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Early in his advertising career, McCann global CEO Tyler Turnbull worked on the account of Canadian telecom firm Rogers. “They were one of those clients that you love or hate,” he recalled. “I loved them because you got to do so much work—it was intense and 24/7.”The office is not the only place where Turnbull appreciates a challenge that pushes his skills to the limit. On weekends during the winter, you’ll find him on the mountains of Ontario.“As a Canadian, you’re given a choice: You either play hockey or ski,” he quipped. “My parents gave me that choice when I…
Sleep tech company Eight Sleep today said that it has raised $50 million in a strategic round led by Tether Investments at a valuation of $1.5 billion. This new round comes after the startup closed a $100 million round last August from investors such as HSG, Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, and Y Combinator. The startup, which sells smart mattress accessories that can track your sleep patterns and adjust temperatures as you sleep, didn’t disclose its valuation for the previous round, but it was valued at $500 million post-money in 2021 when it raised an $86 million Series C led by…
No matter what mechanism, there’s still a bet made. Maybe you are offering a better deal. As far as the customer is concerned, it’s as if your particular casino is offering better odds.Better prices is a good thing for society. But there is a fundamental difference. When you go to a traditional sportsbook, the odds are stacked against you. Our customers are more sharp. They’re a bit like Moneyball. They’re more quantitative. They love doing analysis on the economy, and they like the idea that on Kalshi you have to be smarter than your neighbor—not smarter than some sort of…
Elliott Investment Management, an activist investor known for its assertive involvement in company decisions, has taken a $1 billion stake in Pinterest. The firm first invested in the social platform in 2022. Pinterest announced the financial boost on Tuesday, and CEO Bill Ready said he considers this a major vote of confidence that underscores the company’s ambitious AI efforts. “We delivered record revenue in 2025, with users reaching all-time highs for ten consecutive quarters and more than 80 billion monthly searches on our platform, as we continue to deliver strong innovation in visual search using AI. We are excited to…
Initially, Gorham used his brain-computer interface for single clicks, Oxley says. Then he moved on to multi-clicks and eventually sliding control, which is akin to turning up a volume knob. Now he can move a computer cursor, an example of 2D control—horizontal and vertical movements within a two-dimensional plane.Over the years, Gorham has gotten to try out different devices using his implant. Zafar Faraz, a field clinical engineer for Synchron, says Gorham directly contributed to the development of Switch Control, a new accessibility feature Apple announced last year that allows brain-computer interface users the ability to control iPhones, iPads, and…
On Saturday, U.S. and Israeli jets began a bombing campaign against Iran, killing its supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several senior government officials. The attacks also hit military and civilian targets all across the country, including a girls’ school, where at least 168 children and adults were killed. After a few days of conflict, multiple reports, as well as statements from government officials, suggest that cyber operations played a significant role in the beginning of the war. This shows that in current times, hacking can be an important component of real-world conflicts and war, supporting kinetic strikes and providing intelligence…
“People want something that lasts them a long time, that is quality, that is useful,” says Google senior director Alexander Kuscher. “Eventually, when it breaks or when you lose it, you get a new one because you feel taken care of. So I think that builds trust, and the trust is important.”Flex started as an enterprise service for businesses; Google offered companies worried about security vulnerabilities on aging hardware a way to easily update to a more secure operating system. Or, at least, one that still received updates. After a while, other users started to get ahold of the software,…
Apple unveiled its latest slate of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops on Tuesday morning, and in the case of the MacBook Pro, the new hardware comes with the announcement of new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. The specs on the new chips are impressive, featuring an 18-core CPU that Apple says is over 4x the peak GPU compute for AI compared to the previous generation. But consumers may be surprised to see the price of the new MacBook Pro devices, which are all between $100 and $400 more expensive than their previous models. For the base MacBook Pro,…
X says it’s going to take action against creators who post AI videos of armed conflict without disclosure that the content is AI-generated. On Tuesday, X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, announced that people who use AI technology to mislead others in this way will be booted from the company’s Creator Revenue Sharing Program for a three-month period (90 days). If they continue to post misleading AI content after the suspension lifts, they’ll be permanently suspended from the program. “During times of war, it is critical that people have access to authentic information on the ground. With today’s AI technologies,…
As my fellow pet parents will know, it’s amazing how quickly even the tiniest of dogs can demolish their toys and treat stash. We love and spoil them nonetheless. When you subscribe to BarkBox a fresh batch of cleverly themed treats and toys arrives at your doorstep. The costs of pet ownership can stack up quickly, especially if you’re buying your pooch a random gift box that goes well beyond the essentials. That’s why we have Barkbox promo codes and discount options ready to go for you.Barkbox Promo: Enjoy a Free Toy for a Year at BarkboxWhen your monthly Barkbox…
Anthropic is bringing Voice Mode to Claude Code, the company’s AI coding assistant for developers. The launch of voice mode marks a significant step toward more hands-free, conversational coding workflows. Thariq Shihipar, an engineer at Anthropic, announced the feature’s gradual release on X on Tuesday. According to Shihipar, voice mode is now live for about 5% of users, with a broader rollout planned in the coming weeks. Voice mode is designed to streamline the coding experience by letting users interact with Claude Code through spoken commands. To enable it, type /voice to toggle it on, then speak your command and…
Some TikTok users in the U.S. are having trouble using the app, which the company attributes to an issue with an Oracle data center. “Creators may temporarily experience lags in posting content while Oracle works to resolve the issue,” TikTok said on X. According to user-generated reports on Downdetector, the issue has been ongoing since before 9 a.m. ET. Oracle’s own post on X indicates the outage started around then as well. Oracle is part of an investor group that owns 80% of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture, which was created to comply with a national security law that required…
AI continues to dominate the venture world, per a new Crunchbase report. A record $189 billion of global venture capital flowed to startups in February, according to the report. AI startups overall raised $171 billion, or 90% of the capital raised last month. It’s a stunning number that feels like only the start. That record spending was more than three times the global VC spend in January and was dominated by mammoth funding rounds from just three companies: OpenAI, Anthropic, and Waymo. OpenAI’s latest $110 billion raise led the pack. It was one of the largest private rounds ever raised…
Alibaba’s Qwen AI project has lost one of its most visible technical leaders just a day after the Chinese tech giant unveiled its new Qwen 3.5 open-weight small models. Junyang Lin, a central technical leader on Alibaba’s Qwen team, said in a post on X on Tuesday that he was “stepping down” from the project, without elaborating. He joined Alibaba in July 2019 and became part of the Qwen team in April 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile. The abrupt departure, which drew strong reactions from colleagues and industry partners, comes as global competition among AI developers intensifies and companies…
The rise of low-quality AI-generated online content, colloquially known as “AI slop,” has sparked backlash among many consumers. Some brands are virtue signaling with ad campaigns that mock AI.But the current state of AI-generated content is more nuanced. Not all of it is perceived as slop, and some of it may actually benefit the brands advertising next to it, according to a new study from OM Media Trials, the consumer research arm of Omnicom Media Group, and brand safety vendor Zefr. OM Media Trials and Zefr surveyed nearly 5,000 people in the U.S. and Canada, gauging how they reacted to ads…
As competition among AI startups heats up, founders and VCs are turning to novel valuation mechanisms to manufacture a perception of market dominance. Until recently, the most sought-after companies raised multiple rounds of funding in quick succession at escalating valuations. However, because constant fundraising distracts founders from building their products, lead VCs have devised a new pricing structure that effectively consolidates what would have been two separate funding cycles into one. Recent rounds employing this scheme include Aaru’s Series A. The synthetic-customer research startup raised a round led by Redpoint, which invested a large portion of its check at a…