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YouTube announced this week that it will now hold back ads during livestreams if chat engagement is at its peak, and if users show support with Super Chat, Super Stickers, or gift purchases. Until now, the only way to avoid seeing ads was by paying for a YouTube Premium subscription. The Google-owned platform said in a blog post that when a chat explodes with energy, it wants to “protect that collective vibe.” When YouTube’s system recognizes that engagement is high, the platform will automatically hold back ads for everyone. The idea behind this change is to help creators maintain momentum…

Xinbi Guarantee has also hosted a wide variety of other black market offerings, including harassment services that threaten or throw feces at a victim for a fee, and even sex workers as young as 14 who are likely trafficking victims. One listing Elliptic shared with WIRED, found just in recent weeks, offered a 16-year-old sex worker, including the girl’s body size measurements and available sex acts.As clearly as all of those examples contradict Telegram’s arguments for hosting Xinbi Guarantee, though, the UK government’s official sanctions against Xinbi are even more clearcut, says Elliptic’s Robinson. “It was already a weak argument,…

In this episode of Brave Commerce, Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter speak with Helen Kurtz, chief marketing officer at The Wine Group, about how one of the largest wine companies is navigating a category defined by intense competition and shifting consumer behavior.Helen shares how her team is accelerating speed to market, bringing new products to shelf in months, not years, while moving earlier on emerging trends. She also discusses the realities of innovating across product, packaging, and format, and what it takes to succeed within a complex system of distributors, retailers, and internal stakeholders.Key takeaways: Speed to market is critical—brands must…

Jack Clark, one of Anthropic’s co-founders who also serves as Head of Public Benefit for Anthropic PBC, confirmed that the AI company had briefed the Trump administration about its new Mythos model. The model, announced last week, is so dangerous that it’s not being released to the public, largely due to its alleged powerful cybersecurity capabilities. In an interview at the Semafor World Economy summit this week, Clark explained why the company was still engaged with the U.S. government while simultaneously suing them. This March, Anthropic filed a lawsuit against Trump’s Department of Defense (DOD) after the agency labeled the…

OpenAI on Tuesday announced the next phase of its cybersecurity strategy and a new model specifically designed for use by digital defenders, GPT-5.4-Cyber.The news comes in the wake of an announcement last week by competitor Anthropic that its new Claude Mythos Preview model is only being privately released for now—because, the company says, it could be exploited by hackers and bad actors. Anthropic also announced an industry coalition, including competitors like Google, focused on how advances in generative AI across the field will impact cybersecurity.OpenAI seemed to be seeking to differentiate its message on Tuesday by striking a less catastrophic…

Amazon’s Prime Video heads into the postseason with momentum after completing its inaugural season as an NBA media partner. Now, the company is taking its shot with spirit maker Patrón Tequila, which will be the presenting sponsor of the post-game show, NBA Nightcap, throughout the playoffs.Patrón Tequila’s Prime Video partnership will include media across all games, integrations within Nightcap, and custom feature content.“Basketball sits at the center of culture, and we know our target consumer is deeply engaged with the league,” said Roberto Ramírez Laverde, global svp of Patrón Tequila.Speaking to ADWEEK, Amy McDevitt, head of sports brand partnerships at Amazon…

Dozens of plug-ins for the widely used open source web blogging software WordPress are now offline after a backdoor was discovered in them, used to push malicious code to any website that relied on the plug-ins. The backdoor was discovered after a new corporate owner bought these plug-ins. Anchor Hosting founder Austin Ginder sounded the alarm in a blog post last week describing a supply chain attack on a WordPress plug-in maker called Essential Plugin. Ginder said someone last year bought Essential Plugin and the backdoor was soon added to the plug-ins’ source code. The backdoor sat dormant until earlier…

For audiophiles like me, achieving the highest possible sound quality is the top priority—but I still care about how my space looks. This aesthetic component is the failure point of many acoustic panels, which are wall attachments or modular blocks designed to absorb background noise, reduce echo, and improve the general sound of a given room. At worst, they look like burlap-sack tapestries. At best, though—as I recently learned when I tested Gik Acoustics’ Soundblocks system—they look like high-design conversation pieces that marry function and visual sophistication.Gik Acoustics makes acoustic panels that don’t look like weird hunks of insulation. Its…

ADWEEK’s Social Media Week kicked off with a bang as creator Dhar Mann gave away a $1,000 Old Navy gift certificate to a lucky participant. He was reviving a hit collaboration he’d worked on with Old Navy parent company Gap, where people had to guess whether a person’s outfit is Old Navy or designer. Guess right, and you get a grand to spend at Old Navy stores.The tricky part of the brief was that Old Navy had a message it wanted to send—that its clothing was fashionable but accessible—but Mann wanted to deliver without actually saying those words.He worked with Damon…

Waymo has started testing its autonomous vehicles on public roads in London as it prepares to launch a commercial robotaxi service in the city this year. The Alphabet-owned company has been working towards this moment for months. Waymo announced in October it planned to begin driving on London’s public roads. Waymo employees initially drove the vehicles manually to map the city before starting autonomous testing. For now, the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace equipped with Waymo’s self-driving system have a human safety operator behind the wheel. “Core driving AI generalizing very well,” Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing…

Google Chrome just got another generative AI feature: Skills. Skills are repeatable AI prompts you can run in Chrome with a keyboard shortcut. Add it to the laundry list of AI tools Google has been injecting into all of its software.You can set up your own Skill using Gemini, Google’s chatbot, through the Chrome browser, or you can choose from the premade Skills Google released alongside this feature. The more than 50 presets in the Skills library cover a range of prompts that instruct Gemini to summarize YouTube videos, maximize your protein intake via recipe substitutions, or evaluate job listings.If…

Following its marketing restructure, Disney is carrying out layoffs, its CEO confirmed.Today, Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro sent a memo to employees confirming layoffs were being carried out this week, saying that impacted employees were being notified. As the company looks to streamline operations, it is expected to lay off up to 1,000 employees.The layoffs follow Disney’s announcement in January that it was restructuring its marketing divisions under Asad Ayaz, the company’s first chief marketing and brand officer. The restructure was aimed at aligning the company’s marketing teams more closely across the business.Beyond marketing, the company’s studios and TV businesses, ESPN,…

A data harvesting app called Freecash appears to have tricked users as it quickly rose to the top charts on the App Store and Google Play, where it has sat for months until a recent ban. If you’ve been on TikTok this year, you’ve more than likely encountered ads for Freecash. The app has been marketed as a way to make money just by scrolling TikTok — and jumped to the top of the app stores in recent months, peaking at the No. 2 position in the U.S. App Store. In truth, Freecash pays users to play mobile games — all…

GoPro invented the action camera, but since the first Hero camera came on the scene, competitors have been chasing and sometimes surpassing it. The company is looking to change that with a brand new line of high-end action cameras dubbed Mission 1.The new line of cameras consists of the Mission 1, Mission 1 Pro, and Mission 1 Pro ILS. All three feature a larger sensor with 8K video, improved low light performance, up to 32X slow motion footage, and 50 megapixel still images. The Pro ILS uses interchangeable lenses based on the micro4/3 mount.Low Light MissionThe Mission series uses a…

At ADWEEK’s Social Media Week, Snap’s global vp of of smb and mid-market, Sidharth Malhotra, revealed three things he’s noticed to help sellers overcome the totally fragmented path consumers take—at least on Snap.“We’ve all been taught the marketing funnel. But it’s a problem,” he said, adding: “The journey is no longer linear.” The value of the traditional funnel has long been up for debate, with both detractors and fervent supporters.Snap claims you don’t get new consumers from oversaturated channelsMalhotra argued that ad buyers are wasting money on oversaturated channels, where diminished returns are hidden by dashboards that blend many metrics…

The first StrictlyVC of the year will be coming to San Francisco before you know it! There are still a few tickets available to join us and our stacked speaker lineup April 30, at the Sentro Filipino Cultural Center. On top of the mixing and mingling with the community StrictlyVC is known for, this upcoming event in the heart of SF will be of particular note for AI innovators and founders looking for the latest insights into obtaining funding. Who’s taking the stage You can get a ticket right now, but for those who haven’t been to a StrictlyVC event in the…