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Pharrell Williams to Bring Star Power to Web Summit Tech Event

File photo: Pharrell Williams upon arrival at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the eve of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP)
File photo: Pharrell Williams upon arrival at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the eve of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP)
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Pharrell Williams to Bring Star Power to Web Summit Tech Event

File photo: Pharrell Williams upon arrival at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the eve of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP)
File photo: Pharrell Williams upon arrival at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the eve of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP)

Singer Pharrell Williams is due to kick off one of Europe's biggest tech events on Monday, the Web Summit in Lisbon, with organizers keen to move on from last year's edition when several big firms pulled out.
The event will bring together some 70,000 attendees with more than 3,000 startups and 1,000 investors, according to the organizers.
Google, Meta and a string of other firms pulled out of last year's event after Web Summit chief executive Paddy Cosgrave wrote social media posts accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, AFP said.
He was forced to apologize and step down from his role, though he is now back in charge of the organization, which also holds events in other parts of the world.
"Those cancellations revolved more around big tech," Web Summit's head of startups Ricardo Lima told AFP in an interview on Wednesday, stressing the focus on smaller firms and innovation.
"It's safe to say the impacts were felt in 2023 but in 2024 (big tech firms) were all part of the events and part of the discussion."
Trump effect
Google and Meta have a low-key presence this year in Lisbon.
Microsoft President Brad Smith is the highest-profile big tech executive at the event.
He is due to lay out how the software juggernaut envisages the next phase of its artificial intelligence strategy, after spending billions to infuse the technology into most of its products.
AI is expected to be the central theme of the get together.
The conference said in a statement there would be discussions on "the impact of AI on the planet, art, and social interactions, as well as the government's role in regulating technology and the responsibilities of tech giants".
The re-election of Donald Trump as US president, with tech mogul Elon Musk expected to be given a key role in his administration, is also expected to be top-of-mind.
Some of the sessions will deal directly with the election's impact on the tech industry but Lima said it was still too early to judge the reaction.
"I think everyone is still digesting the news, I am also very curious to understand the impact," he said.
The opening night on Monday broadens the agenda with a speaker list that this year includes Pharrell Williams, who is about to star in the latest Lego movie "Piece by Piece".
The summit wrote on its X account that Williams would be talking about "the intersection of culture and commerce".
"Discover how Pharrell's visionary approach has led to extraordinary success across multiple industries," the post said.

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Entertainment

‘Tinker Tailor’ Filmmaker John Irvin Dies at 86

British filmmaker John Irvin. (AFP)
British filmmaker John Irvin. (AFP)
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‘Tinker Tailor’ Filmmaker John Irvin Dies at 86

British filmmaker John Irvin. (AFP)
British filmmaker John Irvin. (AFP)

British filmmaker John Irvin, best known for adapting John Le Carre's espionage classic "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" for television, has died aged 86, his producer Claire Evans told UK media Wednesday.

Irvin, who also directed a string of 1980s action movies including "The Dogs of War", "Raw Deal" and "Hamburger Hill", enjoyed a five-decade career that spanned TV, documentaries and cinema.

He died "peacefully at home" on August 11, surrounded by his family, Evans confirmed to The Guardian.

The pair worked together on the 2016 film "Mandela's Gun", which explored the South African ex-president's experience as a guerrilla fighter for the African National Congress.

Irvin, born in northern England in 1940, won two BAFTAs and an Emmy nomination for his 1979 BBC adaptation of Le Carre's spy novel, which cast Alec Guinness as the shy, monkish hero George Smiley.

Its success opened the doors to Hollywood, with Irvin making a number of action-packed movies and other films featuring a host of star names in the decade that followed.

They included Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger in "The Dogs of War", Fred Astaire in horror film "Ghost Story", Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Raw Deal" and Patrick Swayze and Liam Neeson in crime thriller "Next of Kin".

He is survived by three children and two grandchildren, according to reports.

Entertainment

A Viking Longship in ‘The Odyssey’? It’s a Case of History Meets Hollywood

The Draken Harald Harfagre, the ship used in the movie "The Odyssey", is docked outside Oslo Opera in the Norwegian capital on August 14, 2026. (AFP)
The Draken Harald Harfagre, the ship used in the movie "The Odyssey", is docked outside Oslo Opera in the Norwegian capital on August 14, 2026. (AFP)
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A Viking Longship in ‘The Odyssey’? It’s a Case of History Meets Hollywood

The Draken Harald Harfagre, the ship used in the movie "The Odyssey", is docked outside Oslo Opera in the Norwegian capital on August 14, 2026. (AFP)
The Draken Harald Harfagre, the ship used in the movie "The Odyssey", is docked outside Oslo Opera in the Norwegian capital on August 14, 2026. (AFP)

The eras of "The Odyssey" and the Vikings happened about 2,000 years apart -- so how did a Viking longship end up with a starring role in this year's blockbuster movie?

Look to director Christopher Nolan, and his obsession with bringing spectacle to life with real props, real scenes.

But also credit a team of Norwegian shipwrights and sailors who built a vessel that speaks to both history and Hollywood.

With its tar-soaked rigging, creaking oak deck and 50 spruce oars, Draken Harald Harfagre is the largest modern replica of a Viking ship.

It mattered little that it had to drop its Scandinavian roots for Greek mythology -- the anachronism blended into the service of Nolan's brand of realism.

For the film, though, Draken had to be stripped of the dragon figurehead at its bow -- typical of the Viking era, from the 8th to 11th centuries -- as it sailed for the cameras in Greek, Italian and Scottish waters.

"We found a Viking ship that had been built exactly according to those ancient specifications. And it was very much the whole shape and the rig that we needed to do a Bronze Age ship," Nolan told US television last month.

"We took the crew, and we put their crew all in our costumes. They became part of the movie crew, as it were. And Odysseus' guys, the actors, joined in with them, and they figured out how to raise the sail, how to rig it, how to row, all of this stuff."

For months, the longship's crew of seasoned sailors rubbed shoulders with Hollywood star Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus on-screen, and a host of professional actors.

- 'Doing the real thing' -

"There was one day where one of the actors who was sitting in front of me got seasick and threw up over the rail. It blew back on me," recalled sailor Trammell Hudson.

"I thought that would be my big scene, because the IMAX camera was very focused on him and me in the background dodging the debris. But I didn't see that particular scene in the film," he told AFP when the Draken and its crew made a recent visit to Oslo.

Based on Homer's epic, Nolan's film retraces the hero Odysseus in a perilous journey to his home on the island of Ithaca after the Trojan War in the 12th century BCE.

Rather than recreating a ship with computer-generated images, Nolan wanted a real one, capable of sailing on the open sea with flesh-and-blood men aboard.

"Most of the scenes would be completely different if it wasn't for us being there, doing the real thing with the real ship and the real crew in the real ocean and real weather," said Emanuel Persson, expedition director for Draken.

"I think the viewers can actually feel the genuine materials. I don't know if you can really smell the tar, but you can tell it's really genuine handicraft instead of being a digital creation," he said.

- All hands on deck -

On board, everyone played their part.

"Matt Damon was very nice and very good. Never complained. Every one of the actors was out for a long time and it was very cold and sometimes rough," recalled the longship captain, Bjorn Ahlander.

"No complaints, nothing, never. So that was fantastic to see."

With such a mixed crew on board, it wasn't always easy to row in perfect sync.

"It's very important that the hundred rowers coordinate because the oars are quite long and they will tangle with each other," Trammell Hudson stressed.

He recalled being thrown "a meter-and-a-half into the air", along with his rowing partner, when the blade of their oar hit a wave head-on.

The sweet memories from the shoot are in sharp contrast to those from neighboring Sweden.

Like Penelope waiting for Odysseus, the owners of another Viking ship used in the film had their patience tested: after the ship incurred damage during a shoot, they had to wait a year for compensation.

Entertainment

ByteDance Signs AI Copyright Pact with Hollywood Trade Group

The ByteDance logo is seen in this illustration taken February 8, 2025. (Reuters)
The ByteDance logo is seen in this illustration taken February 8, 2025. (Reuters)
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ByteDance Signs AI Copyright Pact with Hollywood Trade Group

The ByteDance logo is seen in this illustration taken February 8, 2025. (Reuters)
The ByteDance logo is seen in this illustration taken February 8, 2025. (Reuters)

ByteDance ‌and the Motion Picture Association on Monday signed an agreement to strengthen copyright safeguards on the Chinese company's AI video and image-generation models, months after the Hollywood trade group challenged its handling of ‌intellectual property.

The ‌deal, which covers ‌ByteDance's ⁠Seedance video and Seedream ⁠image-generation models, follows a cease-and-desist letter the MPA sent in February over these tools.

Disney and other studios in ⁠February raised concerns the ‌AI ‌tools could generate content featuring copyrighted ‌characters and celebrity likenesses ‌without authorization.

ByteDance said newer versions of the models include stronger intellectual-property protections.

Models ‌are offered through services including TikTok, CapCut and Dreamina.

The ⁠MPA's challenge came amid concerns that Seedance could generate content featuring copyrighted film and television characters without permission.

Both sides said they will continue collaborating on safeguards for copyrighted content as AI technology evolves.