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The U.S and Israel launched joint coordinated strikes on Iran early Saturday morning, apparently in an effort to keep the country from obtaining nuclear weapons.The strikes led to the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who led the country for nearly four decades. Iran retaliated with its own strikes, hitting U.S.military bases in the region, which killed four U.S. service members. The strikes also targeted other densely populated locations in various Middle Eastern countries.The rapid escalation of events forced the various news outlets into breaking-news mode, which felt eerily similar in timing to when news of the Venezuelan military…
The customer service industry is in a bit of flux, thanks to AI. Investors and corporate leaders have rung alarm bells for the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) industry. On the other hand, AI-powered customer support startups such as Decagon, Parloa, and Sierra have picked up millions of dollars in funding from venture capitalists. 14.ai, a Y-Combinator-backed startup, is taking an approach of building an AI-native agency that has replaced legacy customer support teams at many startups it has worked with. The company has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Y Combinator with participation from General Catalyst, Base Case…
Apple has kicked off the week with the announcement of a new iPad Air, now powered by the M4 chip. This is a fairly modest update, moving the device from the previous M3 to the M4, but otherwise keeping the same hardware and design. The company also announced a new price-friendly smartphone, the iPhone 17e.It still comes in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, and otherwise looks identical to the previous generation. The only other significant change is the switch to Apple’s N1 networking chip, which rolled out in the iPhone 17 and iPad Pro last fall. This is Apple’s home-brewed Wi-Fi…
In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, live from the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Nic Brandenberger, CMO of Mammut, the 164-year-old Swiss mountaineering gear company, unpacks why Davos represents a unique opportunity for C-suite marketers and how the experiences brands create matter far more than the products they sell.What you’ll learn: How to shift the definition of “brand” from product provider to experience giver Why breaking out of the marketing silo is a critical competitive advantage The strategic advantage of being a part of Davos How to balance wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels How consumer-centric foundation separates great marketing from…
Early on Saturday, cities across Iran, including its capital Tehran, were rocked by a series of U.S. and Israel-led airstrikes that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, and top leadership. According to reports, the military campaign coincided with cyberattacks targeting the country, one of which flooded a popular phone app with notifications, amid an ongoing outage across the Iranian internet. The strikes came after several days of failed negotiations between Tehran and Washington. The negotiations were held after weeks of mass protests that saw thousands of people killed alongside the country’s longest internet shutdown to date. As missiles…
ByteDance, the Chinese company best known for creating TikTok, got into the virtual reality game when it bought the startup Pico in 2021. Now, Pico is taking its mixed reality (XR) efforts even more seriously by building out software that lets people use multiple applications in 3D digital workspaces. Many of its features sound very much like what you can find in the Apple Vision Pro, two years after that device launched.At Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Pico announced its newest XR operating system, Pico OS 6. The OS will not work on the company’s existing Pico 4 from…
L’Oréal is bringing in one agency to run social across its Maybelline New York and Essie brands for the first time.VML has been named lead U.S. social agency for the brands following a competitive review, the agency told ADWEEK, with a remit spanning social strategy, content production, and community management. The scope does not include influencer marketing.The pitch began in November 2025, consolidating what had been a patchwork of internal teams, according to VML. The move reflects a broader reckoning in beauty, where discovery and purchase are increasingly happening on TikTok and Instagram, making social a key commerce channel. For…
If you’ve never used AirPods before, or it’s been awhile since you upgraded, I’m here to help! Here are some answers to general questions, from what kind of features you can expect to how to clean your buds.Do AirPods work with Android?Yes, you can use AirPods with non-Apple devices, since they use the standard Bluetooth protocol. But you’ll lose out on features like Siri integration, device switching, and the ability to customize shortcuts or adjust software features. In contrast, Beats headphones offer a mix of Apple-friendly features and Android features, including a dedicated Android app and features like one-touch pairing.Can…
Merrell, the footwear brand known for its hiking boots, wants to democratize the outdoors with the first global brand platform in its 45-year history.Its new campaign, “It Starts Outside,” created by new agency partner Uncommon Creative Studio, is based on a simple premise: even one step outside can open the door to possibilities. Merrell’s marketing push comes as it aims to differentiate itself in the crowded outdoor category as a more democratic, culturally rooted brand. The outdoor apparel market is growing, estimated to increase from $174.45 billion in 2026 to $229 billion by 2031, according to Mordor Intelligence. Meanwhile, the outdoor recreation…
Mick Mulvaney wants to be clear: He really likes gambling. “You’re talking to the only former member of Congress who’s won a poker tournament in Las Vegas,” he tells WIRED. When he was representing South Carolina in the US House of Representatives, he pushed for the state to allow sports betting.Because of his background, Mulvaney, a former Trump administration official, says he can tell when something is gambling—and that the sports contracts on prediction markets fit the bill. “You know the old saying, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck?” he asks. “If…
Meta is testing tools designed to improve retail media campaigns that run on Facebook and Instagram, three people familiar with the matter told ADWEEK.Meta did not respond to multiple requests for comment.The first product optimizes ad campaigns around productsThe first tool, called “product set optimization,” would let retail media networks improve ad performance around a set of individual product SKUs on Meta.When retail media networks place ads for specific products on Meta properties, Meta has been limited on its ability to optimize those ads, because its algorithms were built for single-brand retailers. That’s fine for a company like Allbirds, which…
Alaqad says that because traditional media outlets pick and choose what to show their audiences, losing on-the-ground journalists means losing parts of the truth. “When the people are being silenced and censored, and they don’t have a space for them to talk or a platform to express what’s happening, and for us to see what’s happening through their eyes, there will always be limitations [on] how much we know,” she says.In every crisis, when communication breaks down, accountability is lost and injustice becomes easier to ignore. “Injustice is super loud,” Alaqad says. “Justice needs to be louder.”TargetedJournalists are also silenced…
Anthropic’s chatbot Claude seems to have benefited from the attention around the company’s fraught negotiations with the Pentagon. As first reported by CNBC, Claude has been rising to the top of the free app rankings in Apple’s US App Store. On Saturday evening, it overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT to claim the number one spot, a position that it still held on Sunday morning. According to data from SensorTower, Claude was just outside the top 100 at the end of January, and has spent most of February somewhere in the top 20. It’s climbed rapidly in the past few days, from sixth…
Do you like having a second screen with your computer setup? What if your laptop could carry a second screen for you? That’s the idea behind Lenovo’s latest proof of concept, the ThinkBook Modular AI PC, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.Lenovo is never shy to show off wacky, weird concept laptops. We’ve seen a PC with a transparent screen, one with a rollable OLED screen, a swiveling screen, and another with a flippy screen. At CES earlier this year, the company showed off a gaming laptop with a display that expands at the push of a button. Sometimes,…
Honor launched its new foldable, the Honor Magic V6, with a massive 6,600 mAh battery and a new sturdy hinge ahead of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The Chinese company has been obsessed with proving that it makes the thinnest foldables. This year’s version is 4mm thick when unfolded and 8.75 mm thick when folded. Compared to last year’s Magic V5, which was 4.1 mm thick when unfolded and 8.8 mm thick when folded. We are talking very thin shavings here, but that helps the company make those claims. The battery is possibly one of the most impressive…
Social community platform Discord is preparing to require users to verify their age by the second half of 2026, and users are concerned about the privacy of uploading a government ID or face scan to the network. While users can still access most features without verification, many remain uneasy giving more information to a company that suffered a breach last year that exposed the IDs of around 70,000 users. For some users, this is motivation enough to seek out alternative platforms that prioritize security, privacy, or simply offer a different experience. Here’s a look at the most promising Discord alternatives,…