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Calgary Herald
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Burton Cummings is proud to be surviving the Taylor Swift era
Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content With some turbulence facing the country these days, the Canadian music environment remains strong. It's an outlet to help carry the load. Article content Article content Enter musician and walking music encyclopedia, Burton Cummings, on the phone line. With decades filled with hit songs and historical Canadian firsts, Cummings, 77, has seen it all. Article content In the midst of another leg of his A Few Good Moments tour, the proud Winnipeg native has a brief break after recently headlining the all-Canadian lineup for Line Spike Frontenac, north of Kingston, Ont. Keeping Canadiana spirit in full force, performing Runnin' Back To Saskatoon (co-written with Kurt Winter), was a perfect inclusion. Article content Article content Off the stage, one of his biggest achievements is his ever-growing MP3 collection, staggering in scope. Article content 'The minute CDs were invented, I was a happy guy and I went and got a whole half a dozen iPods and loaded them with all my favourite stuff because I fly all the time … so I've worked on my library now for 40 years and I can say this very honestly, I have way more documented music than any radio station in the world — anywhere. Article content 'I was never a vinyl fan because back in the hippie days we would party for days — and drink beers and play the records and they got scratched all the time — and then I would go and buy another copy of the white Beatles album … I never liked vinyl because there was always so much noise.' Article content Article content But he remains faithful to his era. Article content 'I don't listen to that much modern stuff anymore, but I have to take my hat off to Taylor Swift. She broke all the records that I ever knew about in the industry. I kind of joke on stage now that I've survived into the Taylor Swift era and it makes me very proud.' Article content 'To have a new album out at this age in my life and have the tremendous reviews that I've gotten — it's like people, and the critics, have been very kind to this album. I'm very happy about this at my age.' Article content Article content A Few Good Moments also reveals a bookend to his life. Cummings shot the cover photo. Article content 'It was 1970. The big clock you see I bought on tour in the Maritimes, I think Halifax. The small clock was my mother's alarm clock through her whole entire adult life. The watch in the middle — I got for being on The Dating Game and not getting picked — so there you go.'
Ottawa Citizen
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Ottawa Citizen
Burton Cummings is proud to be surviving the Taylor Swift era
Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content With some turbulence facing the country these days, the Canadian music environment remains strong. It's an outlet to help carry the load. Article content Enter musician and walking music encyclopedia, Burton Cummings, on the phone line. With decades filled with hit songs and historical Canadian firsts, Cummings, 77, has seen it all. Article content In the midst of another leg of his A Few Good Moments tour, the proud Winnipeg native has a brief break after recently headlining the all-Canadian lineup for Line Spike Frontenac, north of Kingston, Ont. Keeping Canadiana spirit in full force, performing Runnin' Back To Saskatoon (co-written with Kurt Winter), was a perfect inclusion. Article content Article content Off the stage, one of his biggest achievements is his ever-growing MP3 collection, staggering in scope. Article content 'The minute CDs were invented, I was a happy guy and I went and got a whole half a dozen iPods and loaded them with all my favourite stuff because I fly all the time … so I've worked on my library now for 40 years and I can say this very honestly, I have way more documented music than any radio station in the world — anywhere. Article content 'I was never a vinyl fan because back in the hippie days we would party for days — and drink beers and play the records and they got scratched all the time — and then I would go and buy another copy of the white Beatles album … I never liked vinyl because there was always so much noise.' Article content Article content But he remains faithful to his era. Article content 'I don't listen to that much modern stuff anymore, but I have to take my hat off to Taylor Swift. She broke all the records that I ever knew about in the industry. I kind of joke on stage now that I've survived into the Taylor Swift era and it makes me very proud.' Article content 'To have a new album out at this age in my life and have the tremendous reviews that I've gotten — it's like people, and the critics, have been very kind to this album. I'm very happy about this at my age.' Article content Article content A Few Good Moments also reveals a bookend to his life. Cummings shot the cover photo. Article content 'It was 1970. The big clock you see I bought on tour in the Maritimes, I think Halifax. The small clock was my mother's alarm clock through her whole entire adult life. The watch in the middle — I got for being on The Dating Game and not getting picked — so there you go.'
Axios
10-07-2025
- Business
- Axios
AI is turning Apple into a market "loser"
Apple stock is down 15% this year, even as other big tech firms like Nvidia rally to new all-time highs. Worries about Apple's ability to compete on artificial intelligence, to weather tariff policy, and to outgrow competitors are piling up. Why it matters: Wall Street consensus is that the company is behind on artificial intelligence and running short on time to do something about it. What they're saying: Apple "needs the AI story because that's what's being rewarded in the market," Dave Mazza, chief executive officer of Roundhill Investments, tells Axios. "Until that changes, I think they're gonna be looked at…as a loser," he says. Catch up quick: Apple has a history of redefining itself, Mazza says. Just look at the journey from iPods to iPhones. But the company also takes its time on adoption historically, and has largely failed to deliver on its Apple Intelligence promises, disappointing investors at the latest Worldwide Developers Conference. "Apple is at a highway rest stop on a bench watching this 4th Industrial Revolution race go by at 100 miles an hour," writes Dan Ives, Wall Street's favorite tech bull, in a note to clients. The company is under pressure from a slew of headwinds, including tariff threats, executive departures and concerns about its pace of innovation. Axios reached out to Apple for comment and did not receive a response. What's next: The time has come and gone for Apple to win on AI on its own, according to Ives. It's time for an acquisition. "Apple needs to acquire Perplexity to significantly boost its AI platform," he writes. "If Apple has to pay ~$30 billion its a drop in the bucket relative to the monetization opportunity Apple can achieve on AI in our view." Reality check: Apple has plenty of income from other businesses while figuring out its AI strategy. Services, the fastest-growing part of the company's business, accounted for nearly a quarter of its revenue as of September 2024, according to FactSet. A weaker dollar will buoy Apple earnings, with nearly 60% of its revenue generated outside of the U.S. $80 billion cash on its balance sheet gives the company flexibility to weather the storm. The bottom line: Apple has 24 to 36 months before it has its own AOL moment, according to Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment.
Business Insider
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
Apple has yanked yet another ad campaign. Why?
Apple is justifiably famous for its marketing. You could even argue that the company's ad campaigns are as well-known as its products: Think Different. Dancers with iPods. And, of course, the 1984 Super Bowl ad for the Mac. But now, for some reason, Apple is developing a different reputation in adland: the company that pays for ad campaigns and then pulls them. Last year, Apple rolled out an ad for its iPad Pro and then apologized and yanked it, after online complainers complained that the vibes were off. Earlier this spring, Apple axed an ad promoting an AI-powered version of Siri, once it became clear that version of Siri wasn't going to be available for some time. And now Apple has disappeared another ad campaign, though I don't have any idea why. This one features Martin Herlihy, the "Saturday Night Live" writer and actor — he's part of the " Please Don't Destroy" troupe that specializes in pre-recorded videos, like this one with Taylor Swift. And the premise is that he's going to teach kids how to convince their parents to buy them a Mac for college. The campaign also came with a kinda clever " Parent Presentation," which you could theoretically download as a PowerPoint and customize in order to close the sale with mom and dad. The ad went up on YouTube and Apple's site last week, and then disappeared in the last few days. But you can still see it, for some reason, on the site we used to call Twitter. Apple just released a 7 minute video and an 81 slide presentation on how to convince your parents to buy you a Mac for college. The presentation is available on Apple's website as a Keynote, PowerPoint, and Google Slides file. — Aaron (@aaronp613) June 20, 2025 I've now watched this thing a few times, and I can't imagine what part of the ad offended or worried someone in or outside of Apple. (And yes, I've asked the company.) If you love conspiracy theories, you could imagine that maybe this is actually a galaxy-brained viral campaign, and that Apple pulled the ad so typers like me would give them free publicity by typing about it. The way some political campaigns will make an incendiary ad that's designed to generate coverage, even if it only runs once. But I'm not a big conspiracy theory person — the truth is usually much dumber than the theory. And in any case, this doesn't seem like Apple's style, at all.
Buzz Feed
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Millennials Are Sharing The Things We All Did 20 Years Ago That Would Make Any Gen Z'er Question Our Collective Sanity Now, And Oh Wow
I hate to break it to you, but we're officially closer to 2050 than we are to 2000. (Yes, that actually makes me sick just trying to wrap my brain around it.) And with time moving so quickly, tons of things that were completely normal in those days are completely obsolete now. Which is an equally hard pill to swallow. But it's always fun to reminisce on what life was really like in the 2000s, when life was simpler — and make fun of young people in the process. So recently on Reddit, people have been answering the question: "What's something people did instinctively 15 years ago, but now younger people don't even realize was a thing?" and the answers have unlocked some serious memories. Here's what people said: "Spending hours renaming and cataloguing an iTunes library ripped from LimeWire." "Carrying a Garmin or other GPS navigation device with you in your car." "Writing in cursive. I was at a wedding where the seating cards were written in cursive, and when I grabbed mine, I had three different younger couples ask me to find theirs." "'Instinctively'? Ctrl + S every few minutes." "Taking 500 photos on a digital camera on a single night out, and then uploading them all to Facebook in several separate albums." "Paying attention to the way you're going so you know how to get back. Or pay attention to landmarks. No one seems to do this anymore." "Downloading playlists to iPods or phones because streaming would destroy your data." "Set up a meeting point when going to a concert, and a fall-back position after the concert in case we get lost." "Travelling internationally without a smartphone, and hoping a friendly local is honest when you ask directions." "People don't know what it's like for weed to be counter cultural and criminal anymore. Kids don't know how to roll joints in legal states; they all get pre rolls. They don't know what it's like to drive 45 minutes outside of town to meet some 45 year old burnout dude playing with knives in the corner while he tries to spit a freestyle for you, and get you to smoke a blunt with him when all you want is your $35 1/8th of an unknown strain that he swears is some top-shelf med-grade shit." "Putting a CD into your car dashboard." "Taking off the head unit of your car stereo, putting it in its box, hiding it under the seat, and putting a wheel lock on, all before you leave and lock your car." "Printing MapQuest directions." "Lining up hours before a movie to get a good seat (no reserved seats). My friends and I lined up for two hours for Avatar when it first came out." "Checking your data usage to make sure you haven't gone over your 100 MB and incurred $0.05/KB overage charges." And similarly: "Restricting the length of your texts to not be charged another 12p for going over the character allowance for one text." "Memorizing phone numbers." "Mailing the DVD back to Netflix." "15 years ago, I still had to pay to 'rent' the required cable box on top of paying for the cable itself." "Handing the clerk your credit card instead of putting it in the machine yourself. And putting your car key in the door." "Turning on/off car headlights." "We talked to strangers so much because people were seen as our entertainment. It was completely normal to be in line at the grocery store just talking to people beside you while you waited. We didn't have phones to be stuck on all day, so we actually interacted with the world and people around us to not be bored." "Watching the 6:30 nightly news in real time. I stopped watching when Trump was elected." "Actually being friends with work colleagues; going to their birthday parties, etc. Now everyone just seems to want to get to work and go home." "Driving to stores to buy things, and planning your whole day around it." "Wedding invitations or important events would come with a map to the venue." "Writing a check." "Answering the phone when it rings." "Planning your route BEFORE getting in the car." "You went to work in nice clothes and got to wear jeans on Friday!" "Knowing which direction is north. In my experience, young people struggle to navigate anywhere without their smartphone giving them directions. They don't really examine the map, and they don't concern themselves with keeping track of where north is." "Hitting the rewind button." "Calling the credit card company before traveling." "Making YouTube videos for the fun of it. Now everyone thinks it's a job and is making soulless, cookie-cutter content by chasing trends to feed the algorithm." "Turning your phone off to save the battery. Now people would rather sacrifice their social life than be unreachable for 10 minutes." "Looking up businesses in the Yellow Pages." "Bulletin boards in coffee shops and casual restaurants are missing now. It used to be that if you wanted to hire someone for a local service, you could find people's flyers or business cards tacked to it: landscapers, plumbers, painters. You could also find show flyers." And we've covered the '00s, so now, let's chat about the '90s! What's something everyone did 25 years ago that would confuse young people today? Tell me in this quick form, or in the comments below! And for more content that brings you right back to the good ol' days, check out BuzzFeed Canada on Instagram and TikTok!
