Global Brands Magazine

New Ways to Create With Music and Collaborate With Friends on Instagram

Austin — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 05:09:54 +0000

You can now add music to your photo carousels.
With Collabs, you can now invite up to three friends to co-author posts and reels.
Creators can invite their followers to join in on fun prompts and challenges they create in Reels with the Add Yours sticker.

Instagram has introduce new, fun ways to share with friends and interact with creators through music, photos and reels on Instagram.

Soundtrack to Your Photo Carousels

Whether you’re sharing a collection of summer memories with friends or moments from your camera roll, you can now add music to your photo carousels. Building off our launch of music for feed photos, anyone can add a song to capture the mood and bring their carousel to life.

Invite Your Friends to Collab on a Post or Reel

Instagram opening up more possibilities with Collabs: now, you can invite up to three friends to co-author a feed post, carousel or reel. Once they accept, the content will reach each collaborator’s audience and appear on each account’s profile grid.

Have a private account? No problem — both private and public accounts can be added as collaborators on a post or reel. If your account is private, you can start your own post or reel and invite a collaborator as long as they follow you back.

Join In With Your Favorite Creators and Artists on Reels

With the Add Yours sticker, a creator or artist can invite their followers to join in on a fun prompt or challenge they create on Reels, and then hand-pick their favorite submissions to celebrate their fans’ creativity.

Anyone can create a reel to put their own spin on an Add Yours prompt for a chance to get recognized by its creator. You’ll get notified if a creator chooses your reel as one of their favorites, and others on Instagram can watch your submission when tapping on the Add Yours sticker if your account is public.

More Music on Instagram Coming Your Way

Music is a key part of how people express their creativity and interests on Instagram. We’re excited to bring our music library to more countries over the coming weeks. We’re also partnering with Spotify in Mexico and Brazil to feature 50 of the most popular songs from Instagram Reels with a new Reels Music Chart on Spotify.

Instagram is always working on ways to improve your Instagram experience. We’ll continue to build features that make it easier and more fun to create and share on Instagram.

Source: Meta

IBM Consulting Collaborates with Microsoft to Help Companies Accelerate Adoption of Generative AI

Austin — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 04:57:26 +0000

IBM (NYSE: IBM) is expanding its collaboration with Microsoft to help joint clients accelerate the deployment of generative AI – and deliver a new offering that will provide clients with the expertise and technology they need to innovate their business processes and scale generative AI effectively.

With this news, IBM Consulting, in collaboration with Microsoft, will focus on helping clients to implement and scale Azure OpenAI Service. The new IBM Consulting Azure OpenAI Service offering, which is available on Azure Marketplace, is a fully managed AI service that allows developers and data scientists to apply powerful large language models, including their GPT and Codex series. It aims to help businesses define an adoption strategy and an initial set of specific and value-add generative AI use cases.

In addition to the new offering, IBM and Microsoft have been collaborating around AI, leveraging IBM Consulting skills and Azure OpenAI Service to create potential solutions and address specific use cases, including:

Procurement and source to pay: Together the companies are offering a solution that combines Microsoft Power Platform and Azure OpenAI Service to help businesses automate the highly manual and fragmented sourcing and procurement process as well as drive new insights about their supply chain. The solution is designed to improve operational efficiency, save time, and generate new actionable insights for users.
Summarization and content generation: Financial institutions and banks are exploring how generative AI can accelerate the development of personalized content for their customers through summarization. For example, IBM Consulting and Microsoft worked on a use case in a hackathon with Julius Baer Group to efficiently process and summarize financial reports while automatically creating an audio version of the report.
Streamline healthcare processes: IBM Consulting is leveraging Azure OpenAI Service to offer a solution that is designed to automatically ingest and analyze complex medical records and policy documents to help automate the prior authorization process. In addition, it is built to provide nurses and doctors with a virtual assistant to help collect information from patient records. The solution aims to help decrease the time needed to process prior authorization requests, reducing administrative burdens and improving the clinician experience.
Enterprise search and knowledge base: For many organizations the information employees need to do their jobs is dispersed and siloed. Working together, IBM Consulting and Microsoft helped Wintershall Dea implement a knowledge extraction tool designed for information retrieval within vast knowledge bases. By integrating OCR and Microsoft Azure OpenAI, a user-friendly tool is created that eliminates the need for manual browsing, allowing users to effortlessly search for valuable insights.

“Businesses are looking for responsible ways to adopt and integrate multi-model generative AI solutions that augment the work their teams are doing in areas such as creative content and code creation, content summarization and search,” said Francesco Brenna, Global VP & Senior Partner, Microsoft Practice at IBM Consulting. “Our work with Microsoft is another example of IBM’s open ecosystem model designed to bring value to clients while helping them responsibly build and scale generative AI across their businesses.”

As part of the new solution, enterprise customers will also have access to IBM Consulting experts, including 21,000 data, AI and experience consultants, who can help them effectively implement generative AI models to advance their business transformation.

An open ecosystem approach to AI
IBM Consulting takes an open and collaborative approach to plan, build, implement and operate generative AI solutions that embrace multiple models on multiple clouds from industry leaders. An open ecosystem approach helps clients define the right models and the right architecture to deliver the desired outcomes. As part of this open approach, IBM Consulting works with clients across industries to assess their generative AI readiness, define the right strategies for their business and help them implement and responsibly govern generative AI in production.

Getting to enterprise AI at scale requires a human-centric, principled approach, and IBM Consulting helps clients establish guardrails that align with the organization’s values and standards, mitigates bias and manages data security, lineage and provenance.

Proven work, expertise and partnership momentum
To help clients prepare data to fuel their generative AI models, select IBM AI technology is currently available on the Azure Marketplace and can be deployed on Azure. Together we’re enabling clients to accelerate the impact of generative AI using their trusted data.

This work builds on recent momentum with IBM and Microsoft to help clients transform their businesses. IBM Consulting, which has a dedicated global practice focused on Azure Data and AI, has focused on training its consultants, who now have over 40,000 Azure certifications. Additionally, IBM Consulting brings expertise and capabilities to help Microsoft clients through its acquisition of Neudesic, which specializes primarily in Microsoft Azure.

IBM Consulting and Neudesic together were also recognized with Microsoft’s 2023 Partner of the Year Award in 13 categories. IBM Consulting is this year’s U.S. Partner of the Year Winner for GSI Growth Champion, which distinguishes IBM as the partner that’s demonstrated the most significant growth – a partner that best offers solutions aligned with Microsoft’s in driving digital innovation and cloud transformation for our joint customers in the U.S.

“Together, Microsoft and IBM are collaborating to deliver innovative solutions, that will help customers responsibly accelerate deployment of generative AI,” said Dinis Couto, GM Global Partner Solutions, Microsoft. “As a leader in the delivery of generative AI and data solutions, we believe that partners like IBM are critical to enabling customers successful use of generative AI to advance business transformation.”

IBM Consulting’s AI Capabilities
IBM Consulting recently announced its Center of Excellence for generative AI, which includes more than 1,000 consultants with specialized generative AI expertise ready to help accelerate its clients’ business transformations with enterprise-grade AI, including technology from Microsoft, IBM and other ecosystem partners.

The Center of Excellence stands alongside IBM Consulting’s existing global AI and Automation practice and leverages proven methods like the IBM Garage for Generative AI, where IBM consultants apply a comprehensive, collaborative method to help clients fast-track innovation in the emerging category of foundation models for generative AI. That includes rapid use case ideation and prioritization, an open, multi-model approach to selecting architectures and training, as well as fine tuning and scaling models to unique business needs.

IBM Consulting accelerates business transformation for our clients through hybrid cloud and AI technologies, leveraging our open ecosystem of partners. With deep industry expertise spanning strategy, experience design, technology, and operations, we have become the trusted partner to many of the world’s most innovative and valuable companies, helping modernize and secure their most complex systems. Our 160,000 consultants embrace an open way of working and apply our proven co-creation method, IBM Garage, to scale ideas into outcomes.

Learn more about our partnership with Microsoft here.

Find out more about how Julius Baer and Wintershall Dea are using AI here and here.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.

About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

Source: IBM

ANZ to Implement Mule Account Detection Capabilities in Continued Fight against Scams

Austin — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 02:22:42 +0000

ANZ announced it is investing in a new security capability designed to detect mule accounts being used to receive funds from scam victims and other criminal activities.

Utilising AI and machine learning, the mule detection capability recognises money mules and mule accounts and is an extension of the bank’s behavioural biometric technologies.

Following a successful pilot in April 2023, which identified nearly 1,400 high risk accounts, the mule detection technology will be implemented across ANZ’s security systems by September 2023. It will be supported by a new and dedicated mule detection team who will work alongside ANZ’s 440 customer protection specialists.

ANZ Head of Customer Protection Shaq Johnson said: “Stopping mule accounts is a critical component of scam prevention and disrupting sophisticated criminal enterprises.”“In identifying and blocking mule accounts, we effectively starve criminals of the resources they need to carry out the activity. By disrupting the infrastructure that supports scams, it becomes more difficult for these online criminals to operate and impact innocent individuals.”

The detection of mule accounts often leads to the dismantling of additional scam networks and prevents future scams.

“Mule accounts are often linked to larger criminal networks involved in organised crime, fraud and scams. Our new mule detection technology and the mule detection team will better enable us to identify these accounts, stop the illegal activity and gather valuable information about individuals or groups behind sophisticated scams.”

“There is a whole of community response needed to scam prevention, and while banks play a critical role, customers can also protect themselves by remaining alert to unsolicited contact and requests to move funds,” Mr Johnson said.

ANZ is continually reviewing and adjusting its capabilities to keep customers safe as new scams emerge and cyber criminals change how they operate. In the last twelve months, our people and our systems have stopped more than $78 million going to criminals.

About Mule Accounts: A money mule is a person or company recruited by criminals to transfer illegally obtained money or goods on their behalf. Typically, money mules will receive funds into their bank accounts and be instructed to transfer the money to another financial institution, or via alternative payment methods, such as the purchase of cryptocurrency.

The tactics used to recruit money mules and obtain mule accounts are complex and often challenging to detect.

Cyber criminals may target vulnerable people to become mules, with many of those individuals believing they’re being recruited for a job or investment opportunity. They are then scammed into being the intermediary in serious crime, typically to receive and distribute the proceeds of many crimes, including fraud and scams.

Scammers can also use compromised identities to open mule accounts by obtaining personal information – acquired through various means, such as data breaches, phishing attacks or purchasing stolen data on the dark web.

ANZ encourages customers to always be vigilant against scams and keep these simple tips front of mind:

Be wary of unsolicited offers or job opportunities offering you the chance of making easy money (e.g. you’re offered money for transferring funds and there’s no experience required)
Take steps to verify any company which makes you a job offer. For example, address, phone number, email address and website
Be wary of a person asking for financial assistance – never send money, particularly by wire transfer or to cryptocurrency as these funds cannot be recovered by banks
Be suspicious if someone asks for your personal details soon after contact – never give your confidential banking details to anyone

ANZ’s customer protection teams and systems operate 24/7. Customers who believe they may have been a victim of a scam should contact us immediately, on 13 33 50 or visit us at http://www.anz.com.au/security/report-fraud/ for more information.

For more information on the types of scams and how to protect yourself visit http://www.anz.com.au/security/types-of-scams.

With New ‘Try Galaxy’ App Update, Non-Android Users Can Experience Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 & Z Fold5

Austin — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 17:25:17 +0000

Try Galaxy users can now get to know the key features of the Galaxy Z Flip5, Z Fold5 and One UI 5.1.1 without a Galaxy smartphone

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced that it has released an update for its “Try Galaxy” app, allowing non-Android smartphone¹ users to test drive the intuitive One UI 5.1.1 and explore features from the new Galaxy Z Flip5 and Z Fold5. To fully showcase the benefits of the Galaxy Z Fold5’s immersive screen, the updated Try Galaxy app also offers a new feature that uses two connected phones to simulate the foldable experience.

Introducing the Galaxy Z Flip5 and Z Fold5
After downloading the Try Galaxy app, users can learn from helpful tutorials and explore the apps and widgets as if experienced on a Galaxy phone’s home screen. They can also sample other innovative and unique functions available through Samsung Galaxy. In particular, the newly enhanced app highlights key features of the Galaxy Z Flip5, Z Fold5 and One UI 5.1.1:

FlexCam Experience: Users can explore the Galaxy Z Flip5 and Z Fold5’s FlexCam mode. Through the app, users can experience how these foldable devices unlock new capabilities by capturing memorable moments in a variety of creative angles. With the biggest cover screen in the Galaxy Z Flip series, Galaxy Z Flip5 also enables quick and easy-to-check selfie experiences.
Immersive Screen and Seamless Multitasking: Users can connect two devices to create one connected screen, which simulates Galaxy Z Fold5’s robust, big-screen experience. Through video demonstrations, users can view video content on an immersive full screen. They can also experience powerful productivity through enhanced drag and drop features, enabling seamless multitasking when moving content between screens.
Connected Ecosystem: Users can learn what the Galaxy ecosystem has to offer, including Quick Share between near and far away devices, Samsung Health’s body composition data when paired with a Galaxy Watch and the many other exciting possibilities on offer with Galaxy devices. All of this is showcased through the seamless One UI 5.1.1.

Availability
The Try Galaxy app has been downloaded more than seven million times since its launch in 2022. To reach more non-Galaxy users worldwide, Try Galaxy now supports 20 languages, having added Korean, Czech, Hungarian, Latin American Spanish and Russian². The application is available for download through a simple QR code scan.

To explore the many benefits of switching to Galaxy, visit www.trygalaxy.com.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, and memory, system LSI, foundry and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at news.samsung.com.

¹ “Try Galaxy” app operates only with Safari on iOS devices launched on and after September 16, 2016.
² The app has supported Arabic, Chinese(CN/TW), English, French(FR/CA), German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese, and now offers 5 more languages including Czech, Hungarian, Korean, Latin American Spanish, and Russian.

Source: Samsung

Iconic Bentley Blower Reborn as The Ultimate Urban Vehicle by The Little Car Company

Austin — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 04:15:57 +0000

85 per cent scale recreation of 1929 4½-litre Supercharged Bentley created by The Little Car Company
‘Blower Jnr’ will be fully road-legal in the UK, EU and USA
15 kW electric motor as part of 48V electrical system
Expected range of 65 miles, top speed of 45 mph
Tandem seating for two adults, with dedicated luggage space
Crafted entirely by hand, from authentic materials to match the original
Charging port concealed within ‘supercharger’ housing
Inspired by Team Car No. 2, the most famous, valuable and iconic Bentley in the world
99 First Edition cars colour-matched to Team Car No. 2, complete with Union flags and unique details

Bentley Motors and The Little Car Company unveil a road-legal, 85 per cent scale recreation of the most famous Bentley in the world. ‘Blower Jnr’, a recreation of the 1929 4½-litre Supercharged Team Car No. 2 in Bentley’s Heritage Collection, is the first road-legal car from The Little Car Company and the most sophisticated city car ever built.

Crafted by hand to the same standards as any Bentley, and adorned with beautiful details all inspired by the original Team car, Blower Jnr is built around a 48V electric powertrain with a 15 kW (20 bhp) motor, meaning a top speed of 45 mph / 72 km/h in the UK and EU (25 mph / 40 km/h in the USA due to legislation) and an expected range of around 65 miles, with tandem seating for two adults.

Blower Jnr is a collaboration between The Little Car Company and Bentley’s Heritage Collection. The original Team Car from 1929 – insured for £25m – was used by The Little Car Company to master the design of Blower Jnr, with details recreated at a sizeable 85 per cent scale. The result is a vehicle that will have even experts looking twice – with the car measuring 3.7 metres long and 1.5 metres wide. Unlike The Little Car Company’s other products, Blower Jnr is fully road legal and designed specifically to be used on the road.

A Faithful Homage

Beyond the headline figures, the beauty of Blower Jnr is in the recreation and repurposing of details from the original car.

The frame is painted steel, to which an authentic chassis specification is attached. Leaf springs and scaled-down, period-correct friction dampers bring a comfortable ride, while Brembo disc brakes at the front and drums at the rear provide the stopping power. The electric motor is mounted across the rear axle, while the batteries and drive electronics are all housed in a hidden undertray.

The bodywork is crafted in two sections, and while the rear body structure is crafted in carbon fibre rather than being an ash frame, it’s covered in impregnated fabric, just as the original. The bonnet, with its multiple cooling louvres, is hand-crafted in aluminium using traditional techniques and fastened with beautiful leather buckled bonnet straps. The two-person cockpit is in a 1+1 layout, with a central adjustable driving position and the passenger travelling behind in the rear seat. An optional bespoke weekend bag fits behind, in the scaled down and repurposed fuel tank complete with lockable latch.

At the front of the car, the supercharger now houses the charging port that connects the onboard charger to any Type 1 or Type 2 socket. It’s surrounded by the famous Bentley mesh grille, in an authentic nickel-plated radiator housing.

At first glance the dashboard looks like a scaled-down replica of the original, with Engine Turned Aluminium forming the dashboard itself. The fuel pressure pump has been repurposed as the drive mode selector, with a choice of Comfort (2 kW), Bentley (8 kW) or Sport for maximum power of 15 kW. Forward, Neutral and Reverse are selected via a lever that looks and feels like the ignition advance control from the original Blower. Other switchgear for the headlights and indicators copies the form and materiality of the magneto switches from the Team Car, while the battery charge gauge recreates the original ammeter.

A USB charging point is discreetly concealed until required, and a dual-function display that serves as a Garmin satellite navigation screen and reversing camera completes the cabin.

The First Edition

The first 99 examples of Blower Jnr will be First Edition Models. These will feature First Edition badging on the hood, door sill plate and dash as well as an engraved and numbered ‘1 of 99’ plaque. All First Edition models will be finished in Blower Green, with matching painted chassis and wheels, and a Union flag hand-painted on both sides of the body as per the original, while the seats and interior are upholstered in the Dark Green Lustrana Hide used by Mulliner for the Blower Continuation Series. The side panel and radiator carry the period-correct racing number, while the steering wheel is rope-bound.

The original Supercharged 4 ½ Litre ‘Blower’ Team Car No. 2

No other pre-war Bentley had an impact like the supercharged 4½-litre ‘Blower’ Bentley. While it never won an endurance race, the Blower Bentley was the outright fastest race car of the day, and counted amongst its fans the author Ian Fleming – who later decided that his famous fictional secret agent James Bond would drive a supercharged 4½-litre Bentley, with the often-associated rival British sports car merely the MI6 “pool car”.

The Blower Bentleys were born from a philosophy devised by Sir Tim Birkin – notable racing driver and Bentley Boy – to extract more speed from the racing Bentleys of the day. While W.O Bentley’s method was to increase engine capacity – from 3-litre, to 4½-litre, to 6½-litre – Birkin was impressed by the Roots-type supercharger developed by British engineer Amherst Villiers, which boosted the 4½’s power from 130 bhp to 240 bhp in race tune. He persuaded Bentley Chairman Woolf Barnato to sanction production of 55 supercharged 4½-litre Bentleys, with five allocated for competition. The car on Bentley’s heritage fleet – UU 5872 – is the second of the four ‘Team’ cars developed at Birkin & Co’s workshops at Welwyn Garden City with funding from wealthy heiress the Hon. Dorothy Paget. The cars competed in twelve races, with the most famous being Team Car No. 2’s adventure at the 1930 Le Mans 24 Hours.

Team Car No. 2 was sympathetically restored in the 1960s, preserving much of its original patina. Owned by Bentley Motors since 2000, it has had only minor cosmetic maintenance, and is much as Birkin would have driven it. Since then it has competed in the modern Mille Miglia five times, has driven to Le Mans on several occasions and has also appeared at the Goodwood Festival of Speed as well as the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

Team Car No. 2 inspired a highly exclusive edition of twelve Continuation Cars, each one an exact recreation handcrafted in the Mulliner Classic workshops using traditional techniques passed down through generations. The Blower Continuation Series is the world’s first pre-war continuation, and the final car is in the final stages of build now. A second Continuation Series of 12 Bentley Speed Six models is currently in development.

Monterey Car Week Global Debut

Blower Jnr will make its world debut tonight in front of 100 VIPs at Monterey Car Week, ahead of a schedule of appearances across the weekend. Production is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2024, starting with the 99 First Edition models.

Source: Bentley Motors

Largest Genetic Study of Brain Structure Identifies How The Brain Is Organised

Austin — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:35:11 +0000

The largest ever study of the genetics of the brain – encompassing some 36,000 brain scans – has identified more than 4,000 genetic variants linked to brain structure. The results of the study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, are published in Nature Genetics.

Our brains are very complex organs, with huge variety between individuals in terms of the overall volume of the brain, how it is folded and how thick these folds are. Little is known about how our genetic make-up shapes the development of the brain.

To answer this question, a team led by researchers at the Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, accessed MRI scans from over 32,000 adults from the UK Biobank cohort and over 4,000 children from the US-based ABCD study. From these scans, the researchers measured multiple properties of the outermost layer of the brain called the cortex. These included measures of the area and volume of the cortex as well as how the cortex is folded.

They then linked these properties, measured both across the entire cortex as well as in 180 individual regions of the cortex, to genetic information across the genome. The team identified over 4,000 genetic variants linked to brain structure.

These findings have allowed researchers to confirm and, in some cases, identify, how different properties of the brain are genetically linked to each other.

Dr Varun Warrier from the Autism Research Centre, who co-led the study, said: “One question that has interested us for a while is if the same genes that are linked to how big the cortex is – measured as both volume and area – are also linked to how the cortex is folded. By measuring these different properties of the brain and linking them to genetics, we found that different sets of genes contribute to folding and size of the cortex.”

The team also checked whether the same genes that are linked to variation in brain size in the general population overlap with genes linked to clinical conditions where head sizes are much larger or smaller than the general population, known as cephalic conditions.

Dr Richard Bethlehem, also from the Autism Research Centre and a co-lead of the study, said: “Many of the genes linked with differences in the brain sizes in the general population overlapped with genes implicated in cephalic conditions. However, we still do not know how exactly these genes lead to changes in brain size.”

Dr Warrier added: “This work shows that how our brain develops is partly genetic. Our findings can be used to understand how changes in the shape and size of the brain can lead to neurological and psychiatric conditions, potentially leading to better treatment and support for those who need it.”

This study was supported by the Wellcome Trust. It was conducted in association with the NIHR CLAHRC for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Source: University of Cambridge

Sculptural Black Reigns Supreme With H&M Studio’s A/W23 Collection

Austin — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:09:31 +0000

A new mood of dark glamour takes hold with H&M Studio’s A/W23 collection. Inspired by fashion’s taste for the thrilling simplicity of black coupled with silhouettes that semaphore restraint, the collection channels the stark sophistication of film noir heroines. Decisive, daring, and tailored to perfection, sharp suiting and sculpted outerwear are offset with embellished wardrobe staples and polished accessories. The H&M Studio A/W23 collection will be available in selected stores and at hm.com from September 28th.

“H&M Studio is our most directional, fashion-forward offering. For Autumn, our design team has created a collection that feels pragmatic but poetic. Premium qualities feature throughout the collection with tailoring, outerwear, and decorated denim that you’ll fall in love with instantly, and wear over and over, for years to come,”

Ann-Sofie Johansson, Head of design and creative advisor at H&M.

Key pieces are designed to cultivate a captive audience. For day, a tailored black maxi coat with a nipped-in waist hints at feminine allure and promises forever appeal, alongside a bright-white shirt punctuated with an oversized bow. For evening, low-slung jeans decorated with champagne-hued rhinestones and a co-ordinating jacket dazzle alongside a black A-line mini dress with a razor-sharp white collar. Accessories add a touch of gloss, including sleek nappa-leather boots and statement jewellery. So too a padded cushion-clutch bag, one of several favourite pieces making a welcome return from the H&M Studio archives, in this case reworked for autumn in soft black leather. The collection heroes durable, high-quality fabrics with the majority made from more sustainably sourced materials, including recycled polyester and Tencel.

“This season the design team was inspired by horror-movie heroines whose style always stays sophisticated, no matter how spooky the circumstances. We wanted to channel that pulled-together look with pieces that confer polish, but are practical enough to transition effortlessly between situations and seasons,”

Linda Wikell, concept designer at H&M Studio.

10 Years of H&M Studio

H&M Studio is H&M’s most directional, fashion-forward offering. Launched in 2013, the biannual collections are developed in-house by a dedicated design team at the brand’s Stockholm atelier. The A/W23 collection marks 10 years of H&M Studio, and a new chapter for the limited-edition collections. In a newly expanded remit, from this season H&M Studio will comprise a creative framework that encompasses multiple limited-edition collections per year, with several drops per season.

Source: H&M

New Research to Help Small Businesses Improve Cyber Security with Targeted Support

Austin — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 06:59:42 +0000

A new research project has been launched to help businesses understand and improve their cyber security and streamline access to targeted support.

Experts from the University of Nottingham’s School of Computer Science have been awarded almost £700,000 funding from EPSRC to lead a project to enhance understanding of SMEs’ cyber security support needs and their ability to address them.

The research aims to establish pilot Cyber Security Communities of Support (CyCOS), bringing together SMEs and advisory sources for practical help and support. The UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey indicates that half of small and a third of micro businesses experienced breaches or attacks in the last year. Whilst they do seek external guidance in relation to cyber security, they do so via a huge range of sources, and often find themselves overwhelmed with information and unable to understand the advice.

The research team includes Dr Maria Bada from Queen Mary University of London and Dr Jason Nurse from the University of Kent and is led by Steven Furnell, Professor of Cyber Security at the University of Nottingham.

Businesses know there is a need to protect themselves from cyber attacks, but knowing just how to do this and where to go for trusted help can be a minefield. We want to make the process of accessing help easier and more targeted. Our research will improve understanding of SME needs and the perspective of those that they turn to for support. We will then use these insights as a foundation for the design and evaluation of a new and more accessible model for support with the Communities of Support pilots.

Steven Furnell, Professor of Cyber Security at the University of Nottingham

The research will investigate the support needs of small businesses, to establish their current understanding and confidence around cyber security, and their awareness and perceptions of available support. The investigation will seek to determine the scenarios in which cyber security advice is sought (e.g. during product evaluation, at point of purchase, in response to threats and incidents), and whether it is deemed effective.

The project will also analyse support routes available to these businesses, focusing on the coverage and consistency of advice, as well as the confidence and capacity of those providing it.

Research findings will be used to establish three pilot CyCOS which will include the creation of an online Support Broker, enabling the SMEs to identify support needs and contact advisory sources positioned to help them (which, as the community develops and grows in experience, may include peer support from other SMEs). The project offers upskilling opportunities for advisors and interested SMEs, via foundational cyber security certification to increase their related knowledge and capability.

The research is supported by strong industry collaboration, with partners including the Home Office, (ISC)2, IASME, the Chartered Institute of Information Security, the Centre for the New Midlands, and three regional Cyber Resilience Centres.

Professor Furnell adds: “This project is an exciting opportunity to plug a gap that exists in cyber security for SME’s. We hope that if successful the CyCOS model could be rolled out nationally and become a vital tool in the fight against cyber attacks.”

Source: University of Nottingham

2024 LEXUS LC 500 Inspiration Series

Austin — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 06:28:16 +0000

LC-first Polar Surge Satin exterior and Deep Blue interior color combination
Standard 21-inch matte black forged wheels
Limited to 125 units in North America
MSRP including DPH starting at $116,700 (Coupe), $121,900 (Convertible)

The LC 500 Inspiration Series makes a roaring return, bringing back its iconic and elegant styling for the new model year. Building on the flagship coupe and convertible, the 2024 Lexus LC 500 Inspiration Series showcases a unique aesthetic that thoughtfully blends design with performance, including front bumper canards and a coupe-exclusive carbon fiber fixed rear wing spoiler.

The 2024 LC 500 Inspiration Series is expected to arrive in dealerships in early fall 2023 with 125 units available in North America.

The Inspiration Series Difference

The special-edition 2024 LC 500 Inspiration Series debuts a LC-first color combination of Polar Surge Satin (exterior) and Deep Blue (interior) on coupe models. The convertible mirrors these colors and adds a Blue fabric top. On both models, the white matte exterior finish – sealed in by a satin lacquer topcoat – contrasts elegantly with bold black finishes on the front grille surround, headlamps, taillamp, rocker garnish and outer mirrors. Standard 21-inch forged wheels with matte black paint complete the exterior look.

The LC 500 Inspiration Series draws from Lexus’ racing heritage with aerodynamic enhancements including front bumper canards to balance lift, and a coupe-exclusive carbon-fiber fixed rear wing spoiler to assist with handling stability. Building on the Lexus Driving Signature, additional performance highlights include a standard Torsen® limited slip differential and rear performance dampers that contribute to increased vehicle response and a more refined driving feel. The coupe adopts the convertible’s front and rear underfloor braces, and a standard carbon fiber roof.

Moving inside, the calming Deep Blue monotone interior with contrasting grey stitching contributes to a meditative in-cabin experience featuring Alcantara®-trimmed sport seats and headliner (coupe) or semi-aniline trimmed seats and Lexus Climate Concierge with upper body heating (convertible). This model year, the Inspiration Series scuff plate door accents are in carbon fiber with a serialized badge returning on the center console to recognize the limited 125 units produced.

The LC 500 Inspiration Series comes standard with a Mark Levinson® 13-speaker 915-watt Reference Surround Sound Audio system, SmartAccess Key Card, and a Head-Up Display. Lexus Interface with a 12.3-inch multimedia touchscreen and the connected services featured in the 2024 LC 500 and LC 500h are also standard on the Inspiration Series.

2024 LC 500 Inspiration Series Pricing

Source: Lexus

All-New Adobe Express with Firefly Brings Generative AI to Creators Worldwide

Austin — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 06:05:26 +0000

All-new Adobe Express with Adobe Firefly beta is now ready for general availability
Express makes it fast, easy and fun for users across all skill levels to create social media posts, videos, images, PDFs, flyers, logos and more
Express is included in most Creative Cloud plans with support for rich workflows across Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Acrobat
Enterprises are adopting Express to enhance the productivity of creative teams and empower marketing organizations to quickly and easily create on-brand content that stands out

Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) showcased the exciting momentum of the all-new Adobe Express, announcing the general availability for desktop web. The latest version of the AI-first, all-in-one content creation app with Firefly beta generative AI capabilities is revolutionizing creative expression, making it fast, easy and fun for users of all skill levels to design and share standout content.

The groundbreaking innovations in Express bring the power and precision of Adobe’s popular photo, design, video, document and generative AI tools into a new AI-first, all-in-one editor, making tasks like creating stunning social video content, touching up images, importing, editing and decorating PDFs and laying out amazing designs, fast and easy.

Express is being used by millions of users globally—spanning all skill levels—to create captivating social content, compelling videos, visually stunning PDFs, digital cards and flyers, engaging book reports and resumes, and much more. Available globally and with Firefly generative AI now supporting prompts in 100+ languages, it’s even easier for Express users to generate high-quality images, create stunning text effects, streamline workflows and improve productivity in their language of choice, all within Express. These new AI-driven features are available now on desktop web, with plans to bring the latest version of Express to mobile soon.

“With groundbreaking innovations and generative AI at the core of Express, we’re empowering an ever-expanding user base with an AI-first, all-in-one tool that makes content creation fast, easy and fun,” said Govind Balakrishnan, senior vice president, Adobe Express and Digital Media Services at Adobe. “The all-new Express is revolutionizing how people turn ideas into stunning content and we’re just getting started with exciting innovations across image creation, design, video, audio, PDFs and more still to come.”

Express for Creative Cloud Members

Whether you’re a student, creative professional, communicator, small business or enterprise, Express is right for you. Creative Cloud memberships include the full paid version of Express Premium. CC members can easily access, edit and work with creative assets from Photoshop and Illustrator directly, or add linked files into Express that always stay in sync across apps. Users can also import and enhance PDFs quickly and easily in Express, adding eye-catching text, images, backgrounds, brand logos and more to uplevel any document. Express enables users to collaborate in real-time, and quickly create content for social media or concept approval, all while empowering teams to stay on brand.

Express in Enterprises

For enterprises, Express bridges workflows between creative professionals and marketers through integrations into Creative Cloud applications as well as Experience Manager, Adobe’s world-class CMS solution in Adobe Experience Cloud. Seamless integrations democratize creativity beyond design teams, and enable organizations to create, collaborate and deliver content velocity at scale. With Express and Firefly for Enterprise, any employee across an organization can generate beautiful, ready-to-share content.

“Adobe Express has empowered our creatives to focus on high-impact, high-value work while equipping other teams with a powerful but easy-to-use design tool. We can bypass repetitive, manual tasks and save time without compromising our brand or creative output,” said Bridget Esposito, vice president and group creative director at Prudential Financial.

“Ensuring that our brand is represented correctly and coherently in the digital world is paramount, and a task that is distributed across many of our global teams. With Adobe Express, we’re creating outstanding and brand uniform content in a way that’s scalable,” said Christina Lehnert, digital brand experience manager at Carl Zeiss AG.

Creativity for All

Small and medium business owners, solopreneurs, social media influencers, students and more can now easily plan, schedule, preview and publish standout content, all from one place. More than 56M students and educators around the world already have access to Express to collaborate in real-time to create stunning digital portfolios, shared projects, flyers, flashcards, animated videos and more.

Latest Innovations in Express

New all-in-one editor gives users the ability to make high-impact design elements, engaging videos and images, stunning PDFs, animation and standout content ready for Instagram, TikTok and other social channels and platforms.
Firefly integrated into Express makes it possible to quickly generate custom images and text effects from text prompts in over 100 languages and designed to be safe for commercial use.
Deep workflows with Creative Cloud apps allow users to easily access, edit and work with creative assets from Photoshop and Illustrator directly within Express, or add linked files that always stay in sync across apps.
New video, multiple page templates and design elements bring even more inspiration to the largest collection of beautiful, high-quality content, now with nearly 200 million assets including video and design templates, royalty-free Adobe Stock images, video and audio assets, almost 22,000 fonts, plus more icons, backgrounds and shapes.
PDF support in the new all-in-one editor makes it even easier to import, edit and enhance documents to create visually stunning PDFs.
More AI-power helps creators to take the guesswork out of design, and quickly find the perfect addition to content or get personalized template recommendations that fit unique styles, to create social media posts, videos, posters, flyers and more.
Quick actions like remove background in images and videos, animate a character using just audio, convert to GIF and edit PDFs, makes it even easier to create standout content quickly and simply.
Real-time co-editing and seamless review and commenting capabilities add speed to the creation process.
Animations like Fade In, Pop, Flicker, Bungee bring text, photos, videos and assets to life in a new way. With Animate from Audio, powered by Adobe Character Animator, watch characters come to life with lips and gestures syncing to recorded dialogue.

Availability

Users can access Express for desktop for free with plans to bring the latest version of Express to mobile soon. For existing Creative Cloud members, the Express Premium plan is included. The Express and Firefly enterprise offering is now available.

Source: Adobe