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Simply the best? Is the Berlin Philharmonic really better than all the rest?
The Berlin Philharmonic, widely regarded as one of the world’s finest orchestras, is performing at the Proms in London this week under chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, following its first visit to Scotland in over 20 years to close the Edinburgh International Festival. The orchestra’s enduring reputation, built up over more than a century despite changes…
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Next-gen AI networks may hinge on the telephone switchboard’s return
Nvidia and other AI hardware makers are betting big on optical circuit switching (OCS) to enable future data centre designs packing hundreds or thousands of accelerators into a single system. This matters because next-generation AI clusters need flexible, high-speed ways to reconfigure networks on the fly, and traditional packet-switching ASICs cannot fulfil this role alone,…
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‘An intoxicating mix of humour, high camp and danger’: remembering Tim Curry
The Guardian invited readers to share personal memories of actor Tim Curry following his death, gathering a collection of anecdotes that celebrate his career and character. Curry became renowned for roles including Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pennywise in Stephen King’s It, and Wadsworth in Clue, with contributors reflecting on how his…
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Blackout risk rises as heatwave stresses largest US electric grids
The US Department of Energy has warned of a heightened risk of power outages across a wide stretch of the country on Wednesday as an intense heatwave pushes electricity demand to near-record levels. The concern centres on the PJM Interconnection, the largest US electric grid, which supplies 67 million people from Washington DC to Chicago,…
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‘Everything countercultural is doomed, isn’t it?’ Sofie Royer, the bracingly brilliant pop star pondering life’s big questions
Sofie Royer, an Austrian-Iranian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Vienna, is releasing her forthcoming album Before/After, which critics are praising for its wit and dense cultural references. Her music blends genres such as Italo disco, new wave and garage rock, and her lyrics draw on figures ranging from Andrei Tarkovsky to Kenneth Anger, reflecting…
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BBC reporter broke impartiality rules by referring to ‘genocide’ in Gaza on podcast owned by Gary Lineker
The BBC has admitted that Katty Kay, its US special correspondent, breached the corporation’s impartiality rules by referring to a “genocide” in Gaza while co-hosting a podcast produced by Gary Lineker’s company Goalhanger. The broadcaster said her wording made it sound as though she was endorsing the description as her own view rather than attributing…
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Women’s Super League 2 predictions: can Newcastle reach promotion and will Watford stay up?
The Women’s Super League 2 season kicks off on Friday with Watford hosting Burnley, and this preview runs through each of the 12 clubs’ prospects under a revised promotion format. This year only the WSL2 champions gain automatic promotion, while the sides finishing second and third face a new pre-qualifying match to decide who meets…
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Freelancers are getting buried with ‘soulless’ AI slop cleanup: ‘It’s a shame we need to do it’
As companies increasingly rely on AI tools to generate marketing copy, images and video, they are turning to freelance creatives not to produce original work but to fix the flawed output – a trend now dubbed cleaning up “AI slop”. Freelancers such as Spain-based graphic designer Lisa describe the work as lucrative but exhausting and…
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‘Prison Break’ Meets ‘Mindhunter’ in the 6-Part Apple TV Miniseries Taking Over Streaming
Apple TV’s 2022 limited series Black Bird has returned to the top 10 in several countries more than four years after its release, showing renewed demand for older prison-set crime dramas. The show pairs a Prison Break-style premise with a Mindhunter-esque psychological angle, following an inmate who agrees to get an earlier release by befriending…