. The first ever "ball drop" was held on December 31, 1907, welcoming the year 1908.


title: Times Square Ball

text: In 1913, only eight years after it moved to One Times Square, the "Times" moved its corporate headquarters to 229 West 43rd Street. The "Times" still maintained ownership of the tower, however, and Strauss continued to organize future editions of the drop.


title: Times Square Ball

text: The original ball was replaced with a new design after the 1919–20 event; it shared the physical dimensions with the first ball, but was now constructed solely from iron—decreasing its weight to . The ball drop was placed on hiatus for New Year's Eve 1942–43 and 1943–44 due to wartime lighting restrictions during World War II. Instead, a moment of silence was observed one minute before midnight in Times Square, followed by the sound of church bells being played from sound trucks.


title: Times Square Ball

text: The second ball was last used for the 1954-55 event in favor of a third design; which was now 6 feet in diameter, constructed from aluminum, and weighed .


title: Times Square Ball

text: It was not until 1979 that it became an established practice for the crowd in Times Square to count down the final seconds during the event—a practice that only became common in general on New Year's Eve television specials in the 1960s.


title: Times Square Ball

text: For the 1981-82 event, the ball was modified to make it resemble an apple with red bulbs and a green "stem", alluding to New York's nickname, "the Big Apple". For the 1987-88 event, organizers acknowledged the addition of a leap second earlier that day by extending the drop to 61 seconds, and including a special one-second light show at 12:00:01 a.m. (leap seconds are appended at midnight UTC, which is five hours before midnight in New York). The original white bulbs returned to the ball for the 1988-89 event, but were replaced by red, white, and blue bulbs for the 1990-91 event to salute the troops of Operation Desert Shield.


title: Times Square Ball

text: The third ball was updated again for the 1995–96 event, adding a computerized lighting system with 180 halogen bulbs and 144 strobe lights, and over 12,000 rhinestones. Lighting designer Barry Arnold stated that the changes were "something [that] had to be done to make this event more spectacular as we approach the millennium."


title: Times Square Ball

text: The drop itself became computerized through the use of an electric winch synchronized with the National Institute of Standards and Technology's time signal; the first drop with the new system was not without issues, however, as a glitch caused the ball to pause for a short moment halfway through its descent. The following year, John Trowbridge was hired as the drop's new technical director; in 2021, Jeff Strauss told "The Wall Street Journal" that the drop has never had any technical issues since.


title: Times Square Ball

text: After its 44th use in 1999, the third ball was retired and placed on display at the Atlanta headquarters of Jamestown Group, owners of One Times Square.


title: Times Square Ball

text: On December 28, 1998, during a press conference attended by New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, organizers announced that the third ball would be retired for the arrival of the new millennium, and replaced by a new design constructed by Waterford Crystal. The year 2000 celebrations introduced more prominent sponsorship to the event; companies such as Discover Card, Korbel Champagne, and Panasonic were announced as official sponsors of the festivities in Times Square. The city also announced that Ron Silver would lead a committee known as "NYC 2000", which was in charge of organizing events across the city for year 2000 celebrations.


title: Times Square Ball

text: A full day of festivities was held at Times Square to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000, which included concerts and hourly cultural presentations with parades of puppets designed by Michael Curry, representing countries entering the new year at that hour. Organizers expected a total attendance exceeding two million spectators.


title: Times Square Ball

text: The fourth ball, measuring in diameter and weighing , incorporated a total of over 600 halogen bulbs, 504 triangle-shaped crystal panels provided by Waterford, 96 strobe lights, and spinning, pyramid-shaped mirrors. The ball was constructed at Waterford's factory in Ireland, and was then shipped to New York City, where the lighting system and motorized mirrors were installed. Many of the panels were inscribed with "Hope"-themed designs changing yearly, which included "Star of Hope", "Hope for Abundance", "Hope for Healing", "Hope for Courage", "Hope for Unity", "Hope for Wisdom", "Hope for Fellowship", and "Hope for Peace".


title: Times Square Ball

text: The 2002 theme "Hope for Healing" was in commemoration of the September 11 terrorist attacks, which had occurred three and a half months earlier. 195 of the ball's panels were engraved with the names of countries and emergency organizations that had taken casualties during the attacks, and the names of the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and the four flights that were involved in the attacks. In December 2011, the "Hope for Healing" panels were accepted into the permanent collection of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.


title: Times Square Ball

text: To mark the 100th anniversary of the first ball drop, a new fifth design debuted for the 2007–08 event. Once again manufactured by Waterford Crystal with a diameter of , and weighing , it used 9,576 LED lamps provided by Philips (which can produce 16,777,216 or 2 colors), with computerized lighting patterns developed by the New York City-based firm Focus Lighting. Organizers stated that the new ball was also more energy-efficient, and consumed an equivalent amount of electricity to 10 toasters.


title: Times Square Ball

text: For 2009, a larger version of the fifth ball was introduced; it is an icosahedral geodesic sphere with a diameter of , and weight of . It contains 2,688 panels, and is lit by 32,256 LED lamps. The new ball was designed to be weatherproof, as it would now be displayed atop One Times Square nearly year-round following the celebrations. The 2008 ball was placed on display at the Times Square Visitors Center.


title: Times Square Ball

text: Yearly themes for the ball's crystal panels continued; from 2008 to 2013, the ball contained crystal patterns that were part of a Waterford series known as "World of Celebration", which included "Let There Be Light", "Let There Be Joy", "Let There Be Courage", "Let There Be Love", "Let There Be Friendship", and "Let There Be Peace". For 2014, all the ball's panels were replaced, marking a new theme series known as "Greatest Gifts", beginning with "Gift of Imagination".


title: Times Square Ball

text: The numerical sign indicating the year (which remains atop the tower along with the ball itself) uses Philips LED lamps. The "14" digits for 2014 used Philips Hue multi-color LED lamps, allowing them to have computerized lighting cues.


title: Times Square Ball

text: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, the 2020–21 festivities were closed to the general public. Attendance was largely limited to the invited families of first responders and other essential workers from the New York City area (billed as "The Heroes of 2020"), along with performers and members of the media. In accordance with New York state health orders, face masks were mandatory, and households were placed within "pens" with social distancing. There was an estimated 80% reduction in NYPD presence at the event in comparison to past years.


title: Times Square Ball

text: The "VNYE" app was released as a digital companion to the event, featuring augmented reality camera filters and a digital recreation of Times Square as a virtual world where users could play minigames, view live streams of New Year's festivities in New York City and elsewhere, and witness a virtual version of the ball drop.


title: Times Square Ball

text: For the 2021–22 festivities, public attendance was reinstated, but all attendees over the age of 5 were required to present proof of vaccination for COVID-19 and wear a face mask. If covered by a specific exemption, attendees were alternatively allowed to present proof of a recent negative PCR test from within the past 72 hours. Although Mayor Bill de Blasio originally announced plans for the event to otherwise be held as normal with no restrictions on capacity, the official maximum capacity was ultimately reduced to 15,000 people instead of the usual 58,000.


title: Times Square Ball

text: Due to a COVID-19 infection, the technical director of the 2021–22 event did not operate the ball drop in-person, but instead directed the event quarantined at a hotel in New Jersey. The Fox network also cancelled its planned New Year's Eve special from Times Square, citing COVID-19 concerns.


title: Times Square Ball

text: According to National Weather Service records, since 1907–08, the average temperature in nearby Central Park during the ball drop has been . The warmest ball drops occurred in 1965–66 and 1972–73 when the temperature was . The coldest ball drop occurred in 1917–18, when the temperature was and the wind chill was . Affected by a continent-wide cold wave, the 2017–18 drop was the second-coldest on record, at and after wind chill. The third coldest ball drop occurred during the 1962–63 event, when the temperature was and the wind chill was . Snow has fallen seven times, with the earliest being the 1926–27 event, and the most recent being the 2009–10 event, and rain/drizzle has fallen sixteen times, with the earliest being the 1918–19 event, and the most recent being the 2018–19 event. The records for most precipitation and snow in the 24 hours preceding the ball drop were both set in 1948, when of precipitation and of snow fell.


title: Times Square Ball

text: As a public event, the festivities and ball drop are often broadcast on television. A host pool feed is provided to broadcasters for use in coverage, which for 2016–17 consisted of 21 cameras. Since 2008–09, an official webcast of the ball drop and its associated festivities has been produced, streamed via Livestream.com.


title: Times Square Ball

text: The event is covered as part of New Year's Eve television specials on several major U.S. television networks, which usually intersperse on-location coverage from Times Square with entertainment segments, such as musical performances (some of which held live in Times Square as part of the event). By far the most notable of these is "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve"; created, produced, and originally hosted by the entertainer Dick Clark until his death in 2012 (with Regis Philbin filling in for its 2004–05 broadcast), and currently hosted by Ryan Seacrest, the program first aired on NBC in 1972 before moving to ABC, where it has been broadcast ever since. "New Year's Rockin' Eve" has consistently been the most-watched New Year's Eve special in the U.S. annually, peaking at 25.6 million viewers for its 2017–18 edition. Following the death of Dick Clark in April 2012, a crystal engraved with his name was added to the 2013 ball in tribute.


title: Times Square Ball

text: Across the remaining networks, Fox has occasionally broadcast its New Year's specials from Times Square. Spanish-language network Univision broadcasts "¡Feliz!", hosted by Raúl de Molina of "El Gordo y La Flaca". On cable, CNN carries coverage of the festivities, known as "New Year's Eve Live", currently hosted by Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen (the latter first replacing Kathy Griffin for 2018). Fox News carries "All-American New Year", which was most recently hosted by the panel of "Fox & Friends Weekend".


title: Times Square Ball

text: Beginning in the 1940s, NBC broadcast coverage from Times Square anchored by Ben Grauer on both radio and television. Its coverage was later incorporated into special episodes of "The Tonight Show", continuing through Johnny Carson and Jay Leno's tenures on the program. NBC would later introduce a dedicated special, "New Year's Eve with Carson Daly" (later renamed "NBC's New Year's Eve"), hosted by former MTV personality Carson Daly, which first began midnight coverage in 2006, and was discontinued in 2022 in favor of a new special hosted from Miami by Miley Cyrus.


title: Times Square Ball

text: From 1956 to 1976, CBS televised Guy Lombardo's annual New Year's Eve concert with his big band The Royal Canadians, most frequently from the Waldorf-Astoria's ballroom. It featured coverage from Times Square, and the band's signature rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" at midnight. After Lombardo's death in 1977, the special continued with Guy's younger brother Victor Lombardo as host and bandleader, but increasing competition from "New Year’s Rockin’ Eve" prompted CBS to replace it for 1979–80 with "Happy New Year, America". The new special ran in various formats with different hosts (such as Paul Anka, Donny Osmond, Andy Williams, "Late Show" bandleader Paul Shaffer, and talk show host Montel Williams) until it was discontinued after 1996. Besides coverage during a special episode of "Late Show with David Letterman" for 1999, and "America's Millennium" for 2000, CBS would not air any national New Year's Eve specials again until 2021–22, when it aired "New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash".


title: Times Square Ball

text: For 2000, in lieu of "New Year's Rockin' Eve", ABC News covered the festivities as part of its day-long telecast, "ABC 2000 Today". Hosted by then-chief correspondent Peter Jennings, the broadcast featured coverage of New Year's festivities from around the world as part of an international consortium. Dick Clark would join Jennings to co-anchor coverage from Times Square.


title: Times Square Ball

text: MTV had broadcast coverage originating from the network's Times Square studios at One Astor Plaza. For 2011, MTV also held its own ball drop in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, the setting of its popular reality series "Jersey Shore", featuring cast member Snooki lowered inside a giant "hamster ball". Originally, MTV planned to hold the drop within its studio in Times Square, but the network was asked by city officials to conduct the drop elsewhere.


title: Times Square Ball

text: For 2019, prominent video game streamer Ninja hosted a 12-hour New Year's Eve stream on Twitch from Times Square, featuring matches of "Fortnite Battle Royale" with himself and special guests from a studio in the Paramount Building. Ninja made an on-stage appearance in Times Square during the festivities outside, which included a failed attempt to lead the crowd in a floss dance (a routine made popular by "Fortnite").


title: Ageplay

text: Ageplay or age play is a form of roleplaying in which an individual acts or treats another as if they are a different age. Ageplay is roleplaying between adults, and involves consent from all parties. Ageplay is not necessarily sexual. Portraying any age can be the goal of ageplay, from babies to a child to the elderly. Usually this involves someone pretending to be younger than they actually are, but more rarely can involve assuming an older role.


title: Ageplay

text: Ageplay can be sexual. It may be mildly sexual, or very sexual. Within dominant/submissive relationships, ageplay can enhance power dynamics, and allow a partner to feel more comfortable with their dominance or submission.


title: Ageplay

text: Sexual variations may include among other things such as incest play, in which individuals recreate and sexualize roles within a family. A common myth is that Caregiver dynamics (Caregiver/little, Daddy/little, Mommy/little) all involve ageplay. However, these dynamics are more about caring for one another than re-enacting an incest fantasy.


title: Ageplay

text: Ageplay is not considered pedophilia or related to it by professional psychologists. Individuals who engage in ageplay enjoy portraying children, or enjoy childlike elements typical of children present in adults (and to a lesser extent, adolescents).


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Google Nest, previously named Google Home, is a line of smart speakers developed by Google under the Google Nest brand. The devices enable users to speak voice commands to interact with services through Google Assistant, the company's virtual assistant. Both in-house and third-party services are integrated, allowing users to listen to music, control playback of videos or photos, or receive news updates entirely by voice. Google Nest devices also have integrated support for home automation, letting users control smart home appliances with their voice command. The first device, Google Home, was released in the United States in November 2016; subsequent product releases have occurred globally since 2017.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Through software updates to Google Nest devices and Google Assistant, additional functionality has been added over time. For example, multiple speakers can be set up for synchronized playback of music. An update in April 2017 brought multi-user support, allowing the device to distinguish between up to six people by voice. In May 2017, Google announced multiple updates, including: hands-free phone calling at no cost in Canada and the United States; proactive reminders ahead of scheduled events; visual responses on mobile devices or Chromecast-enabled televisions; Bluetooth audio streaming; and the ability to add reminders and calendar appointments.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: The original Google Home speaker released in November 2016 featured a cylindrical shape with colored status LEDs on top. In October 2017, Google announced two additions to the product lineup, the miniature puck-shaped Google Home Mini and a larger Google Home Max. In October 2018, the company released the Google Home Hub, a smart speaker with a 7-inch touchscreen. In May 2019, Google announced that Google Home devices would be rebranded under the Google Nest banner, and it unveiled the Nest Hub Max, a larger smart display.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: In March 2016, reports were published about Google developing a wireless speaker to compete against the Amazon Echo. Google Home was officially announced at the company's developer conference in May 2016, where it was also announced that Home would run the Google Assistant (a conversational evolution of Google Now intended to be integrated in other products announced at the conference as well).


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: In October 2016, the iOS and Android mobile app used to initially set up Google Home and Google's other streaming devices was renamed from "Google Cast" to "Google Home", leaving Google Cast as the name solely of the protocol that "sends" audio/video content to play back on another device. The Google Home smart speaker was released in the US on November 4, 2016, and in the UK on April 6, 2017. In May 2017, Google announced that Home would be heading to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan in middle 2017, and the device subsequently became available for pre-order in Canada on June 2, 2017, with a retail date of June 26. In July 2017, Google announced the release of Google Home in Australia on July 20, 2017, France on August 3, 2017, Germany on August 8, 2017, and Italy on March 27, 2018.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On October 4, 2017, Google announced Google Home Mini, a smaller, less expensive variant that was released on October 19, 2017, as well as Google Home Max, a larger, more expensive variant that was released on December 11, 2017.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: The Google Home and Home Mini were released in India on April 10, 2018, and the Nest Hub was released on August 26, 2019.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: As of May 8, 2018, the Google Home was planned for release in Denmark, South Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On May 7, 2019, during the Google I/O keynote, Google announced that all of their smart home products will henceforth be marketed under the Nest brand. Nest had been subsumed by Google's home hardware unit in July 2018.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On July 10, 2019, a report published by Belgian broadcaster VRT NWS managed to gain access to more than a thousand audio excerpts recorded by Google Assistant in Belgium and the Netherlands. The audio files were sent to Google employees to develop Google Assistant's speech technology. According to the VRT NWS report, 153 of the 1,000 audio files should have never been recorded and during which the command "OK Google" was clearly not given. In some cases, the recordings included "bedroom conversations, conversations between parents and their children, but also blazing rows and professional phone calls containing lots of private information".


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Google defended the practice in a blog post: "As part of our work to develop speech technology for more languages, we partner with language experts around the world who understand the nuances and accents of a specific language," Google wrote. "These language experts review and transcribe a small set of queries to help us better understand those languages. This is a critical part of the process of building speech technology and is necessary to creating products like the Google Assistant."


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: The original Google Home model is a cylindrical speaker that is tall and in diameter. The top surface of the device features colored status LEDs, and features capacitive touch controls to start and stop music, and adjust volume. A mute button is located on the back of the device, which disables the microphones.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: The base of the device is covered by a shell acting as a speaker grille, which is designed to be removed and replaced with one that suits the decor of a room. , Google offers fabric shells in "Mango", "Marine", and "Violet" color finishes, and metallic shells in "Carbon", "Copper", and "Snow" finishes.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: "The Information" reported that Google Home's internal hardware was very similar to that of the Chromecast, with the same ARM processor and Wi-Fi chip. In November 2016, a teardown of the original model by iFixit confirmed that the device featured many of the same hardware components as the second-generation Chromecast.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Google unveiled the Google Home Mini during a hardware-focused event on October 4, 2017, which was released on October 19, 2017. It is a variant of Google Home with the same overall functionality, but in a smaller pebble-like form factor around 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter, with a fabric top that its white-colored status lights shine through. It has a mute switch rather than a mute button, and uses a micro USB connection for power. It is available in the colors "aqua", "chalk", "charcoal", and "coral". Analysts compared the Google Home Mini to Amazon's equivalent Echo Dot model.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Prior to its release, a "phantom input" bug was discovered, where its touch-sensitive surface—which could be tapped to activate Assistant without using a hotword command—inadvertently activated on its own, resulting in unwanted voice recording. Due to privacy concerns, Google removed the feature entirely from all units via a software update. In December 2017, Google released an update to Home Mini, allowing users to long-press the volume buttons to play and pause audio.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: During its October 4, 2017 event, Google unveiled the Google Home Max, which was released on December 11, 2017. It is a larger version of the Google Home device with stereo speakers (including two tweeters and subwoofers), an audio connector (input), and a USB Type-C connector intended for a wired ethernet adapter. It was released in the colors "chalk" and "charcoal", and has a magnetically attached stand for vertical orientation, and "Smart Sound", an adaptive audio system that uses machine learning to automatically adjust sound output based on factors such as the environment (including placement and sources of noise) and time of day. Reviewers compared the Home Max to Sonos smart speakers and Apple's HomePod. The Google Home Max was discontinued from sale on December 14, 2020.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On October 9, 2018, Google unveiled the Google Home Hub, which features a 7-inch (1024 x 600) touchscreen display that can be used to provide visual feedback for queries. The "Home View" feature provides a centralized, visual interface for controlling supported smart home devices and Nest video cameras (other vendors such as Wyze and Arlo can also be streamed). Unlike its closest competitor, the Amazon Echo Show, the Home Hub does not include a camera for video calls, citing customer privacy concerns. Although Google has developed an OEM solution for Assistant-powered smart display devices based on Android Things and a Qualcomm system-on-chip, the Home Hub utilizes a different hardware platform. The device is available in light grey, dark grey, pink, and aqua blue. A reported security issue in the Home Hub was dismissed by Google as a non-issue, as an attack would require access to the same Wi-Fi network as the device.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On May 25, 2021, an update for the Preview Program released to the first generation model replaced the Linux-based Cast OS with Google Fuchsia, becoming the first commercial device to ever feature the operating system.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On March 30, 2021, a second generation of the Google Nest Hub was released. The second generation sported 50% more bass and a sleep sensor. The Nest Hub kept its 7-inch touchscreen.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: A larger version of the Google Nest Hub, called the Google Nest Hub Max, was announced on May 7, 2019. It features a 10-inch (1280 x 800) display, integrated camera (which can be used for face recognition, Google Duo video calls, and as a security camera), and larger speakers with a rear-facing subwoofer. It was released in September 2019.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On October 15, 2019, Google unveiled a second-generation model of the Home Mini branded as the Google Nest Mini. It was released on October 22. It includes a larger speaker, an additional microphone, a machine learning chip that can cache voice recognition data for commonly-used commands locally, and "ultrasonic sensing". It is similar in design to the first-generation Home Mini, except its cover is now made from recycled plastic. The back of the Nest Mini contains a hole for wall-mounting with a screw, and it contains LED lights that highlight the touch areas for volume control. It is available in the colors "chalk", "charcoal", "coral", and "sky blue".


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On September 30, 2020, Google released the Google Nest Audio, which acts as the successor to the original Google Home and incorporates some design elements of the Home Max.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Google Assistant, an intelligent personal assistant, is included as the main and only assistant in Google Home. Unlike its predecessor, Google Now, Assistant is able to engage in two-way conversations with users. "The Wall Street Journal" reported in October 2016 that Google hired writers from Pixar movies and "The Onion" satirical newspaper to develop a personality for the Assistant, with a long-term goal being to invoke a sense of emotional rapport in users.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Various forms of both in-house and third-party services are integrated into Google Home, allowing users to speak voice commands to control interaction with them. Examples of supported services include Google Play Music, Spotify and iHeartRadio for audio, Netflix, YouTube and Google Photos for videos and photos, Google Calendar and Google Keep for tasks, and CNN, CNBC, BBC and "The Wall Street Journal" for news updates. New services are integrated on an ongoing basis.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Users can connect and group together multiple Home speakers for synchronized playback of music in every room. A notable feature omission, multiple accounts, was criticized by JR Raphael of "Computerworld" in November 2016, but an update for users in the United States in April 2017 enabled the feature. Google Home can now recognize up to six different voices, pulling information from their different accounts depending on who's talking. Google Home has integration with each user's calendar, for adding reminders or appointments verbally.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Google Home includes home automation features, enabling owners to use it as a central hub to control smart devices. Examples of supported devices include the Chromecast digital media player, and products from Nest, SmartThings, Philips Hue, LIFX, LightwaveRF, and Logitech Harmony.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: In May 2017, Google announced multiple updates to Google Home's functionality. It now supports hands-free calling, letting users make calls to any landline or mobile phone in the United States, Canada and later, the UK for free. Google Voice users can set Google Home with voice number to make personal and business calls. There is no 9-1-1 emergency services support, however. "Proactive Assistance" enables the device to dictate updates to users without being asked, including updates on traffic before a scheduled event. "Visual Responses" let users send answers from Google Home onto their mobile device or Chromecast-enabled television. The device now also supports Bluetooth audio streaming through compatible devices (including phones, tablets and computers), and the ability to schedule calendar appointments, with upcoming support for reminders.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On March 28, 2018, Google made the announcement via their blog that users would be able to pair any of their Google Home devices to their own Bluetooth speakers without requiring the use of a Chromecast streamer.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: On November 5, 2018, Google announced their partnership with Disney to bring interactive read-along books to Google Home. In 2019, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Zigbee Alliance announced a partnership to make smart home products work together.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: To use Google Assistant, a user of any Nest / Google Home device must register and sync an account using the Google Home mobile app. In the app, a setting allows the user to teach Google Assistant their voice. The Google voice technology can be used in digital forensics, where the words "OK, Google" are capable of unlocking mobile locks. A mobile device can be found, unlocked, and data can be extracted through the use of a suspect's voice file. "Hey Google" can also be used to wake up the device. Some features of Nest devices require the voice to be verified as to determine if the user is the owner. The device can also tell if it is connected to other smart devices, which can find stored data.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: The original Google Home received favorable reviews. The Google Home's design and sound input/output received significant praise, while a lack of interoperability between other Google Assistant-enabled devices was criticized. Critics also expressed concerns about Google's intentions with the device, particularly whether or not features would be more tightly integrated into other Google products.


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: David Pierce of "Wired" compared Google Home to Amazon Echo, writing in a summary that "Sometimes Home feels like sci-fi magic. Sometimes it reaches beyond its grasp and falls flat. The Echo is less impressive, but more reliable". Pierce praised the look of Google Home, writing that it feels "minimalist, thoughtful, and warm" in the environment, and also praised its speaker, describing it as "richer, brighter and more dynamic than the Echo, and loud enough to fill a room". While noting that Home's use of the Google Assistant functioned in different ways than it does through the Allo app or Pixel smartphone, meaning quick instructions rather than longer tasks, he praised its search abilities, writing that "you’d expect Home to excel at search. It does", despite some wrong search hiccups. Pierce criticized its lack of interoperability with other Google Assistant-enabled devices, though he called its future potential for connecting information across Google's product lines "enormous".


title: Google Nest (smart speakers)

text: Ron Amadeo of "Ars Technica" praised Google Home's setup process and its ability to pick up voice commands even from a distance, calling the latter "absolutely incredible". He noted the device's limiting of its Bluetooth capabilities at the time (before the May 2017 update), however, writing that "it's important to know that Google Home is not a Bluetooth speaker; it's purely a Google Cast device. If you want to play audio on a Google Home, the service needs to have a Google Cast button". He similarly criticized the Assistant's lack of cross-device functionality, writing that "Pretty much all the actions you send to a Google Home will stay on that Google Home, and there's never an interaction with your phone", and he noted concerns and questions regarding whether Google has an intention to incorporate the functionality deeper into its product lines. Additionally, in his summary, he wrote that "Why pay $129 for a device that is less capable than an Android phone?".


title: Natalie Palamides

text: As a young child living outside Pittsburgh, Palamides made comedic home videos in her backyard. She would do bits in the corridors at school. Disney productions and the parody action movie series "Austin Powers" were early influences. Studying at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Palamides was inspired by the European clown tradition that her theater professor introduced her to. During college, Palamides performed group improvisation with the Pig Iron Theatre Company.


title: Natalie Palamides

text: Aspiring to work at "Saturday Night Live", Palamides moved to Los Angeles and joined the Upright Citizens Brigade after college. She began voice-over and commercial work. She also took classes on clown performance at the Idiot Workshop and the Lyric Hyperion. Early sketches featured Palamides' characters: fantasizing about eating salad from a man's pants; complaining to the manager of sandwich shop Eggslut as an anthropomorphic egg; and insisting on being literally objectified. Through her classes, variety shows and open mic shows, she began developing longer-form performance from improvisations in unusual outfits.


title: Natalie Palamides

text: With Dr. Brown from the Lyric, Palamides adapted her early egg character into an hour-long show, "Laid".


title: Natalie Palamides

text: Palamides developed the exaggeratedly masculine character Nate, from her work with the Pig Iron Theatre Company, into an hour-long performance, "Nate – A One Man Show". Members of the audience participate, such as by wrestling Nate, with audience consent and sexual consent as themes. After winning the Total Theatre Award at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it was commissioned by Amy Poehler's production company Paper Kite and released on Netflix on December 1, 2020.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of the monumental "Deutsches Wörterbuch", the author of "Deutsche Mythologie", and the editor of "Grimms' Fairy Tales". He was the older brother of Wilhelm Grimm; together, they were the literary duo known as the Brothers Grimm.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Jacob Grimm was born 4 January 1785, in Hanau in Hesse-Kassel. His father, Philipp Grimm, was a lawyer who died while Jacob was a child, and his mother Dorothea was left with a very small income. Her sister was lady of the chamber to the Landgravine of Hesse, and she helped to support and educate the family. Jacob was sent to the public school at Kassel in 1798 with his younger brother Wilhelm.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: In 1802, he went to the University of Marburg where he studied law, a profession for which he had been intended by his father. His brother joined him at Marburg a year later, having just recovered from a severe illness, and likewise began the study of law.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Jacob Grimm became inspired by the lectures of Friedrich Carl von Savigny, a noted expert of Roman law; Wilhelm Grimm, in the preface to the "Deutsche Grammatik" (German Grammar), credits Savigny with giving the brothers an awareness of science. Savigny's lectures also awakened in Jacob a love for historical and antiquarian investigation, which underlies all his work. It was in Savigny's library that Grimm first saw Bodmer's edition of the Middle High German minnesingers and other early texts, which gave him a desire to study their language.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: In the beginning of 1805, he was invited by Savigny to Paris, to help him in his literary work. There Grimm strengthened his taste for the literature of the Middle Ages. Towards the close of the year, he returned to Kassel, where his mother and brother had settled after Wilhelm finished his studies. The following year, Jacob obtained a position in the war office with a small salary of 100 thalers. He complained that he had to exchange his stylish Paris suit for a stiff uniform and pigtail, but the role gave him spare time for the pursuit of his studies.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: In 1808, soon after the death of his mother, he was appointed superintendent of the private library of Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, into which Hesse-Kassel had been incorporated by Napoleon. Grimm was appointed an auditor to the state council, while retaining his superintendent post. His salary rose to 4000 francs and his official duties were nominal. In 1813, after the expulsion of Bonaparte and the reinstatement of an elector, Grimm was appointed Secretary of Legation accompanying the Hessian minister to the headquarters of the allied army. In 1814, he was sent to Paris to demand restitution of books taken by the French, and he attended the Congress of Vienna as Secretary of Legation in 1814–1815. Upon his return from Vienna, he was sent to Paris again to secure book restitutions. Meanwhile, Wilhelm had obtained a job at the Kassel library, and Jacob was made second librarian under Volkel in 1816. Upon the death of Volkel in 1828, the brothers both expected promotion, and they were dissatisfied when the role of first librarian was given to Rommel, the keeper of the archives. Consequently, they moved the following year to the University of Göttingen, where Jacob was appointed professor and librarian, and Wilhelm under-librarian. Jacob Grimm lectured on legal antiquities, historical grammar, literary history, and diplomatics, explained Old German poems, and commented on the "Germania" of Tacitus.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Grimm joined other academics, known as the Göttingen Seven, who signed a protest against the King of Hanover's abrogation of the liberal constitution which had been established some years before. As a result, he was dismissed from his professorship and banished from the Kingdom of Hanover in 1837. He returned to Kassel with his brother, who had also signed the protest. They remained there until 1840, when they accepted King Frederick William IV's invitation to move to the University of Berlin, where they both received professorships and were elected members of the Academy of Sciences. Grimm was not under any obligation to lecture, and seldom did so; he spent his time working with his brother on their dictionary project. During their time in Kassel, he regularly attended the meetings of the academy and read papers on varied subjects, including Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann, Friedrich Schiller, old age, and the origin of language. He described his impressions of Italian and Scandinavian travel, interspersing more general observations with linguistic details. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1857.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Grimm died in Berlin at the age of 78, working until the very end of his life. He describes his own work at the end of his autobiography:


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Nearly all my labours have been devoted, either directly or indirectly, to the investigation of our earlier language, poetry and laws. These studies may have appeared to many, and may still appear, useless; to me they have always seemed a noble and earnest task, definitely and inseparably connected with our common fatherland, and calculated to foster the love of it. My principle has always been in these investigations to under-value nothing, but to utilize the small for the illustration of the great, the popular tradition for the elucidation of the written monuments.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Grimm's "Geschichte der deutschen Sprache" (History of the German Language) explores German history hidden in the words of the German language and is the oldest linguistic history of the Teutonic tribes. He collected scattered words and allusions from classical literature and tried to determine the relationship between the German language and those of the Getae, Thracians, Scythians, and other nations whose languages were known only through Greek and Latin authors. Grimm's results were later greatly modified by a wider range of available comparison and improved methods of investigation. Many questions that he raised remain obscure due to the lack of surviving records of the languages, but his book's influence was profound.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Grimm's famous "Deutsche Grammatik" (German Grammar) was the outcome of his purely philological work. He drew on the work of past generations, from the humanists onwards, consulting an enormous collection of materials in the form of text editions, dictionaries, and grammars, mostly uncritical and unreliable. Some work had been done in the way of comparison and determination of general laws, and the concept of a comparative Germanic grammar had been grasped by the Englishman George Hickes by the beginning of the 18th century, in his "Thesaurus". Ten Kate in the Netherlands had made valuable contributions to the history and comparison of Germanic languages. Grimm himself did not initially intend to include all the languages in his "Grammar", but he soon found that Old High German postulated Gothic, and that the later stages of German could not be understood without the help of other West Germanic varieties including English, and that the literature of Scandinavia could not be ignored. The first edition of the first part of the "Grammar", which appeared in 1819, treated the inflections of all these languages, and included a general introduction in which he vindicated the importance of a historical study of the German language against the quasi-philosophical methods then in vogue.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: In 1822 the book appeared in a second edition (really a new work, for, as Grimm himself says in the preface, he had to "mow the first crop down to the ground"). The considerable gap between the two stages of Grimm's development of these editions is shown by the fact that the second volume addresses phonology in 600 pages – more than half the volume. Grimm had concluded that all philology must be based on rigorous adherence to the laws of sound change, and he subsequently never deviated from this principle. This gave to all his investigations a consistency and force of conviction that had been lacking in the study of philology before his day.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: His advances have been attributed mainly to the influence of his contemporary Rasmus Christian Rask. Rask was two years younger than Grimm, but the Icelandic paradigms in Grimm's first editions are based entirely on Rask's grammar; in his second edition, he relied almost entirely on Rask for Old English. His debt to Rask is shown by comparing his treatment of Old English in the two editions. For example, in the first edition he declines "dæg, dæges", plural "dægas", without having observed the law of vowel-change pointed out by Rask. (The correct plural is "dagas.") The appearance of Rask's Old English grammar was probably the primary impetus for Grimm to recast his work from the beginning. Rask was also the first to clearly formulate the laws of sound-correspondence in the different languages, especially in the vowels (previously ignored by etymologists).


title: Jacob Grimm

text: The "Grammar" was continued in three volumes, treating principally derivation, composition and syntax, the last of which was unfinished. Grimm then began a third edition, of which only one part, comprising the vowels, appeared in 1840, his time being afterwards taken up mainly by the dictionary. The "Grammar" is noted for its comprehensiveness, method and fullness of detail, with all his points illustrated by an almost exhaustive mass of material, and it has served as a model for all succeeding investigators. Diez's grammar of the Romance languages is founded entirely on Grimm's methods, which have had a profound influence on the wider study of the Indo-European languages in general.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Jacob is recognized for enunciating Grimm's law, the Germanic Sound Shift, which was first observed by the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask. Grimm's law, also known as the "Rask-Grimm Rule" or the First Germanic Sound Shift, was the first law in linguistics concerning a non-trivial sound change. It was a turning point in the development of linguistics, allowing the introduction of a rigorous methodology to historic linguistic research. It concerns the correspondence of consonants between the ancestral Proto-Indo-European language and its Germanic descendants, Low Saxon and High German, and was first fully stated by Grimm in the second edition of the first part of his "Grammar". The correspondence of single consonants had been more or less clearly recognized by several of his predecessors, including Friedrich von Schlegel, Rasmus Christian Rask and Johan Ihre, the last having established a considerable number of "literarum permutationes", such as b for f, with the examples "bœra" = "ferre" ("to bear"), "befwer" = "fibra" ("fiber"). Rask, in his essay on the origin of the Icelandic language, gave the same comparisons, with a few additions and corrections, and even the same examples in most cases. As Grimm in the preface to his first edition expressly mentioned Rask's essay, there is every probability that it inspired his own investigations. But there is a wide difference between the isolated permutations described by his predecessors and his own comprehensive generalizations. The extension of the law to High German in any case is entirely Grimm's work.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: The idea that Grimm wished to deprive Rask of his claims to priority is based on the fact that he does not expressly mention Rask's results in his second edition, but it was always his plan to refrain from all controversy or reference to the works of others. In his first edition, he calls attention to Rask's essay, and praises it ungrudgingly. Nevertheless, a certain bitterness of feeling afterwards sprang up between Grimm and Rask, after Rask refused to consider the value of Grimm's views when they clashed with his own.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Grimm's monumental dictionary of the German Language, the "Deutsches Wörterbuch", was started in 1838 and first published in 1854. The Brothers anticipated it would take 10 years and encompass some six to seven volumes. However, it was undertaken on so large a scale as to make it impossible for them to complete it. The dictionary, as far as it was worked on by Grimm himself, has been described as a collection of disconnected antiquarian essays of high value. It was finally finished by subsequent scholars in 1961 and supplemented in 1971. At 33 volumes at some 330,000 headwords, it remains a standard work of reference to the present day. A current project at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities is underway to update the "Deutsches Wörterbuch" to modern academic standards. Volumes A–F were planned for completion in 2012 by the Language Research Centre at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the University of Göttingen.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: The first work Jacob Grimm published, "Über den altdeutschen Meistergesang" (1811), was of a purely literary character. Yet even in this essay Grimm showed that "Minnesang" and "Meistergesang" were really one form of poetry, of which they merely represented different stages of development, and also announced his important discovery of the invariable division of the "Lied" into three strophic parts.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Grimm's text-editions were mostly prepared in conjunction with his brother. In 1812 they published the two ancient fragments of the "Hildebrandslied" and the "Weißenbrunner Gebet", Jacob having discovered what until then had never been suspected — namely the alliteration in these poems. However, Jacob had little taste for text editing, and, as he himself confessed, working on a critical text gave him little pleasure. He therefore left this department to others, especially Lachmann, who soon turned his brilliant critical genius, trained in the severe school of classical philology, to Old and Middle High German poetry and metre.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Both Brothers were attracted from the beginning by all national poetry, whether in the form of epics, ballads or popular tales. They published In 1816–1818 a collection of legends culled from diverse sources and published the two-volume "Deutsche Sagen" (German Legends). At the same time they collected all the folktales they could find, partly from the mouths of the people, partly from manuscripts and books, and published in 1812–1815 the first edition of those "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" (Children's and Household Tales), which has carried the name of the brothers Grimm into every household of the western world. The closely related subject of the satirical beast epic of the Middle Ages also held great charm for Jacob Grimm, and he published an edition of the "Reinhart Fuchs" in 1834. His first contribution to mythology was the first volume of an edition of the Eddaic songs, undertaken jointly with his brother, and was published in 1815. However, this work was not followed by any others on the subject.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: The first edition of his "Deutsche Mythologie" (German Mythology) appeared in 1835. This work covered the whole range of the subject, attempting to trace the mythology and superstitions of the old Teutons back to the very dawn of direct evidence, and following their evolution to modern-day popular traditions, tales, and expressions.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Grimm's work as a jurist was influential for the development of the history of law, particularly in Northern Europe.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: His essay "Von der Poesie im Recht" ("Poetry in Law", 1816) developed a far-reaching, suprapositivist Romantic conception of law. The "Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer" ("German Legal Antiquities", 1828) was a comprehensive compilation of sources of law from all Germanic languages, whose structure allowed an initial understanding of older German legal traditions not influenced by Roman law. Grimm's "Weisthümer" (4 vol., 1840–63), a compilation of partially oral legal traditions from rural Germany, allows research of the development of written law in Northern Europe.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: Jacob Grimm's work tied in strongly with his views on Germany and its culture. His work on both fairy tales and philology dealt with the country's origins. He wished for a united Germany, and, like his brother, supported the Liberal movement for a constitutional monarchy and civil liberties, as demonstrated by their involvement in the Göttingen Seven protest. In the German revolution of 1848, he was elected to the Frankfurt National Parliament. The people of Germany had demanded a constitution, so the Parliament, formed of elected members from various German states, met to form one. Grimm was selected for the office largely because of his part in the University of Göttingen's refusal to swear to the king of Hanover. In Frankfurt he made some speeches and was adamant that the Danish-ruled but German-speaking duchy of Holstein be under German control. Grimm soon became disillusioned with the National Assembly and asked to be released from his duties to return to his studies.


title: Jacob Grimm

text: The following is a complete list of Grimm's separately published works. Those he published with his brother are marked with a star (*). For a list of his essays in periodicals, etc., see vol. V of his "Kleinere Schriften", from which the present list is taken. His life is best studied in his own "Selbstbiographie", in vol. I of the "Kleinere Schriften". There is also a brief memoir by Karl Goedeke in "Göttinger Professoren" (Gotha (Perthes), 1872).


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: The Autozam AZ-1, known by the framecode PG6SA, is a mid-engined kei-class sports car, designed and manufactured by Mazda under its Autozam brand. Suzuki provided the engine as well as the inspiration for the design.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: Manufactured from October 1992 to October 1994, the AZ-1 was noted for its gullwing doors. Power came from the same Suzuki-sourced 657 cc turbocharged engine used by the Suzuki Alto that produced at 6,500 rpm and at 4,000 rpm.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: The proposal for the AZ-1 goes as far back as 1985 when Suzuki created the Suzuki RS/1 as a mid-engine sports car project for volume production. Suzuki's design for the Tokyo Motor Show was more than just a design exercise, they designed a fully functional car with a front/rear weight distribution of 45:55, powered by a modified 1.3-liter G13B engine borrowed from the Cultus GTi.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: This was followed up by the Tatsumi Fukunaga-designed RS/3, unveiled for the 1987 Tokyo Motor Show. This version of the car retained many of its design features of the predecessor, but many of its design features were modified to meet Japanese safety regulations as well as for practicality. However, the project was abandoned in favor of the roadster project they had been working on, named later the Cappuccino.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: Mazda's design team, led by Toshihiko Hirai, who was also responsible for the MX-5, took over the design project, despite having a limited budget and capacity.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: The redesigned cars, constructed in tube frame with floors and bulkheads constructed from aluminium honeycomb, clad in three different body styles constructed in fiberglass. The cars were constructed around the Kei car regulations of the time (maximum length , maximum engine capacity 550 cc), until this was changed for the following March, hence its model name, AZ-550 Sports.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: The Type A was a red sports car with pop-up headlights, front air vent and a distinctive Ferrari Testarossa inspired side strakes but most distinctive of all design features were the gull-wing doors.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: The Type B, themed as "High-tuned pure sports", was inspired by the trends in the tuning industry and in current concept car design, featuring greenhouse pyramid roof without a rearward sweep to the C-pillar. It had a racing car inspired interior, unlike Type A, it was aiming for the rough and spartan look and was the only model that a more conventional forward door hinging. It featured a pair of bulging headlamps and incorporated dual mufflers.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: The Type C, had a more distinctive body design as it was inspired by Mazda's Group C sports prototype racers, incorporating its signature colour scheme of blue on white and its number it bore at the 24 hours of Le Mans. Featuring a bigger air intake than the former two, venting to the forward-positioned radiator and exits it along the front rim of the cowl. There are many design cues typical to an endurance racer such as the wing mirror and BBS style brake-cooling wheel discs. Compared to the Type B, this version was far more spartan in comparison.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: As the cars were well received by the visiting public and the motoring press, Mazda executives decided on production of the car. Although Type C was the better received of the three, it was the Type A which was given the greenlight by executives as they believed that it would be the one most commercially accepted by the buying public. The Type A would only receive a minor design alteration prior to production, as the pop-up headlights were dropped in favour of fixed units, purely for structural rigidity reasons. The front air vent was the other design alteration made to the car prior to production.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: Nonetheless, the car took three years to get into production as the engineering team changed the car's internal skeleton frame to steel to allow for further rigidity. The dashboard design was also changed, to a less futuristic but still sporting look.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: Much of the development work was carried out in the United Kingdom despite the fact that the car was never intended for sale outside Japan.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: The car was made available to the buying public in January 1992, with two color options, Siberia Blue and Classic Red. Both colors came with Venetian Gray lower panels. Each car was sold through the Autozam dealer network in Japan.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: Unfortunately by the time car came into production, the recession in Japan had just come into force. Selling for 1,498 million ¥ (the equivalent of $12,400), it was slightly less than a Eunos Roadster, but marginally higher than its competitor, the Honda Beat selling at 1,388 million ¥ and the Suzuki Cappuccino at ¥1,458 million, the AZ-1 was considered to be both too expensive and too cramped for a kei car. The car failed to sell within its target of 800 per month, in the midst of an economic recession. Production of the car ended after the following year, but Mazda had plenty of stock to sell off.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: With a total production of 4,392 over a year, plus 531 Suzuki Cara, compared to 28,010 Cappuccinos and 33,600 Beats (both with production reaching into the latter half of the 1990s).


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: In a bid to shift unsold stock, Mazda made an effort to produce special versions. First to come was the Type L option, featuring an enhanced audio system including a sub-woofer in the boot. There were no exterior changes made to the car.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: Mazda also introduced the Mazdaspeed version to showcase the parts that were available for the car, the A-spec, the body kit features an enhanced hood, front spoiler and rear wing. Unlike the production version, the car came in an all-red or blue body color. It also came with a host of options including shock absorbers with sports spring sets, strut bars for the front and rear, mechanical LSD, enhanced air filter and a stainless steel and ceramic muffler. It also came with its own brand of alloy wheels as opposed to the production's steel wheels.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: For 1994, There was also the M2 1015 by M2 Incorporated. The most distinguishing part of the car is the front fog lights incorporated into the bonnet, and the all-new front bumper and rear spoiler. The car came in three different colours: white, black and silver. Like the Mazdaspeed version, the car was painted entirely in a single color.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: Fifty were to be produced and sold by the M2 dealer, but they only managed to sell about half of its stock. The dealer covered their losses by selling the body parts individually. A genuine "M2 1015" can be identified by the rear emblem stating the version name.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: <br>The AZ-1 was also sold by Suzuki as the Cara, with only minor detail changes including the addition of fog lamps.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: Although the M2 1015 was the only version sold by M2, they also created other versions purely for show purposes and to test market their cars.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: M2 1014 was a one-off off-road inspired car built for the 1993 Tokyo Motor Show with design cues coming from the Lamborghini Cheetah. M2 1015A is a rally inspired featuring auxiliaries of a rally car including a pair of spotlights detached on the bottom of the bonnet. The M2 1015B incorporated a detachable top roof, instead of being constructed of glass, it was constructed in plastic.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: In 1996, renowned tuning company and rotary specialist, RE Amemiya produced another one-off example for the Tokyo Auto Salon, called the GReddy VI-AZ1 (named after its long-term partner, the sixth incarnation of their partnership project car), it was influenced by the AZ-550 Type-C but longer and wider, incorporating a 20B three rotor Wankel engine, mounted longitudinally. The only part of the car that has traces of the original AZ-1 is the gullwing door. The car uses suspension parts produced by Bilstein that can be found in a Porsche 962 and the brakes from a Ferrari F40. The car was rebuilt again in 2000 with the car now resprayed to white, also a wing replacing the ducktail spoiler of the original, also replaced was the tire with a slightly wider version, brakes are replaced by those from a Ferrari F50.


title: Autozam AZ-1

text: There was also a one-off version built in 1996 named Abarth Scorpione commissioned by Shiro Kosaka, a renowned collector of Abarth sports cars. This car has unique bodywork featuring numerous design cues from its rare namesake, although the genuine car in fact features conventional opening doors. The car was entirely rebodied at a cost of one million yen for the body alone, plus another million yen for painting and fitting. For further details refer to this article (Japanese).


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: He is the son of Patrick Evenepoel, a former racing cyclist who won the 1993 Grand Prix de Wallonie. Remco Evenepoel started his sport career in association football, playing for the youth teams of R.S.C. Anderlecht and PSV Eindhoven, as well as being featured in the youth national teams of Belgium. Realising that his physical abilities made him more suited for cycling, he switched to the discipline in 2017. After winning the road race and time trial in the junior categories at the 2018 UCI Road World Championships, Evenepoel turned professional with , skipping the under-23 rank.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: Evenepoel won the 2022 Vuelta a España and the 2022 UCI World Road Race Championships two weeks later.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: The son of the former professional cyclist Patrick Evenepoel, Remco Evenepoel started his sporting career as a football player. At the age of five he joined Anderlecht. When he was eleven years old he changed to the youth academy of PSV Eindhoven returning to Anderlecht again at the age of fourteen. He played four times for the Belgian U15 team and five times for the Belgian U16. After some setbacks and disappointments he made a switch to cycling in 2017. He won both the time trial and road race at the 2018 European Junior Road Cycling Championships. The gap between him and the second place rider in the road race was 9 minutes and 44 seconds.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: Later in the year, Evenepoel also won both the road race and the time trial at the UCI Junior Road World Championships.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: Electing to skip the under-23 ranks, Evenepoel announced in July 2018 that he would join for the 2019 season. For his first season, Evenepoel was scheduled to compete in shorter stage races, and skipped the cobbled, one-day Classic races. In his debut race, the Vuelta a San Juan, Evenepoel won the young rider classification and 9th overall whilst also winning his first professional podium in the stage 3 time trial behind teammate Julian Alaphilippe and Valerio Conti. Evenepoel's first professional victory came at the Tour of Belgium, where he won the general classification as well as a stage and the points classification. On 3 August 2019 Evenepoel scored his first World Tour victory when he won the Clasica de San Sebastian. He escaped from the field, accompanied by Toms Skujinš about from the finish, dropping his companion on the last hill and soloing to victory. He became the third-youngest rider ever to win a cycling classic in the history of the sport. On 8 August 2019, Evenepoel won the time trial at the 2019 European Road Championships. At the World Championships in September, Evenepoel would have been eligible to still ride in the under-23 category, but decided against it and started in the elite men's events. He went on to win the silver medal in the time trial. He spent much of the year sharing a room with Philippe Gilbert who acted in a mentoring role.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: Evenepoel started the 2020 season at the Vuelta a San Juan, where he won the individual time trial on stage 3 and the general classification. He then competed at the Volta ao Algarve. Here, he won stage 2 as well as the final stage, a time trial, to clinch overall victory ahead of Maximilian Schachmann.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: After the extended break in the cycling calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he won the Vuelta a Burgos and the Tour de Pologne.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: Evenepoel suffered a serious accident at Il Lombardia. While descending the Muro di Sormano and after a sharp curve, he collided with a low wall on the side of a bridge and was thrown over it with the impact, falling in a dirt area near some trees, several meters below the road. No other cyclists were involved in the accident and he was swiftly removed from the scene by the emergency services, being conscious and responsive all the time. Hours later, his team reported that he had suffered a fractured pelvis and a right lung contusion, also stating that he would not be returning to competition in the near future.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: Evenepoel returned to competition in the 2021 Giro d'Italia, finishing 7th in the prologue time trial, after which he said: "I was standing on the start ramp with some tears in my eyes. It was a hard way to come back and start the Giro like this. But immediately a top-10 spot, I didn’t expect it – I’m really happy." After spending the first 15 stages in the top-10 of the general classification, he crashed during stage 17 and was unable to continue the race.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: He competed in the rescheduled 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo in both the road race and time trial earning a top 10 place in the latter. During the 2021 World Championships in Flanders he claimed his second elite level world championship medal, taking the bronze in the time trial. Evenepoel was the centre of a furore in the World road race. Ahead of the race, it was felt that Wout Van Aert was the protected leader for a Belgian team that was very hopeful of a home win, and Eddy Merckx stated to "Het Nieuwsblad" that "If there is only one leader, you really shouldn't take Evenepoel [...] He rides mainly for himself; we saw that at the Olympics". Evenepoel responded "He always has to say something and that's a shame [...] Maybe it stings that I didn't ride for his son's team. I have a lot of respect for Eddy and apparently that is not mutual." On the race ahead "I'm here to work for Belgium, for Wout, because I know that it's the chance of his life to be world champion. He's in the form of his life, and it would be stupid of me to ride for myself. On this parcours, no one is stronger than Wout. I said already a lot of times that I will do everything [for] Wout."


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: In the road race Evenepoel appeared to answer Merckx' criticism that he is a selfish cyclist by joining an early attack with 180km still to race, followed by a second mid-race attack, and then created the decisive selection in the finals laps. Van Aert was unable to win the race, which was won by Julian Alaphilippe. After the race, people from the world of cycling such as Evenepoel's trade team boss Patrick Lefevere praised Evenepoel's strength and wondered if the Belgian team had made the wrong choice of leader. Lefevere asked: "[W]hy did the Belgians want to break open the race so early? And above all, why did they throw Remco into the fray so early? For me, Remco was the best man in the race after Julian. But they just sacrificed him and rolled out the red carpet for Julian."


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: Evenepoel responded to the criticism of Belgium's tactics by revealing that he felt could have won the race but that "[o]n Friday evening before the World Championships there was a meeting with everyone. It was very unclear to me what exactly was expected of me. So after sleeping on it, the next day I went to <nowiki>[</nowiki>coaches Sven Vanthourenhout and Serge Pauwels] and asked: 'What do you expect from me in concrete terms?' "I also said straight out that I thought I might be able to win the race in a certain scenario. 'Do I get a chance or not?' I asked. ‘No,’ was the answer." This caused a rift in the team; Van Aert said "I expected to hear criticism because we didn’t win but that it came from someone on the team is not smart and only serves to add fuel to the fire. It’s a shame, and I regret it. Remco issued more criticism on TV than in the team meeting" and "He was the one who agreed with the tactics, who agreed with the selection. He has been preaching for weeks on end how he was looking forward to it so I think it’s really weird to turn 180 degrees now".


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: Days after the race Belgian team-mate Jasper Stuyven said that Evenepoel had failed to show up for the team debrief: "Everyone was there, except Remco [...] He was aware, but didn't think it was necessary. I think that is a shame, especially because he thought it necessary to say things on TV. That stuck with some of us. [...] I think that Remco should sometimes be slowed down by his entourage. He still has to learn when he can and cannot say things. Also, a super-strong rider – which he certainly is – should realise that some things should remain internal."


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: On 24 April, at the age of 22, Evenepoel won his first cycling monument in Liège-Bastogne-Liège after a 29.6 km solo effort with a 48-second lead on the runner-up. It was his first participation in this cycling classic. He completed the 257.1 km with an average speed of 41.397 km/h, which was the fastest edition in the history of La Doyenne. He won the 2022 Clásica de San Sebastián by launching a successful 44 kilometre solo attack, finishing nearly two minutes ahead of second-placed Pavel Sivakov.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: In early September, Evenepoel won the 2022 Vuelta a España, his first Grand Tour triumph. Evenepoel took the red jersey after stage 6 of the race, which finished with a 800m climb to a mountain-top finish in San Miguel de Aguayo. While the stage was won by Jay Vine, Evenepoel managed to finish second, putting significant time into his general classification rivals, including Primoz Roglic, the pre-race favorite. Evenepoel extended his general classification lead to 2 minutes and 41 seconds after a dominant performance on the stage 10 individual time trial, finishing the 30.9km course in 33 minutes and 18 seconds, 48 seconds ahead of second-place Roglic. The following challenging mountain stages saw Roglic and Enric Mas claw back some time, reducing Evenepoel's general classification lead to as little as 1 minute and 26 seconds. However, following Roglic's withdrawal from the race after a crash at the end of stage 16, Evenepoel won stage 18, another mountain-top finish, securing a 2-minute and 7-second advantage over Mas, which would prove unassailable over the final 2 stages. Arriving in Madrid, Evenepoel's margin of victory was 2 minutes and 2 seconds over second place Mas and 4 minutes and 57 seconds over third place Juan Ayuso.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: In September, Evenepoel competed in both the Individual Time Trial and Road Race at the 2022 UCI Road World Championships in Wollongong, Australia. He finished 3rd in the time trial, 9 seconds behind winner Tobias Foss. One week later, he won the road race, finishing two minutes and 21 seconds ahead of France's Christophe Laporte. Having made it into a breakaway with 32km to go, Evenepoel managed to break free from Alexey Lutsenko with 25km to go and ride solo to the finish for his first World Championship victory at the Elite level.


title: Remco Evenepoel

text: A statue on the Fóia mountain in Portugal was based on Evenepoel's victory in stage 2 of the 2020 Volta ao Algarve


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The coefficient of restitution (COR, also denoted by e), is the ratio of the final to initial relative speed between two objects after they collide. It normally ranges from 0 to 1 where 1 would be a perfectly elastic collision. A perfectly inelastic collision has a coefficient of 0, but a 0 value does not have to be perfectly inelastic. It is measured in the Leeb rebound hardness test, expressed as 1000 times the COR, but it is only a valid COR for the test, not as a universal COR for the material being tested.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The value is almost always less than 1 due to initial translational kinetic energy being lost to rotational kinetic energy, plastic deformation, and heat. It can be more than 1 if there is an energy gain during the collision from a chemical reaction, a reduction in rotational energy, or another internal energy decrease that contributes to the post-collision velocity.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The mathematics were developed by Sir Isaac Newton in 1687. It is also known as Newton's experimental law.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: Line of impact – It is the line along which "e" is defined or in absence of tangential reaction force between colliding surfaces, force of impact is shared along this line between bodies. During physical contact between bodies during impact its line along common normal to pair of surfaces in contact of colliding bodies. Hence "e" is defined as a dimensionless one-dimensional parameter.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The COR is a property of a "pair" of objects in a collision, not a single object. If a given object collides with two different objects, each collision would have its own COR. When an object is described as having a coefficient of restitution, as if it were an intrinsic property without reference to a second object, it is assumed to be between identical spheres or against a perfectly rigid wall.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: A perfectly rigid wall is not possible but can be approximated by a steel block if investigating the COR of spheres with a much smaller modulus of elasticity. Otherwise, the COR will rise and then fall based on collision velocity in a more complicated manner.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: In a one-dimensional collision, the two key principles are: conservation of energy (conservation of kinetic energy if the collision is perfectly elastic) and conservation of (linear) momentum. A third equation can be derived from these two, which is the restitution equation as stated above. When solving problems, any two of the three equations can be used. The advantage of using the restitution equation is that it sometimes provides a more convenient way to approach the problem.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: Let formula_3, formula_4 be the mass of object 1 and object 2 respectively. Let formula_5, formula_6 be the initial velocity of object 1 and object 2 respectively. Let formula_7, formula_8 be the final velocity of object 1 and object 2 respectively.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The equation above is the restitution equation, and the coefficient of restitution is 1, which is a perfectly elastic collision.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: Thin-faced golf club drivers utilize a "trampoline effect" that creates drives of a greater distance as a result of the flexing and subsequent release of stored energy which imparts greater impulse to the ball. The USGA (America's governing golfing body) tests drivers for COR and has placed the upper limit at 0.83. COR is a function of rates of clubhead speeds and diminish as clubhead speed increase. In the report COR ranges from 0.845 for 90 mph to as low as 0.797 at 130 mph. The above-mentioned "trampoline effect" shows this since it reduces the rate of stress of the collision by increasing the time of the collision. According to one article (addressing COR in tennis racquets), "[f]or the Benchmark Conditions, the coefficient of restitution used is 0.85 for all racquets, eliminating the variables of string tension and frame stiffness which could add or subtract from the coefficient of restitution."


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The International Table Tennis Federation specifies that the ball shall bounce up 24–26 cm when dropped from a height of 30.5 cm on to a standard steel block thereby having a COR of 0.887 to 0.923.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: A basketball's COR is designated by requiring that the ball shall rebound to a height of between 960 and 1160 mm when dropped from a height of 1800 mm, resulting in a COR between 0.73–0.80.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: In the case of a one-dimensional collision involving two objects, object A and object B, the coefficient of restitution is given by:


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: Though formula_21 does not explicitly depend on the masses of the objects, it is important to note that the final velocities are mass-dependent. For two- and three-dimensional collisions of rigid bodies, the velocities used are the components perpendicular to the tangent line/plane at the point of contact, i.e. along the line of impact.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: For an object bouncing off a stationary target, formula_21 is defined as the ratio of the object's speed after the impact to that prior to impact:


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: In a case where frictional forces can be neglected and the object is dropped from rest onto a horizontal surface, this is equivalent to:


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The coefficient of restitution can be thought of as a measure of the extent to which mechanical energy is conserved when an object bounces off a surface. In the case of an object bouncing off a stationary target, the change in gravitational potential energy, "E", during the course of the impact is essentially zero; thus, formula_21 is a comparison between the kinetic energy, "E", of the object immediately before impact with that immediately after impact:


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: In a cases where frictional forces can be neglected (nearly every student laboratory on this subject), and the object is dropped from rest onto a horizontal surface, the above is equivalent to a comparison between the "E" of the object at the drop height with that at the bounce height. In this case, the change in "E" is zero (the object is essentially at rest during the course of the impact and is also at rest at the apex of the bounce); thus:


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The equations for collisions between elastic particles can be modified to use the COR, thus becoming applicable to inelastic collisions, as well, and every possibility in between.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The above equations can be derived from the analytical solution to the system of equations formed by the definition of the COR and the law of the conservation of momentum (which holds for all collisions). Using the notation from above where formula_25 represents the velocity before the collision and formula_24 after, yields:


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: Solving the momentum conservation equation for formula_17 and the definition of the coefficient of restitution for formula_18 yields:


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: When colliding objects do not have a direction of motion that is in-line with their centers of gravity and point of impact, or if their contact surfaces at that point are not perpendicular to that line, some energy that would have been available for the post-collision velocity difference will be lost to rotation and friction. Energy losses to vibration and the resulting sound are usually negligible.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: When a soft object strikes a harder object, most of the energy available for the post-collision velocity will be stored in the soft object. The COR will depend on how efficient the soft object is at storing the energy in compression without losing it to heat and plastic deformation. A rubber ball will bounce better off concrete than a glass ball, but the COR of glass-on-glass is a lot higher than rubber-on-rubber because some of the energy in rubber is lost to heat when it is compressed. When a rubber ball collides with a glass ball, the COR will depend entirely on the rubber. For this reason, determining the COR of a material when there is not identical material for collision is best done by using a much harder material.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: Since there is no perfectly rigid material, hard materials such as metals and ceramics have their COR theoretically determined by considering the collision between identical spheres. In practice, a 2-ball Newton's cradle may be employed but such a set up is not conducive to quickly testing samples.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The Leeb rebound hardness test is the only commonly-available test related to determining the COR. It uses a tip of tungsten carbide, one of the hardest substances available, dropped onto test samples from a specific height. But the shape of the tip, the velocity of impact, and the tungsten carbide are all variables that affect the result that is expressed in terms of 1000*COR. It does not give an objective COR for the material that is independent from the test.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: A comprehensive study of coefficients of restitution in dependence on material properties (elastic moduli, rheology), direction of impact, coefficient of friction and adhesive properties of impacting bodies can be found in Willert (2020).


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The COR is not a material property because it changes with the shape of the material and the specifics of the collision, but it can be predicted from material properties and the velocity of impact when the specifics of the collision are simplified. To avoid the complications of rotational and frictional losses, we can consider the ideal case of an identical pair of spherical objects, colliding so that their centers of mass and relative velocity are all in-line.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: Many materials like metals and ceramics (but not rubbers and plastics) are assumed to be perfectly elastic when their yield strength is not approached during impact. The impact energy is theoretically stored only in the spring-effect of elastic compression and results in "e" = 1. But this applies only at velocities less than about 0.1 m/s to 1 m/s. The elastic range can be exceeded at higher velocities because all the kinetic energy is concentrated at the point of impact. Specifically, the yield strength is usually exceeded in part of the contact area, losing energy to plastic deformation by not remaining in the elastic region. To account for this, the following estimates the COR by estimating the percent of the initial impact energy that did not get lost to plastic deformation. Approximately, it divides how easily a volume of the material can store energy in compression (formula_50) by how well it can stay in the elastic range (formula_51):


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: A high yield strength allows more of the "contact volume" of the material to stay in the elastic region at higher energies. A lower elastic modulus allows a larger contact area to develop during impact so the energy is distributed to a larger volume beneath the surface at the contact point. This helps prevent the yield strength from being exceeded.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: A more precise theoretical development shows the velocity and density of the material to also be important when predicting the COR at moderate velocities faster than elastic collision (greater than 0.1 m/s for metals) and slower than large permanent plastic deformation (less than 100 m/s). A lower velocity increases the coefficient by needing less energy to be absorbed. A lower density also means less initial energy needs to be absorbed. The density instead of mass is used because the volume of the sphere cancels out with the volume of the affected volume at the contact area. In this way, the radius of the sphere does not affect the coefficient. A pair of colliding spheres of different sizes but of the same material have the same coefficient as below, but multiplied by formula_54


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: Combining these four variables, a theoretical estimation of the coefficient of restitution can be made when a ball is dropped onto a surface of the same material.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: This equation overestimates the actual COR. For metals, it applies when v is approximately between 0.1 m/s and 100 m/s and in general when:


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: At slower velocities the COR is higher than the above equation predicts, theoretically reaching e=1 when the above fraction is less than formula_58 m/s. It gives the following theoretical coefficient of restitution for solid spheres dropped 1 meter ("v" = 4.5 m/s). Values greater than 1 indicate that the equation has errors. Yield strength instead of dynamic yield strength was used.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: The COR for plastics and rubbers are greater than their actual values because they do not behave as ideally elastic as metals, glasses, and ceramics due to heating during compression. So the following is only a guide to ranking of polymers.


title: Coefficient of restitution

text: For metals the range of speeds to which this theory can apply is about 0.1 to 5 m/s which is a drop of 0.5 mm to 1.25 meters (page 366).


title: Ain't Nobody

text: "Ain't Nobody" is a song by American funk band Rufus and American singer Chaka Khan. It was released on November 4, 1983, as one of four studio tracks included on their live album, "Stompin' at the Savoy" (1983). "Ain't Nobody" quickly gathered popularity, and reached number one on the US "Billboard" R&B chart and number 22 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. It has become one of Khan's signature songs.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: Rufus keyboardist David "Hawk" Wolinski wrote the song around a repeating synthesizer loop backed by a Linn LM-1 drum computer; however, John "JR" Robinson, the band's drummer, played real drums for the recording session. The band held a democratic vote, and they decided to include the song in their album repertoire. Once the song was recorded, Warner executives wanted to issue another song as the album's first single. Wolinski threatened to give the song to singer Michael Jackson and producer Quincy Jones for Jackson's album "Thriller" if the song was not the lead-off single. The label relented and "Ain't Nobody" was issued and hit number one on the R&B chart for the week ending October 15, 1983.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: The song was included on the soundtrack album to the 1984 film "Breakin'". In 2021, "Ain't Nobody" was ranked number 403 on "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song was adopted in the United Kingdom by fans of some of the country's football clubs, with the words: "Ain't nobody loves (player), makes me happy, makes me feel this way".


title: Ain't Nobody

text: The song is performed in the key of E minor with a tempo of 104 beats per minute in common time. Khan's vocals span from G to E in the song.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: In 1994, British singer-songwriter Jaki Graham released her cover of "Ain't Nobody". It was released as the first and lead single from her fourth and last album, "Real Life" (1994). Graham's version reached number one on the US "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Play chart for five weeks as well as being in the Top 5 favourite videos for BET (Black Entertainment Charts). The single also reached number 44 in the UK, number 11 in Iceland and number 17 in Australia.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: Larry Flick from "Billboard" called the song "smashing", and stated that Graham "returns with a grand reading of a Rufus pop/soulnugget. Track is the latest in an onslaught of competitive versions of the song by various divas. This one, however, is the real deal, thanks to Graham's considerable charm as well as a plethora of mixes that range from peppy NRG to muscular house. A sure-fire club hit, don't be surprised if crossover radio beckons." English newspaper "Reading Evening Post" commented, "This is one of those covers that doesn't really improve on the original. But the Chaka Khan song is a soul classic and Jaki Graham gives it a good shot, even if her voice doesn't seem quite powerful enough for its bitter-sweet melodrama. A hard one not to sing along with."


title: Ain't Nobody

text: The accompanying music video for "Ain't Nobody" was directed by American film director and producer Antoine Fuqua.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: In 1995, Jamaican singer-songwriter Diana King recorded a cover single of "Ain't Nobody", released as the third single from their debut album, "Tougher Than Love" (1995). It peaked at number 95 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, number four on the "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Play chart and number 13 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: Larry Flick from "Billboard" complimented the song as a "sexy hip hop interpretation" and "irresistible", complimenting King's "assured performance". M.R. Martinez from "Cash Box" described it as a "bumpin' cover". James Masterton for Dotmusic said, "Now it is the turn of Diana King's soft reggaefied version to crash into the charts, give [King] another hit and prolong the life of a quite brilliant pop song." Pan-European magazine "Music & Media" noted that the follow-up to "Shy Guy" sees the Jamaican vocalist "lose some of [King's] rough dancehall edges in favour of a smoother R&B sound", adding that the chorus is "pure, uplifting modern soul." A reviewer from "Music Week" rated it three out of five, writing, "A fairly standard cover of the Chaka Khan classic, with strong production. [King] might just convert some more fans." Ralph Tee from the magazine's "RM" Dance Update stated, "'Shy Guy' turned out to be an international smash and this follow-up has similar crossover opportunities."


title: Ain't Nobody

text: A music video was produced to promote the single, directed by American film, television, commercial and music video director Kevin Bray. It was later published on King's official YouTube channel in October 2009. The video has amassed more than two million views as of May 2021.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: Rapper LL Cool J recorded an interpolation of the song for the soundtrack to the 1996 film "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America", based on the adult animated series "Beavis and Butt-Head". Released as the soundtrack's second single, the song peaked at number 46 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, number four on the Hot Rap Singles Chart and number 27 on the "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Outside of the United States, the song topped the charts in the United Kingdom, where the song was also a hit for Gwen Dickey and KWS (reaching number 21) and The Course (number eight).


title: Ain't Nobody

text: Larry Flick from "Billboard" described LL Cool J's version as a "pop juiced hip-hop ditty." He added, "The rap vet playfully unfurls his patented love-talk on top of an insinuating classic-funk bassline. The hip-grinding verses lead to a chantable chorus that re-creates the best portions of the timeless Rufus nugget [..]. Programmers starved for something sexy and immediately appealing need look no further." Alan Jones from "Music Week" felt that "LL Cool J's comeback with Ain't Nobody is more workmanlike than inspired, with all the lyrical dexterity we expect from him." He noted that "it includes an un-named femme who takes over to sing the chorus though this simply draws attention to what a good vocalist Chaka Khan is. A surefire hit, and quite a big one at that, though not one of LL's best."


title: Ain't Nobody

text: The accompanying music video of this version, directed by Michael Martin, produced by Jonathan Heuer, and cinematography by Martin Coppen, was partially filmed at Mount Hood of Oregon. It also shows a pool party filled with guests, including Maia Campbell, Brian McKnight, Alfonso Ribeiro, Cedric the Entertainer, John Salley, and John Witherspoon.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: In 2003, English-Irish pop group Liberty X released a version of the song titled "Being Nobody", produced by Richard X, as the lead single from Richard X's debut studio album, "Richard X Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1" (2003), as well as the lead single from Liberty X's second studio album, "Being Somebody" (2003). The song is a pseudo-mashup, taking the lyrics of "Ain't Nobody" and placing them over an instrumental interpolation of the Human League's "Being Boiled". Additional elements from both songs were also used such as the recurring synth line from "Ain't Nobody" and the line "OK, ready? Let's do it." in the intro of the main mix are from the intro of "Being Boiled".


title: Ain't Nobody

text: Liberty X first performed "Being Nobody" on "Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway" on February 8, 2003. They also performed it twice on "Top of the Pops", with other performances on "The National Lottery Wright Ticket" and "" before officially released on March 17, 2003. Shortly after that, the 2003 remastered version of the original 1983 hit "Ain't Nobody" was released in April of that year.


title: Ain't Nobody

text: The song received mostly positive reviews from music critics. It was deemed "instantly memorable" by RTÉ.ie reviewer Linda McGee, whilst Louis Pattison of "NME" believed it was "Truly, a record to get over-excited about." Alexis Kirke of musicOMH said: "The marriage of the credible dance-bootleg production of Richard X with high profile pop-act Liberty X is not only a perfect career-expanding synergy for both, but also a powerful musical synergy in which the seventies meets the eighties during the noughties." Writing for ukmix.org, Martin P gave the song five stars out of five and called it "It's pure pop perfection with a twist of R&B – one of the best Liberty X singles!"