Latest news with #Walkman
The Hindu
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Moonwalk movie review: A heartfelt tribute to the breakdancing subculture
Moonwalk (Malayalam) Starring: Anunath V.P., Sujith Prapanchan, Sreekanth Murali, Sanjana Doss, Meenakshi Raveendran, Rishi Kainikkara, Arjun Manilal Direction: Vinod A.K. Storyline: A group of youth take up breakdancing, but the ride ahead is filled with obstacles Runtime: 118 minutes Evoking a time period is a challenge of a lesser order as opposed to effectively transporting the audience to that period. A few carefully chosen props might be enough to pull off the former, while the latter involves the arduous task of authentically capturing the zeitgeist of that time and hitting all the right notes to make it believable for those who might have lived through those times. In Moonwalk, debutant filmmaker Vinod A.K. makes a bold attempt for the latter and lands stylishly on his toes, evoking the iconic dance move of the early 1990s. The world that he recreates is the early 1990s in the coastal and rural belts of Thiruvananthapuram or rather more specifically, the emergence of a breakdancing subculture among groups of youths during that period. Of course, there are the grainy VHS tape visuals, Walkman, STD booths, disco-inspired costumes, frizzy long hair, Michael Jackson fanhood and every other nostalgia-evoking material from those times, but all of these are woven organically into a straight-forward, simple plot that holds an emotional pull. Part of Moonwalk's zestful appeal rests with its fresh cast of young performers, many of whom were not probably born during the period in which the film is set. Yet, that does not come as a barrier for them in convincingly portraying the demeanour of the youths of that period. Prasanth Pillai's groovy disco-synth soundtrack which goes in step with Ansar Shah's cinematography sets the rhythm for the film quite early on, managing to hook the audience and carrying them along even through the mundane moments. He comes up with an era-evoking soundtrack that lends character, colour, and an irresistible energy to the film. The lack of a major, earth-shattering conflict in the lives of these youths can be held against the film, but they do go through enough experiences for their age, from picking up avoidable fights due to their hot-headedness to facing parental pressures owing to their chosen art and the staple physical makeovers that goes with it. The romances are fleeting affairs that fills the time between their dance practises and performances, but even these are imbued with some character like the personally chosen mix-tape that one of them gifts the other. Vinod A.K., who has written the screenplay with Mathew Varghese and Sunil Gopalakrishnan, also plays with some interesting juxtapositions between rural and urban youth as well as the class differences that comes into play during interactions between them as well as with the police force. The way some of the working class characters blend their new-found dance moves to their jobs is a delight. The film hits its high towards the end with a solo dance performance that really lifts it when it appeared to sag a bit. The character arc of the dancer also ends up as one of the highlights of the film. In a way, the character's struggles are reflective of the challenges in bringing the film to the theatres after it remained without any takers for some years. Moonwalk is a heartfelt tribute to a time period and to the breakdancing subculture that ruled the campuses and street venues during that time. Moonwalk is currently running in cinemas.
The Courier
24-05-2025
- Business
- The Courier
How dairy boss Robert Graham grew Stirling business from 7 milk vans to £155m turnover
The title of managing director doesn't sit comfortably with Stirlingshire dairy boss Robert Graham. The 54-year-old heads up his multi-million-pound third-generation family firm but he refuses to see himself as 'corporate'. 'We are a family business that started with my grandfather milking cows by hand. That is what we are all about,' Robert is keen to stress. 'I hate titles like managing director and CEO, I grew up driving tractors in my school holidays.' Graham's the Family Dairy, based in Bridge of Allan, is now Scotland's largest independent dairy, shipping products around the world. Last year, its turnover was more than £155 million – with dozens of products from butter and cottage cheese to kefir and protein ice cream. However, it began as a herd of just 12 Friesian cows in 1939. In 1947 – after producing milk to feed the troops during WW2 – Robert's grandfather, Robert Graham, bought his first delivery van. His father, also Robert Graham, was instrumental in expanding production and by the 1960s, R. Graham & Son was supplying homes and shops in the Stirling area with pasteurised milk. Born in 1970, Robert Jnr enjoyed a 'wonderful childhood' on Airthrey Kerse Farm. 'I have very fond memories of being a kid. I grew up feeling happy and safe,' he said. 'My dad worked very hard and was out of the house before dawn but we always had dinner together at 5pm – me, my older sister Carol, mum and dad. 'In the winter we would help with lambing and in the summer we would help with the hay. 'I loved driving the tractor in my teens, listening to Depeche Mode and Madonna on my Walkman. Life was simpler then.' He continued: 'I was fairly privileged, yes, but also pretty normal. 'My friends and I were always out cycling to the local ice cream shop and played tennis, hockey and football.' Robert went to Beaconhurst independent school in Bridge of Allan for his primary education, before attending Morrison's Academy in Crieff. He excelled in history and mathematics at school but was less fond of English, he recalls. While he had a close group of friends, he admits he 'wasn't as popular as Ewan McGregor' in the year below, who was 'too cool for me'. On finishing school, Robert secured a place at Heriot Watt University to study accountancy and finance. He had initially planned to move to London after graduating to join an investment firm in the City, but found himself longing to come home. He said: 'There had been no plan in place for me to join the family business at that point. 'It was certainly a shock for my parents when I came back the summer after university and asked my dad to get involved. 'I had ideas about things that could be done to move the business forward and wanted to give my energy to our company. 'There were also some Halcyon memories of Bridge of Allan, I think.' Robert recalls 'butting heads' with his father at first – and struggled with the 4am starts. But his ideas started to bear fruit and the dairy began expanding. He continued: 'When I came on board, properly, we had about seven vans and only delivered in Stirling. 'I remember writing a list of things we should do on a piece of paper. 'My dad thought it was ridiculous at the time… but we have now done all of the things on that list from more than 30 years ago. 'We both wanted the business to grow and after butting heads at first we started to work really well together. 'When we first made it to £1m turnover we thought that was amazing and then quite quickly we were at £2.5m.' In the 1990s, Graham's expanded its delivery area beyond Stirling to Falkirk, then Perth and Dunfermline, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Robert Jnr became managing director in 1996 and in 1999 the business won its first supermarket contract. In 2005, now a household name, Graham's the Family Dairy reported a £22m turnover and started to sell more than just milk. 'It was then we really started to upscale,' Robert recalls. 'We expanded into butter and Jersey milk and then, in 2010, we started making yoghurt. 'Looking back, I am very proud of everything the team achieved to build the business.' In recent years, thanks in part to a 'dairy renaissance' – as Robert calls it – sales have rocketed for Graham's. Growing numbers of consumers have turned their back on processed oat and nut milks in favour of high-protein, natural foods. The volume of Graham's cottage cheese sold has increased by an astonishing 80% year-on-year – the equivalent of two million extra kilograms of cottage cheese. The Stirlingshire firm, which has its own prize Jersey herd at Mains of Boquhan near Kippen, now works with 90 milk producers across the country. 'Remarkably, our protein pouches are now bigger than our conventional milk business – and milk is what our whole business was built on. '10 years ago, butter our second biggest line but now, despite still selling well, it's no longer one of our top eight products. 'We are fortunate to be in product categories that are going through explosive growth just now. 'Fats are no longer demonised and people are looking for high-quality, high-protein natural foods. 'The story and provenance of our brand is also very important to our customers.' Despite growing revenue, Graham's the Family Dairy has not been immune to energy price and national insurance hikes. 2023 saw it suffer its first operating loss of £200,000 but last year it was back in £4.5m profit. Robert is confident that 2025 will see a further increase but admits 'it has been very tough'. Fewer than 50% of Graham's sales are now Scottish. The vast majority of the remaining sales come from south of the border but the products are also popular in Ireland. In recent years, Graham's now exports to a number of Arab nations and Caribbean islands. Growing the brand internationally is something Robert hopes to continue, but he is also keen to make the most of the time he isn't at work. The father-of-three says he has always tried to do as much as he can for his children – teenagers Holly and Douglas and seven-year-old Charlie. Being able to attend each of Holly's school hockey matches is something he is immensely proud of, and he provides 'dad's taxi service' whenever he is called upon. A keen hill runner, who regularly climbs nearby Dumyat at speed, he is also determined to keep his fitness up. 'One of the perks of having a family business should be that you are able to make time for your own family,' Robert reflects. 'I live a few minutes from the farm and am across most things but I also work with a great team of people – including my 84-year-old dad and my sister Carol – who I trust to get things done.'
Nylon
19-05-2025
- Nylon
Sony unveils latest flagship smartphone — the Xperia 1 VII
Designed in collaboration with the engineers behind Sony's Alpha digital cameras, Walkman portable audio players and BRAVIA televisions, the Xperia 1 VII is the Japanese tech brand's latest flagship smartphone that incorporates all the cutting-edge technologies found in their range of iconic devices. Image courtesy of Sony. AI technologies that were cultivated within these various fields have now been optimised for Xperia, enhancing the user experience, and offering a completely new camera experience that will allow you to capture stable and framed composition videos even when you're not looking at the shooting screen. Under bright conditions, your viewing experience on the Xperia 1 VII is improved with an additional light sensor that has been added to the back of the device, enabling you to adjust the brightness and colour that best suits your condition. Image courtesy of Sony. Whether you're outside or indoors in dim lighting, the smartphone accurately recognises the surrounding brightness and adjusts to the optimal brightness, colour gamut, and colour temperature for the environment. There's even a 'Sunlight Vision' feature which enhances visibility under direct sunlight to provide you with a comfortable viewing experience. Equipped with Qualcomm's latest chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, NPU, CPU and GPU have been each been improved by over 40% to deliver fast AI processing during photo or video taking and high-performance gaming environments while reducing battery consumption. Image courtesy of Sony. The Xperia 1 VII has three rear cameras that feature a new 16mm ultra wide-angle lens, equipped with a larger 48MP 1/1.56-inch sensor that is about 2.1 times larger than its predecessor. This means that you will be able to get clear night shots just like those of full-frame cameras, with low noise and wide dynamic range. You also get minimal distortion in your photos with the ability to capture close-up shots from about 5cm away for incredible macro photography. Built with the 'Exmor T for mobile' image sensor, you get excellent low-light performance as well as the ability to capture high-quality footage with bright and clear video, even if you are cropping the image using AI Camerawork and Auto Framing. At a concert and want to capture photos from a distance? You can with the Xperia 1 VII and its telephoto lens which provides an optical zoom from 85mm to 170mm, allowing for high-resolution images of distant subjects. Image courtesy of Sony. With the new AI Camerawork, you can now create pro level stable and framed videos while keeping your subject fixed in the centre of composition even in situations where you might be walking around while filming a moving subject. This is made possible with the device's powerful image stabilisation and posture estimation technology that ensures your subject's relative position remain consistent for a professional-looking video. Auto Framing, on the other hand, uses AI to track your subject and automatically crops the shot to centre it on your screen. This essentially means that you just need to point the camera roughly at your moving subject and the device will automatically capture it without you having to chase it yourself. Incorporated with new components known for their excellence in Walkman devices, the Xperia 1 VII features significantly enhanced sound quality when you connect wired headphones, and also taps on a high-quality enhancement technology, the 'DSEE Ultimate', that utilises AI enabling so that compressed streaming audio sources can be enjoyed with immersive, high-quality sound when you connect wirelessly.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
All about the abandoned Apollo capsule in 'The Last of Us' (Season 2, Episode 6)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Whether you are a fan of space exploration history or of the game on which the series is based, "The Last of Us" has just delivered a real blast from the past. In the penultimate episode of the second season, which premiered Sunday night (May 18) on HBO Max, the story briefly visits the Wyoming Museum of Science and History. Warning: If you have not yet watched Season 2, Episode 6 of "The Last of Us," you may want to stop reading here, as there are minor spoilers ahead. If you have never seen the series or played the game, for the purposes of this article you only need to know that it is about Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened survivor of a global pandemic that has destroyed civilization, and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a teenage girl who Joel has taken charge of and who may be humanity's last hope. As part of the episode, Joel is shown surprising Ellie with a visit to the museum. Inside, they enter the space and astronomy hall to Ellie's delight (her interest in flight and what it represents — escape and being able to control her own destiny — is a recurring theme in both the game and the television adaptation). The two find a working, floor-to-ceiling solar system orrery, historic spacesuits on display and, at the center of the main hall, an Apollo command module. "Is it real?" asks Ellie, almost in a whisper. "It is real," replies Joel. "That one went up and back, Apollo 15 in 1971." After picking out a helmet to wear (the type worn by Gemini astronauts), Ellie climbs into the capsule, followed by Joel, who closes the hatch behind him. Ellie immediately starts flicking switches, making sound effects and calling out commands to accompany each click. Joel then surprises her with a tape cassette. "Happy birthday, kiddo," he says. "This is something that took a mighty effort to find. Play it." Ellie inserts the cassette into her Walkman and, following Joel's suggestion, closes her eyes as the audio begins to play. "Thirty seconds and counting," says a man's voice. "The astronauts report it feels good. T-minus 25 seconds..."What Ellie (and those watching the episode) are listening to is the actual audio of NASA public affairs officer Jack King counting down to the launch of Apollo 11, the first mission to land humans on the moon, on July 16, 1969. As King continues to narrate, the sounds of the spacecraft come alive and the lights grow dim. At nine seconds and "ignition sequence start," Ellie starts to rattle side to side in her seat. The light from the engines igniting pours through the window, lighting up her face as she begins to shake more rapidly. "Liftoff, we have a liftoff, 32 minutes past the hour..." The sound and motion of the launch are soon replaced by the serenity of what Ellie imagines it is like being in space. The light from the sun dances across her face until she slips back into reality with a wide smile. End scene. The real Apollo 15 command module, which its crew named "Endeavour," is on display today at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, and, unlike the spacecraft in the show, it is exhibited without its interior control panels and equipment. It also does not have vines growing all over it. Otherwise, the two might be twins. Well, almost. "Interestingly, it was 110% of the real thing. We bumped it up just slightly [in size] for all sorts of reasons," said Don Macaulay, the production designer for this season of "The Last of Us," in an interview with "We tried to stick pretty true to the game in terms of how we shot that and how it was lit. That is so much easier to do in a digital set than on a real set." The scene in the series was directly inspired by a segment in "The Last of Us Part II," a game released for Sony's PlayStation 4 in 2020. To achieve the desired look, Macaulay and his team began with a softball-sized, 3D-printed model of the command module that they used to work out what pieces they needed to be removable so they could insert cameras and lighting. They then advanced to a full-scale foam version, so they could test the lighting and views. "And then, yeah, we built a complete interior and exterior," said Macaulay. "We shot them separately, but it was all one set. We took the module to a separate stage to shoot the interior, and then we brought it back to the museum to shoot the exterior of it, but it was all one set." In addition to having the game, Macaulay also referenced the drawings and diagrams of the command module that NASA has posted online. He took the same care when recreating the orrery from the game, which worked just as shown. (He admitted, though, that he had to look up the word "orrery" when he first found out he had to build one; Macaulay has led the production for a number of science fiction projects ["Tomorrowland", "Star Trek Beyond"], but this was his first to be based on real space exploration and astronomy.) The spacesuits were rented from a prop house. Macaulay wanted to mach the look of the game, so he also arranged for a full-scale lunar rover, a display of scale rockets and built a model of the moon, although only the latter made the final cut. "It's one of those things where we provided a ton and then, just based on how it's shot and edited, some of it doesn't make it on screen. In fact, we built and shot an entire dinosaur exhibit [inside the museum] and it didn't make it into the show," he told collectSPACE. The television series often veers far from what was seen in the game, which is why, Macaulay said, sets like the space museum were so important to get right. "It's so iconic in the game that we do try to be fairly true to it. I mean, we can never take the [virtual] models they used in the game and just build from them. Their sets are usually way over scaled, and we build sets specifically for the action required. So getting the essence of the set is more important in this case," he said. "There was the iconic image of [Joel and Ellie[ standing in front of the capsule, so, that was something — and the capsule itself — we tried to replicate as best we could," said Macaulay. Related stories: — The Apollo Program: How NASA sent astronauts to the moon — The best sci-fi TV shows of all time — Apollo 15: The moon buggy debuts So that leads up to an obvious question: After all of that attention to detail and care to get the look just right, what becomes of a command module that was abandoned in the context of the show's (and game's) plot, and now is no longer needed in terms of the production of the show? "We still have it," said Macaulay. "I don't know if there's a lot of demand, but someone could want it for their prop house, or maybe HBO Max will keep it for use on some other show down the line." Follow on Facebook and on X at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
Engadget
16-05-2025
- Engadget
The Morning After: Sony's best headphones keep getting better
When it comes to headphones, we can't shut up about Sony's top-tier buds and over-the-head options. In each iteration, the company adds new features, develops better technology and hones its strengths in portable audio, and three years on from the WH-1000XM5, the sixth-gen model does it yet again. Sony's overhauled its flagship headphones in all the right ways. The WH-1000XM6 sound better, with improved active noise cancellation and convenient features that match the best-sounding and the most feature-packed rivals. You should definitely check out Billy Steele's full review. The headphones' only major challenge remains a non-clunky naming convention. — Mat Smith Get Engadget's newsletter delivered direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! As spoiled by Google itself, Android is getting a major visual refresh. Dubbed Material 3 Expressive, it's the latest evolution of the Material You design, adding customizable color swatches and, I guess, spicier fonts. Google says the Quick Settings menu can now fit more actions, and there is an addition of live-updating notifications, similar to Apple's Live Activities. In Android 16 (and even Wear OS 6), expect more animation between menus and items, while notifications will jiggle and offer haptic responses to your touch. Google is basing a lot of these tweaks on research: The company claims up to 87 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds prefer expressive design — a term hard to define. There's a lengthy post on Google's design blog if you want to get into all that. Continue reading. Sony has now folded in Hi-Fi sound from its Walkman series, as well as the company's Bravia screen tech and Alpha camera smarts. The Xperia 1 VII has launched quietly with an array of new audio features, including high-end Walkman components. Unlike other smartphone makers, Sony has kept its headphone jack and improved wired sound via a premium-grade integrated circuit. The Xperia 1 VII supports Sony's DSEE Ultimate AI sound upscaling technology, along with 360 Reality audio or Dolby Atmos formats. The latest Xperia also features a new 48-megapixel ultrawide camera with a good-sized 1/1.56-inch sensor, significantly improving the specs of the Xperia 1 VI's ultrawide. That's on top of the main 48MP 1/1.35-inch 24mm camera and a 12MP telephoto zoom. Sony is also trying to differentiate its smartphones through camera features, with improved Bokeh mode, real-time tracking, and even real-time eye autofocus. It claims low-light shooting is 'in line with full-frame cameras, " which is bold! I'm wondering what other parts of Sony's corporate machinery it will integrate next. Maybe Aibo dog ears? Continue reading. Want a cheaper sub for Peacock? You'll need a code, but if you input SPRINGSAVINGS at checkout you'll get $55 off the standard annual price of the Premium plan. It does include ads, however. The big draw for this particular streaming service is likely the long-awaited spinoff of The Office , called The Paper . That premieres in September, so you'll be primed and ready to watch (and rewatch). Continue reading.
