Latest news with #SiobhanThompson
Forbes
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Cloudward Ho! Takes The New Dimension 20 Season On A 'Damn Adventure'
Spoiler warning: the following article contains light spoilers for the first episode of Cloudward Ho! The new season of Dimension 20 takes to the skies this week. Cloudward Ho! leans into a steampunk vibe full of steam powered gadgets, airships and tomb raiding. The opening scene shows a cast prepping for a great adventure in a newsreel style segment that introduces the characters. Then everything changes when the story jumps forward and we find that many of those bright and shining faces are now weathered by time and failure. Will the old heroes heed the call to adventure and bring the new generation of heroes with them? We spoke with Brennan Lee Mulligan, Ally Beardsley and Siobhan Thompson about their latest actual play series. The first episode sets up a search for a lost continent as well as a chance to see adventurers who are not all at the start of their adventuring career. It offers a chance to look at the bright side and the darker elements of the steampunk genre. The cast was excited to try something new. 'I always approach the cast,' said Mulligan, 'usually with seven to ten ideas that I'm excited about, or genres that we haven't explored, or things that are interesting to me. Of that list of seven to ten a couple will hang around and morph for the next time we're planning a season. Some of them will become Side Quests or other projects. The wonderful part of our core seasons is that it's so clear what the mission brief is. What are my players psyched to do? We've just come off of Junior Year and Neverafter. We just did a sequel season. Let's do something brand new. The last thing we did was horror, darker themed. Let's do capital-A Adventure. Something pulpy and brightly saturated. We want new locations, thrills and battles. Let's go on a damn adventure.' 'Brennan sent us a huge lore document that was just about the world,' said Thompson. 'It was about the vibes of the different continents, islands, towns and cities. Everyone is going to be connected to the professor. We all came in with a few different ideas. We all sat in Brennan's office and discussed what the best build of the party is. And then almost all of us went away and came back with 'actually, I don't want to do that, I want to do something else.'' 'I like that this felt kind of blank slate,' said Beardsley. 'We're doing steampunk, which is hilarious and there are a million ways we could go. It could be Indiana Jones, it could be Miyazaki. One of my favorite things about this specific group of seven people is where everyone's brains go. Sure, we're doing old wooden ships and air travel but then we get Brennan's brain with different countries that he's created with their warped corruption that happens at a government level. Everyone's telling extremely sophisticated stories. I cannot wait to see jadedness come up against up-and-coming adventure hungry people. My character had read all of their books and was ready to meet her heroes. Should you meet your heroes?' While the adventure is grand, the drama is personal. Some of the characters are disillusioned with the choices they've made in previous expeditions. Others have been raised on the legends spread by everything from their own legacies to the trashy pulp novels that stretched the truth of their experiences. 'It was a conscious choice to be related [to] the next generation,' said Beardsly. 'With the way the first episode tees everything up to the rug pull moment where we are young adventurers and are going to meet our heroes. When we do they are all washed up, they are completely disillusioned with adventuring and they don't like what they do. That was a very fun misdirect that we wanted to set up with these two factions where they meet in the middle with a love of adventure.' 'In the world building,' said Mulligan, 'we found this natural shape where the lore touched character creation and people's character ideas. Our aeronaunts are eccentrics and criminals. The advent of aviation in this world was something for crackpots and dreamers at the edge of society to do. But, we watch as it changes and moves from pure science and experiment to being sucked up by the wheels of industry. That occurs over a period of time that creates this interesting generational gap. Who was doing this when it was an expressive, cutting edge creative science thing? Who's doing it now? The PCs needed to straddle a divide. The people who began this are now older. Who are the PCs that are one the younger side of that divide?' 'First and foremost,' said Thompson, 'it's just so much fun to go on a rollicking adventure. That is what this season is. Wish fulfillment makes it sound trite but it's so delightful. Everything that Brennan and the art department has come up with. It has the vibe of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is my favorite Narnia book or The Odyssey. You're finding a whole new world, a whole new civilization, a whole new way of thinking and feeling things that opens your eyes and opens your heart. That felt delightful, like something we haven't really done.' Cloudward Ho! begin on June 4th, 2025 streaming exclusively on Dropout. New Dimension 20 episodes debut every Wednesday throughout the summer.
Associated Press
02-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
1GLOBAL: Message+ Technology for Financial Institutions Ensures Compliance in SMS and WhatsApp Communications
AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 2, 2025-- 1GLOBAL, a technology-driven global mobile communications provider, has unveiled its new Message+ service. It extends the company's industry-leading capturing and recording solutions for financial compliance purposes to text and social communication platforms. Message+ allows investment banks to communicate with their clients across multiple platforms and devices in an integrated, secure and compliant environment. It empowers financial institutions navigating an increasingly complex legal landscape to advance their client-centric strategy while ensuring seamless regulatory compliance. 1GLOBAL's capturing and recording technology is trusted by seven of the world's 10 top investment banks. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: Message+ is an integrated, trusted communication tool from 1GLOBAL that provides customizable capture options for SMS and WhatsApp communication. The challenge Regulatory requirements for communication capture and archiving present significant hurdles for financial institutions across the globe. Existing and emerging regulation for text and social messaging communications imposes heavy fines for non-compliance. At the same time, clients expect financial institutions to engage with them across diverse messaging platforms and multiple devices. The widespread adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies further complicates consistent recording and integration within the financial sector's stringent compliance framework. The solution The 1GLOBAL Message+ platform effectively addresses these challenges. Employees can conduct SMS- and WhatsApp-based communications with clients through Microsoft Teams, enabling seamless compliant communication workflows while maintaining uninterrupted client contact—even in locations where mobile phone usage is restricted, such as trading floors. Message+ also ensures the comprehensive integration of existing Microsoft communications infrastructure, supporting operational continuity and multi-device accessibility. ' Message+ is 1GLOBAL's newest innovation, introducing enhanced flexibility, scalability and unified communication designed specifically for regulatory compliance,' said Siobhan Thompson, Head of 1GLOBAL Compliance. ' As an integrated, trusted communication tool, Message+ provides customizable capture options for SMS and WhatsApp communication and adapts to the unique compliance needs of each organization. Capturing such communications is a vital part of MiFID II, along with emerging regulations on the horizon from the Australian financial regulator, ASIC.' About 1GLOBAL: Leading Digital Transformation in Telecommunications 1GLOBAL is a technology-driven global mobile communications provider dedicated to empowering enterprises worldwide to unlock the full growth potential of mobile connectivity. With a best-in-class telecom technology platform, a comprehensive suite of globally viable regulatory licenses, and privileged access to the telecom wholesale market, 1GLOBAL is uniquely positioned to deliver seamless compliance and connectivity solutions. Serving the world's leading banks, corporations, and digital-first businesses—including neo-banks, travel companies, and payment service providers—1GLOBAL connects over 43 million devices globally. With 2024 full-year revenue exceeding US$100 million, 1GLOBAL is a profitable business generating significant cash flows to fund its ongoing investments in infrastructure, transformation, and growth. 2024 saw major client wins and marked 1GLOBAL's evolution from a multi-market telecommunication provider to a global technology-driven mobile connectivity powerhouse. Established in 2022 by experienced tech founders and entrepreneurs Hakan Koç and Pyrros Koussios, 1GLOBAL is a European technology leader driving digital transformation in the global telecommunications market. It operates as a fully regulated Mobile Virtual Network Operator ('MVNO') in nine countries and as a regulated telecommunications operator in an additional 31 countries. Headquartered in the Netherlands, with world-class R&D hubs in Lisbon, Berlin, and São Paulo, 1GLOBAL employs over 400 experts across 13 countries. SOURCE: 1GLOBAL Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 04/02/2025 08:20 AM/DISC: 04/02/2025 08:19 AM
