
Alison Hammond sobs as This Morning addresses Phillip Schofield's 'redemption' interview
Alison Hammond sobbed during This Morning today (2 June), as she admitted she was finding the allegations against former host 'painful'. The show chose to address Schofield's 'redemption' interviews with The Sun and BBC. "It's weird because I still love Phillip Schofield. However, what he's done is wrong, he's admitted it, he's said sorry", she said. "As a family, we're all really struggling to process everything. My mum always said use your bible as your sat nav." Click here to sign up for our newsletters
2023-06-02 18:15

Augmented reality-infused production of Wagner's `Parsifal' opens Bayreuth Festival
Director Jay Scheib’s augmented reality-infused production of Wagner's “Parsifal” premiered in the the theater the composer conceived of in the late 1880s
2023-07-27 01:22

Who stars in 'And Just Like That' Season 2? From Sarah Jessica Parker to John Corbett, here is the full cast list
Set in the vibrant backdrop of NYC, the series explores the ever-evolving dynamics of relationships and the challenges that come with getting older
2023-06-11 16:25

KSI has JD Sports ad banned by advertising watchdog for not being ‘obviously identifiable’ as an advert
YouTuber, musician and boxer KSI – real name Olajide "JJ" Olatunji – has had an Instagram advert with JD Sports banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), after the watchdog found the ad was not “obviously identifiable” as a marketing communication. Back in November last year, KSI posted a Reel to his Instagram account in which he could be seen with friends playing games in an arcade, with other featured celebrities in the video including Tobi “TBJZL” Brown, Amin “Chunkz” Mohamed and Anthony Joshua. After Brown approaches JJ asking him “what you got” in terms of footwear, KSI laughs before pointing to a pair of trainers which the video then zooms in on. The social media video, part of the “King of the Game” promotional campaign for Christmas last year, was a shortened version of longer promotional video on JD Sports’ official YouTube channel, which KSI directed his followers to watch in the post’s caption. However, the ASA later launched an investigation after a single complaint was made to them questioning if the post was “obviously identifiable” as an advert. Under the advertising code drawn up by the Committee of Advertising Practice – and enforced by the ASA – marketing communications (including on social media) must be “obviously identifiable as such”. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter ASA guidance for online influencers states social media ads should include a “prominent label” such as #Ad, #Advert or #Advertisement “at the beginning” of the post “as an absolute minimum”. While the ASA’s ruling noted KSI amended the caption to include the ‘#ad’ label once learning of the complaint, it went on to add the advert was in breach because “the commercial intent behind the post was not made clear upfront and the ad was not obviously identifiable as such”. The regulator also said: “The post’s caption featured some elements that some consumers might have interpreted as signalling a commercial relationship between JD Sports and Mr Olatunji, including the reference to the ‘JD Arcade’, the ‘@JDSportsOfficial’ tag, and the instruction to view the ‘full version’ of the featured video on JD Sports’ YouTube channel. JD SPORTS CHRISTMAS AD 2022 | KING OF THE GAME www.youtube.com “However, in each case, the language used exclusively focused on the JD Sports brand itself, rather than its relation to Mr Olatunji. “We therefore considered those elements did not amount to a clear statement of the commercial relationship between Mr Olatunji and JD Sports, which would be immediately understandable to consumers.” When approached by the ASA as part of its investigation, JD Sports said it understood that labels such as ‘#ad’ were only required if content was not “already identifiable as such”. “They believed that various aspects of the ad made clear that it was a marketing communication … [They] believed the video’s high production value and elaborate set dressing were suggestive of a professional ad agency’s involvement. “The ad featured over 28 celebrities, including England international footballers and famous rappers. They believed that viewers would recognise as highly likely that such a varied group of high-profile individuals had been assembled as part of an advertising campaign.” JD Sports also said the video had appeared in other media prior to it appearing on KSI’s Instagram account, meaning “many viewers would instantly recognise the Instagram post as a marketing communication”. Meanwhile, the ruling continued to say KSI believed at the time that “references to JD Sports in the post’s caption, and the brand’s logo featured in the video’s closing shot, made clear to consumers that the video was an excerpt from a TV ad for JD in which he had featured.” The label of ‘#ad’ was later added by KSI to “mitigate any risk of consumers being misled”. However, the ASA concluded the advert was in breach, meaning it “must not appear again in the form complained of”. It is still available on KSI’s Instagram account at the time of writing. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-05-17 13:30

Why is Leah Remini suing the Church of Scientology? Actress claims organization and David Miscavige harassed and defamed her
Leah Remini alleged Scientology's 'mob style operations and attacks' had affected her personal and professional life
2023-08-03 16:22

'There's no wriggling your way out of this': Seth Meyers highlights Don Trump Jr's dilemma in court
Donald Trump's eldest son claims he wasn't involved in financial statements central to the civil fraud trial against family's real estate business
2023-11-02 17:53

Prince Harry chokes up in witness box, telling court his phone hacking testimony has been 'a lot'
Prince Harry choked up in court as he concluded an eight-hour testimony in his lawsuit against a major British newspaper publisher, admitting he would feel an "injustice" if his claims of phone hacking were dismissed by the judge.
2023-06-08 00:18

Jamie Lynn Spears shares big update about Zoey 102: release date, cast and more
Jamie Lynn Spears shares big update about Zoey 102: release date, cast and more
2023-05-31 02:18

'Female-forward' US music festival lineup fosters women- and queer-friendly space
As pop star Maggie Rogers powered through her headliner set at this weekend's All Things Go festival she teared up, telling thousands of screaming fans it was a rare moment...
2023-10-02 17:47

What day and time will 'Match Me Abroad' Episode 4 release? Singles go on a journey of self-discovery
'Match Me Abroad' Episode 4 will have Mark, Stanika, Nathaly and Harold discovering more about themselves as they continue to seek true love
2023-05-29 10:24

'90 Day Fiance' stars Darcey and Stacey Silva receive backlash as they announce $3K ticket for 'Reality Stars Weekend'
TLC stars Darcey and Stacey Silva team up with their partners for 'reality star's weekend'
2023-10-12 13:17

A brief history of Elon Musk's obsession with the letter X
X most certainly marks the spot for the world’s most headline-grabbing billionaire. Elon Musk announced on Sunday that he would be giving Twitter a major makeover: changing its name to “X” and doing away with its famous bird logo. He tweeted (or should that be X-ed?): “Soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” And, he said: “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow. To embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It’s all part of his overarching plan to transform X into an “everything app”, much like China’s WeChat, which handles everything from payments to messaging to micro-blogging. Posting a beaming photo of himself with his arms raised in a cross, Musk added: “Not sure what subtle clues gave it away, but I like the letter X.” So where does his love of the letter come from? And where else has he used it? Here, indy100 takes a look at the SpaceX founder’s somewhat unorthodoX obsession. X.com When it comes to letters of the alphabet, X is certainly the most associated with euphemism – anything branded X-rated is bound to raise an eyebrow or two. And this is quite possibly one of the reasons the proud provocateur liked it so much to begin with. According to Ashlee Vance, author of the 2015 biography ‘Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future’, his fascination with the letter began with one of his earliest ventures. Musk, one of the world's richest men, co-founded the online banking service X.com in 1999, but, Vance said, not everyone was enthusiastic about the name. "Everyone tried to talk him out of naming the company that back then because of the sexual innuendos, but he really liked it and stuck with it," he revealed. However, the critics were soon able to breathe a sigh of relief: X.com merged with competitor Confinity Inc., in 2000 and the name was changed to the family-friendly PayPal. And yet, Musk clearly wasn’t able to let go of his brainchild. So, in 2017, he bought the url "X.com" back off PayPal, tweeting that the domain "has great sentimental value,” as NPR notes. Now, if you type “X.com” into your web browser, you will be directed to the Twitter – soon to be X – homepage. SpaceX After making his first fortune with the sale of his tech company Zip2 for $307 million (around £240 million) in 1999, and PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion (around £1.32 billion), the universe was the limit for Musk. The same year he sold PayPal, he founded his space flight company Space Exploration Technologies Corp. However, the name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so it was abbreviated to SpaceX. The Tesla ‘X’ While Musk opted for three alternative consonants in the name of his electric car company (which he started in 2003), he eventually couldn’t resist adding a touch of X. In 2015, the father-of-six unveiled Tesla’s third model: an e-car lovingly named… you guessed it. Tim Higgins, author of ‘Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century’, explained that Musk had cheeky intentions when choosing the names of his models. The idea was that, combined, they would spell out the word “sexy," Higgins said. However, another car company – Ford – threw a spanner in the works thanks to its ownership of the rights to the “E” model. Musk, therefore, had to settle on calling his second model “3” – a "kind of a backwards E," as Higgins pointed out – to semi-achieve his desired acronym. But yes, there are now S, 3, X and Y models of the cars. Baby names In 2020, Musk and his then-partner, Grimes, welcomed a baby boy, calling him X Æ A-12. However, the couple were forced to alter the spelling of the name to X AE A-XII, after being notified that it breached legal conventions. California law dictates that names on birth certificates must employ “the 26 alphabetical letters of the English language,” although apostrophes and dashes are allowed, NME reports. Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, explained via tweet that the X part of her son’s name refers to the “unknown variable” in algebra. Meanwhile, the Æ refers to the “elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)," and the A-12 at the end is apparently a nod to the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft — the couple’s “favourite” plane. Despite all of this, the pair – who are now separated – refer to their child simply as “Little X”, Boucher admitted in an interview with Bloomberg shortly after his birth. Two years later, the then-couple announced that they’d had a baby girl via surrogate, naming her Exa Dark Sideræl. However, earlier this year, Boucher confirmed that they’d changed her name to “Y” – yet again proving that single letters at the bottom of the alphabet really are Musk’s thing. xAI On 12 July this year, the 52-year-old announced the formation of a new company called xAI. It's goal is simple, according to its website: "To understand the true nature of the universe." The new startup, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, has hired a group of top AI researchers who formerly worked at OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Tesla. But we don't know much more about it than that. Musk was a co-founder and early funder of the artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI. However, he's grown increasingly critical of the company as it’s gained global prominence and commercial success with last year’s release of ChatGPT. In April, the billionaire criticised ChatGPT in an interview with Tucker Carlson, telling the then-Fox News host that the chatbot had a liberal bias and that he planned an alternative that would be a “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.” And... voilà xAI. What neXt? It’s time for the renaissance of X.com, but with a grand new purpose. Weeks before forking out the $44 billion (around £34 million) to buy Twitter in October, Musk tweeted that the eye-watering purchase was simply “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app". "He wants to create an app similar to how WeChat is used in China, where it's part of the fabric of day-to-day life,” the billionaire’s biographer Vance explained to NPR. “You use it to communicate, to consume news, to buy things, to pay your rent, to book appointments with your doctor and even to pay fines.” Hinting at the financial difficulties that have plagued Twitter both historically and since Musk’s acquisition, Vance pointed out: "The company clearly needs a new, bigger business if it's to make the type of money that would justify his investment and satisfy his ambition.” Indeed, the world-famous entrepreneur is doing everything he can to build the hype around his company’s new facelift. On Monday (24 July), he retweeted a message from his newly-appointed Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, which read: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square." She continued: “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.” So… why X? Musk suggested that he’d chosen “X” to replace Twitter because he wanted something that “embod[ies] the imperfections in us all that make us unique”. The letter has a number of different spiritual, cultural and mathematical meanings – any, or all, of which may have informed his lifelong fascination with the letter. As Boucher noted in her baby name explanation, X connotes the “unknown variable” in algebra. It is, of course, also the symbol for multiplication, and in linguistics, it’s what’s known a “phonetic chameleon” – meaning that it’s used to replicate a number of different sounds. It is also known as signifying the end of something – or death – think the X in a skull and crossbones emblem or the crosses drawn on the eyes of the dead in cartoons. It also signifies an error or cancellation, or that which is negative, and has long been recognised as an occult symbol for Satan. In other words, it has become the most “nihilistic” of letters, as psychologist Leon F Seltzer pointed out in a piece for Psychology Today. This all goes to suggest that Musk appreciates X’s malleability – how it can be birth and death, cancellation and multiplication, nothing and everything. X.com is dead. Long live X.com. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-07-24 19:27
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