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Daily Mirror
17-05-2025
- Climate
- Daily Mirror
Exact date 'mini-heatwave' will end as weather maps turn blue
After weeks of dry, warm and sunny weather, Britain is set to see a return of downpours amid a sharp cooling-off in temperatures - and forecasters say this 'unsettled' phase will stick around Britain's 'mini-heatwave' will come crashing to an end very soon, according to new weather forecasts. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been basking in unseasonably warm and dry weather during the first half of this month - but this is now set to change as r ain sweeps in again next week, just in time for the Spring Bank Holiday. Two temperature anomaly maps from WXCharts also show a sharp cooling-off in temperatures over the next week. While much of Britain is shaded in red on Tuesday, showing conditions warmer than the seasonal average, by Friday they turn blueish, meaning they have dropped below what you would expect for this time of year. Unfortunately, meteorologists say this turn towards "unsettled" weather looks like it will stick around for the rest of the month at least. The Met Office 's medium-term outlook for the UK reads: "There are signs that this prolonged dry spell could begin to break down towards the end of next week, with rain and stronger winds potentially arriving from the west or south, possibly bringing further thunderstorms. "As we move into the latter part of the month, the long range outlook suggests a gradual shift toward more unsettled weather. Western regions may see more frequent rain and showers, while the south and east could still maintain drier spells." In the meantime, another dry and sunny day is expected across the UK on Saturday, with cloud mostly limited to eastern coasts along the North Sea. A daytime maximum temperature of 22C is forecast in London and 21C in Manchester. Highs of 18C are meanwhile expected in Edinburgh, while in Belfast and Cardiff temperatures could reach 20C. People have been warned to be careful if planning barbeques at home this weekend after a rise in call-outs across the country - and reminded not to use disposable BBQs in parks, as these can easily catch fire in dry grass. Bosses at Dartmoor have meanwhile raised the risk level of a major wildfire in the national park to 'very high', following a large 1,232-acre blaze which spread across the moorland last weekend. An investigation into the cause of the fire remains ongoing. Dartmoor National Park Head Ranger Simon Lee said: 'We're asking everyone to stay safe and respect Dartmoor. Leaving barbecues at home, disposing of glass bottles and cigarettes responsibly and taking all litter home are simple actions but will help prevent the risk of a fire breaking out.' Met Office weather forecast Saturday: Low cloud gradually becoming confined to North Sea coasts. Otherwise another dry and largely sunny day. Warm in the sunshine, though cooler under cloud and brisk winds in the east. Outlook for Sunday to Tuesday: Another warm, dry and sunny day on Sunday, once low cloud burns back to North Sea coasts. Mostly fine thereafter, though less sunny. A few showers, mainly in the south.
BBC News
09-05-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
High fire danger warning issued for Dartmoor
People are being urged to take care on Dartmoor at the weekend due to heightened fire Fire Severity Index showed the risk of fire rising from "high" to "very high" on of thousands of people are set to converge on Dartmoor later to take part in the 63rd Ten Tors crews and rangers battled a blaze spanning 1,232 acres of central Dartmoor last weekend. The Dartmoor National Park Authority said the index also showed large swathes of the moor would also be on "high" alert on Lee, Dartmoor National Park's head ranger, said: "We're asking everyone to stay safe and respect Dartmoor. "Leaving barbecues at home, disposing of glass bottles and cigarettes responsibly and taking all litter home are simple actions but will help prevent the risk of a fire breaking out."The authority reminded visitors on the moor to respect by-laws by not lighting open fires and follow all advisory notices and warning said robust contingency plans were in place for Ten Tors - including "weather monitoring and preparation and all routes avoiding rare bird nesting areas".
New York Times
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Spring/Break May Be a Little Older, but It Still Parties On
When Spring/Break Art Show began in 2012, it was a kind of anti-fair: The married organizers, Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly, filled an defunct schoolhouse with curated, thematic presentations. Artworks were for sale, but there weren't really booths so much as rooms and installations. The vibe was D.I.Y., experimental and a bit zany. More than a decade later, Spring/Break has, perhaps inevitably, grown up. It retains the same system: housed in a disused space — this year, one floor of an office building near Hudson Square — with curators submitting proposals based on a loose theme; for 2025, 'Paradise Lost and Found.' There are now solo artist spotlights, too. But the purposefully titled 'art show' feels more buttoned-up and closer to the thing it was once bucking against, an art fair. I suppose maturation is inevitable. What remains rare about Spring/Break is its accessibility: Artists who don't have gallery representation can show alongside those who do. As with any fair, though, the quality of the work can be mixed. That's the case with this year's 120 or so presentations, but it makes finding the good stuff more rewarding. Here are some of my favorites. Eve Sussman + Simon Lee (C8) The longtime collaborators Eve Sussman and Simon Lee are among the highest profile and most steadfast Spring/Break participants. And whether they're curating others' work or showing their own, their installations tend to be elaborate. This year's entry, 'The Stellas: A Fugue for Day Players,' is a multichannel film made with the composer Volkmar Klien. For it, a series of actors performed a scene from the 1960s soap opera 'Peyton Place' while constantly rotating roles and moving through a house. The result feels both high stakes and deconstructed — twin hallmarks of Sussman and Lee's practice. The installation includes microphones so that anyone can jump in and read lines, becoming a part of the drama. Eric Diehl (A4) One indicator of the influence of the market on Spring/Break is the abundance of paintings, which are more sellable than, say, a papier-mâché reconstruction of a home. Among the painters showing this year, many of them figurative, Eric Diehl stands out. His film-inspired American Western scenes are largely devoid of people, instead filled with cars and architecture that frame or impose on the land. They're meticulously composed and suffused with light that is sometimes ethereal, other times eerie. That changeability hits at the heart of Diehl's work: Rather than passing judgment, he is attempting to capture a state of isolation that's as seductive as it is uneasy. Rosebud Contemporary (A18) RJ Calabrese's paintings may be the opposite of Diehl's: small, claustrophobic and inspiring visceral dread. The cartoonish images depict white men in bizarre spaces and situations involving dismembered body parts, some of which Calabrese fashions from clay and attaches to the works' wooden surfaces. This is a vision of a systematic hell with people as willing participants. The booth's second artist, Ebenezer Singh, provides an emotional counterpoint: big, sparkly sculptural tableaus of dinosaurs interacting with Jesus; in one, he stands atop a triceratops. The pieces are funny, sacrilegious and campy. Are they also great? Maybe. Indira A. Abiskaroon (F3) Spring/Break exhibitors have to work with the spaces they get, whether an open area without walls or a corner office. The best entries adapt well, like the curator Indira A. Abiskaroon's presentation of Aiza Ahmed's 'Border Play.' The project focuses on India and Pakistan's Attari-Wagah border, where soldiers from both sides perform a highly choreographed daily ceremony for cheering spectators. (The ceremony was suspended this week, after India's airstrikes on Pakistan.) Ahmed has created a mini-theater for her satire of the spectacle, replete with brushy, life-size caricatures, pink curtains and a red carpet, as well as a video projection. Taraka Larson (B16) In 2017, Taraka Larson spent three and half weeks living in a gallery in Austin, Texas, with a snake. The space was part desert habitat, part throwback to her adolescence, and she wrote songs there. The songs became her first solo album, and the installation morphed into what's here — an imagined, alternative version of her teenage bedroom. Sprawling, handmade and earnest, the project is quintessential Spring/Break, and Larson will be lounging and performing there for the run of the show. When you've been at the fair too long, go hang out and chat, or watch her trippy music videos and let them wash over you.
Techday NZ
06-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Denis Maguire to lead New Relic enterprise sales in Australia
New Relic has appointed Denis Maguire as Senior Director of Enterprise Sales for Australia and New Zealand. Maguire brings over two decades of technology sales experience to his new position, having previously held senior sales roles at several organisations including NetApp and Cisco. He will be based in Sydney and lead a team of established sales professionals. He will also collaborate with senior leaders across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, including Simon Lee, Senior Vice President of Asia Pacific and Japan, and Rob Newell, Group Vice President of Customer Adoption APJ. Simon Lee commented on the significance of the Australian and New Zealand markets for New Relic. "Australia and New Zealand are home to some of our most established customers across Asia Pacific and are markets where we continue to see exceptional growth," said Lee. "With deep experience in the local observability market, Denis understands complex challenges that Australian and New Zealand companies face and is fiercely passionate about helping customers achieve their goals through technology. We couldn't be happier to have Denis join the team." According to the 2024 Observability Forecast, organisations in Australia and New Zealand are deriving substantial benefits from observability solutions. The report found that 79% of surveyed organisations in the region realised USD $5 million or more annually from observability investments. Gartner has predicted that the global observability sector is on track to achieve 12% compound annual growth by 2027, underscoring its growing prominence not only in Australia and New Zealand but also worldwide. Maguire stated his priorities in the new role, noting the alignment of observability with business objectives. "Customers want observability solutions that align with their key business priorities—whether that's streamlining revenue processes, enhancing customer experiences, or driving agility and innovation," Maguire said. "I am extremely excited about the opportunity in front of us and believe that New Relic's intelligent observability platform is uniquely placed to help Australian and New Zealand organisations achieve and exceed their business goals." The appointment comes after a series of updates to the New Relic Intelligent Observability Platform. These include over 20 new innovations and integrations designed to harness artificial intelligence capabilities in order to improve business uptime. Among these developments are integrations with Amazon Q Business, GitHub Copilot for Microsoft Azure, Google Gemini, and ServiceNow. These integrations aim to connect observability data and intelligent recommendations directly to IT teams within businesses, providing comprehensive visibility across the digital technology stack. Additional updates to the platform include the introduction of Transaction 360, Cloud Cost Intelligence, and Streaming Video & Ads Intelligence. These tools are designed to enable businesses to optimise application performance and reliability at scale, supporting organisations of various sizes. New Relic's broader platform strategy is focused on helping businesses prevent interruptions in digital experiences. The company states its platform unifies and analyses telemetry data to provide a clear view across entire digital estates. Businesses using the platform include Adidas Runtastic, American Red Cross, Domino's, GoTo Group, Ryanair, Topgolf, and William Hill.
South China Morning Post
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Study Buddy (Challenger): Actors are regretting licensing their likeness to AI companies
Content provided by British Council Read the following text, and answer questions 1-9 below: [1] South Korean actor Simon Lee was stunned when he saw his likeness being used to promote questionable health cures on TikTok and Instagram, at times as a gynaecologist or a surgeon. He is one of scores of people who licensed their image to artificial intelligence (AI) marketing companies only to end up with the unpleasant surprise of seeing themselves featured in deepfakes, dubious adverts or even political propaganda. 'If it was a nice advertisement, it would've been fine. But it is such an obvious scam,' he said, adding that the terms of his contract prevented him from getting the videos removed. [2] Using one's image this way is cheaper than filming an actor and more realistic than an entirely AI-generated avatar. The technology allows firms to build catalogues of digital models to appear in videos that mainly promote products or services. [3] Solene Vasseur, a digital communications consultant, said this new form of advertising is fast and cheap compared with real-life production. It usually involves half a day's shooting, a green screen and a teleprompter. An actor displays a range of different emotions. Then, AI is used to make an avatar and have it say anything in various languages. [4] To make a video, Synthesia's customers select a face, a language, a tone – such as serious or playful – and insert the script. The whole process comes at a modest price: the ultrabasic version is free, while the pro version costs a few hundred euros. [5] Image-licensing contracts generally offer up to a few thousand euros, depending on duration and how well a person is known. But they can be filled with legal jargon and sometimes abusive clauses, and in their rush to make quick cash, some people have found it hard to fully understand what they were signing up for. [6] British actor and model Connor Yeates, who signed a three-year contract with Synthesia for €4,600 (HK$40,394), also encountered an unpleasant surprise in 2022. At the time, he was sleeping on a friend's sofa, he told British newspaper The Guardian. 'I don't have rich parents and needed the money,' he said. This seemed like a 'good opportunity'. But he then discovered his image had been used to promote Ibrahim Traore, the president of Burkina Faso, who took power in a coup in 2022. [7] While Synthesia has introduced new procedures, other platforms with less stringent rules have appeared on the market. 'The clients I've worked with didn't fully understand what they were agreeing to at the time,' said Alyssa Malchiodi, a lawyer specialising in business law. 'One major red flag is the use of broad and irrevocable language that gives the company full ownership or unrestricted rights to use a creator's voice, image and likeness across any medium,' she said. [8] Contracts often contain clauses considered abusive, Malchiodi added, such as worldwide, unlimited and irrevocable exploitation with no right of withdrawal. 'Technology is evolving faster than courts or legislatures can respond,' she said. Source: Agence France-Presse, April 19 Questions 1. In paragraph 1, why was Simon Lee stunned when he saw his likeness in advertisements? 2. According to paragraph 1, individuals whose images were used in misleading content … A. were unaware they had licensed their images. B. knowingly took part in the creation of deepfakes. C. had granted permission for their image to be used by AI marketing companies. D. all of the above 3. Paragraph 2 describes the … of AI in video production. A. creative limitations B. cost advantage C. ethical implications D. potential misuse 4. What does 'this new form of advertising' in paragraph 3 refer to? 5. Based on paragraph 3, why must an actor portray different emotions? 6. Find a word in paragraph 3 that refers to the digital representation created by AI. 7. What are some concerns about image-licensing contracts, according to paragraph 5? 8. In paragraph 6, why did the writer use the phrase 'sleeping on a friend's sofa' to describe Connor Yeates' situation when he signed the contract with Synthesia? 9. Which of the following best reflects Alyssa Malchiodi's statement, 'Technology is evolving faster than courts or legislatures can respond,' in paragraph 8? A. legal systems are currently ahead of technological advancements in AI B. the ethical debates surrounding AI are preventing legal progress C. legal and political bodies are guiding the trajectory of AI innovation D. the rapid pace of AI development is creating a lag in relevant legal and regulatory measures he method for making avatars involves actors displaying a range of emotions in front of a green screen. From this, AI is used to create a likeness that can say all sorts of things in different languages. Photo: Shutterstock Answers 1. He was stunned because the advertisements used his image in an unexpected way, associating him with questionable health cures that seemed like scams. (accept all similar answers) 2. C 3. B 4. Using artificial intelligence technology to create a digital likeness of models to appear in videos that promote products or services. 5. Actors must display a range of emotions before a green screen to allow AI to create a digital likeness – or avatar – that can say all sorts of things in different 'tones' and languages. (accept all similar answers) 6. avatar 7. They can be filled with legal jargon and sometimes abusive clauses. 8. To illustrate his unstable housing and financial vulnerability when he signed the contract. (accept all reasonable answers) 9. D
