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Fitbit founders launch Luffu Link, an LTE health and safety band
Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman have launched Luffu Link, an LTE-enabled wearable band designed to track users’ physical and mental health while also acting as a safety device for families managing care for loved ones. The band, from their new startup Luffu, combines all-day health monitoring, voice logging, location tracking and emergency assistance…
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Russian stadium says it will not host Kanye concerts – but promoter says shows have not been cancelled
St Petersburg’s Gazprom Arena has ultimately distanced itself from two planned concerts by the rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West), stating it never signed a lease contract and that the shows “cannot take place at our venue”. This reversed its own earlier social media announcement of the 10 and 11 October dates, which would have made…
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From ‘old people music’ to owning the streets: 60 years of Notting Hill carnival and me
In this personal essay, a writer reflects on 60 years of the Notting Hill carnival, tracing how their relationship with the event changed from childhood boredom to lifelong devotion. As a reluctant child in the carnival’s 1960s infancy, they saw it as a strictly Caribbean affair organised by their parents’ generation, offering little appeal to…
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Songs created by AI banned from Australia’s music charts
Australia’s music industry body ARIA has confirmed new rules banning songs that are largely or wholly created by AI from the country’s music charts, requiring all eligible releases to be “substantially human made” from this week. The change follows controversy over Australian DJ Josh Fawaz’s AI-assisted cover of Madonna’s “Like A Prayer”, which topped the…
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The ear witness: Turner-winner Lawrence Abu Hamdan and his ‘sound evidence’ exposés of human rights abuses
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, the Lebanese-British artist who jointly won the Turner prize in 2019, leads a dual career as founder and director of Earshot, a human rights NGO he set up in 2023 that investigates abuses using sound evidence. The organisation examines cases ranging from Israeli soldiers’ shootings of emergency workers in Gaza to the…
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Sudanese woman is allowed to stay in UK with her refugee cousin because they are married… after couple had ‘customary Islamic’ wedding in their home country
A Sudanese woman who was initially refused asylum in the UK has won the right to stay after successfully arguing that deportation would breach her human right to a family life, because she is married to her cousin, a recognised refugee already living in Britain. The Home Office had rejected her case, believing the couple’s…
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Ecstasy, ketamine and laughing gas are found buried underneath Creamfields festival site as 80,000 ravers prepare for four-day music event
Cheshire Police uncovered ecstasy, ketamine and more than 200 canisters of nitrous oxide buried at the Creamfields festival site in Daresbury as part of “disruption work” ahead of the event’s opening. Up to 80,000 people attended the four-day festival, which featured more than 250 artists including Calvin Harris, Tiësto, Martin Garrix and Swedish House Mafia,…
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Goodbye Dandelion review – ode to a fabulous friendship with a 50-year age gap
This Guardian review covers Goodbye Dandelion, a storytelling show at Underbelly during the Edinburgh fringe, performed by sibling duo Maddie and Marcus Rice. The semi-fictional piece recounts Maddie’s friendship with 87-year-old artist and piano teacher Darcy O’Shea, nicknamed “Dandelion”, and touches on the theme of assisted dying that recurs across several shows at this year’s…
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Number of NHS dentists falls by 10 per cent in under a decade
The number of dental practices offering NHS treatment in England has fallen by around 10 per cent over the past decade, with at least 600 practices dropping their NHS contracts, according to research by the Nuffield Trust think tank. The decline has created so-called “dental deserts” in many areas, particularly the South West and East…
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BBCSSO/Canellakis review – electrifying trio of women unleash the horror in Strauss’s Elektra
Karina Canellakis conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a concert performance of Richard Strauss’s Elektra at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, drawing praise for the huge orchestra’s playing and, above all, for an outstanding cast of singers. Elektra’s vast instrumental forces, including heckelphones, basset horns and Wagner tubas, make staged productions impractical for all…