By Anick Jesdanun, Technology Writer
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) --LG is unveiling a smartphone with two lenses and jumping into the nascent world of virtual reality.
The main camera on LG's upcoming G5 smartphone will have both a regular lens for standard shots and a wider-angle lens so you can capture more of what's in front of you without having to step back.
It will also adopt a modular approach to design, so you'll be able to pop out the phone's bottom and swap in new hardware features. Early options include a camera grip with physical buttons to take shots and control video recording.
Sunday's announcements at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain, come as worldwide smartphone growth has slowed.
Frank Lee, a spokesman with LG's U.S. mobile business, said phone launches no longer generate the excitement they used to, so "it's our responsibility to bring some energy."
Beyond improving just the phone, LG is turning to a whole collection of products that work with it.
LG will have its own VR headset – a lighter version of Samsung's Gear VR, which came out last fall.
LG designed the LG 360 VR headset to work with an LG smartphone that's attached by a cable. With Samsung's VR device, the smartphone is inserted at eye level and becomes the headset's display, increasing the weight on the head. LG's version still uses the smartphone to process the images, but instead of displaying them on the phone screen, images get sent to separate, lighter displays in the headset's eyepieces.
LG is also making a 360-degree camera and a spherical robot camera that resembles the BB-8 droid in the new "Star Wars" movie.
Prices and release dates have yet to be announced, though the LG phone is expected in the U.S. in April.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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