Latest news with #Sweden
Malay Mail
35 minutes ago
- Business
- Malay Mail
Spotify CEO says music's future is human… with a little help from machines
STOCKHOLM, May 29 — Artificial intelligence will encourage more people to create music in the future and is not a threat to the industry, the founder and CEO of streaming giant Spotify said. Artists using machine-learning tools to produce music have given rise to concerns about whether AI-generated music – even entirely fake artists – could one day replace human artists. 'I'm mostly optimistic and mostly very excited because we're just in the beginning of understanding this future of creativity that we're entering,' Daniel Ek told reporters at an Open House at the company's Stockholm headquarters this week. Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter and a recent book, 'Mood Machine', have accused Spotify of tasking a handful of producers to make thousands of songs under fake AI profiles, which the company allegedly pushed onto playlists – saving Spotify money by elbowing out real artists and their higher royalties. Spotify has denied the claims. 'We want real humans to make it as artists and creators, but what is creativity in the future with AI? I don't know. What is music?' Ek said. He recalled that electronic dance music and the DJ culture, and before that, hip hop where people sampled music, were initially not considered 'real music'. Noting that Mozart had to compose entire symphonies in his head, Ek said that 'now, any one of us can probably create a beat in five or 10 minutes'. 'The tools that we now have in our availability are just staggering.' 'Of course there are very scary potential applications for AI, but the more interesting thing for me is that the amount of creativity that creative people will have available at their fingertips is going to be insane,' he said. 'The barriers for creation are becoming lower and lower. More and more people will create,' he said. Ek said he saw the development of AI in the music industry 'much more as an evolution than a revolution'. Spotify had 678 million active users at the end of March, including 268 million paying subscribers. Ek said the company, which turned its first annual profit in 2024, now had 100 million paying subscribers in Europe alone, and hoped to one day see a billion paying users worldwide. 'I don't think there's any doubt in my mind that the potential for Spotify at some point is to eventually get to over a billion paying subscribers.' — AFP
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Spotify CEO says AI is no threat to music industry, but a tool for creatives
Artificial intelligence will encourage more people to create music in the future and is not a threat to the industry, the founder and CEO of streaming giant Spotify said. Advertisement Artists using machine-learning tools to produce music have given rise to concerns about whether AI-generated music – even entirely fake artists – could one day replace human artists. 'I'm mostly optimistic and mostly very excited because we're just in the beginning of understanding this future of creativity that we're entering,' Daniel Ek said at an open house at the company's headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, this week. Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter and a recent book, Mood Machine, have accused Spotify of tasking a handful of producers to make thousands of songs under fake AI profiles, which the company allegedly pushed onto playlists – saving Spotify money by elbowing out real artists and their higher royalties. Spotify has been accused of filling playlists with AI-generated music. Photo: Reuters Spotify has denied the claims. Advertisement
New York Times
7 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
The Milliner Behind TV's Wildest Hats
Décor That Showcases Alekos Fassianos's Artwork Alekos Fassianos is often called the Picasso of Greece because his colorful work provokes the same type of instant recognition. Fassianos's visual vocabulary of saints (his grandfather was a parish priest in Athens), sailors and birds conjures images of his homeland. Deeply beloved in Greece, Fassianos's art has appeared in top museums but also in product partnerships, such as on limited-edition glass water bottles and books he designed for Olympic Airlines. Now, three years after the artist's death, his estate is partnering with Svenskt Tenn, the Swedish interior design company, to create a limited-edition collection of home décor. According to Victoria Fassianou, Alekos's daughter and the founding director of the Alekos Fassianos Estate and Museum, it's a natural fit. 'My father was a multifaceted artist,' she says. 'Apart from working on a canvas, paper or different materials, he was really passionate about creating everything he lived in, from his clothes to his furniture.' The items in this collection include table linens featuring Fassianos's iconic bird — a symbol of escape, according to the artist — and cushions showing his windswept profile portraits. All are available online starting June 5 as well as at Svenskt Tenn's Stockholm flagship, which is hosting an exhibition bringing together the work of Fassianos and Josef Frank, the Austrian-born architect and designer, from June 5 through Aug. 27. To go deeper into Fassianos's world, visit the Alekos Fassianos Museum in Athens, or the Alekos Fassianos Atelier on the Cycladic island of Kea, open June 5 through Sept. 14. From $48, A Maker of Fantastical Hats Finds New Fans 'When I made the Head in the Clouds hat, I was pretty sure not one single person would ever buy it,' says the Berlin-based artist and milliner Maryam Keyhani, referring to a design that resembles a half-filled pouf constructed from neoprene or linen. But last November, Sarah Jessica Parker was photographed in the billowy piece while filming Season 3 of 'And Just Like That …,' which debuts this week on HBO. 'The stylist of the show, Danny Santiago, had pulled a few hats from me a few months before, but I had almost forgotten about it,' says Keyhani, who's been designing her surrealist headpieces (others look like elaborate meringues or many-tiered cakes) since 2015. Now, the cloud hat is one of her best-selling designs. Keyhani's hats will also feature in Lena Dunham's upcoming Netflix show, 'Too Much.' Molly Rogers, a fashion stylist who worked with Santiago on 'And Just Like That …,' theorizes that Keyhani's hats are having a moment because of their unabashed eccentricity. 'It is so refreshing to work with someone who makes things purely to make herself and others happy.' From $480, Hotel Souvenirs You Can Use All Summer Four years ago, the Los Angeles-based Frame launched a collaboration with the Ritz hotel in Paris that upended the hospitality and fashion industries: Why buy a gift shop tchotchke or basic branded merch when you could rep a destination you love (or even hope to visit) in a cheekier, more stylish way? Frame's Ritz range, featuring cashmere crew necks and some denim, is in its fourth iteration, and now several other niche fashion companies are creating similar programs, many of which are ideal for summer travel season. The Swedish line CDLP, known for its swimwear and other off-duty essentials, has just introduced several pieces in tandem with Passalacqua, the hotel on Lake Como, in Italy, including airy pool shirt-and-short sets and if-you-know-you-know graphic tees, while the French swimwear brand Vilebrequin is working with St. Regis internationally on fun striped and patterned trunks, as well as other offerings. And down at Rosewood Mayakoba, the popular resort a half-hour or so south of Cancun, Mexico, there's a new collection (coming June 15) of customizable hats and wooden beach bats — for playing frescobal, the racket sport popular along Brazilian coasts — made with the Rio de Janeiro-based Frescobal Carioca. Unlike most souvenirs, these are ones you'll actually want to wear and use long after your vacation's over. Sherrie Levine's Early Work, on View in Aspen The postmodernist artist Sherrie Levine's work is rich with reference and questions about originality and authorship. A new exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum, in Colorado, focuses on the first 11 years of Levine's wide-ranging career, beginning with 'Shoe Sale' (1977), a performative piece that involved selling 75 small black shoes for $2 a pair out of a SoHo storefront in New York. For Levine, it came from an interest in the ready-made — she would later create a bronze-cast homage to Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal — and a belief that 'a shoe is the ultimate fetish object,' as she said in a 1994 interview. The Aspen exhibition's curator, Scott Portnoy, has included one pair of those original shoes, on loan from a private collection, in the show. Also on view is Levine's 'President Collage: 6' (1979), in which a model's face pouts out from a silhouette of George Washington, and the entirety of her 1981 series 'After Walker Evans,' where Levine captured reproductions of Evans's Depression-era images. This compilation of early work, Portnoy says, is 'extreme and radical and beautiful and has never really been seen together.' The show doesn't attempt to be a comprehensive retrospective, instead aiming to focus the viewer on one of Levine's most potent periods. 'Sherrie Levine: 1977-1988' will be on view from June 6 through Sept. 29, A Centuries-Old Danish Watch Brand Gets a Revival The second-generation Danish watchmaker Urban Jürgensen was a prodigious designer throughout the early 1800s, producing over 700 watches in his native Copenhagen, as well as technological innovations like marine chronometers and bimetallic thermometers, which earned him a spot in Denmark's Royal Academy of Sciences. The Finnish-born watchmaker Kari Voutilainen, one of two new CEOs of the company that bears Urban Jürgensen's name, notes that Jürgensen 'achieved all this while working in Denmark, far from the influence of Paris or other watchmaking centers.' Now, over 250 years after Jürgensen's father founded the brand under the name Larpent & Jürgensen, the house is debuting three new watches, as well as a new logo inspired by the calligraphy on a pocket watch designed by Jürgensen himself. Though the company is now based in Switzerland, the essentialist philosophy of Scandinavian design is central to its new releases, which feature clean dials with minimal ornamentation. Details like patches of guillochage — an engraving technique that results in a luminous effect — and hand-applied numbers reveal hours of painstaking handiwork. The new designs include a 39 mm watch set in a platinum case on an alligator strap with calfskin lining, as well as a version with a midnight blue dial that looks particularly elegant against its rose gold case. Urban Jürgensen's other CEO, Alex Rosenfield, hopes that, along with the streamlined designs, customers will embrace the Danish idea of hygge, a term that generally means a state of contentment or well-being, or an appreciation of one's time. Urban Jürgensen's new watches will be released on June 5, price on request,
Health Line
7 hours ago
- Health
- Health Line
Does Crohn's Disease Affect Fertility?
More studies are needed to better understand Crohn's effects on fertility and reproductive health. Here's what we know so far. People with Crohn's disease may be concerned about how their condition might affect their fertility or their ability to conceive children. Many people who have Crohn's are able to safely conceive. Research to understand how Crohn's affects fertility is still ongoing. What the research says Inflammation, nutritional deficiencies, certain medications, and surgery can all impact your fertility and sexual health when you have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Women who have IBD (including Crohn's and ulcerative colitis) have similar fertility rates as women who do not, according to a 2021 review of medical literature. Women with IBD do have a higher risk of complications, such as preterm delivery and cesarean delivery. Women who have Crohn's may have slightly lower fertility rates than the general population, according to a 2021 Swedish study. In another 2021 review, women with Crohn's disease were found to have infertility rates of 3% to 14%. This is around the same as the infertility rates of women without Crohn's, which range from 2.4% to 14%. Many researchers currently believe that men who have well-managed Crohn's disease have the same fertility rates as the general population (or people without IBD). The exception to this might be those taking certain types of Crohn's medication. The medication sulfasalazine is often used for treating Crohn's disease. It can temporarily reduce sperm count and the viability of the sperm that's produced. It can take several months for sperm to return to healthy levels after sulfasalazine treatment. A note on gender and sex terminology Most research surrounding fertility and IBD separates participants into male and female sex categories and uses gender and sex terminology interchangeably. Gender and sex are not the same, and both occur on a spectrum. In summarizing scientific articles or studies for our readers, we use their language to preserve intent and accuracy. However, Healthline acknowledges that medical research often doesn't represent everyone equally, and we should all strive toward more inclusive practices. People of all sexes can have IBD, including Crohn's disease, and may also experience fertility and sexual health effects. Finding a doctor you trust and receiving an individualized approach to your care is essential. Potential causes of fertility issues in IBD There's no single component of IBD that definitively impacts fertility. Many people with IBD will have little to no effects on fertility or libido. However, there are a variety of factors that, separately or together, may become issues for someone with IBD trying to conceive children. Let's look at some common concerns and research findings. Crohn's and getting pregnant Women with Crohn's may have difficulty getting pregnant after colon resection surgery. This type of surgery may sometimes impact reproductive organs and leave scar tissue in the area. There's also concern that pelvic inflammation from unmanaged Crohn's could decrease the chances of conceiving. Crohn's and being pregnant There's a chance Crohn's may flare during pregnancy, even if you were in remission when you got pregnant. This is why it's essential to have active treatment for your IBD during pregnancy and work with your doctor to safely address any symptom flare-ups should they arise. Crohn's and sperm count A 2019 review of 14 studies found that quality studies on how all types of IBD affect male fertility are lacking. From what we do know, it seems most people with Crohn's have no issue with having levels of healthy, viable sperm. Medications for Crohn's, especially sulfasalazine, can cause a temporary reduction in sperm quality and sperm count. Switching to a different medication for several months typically solves this issue. Crohn's and choosing to be child-free Some people with Crohn's may view their condition as an obstacle to pregnancy. They may avoid trying to conceive children out of concern for their health. Medical literature points to widespread misconceptions about Crohn's and fertility as part of the reason many people with Crohn's forego having children. While there's research suggesting IBD can affect fertility and reproductive health, many people with Crohn's are able to have healthy, safe pregnancies. Managing Crohn's symptoms effectively is key. It's important to keep in mind that not everyone wants children. Some people may make the personal decision to be child-free due in part to their Crohn's disease, or completely irrespective of it. Your sexual and reproductive health is no one's business but your own. While everyone deserves access to the information and care surrounding fertility that they need, no one should face judgment for the decisions they make regarding their sexual and reproductive health.
The Sun
9 hours ago
- Business
- The Sun
Sabrina Carpenter set for huge role in latest star-studded sequel to $1bn Hollywood blockbuster
SABRINA Carpenter is being eyed up for a starring role in Mamma Mia 3. The chart-topping singer, 26, is wanted to feature in the upcoming feel-good film. 5 5 Producer Judy Craymer, who had the idea for the original stage show — and has finished a script for a third movie — said: 'She'd be a goddess or some relation who would look very much like Meryl Streep.' Speaking about the project, 67-year-old Judy told Hollywood news site Deadline: 'Well, we know what we want to do with the movie, and it will happen. 'And I mean, we brought together this amazing group of movie stars that were all connected through it, and huge friendships evolved.' The first film came out in 2008 and had an all-star cast, including Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. It was adapted from the 1999 West End musical — made up of Abba hits. The original movie and 2018 sequel Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again have made more than $1billion at the box office. Espresso singer Sabrina is known to be a big Abba fan and has covered some of their songs on her Short n' Sweet tour. She also has cats called Benny and Björn — and last month met the real Björn Ulvaeus, 80, in Stockholm. Amanda Seyfried, 39, who plays Sophie the films, previously said she could see Sabrina playing her daughter, despite an age gap of just 13 years. She said: 'Old age make-up for me. 'If Sabrina Carpenter wants to play my daughter, I'll make it happen. It's fine. I'm a big fan.' 5 5
