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Academy of St Martin in the Fields/Marquise Gilmore review – bassoon earns its spotlight in Thea Musgrave’s Out of the Darkness
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, directed by Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, gave the world premiere of Thea Musgrave’s new bassoon concerto Out of the Darkness at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. The performance stood out among this year’s premieres partly because of the composer’s remarkable pedigree: Musgrave, now…
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‘A cognitive cacophony’: hands-on with the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 beta test
A Guardian hands-on preview of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 early access beta, held over the penultimate weekend of August, found the new title delivers the boots-on-the-ground military shooting the series is known for, but is defined by relentless sensory overload, with the game likened to “the TikTok of gaming” because combat begins…
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US datacenters tripled their water footprint in 10 years
US datacenters used around 17 billion gallons of water in 2023, three times the amount consumed in 2014, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report published by the Library of Congress. The surge coincides with a boom in datacenter construction driven by the rise of generative AI since OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in late 2022,…
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Watch: Trump’s brutal killing of two suspected drug smugglers…as chilling details of their US ‘INVASION’ are exposed
The US military carried out a strike on Sunday against a suspected drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific, killing two people said to be involved in narco-trafficking, US Southern Command has confirmed. The operation is part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing military campaign against Latin American drug cartels, which has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers…
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Funeral is held for teenager, 18, who died alongside four other boys in head-on crash when they drove car wrong-way on Irish motorway
The funeral of 18-year-old Jeremy O’Brien took place today in Carlow Town, Ireland, under heavy security, as he became the fourth of five teenage friends to be buried following a fatal head-on crash on the M9 motorway. Gardaí set up multiple checkpoints around The Holy Family Church and deployed a public order unit amid concerns…
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Iranian rial hits record low amid US economic crackdown
Iran’s rial has slumped to a record low of 2.02 million to the US dollar as Washington unveiled a sweeping new round of sanctions designed to cut off Tehran’s remaining sources of revenue. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that any country continuing economic engagement with Iran risked US retaliation, saying it was “no longer acceptable…
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Ukraine hits Ozon logistics hubs in expanded Russia drone campaign
Ukraine marked its Independence Day weekend with an expanded drone campaign against Russian e-commerce infrastructure, striking three logistics hubs belonging to Ozon, Russia’s second-largest online retailer, while also attempting a strike on a military cosmodrome. Fires broke out at Ozon warehouses in Krasnodar and Makhachkala, with several people reported wounded in Makhachkala, while sites in…
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The new Shokz OpenFit Air 2 earbuds are nearly 20 percent lighter than the previous generation
Shokz has launched the OpenFit Air 2, an updated version of its open-ear earbuds that is around 17 percent lighter than its predecessor, weighing 7.2g per earbud. The open-ear design avoids sealing the ear canal, reducing pressure and heat while letting wearers stay aware of their surroundings, making the earbuds well suited to outdoor exercise,…
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AI vendors are turning to custom hardware as Microsoft winds back the clock on Windows
A Register podcast episode discusses two parallel shifts: AI vendors increasingly moving beyond Nvidia’s GPUs towards alternative datacentre silicon, and Microsoft finally loosening long-standing restrictions in Windows 11. Register Systems Editor Tobias Mann explains why companies are turning to chipmakers such as Cerebras and Marvell to handle inference workloads, and why Waymo is developing custom…