Author: admin
Los Angeles-based EV startup Harbinger has revealed its second vehicle: a smaller, medium-duty work truck. Called the HC Series Cab, the new truck will be available as an all-electric vehicle, or as a hybrid (the latter has up to 500 miles of range). The company says the vehicle features easy entry and exit, a tight turning radius, and the ability to upfit the chassis in various ways, like adding cargo boxes or flatbeds. The company did not reveal pricing. “For too long, fleets have had to compromise between payload, maneuverability, range and onboard capability,” Harbinger’s co-founder and CEO, John Harris,…
On Monday, streamer and content creator Hasan Piker helped raise more than $56,000 in one stream for Oliver Larkin, a former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer who is seeking to primary Jared Moskowitz, a moderate Democratic congressman from Florida. It was the most the campaign had raised “in a single day,” Larkin said on X shortly after the stream ended.Over the past few years, creators have become an essential piece of campaign messaging strategy. But Piker’s recent stream for Larkin is the latest sign that online influence is being leveraged for direct fundraising as well.Piker isn’t alone. Trisha Paytas, a YouTuber…
Amazon is expanding access to a program called Shop Direct that lets U.S. customers discover and buy products not sold in its own online store. The retail giant on Wednesday said it will now support third-party product feeds, which merchants use to provide information about their inventory, pricing, and catalog to other partners. With this information, Amazon can direct shoppers to a merchant’s website via its search results or its AI shopping assistant, Rufus, and even let customers use AI to make a purchase. The company has added support for third-party product feeds from Feedonomics, Salsify, and CEDCommerce, which provide Amazon access…
Meta announced Wednesday that it has developed four new computer chips that will be used to power generative AI features and content ranking systems within the tech giant’s own apps. The hardware will become part of Meta’s existing chip line known as MTIA, or Meta Training and Inference Accelerators.Meta partnered with Broadcom to develop its latest semiconductors, which are built on top of the open-source RISC-V architecture. They’re being fabricated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, the world’s leading chip producer.One of the new MTIA chips, the MTIA 300, is already in production, and Meta says the other three—the MTIA 400,…
TikTok has partnered with Apple Music to allow subscribers of the streaming service play full songs without leaving its social network, the company announced on Wednesday. Apple Music subscribers who discover a song they like on their TikTok “For You” page or Sound Detail Page can tap the new “Play Full Song” button to open up an Apple Music player to listen to the full track. TikTok, which is known for driving music trends and viral songs, said the new feature is designed to make it easier to go from the moment of discovery to deeper listening. It’s worth noting…
Holograms are a mainstay of science fiction, popping up across the great expanses of Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo, and The Expanse. If a story is set in the future, or in space, it’s probably got a hologram in it. Unfortunately, this is less the case in real life, despite many tech companies eager to make holograms a reality.The latest effort to beam a holographic device into our world comes from Looking Glass, a Brooklyn-based company that has been dabbling in 3D holographic screens for nearly a decade. Today, it announced the Musubi, a consumer-focused digital picture frame.Courtesy of Looking…
AI tools have moved well beyond the hype cycle for advertising creatives. They’re now embedded in the daily work of conception, strategy, and production at agencies around the world. But what’s actually working? We asked creative leaders across the industry to name one AI tool that has transformed how they work, and what they’ve learned along the way. From conversational research tools to video production suites to on-demand audio briefings, here’s what they had to say.NotebookRoni Sebastian, ECD, Monks:We’ve embraced NotebookLM to address a classic creative hurdle: that people absorb information differently. We’ve moved from relying solely on static, text-heavy decks…
Amazon-owned Zoox plans to make its robotaxis available to hail on the Uber app in Las Vegas later this year, the two companies announced Wednesday. Before that happens, though, Zoox still needs approval from the federal government to commercially deploy its robotaxis, which don’t have a steering wheel or pedals. That requires exemptions from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). On Wednesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) began taking public comment on Zoox’s application for those exemptions. (Zoox currently has an exemption that allows the custom-built robotaxis to operate as a demonstration, and not commercially.) If and…
With organized, industrial-scale scamming causing a multibillion-dollar crisis around the world, Meta announced new account protections on Wednesday aimed at flagging potentially suspicious activity to users as early in a scam interaction as possible. The company also shared details about a recent Thai law enforcement collaboration that resulted in 21 arrests and Meta disabling over 150,000 user accounts associated with Southeast Asian scam compounds.The disruptive action—a joint effort of the Royal Thai Police, the FBI, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, the Australian Federal Police, and other law enforcement agencies—focused on alleged scammers targeting victims in numerous countries, including the…
Suntory Beverage and Food Europe (SBFE) CMO François Bazini is leaving the company after more than 11 years, during which he held multiple roles across seven countries.The marketing veteran originally joined sister business Beam Suntory in 2014, fresh from 10 years at Pepsi. He started as vp of marketing for the company’s global spirits division, overseeing brands such as Jim Beam and Double Oak in the region. He quickly rose to become international CMO before becoming global managing director across the Scotch, gin, and Irish whiskey portfolio.In 2022, Bazini moved to Suntory Beverage & Food Europe (SBFE)—the soft drinks arm…
In a slight capitulation to those who don’t want AI infused into their everyday apps, Google said it’s now offering a toggle that will allow users of its Google Photos app to return to the previous and often faster “classic” search experience instead of the newer AI-powered option known as “Ask Photos.” The Ask Photos feature, launched in the U.S. in 2024, lets users search their photos using natural language queries, including complex requests. The product’s rollout was briefly paused last summer as the company worked to address issues around latency, following user feedback. Some Google Photos users never warmed…
The video opens with a school superintendent lip-syncing a love song, but he’s not the only performer.AI-generated versions of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein join him on the ballad—a splice between Will Joseph Cook’s “Be Around Me” and a rewrite of the song by Beth McCarthy on TikTok—with Epstein mouthing the words, “Oh my god, did he call her baby, maybe?”The clip, posted to the Instagram account @thewyliefiles, has been liked more than 107,000 times. Its caption reads like a large language model’s overview of the Wylie Independent School District in Collin County, Texas,…
The white smoke has risen from the Playboy Mansion.On Tuesday, the iconic publisher appointed media veteran Phillip Picardi as its new chief brand officer and editor in chief, ushering in a new chapter for a legacy brand looking to reestablish its relevance in the modern era.In joining the company, Picardi brings more than a decade of experience reshaping publications into cultural touchstones. In his first turn in the editorial world, he repositioned Teen Vogue as an arbiter of the Gen Z zeitgeist, founded the queer-focused publication, them, at Condé Nast, and served as editor in chief of Out Magazine. (Them was…
30% of European unicorns may have lost their billion-dollar status, but not Alan. The French health insurance startup is now valued at €5 billion — approximately $5.83 billion, up from $4.5 billion in 2024. Created in 2016, Alan has grown into a team of 740 people serving one million employees, freelancers and retirees with health insurance and wellness services. Its app already lets users manage reimbursements, access doctors and track health habits. The company says it now has the means to “invest ambitiously, particularly in [tech] and [AI],” according to a statement from its CEO, Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, who is also…
Katy Shi, a researcher who works on Codex’s behavior at OpenAI, says that while some folks describe its default personality as “dry bread,” many have come to appreciate its less sycophantic style. “A lot of engineering work is about being able to take critical feedback without interpreting it as mean,” Shi says.Several major enterprises have signed on to use Codex too. “The fact that ChatGPT is synonymous with AI gives us a massive advantage in the B2B market,” says Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications. “Companies want to use technologies their workers are already familiar with.” OpenAI’s strategy to sell…
OpenAI co-founder Mira Murati’s two-year-old AI research lab has signed a sizable deal with semiconductor giant Nvidia. Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab announced it entered into a multi-year strategic partnership with AI semiconductor giant Nvidia on Tuesday. The size of the deal was not disclosed and includes the AI research lab deploying at least one gigawatt of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin systems, which was released earlier this year, starting in 2027. Nvidia is also making a strategic investment in Thinking Machines Lab, which has raised more than $2 billion since its February 2025 founding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and Nvidia,…