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PayPay, Japan’s leading mobile payment app, has reportedly postponed its US IPO due to market volatility and recent conflict in the Middle East. The company was planning to release its IPO price range on Monday, March 2. PayPay aimed for a valuation of at least ¥1.5 trillion ($10 billion), Bloomberg reported. PayPay was founded in 2018 as a joint venture between SoftBank and Yahoo Japan, with technical collaboration from India’s Paytm. In late 2024, Paytm sold its remaining stake to SoftBank for approximately $279 million. While 2026 opened with high expectations for tech IPOs, several companies withdrew or delayed their…
Uber’s delivery service pays for every pickup and drop-off as well as a per-mile rate, along with any tips given by customers. In some cities, drivers also get a per-minute rate. This means that refusing to take an order has a direct impact on earnings.The driver for Deliveroo added that he has not received any safety guidelines or advice from the company with regards to ongoing missile and drone strikes.Essential WorkDelivery apps also bring groceries, medicine and other supplies to people staying inside. Careem noted a surge in demand for pantry staples including water, rice, pasta, and fresh produce.According to…
Anthropic is making the most of its fallout with the U.S. Department of Defense—and the subsequent influx of interest in its answer engine Claude, promoting its memory import feature, which lets users port over their chat history from other AI chatbots.The memory tool was originally debuted in October of last year, but the company is promoting it anew after integrating memory import interface tools directly into Claude’s settings and publishing a dedicated landing page over the weekend. The dedicated landing page includes demo videos and clear instructions for how users can “switch to Claude without starting over.”The memory import feature…
A group of hacktivists calling themselves “Department of Peace” claimed to have hacked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), leaking allegedly stolen documents online. On Sunday, the nonprofit transparency collective DDoSecrets published data relating to contracts between DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and more than 6,000 companies, including defense contractors Anduril, L3Harris, Raytheon, and surveillance provider Palantir, as well as tech giants Microsoft and Oracle. The hacktivist said the data comes from the Office of Industry Partnership, a unit within DHS that procures technology from the private sector. DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for…
The housing doesn’t feel too cheap or too luxurious. It’s toylike, but not in a chintzy way. The unit can run on three AA batteries (a set is included) or on the included USB-A to DC adapter (you’ll need your own wall charger). The included instruction manual helps you make sense of what the heck all the knobs, levers, buttons, and lights mean.You’ll start with the sequencer, which is where you’ll find a selection of hundreds of premade melodies with or without drum beats. Then you’ll use the other controls to manipulate this sound. The tempo lever controls the speed,…
Performance marketing teams have no shortage of dashboards, but what they often lack is speed. That gap is what the startup Plurio is trying to close.To do so, the San Francisco-based company has raised $3.5 million in seed funding from investors including Altair, DVC, Yellow Rocks, Finom co-founder Kos Stiskin, and ManyChat co-founder Mike Yan, according to CEO and co-founder Seva Ustinov. The funding will support the rollout of its AI agent, which analyzes campaign data across channels, predicts downstream performance, and executes approved changes automatically.Founded as a marketing analytics platform called Elly Analytics, the company repositioned itself last year around…
Following the surprising news that Netflix had withdrawn its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Paramount Skydance stepped in to purchase the company. On Monday, CEO David Ellison announced during a call with investors that the company plans to merge Paramount+ and HBO Max into a single, unified platform. “Our combined company will be home to many of the greatest, most recognizable and beloved franchises in the world, from ‘Harry Potter’ to ‘Top Gun,’ ‘Star Trek’ to ‘Looney Tunes,’ ‘Game of Thrones’ to ‘Yellowstone.’ This represents a tremendous opportunity, and we fully intend to invest in the creative engines…
Looking for a new television, but don’t want to break the bank on fancy QD-OLED technology and features you may not need? This 55-inch screen from Vizio is marked down to $237 at Walmart, a ten percent markdown from its usual, already quite low price. It would make a great second TV for your garage or guest room,With a plain old LED panel, the Vizio isn’t going to turn any heads or impress your most keen-eyed friends, but it’s more than good enough for a night in catching up on your stories. It still has full support for Dolby Vision,…
Criteo will sell chatbot ads, thanks to a new partnership with OpenAI.ChatGPT’s parent company announced in January that it would begin testing ads in the Free and Go tiers of its popular chatbot. Agencies including Dentsu, Omnicom, and WPP have invested in the pilot on behalf of clients, and Criteo is the first adtech company to get in on the test.The deal “represents an exciting step forward in advancing advertising in an emerging AI experience,” Michael Komasinski, CEO of Criteo, said in a statement. “We are helping shape how advertising can support discovery and consideration within large language model platforms,…
Many users are switching to Claude following a string of controversies surrounding ChatGPT and its parent company, OpenAI. The tipping point came after Anthropic, the company behind Claude, refused to allow the Department of Defense to use its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. In response, President Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s products, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to designate the company a supply-chain threat. Hours later, OpenAI announced its own agreement with the Pentagon, claiming to include safeguards, but the deal has still sparked widespread debate over privacy and…
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow but vital oil trade route in the Middle East—has almost ground to a halt since the start of the United States and Israel’s war against Iran. Tankers in the region have faced military strikes and a spike in GPS jamming attacks, a new analysis says.Since the first US-Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28, more than 1,100 ships operating across the Gulf region have had their GPS or automatic identification system (AIS) communications technology disrupted, says Ami Daniel, the CEO of maritime intelligence firm Windward. Ships have been made to appear as if…
The growth of AI-driven search has created new ways for consumers to research and buy products. While new generative engine optimization (GEO) firms are building tools to help influence which brands appear in answers from AI answer engines like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, facilitating commerce is a bigger challenge.There aren’t consistent tech standards around how AI-driven commerce should be conducted, even though industry organizations like the Interactive Advertising Bureau are working on it.“If you have everyone building for it separately, it creates a complete mess,” said Justin Inman, founder and CEO of Emberos. “The industry as a whole needs…
Hundreds of tech workers have signed an open letter urging the Department of Defense to withdraw its designation of Anthropic as a “supply chain risk.” The letter also calls on Congress to step in and “examine whether the use of these extraordinary authorities against an American technology company is appropriate.” The letter includes signatories from major technology and venture capital firms including OpenAI, Slack, IBM, Cursor, Salesforce Ventures, and more. It follows a dispute between the DOD and Anthropic after the AI lab last week refused to give the military unrestricted access to its AI systems. Anthropic’s two red lines…
On the bank of the river that runs through the Swedish town of Borlänge, construction is underway on a sprawling new data center. The site previously housed a paper mill. When the developer, EcoDataCenter, broke ground in September, its CEO Peter Michelson declared, “The facility once produced paper, the raw material of the newspaper information age. Now, Borlänge will produce the raw material for AI and the next information age.”The Borlänge facility is one of more than 50 currently under construction or soon to be developed across the Nordics—the region made up of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland—as demand…
ADWEEK has launched a new award to celebrate exceptional talent in the growing commerce space. ADWEEK’s inaugural Commerce All-Stars recognizes the most innovative and successful executives shaping the future of the commerce and retail media ecosystem. The list will honor executives (EVP and above) who redefine how brands, retailers, and technology partners collaborate to deliver measurable impact, customer value, and scalable growth across the shopper journey.From leveraging first-party data and innovative measurement solutions to delivering modern commerce experiences that drive performance, the ADWEEK Commerce All-Stars are reshaping the retail landscape.To submit a nominee, use the entry form below. The final deadline…
Social network X on Monday announced the introduction of a new “Paid Partnership” label that creators can apply to their posts to indicate they’re advertisements. The feature could help improve creators’ authenticity, so fans know when a product recommendation is an original sentiment, versus a paid sponsorship, while also complying with regulations that say ads on social media need labels. Similar tags have existed for years on other platforms, like Instagram, after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission warned influencers back in 2017 that they needed to “clearly and conspicuously disclose” when a post was sponsored by an advertiser, or if that…