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The main takeawayYahoo used its 2026 NewFronts event to position itself as an AI-first media and advertising platform and unveiled Yahoo Scout, a new AI intelligence layer designed to turn first-party intent data from search, mail, and content into useful data for advertisers.The biggest announcementsThe centerpiece of Yahoo’s presentation was Yahoo Scout, an AI answer engine and intelligence platform now in beta in the U.S. The company is embedding Scout across its entire product portfolio, including mail, finance, and sports, to deepen audience signals and, in theory, give advertisers a richer view of consumer intent than traditional targeting allows.On the…
A jury in Santa Fe on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties after finding the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and endangered children. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s office called the decision a “watershed moment for every parent concerned about what could happen to their kids when they go online,” according to a press release issued right after the ruling. The verdict, reached after a six-week trial, found Meta liable on both claims brought by the state under its Unfair Practices Act. At $5,000 per violation — the maximum allowed under…
On March 2, the town of Carroll, New Hampshire, population 820, received a $122,515 wire transfer from the Department of Homeland Security, making it among the first wave of local governments reaping the financial benefits of the Trump administration’s efforts to build out a network of local officers assisting in federal immigration enforcement.Four months before the payment, the town had signed up as part of DHS’s “Task Force Model,” which is part of the department’s so-called 287(g) program. By signing up, Caroll’s police department essentially pledged that its officers would aid in federal immigration enforcement at the direction of Immigration…
Meta has announced a slate of new retail media and creator-focused tools at Shoptalk, aimed at scooping up more ad dollars funneling through retail media networks and the creator economy.ADWEEK first reported that the social media giant was testing a new tool called “product set optimization” earlier this month. With today’s announcement, Meta has confirmed that the tool, which lets retailers improve ad performance around a specific set of SKUs, is currently in testing. Media and measurement firm Ovative Group has been testing the tool, describing it as a “win-win” across retail media clients. Meta’s product set optimization unlocks “stronger…
For generations, Ida Huddleston and her family have owned a farm in northern Kentucky. And they’ve turned down at least one multimillion-dollar offer to preserve it. Last year, a “major artificial intelligence company” offered them $26 million to sell part of their farm for a proposed data center, according to a recent report from WKRC. Huddleston and her family declined, saying they didn’t want a data center built near them or on any of their 1,200 acres of farmland outside Maysville, Kentucky. “They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not,” Huddleston, who is 82, told Local 12…
The US Department of Defense appears to be illegally punishing Anthropic for trying to restrict the use of its AI tools by the military, US district judge Rita Lin said during a court hearing on Tuesday.“It looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic,” Lin said of the Pentagon designating the company a supply-chain risk. “It looks like [the department] is punishing Anthropic for trying to bring public scrutiny to this contract dispute, which of course would be a violation of the First Amendment.”Anthropic has filed two federal lawsuits alleging that the Trump administration’s decision to designate the company a security…
The main takeawaySnap came to NewFronts with a number and a pitch. Nearly 2 trillion Snaps were created in 2025 (about 63,000 per second), and the company wants advertisers to see that habitual, daily engagement as the foundation for a more serious ad biz, rooted in new formats designed to capture both brand awareness and direct response.The biggest announcementsThe headline product is Total Snap Takeovers, a new format that guarantees advertisers the first ad slot across each tab in the app for a given session. With Snap noting that 97% of Snapchatters visit multiple tabs in a single session, the…
For developers using AI, “vibe coding” right now comes down to babysitting every action or risking letting the model run unchecked. Anthropic says its latest update to Claude aims to eliminate that choice by letting the AI decide which actions are safe to take on its own — with some limits. The move reflects a broader shift across the industry, as AI tools are increasingly designed to act without waiting for human approval. The challenge is balancing speed with control: too many guardrails slows things down, while too few can make systems risky and unpredictable. Anthropic’s new “auto mode,” now…
Comparing Our Favorite KindlesWhat About the New Kindle Scribes?AmazonKindle Scribe Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe (3rd Gen)I got to test two of Amazon’s new Kindles, the Kindle Scribe ($500) and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft ($630), before they shipped to the public. Both have a similar look, though the Scribe Colorsoft has a color screen and a shorter battery life (only eight weeks of reading time, compared with 12 weeks for the black-and-white Scribes). Both have a new, taller design with an 11-inch screen, slightly slimmer form factor, and updated stylus. They both also have a quad-core chip and have a new homepage,…
What does it take to rebuild cultural relevance for a brand that once had nearly one in two guys in America using it? In this episode of The Speed of Culture podcast, Dolores Assalini, head of Axe US at Unilever, lays out the brand’s evolution from cultural phenomenon to a social-first, creator-powered operation designed for how young men live, shop, and interact with brands today. The conversation explores how innovation, humor, and digital-first thinking are guiding Axe into its next chapter. Dolores also reflects on what has changed in marketing over the last fifteen years and what has stayed the same, distilling…
At a time when AI slop is flooding music streaming platforms, Spotify is beta testing a new “Artist Profile Protection” feature that allows artists to review releases before they go live on their profiles. The idea behind the new tool is to give artists more control over which tracks are associated with their name on the streaming service. “Music has been landing on the wrong artist pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse,” Spotify wrote in a blog post. “That’s not the experience we want artists to have on Spotify, and…
Arm, one of the world’s leading chip design firms, announced Tuesday that it is producing its own semiconductors. The move is a departure from its long-standing model of licensing intellectual property to companies that manufacture and sell chips themselves. Speaking to a live audience in San Francisco, Arm CEO Rene Haas made his pitch for how the new Arm CPU could benefit the tech industry and why this is the right time for the company to step outside of its lane and go head-to-head with other chipmakers.“Let me be clear: We are now in a new business for ARM, and…
Six months into making a big bet on shopping, OpenAI-owned ChatGPT is switching its strategy.In September, ChatGPT launched a feature called Instant Checkout that allowed consumers to buy products through its platform—winning the support of Walmart, Shopify, Etsy, and PayPal. ChatGPT has since gotten rid of that feature. Now, it is letting retailers steer the buying experience, by either pushing the checkout process to the retailer’s site, or by pushing it to an app within OpenAI that the retailers control.“We’ve found that the initial version of Instant Checkout did not offer the level of flexibility that we aspire to provide,…
Storied semiconductor and software company Arm Holdings is starting to make its own chips after nearly 36 years of licensing its designs to companies like Nvidia and Apple. At an event Tuesday in San Francisco, the company revealed the Arm AGI CPU, a production-ready chip built for running inference in an AI data center. The UK-based company developed the chip using its Arm Neoverse family of CPU IP cores and through a partnership with Meta. Meta is also the chip’s first customer of the Arm AGI CPU, which is designed to work harmoniously with the tech company’s training and inference…
The Federal Communications Commission has banned new consumer internet routers manufactured outside the US, citing national security concerns. The ban doesn’t affect any routers already in American homes or currently on sale in the US, but all new routers aimed at the consumer market will need to be approved.While the headline is that foreign-made consumer routers are banned, manufacturers can apply for exemptions. There’s no need to throw out your router, and you’ll still find plenty of mesh systems on the store shelves. But what does this mean for you?Why Are Foreign-Made Routers Banned?“Malicious actors have exploited security gaps in…
The main takeaway:New interactive ad features and strategic partnerships with Amazon, InMarket, and Kochava were the key announcements during Tubi’s IAB NewFronts presentation on Tuesday afternoon.Hosted by actor Tiffany Haddish, the FAST service’s Tubitopia: An Advertiser’s Paradise event signaled that it will continue to invest in Gen-Z-focused and sports-culture original programming, which should continue to lure advertisers to its platform. The biggest announcements:During the presentation, Tubi introduced Scene Sense, which is Tubi’s contextual targeting solution that uses scene-level signals, such as visual cues, tone, and sentiment, when viewers pause content, allowing brands to deliver timely and relevant display messaging that aligns…