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Taipei City council in the dog house over Chinese-made patrol robot

Taipei City council in the dog house over Chinese-made patrol robot

Opposition councillor in Taiwanese capital accuses authorities of sending ‘Trojan horse’ into citizens’ daily lives Taipei City council has come under fire after admitting that a robot dog it bought to help patrol city streets using surveillance cameras was made by a Chinese companylinked to the Chinese military. Hammer Lee, the deputy mayor of Taiwan’s capital, introduced a “new patrol partner” for the management and repair of pedestrian areas in a post on Facebook on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Blood Orange: Essex Honey review | Alexis Petridis’s album of the week

Blood Orange: Essex Honey review | Alexis Petridis’s album of the week

(RCA) Gorgeous melodies ground Dev Hynes’s questing fifth album, via dancefloor rhythms, indie pop and languorous funk – and cameos from Lorde and Zadie Smith Dev Hynes’s fifth studio album as Blood Orange opens with a series of unexpected musical juxtapositions. The first track, Look at You, starts out with softly sung vocals over a cushion of equally soft synthesiser chords, before stopping dead, then re-emerging as almost an entirely different song: harmonies over guitar chords strummed so lazily you can hear the plectrum hitting each individual string. The second, Thinking Clean, offers a piano over pattering hi-hats: there’s something anticipatory about it, like an intro that’s about to burst into life, but when it does – complete with dancefloor rhythm – the song swiftly falls apart. The piano becomes increasingly abstract, before everything gives way to scrabbling, apparently improvised cello. It’s a lot to cram into six minutes, but anyone familiar with Blood Orange’s back catalogue might reasonably ask: what did you expect? Since he adopted the name, Hynes’s career has occasionally intersected with the mainstream, although never in a straightforward way. His biggest track, Champagne Coast , was belatedly hoisted to platinum status by a burst of TikTok virality, 14 years after release. As a producer and songwriter, his name has appeared in the credits of albums by major pop artists including Mariah Carey and Kylie Minogue, but never as a dependable hit-maker, more a signal that said artist is craving a hint of left-field cool. His albums exist in their own world, filled with unexpected musical jump-cuts, their variety indicated by the featured artists: Skepta and Debbie Harry, Nelly Furtado next to Yves Tumour, A$AP Rocky alongside Arca. Continue reading...

My favourite childhood outfit: ‘Batman is one of my finest looks ever – I’d use this on my passport, if I could’

My favourite childhood outfit: ‘Batman is one of my finest looks ever – I’d use this on my passport, if I could’

It was Christmas, and my father introduced me and my brother to the gathered family as Batman and Robin. We kept wearing the disguise for a week What I love about this photo is that it couldn’t look any more early 80s if it tried. Everything from the velvet curtains to the plastic flowers, the old-school cathode-ray tube TV to the MK1 metallic purple Ford Escort just in view (the one in which I would later learn to drive), screams 1981. Pictured, we have Pandy the bear; my younger brother Jon, five; Sooty; and yours truly, aged seven, all of us covering a variety of skin and hair colours between us. (Like all the best superheroes, I’m adopted .) The photo would have been taken by my dad using his Kodak camera with flash cube, sporting bell-bottomed jeans and sideburns, while my mum, with her beehive haircut, sipping a Babycham, would probably have been on hand for moral support. These outfits were made by our gran (my mum’s mum), who was as much a whiz with the sewing machine and a knitting needle as she was with a wooden spoon, and would make us outfits for birthdays and Christmases, as well as baking us a seemingly never-ending supply of chocolate cake. This photo would have been taken at a time when the unwritten rules of being an older brother had already been established. I got the top bunk – because I’m oldest. I got the biggest slice – because I’m oldest. I got to sit in the front seat – because I’m oldest. I’m Batman and you’re Robin – because I’m oldest. Although thinking about it, an R for Richard on my chest would have been more fitting. Continue reading...

‘It’s a warning, set to a dance beat’: Jon Batiste on his new song urging climate action 20 years after Katrina

‘It’s a warning, set to a dance beat’: Jon Batiste on his new song urging climate action 20 years after Katrina

The global music star, whose home town of New Orleans was devastated by the hurricane in 2005, says ‘people power’ can change the world Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged his home town of New Orleans, Jon Batiste has released a new song imploring people to take action against climate change “by raising your voice, and insisting, and voting the right people into office”. “As an artist, you have to make a statement,” the global star said in an interview on Tuesday with the international media collaboration Covering Climate Now. “You got to bring people together. People power is the way that you can change things in the world.” Continue reading...