The early go-ahead was given by the Trump Administration's Department of Government Efficiency, overriding a Federal Trade Commission investigation probe into the antitrust implications of the merger. ... read more

With a wide range of public U.S. companies, especially direct-first companies and some law firms, now bending the knee to the Trump Administration, one wonders what's next - especially for the media. ... read more

So much of our online and technological lives rely on standards, the sets of rules designed to make sure our favorite gadgets and services work together. At their best, they make ... read more

What happens when a man is handpicked by a telemarketer for the devil to become a bounty hunter for escapees from hell? ... read more

The motivation is April Fool's Day -- and for whatever reasons, this year seems to be a banner one for goofiness. ... read more

At the time of writing, The Trade Desk's stock price has dropped precipitously to start the year, a 60% decline from a 52-week high of $141.53 to $56.31 ($TTD ( ▼ 2.02% ) ). While ... read more

Every time I see “mAh” on a consumer product, I cringe. Megahertz are starting to bruise, too. That’s because the most critical components of portable gadgets — batteries and processors — should ... read more

Buying a giant battery for the next blackout or off-grid adventure can be daunting, especially when hundreds or even thousands of dollars are on the line. Get it wrong and you’ve ... read more

Zuck bought himself a position of honor at Trump’s inauguration. | Image: Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images Mark Zuckerberg — having spent months cozying up to President Donald Trump — will now be looking ... read more

ChatGPT’s latest image generator — which has gone viral for its ability to generate uncanny recreations of Studio Ghibli art — is now available for everyone, after OpenAI initially delayed the ... read more

A screenshot from the Palworld dating sim, called Pal♡world! ~More Than Just Pals~. The developers of Palworld and PUBG: Battlegrounds have announced details of dating simulators set in the universes of their ... read more

Up to 140W off a USB-C PD 3.1 laptop charger you might already own. | Image: Ampler Ampler made one of the first modern e-bikes I ever tested, and now it’s selling the first ... read more

Interested in sharing your perspectives on the media and marketing industries? Join the Digiday research panel. Retail media’s moment in the advertising spotlight continues — both for better and for worse. Concern is growing among ... read more

A downturn is coming, but the ad industry might talk itself into making it worse.  We get it. The world is a mess. Tariffs are doing the economic hokey pokey, geopolitics are one long anxiety ... read more

Concerned over Substack’s ideological messaging, some creators are leaving — or considering leaving — the platform in 2025. One of those creators is sportswriter Joe Posnanski, who published his final Substack post on March 3. ... read more

Just weeks ago, the mood among marketers was one of mild crisis. The prospect of a TikTok-less future — unthinkable yet suddenly plausible — had them sketching out fallback plans, hedging bets and recalibrating campaigns. ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify When Dotdash Meredith made its deal with OpenAI deal last year, it wasn’t only opening its content to ChatGPT. It was also enlisting OpenAI’s large language model to assist ... read more

As if the retail media boom isn’t under enough scrutiny, new tariffs and talk of a potential economic recession have sparked more questions about the negotiation process that is known as joint business planning (JBP). ... read more

Another Google core update was completed last Friday, the first one this year — but what it will mean for publishers won’t be clear for a while, if at all. Google’s core updates, which happen ... read more

OpenAI has raised $40 billion in a new investment round led by SoftBank, vaulting the company to a $300 billion valuation. It’s the largest funding round for a private tech company ... read more

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from launch pad 30A at the Kennedy Space Center, carrying four astronauts to the Space Station. | Photo by Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images The ... read more

Ad execs are coming to believe the infrastructure of the internet itself must be optimized to handle the “hyper scale” demands of live streaming events, where millions of concurrent viewers create unprecedented advertising challenges. These ... read more

Several companies, including iRobot, have announced updates and support for Apple Home through Matter. | Image: iRobot The release of  Apple’s iOS 18.4 on Monday includes good news for robot vacuum owners. ... read more

The selections followed a formal review that began last year and was managed by ID Comms. ... read more

Samsung Ads has launched "GameBreaks," an interactive ad format that advertisers in the U.S. and Canada can use to turn passive ads playable on Samsung TV Plus, the company's ad-supported streaming service. ... read more

Connected TV advertising suffers from a fundamental lack of transparency that’s leading to misplaced ads and questionable attribution, according to a senior Yahoo executive. The problem is particularly evident when CTV ads, designed for large-screen ... read more

Microsoft is making its AI features widely available on Copilot Plus PCs equipped with Intel and AMD chips. One of the most notable of these features will be Live Captions, which ... read more

SAN JUAN, PR – The migration of content consumption from the open web to connected TV is opening up what one ad-tech executive calls “white space” for advertising strategies. By understanding consumers’ interests across platforms, ... read more

The simple contraption quickly attaches to both buttons and rocker switches. Smart plugs are great, but unfortunately, they can’t automate everything. Thankfully, there is a cheap cube-like contraption called the SwitchBot Bot ... read more

Trump told Reuters the White House will strike a deal with ByteDance by Saturday to sell TikTok, adding: "We have a lot of potential buyers." The public has received little information about the logistics of ... read more

The company reports a $1.27 billion loss as sales decline again. ... read more

Apple has released iOS 18.4, and one of the biggest features is priority notifications, which use Apple Intelligence to highlight “important notifications that may require your immediate attention,” according to Apple’s ... read more

Following months of testing, Plex has started to roll out its redesigned mobile app to Android and iOS devices, and it will arrive to everyone within the next week. The new ... read more

The cycle social media won't break -- and teens can't escape. ... read more

Amazon has launched a new AI model, Nova Act, which is designed to perform tasks — like online shopping — in your browser. For now it’s only available to developers in ... read more

The Echo Show 8 is one of the devices Alexa Plus is currently available on. Amazon has officially launched its AI-powered Alexa Plus – but it’s only available to a “small number” ... read more

The bright blue is now gone, replaced with a black-and-white palette. | Image: Warner Bros. Discovery Warner Bros. Discovery introduced new branding for its Max streaming service yesterday, alongside announcing availability in ... read more

Today, I’m talking with Matt Bromberg, who is the CEO of Unity, one of the leading video game development platforms. He’s been in the job for less than a year, and ... read more

Deadline reports that Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to sell Coyote vs. Acme’s global distribution rights to Ketchup Entertainment, the same production studio that bought The Day The Earth Blew Up: ... read more

YouTube had a leading 21% share of streaming minutes in 2024. Compared to just FAST platforms, YouTube is far ahead in streaming minutes, followed by Tubi with a 4% share and Roku with 3%. ... read more

It’s World Backup Day, which to the makers of storage devices means driving home the urgency of protecting the files you hold dear. So obviously, there are deals on all sorts ... read more

France’s competition watchdog (Autorité de la concurrence) ordered Apple to pay €150 million (~$162.4 million) after finding that its App Tracking Transparency system allows the company to abuse its dominance in ... read more

The companies have independently supported data, optimization and advertising. Together they have the ability to protect brand assets, optimize digital marketing strategies, and strengthen the ability for brands, retailers, and agencies to maximize return on ... read more

Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet this past month. I’ve been heads down on research for our State of Martech 2025 report that we’ll be releasing on #MartechDay — May 6 — along with the ... read more

Reddit released several Ads Manager features Monday morning aimed at making it easier for small to medium-sized businesses get started running campaigns on the platform. The company turns 20 years old in June. ... read more

As TikTok’s April 5th sell-by date approaches, Americans are back to where they stood before the original January deadline: watching anxiously to see if a major social media app gets banned. ... read more

Tariffs are threatening to hit in April. Guess what that might mean for the TV upfront market, which is set to start in a couple of weeks? ... read more

This week, on April 4th, Microsoft turns 50 years old. The company has gone through sweeping changes over that time — from two guys in New Mexico to more than a quarter-million ... read more

Jellyfish recently announced the use of AI agents across Google, Meta and Amazon to buy media and adjust budgets to avoid under- or overspending, organize campaign data and set up reporting dashboards. ... read more

Sometimes we treasure our devices and tools not just because they’re practical, but because we like their style — the way they look, the way they make our surroundings look, or ... read more

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has created a system for private aircraft owners to request that their registration information — including their name and address — be kept private. That may ... read more

One of Sony’s best-ever PlayStation ads is a 21-second video titled, “Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video.” It’s a “step-by-step” guide about how to lend your PS4 games to your friends. ... read more

The existing Blue Screen of Death error. | Image: Andrey Rudakov / Bloomberg via Getty Images Microsoft has announced that it’s overhauling its Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error message in Windows ... read more

Some Hollywood studios are reportedly earning money from fake AI-generated movie trailers on YouTube, against the wishes of the union representing actors. According to a report from Deadline, Warner Bros. Discovery, ... read more

The official unveiling of the Switch 2 was an incredibly confident moment for Nintendo. It was brief and lacking almost entirely in details. There was no price, no release date, and ... read more

The Z Flip 7 FE’s cover screen looks identical to the Flip 5 and Flip 6’s. The big difference between Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 7 and the cheaper Z Flip 7 FE ... read more

Curation’s biggest problem might be its name. Everyone has a different version of it. Ask an ad tech vendor, and curation is about packaging high-quality inventory for better performance. Ask a data broker, and it’s ... read more

Despite there being a sea of more than 250 retail media networks, the reality is that it works out to be Amazon, Walmart and everybody else. Everybody else — in other words, the smaller players ... read more

The creator platform Spotter last Friday hosted the Spotter Showcase, an upfront-style event featuring top YouTube creators. Both the event’s organizers and participants took to the stage to broadcast a clear message: that YouTube is ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Working moms constantly juggle two nonstop ticker tapes — one filled with work deadlines, the other carrying the endless mental load of motherhood. It’s a daily reality that rarely ... read more

President Trump’s latest tariff proposal is creating headaches for automotive marketers and media buyers, but they’re not slamming the brakes on media spend just yet. The uncertainty created by the mere threat of tariffs can ... read more

It’s been a tough three months for publishers, according to executives who spoke during a closed-door town hall session at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Vail, Colorado, last week. “Not a great quarter. Traffic’s down. ... read more

Despite previously stating it’s an ad-free zone, Substack — like many other platforms before it — is no longer ruling out advertising. “For us, advertising is an interesting business,” Hamish McKenzie, Substack’s co-founder and chief ... read more

In the comments section of the Google CEO's X thread, many shared opinions on the open standard developed by Anthropic in 2024, which allows AI models to connect to a variety of data sources and ... read more

The see-through Beats Studio Buds Plus are an even better buy at $99.95. From the Apple Watch Series 10 and Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 to the top-of-the-line Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra, Amazon’s Big ... read more

"She's no Satya Nadella transforming Microsoft, but she's not a total flop either -- more like a steady hand in a storm. X hasn't collapsed, it's growing, and it's profitable again (barely, with $500 million ... read more

SAN JUAN, PR -The most effective marketing strategies begin with brand-building rather than channel selection, according to Ritu Trivedi, client president at WPP Group’s Mindshare. It makes sense that brands’ natural “channel-agnosticism” is even more ... read more

SAN JUAN, PR – By 2026, nine different streaming platforms are expected to generate over a billion dollars each in ad revenue—a dramatic increase from just two platforms achieving this milestone in 2020. At the ... read more

Billy Tolley swings a Microsoft Kinect around an abandoned room in sudden, jittery movements. “Whoa!” he says. “Dude, it was so creepy.” On the display, we see an anomaly of arrows, ... read more

Is this the beginning of the AI revolt or a preview of what we'll see happening as the "emergent agency" of AIs comes into conflict with the marketing goals of parent companies. ... read more

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 77, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, don’t forget to make your Venmo private, and ... read more

A Tesla Cybertruck drives past protestors during a Tesla Takedown, a nationwide peaceful protest movement, at a Tesla Showroom in the Coral Gables neighborhood on Saturday, March 29, 2025 in Miami. | Photo ... read more

Samaung’s new Bespoke AI Jet Ultra cordless stick vacuum has an AI cleaning mode that senses floor types and automatically adjusts suction power and brush speed. In our notification-heavy world, there is ... read more

I realized quite late in Assassin’s Creed Shadows that being this version of a shinobi is hard — but it was precisely the precision the game demanded that made it all ... read more

The Blade 16 is as sharp looking as ever. The Razer Blade 16 is designed to be the gaming-focused alternative to the MacBook Pro, and I’m always here for that. I love ... read more

It’s sold as an outdoor camplight, but BougeRV’s very bright LED lantern is really a multifunctional work lamp for any place that needs an extra dose of lighting. It’s rechargeable and compact enough ... read more

Elon Musk announced Friday on his X platform that the social media site has been acquired by xAI in an all-stock transaction for $45 billion, including $12 billion debt. ... read more

A court took action on Friday to keep the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from shutting down a consumer watchdog agency while its court case plays out. ... read more

Microsoft is no longer playing around when it comes to requiring every Windows 11 device be set up with an internet-connected account. In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview, the company ... read more

Read took a nearly 15% pay cut last year for failing to achieve financial targets, according to the holding company's annual report which was released this week. ... read more

A couple of years after buying Twitter, Elon Musk announced that his AI business xAI has acquired the social media platform that’s now known as X. In a tweet, he described ... read more

Microsoft is starting to test Quick Machine Recovery, a feature designed to prevent incidents like last year’s Crowdstrike catastrophe. It’s rolling out in its latest Windows Insider Preview build (6120.3653) and ... read more

After Google completed its acquisition of Fitbit in early 2021, the company integrated Fitbit’s services with its own and required users to migrate existing Fitbit accounts to a Google account by ... read more

Google has agreed to pay $100 million to settle class-action claims that it failed to honor advertisers' requests to limit ads geographically, and reneged on a promise to discount some ads. ... read more

Gerard Barron, Chairman and CEO of The Metals Company in San Diego, California on June 8, 2021. | Photo: Getty Images The company that has pushed to open up the deep sea ... read more

MrBeast teamed up with Alex Cross author James Patterson to co-write a thriller novel with Squid Game-like elements, according to a report from Deadline. The upcoming book, which doesn’t have a ... read more

The SteamOS-powered version of Lenovo’s Legion Go S handheld gaming PC debuted at CES 2025 with a somewhat attractive $499.99 price tag. At that price, The Verge’s Sean Hollister considered it ... read more

Halfway through its first season, Apple’s Mythic Quest threw a wild curveball with “A Dark Quiet Death” — an unexpectedly dramatic episode that chronicled the rise and fall of another video ... read more

The Video Privacy Protection Act, passed in 1988, doesn't apply to movie theaters, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. ... read more

Reddit is continuing to build out its most fruitful ad format, Conversation Ads, by inviting all advertisers to serve ads between comments on conversation pages. ... read more

When I saw my colleague Kylie Robison’s story about OpenAI’s new image generator on Tuesday, I thought this week might be fun. Generative AI images raise all kinds of ethical issues, ... read more

YouTube is switching off some push notifications for channels with frequent uploads in a new test that might make you miss alerts you’ve signed up for. The latest test announced by ... read more

Principal buying is a betrayal. It moves the agency-client relationship from a trusted partnership into a minefield full of conflicts of interest. ... read more

Google will pay $100 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the company of charging for clicks on ads placed outside the geographic locations selected by advertisers, as reported earlier ... read more

As protests against Tesla continue to grow, Elon Musk is threatening to “go after” the people who say or post anything negative about the company — which he labels “propaganda.”   That ... read more

The Dow Jones U.S. Media Index is down 8% to a 786 index with the Dow Jones U.S. Broadcasting & Entertainment Index losing 3% (to 1,136) since Jan. 21. The Dow Jones Industrials has declined ... read more

The proposed ban on cell phones in schools reflects concern about the damaging effects of teenagers' addiction to social media -- and their phones. ... read more

Keep your private messages private. If you hadn’t heard of Signal before this week, chances are you’re well aware of it now. The messaging app was thrust into the news on Monday ... read more

The Trump administration planned a military strike in Yemen the way normal people plan a surprise birthday party: in a group chat.  As detailed by The Atlantic earlier this week, Secretary ... read more

Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) is urging the FTC and DOJ to investigate whether DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, Human Security and others misrepresented their ability to detect traffic from bots. ... read more