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Uber driver, Uzbekistan native: A look at New York attack suspect
New York, Nov 1 (IANS) The man accused of ploughing a rented truck through a crowd of cyclists and pedestrians near the site of the 9/11 attack has been identified as an Uzbek who lived in New Jersey and drove for Uber.
Sayfullo Saipov, 29, was shot in the abdomen and captured alive by police and is in hospital after the attack on Tuesday that claimed eight lives and injured 11 others.
Saipov came to the US from Uzbekistan in 2010 and had a green card that allowed permanent legal residence. He had apparently lived in Paterson, New Jersey, and Tampa, Florida, the New York Times reported.
Saipov rented a truck from a home depot in Passaic, New Jersey, before driving it into Manhattan, officials said. After the attack, investigators found a handwritten note from the rental truck in which Saipov had declared his allegiance to the Islamic State.
The attack unfolded as nearby schools were letting out on a Halloween afternoon. It ended five blocks north of the World Trade Centre.
The driver left a roughly mile-long crime scene: A tree-lined bike path strewn with bodies, mangled bicycles and bicycle parts, from wheels twisted like pretzels to a dislodged seat.
Saipov, a slim, bearded man, was seen in videos running through traffic after the attack with a paintball gun in one hand and a pellet gun in the other.
Witnesses described hearing Saipov shouting “Allahu Akbar” or “God is great” in Arabic — as he carried out the attack.
Dilfuza Iskhakova, who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, told investigators that Saipov had stayed with her for several months about six years ago after arriving from Uzbekistan, the Times reported.
“He seemed like a nice guy, but he didn’t talk much,” Iskhakova said. “He only went to work and came back. He used to work at a warehouse.”
Iskhakova said her family had lost contact with Saipov in recent years and she thought he had moved from Ohio to Florida, then to the New York region, and that he now had a wife and two young children.
A marriage licence registered in Ohio listed Saipov marrying 19-year-old Nozima Odilova in 2013. Both gave Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as their birthplace.
The couple gave the same address as the Cleveland headquarters Bright Auto LLC, and Saipov’s occupation is listed as truck driver.
As investigators began to look into Saipov’s history, it became clear that he had been on the radar of federal authorities.
Three officials said he had come to the federal authorities’ attention as a result of an unrelated investigation, but it was not clear whether that was because he was an associate or a family member of someone under scrutiny or because he himself had been the focus of an investigation.
Kobiljon Matkarov, 37, an Uzbek immigrant told the New York Times he met Saipov in Florida several years ago when Saipov was working as a truck driver.
“He was a very good person when I knew him,” he said.
“He liked the US. He seemed very lucky and all the time he was happy and talking like everything is OK. He did not seem like a terrorist, but I did not know him from the inside.”
Authorities said it was unclear when Saipov moved to New Jersey and began driving for Uber, but it is understood he passed the company’s background check.
In a statement, Uber said the company was “horrified by this senseless act of violence”.
Saipov had been arrested in Missouri last year after he failed to appear in court on a traffic ticket issued in 2015. A Missouri court record states Saipov appeared in May and entered a guilty plea.
–IANS
soni/mr
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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