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‘We’re huge JRPG fans’: Purity Ring on how nostalgia for a gaming era inspired their new single | Games

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If you were around for the electropop zeitgeist of the early 2010s, chances are that Purity Ring feature prominently on your nostalgia playlist. And if you were a young adult at that time, well, there’s also a high chance that you played Japanese role-playing games as a teenager – whether that was Chrono Trigger on an SNES or Final Fantasy on a PlayStation. Purity Ring’s new single Many Lives is an attempt to recapture the feeling of the RPG that you discovered as a 12-year-old and immediately made into your whole personality. Inspired by games such as Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star Online and Secret of Mana, it is poised to tug on the heartstrings of fans of a certain vintage.

This is a bold decision for a band who have previously collaborated with Deftones and covered Eurodance classics, but members Megan James and Corin Roddick have the gaming expertise to pull it off. “We’re huge fans of the JRPG genre,” they say, naming Nier: Automata and Final Fantasy X as major influences on the sonic atmosphere of their latest work. “And we’re both currently playing Metaphor: ReFantazio – it’s an incredible fantasy take on the Persona formula.”

Five years after their last studio album and with more than a decade of remixes under their belt, Purity Ring are now fully independent and working under their own imprint, The Fellowship. Their next album, out in September, is described as “the soundtrack to an imagined RPG… the record tells the story of two hapless characters – embodiments of mj and Corin – on a journey to build a kinder world amid the ruins of a broken one.”

The album didn’t start out as an imagined video game soundtrack, but during production they quickly realised where the idea could lead: “There was a sense of traversing an RPG world, of a journey unfolding that felt deeply tied to the sound,” they say. With this concept identified, Many Lives and its b-side, Part II, were born. “Many Lives is the doorway into this imagined world, and its centre – sort of like the place in the beginning of most JRPG games, where the character begins their story.”

The video for Many Lives, with its cel-shaded graphics, was directed by Mike Sunday.

The story here centres around Purity Ring’s real-life experiences during production, as well as “memories and places of terror and comfort” from the duo’s past. “This album is an extension of the dreaming it takes to make actual change,” they say; it explores how games can offer a journey that leads to creative rebirth.

On first listen, what stands out in Many Lives is the haunting voices of the choir, reminiscent of Kenji Kawai’s iconic Ghost in the Shell soundtrack. This eerie intro is accompanied by a high-tempo breakbeat, culminating in a track that feels like watching classic anime while playing Jet Set Radio. Purity Ring aren’t shy about their love for this era. “The Ghost in the Shell soundtrack is such a striking combination with the visuals … it was very memorable to experience that as a kid.” Having revisited the anime for this project, the duo decided to create their new music in its image, citing it alongside the Japanese cult classic game Nier: Automata as an example of music that makes you feel part of the world.

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Canadian electropop duo Purity Ring. Photograph: yuniVERSE

Like Kawai’s soundtrack, Many Lives channels the haunting vocals of Bulgarian folk music alongside James’ vocoded lyrics. Purity Ring aren’t afraid to turn to non-traditional instruments for ideas, claiming they aren’t big gearheads and rarely use hardware synths. “The Legend of Zelda series has always been a major inspiration for us,” they say. “Especially the ocarina music from the N64 titles.” You’ll hear echoes of 1998’s Ocarina of Time in the melody threading through both tracks, like a half-remembered song you’ve not heard for some time.

If the nostalgic vocals and retro Casiotone MT-240 sounds aren’t enough to make you long for the golden age of games, the accompanying video’s cel-shaded graphics emphasise the duo’s love for all things RPG. Directed by Mike Sunday, the video is a GameCube daydream, inspired by “a time that felt like game developers were really embracing style over realism”. It’s Shinjuku meets Hyrule, reminiscent of the opening maps of JRPGs, places that are always beautiful and yet rarely revisited. Purity Ring are fondest of the PS2 and GameCube era, but they pay tribute to the PlayStation Portable too; the UI for their imagined RPG would look at home on several of the handheld’s bestsellers.

For me, Many Lives sounds like afternoons spent playing Baten Kaitos (I’m still hoping for a sequel). For Purity Ring, the tracks “evoke a feeling of past, present and future – a nostalgia for something you’ve never experienced, but somehow still remember”. They’re keen to position this forthcoming album as a new chapter for them, capturing the sound of an era – and chasing the feeling of playing a life-changing game for the first time.

Purity Ring will release their self-titled 4th album on 26 September



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Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Beauty and Cosmetics Market

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Beauty and Cosmetics Market

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Beauty and Cosmetics market is expected to be valued at USD 3.9 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach approximately USD 17.1 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of around 17.9% from 2025 to 2033.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Beauty and Cosmetics Market Overview:

The AI in Beauty and Cosmetics market is rapidly evolving as brands increasingly integrate smart technologies to enhance customer experiences and streamline operations. AI-powered tools such as virtual try-ons, personalized skincare recommendations, and AI-driven diagnostic tools are revolutionizing how consumers discover, select, and purchase beauty products. Companies are leveraging machine learning and facial recognition to deliver hyper-personalized solutions tailored to individual skin types, preferences, and concerns. E-commerce growth and rising demand for immersive shopping experiences are fueling AI adoption. Furthermore, AI is playing a key role in trend forecasting, inventory management, and product development, positioning it as a transformative force in the global beauty industry.

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L’Oréal Group, Procter & Gamble Co., Estée Lauder Companies Inc., Shiseido Company Limited, Unilever plc, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Coty Inc., Perfect Corp., Revieve Oy, and Olay (P&G).

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From fixed frameworks to strategic enablers: Architecting AI transformation

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Traditional architectural approaches have become unsustainable for technology leaders navigating today’s AI-driven landscape. Architecture is no longer a checkpoint at the end of development but must be woven throughout the entire AI transformation lifecycle. As organizations demand more tangible evidence of AI value and competitive advantage, enterprises must fundamentally transform how they approach architecture, shifting from rigid frameworks to strategic enablement. 

Key takeaways: Architects as strategic business enablers 

  • Shift from rigid control to distributed enablement: Move from centralized architectural governance to distributed frameworks that empower innovation while maintaining necessary guardrails. 
  • Embrace the product mindset: Transform architectural thinking from project-centric deliverables to product-oriented capabilities that continuously deliver business value. 
  • Develop new skills and competencies: Invest in architectural talent that combines technical expertise with strategic business acumen to lead AI transformation. 
  • Implement outcome-based metrics: Measure architectural success through business outcomes rather than technical compliance. 
  • Create self-sustainable systems: Design architectural frameworks that adapt and evolve without constant manual intervention, just as well-planned cities grow organically. 

“As the tech function shifts from leading digital transformation to leading AI transformation, forward-thinking leaders are using this as an opportunity to redefine the future of IT.” — Deloitte Tech Trends 2025 

Breaking free from the order-taking trap 

Many IT organizations have devolved into sophisticated order-taking operations, where architecture teams simply implement strategies handed down from business units without meaningful input into their formation. This execution-only mindset has created several critical dysfunctions. 

The feature factory syndrome 

When IT operates purely as a feature delivery engine, architecture becomes reactive rather than proactive. Teams rush to implement disconnected capabilities without considering the broader ecosystem impact. This creates a devastating cycle: business requests lead to feature development, which accumulates technical debt, increases integration complexity, creates maintenance burden, reduces innovation capacity and ultimately generates more feature requests. 



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We’re Light-Years Away from True Artificial Intelligence, Says Murderbot Author Martha Wells

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Many people fear that if fully sentient machine intelligence ever comes to exist, it will take over the world. The real threat, though, is the risk of tech companies enslaving robots to drive up profits, author Martha Wells suggests in her far-future-set book series The Murderbot Diaries. In Wells’s world, machine intelligences inhabit spaceships and bots, and half-human, half-machine constructs offer humans protection from danger (in the form of “security units”), as well as sexual pleasure (“comfort units”). The main character, a security unit who secretly names itself Murderbot, manages to gain free will by hacking the module its owner company uses to enslave it. But most beings like it aren’t so lucky.

In Murderbot’s world, corporations control almost everything, competing among themselves to exploit planets and indentured labor. The rights of humans and robots often get trampled by capitalist greed—echoing many of the real-world sins Wells attributes to today’s tech companies. But just outside the company territory (called the “Corporation Rim”) is an independent planet named Preservation, a relatively free and peaceful society that Murderbot finds itself, against all odds, wanting to protect.

Now, with the TV adaptation Murderbot airing on Apple TV+, Wells is reaching a whole new audience. The show has won critical acclaim (and, at the time of writing, an audience rating of 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), and it is consistently ranked among the streamer’s most-watched series. It was recently renewed for a second season. “I’m still kind of overwhelmed by everything happening with the show,” Wells says. “It’s hard to believe.”


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Scientific American spoke to Wells about the difference between today’s AI and true machine intelligence, artificial personhood and neurodivergent robots.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

The Corporation Rim feels so incredibly prescient, perhaps even more now than when you published the first book in the series in 2017.

Yes, disturbingly so. This corporate trend has kind of been percolating over the past 10 or 15 years—this was the direction we’ve been going in as a society. Once we have the idea of corporations having personhood, that a corporation is somehow more of a person than an actual human individual, then it really starts to show you just how bad it can get. I feel like that’s been possible at any time; it’s not just a far-future thing. But depicting it in the far future makes it less horrific, I guess. It allows you to think about these things without feeling like you’re watching the news.

Currently the idea of going to Mars is being pushed by private companies as an answer to all the problems. But [the implication is that those who go will be] some billionaires and their coterie and their indentured servants, and that will somehow be paradise for them and just the reverse for everybody else. With corporations taking over, that’s when profit is the bottom line—profit and personal aggrandizement of whoever’s running it. You can’t have the kind of serious, careful scientific progress that we’ve had with NASA.

This world that you’ve created is so interesting because it’s a dystopia in some ways. The Corporation Rim certainly is. And yet Preservation is kind of a utopia. Do you think of them in those terms?

Not really, because by that standard, we live in a dystopia now, and I think that the term dystopia is almost making light of reality. It’s like if you call something a dystopia, you don’t have to worry about fixing it or doing anything to try to alleviate the problems. It feels hopeless. And if you have something you call a utopia, then it’s perfect, and you don’t have to think about problems it might have or how you could make it better for people.

So I don’t really think in those terms because they feel very limited. And clearly in the Corporation Rim, there are still people who manage to live there, mostly okay, just like we do here, now. And in Preservation, there are still people who have prejudices, and they still have some things to work on. But they are actually working on them, which sets it apart from the Corporation Rim.

One of the central themes of the Murderbot stories is this idea of personhood. Your books make it very clear that Murderbot, as a part-human, part-artificial construct, is definitely a person. With our technology today, do you think artificial intelligence, large language models or ChatGPT should be considered people?

Well, Murderbot is a machine intelligence, and ChatGPT is not. It’s called artificial intelligence as a marketing tool, but it’s not actually artificial intelligence. A large language model is not a machine intelligence. We don’t really have that right now.

We have algorithms that can be very powerful and can parse large amounts of data. But they do not have a sentient individual intelligence at this time. I still think we’re probably years and years and years away from anyone creating an actual artificial intelligence.

So Murderbot is fiction, because machine intelligence right now is fiction.

A large language model that pattern matches words, sometimes sort of sounds vaguely like it might be talking to you and sometimes sounds like it’s just putting patterns together in ways that look really bizarre—that’s not anywhere close to sentient machine intelligence.

I find myself feeling really conflicted because I often resent the intrusion of these language models and products that are being called artificial intelligence into modern life today. And yet I feel such affection and love for fictional artificial intelligences.

Yes! I wonder if that’s one thing that’s enabled the whole scam of AI to get such a foothold. Because so many people don’t like having it in their stuff, knowing that it’s basically taking all your data, anything you’re working on, anything you’re writing, and putting it into this churn of a pattern-matching algorithm. Probably the fictional artificial and machine intelligences over the years have sort of convinced people that this is possible and that it’s happening now. People think talking to these large language models is somehow helping them gain sentience or learn more, when it’s really not. It’s a waste of your time.

Humans are really prone to anthropomorphizing objects, especially things like our laptop and phone and all these things that respond to what we do. I think it’s just kind of baked into us, and it’s being taken advantage of by corporations to try to make money, to take jobs away from people and for their own reasons.

My favorite character in the story is ART, who is a spaceship—that is, an artificial intelligence controlling a spaceship. How did you think about differentiating this character from the half-machine, half-human Murderbot?

Ship-based consciousnesses have been around in fiction for a long time, so I can’t take credit for that. But because Murderbot relies on human neural tissue, that’s why it is subject to the anxiety and depression and other things that humans have. And ART is not. ART was very intentionally created to work with humans and be part of a of a team, so it’s never had to deal with a lot of the negative things that Murderbot has. Someone on the internet described ART as, basically, if Skynet was an academic with a family. That’s one of the best descriptions I think I’ve ever seen.

One of the reasons that I and so many people love this series is how well it explores neurodiversity. You have this diversity of kinds of intelligences, and they parallel a lot of the different types of neurodiversity we see among humans in the real world. Were you thinking of it this way when you designed this universe?

Well, it taught me about my own neurodiversity. I knew I had problems with anxiety and things like that, but I didn’t know I probably had autism. I didn’t know a lot of other things until writing this particular story and then having people talk to me about it. They’re like, “How did you manage to portray neurodiversity like this?” And I’m thinking, “That’s just how my brain works.This is the way I think people think.” Until Murderbot, I don’t think I realized the extent to which it affects my writing. I have had a lot of people tell me that it helped them work out things about themselves and that it was just nice to see a character who thought and felt a lot of the same things they did.

Do you think science fiction is an especially helpful genre to explore some of these aspects of humanity?

It can be. I don’t know if it always has been.Science fiction is written by people, and the good and bad aspects of their personality go into it. A genre changes as the people who are working in it change. So I think it’s been better lately because we’ve finally gotten some more women and people of color and neurodivergent people and disabled people’s voices being heard now. And it’s made for a lot of really exciting work coming out. Lately, a lot of people are calling it another golden age of science fiction.

When I wrote [the first book in the series], All Systems Red, I put a lot of myself into it. And I think one of the reasons why people identify with a lot of different aspects of it is because I put a lot of genuine emotion into it and I was very specific about the way Murderbot was feeling about certain things and what was going on with it. I think there’s been a fallacy in fiction, particularly genre fiction, that if you make a character very generic, that lets more people identify with it. But that’s actually not true. The more specific someone is about their feelings and their issues and what’s going on with them, the more people can identify with that because of that specificity.



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