
Content creators love the built-in camera; sceptics call them ‘pervert glasses’. Do we really need any more hi-tech wearables, even with a voice assistant that sounds like Judi Dench?
Lately, I’ve been hearing Judi Dench’s voice in my head. She tells me tomorrow’s forecast, when to turn right, that there’s been another message in my group chat. Day or night, Dame Judi is eager to assist. When I ask the eight-time Academy Award nominee what I’m looking at, she answers: a residential area, a person in a pub, daffodils. “They are a bright yellow colour and are often associated with spring.”
This isn’t a delusion. This is, apparently, progress. I am test-driving Meta’s smartglasses and Dench voices its integrated AI assistant: “Here to chat, answer questions, create images and provide advice and inspiration,” said “Judi” when I selected her over the actors John Cena and Kristen Bell. “Shall we begin?”
Continue reading...Many will recognise their own experiences of digital abuse in Collien Fernandes’s allegations – the sense that technology offers perps both tools and cover
Some stories that unfold in real life would read like the plot of a bad crime novel if you wrote them down. Too obvious, too contrived, almost lazy in their cruelty. For example, this one: a woman spends years trying to identify the person who has allegedly been violating her online, only to eventually conclude that it was her husband all along.
This is how the case of Germany’s once-favourite celebrity couple Collien Fernandes and Christian Ulmen now presents itself to the public. Fernandes, TV presenter, actor and author, has been a familiar face in mainstream entertainment for more than two decades. Ulmen, an actor, producer and former MTV presenter, is long associated with a certain kind of ironic, self-aware masculinity. The two married in 2011, had a daughter, and cultivated the image of a modern, witty supercouple, working together on series and advertisements, in which they playfully talked about their seemingly average marriage for comedic effect. Until that image fractured.
Continue reading...From medieval church wall paintings to Liam Gallagher’s viral X post, charity has catalogued more than 6,600 pieces
Some of the UK’s smallest public murals are on bollards in Shrewsbury while one of the biggest is on a 1960s 16-storey block of flats in Gosport.
Perhaps the funniest though is in Cardiff. Ahead of last summer’s Oasis concerts it was a straightforward copy of Liam Gallagher’s viral post on X declaring: “Because Cardiff is the bollox.”
Continue reading...He has faced off a fighter jet, ridden a motorised bed and even been a Beano character. As he steps down, the mighty Guardian critic delivers his insights, confesses his crimes and relives his highs
After writing about art at the Guardian for 30 years, I have been asked by my editor to reflect on what I have learned. I am not sure I’m capable of doing that. What I can do is write about what I have seen. Even when you are an eyewitness, things get murky very quickly, and critics are among the most unreliable of narrators.
An unknown woman at a table writes a letter we can’t see, while her maid reacts to something beyond the painted window. We can’t see what she’s smiling at either. How is it that Vermeer’s 1670-71 Woman Writing a Letter, With Her Maid, makes me feel somehow privy to its intimacies when almost everything that matters is withheld? You have to make it up. The stories come barging in, something you can’t quite imagine happening in such an ordered world.
Continue reading...Brighton fans have fond memories of the Italian, hailed as a genius by rivals, but his time on the south coast went sour
Things may have ended on a sour note but there is a reason why a giant picture of a beaming Roberto De Zerbi adorns the wall outside the home dressing room at the Amex Stadium. It was taken in 2023 at the end of the Italian’s first season at Brighton after he had led the club to sixth in the Premier League – their highest finish – and taken them into Europe for the first time.
Three years later, memories of De Zerbi remain strong among Brighton supporters. It is a legacy that Fabian Hürzeler has found hard to emulate since succeeding De Zerbi, who fell out with the club’s owner, Tony Bloom, over squad recruitment.
Continue reading...This entertaining documentary explores the audacious jewellery robbery. Plus: Lisa Kudrow’s Hollywood-skewering comedy. Here’s what to watch this evening
10pm, Channel 4
“This will not be their first rodeo.” That was the reaction of one forensic expert upon surveying the aftermath of the audacious jewellery theft in London’s Hatton Garden in 2015. This entertaining documentary explores the theft and the aftermath: the picaresque characters and unspooling underworld intrigue bear more resemblance to a Guy Ritchie film than to anything real. Phil Harrison
US president says responsibility for reopening strait of Hormuz rests on countries relying on it; secretary of state says Washington must review whether Nato alliance is still serving the US well
French President Emmanuel Macron has praised Europe’s “predictability” during a visit to Japan on Wednesday, contrasting it with countries that “could hurt you without even informing you” in an apparent swipe at Donald Trump, reports AFP.
“I’m well aware that sometimes Europe can be seen as a continent that is slower than others,” Macron told an audience of Japanese business leaders and investors in Tokyo.
Continue reading...South Korea will delay the shutdown of coal-fired plants, while the Philippines also plans to boost the output of its coal-burning plants
Governments across Asia are ramping up their use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, as they try to cover huge energy shortfalls triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran.
The move has triggered warnings from climate experts who point to coal’s devastating environmental impact, and say the energy crisis should be a wake up call for governments to invest in renewables, which can offer a more stable supply that is not exposed to price shocks.
Continue reading...Though the US is almost certainly not going to have a draft, media commentary and online anxiety have surfaced
The United States is almost certainly not going to have a military draft to fight Iran. That hasn’t stopped the chatter, and anxiety, across the country.
In recent weeks, Donald Trump has ordered a number of marines and army paratroopers to head to the Middle East, gesturing toward a possible ground war to reopen the strait of Hormuz or secure nuclear weapons material. The provocative military activity has led to speculative conversation about what it would take to invade a country twice the population and three times the territory of Iraq.
Continue reading...People who are not obese but overweight and at risk of serious cardiovascular events eligible for weekly jabs
The NHS in England is to offer more than 1 million people weight-loss drugs to reduce their risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Semaglutide (Wegovy) is already available on the health service for some people living with obesity, and also offered under the brand name Ozempic to treat type 2 diabetes.
Continue reading...