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New Statesman
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Outrageous: a Mitfords rehash too many
I feel about the Mitford industry a bit like I do about the Jane Austen industry. Read the books, I beg you. Enjoy them, learn from them if you can or must (though don't you dare say the word 'relatable' out loud if you're standing anywhere near me). But these endless spin-offs; these wild, parasitical imaginings. Around all of them, anachronisms, myths and clichés grow, like thorns in a fairy tale. Outrageous, a series based on Mary S Lovell's 2001 biography of the six Mitford sisters, is the work of Sarah Williams, who also co-wrote Becoming Jane,a film about the early life of you-know-who, and its title alerts you (just like the peppy jazz trumpets on its soundtrack) to its sensibility. The siblings' vaunted eccentricity is very much to the fore, whether we're talking about the rat Unity Mitford (Shannon Watson) keeps in her evening bag on the night of her coming-out party, or the tin hat Decca (Zoe Brough) wears in her bedroom when she's pretending to be a revolutionary ducking hand grenades. It's cartoony and exaggerated and rather too determined to be modern and droll. The subtitles that explain locations read 'That Damp London Flat' and 'Diana's Country Pile', as if too much specificity might be off-putting – these rich people! We take up the story in 1931. Our narrator is the oldest Mitford, Nancy (Bessie Carter), by this point the author of two funny, but slight, novels (her best books will come later). For the family, it's a time of relative innocence. Diana, married to the filthy rich Bryan Guinness, has yet to run off with Oswald Mosley (Joshua Sasse), the leader of the British Union of Fascists, and Unity has yet to develop her horrifying crush on Hitler. Pressing matters include the finances of their parents, aka Farve (James Purefoy) and Muv (Anna Chancellor), which threaten their allowances, and Nancy's ongoing status as a spinster (she's a perilous 29). On the rebound, soon she'll marry the utterly unreliable Peter Rodd (Jamie Blackley). So far, so good. I adore Carter as Nancy Mitford, at this point in life an unlikely combination of innocence and cynicism, and all the performances are deft: galumphing, scary Unity with her Nazi eyes; stout, scrunch-faced, farm-loving Pamela (Isobel Jesper Jones); Deborah (Orla Hill), the youngest, who sits on staircases at parties, nosy-parkering at the Champagne-fuelled glamour below (one day, she'll be a duchess). If you want houses and clothes and jewellery, your eyes won't hurt at all. But still, I wonder who this is for. If you're interested in the Mitfords, and have read lots about them, this is a primer of which you've no need. If you're not interested, you'll be baffled as to what the hell all the fuss is about. Is Outrageous a soap? A slightly more plausible Downton Abbey? Context, by necessity (because there's so much to get through), has been peeled away. Things happen so suddenly – Diana and Unity's little away day to Nuremberg, to take just one example – they seem outlandish. Nancy's cleverness and wit, or Decca's unlikely left-wing politics, cannot be fully explored, or even much revealed, which renders them little more than daffy, privileged aristos with a nice line in turquoise earrings and Fair Isle tank tops. Behind all this, I sense a low-level buzz of anxiety on the part of the producers. Are the Mitfords dodgy, or heroic, or both? Are we allowed to like them, or not, and what will it mean for the drama's chances of success if we don't? On the soundtrack, the trumpet players stick mutes in their instruments, but even then the newcomer may be uncertain as to what she or he is supposed to feel (possibly nothing). For my part, I was caught between admiring its stars and production values, and a kind of proprietorial irritation at its rapidly moving parts. If I hadn't read most of them already, Outrageous wouldn't send me to the novels, letters, diaries, or even to the many excellent biographies that have been written about the Mitfords. But then, I was also convalescing after a medical emergency. I looked down at my dressing gown – not to boast, but it's just the kind of thing Nancy might have worn the morning after a big night at Quaglino's – and decided to stick with them all just a little while longer. Let's see. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Outrageous Available on U [See also: Gen-Z is afraid of porn, and Sabrina Carpenter] Related
Business Standard
03-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Piccadily Agro Industries relaunches Whistler Barrel Aged Blended Malt Whisky
Piccadily Agro Industries announce the relaunch of Whistler Barrel Aged Blended Malt Whisky, featuring an all-new, premium packaging and an enhanced premium blend that captures the spirit of craftsmanship and storytelling. Inspired by the rare and elusive Whistler Warbler,a vibrant songbird native to the region of Indri, the refreshed packaging reflects the whisky's premium ethos with a more modern, sophisticated design. It pays homage to the Whistler bird through intricate detailing and bold colour palettes that echo the bird's natural beauty, standing out on shelves while telling a story of heritage and harmony. The new Whistler expression offers a more layered and complex drinking experiencecrafted for today's evolving palate, yet grounded in traditional whisky-making excellence.
The Star
30-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Exclusive-Anthropic hits $3 billion in annualized revenue on business demand for AI
FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Artificial intelligence developer Anthropic is making about $3 billion in annualized revenue, according to two sources familiar with the matter, in an early validation of generative AI use in the business world. The milestone, which projects the company's current sales over the course of a year, is a significant jump from December 2024 when the metric was nearly $1 billion, the sources said. The figure crossed $2 billion around the end of March, and at May's end it hit $3 billion, one of the sources said. While consumers have embraced rival OpenAI's ChatGPT,a number of enterprises have limited their rollouts to experimentation, despite board-level interest in AI. Anthropic's revenue surge, largely from selling AI models as a service to other companies, is a data point showing how business demand is growing, one of the sources said. A key driver is code generation. The San Francisco-based startup, backed by Google parent Alphabet and is famous for AI that excels at computer programming. Products in the so-called codegenspace have experienced major growth and adoption in recent months, often drawing on Anthropic's models. This demand is setting Anthropic apart among software-as-a-service vendors. Its single-quarter revenue increases would count Anthropic as the fastest-growing SaaS company that at least one venture capitalist has ever seen. "We've looked at the IPOs of over 200 public software companies, and this growth rate has never happened," said Meritech General Partner Alex Clayton, who is not an Anthropic investor and has no inside knowledge of its sales. He cautioned that these comparisons are not fully precise, since Anthropic also has consumer revenue via subscriptions to its Claude chatbot. Still, by contrast, publicly traded SaaS company Snowflake took six quarters to go from $1 billion to $2 billion in such run-rate revenue, Clayton said. Anthropic competitor OpenAI has projected it will end 2025 with more than $12 billion in total revenue, up from $3.7 billion last year, three people familiar with the matter said. This total revenue is different from an estimated annualized figure like Anthropic's. Reuters could not determine this metric for OpenAI. The two rivals appear to be establishing their own swim lanes. While both offer enterprise and consumer products, OpenAI is shaping up to be a consumer-oriented company, and the majority of its revenue comes from subscriptions to its ChatGPT chatbot, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told Bloomberg late last year. OpenAI has not reported enterprise-specific revenue but said in May that paying seats for its ChatGPT enterprise product have grown to 3 million, from 2 million in February, and that T-Mobile and Morgan Stanley are among its enterprise customers. In the consumer race, Anthropic's Claude has seen less adoption than OpenAI. Claude's traffic, a proxy for consumer interest, was about 2% of ChatGPT's in April, according to Web analytics firm Similarweb. Anthropic, founded in 2021 by a team that departed OpenAI over differences in vision, closed a $3.5 billion fundraise earlier this year. That valued the company at $61.4 billion. OpenAI is currently valued at $300 billion. (Reporting by Anna Tong and Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Kenrick Cai in San Francisco and Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Kenneth Li and Matthew Lewis)
Hans India
22-05-2025
- Business
- Hans India
Microsoft Accused of Censoring Pro-Palestinian Terms in Internal Emails
Microsoft is under fire from within its own ranks as reports emerge that thetech giant is filtering internal emails containing terms such as"Palestine," "Gaza," and "genocide." Thecontroversy comes amid growing criticism of the company's alleged ties to theIsraeli military, with employees and public figures voicing concerns over whatthey see as complicity in human rights violations. The censorship claims were brought forward by No Azure for Apartheid,a coalition of pro-Palestinian Microsoft employees. According to the group,Microsoft began filtering these terms shortly after its flagship developerevent, Microsoft Build 2025, was disrupted by an engineerprotesting the company's involvement with Israel. While the system reportedly blocks words like "Palestine,"variations such as "P4lestine" or "Israel" seem to bypassthe filter, suggesting that the block is targeted. Employees argue this movestifles internal dissent and prevents meaningful dialogue within the company. In response to the criticism, Microsoft stated in a recent blog post that thereis 'no evidence' its technology is being used to harmcivilians in Gaza. However, this assurance has done little to calm the growingunrest. Brian Eno Joins the Chorus of Critics Public outrage over Microsoft's actions has now extended beyond its musician and artist Brian Eno, known for composingthe startup chime for Windows 95, voiced his disapproval in a recent Instagrampost. 'I gladly took on the [Windows 95] project as a creative challenge andenjoyed the interaction with my contacts at the company,' Eno wrote. 'I neverwould have believed that the same company could one day be implicated in themachinery of oppression and war.' Eno demanded that Microsoft 'suspend all services that support anyoperations that contribute to violations of international law.' He wasespecially critical of the company's contracts with Israel's Ministry ofDefense, accusing it of enabling 'surveillance, violence, and destruction inPalestine.' Employee Protests Continue to Escalate The backlash is not confined to social media. Microsoft employees havestaged several high-profile protests over the past few months. During CEO SatyaNadella's keynote speech at Build 2025, Azure engineer JoeLopez interrupted the event, shouting: 'Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?' Lopez was swiftly removed by security, but he later expanded on his views inan internal email shared on Medium. 'I can no longer stand by in silence as Microsoft continues to facilitateIsrael's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,' he wrote. Lopez claimed to have seen internal documents indicating Microsoft beganpitching services to the Israeli military shortly after the October 7, 2023attacks. 'Microsoft openly admitted to allowing the Israel Ministry of Defence'special access to our technologies beyond the terms of our commercialagreements,'' he added. 'Do you really believe that this 'special access' wasallowed only once?' Despite Microsoft's blog post asserting that a third-party review found 'noevidence' of its technology being used to harm civilians, Lopezdismissed the audit as 'non-transparent' and partiallyconducted by Microsoft itself. 'We don't need an internal audit to know that a top Azure customer iscommitting crimes against humanity,' he argued. 'We see it live on the internetevery day.' More Voices from Inside Lopez is not alone in challenging the company. Just last month, U.S.-basedemployee Vaniya Agrawal disrupted Microsoft's 50th-anniversarycelebration, confronting leadership including Nadella, Steve Ballmer, and BillGates. In a public letter, she condemned Microsoft's role in supportingIsrael's technological infrastructure, saying: 'It is undeniable that Microsoft's Azure cloud offerings and AI developmentsform the technological backbone of Israel's automated apartheid and genocidesystems.' Another engineer, Ibtihal Aboussad, made headlines aftershe interrupted a Microsoft AI event to confront AI CEO MustafaSuleyman with a blunt message: 'Mustafa, shame on you.' A Tense Road Ahead Microsoft's handling of internal dissent and its reported censorshippractices are drawing increasing scrutiny. With its own employees and prominentpublic figures calling for accountability, the company is now caught in agrowing storm over corporate ethics, technology's role in conflict, and theboundaries of free speech in the workplace. While Microsoft has attempted to reassure its workforce and the public, itsnext steps—particularly in how it handles employee concerns and transparencyaround international contracts—will likely define its reputation in thisrapidly unfolding controversy.
Time Out Abu Dhabi
21-05-2025
- Business
- Time Out Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi is building the world's first AI city and it's going to be your new best friend
You've heard of smart cities. Now meet the genius one. Abu Dhabi is about to launch Aion Sentia, the world's first cognitive AI city and it's being designed to literally think for you. Set for completion in 2027, this futuristic hub is more than just high-speed WiFi and electric buses. It's a place where the walls, streets and systems will learn from you, anticipate your needs and adapt in real-time. Your daily latte? Already ordered. Forgot your anniversary? Not only will the city remember it – it'll book the restaurant, too. At the heart of it all is MAIA,a first-of-its-kind AI app that connects you with everything – public transport, healthcare, utilities, even dinner reservations – all while learning your quirks, preferences and routines. Quirky? Maybe. Convenient? Extremely. Aion Sentia is the brainchild of My Aion Inc., an Italian AI firm teaming up with Bold Technologies, part of Bold Holding. The whole thing is backed by a whopping Dhs9 billion BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) agreement, meaning it's not just a cool concept – it's actually happening. But what makes this different from other 'smart city' promises? Instead of bouncing between disconnected apps, Aion Sentia works like one seamless digital brain. Want to reduce your energy bill? Ask MAIA. Need a doctor's appointment? She's on it. Emergency in your building? MAIA will alert the right authorities – without you even needing to dial. This isn't just a boost for convenience – it's a bold leap for the UAE's AI ambitions. The project will create jobs, fuel homegrown tech innovation and even partner with local universities to train the next generation of digital minds. Where will it land first? Naturally, in Abu Dhabi – where innovation is already woven into the city's DNA. But the goal is global expansion. Daniele Marinelli, CEO of My Aion Inc. said: 'This city will not just be smart; it will be cognitive — learning and evolving with its residents.' More things to do in Abu Dhabi Everything happening in Abu Dhabi in 2025 From new openings to big events, this is shaping up to be quite a year It's official: Abu Dhabi Comedy Season is returning for a second edition with some huge names Wow, look at this line-up Abu Dhabi's best restaurants: Everywhere you should eat at least once Your dinner inspo is sorted
