Bowie

DAVID Bowie and Kate Bush have been named among the top cultural icons who most accurately predicted how we live today, according to research.

A poll of 2,000 adults found George Orwell, Roald Dahl, and even Ross from Friends – who in 1999 predicted AI would be smarter than us by 2030 – made the top 10 list.

Other cultural icons included Captain Kirk – who used to talk to computers, foldable communicators, and tablets as far back as the 1960s – and Ridley Scott.

The director’s seminal 1982 film Blade Runner is still hailed today as a masterclass in technological foresight.

Meanwhile the sitcom, The Simpsons has a history of uncanny predictions, including Donald Trump‘s presidency, the Pandemic, a FIFA scandal, and the development of smartwatches.

The research was commissioned by Samsung for its ‘Visionary Hall of Fame’ and rounding off the top 10 are musicians Prince and Bjork – with the former predicting online dating and virtual relationships in his album 1999, released over 40 years ago.

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While Bjork foresaw the rise of social media in the 1990s and 2000s, predicting that technology wouldn’t just be functional, it would become deeply personal.

Fearne Cotton has teamed up with the brand, as part of their Can Your Phone Do This campaign which highlights the capabilities of Galaxy AI, to go back to her chart show roots, in a brand-new countdown video which reveals the visionaries who feature on the list.

The broadcaster and author said: “These ten icons didn’t just dream about the future; they made it a reality. It’s incredible to see that the future they envisioned is already here, right at our fingertips.

The research also found self-driving cars (39 per cent) topped the list of real-world innovations people remember seeing in pop culture before they became a reality.

This was followed by artificial intelligence (39 per cent) and video calling (33 per cent), along with voice assistants (28 per cent) and smart watches (22 per cent).

Those polled were also quizzed on their use of AI apps or assistants, with 24 per cent using these on their phones daily.

Many use them to ask factual questions (43 per cent), compose messages or emails (22 per cent), and edit photos and videos (22 per cent).

For 23 per cent, they are even translating speech or text among the most used AI functions.

In fact, almost seven in ten (68 per cent) also agreed that today’s AI-powered smartphones feel as though you are carrying the future in your pocket.

Annika Bizon, from Samsung, added: “68 per cent of Brits are amazed that these once-futuristic predictions are now part of everyday life, with over half crediting AI for boosting general knowledge and creativity.

“With Galaxy AI, we’re not just keeping pace with the predictions of modern-day visionaries, we’re actively shaping what comes next.

“We’re turning tomorrow’s possibilities into today’s realities, because when you hold the future in your hand, you’re not just ahead of the curve—you’re defining it.”

Hibs went into Thursday’s second leg as strong favourites given their excellent showing in Belgrade, but their two-goal lead slipped away in alarming fashion as goalkeeper Jordan Smith pushed Milan Vukotic’s long-range effort into the top corner before allowing Jovan Milosevic’s tame effort to squirm under him.

He trudged off at half-time to howls of dismay from the home supporters, but Gray believes the break came at a good time for his side.

“For large spells of the first half the shape was really good, we had the better chances and then there’s obviously a couple of mistakes,” Gray said.

“The character was certainly tested. Half-time came at a good time – I was able to calm them down and then it’s all about character.”

And they showed their character through Bowie’s inspired strike and through a string of Smith saves, who put his first-half horror show behind him admirably.

“I’m delighted for Jordan for his second-half performance,” Gray said. “He made big saves at big times.”

Gray was keen to point out that his team’s character was then tested again.

The tie looked done. Hibs were through, 3-2 up on aggregate with 30 seconds left of time added on.

That was before Partizan’s Andrej Kostic swept home in the 96th minute to force extra time.

However, unlike in Europa League qualifying against Midtjylland, there would be no heartache this time.

“The game became stretched, we lost control at times,” Gray said. “You think you’re over the line and then you have to go again for another 30 minutes.

“Now it’s all done and dusted there will be improvements to come from it, but that’s for another night.”

Short, pained lives marked by achievement and promise and then abruptly gone leave a restless afterglow. Youth is supposed to fade away, not become one’s permanent state. And regarding the late musician Jeff Buckley — a roiling romantic with piercing good looks whose singing could rattle bones and raise hairs — that loss in 1997, at the age of 30 from drowning, burns anew with every revisiting of his sparse legacy of recorded material.

Lives are more complicated than what your busted heart may want to read from a voice that conjured heaven and the abyss. So one of the appealing takeaways from the biodoc “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” is a repudiating of the typical narrative of inescapable fate, instead pursuing the richness of a gifted artist’s ups and downs. Director Amy Berg would rather us see Buckley as he was in the world instead of some conveniently doom-laden figure.

The result is loving, spirited and honest: an opportunity for us to get to know the talented, turbulent Buckley through the people who genuinely knew him and cared about him. But also, in clips, copious writings and snatches of voice recordings, we meet someone empathetic yet evasive, ambitious yet self-critical, a son and his own man, especially when sudden stardom proved to be the wrong prism through which to find answers.

With archival material often superimposed over a faint, scratchy-film background, we feel the sensitivity and chaos of Buckley’s single-mom upbringing in Anaheim, the devastating distance of his absentee dad, folk-poet icon Tim Buckley (you’ll never forget the matchbook Jeff saved), and the creative blossoming that happened in New York’s East Village. There, his long-standing influences, from Nina Simone and Edith Piaf to Led Zeppelin and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, coalesced into a post-grunge emotionalism anchored by those unbelievable pipes.

Even after Buckley’s record-label discovery leads to the usual music-doc trappings — tour montages, media coverage, performance morsels — Berg wisely keeps the contours of his interior life in the foreground, intimately related by key figures, most prominently Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert, romantic confidantes such as artist Rebecca Moore and musician Joan Wasser, and bandmates like Michael Tighe. Berg keeps these interviewees close to her camera, too, so we can appreciate their memories as personal gifts, still raw after so many years.

Fans might yearn for more granular unpacking of the music, but it somehow doesn’t feel like an oversight when so much ink on it already exists and so little else has been colored in. The same goes for the blessed absence of boilerplate A-list praise. The global acclaim for his sole album, 1994’s “Grace,” which includes his all-timer rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” certainly put admiring superstars (Dylan, Bowie, McCartney) in Buckley’s path, including one of his idols, Robert Plant. But Berg stays true to a viewpoint rooted in Buckley’s conflicting feelings about the pressures and absurdities of fame, and why it ultimately drove him to Memphis to seek the solace to start a second album that was never completed.

The last chapter is thoughtfully handled. Berg makes sure that we understand that his loved ones view his death as an accident, not a suicide, and the movie’s details are convincing. That doesn’t make the circumstances any less heartbreaking, of course. As warmer spotlights go, “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” may never fully expunge what maddens and mystifies about the untimely end of troubled souls. But it candidly dimensionalizes a one-album wonder, virtually ensuring the kind of relistening likely to deepen those echoes.

Manager Steve Clarke has included seven uncapped players in the Scotland squad for June friendlies against Iceland and Liechtenstein.

Hibernian striker Kieron Bowie and Sassuolo left-back Josh Doig join midfield trio Connor Barron, Andy Irving and Lennon Miller of Rangers, West Ham and Motherwell respectively.

Goalkeepers Robby McCrorie and Cieran Slicker make up the uncapped contingent as Angus Gunn returns.

Everton right-back Nathan Patterson is also back, while squad regulars Craig Gordon, Kenny McLean, Ryan Porteous and Greg Taylor are not included.

Ben Doak, Ryan Christie and Lyndon Dykes are recovering from injuries.

Iceland will visit Hampden Park on Friday, 6 June (19:45 BST) and Clarke’s side will travel to Vaduz to take on Liechtenstein on Monday, 9 June (18:00).

Iceland have lost all six of their previous meetings with Scotland, with the latest three encounters finishing 2-1 to the Scots.

Scotland have two wins out of two against Liechtenstein, with both games settled by a one-goal margin.

Bowie, 22, is the only player not to have been called up to the senior squad before, having played 10 times at under-21 level.