And a conversation with Brent Neiman, whose research was cited in the ‘reciprocal tariff’ calculations

As the trade war escalates, narratives about how brands’ goods are made, the factories that produce them and whether they’re worth the price are unfolding across social media. Call it the trade war’s meme war.

Narrated videos and AI-generated memes are flooding consumers‘ feeds across TikTok, X and YouTube as the U.S. and China battle over tariff increases. This Wednesday, the U.S. imposed a 125% tariff on China.

Some Chinese-based influencers and manufacturers are taking to social media in an attempt to expose how luxury goods are made and allegedly shipped off to European countries for labeling and significant mark-ups. They’re hoping consumers instead buy directly from China’s manufacturing facilities.

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Tasked with steering their brands down a winding and slippery road, automotive marketers are prioritizing flexibility and speed. To capture consumers buying cars ahead of an anticipated price hit from tariffs, Hyundai has launched a campaign pledging to hold sticker prices steady until June.

The campaign was assembled just a week before its April 11 debut, highlighting the agility required of marketers in this sector right now. Currently, automotive manufacturers are preparing to weather a 25% tariff on imported cars — though President Trump is reportedly considering another stay of execution, adding further uncertainty to an already unpredictable spring. Per MediaRadar, the sector accounted for $14.3 billion of U.S. ad spend last year and according to Statista, Hyundai alone invested over $600 million in advertising in 2023.

The ad itself is a 30-second spot highlighting a pledge to hold its recommended retail price steady until the beginning of June, and features workers at assembly plants located in Georgia and Alabama — a wink to being American-made, and a nod intended to reassure consumers over tariff fears.

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This story was first published by Digiday sibling WorkLife

After scooping up a shelfful of journalistic honors at Zalando’s online fashion and lifestyle publication Highsnobiety (four National Magazine Awards, anyone?), Willa Bennett is rewriting the rulebook of print and digital magazine brands as the editor in chief of Hearst’s Cosmopolitan and Seventeen.

Since taking charge last September, Bennett has brought her tech-savvy, generationally engagement from Highsnobiety, as well as the social team at Condé Nast’s GQ and Bustle Digital Group, to two of consumer publishing’s most iconic titles. Her secret weapon? Parenting books, of all things.

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For years, Apple has played the role of the bystander in advertising — wealthy, capable and largely disinterested. It had the reach, the hardware, the data, the closed loop ecosystem, it had everything but the need.

Now, that’s starting to change. 

Apple’s quiet rebrand of its search ads business to the more assertive “Apple Ads” may seem like a modest semantic update but in the context of platform power plays, language rarely shifts without intention. The move suggests that Apple is no longer content to just collect rent from the ad tech ecosystem it reshaped through privacy policies. It wants a larger piece of the action. 

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Google has been ruled a monopolist for the second time within a year, but now the industry is asking how long will it have to wait for an actual outcome, and what measures are necessary to make any real difference?

In a landmark ruling, Judge Leonie Brinkema has found Google guilty of antitrust violations in two of the three markets at the heart of the Justice Department’s long-running case against the tech giant’s ad tech business.

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U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema just called it: Google broke the law to cement its monopoly over online advertising. Four weeks in September laid bare exactly how it did it. But if you missed the courtroom drama or need a refresher, here’s the unfiltered story of how Google boxed out rivals and took over online advertising — straight from the people who were caught in the crossfire.

But for those who were there from the beginning, the story of Google’s rise in ad tech was already written in the margins — long before any courtroom showdown. 

Matt Wasserlauf, now the CEO of Blockboard, remembers it well. 

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Just announced at Star Wars Celebration, The Art of Star Wars: A New Hope - The Manga will head to Kickstarter before it hits shelves.

Enforcement resources directed at gangs at the top rather than consumers who flout law

Fund manager warns economic slowdown due to tariffs could hit Facebook owner’s revenues

Tariffs and threat of new duties on chips and computing infrastructure could frustrate American ambitions to lead artificial intelligence race

Right out of Star Wars Celebration, io9 has your exclusive first look up close at some of Hasbro's latest, surprisingly hairy action figures.

When news broke that OpenAI was in talks to acquire AI coding company Windsurf for $3 billion, one of the first questions on the mind of anyone following the space was likely: “Why not buy Cursor creator Anysphere instead?” After all, OpenAI Startup Fund has been an investor in Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, since the […]

Laws may need to be strengthened to crack down on the exploitation of child "influencers", a senior Labour MP has warned.

A new theatrical Star Wars movie is on the way — and this time, it actually has a premiere date. At Star Wars Celebration in Japan, Lucasfilm announced Star Wars: Starfighter, a standalone feature that is set five years after The Rise of Skywalker.

It’s being directed by Shawn Levy, who most recently directed Deadpool & Wolverine, and will star Ryan Gosling. Production is due to begin this fall, and the movie will hit theaters on May 28th, 2027. The new movie is described as “an entirely new adventure featuring all-new characters set in a period of time that has not been explored on screen yet.”

Lucasfilm has struggled to get Star Wars projects into theaters following The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, even though many have either been announced or rumored since then. Levy’s involvement in the Star Wars universe had been rumored for some time. In a blog post, Lucasfilm says that those other projects are still in development, including “films by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, Taika Waititi, and a new trilogy by Simon Kinberg.”

Starfighter isn’t the only upcoming Star Wars movie on the schedule however, as it will be preceded by the Mandalorian spinoff The Mandalorian & Grogu, which will hit theaters on May 22nd, 2026.

Jon Favreau directs the Star Wars movie inspired by his Disney+ series, out May 22, 2026.

Star Wars: Starfighter will be out May 28, 2027.

Google has been working on Android XR, its platform for smart glasses and mixed reality headsets, for a while now and offered a first glimpse late last year. During the recent TED2025 conference, Google offered the first live demo of Android XR in action on a pair of prototype smart glasses, and now that demo is readily available to view.

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Seeing people who aren’t developers create apps through vibe coding lately has reminded me of something from two years ago that bodes well for the future of Siri. Vibe coding is the term assigned to the process of building apps using AI by describing the app that you want to exist.

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Pushed by trackmobile railcar movers, the Atlas V rocket rolled to the launch pad last week with a full load of 27 satellites for Amazon's Kuiper internet megaconstellation. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Last week, the first operational satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper broadband network were minutes from launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

These spacecraft, buttoned up on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, are the first of more than 3,200 mass-produced satellites Amazon plans to launch over the rest of the decade to deploy the first direct US competitor to SpaceX's Starlink internet network.

However, as is often the case on Florida's Space Coast, bad weather prevented the satellites from launching April 9. No big deal, right? Anyone who pays close attention to the launch industry knows delays are part of the business. A broken component on the rocket, a summertime thunderstorm, or high winds can thwart a launch attempt. Launch companies know this, and the answer is usually to try again the next day.

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