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Apple on Wednesday unveiled a low-cost, entry-level laptop dubbed MacBook Neo, marking the first time the company has targeted a similar audience as Google did with its Chromebook. Starting at $599, the MacBook Neo is aimed at students or users whose work doesn’t involve intensive workflows like video editing or 3D rendering. The 13-inch MacBook Neo comes in four colors: silver, blush, citrus, and indigo. The base model comes with 256GB of storage, and an upgrade to the $699 model gets you 512GB of storage, plus Touch ID. Apple is seemingly able to offer the Neo at this price point…
Compare Our PicksRecommended With ReservationsPhotograph: Lisa Wood ShapiroBlueAir PetAir Pro for $500: As the owner of two cats, I really wanted to love Blueair’s PetAir Pro, a new addition to the growing market of pet-pitched air purifiers. The PetAir promises a unique pet-owner experience. It has a Pet Mode that senses when the pet is on the purifier, which quiets the fan speed and actual air cleaning capacity. It also has a pull-out prefilter that collects pet hair, an H13 HEPA, and a carbon activated filter to capture VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and odors. There’s even a storage space for…
TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption for direct messages (DMs) on its platform, according to a new report from the BBC. The social media giant says end-to-end encryption would make users less safe, as it believes the technology would prevent police and safety teams from accessing messages when necessary. TikTok told the outlet that this is a deliberate decision to distinguish itself from rivals and protect users, particularly younger ones, from harm. With end-to-end encryption, only the sender and recipient of a direct message can view its contents. The company said direct messages are still protected with standard encryption, similar…
What’s wild about this jump in stamina is that it’s disproportionate to the battery’s capacity. The Kilburn II ships with a 5,200 mAh cell, while the new model is only about 5 percent bigger: 5,500 mAh. Clearly, some big efficiencies have been gained. In fact, Marshall is so confident about the Kilburn III’s power reserves that it now lets you charge your devices from the speaker’s USB-C port.A word of caution: The direction of the charge is dependent on the Kilburn’s status. When the speaker is powered on, charging flows outward to phones and other accessories. However, when the power…
Decagon, an AI-powered customer support startup, is set to announce the completion of its first tender offer, allowing its more than 300 employees to sell a portion of their vested shares at the company’s latest valuation of $4.5 billion. The less-than-three-year-old company’s employee secondary is being led by the same investors that backed its $250 million Series D less than two months ago, including Coatue, Index, a16z, Definition, Forerunner, and Ribbit. As competition for AI talent is intensifying, fast-growing, young startups are increasingly finding that one of the most effective ways to attract and retain high-caliber employees is to allow…
President Donald Trump’s administration has made immigration the centerpiece of its policy agenda. Across the government, agencies have been asked to find new offices for immigration authorities, share sensitive data on immigrants, and help push immigrants off of government services.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) received an unprecedented amount of funding through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocated nearly $80 billion to DHS, with $45 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement alone. ICE has doubled in size since Trump took office; the agency claims it has hired an additional 12,000 new agents.But the effort to target immigrants has…
Havas Media Network North America has appointed Sharona Sankar-King as chief data and product officer, the agency told ADWEEK.Sankar-King joins from marketing services firm Harte Hanks, where she served as chief customer and data officer, and will report directly to North America CEO Greg James. The hire gives Sankar-King oversight of Converged.AI, the agency’s proprietary AI platform, and its broader analytics practice across the U.S. and Canada.Sankar-King’s appointment comes as Havas accelerates investment in AI infrastructure and positions Converged.AI as a differentiator in a market increasingly defined by data complexity and privacy fragmentation.“The industry has shifted dramatically over the past…
Google has expanded access to Canvas in AI Mode to all users in the U.S. in English, after first launching the feature as part of its Google Labs experiments last year. Canvas in AI Mode is designed to help users organize and plan projects or delve into deeper research. The feature now supports the ability to draft documents or create custom tools within Google Search, the company said in a blog post. Google previously suggested using Canvas for tasks like building a study guide by uploading class notes and other sources; the feature can also complete other tasks such as…
Looking to update your TV’s sound system to something more impressive, with a great soundbar at the center of it all? Sony’s Bravia Theater System 6 packs an entire home audio setup into a single big box, and it’s currently marked down to just $698 on Amazon, just over a $100 discount from its usual price of $800.SonyBravia Theater System 6While the setup might be a little more involved than a simple soundbar, there are some big payoffs. A true set of four speakers spread around your room gives a much fuller, more immersive experience than just a single set…
Ad agencies, like Havas, Broadhead and Supergood, are vibe-coding their own generative engine optimization (GEO) tools on top of large language models—often in a matter of hours.Using coding assistants like Anthropic’s Claude Code, teams are building bespoke applications that analyze how brands appear in AI-generated responses, track competitors and, in some cases, package those tools into products sold to clients.One example is Havas’s Brand Insights AI, a GEO product built using Claude Code and Replit. The tool generates prompts based on a client’s brand, runs them across multiple models, and analyzes how often a brand appears in responses, including citations—effectively…
From a budget-friendly MacBook to a new iPhone, Apple announced a series of new products this week. The tech giant started things off on Monday with the new iPhone 17e and the M4 iPad Air. Then on Tuesday, Apple announced the M5 MacBook Air, new MacBook Pro models, new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, and a new Studio Display and Studio Display XDR. Apple then rounded out its announcements on Wednesday with a cheaper MacBook called the MacBook Neo that runs on a chip similar to the iPad and iPhone. If you didn’t have time to check out all…
Anthropic might have misgivings about giving the US military unfettered access to its AI models, but some startups are building advanced AI specifically for military applications.Smack Technologies, which announced a $32 million funding round this week, is developing models that it says will soon surpass Claude’s capabilities when it comes to planning and executing military operations. And, unlike Anthropic, the startup appears less concerned with banning specific types of military use.“When you serve in the military, you take an oath you’re going to serve honorably, lawfully, in accordance with the rules of war,” says CEO Andy Markoff. “To me, the…
The final week of February concluded with some ratings normalcy, with ABC World News Tonight with David Muir establishing itself as the No. 1 newscast in the country with total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo.For the duration of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics, NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas moved ahead of WNT in the advertiser-prized demo, but it earned a silver medal during the just-concluded week, as WNT squeaked by thanks to 39,000 demo viewers.However, the surprise of the week comes from the CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil, which was the only newscast to record a week-to-week…
At the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference in downtown San Francisco Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said his company’s recent investments in OpenAI and Anthropic are likely to be its last in both, saying that once they go public, the opportunity to invest in a “consequential company like this” closes. It could be that simple. While firms sometimes pile into companies until practically the eve of their public debut in search of more upside, Nvidia is minting money selling the chips that power both companies — it’s not like it needs to goose its returns by pouring even…
Do you have fond memories of being a teacher’s pet? Wish you could still get notes from your favorite college professor? Dream about some implacable voice of authority correcting your every word choice and punctuation mark? Well, great news: A certain software company has engineered a way to simulate criticism not just from bestselling authors and famous academics of our time, but also many who died decades ago—and the company evidently didn’t need permission from anybody to do it.Once relied upon only to proofread for correct grammar and spelling, the writing tool Grammarly has added a host of generative AI…
This story was originally published in On Background with Mark Stenberg, a free, weekly newsletter that explores the key themes shaping the media industry. You can sign up for it here.In digital media, nothing is certain except death and the enduring dominance of live sports.In recent years, the frenzy surrounding athletic content has reached a fever pitch, as live sport remains the lone source of monoculture in an otherwise balkanized entertainment landscape. This leverage has enabled leagues to extract eye-watering sums for their broadcast rights. And superstar athletes—now some of the most consequential creators on the planet—are reshaping everything from geopolitics…