Archives May 2026

Entertainment

Gati 2026: A Grand Celebration of Indian Classical Dance and Music in Siliguri

Neel Achary 0 Comment

Gati

May 20 | Siliguri, West Bengal: Hakimpara NrityaMalancha Siliguri proudly announces the 42nd edition of GATI 2026, a prestigious Festival of Indian Classical Dance and Music, to be held from 5th to 7th June 2026 at Dinabandhu Mancha, Siliguri, from 5:30 PM onwards each evening.

Organised under the visionary guidance of Guru Vidushi Sangita Chaki, Founder of Hakimpara NrityaMalancha Siliguri, the festival has been celebrating the rich heritage of Indian classical arts for over four decades. Derived from the Sanskrit word meaning “movement” and “rhythm,” GATI embodies the spirit of India’s timeless artistic traditions while offering a vibrant cultural platform for artists, students, and connoisseurs of classical dance and music.

The three-day festival will feature an extraordinary line-up of renowned dancers, musicians, and guest artists from across India, presenting a diverse repertoire of Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Odissi, folk performances, instrumental recitals, vocal music, and thematic productions.

A special segment of Indian classical instrumental and vocal music will showcase performances by eminent artistes including:

  • Sitar: Pt. Sandeep Neogi
  • Sarod: Pt. Sunondo Mukherjee
  • Tabla: Pt. Subir Thakur, Pt. Subir Adhikari & Shri Riju Saha
  • Harmonium & Vocal: Pt. Sourav Chakraborty
  • Rahul Dev

Gati Festival 2026 | Day 1 | 5th June 2026

The inaugural evening will begin with traditional invocations including Ganesh Vandana, Maha Ganapati Shlokam, Pushpanjali, and Nagendra Haray Shiva Stotram, followed by classical dance presentations such as Jatiswaram and Tillana. The audience will also witness provincial folk dances representing different states of India.

The special guest performance of the evening will feature renowned Kathak artiste Shri Rahul Dev from Agartala.

Gati Festival 2026 | Day 2 | 6th June 2026

The second day will present an elaborate Kathak repertoire including Guru Charanam in Trital, Jhaptal Shudhonritya, Darbari Tarana, Ektal Shudhyonritya, Rupak Shudhyonritya, and Thumri. Folk dance performances from various Indian states will further enrich the cultural experience.

The evening’s guest artiste will be acclaimed Kathak exponent Shri Shuvojit Dutta from Kolkata.

Gati 2026

Gati Festival 2026 | Day 3 | 7th June 2026

The concluding day promises a grand culmination with performances including Kalyani Jathiswaram, Prabhumpranath Keertanam, Vasant Jathiswaram, and Niratata Shankara. Distinguished performances by eminent artistes include:

  • Kathak: Guru Sangita Chaki
  • Odissi: Smt. Pushpita Misra
  • Bharatanatyam: Guru Vidwan Praveen Kumar
  • Kathak: Guru Vidushi Gouri Diwakar

A special highlight of the evening will be “Ganga – A Musical Journey”, conceptualised and musically arranged by Shri Subrata De with choreography and dance direction by Vidushi Sangita Chaki.

The festival will conclude with a stirring presentation of “Vande Mataram”, featuring voice and script by Shri Anshuman Paul and Ms. Sanchita Bhattacharya, with dance direction by Guru Vidushi Sangita Chaki.

Hakimpara NrityaMalancha Siliguri warmly invites art lovers, students, cultural enthusiasts, and patrons of Indian classical traditions to witness this magnificent celebration of rhythm, grace, devotion, and artistic excellence.

RSVP: 9434006943
Vidushi Sangita Chaki
Founder, Hakimpara NrityaMalancha Siliguri

Media Partner: Shreyas Webmedia Solutions

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

technology

Caspia Technologies Significantly Expands Agentic Silicon Security Verification with New Release of CODAx

Neel Achary 0 Comment

GAINESVILLE, Fla., May 20: Caspia Technologies announced a significant expansion of its flagship security verification product CODAx. New features were described along with the impact on agentic workflows and associated customer momentum. Some details of Caspia’s security audit of the open-source Caliptra root-of- trust were also disclosed. And the company provided a preview of its communication plans over the next two months.

CODAx, Caspia’s RTL security analyser, was updated with two new AI- driven features, Asset Assist and Report Assist. These features significantly enhance the usability for wider deployment across all design teams, without requiring security expertise.

Security analysis begins with understanding what needs to be protected. Current practices in identifying security assets are manual and require expert assistance. This results in limited identification of security assets and limited scope and coverage for security analysis.

Asset Assist performs automated asset identification on the target design using design-specific details to find a much broader list of security-relevant attributes. The result is a more targeted and comprehensive security analysis. Examples of security assets include untrusted signals, protected states, and critical control signals.

Report Assist addresses the process of understanding the impact of violations to develop a prioritised solution strategy. Current practices can be extremely time-consuming and also require expert assistance. Report Assist delivers AI-driven analysis of CODAx security violations with context- driven insights, design-specific severity ratings, and tailored impact scores. This automated violation triage delivers much faster and more effective strategies to address key issues.

These new features can reduce weeks to months of security verification to minutes to hours, allowing existing design teams to perform advanced security verification at scale.

“Report Assist and Asset Assist are paving the way for automated, agentic security verification,” said Stuart Audley, VP and GM of product management at Caspia. “We are seeing significant traction across first-tier CPU, GPU, and memory providers. I am delighted to see our agentic vision begin to take shape.”

The Caliptra root-of-trust represents a production-grade, open-source security IP developed to serve as a foundational trust anchor in SoC designs. It contains over 700 design files, amounting to more than 300,000 lines of RTL code.

The analysis identified 10 critical items and over 50 high-priority findings. These vulnerabilities are exactly the kind of footholds an attacker needs to wedge into a device and take control.

Caspia shared the details of errors associated with one directive related to fault injection susceptibility for sensitive controller states. This directive analyzes the fault injection feasibility metric for finite state machine (FSM) state encodings. Caspia explained that violating this directive makes glitches or fault-induced jumps into protected behavior more feasible, impacting integrity and resulting in potential information leakage.

“The Caliptra design sees widespread use in the industry,” said Beau Bakken, VP of products at Caspia. “We are working with the appropriate contacts in the industry to share these results and assist in developing appropriate corrective action.”

On May 22, 2026, a podcast with Stuart Audley will be released that discusses agentic workflows for security verification on the Semiconductor Insiders podcast series. On June 24, 2026, SemiWiki.com and Caspia will present a webinar entitled Scaling Security Verification Across Design Teams with CODAx Static Analyzer. Beau Bakken and Dr. Zahin Ibnat will present. And on July 27-29, 2026, Caspia will exhibit at the 63rd DAC Chips to Systems Conference in Long Beach, CA. Visit Caspia in booth 759.

technology

AVIAN raises $2.6M to scale AI thermal monitoring for the world’s most fire-prone industrial sites

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After two profitable bootstrapped years, the Zurich-based industrial AI company will accelerate deployment of its end-to-end thermal monitoring platform across sawmills, recycling, mining, chemical processing, oil and gas, and maritime operations – categories where fire and downtime risk are increasingly outpacing what insurers are willing to cover.

Zurich, Switzerland — May 20 ; Industrial operators across Europe and North America are facing a problem they can’t inspect their way out of. Fine dust, friction, electrical faults, and aging equipment are pushing fire and downtime risk into territory that insurers will no longer underwrite at viable premiums. Sites that were insurable five years ago are being deemed too risky today. Against that backdrop, AVIAN – the Zurich-based industrial AI company building 24/7 thermal monitoring for the world’s most fire-prone facilities –  today announced it has raised a $2.6M pre-seed round, led by Founderful. 

AVIAN was profitable and entirely bootstrapped for two years before raising. The company says it raised this round to go faster, expand engineering and deployment capacity, and scale beyond its stronghold in wood products into recycling, chemical processing, oil and gas, and maritime. AVIAN is on track to surpass $1M in ARR in 2026.

How AVIAN works 

Insurance markets are tightening, and more sites are being treated as high risk as equipment ages and failure rates climb. The old approach to thermal safety still looks like periodic thermography, a technician walking the floor with a handheld camera once a quarter. That method misses the window that matters: the hours when a component starts running hot before it fails. Most thermal vendors also stop at the hardware, selling a camera and leaving operators to figure out setup, monitoring, and escalation on their own. AVIAN takes a different approach: the sensor is one component of solving the problem, not the product. Customers are typically up and running in minutes, not months.

AVIAN is built to run like an always-on reliability layer. Its thermal cameras continuously watch the critical components that most often become ignition points, motors, bearings, conveyors, presses, and electrical cabinets, and learn what “normal” looks like in that specific plant. From there, the system focuses on drift, the early heat patterns that show up before failure. Smart alarms filter out routine heat sources so teams aren’t chasing noise, and alerts go to the right people with enough lead time to intervene before a hot component turns into downtime or fire.

AVIAN also generates automated predictive maintenance reports and backs the platform with 24/7 human support. Every alarm event is reviewed and fed back into the models, so detection keeps improving across the fleet and each new site benefits from what AVIAN has already learned in the field.

Customer results

Over the last two years, AVIAN has prevented $50M+ in damages from fires and equipment failures and is deployed in approximately 50 sites across 9 countries.

The impact is clear. Kamps Pallet reduced annual insurance costs by 10% at its Dillwyn sawmill after deploying AVIAN’s system. Sierra Pacific Industries has avoided 24+ hours of unplanned downtime at its Quincy site in the last 12 months alone. Schilliger Holz has used AVIAN to avoid fires and run tighter against unscheduled stops.

In several cases, the system has caught incidents at the point where they still looked small. A pellet press fire was detected early for a customer in Switzerland, avoiding millions in damage. In Germany, AVIAN flagged a small electrical fire next to a machine worth millions. Containing it early protected both the asset and the next 6 to 18 months of production that could have been lost waiting for a replacement.

“AVIAN has developed a solution to a problem which probably affects everyone in the industry directly. For us, it is a great partnership as it helps us make our operations much safer and improves the monitoring process. You will never be able to reduce the risk of fires to zero, but you can do everything you can to minimize the danger as much as possible – and AVIAN makes that possible in a simple and straightforward way,” said Ernest Schilliger, CEO Schilliger Holz. 

The team

AVIAN is a 10-person team based in Zurich. The company was founded after one of Switzerland’s largest sawmills saw Hanover’s robotics and AI research in the Swiss media and reached out about escalating fires, downtime, and rising insurance pressure.

“Most operators don’t need another camera. At 3 a.m., they need to know that a bearing is running hot before it ignites the dust around it,” said Drew Hanover, Co-Founder and CTO of AVIAN. “We bootstrapped the business for two years because we wanted to build something operators actually trusted. We raised with Founderful for one reason: to keep doing that, in more markets, faster, without changing what we are. We spent zero minutes on a deck.”

Alex Stöckl, Partner at Founderful added: “Within a year of incorporation, the team at AVIAN already served dozens of manufacturing businesses in the US and Europe, preventing real fire incidents on a daily basis. With their thermal-vision technology, there’s an immediate ROI and a new industrial intelligence layer that unlocks further use cases and value for customers over time – backing them to accelerate their go-to-market and product roadmap was a no-brainer.”

What’s next

AVIAN’s roadmap splits into two tracks. First, the company has spent years building relationships with insurers to understand how risk is assessed, and its growing camera fleet is positioned to produce something underwriters increasingly demand: real-time, site-level risk assessments backed by live thermal telemetry. Second, AVIAN Vision extends the platform beyond thermal by upgrading existing CCTV systems to detect smoke and fire, giving customers a way to broaden 24/7 protection across an entire facility without replacing the infrastructure they already operate.

AVIAN’s long-term thesis is straightforward. Industrial risk has been priced for decades using actuarial tables and historical claims data. The next decade will be priced using quantifiable, real-time operational data, and AVIAN believes sites that have become difficult to insure can become insurable again through data, discipline, and proactive systems.

 

business

Marketing Fresher Hiring Surges to 62 pecentage YoY Amid Rising Demand for AI & Analytics Roles

Neel Achary 0 Comment

New Delhi,  May 20 : India’s Marketing & Advertising sector is witnessing a significant transformation in fresher hiring patterns, with demand increasingly shifting toward analytics-led, AI-enabled, and digital operations-focused roles, according to TeamLease EdTech’s Career Outlook Report for HY1 (January-June) 2026.

The report reveals that fresher hiring intent in the Marketing & Advertising sector rose sharply to 62% in HY1 2026, compared with 11% in HY1 2025, marking one of the strongest year-on-year increases across sectors. The sector has witnessed a significant rise in fresher hiring demand over the last two years, increasing from 6% in HY1 2024 to 11% in HY1 2025, and further to 62% in HY1 2026.

The findings indicate growing demand for digitally skilled talent as brands continue to scale investments in digital advertising, social commerce, creator-led marketing ecosystems, and performance-driven campaign strategies.

The report highlights a clear evolution in the type of roles driving hiring demand. Traditional brand-led and creative execution-focused hiring is increasingly giving way to data-oriented and technology-enabled functions. Emerging high-demand fresher roles identified in the report include Digital Campaign Analyst, AI Marketing Associate, Ads Operations Executive, and Market Research Assistant.

Commenting on the findings, Shantanu Rooj said, 

 “What stands out in the current hiring cycle is that marketing is increasingly being treated as a measurable business function rather than only a creative one. Entry-level hiring today is being shaped by campaign analytics, marketing automation, ad operations, and AI-assisted execution. Employers are looking for candidates who can work across platforms, interpret performance data, and contribute to revenue-focused digital strategies from day one. This is also increasing the relevance of work-linked and industry-aligned learning models that help freshers build practical, job-ready skills for evolving digital marketing roles.”

Among cities, Pune recorded the highest hiring demand for Ads Operations Executives at 51%, reflecting the growing importance of campaign operations and ad-tech ecosystems within marketing organisations. Hyderabad led hiring demand for Digital Campaign Analysts at 47%, indicating increasing employer focus on campaign measurement, analytics, and performance optimisation. Meanwhile, cities such as Bengaluru and Mumbai continued to remain key hubs for digital marketing and performance-driven hiring, supported by strong demand across advertising, technology, and consumer-focused sectors.

The report further points to the growing integration of AI and automation within entry-level marketing functions. Marketing Automation featured among the top domain skills in demand in HY1 2026, while “Digital Marketing with GenAI Advanced Program” emerged among the top employability-boosting certifications recommended for freshers entering the sector.

The shift toward performance-driven marketing had already begun to emerge in HY1 2025, when Performance Marketing was identified among the leading domain skills in demand. The report also noted projections of India’s digital advertising market reaching INR 1.12 lakh crore by 2025, further accelerating demand for digitally skilled marketing talent.

The report summarizes that India’s fresher marketing hiring ecosystem is evolving rapidly beyond conventional digital marketing roles, with employers increasingly prioritising candidates equipped for analytics-driven hiring, AI-assisted campaign management, performance marketing, social commerce, and digital operations functions. TeamLease Edtech Career Outlook Report HY1, January-June 2026, is based on 1,051 employer responses collected between November 2025 and January 2026 across industries and cities in India. The study examines hiring intent among fresher candidates, in-demand job roles, required skills, and emerging hiring models. It provides actionable insights for first-time jobseekers navigating the January-June 2026 employment market.

business

Perpetuals Launches UpsideOnly, the Trading and Market Prediction Platform Where Users Can’t Lose

Neel Achary 0 Comment

SAN FRANCISCO, CA / May 20, 2026 / Perpetuals.com Ltd (Nasdaq: PDC), on May 19 launched UpsideOnly, the first risk-free trading and market prediction platform that uses a proprietary AI algorithm combined with crowd intelligence to ensure users never lose money. 

The problem is real: retail traders lose more than $12 billion a year to platforms structurally positioned against them. UpsideOnly solves that problem by creating a powerful human-AI collaboration that brings profit to both Perpetuals and its users.

UpsideOnly is built on the simple idea that AI gets smarter when it learns from human traders. As users make predictions across global financial markets such as stocks, cryptocurrencies and commodities, the algorithm folds their insights into its own analysis, producing incredibly accurate trading signals. UpsideOnly uses those signals to make market trades with its own capital and shares the winnings with the users whose predictions helped shape them.

Powering UpsideOnly is the proprietary patent-pending BayesShield AI, which is trained on more than 22 billion executed retail trades, one of the largest trading datasets ever used to train an AI model. The BayesShield algorithm learns from user predictions across global markets, combining human insight with machine-scale pattern recognition to produce trading signals neither could generate alone. 

UpsideOnly lets users benefit from trading gains while eliminating risk by trading exclusively with the company’s own capital – users never put up their own money for trading. This ensures users cannot incur losses. Users make predictions about where global equity, commodity, forex, and crypto markets are heading without ever placing a real trade themselves. BayesShield analyzes each person’s prediction, and when the algorithm indicates that prediction is likely to be successful, UpsideOnly executes a trade with its own capital. If no trade is made, or if a trade is made and loses, the user loses nothing. If the trade wins, the company shares the profit with the user. UpsideOnly also offers additional ways for users to win money based on their overall performance for the week and month, among others. 

Driving the creation of UpsideOnly is the belief that retail traders are being taken advantage of by existing trading platforms and prediction markets. 

“The dominant retail trading model is not a tool. It is a trap, designed so the platform wins when you lose. I spent more than a decade inside this industry and watched the same thing happen over and over. Platforms engineered to extract money from the people who could least afford to lose it, sold to them as investing,” said Patrick Gruhn, CEO of Perpetuals.

“UpsideOnly completely changes this broken structure. The user brings the insight, we bring the capital, and we win together. This is what the next generation of financial platforms looks like: humans and AI teaming up on the same side of the table.”

No deposit is required to make a prediction and win money on UpsideOnly, but in order to reduce the presence of bots, users who choose to put down a refundable deposit of $1 or more will receive higher payouts. Users who make even small deposits are less likely to be bots and more likely to make considered and reliable predictions. The deposit is not a trading stake and is never used for trading. The deposit is held safely in U.S. Treasury Bills in an external account by a separate U.S.-based fiduciary and can be withdrawn by the user at any time. 

business

2026 Cannes Film Festival “China Night” & Golden Coast Gala Shine on the French Riviera

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Business Wire India

On the evening of May 14, 2026 (French time), the 2026 Cannes Film Festival “China Night” & Golden Coast Gala was successfully held at Plage des Palmes, the official beach of the Cannes Marché du Film. As an officially sanctioned event of the Cannes Marché du Film, this forum is led and organized by Beijing Wing Sight Culture and Media Co., Ltd. This year’s edition themed “Wisdom Illuminates the East · The Future Has Arrived” gathered over a thousand guests, including leading figures in the Chinese and French film industries, cultural artists, and international partners, for a grand international gala blending film, culture, art, and technology. For the first time, the event featured “technology + art” as its dual highlights, presenting a spectacular international celebration of film, culture, and cutting-edge innovation.

 

Technology Lights Up the Red Carpet, Eastern Aesthetic Sets the Tone

 

 

This year’s China Night opened with a new form of cross-border integration at the welcome ceremony. The Magic Lab intelligent robot and Jia Yuan, Chair of the Organizing Committee, greeted guests together in a “human–robot welcome”—a standout highlight.

 

 

Distinguished attendees included He Youlin, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Marseille; Jiao Hongfen, Chair of the China Film Producer’s Association; Luis Alberto Scalella, President of the International Federation of Film Producers Associations; Guillaume Esmiol, Director of the Cannes Marché du Film; Thomas de Pariente, Deputy Mayor of Cannes; as well as Jiao Xiongping, Chief Advisor of China Night, and Jiang Ping, Artistic Director of China Night, alongside other Chinese and French political and industry representatives.

 

 

Breaking from the traditional cocktail format, the opening featured a suona performance of excerpts from Black Myth: Wukong. The powerful, resonant tones of this iconic Chinese folk instrument instantly immersed guests in the narrative of China’s beloved myth. With its penetrating Eastern aesthetic melody, the performance set the tone for the evening: “Tradition Resonates with Modernity.”

 

 

Speeches by Chinese and French Guests: Building Bridges for Cultural Outreach

 

 

Key Chinese and French figures took the stage in turn, sharing diverse perspectives on China Night’s cultural mission and industry value.

 

 

Guillaume Esmiol, Director of the Cannes Marché du Film, reflected on long-standing cooperation with the Chinese film industry, emphasized China Night’s importance as an official Marché du Film event, and stated that Cannes will remain a bridge for Chinese cinema to the world.

 

 

He Youlin, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Marseille, praised the deep artistic ties between Chinese and French cinema, and expressed hope that more Chinese stories will reach French audiences.

 

 

Thomas de Pariente, Deputy Mayor of Cannes, welcomed China Night to Cannes and expressed his wish for it to become a long-term brand for bilateral cultural exchange.

 

 

Luis Alberto Scalella, President of the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, affirmed China’s growing importance in the global film industry from an international producer’s perspective.

 

 

Jiao Hongfen, Vice President of the International Federation of Film Producers Associations & Chairman of China Film Producers’ Association, noted that the high-quality development of China’s film industry is energizing the global market, and that China Night serves as a vital window for cultural outreach.

 

 

Jia Yuan, Chair of the China Night Organizing Committee, warmly welcomed all guests and outlined the long-term vision: “China Night is not merely a cocktail party or an event—it is a sustained platform for exchange and co-creation. We hope it becomes a light, illuminating the path of Chinese stories to the world.”

 

 

Jiao Xiongping, Renowned Producer, Film Scholar & Chief Advisor of China Night, together with Jiang Ping, Artistic Director of China Night, expressed their hope that China Night will serve as a bridge for artistic exchange between China and the world, and encouraged young Chinese artists to uphold cultural confidence and present works imbued with Eastern wisdom and contemporary vitality to the global stage.

 

 

Stars Shine Bright: Projecting China’s Multifaceted Image

 

 

The evening featured the official presentation of China Night’s three Global Ambassadors: Li Shaohong (Global Image Ambassador), Liu Ye (Global Outreach Ambassador), and Lay Zhang (Global communication Ambassador). Jiao Hongfen, Jia Yuan, and Benoît Ginisty, President of the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, presented honorary appointment letters to the three ambassadors, who pledged to build bridges through cinema and show the world China’s diverse beauty.

 

 

Li Shaohong, Global Image Ambassador, expressed her great honor and commitment to continuing to convey the diversity of Chinese cinema from a director’s perspective.

 

 

Liu Ye, Global Outreach Ambassador, shared his personal connection to the Cannes Film Festival. As part of a Sino-French family, he emphasized that cultural differences should not divide but bring people closer. He noted that a Chinese story touches French audiences not only through translation but through authentic emotion at its core. He believes that as more Chinese films reach global audiences, the world will see a true, three-dimensional, and warm China.

 

 

Lay Zhang, Global Communication Ambassador, described film as a universal language that transcends distance and connects hearts. He pledged to use this platform to show the world a real, vivid, and dynamic China, as well as the cultural responsibility of Chinese youth.

 

 

Inaugural Golden Coast Honors: Saluting Pioneers of Cultural Outreach

 

 

A highlight of the evening was the Inaugural Golden Coast Honors, launched to celebrate outstanding contributions to China’s cultural outreach. The honors aim to “honor original aspirations with glory, empower cultural outreach with grandeur”, recognizing exceptional film works, national brands, and intangible cultural heritage inheritors in the field of global cultural exchange.

 

 

Jiao Hongfen, Jiao Xiongping, Li Shaohong, Jiang Ping presented the honor to four outstanding Chinese productions: The Concierge, Cold War 1994, My Grandparents, Beyond the Window Lies the Blue Planet.

 

 

Jiang Ping presented the honor to Magic Lab for breakthroughs in high-tech global outreach.

 

 

Director Li Shaohong presented the honor to Junpei Jewelry.

 

 

Jia Yuan presented the honor to DYESOO (Duoyanshou).

 

 

Mike (Wu Yi Ge), Asia-Pacific Ambassador for Film and Cultural Exchange of China Night, presented the honor to Bai Xiao T.

 

 

Yuan Shanshan, Fashion Ambassador of China Night, presented the honor to Golden Tree.

 

 

Lay Zhang, Global Communication Ambassador of China Night, presented the honor to Zhou Liwei (paper-cutting) and Zhou Jin (horse-face skirt craftsmanship), inheritors of China’s intangible cultural heritage.

 

 

Liu Ye, Global Outreach Ambassador of China Night, presented the honor to: Chang Sisi, renowned Chinese coloratura soprano and Ambassador for ethnic culture promotion of China Night; Wang Xiaowei, renowned double keyboard (Electronic Pipe Organ) performer and Bokui, the celebrated painter.

 

 

Cinema as a Bridge, Mutual Appreciation of Civilizations

 

 

The evening culminated in a stunning audiovisual feast of East–West exchange: Anne Carrère, acclaimed French singer and heir to Edith Piaf’s legacy, performed the French classic Je Ne Regrette Rien, echoing China Night’s commitment to showcasing Chinese culture globally. Wang Xiaowei delivered a dual-keyboard + AI visual performance of Hero, blending technology and music to honor iconic cinematic figures. Chang Sisi performed Why Are the Flowers So Red in her signature coloratura style, merging Eastern melody with Western technique. Chen Yixuan, UNESCO International Peace Artist and guzheng performer, together with Shen Xiaolin, young traditional music inheritor, performed classic Chinese melodies on the guzheng.

 

 

During the cultural painting donation ceremony, Bokui, Sino-French Cultural Art Ambassador and master of freehand flower-and-bird painting, presented his original Chinese ink painting—featuring the rooster, beloved by both Chinese and French people—to representatives of the Cannes Marché du Film and the China Night Organizing Committee, embodying Eastern aesthetics.

 

 

From empowering Chinese filmmakers to shine globally, supporting Chinese films to sail overseas, and enabling national brands to go global, to promoting intangible cultural heritage to the world—China Night has always served as a dynamic platform for dialogue between China and the world.

 

 

On the stage of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, this year’s China Night marks a new chapter for Chinese cultural outreach with greater maturity and vision. Looking ahead, China Night will continue to unite filmmakers, cultural inheritors, and innovators, driving the broader international dissemination of Chinese stories and enabling the world to deeply appreciate China’s beauty.

 

 

Wisdom Illuminates the East · The Future Has Arrived. China Night, see you next year!

 

 

 

 

 

business

Biom Launches Cleansing Body Wipes: A Full-Body Reset Without the Shower

Neel Achary 0 Comment

Plant-Based, Dermatologist-Tested Wipes Designed for Modern, On-the-Go Living

Biom, the wipe brand committed to clean ingredients, plastic-free fibers, and wipes you can actually trust, today announced the launch of its Cleansing Body Wipes: an XL, extra-strong wipe designed to deliver a full-body refresh without the need for a shower. Available at Target and getbiom.co, the wipes are formulated with clean, plant-based ingredients and are free from harsh chemicals.

Unlike conventional wipes that leave behind sticky residue or contain harmful additives, Biom No Rinse Body Wipes are dermatologist-tested, hypoallergenic, and infused with aloe and vitamin E to cleanse, soothe and hydrate skin. Each wipe is large enough for head-to-toe use without tearing or drying out mid-use, making them the go-to solution for workouts, travel, and everyday life on the move.

Biom Launches Cleansing Body Wipes: A Full-Body Reset Without the Shower

“You can think of our body wipe as a shower alternative for the moments you simply don’t have time for one”, says Will Gahagan, Co-Founder & CEO of Biom. “Clean ingredients, no sticky residue, just an XL wipe that delivers straight up confidence. The hero ingredient in our formula is plant-derived tannic acid, which helps neutralize odor at the source instead of simply masking it with fragrance. Whether it’s post-workout, between meetings, fresh off a red-eye, or in the middle of a wedding weekend, this product was made to help people feel fresh and confident wherever life takes them.”

Key product features

  • 30 wipes for just $2.99 at Target; premium quality without the premium price tag
  • Full-body refresh with no shower required; removes sweat and grime in a single wipe
  • XL and extra strong (large enough for head-to-toe use without tearing or drying out)
  • Clean, skin-safe formula free from PEGs, sulfates, parabens, quats, phthalates, and harsh preservatives
  • Hypoallergenic and dermatologist-tested, infused with aloe and vitamin E
  • 100% plant-based, plastic-free, biodegradable fibers
  • Light, natural fragrance that leaves skin refreshed

Biom has built its reputation on a simple premise: the products people reach for every day should be made with simple, trustworthy ingredients that actually work. Since its founding, the company has expanded across the wipes category, from flushable and disinfecting to hand sanitizing and all-purpose, each time asking whether the existing options were actually good enough. Biom’s Body Wipes are the latest answer to that question. For the millions of people who work out, travel, or simply don’t have time for a full shower, Biom is betting that clean ingredients and thoughtful design shouldn’t be a luxury, they should just be the standard.

Biom Cleansing Body Wipes are available now at Target (Body Travel Pack, 30ct) for $2.99, and online at getbiom.co and Amazon.

business

Material Welcomes Ranjan Kalia as Chief Financial Officer

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Business Wire India

Material Plus Holdings, LLC (Material), an intelligent growth company providing AI-driven consumer insights, growth strategy, product design and digital platform engineering, is pleased to welcome Ranjan Kalia as Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

 

Kalia’s appointment comes as Material continues to scale its global capabilities, helping clients harness the power of data and AI to deliver demand-centric growth. A three-time CFO with more than 30 years of experience, Kalia brings incisive financial perspectives and operational command shaped by senior leadership roles across both public companies and private-equity owned enterprises.

 

 

Laila Worrell, Material’s CEO, stated, “Ranjan’s leadership as CFO will play a pivotal role in our next phase of growth, as we invest to deliver even greater innovation and value for our clients. He brings a global, results-oriented mindset and a strong track record scaling tech-enabled services businesses. He will be a tremendous partner in executing Material’s strategy and creating exceptional outcomes for our clients.”

 

 

Kalia will partner with Material’s executive team to advance the company’s continued global expansion and investment in AI and data capabilities.

 

 

Kalia commented, “Material sits at a powerful intersection of customer data, behavioral and decision science, product design and platform engineering. Material is in a category-of-one in bringing these differentiated capabilities together to drive growth for clients. I am energized by the company’s momentum, the caliber of its people and its longstanding client relationships with the world’s most influential companies. The opportunity ahead is significant, and I look forward to helping Material continue to capture it.”

 

 

About Ranjan Kalia, Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

 

 

Ranjan Kalia joins Material with more than 30 years of experience leading finance organizations across global businesses. Most recently, Kalia was CFO at Brillio, and before that at Orion Innovation and Virtusa Corporation, where he was a central figure in scaling Virtusa’s business from roughly $100 million to $1.2 billion in revenue.

 

 

Earlier in his career, Kalia held senior finance and operational leadership roles at EMC Corporation, General Electric Company, PepsiCo, Inc., and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, building a foundation in global finance, audit and operations.

 

 

About Material

 

 

Material Plus Holdings, LLC is an intelligent growth company that is part of the Blackstone portfolio. Material has a 50-year history of helping clients build customer intelligence into brands, experiences, and digital platforms that compete and win. Material works with world-class companies to drive demand-centric growth through integrated capabilities including insights-driven strategy, product design and innovation, customer engagement, and digital platform engineering. In addition to serving the corporate market, through its subsidiary, Aruliden, Material has helped some of the world’s most celebrated cultural icons extend their personal brands into new product lines. Learn more at materialplus.io.

 

 

 

 

 

business

Canva Brings On-Brand, Editable Design into Google Gemini

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Business Wire India

 

  • With the addition of the Canva Connected App for Gemini, the Canva Design Engine now enables seamless creation in every major AI Assistant.
  • Turn AI-generated images from Google’s Nano Banana model into editable designs with Canva’s Magic Layers AI tool.
  • Connect to team context and brand intelligence stored on Canva to create on-brand designs from the first prompt.

 

Canva, the world’s leading all-in-one visual communication platform, today announced the launch of its Connected App for Google Gemini at Google I/O in Mountain View, California. Gemini users can now generate and edit Canva designs, search their Canva content, and turn Nano Banana images into layered, editable designs to refine and publish in Canva. Building on previous collaborations with Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot, the Connected App in Gemini represents a milestone in Canva’s strategy to every surface where work and ideas begin.

 

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260519890336/en/

 

 

 

As AI accelerates the pace of content creation, millions of people are looking for ways to move beyond ideas and siloed outputs, and turn AI content into real, usable work. The Canva Connected App for Gemini helps close that gap, uniting the power of Gemini with Canva’s brand management, drag-and-drop editing, real time collaboration, and powerful publishing platform.

 

Rolling out gradually to all Gemini tiers and all Canva plans in select markets in English starting May 19, the Canva Connected App for Gemini brings Canva’s proprietary design AI into one of the world’s most popular AI systems.

 

 

Bringing Canva Everywhere Work Begins

 

 

Powered by Canva’s proprietary foundation model for design, the Canva Design Model, Canva designs created in the Gemini app are fully editable and connected to your Canva Brand Kit. To get started, type @Canva or connect Canva in Gemini app settings, then typing @Canva to kick off an idea. Users can generate designs based on the context of their Gemini chat, and take it into Canva to refine, collaborate with their team and publish across platforms.

 

 

“You can only experience the true potential of AI when it’s connected to your brand and your context. Millions of people turn to Gemini for ideation and research, but they miss that brand, context & design that only Canva brings. Having the full power of Canva’s platform right in Gemini makes it seamless to turn AI-generated content into polished work that’s ready to scale. I’m especially excited to see what our community creates by pairing Nano Banana with Magic Layers: from campaign assets, to surreal storybooks, to eye-popping product imagery. They’re all great examples of how the Canva Design Model is opening up a new dimension of AI-powered design,” said Cameron Adams, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Canva.

 

 

Nano Banana Images Become Editable Canva Designs

 

 

Today’s launch connects one of Canva’s most popular AI capabilities, Magic Layers, with Google’s Nano Banana image model. Magic Layers solves a persistent frustration with AI-generated content: flat, static image outputs that can’t be manually edited. Where generative AI has traditionally produced locked files that require re-prompting for every small change, Magic Layers analyzes the structure of an image and separates it into individual, movable elements.

 

 

Gemini users can now create high-fidelity images with Nano Banana, and ask Canva to turn those images into fully editable, layered designs that can be refined, resized, and published from Canva. Rather than re-prompting, Magic Layers unlocks true creative control over every idea – from marketing teams storyboarding campaigns, to small businesses updating promotional materials, and creators remixing content.

 

 

On-Brand From the Start

 

 

Even when AI helps teams move faster, they often spend significant time bringing outputs back on brand. 98% of Fortune 500 brands use Canva, which acts as a hub for brand content, logos, colors, fonts and overall visual identity.

 

 

That brand intelligence now travels into Gemini. The Canva Connected App for Gemini connects directly to each user’s Canva Brand Kit. Every AI-generated asset carries the right visual context, making Canva the foundation that keeps AI workflows on-brand.

 

 

Canva: The Visual Layer for AI 


 

 

Today’s launch completes Canva’s expansion into every major AI assistant. As large language models scale what is possible, Canva has become a critical engine for editable, on-brand design and analysis inside AI conversations.

 

 

Canva now serves more than 265 million people across 190 countries every month, is the third most-used AI platform in the world, and the fastest-growing in customer spend on AI products among leading software companies, according to research by Andreessen Horowitz. Canva apps, skills and more are now available across Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini.

 

 

Whether work begins inside Canva or inside an AI assistant, Canva is the creative layer that turns AI-generated ideas into work that makes an impact.

 

 

Availability

 

 

The Canva Connected App for Google Gemini starts rolling out with limited availability from May 19, 2026, with full availability coming soon. Enable Canva via Gemini app settings to get started.

 

 

About Canva

 

 

Launched in 2013, Canva is the world’s leading all-in-one platform for visual communication and collaboration. Built to empower everyone to design, Canva serves the creative and design needs of enterprises, small businesses, consumers, and students in more than 190 countries worldwide. Whether you’re a novice taking your first steps in design, or a creative professional seeking powerful tools, Canva ensures users have what they need to transform an idea into something beautiful. Underpinned by the world’s most comprehensive library of designer-made content, Canva is powered by a suite of products and proprietary AI tools that elevate how individuals and teams create, collaborate, and communicate with ease.

 

 

 

 

 

news

New AI System Uses Thermal Camera Sensors to Steer Ships Clear of Gray Whales in the San Francisco Bay

Neel Achary 0 Comment

SAN FRANCISCO (May 20)—Last year, 21 gray whales were found dead in and around San Francisco Bay and 40% of those deaths were due to collisions with ships. Whale season typically peaks in May in the area and already seven whales have died thus far. Today, a local coalition has unveiled a near real-time, thermal camera monitoring system that detects whales’ heat signatures and “blows” (exhaled breath) in the busy waterway and then alerts nearby mariners to re-route or reduce their speed to avoid hitting them.

Currently amid a 12,000-mile migration from their Alaskan feeding ground to their Mexican mating and birthing lagoons and back, gray whales are taking an unexpected detour into the heavily-trafficked Bay, presently a new challenge for the Bay Area mariner community to address. Scientists believe the whales are impacted by the changing climate: their food sources in the Arctic aren’t sustaining them for their journey, requiring them to make unusual stops in the Bay and elsewhere to search for food.

“It is heartbreaking to see these starving whales stumbling around in the middle of the hustle and bustle of San Francisco Bay. Every day is a nailbiter. But what gives me hope is seeing how all the right partners in the Bay Area community have come together to do something. This new system will save whales’ lives. We are all proud of this.”

— Professor Douglas McCauley, Director, Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory, UC Santa Barbara

Designed by researchers at the Benioff Ocean Science Lab, in collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Service, whale experts at The Marine Mammal Center, the system employs Flir thermal cameras coupled with AI-powered detection technology developed by WhaleSpotter that identifies marine mammals, 24/7, detecting the heat signature of a warm-blooded whale blow at a range of up to 4 nautical miles (7 km). Each detection is instantly reviewed by one of WhaleSpotter’s credentialed marine mammal specialists before any alert goes out. Once they are spotted, UCSB scientists map out the whale detections on the Whale Safe website and share them with Bay mariners and the U.S. Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Service, which then can radio vessels when there are whales in the area under imminent threat.

The effort comes amid a troubling new pattern in gray whale population decline: Half of all Eastern North Pacific gray whales have died in the past 10 years. Researchers point to changes in their Arctic feeding grounds as the trigger for this crisis. As Arctic sea ice declines precipitously, the food chain upon which the whales depend is under threat. Less ice means less food.

As a result, many hungry gray whales are making a detour on their migration route into the San Francisco Bay, apparently to rest and search for food. This puts them at great risk as they must navigate around the many cargo ships, tankers, ferries, speed boats, fishing boats, and tour boats that transit the Bay every day. Many emaciated and exhausted whales have become victims of ship-strikes.

“We’re relieved to have these cameras going live during this critical moment in the gray whale season. Last year was one of the deadliest on record for gray whales in the Bay, with 21 dead, and seven more have already died this year. The whale and mariner communities have been racing to get ahead of this, building new tools and partnerships we didn’t have a year ago.”

— Rachel Rhodes, Scientist leading the project, Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory

The first node in the whale detection network was installed in collaboration with the Coast Guard on a USCG communication station on Angel Island. The system points across the Bay towards Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge and covers a hotspot of overlap between gray whales and vessels. The second detection system will be installed on MV Lyra, a passenger ferry operated by San Francisco Bay Ferry on a daily route connecting Vallejo to Downtown San Francisco. SF Bay Ferry, a public ferry agency that carries 3 million passengers per year, will host the first such vessel-based whale detection system in the Bay. Discussions are underway to expand the network to eventually create capacity to detect and track all whales present in all parts of the Bay. Next strategically important expansion locations based on the whale data include sites such as the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz.

“SF Bay Ferry has worked closely with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Marine Mammal Center, the Harbor Safety Committee, our contract operator Blue & Gold Fleet and our sister agency Golden Gate Ferry to develop and elevate whale protection protocols and avoid strikes in the San Francisco Bay. This work includes ongoing monitoring, enhanced communication and education among mariners, and operating mitigations such as route adjustments and speed reductions in the presence of whales. Testing the thermal monitoring system designed and provided by the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory is the next evolution of our work, and we’re thrilled to soon have one of the Bay’s two monitoring cameras on our ferry. We remain committed to bringing together fellow vessel operators to protect whales with the best available technology and protocols.”

— Seamus Murphy, Executive Director, SF Bay Ferry

The thermal camera expansion is one piece of a broader collaboration coordinated through the San Francisco Harbor Safety Committee’s Marine Mammal Subcommittee that brings together a dozen organizations, including ferry operators, Vessel Traffic Service, marine mammal specialists, and research institutions to protect gray whales while keeping vessel traffic moving safely through the Bay.

“You can open an app on your phone and instantaneously see the exact location of every Muni bus in San Francisco. We aim to soon be able to do the same thing for whales in the Bay. This would be a game changer for whale safety.”

— Professor Douglas McCauley, Director, Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory 

“For too long, mariners have been asked to protect whales they simply couldn’t see. We’re changing that. This deployment means ships in San Francisco Bay now have eyes on the water, day and night, miles ahead. The whales have been here for thousands of years. We intend to keep it that way.”

— Shawn Henry, CEO, WhaleSpotter

“I’m excited to see WhaleSpotter deployed in San Francisco Bay. This kind of real-time whale monitoring is a major step forward for reducing vessel strike risk and protecting gray whales navigating one of the nation’s busiest waterways. Having 24/7 visibility into when whales are present will strengthen awareness and communication across the maritime sector and support action to help keep both whales and vessels safe.”

— Kathi George, Director of Cetacean Conservation Biology, The Marine Mammal Center