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Anthropic’s Super Bowl commercial, one of four ads the AI lab dropped on Wednesday, begins with the word “BETRAYAL” splashed boldly across the screen. The camera pans to a man earnestly asking a chatbot (obviously intended to depict ChatGPT) for advice on how to talk to his mom. The bot, portrayed by a blonde woman, offers some classic bits of advice. Start by listening. Try a nature walk! And then twists into an ad for a fictitious (we hope!) cougar-dating site called Golden Encounters. Anthropic finishes the spot by saying that while ads are coming to AI, they won’t be…
There is concern that subscribers might be negatively affected if Netflix acquires Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and movie studios businesses. One of the biggest fears is that the merger would lead to higher prices due to less competition for Netflix.During a US Senate hearing Tuesday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos suggested that the merger would have an opposite effect.Sarandos was speaking at a hearing held by the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, “Examining the Competitive Impact of the Proposed Netflix-Warner Brothers Transaction.”Sarandos aimed to convince the subcommittee that Netflix wouldn’t become a monopoly in…
The numbers$113.8 billion—Alphabet’s Q4 revenue, up +18% year-over-year.$95.9 billion—Revenue generated by Google Services during the quarter, which includes Google Search, subscriptions, platforms, devices, and YouTube ads. $13.6 billion—YouTube advertising. $17.7 billion—Google Cloud revenue, up +48% from the same period in 2024.Over 750 million—Gemini monthly active users.The watercooler talkGoogle’s parent company, Alphabet, enjoyed a second consecutive quarter of over $100 billion in revenue, recording nearly $114 billion in the final quarter of 2025. The company boasted that, for the first time, its annual revenues exceeded $400 billion. Executives noted that more than 120,000 enterprises, including Airbus, Honeywell, Salesforce, and Shopify, use their AI tools,…
Google’s AI chatbot Gemini has surpassed 750 million monthly active users (MAUs), according to the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings. This figure illustrates the rapid consumer adoption of Gemini, which has quickly become a prominent player in the AI space. Last quarter, Google reported 650 million monthly active users for Gemini, indicating substantial growth in a short period. In comparison, Meta AI has reported nearly 500 million monthly users. However, while Gemini is gaining traction, it still trails behind its biggest rival, ChatGPT, which is estimated to have around 810 million MAUs in late 2025. The recently revealed number comes on…
The latest mobile phone isn’t always the greatest. Despite a series of newer, updated Pixel 10 models, we still think the previous generation’s Pixel 9a is more than enough phone for most people. Not only does it have great battery life and feature support, but it often goes on sale for well under $500. In this case, Best Buy has the 128-GB Pixel 9a discounted to just $399, and it’s available in all four colors: Iris, Obsidian, Peony, and Porcelain.Photograph: Julian ChokkattuPhotograph: Julian ChokkattuPhotograph: Julian ChokkattuPhotograph: Julian ChokkattuWhile we also like the newer Pixel 10 phones, which sport faster wireless…
It didn’t start well. Even Brian Niccol would surely accept that the optics of his first few weeks at Starbucks back in the summer of 2024 were hardly ideal. First, there was the messy scrap about wanting to work from home while leading a company insisting its managers return to the office. When your California abode is a thousand miles from headquarters, accusations of executive hypocrisy are inevitable. Then there was the salary: $96 million for his first four months’ work. That’s 6,666 times more than the median Starbucks barista earns. A multiple that followed him around like a corporate albatross.And then something…
Starbase, the company town that Elon Musk’s SpaceX created in South Texas, is forming its own police squad. The city’s commission approved an ordinance during a special meeting Tuesday that would create a municipal police department, subject to approval from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE). The department will be run by a chief of police elected by the city’s commission, and is expected to hire eight officers, according to local news outlet Valley Central. It could be up and running in a few months. “There is a lot of assets here with the operations of SpaceX,” Starbase city…
Some children affected by measles in the ongoing South Carolina outbreak have developed a serious complication of the disease called encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, state epidemiologist Linda Bell said on Wednesday.The South Carolina measles outbreak began in October with a handful of infections. As of February 3, cases have climbed to 876, with 700 of those being reported since the beginning of the year. The surge could mean another bad year of measles for the United States, which had more than 2,267 cases—the highest in 30 years—in 2025. Declining vaccination rates across the country are driving the resurgence.Encephalitis…
The numbers$5.18 billion—Fox revenue for fiscal second quarter, a $104 million increase.1%—Ad revenue increase due to higher sports and news pricing, Tubi growth, and MLB postseason, despite a difficult comparison to a record political cycle last year.47%—Fox News ad scatter pricing increased year over year.$247 million—Net income in the quarter, down from $388 million in the prior year, with the company saying expenses were primarily due to higher sports programming rights amortization and production costs, and higher digital marketing costs.The watercooler talkFox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch was effusive about the company’s second quarter during an earnings call on Wednesday. According…
Andreessen Horowitz just raised a whopping new $15 billion in funding. And a $1.7 billion chunk of that is going to its infrastructure team, the one responsible for some of its biggest, most prominent AI investments including Black Forrest Labs, Cursor, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Ideogram, Fal and dozens of others. A16z general partner with the infra team Jennifer Li (who oversees such investments as ElevenLabs – just valued at $11 billion); Ideagram and Fal, has a clear thesis on where the team is looking to spend it’s latest chunk of cash. Watch as Venture and Startups editor Julie Bort talks with Li on Equity about where a16z sees this AI super cycle going next, including the talent crunch hitting AI-native startups, why search infrastructure matters more than people think, and what kinds of companies are actually getting funded right now. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple…
Infrastructure delivering updates for Notepad++—a widely used text editor for Windows—was compromised for six months by suspected China-state hackers who used their control to deliver backdoored versions of the app to select targets, developers said Monday.“I deeply apologize to all users affected by this hijacking,” the author of a post published to the official notepad-plus-plus.org site wrote Monday. The post said that the attack began last June with an “infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org.” The attackers, whom multiple investigators tied to the Chinese government, then selectively redirected certain targeted users…
Do you like scary movies? Paramount sure hopes so.The studio recently kicked off this year’s Super Bowl movie spots, debuting its new trailer for the upcoming horror film Scream 7. In addition to Paramount, this year’s Super Bowl movie advertisers include several usual suspects, with Disney and Universal debuting multiple trailers; however, there is perhaps a slight tweak to strategy.Disney, which typically promotes its Marvel films during the Big Game, with Thunderbolts appearing in the game last year and Deadpool & Wolverine the year before, is making the MCU sit this one out. It’s an interesting change, given that the…
Tinder is turning to a new AI-powered feature, Chemistry, to help it reduce so-called “swipe fatigue,” a growing problem among online dating users who are feeling burned out and are in search of better outcomes. Introduced last quarter, the Match-owned dating app said that Chemistry leverages AI to get to know users through questions and, with permission, accesses their Camera Roll on their phone to learn more about their interests and personality. On Match’s Q4 2026 earnings call, one analyst from Morgan Stanley asked for an update on the product’s success so far. Match CEO Spencer Rascoff noted that Chemistry…
Five years ago, mathematicians Dawei Chen and Quentin Gendron were trying to untangle a difficult area of algebraic geometry involving differentials, elements of calculus used to measure distance along curved surfaces. While working on one theorem, they ran into an unexpected roadblock: Their argument depended on a strange formula from number theory, but they were unable to solve or justify it. In the end, Chen and Gendron wrote a paper presenting their idea as a conjecture, rather than a theorem.Chen recently spent hours prompting ChatGPT in the hopes of getting the AI to come up with a solution to the…
Before the heavy-hitting action on the gridiron kicks off this Sunday night, pet lovers can warm up with some paw-sitively awesome performances as Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl XXII takes center stage on Sunday afternoon.Airing at 2 p.m. ET and simulcasting across the Warner Bros. Discovery family of networks, including Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, HBO Max, and discovery+, the Puppy Bowl is the original and longest‑running call‑to‑adoption television event. ADWEEK can exclusively reveal that this year’s Puppy Bowl will feature 16 brand partners—the largest number of partners for the event thus far. Inaugural brands joining the 22nd edition of the pet-themed…
Forget EVs — stationary batteries are getting all the buzz, and investment, in the U.S. these days. Startup Lunar Energy is the latest example. The six-year-old company, which builds battery packs for homeowners in California, Georgia, and Washington, said Wednesday it has completed two large funding rounds. The startup shared it raised a previously unannounced $130 million Series C and a $102 million Series D. The Series C was led by Activate Capital, while the Series D was led by B Capital and Prelude Ventures. The startup plans to use the funds to scale manufacturing to 20,000 units by the end…