Brian Tomasette, director of product, Amazon DSP

The amount of change and number of challenges that marketers faced in 2024 was head-spinning. From uncertainty about third-party identifiers to the chaos of ever-changing privacy rules, brands, agencies and technology partners like Amazon have had to rethink, adapt and innovate to reach audiences wherever they are — and now, they are everywhere. Not only has the consumer path-to-purchase expanded — most people use at least 20 touchpoints before making a decision — but their attention spans have shrunk. It’s a double whammy that has led marketers to find new ways to connect with their audience and increase relevancy across the marketing funnel.


Between the fast pace of business, constant technological advances and ongoing privacy changes, it’s becoming more difficult to understand the impact of advertising dollars across channels and devices. 

To solve this challenge, marketers who leverage unique customer signals to reach their most relevant audiences at scale can significantly impact campaign outcomes. However, deploying a full-funnel strategy incorporating both has been a challenge.

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Charlie Swift, general manager, Adstra Services

The term performance marketing is hardly new, however, in the 2020s, the tactics and tools marketers use to achieve performance have evolved considerably, necessitating an update to how the industry understands the practice. 

This practice is about getting the most out of marketing spend by doing more with each dollar, rather than restricting how much is spent — performance marketing needs some nuance.

Analyzing the seven stages of development reveals where many people practicing performance marketing typically stop and how they can move far beyond and become marketing masters.

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AI-focused infrastructure startup Aligned Data Centers announced on Wednesday it has raised over $12 billion in a new funding round. The capital includes $5 billion in primary equity from funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management and over $7 billion in […]

The post Aligned Data Centers raises $12 billion in funding to expand AI infrastructure amid rising demand first appeared on Tech Startups.

With Gemini now included in all business tiers, Google is increasing the price of Workspace plans in 2025.

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Apple’s next generation of CarPlay, often referred to as CarPlay 2, is still nowhere to be found despite a 2024 deadline. Here’s why it’s time for Apple to take a radically new approach and reboot CarPlay 2.

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AI is more than an assistant, it’s a superpower. Plus new weekly US workplace insights as Trump returns to power

You'll feel like a rock star with this amazing portable speaker playing your favorite tunes.

The Invisible Man's Leigh Whannell directed and co-wrote the updated Universal Monsters creature feature, in theaters Friday.

Will the last device leaving the Nest app please turn out the lights? The day finally arrived; Google has announced it’s transitioning the Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm to the Google Home app. This means you’ll be able to get alerts and notifications for your alarm directly through Google Home, as well as hush alarms, according to a blog post from Google. This means you no longer need the Nest app for any device, but you can still use it — for now, at least.

The Nest Protect was the last device that could only be accessed and controlled from the Nest app, following Google’s efforts over the last couple of years to fully port its Nest cameras and other devices to the Home app. With this move, Google will finally be able to sunset the Nest app, although the company has said it will keep it in maintenance mode indefinitely.

Image: Google Home

The new function for the Nest Protect is coming to Google Home users in Public Preview on Android this week and to iOS “soon.” According to Google, it will enable the following features:

Receive emergency and heads-up notifications for smoke and carbon monoxide

Get critical status alerts like battery health or device issues

View when alarms were last tested and run a system-wide safety checkup.

Create a schedule for automatic sound check testing when you’re away from your home

Modify your configuration: change system-wide and alarm-specific settings

View your camera live feeds directly from the emergency alarm card

E911 calling for Nest Aware subscribers - If you are a Nest Aware subscriber in the US, you can use the Google Home app to quickly contact an emergency call center close to your home, even if you’re not home.

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Alongside the Nest updates, the Google Home app is also getting expanded support for smart locks connected via Matter, adding the ability to set passcodes, among other features. The lock updates are rolling out through the app’s “Public Preview” feature on Android, with iOS support coming in early 2025.

Image: Google Home

This will allow more manufacturers’ locks to work with Google Home and bring more functions to the app, including passcode management and automatic locking. Google says that not all of the features will work with all Matter locks; it depends on the lock manufacturer. Here’s a rundown of what will be added:

Passcode Management: You’ll be able to manage who has access to your home by sharing and editing passcodes with ease to household members and guests.

One-tap entry: You can enable one-tap entry instead of typing in your passcode and you can lock/unlock your door remotely from the Home app with just a tap of a button.

Automatic locking: Choose how long your lock should wait before automatically re-locking.

Vacation Mode: This mode locks the keypad so it can’t be unlocked from the outside using the touchpad.

One-touch locking: Lock the door using the touchpad or button on the lock.

Push notifications for lock events

Much of Severance — the sci-fi workplace thriller on Apple TV Plus — takes place in a brightly lit office, with characters huddled over strange computers where they do work they’re told is both mysterious and important. In the show, that work looks a bit like an alternate reality take on Minesweeper, except the characters are attempting to find numbers that “feel scary,” even though they don’t know what that really means — and the cast is largely going through the same experience.

The computers on the show are functional, so when Mark and Helly are moving pixelated numbers around on a screen, that’s something the performers are doing on set. “When you see us, we really are refining numbers,” Adam Scott, who plays Mark and serves as a producer on the show, tells The Verge. “There is actually a way to do it.”

The computers are the brainchild of prop master Cath Miller and production designer Jeremy Hindle. The office-dwelling characters in Severance have undergone a procedure that separates their work selves from their life outside, effectively creating two people, one of whom exists only within the basement offices of Lumon Industries. As Hindle told me back in 2022, this allowed the team to design the computers with playfulness in mind. “We kept thinking, ‘If you’re experimenting with these people, what would you put in front of them?’” Hindle told me. “Imagine how fun it would be to sit at this thing, as opposed to if I put a laptop in front of them. It’s like a child’s device.”

For Scott, using the devices — which pair a vintage-yet-touchscreen monitor with a keyboard that has a built-in trackball — was a nostalgic experience. “They remind me of the old Apple IIe [computers] I grew up using that my brother and my dad had,” he explains. But even though the terminals look familiar, they’re just different enough to make them feel almost surreal — a perfect fit for Severance. “They also have their own interface, and their own keyboard and trackball, but the buttons are in an odd place ergonomically,” Scott adds. “So it’s tricky to use. But I feel like me and [costars Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, and John Turturro] have all figured out how to use it.”

Scott says that the functionality of the computers is a big help for his performance, noting that, often, when actors interact with a gadget, there’s nothing really there onscreen. But on Severance, each actor is able to “actually refine these numbers and come up with your own strategies and apply your own meaning to it.”

That meaning is important because, well, nobody knows what’s really going down in Lumon’s basement. They sit there clicking around a computer without understanding the importance of their work (at this point in the story, viewers don’t know the importance, either). So for the actors, actually using the computers and being just as clueless as their characters helps them better inhabit the role.

“These people have no idea what they’re doing,” says Scott. “They just know that they need to refine numbers by feeling sort of when they get scary. Getting to actually do that when we’re on camera is really important and really helps a lot.”

Severance season 2 hits Apple TV Plus on January 17th.

The US is increasingly intent on winning the AI race with China. Experts say this ignores the benefits of collaboration—and the danger of unintended consequences.

Daredevil is among my favorite stories in the Netflix Defenders universe—along with Jessica Jones—in large part because Wilson Fisk (aka Kingpin, played to perfection by Vincent D'Onofrio), was such an incredibly complex and even occasionally sympathetic villain in the first and second seasons. I'm far from alone in this assessment, which explains why it was such a blow to fans when Netflix canceled the critically acclaimed Daredevil (and the rest of its Defenders series) in 2018, despite the showrunners' plans for a fourth season.

Charlie Cox's titular vigilante hero has since made a couple of cameos in other Marvel projects, most notably as a one-night stand for Tatiana Maslany's She-Hulk in 2022. That kept hope alive that Daredevil might be revived and/or re-imagined. The hope has paid off because Marvel Studios just released a trailer for the new nine-episode series Daredevil: Born Again. And the studio has already confirmed a second season as part of the MCU's Phase Five.

D'Onofrio's Fisk (who also appeared in the limited series Echo and Hawkeye) is back, of course. Per the official premise: "Murdock, a blind lawyer with heightened abilities, is fighting for justice through his bustling law firm, while former mob boss Wilson Fisk pursues his own political endeavors in New York. When their past identities begin to emerge, both men find themselves on an inevitable collision course."

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© Marvel Studios

More good news for those looking to exit Meta’s social app ecosystem in favor of a more open alternative: An independent developer is building a photo-sharing app for Bluesky called Flashes. The soon-to-launch app is powered by the same technology that underpins Bluesky, the AT Protocol, and has been built using code from the developer’s […]

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The Consumer Electronics Show brings more than 135,000 people to Las Vegas every January with one big promise: to showcase the latest in cutting-edge technology. But turning those prototypes into viable business models is another story. For advertisers and marketers, part of the challenge of touring the convention center is sifting through the innovations to...

TikTok's potential removal from U.S. markets by January 19 has marketers and influencers racing to figure out how to reach the app's lucrative audience elsewhere. With 44% of Gen Alpha using TikTok in 2024, it's hard to imagine a world where this platform--a gateway of discovery (and brain rot) for millions of tweens--is suddenly gone....

The Biden administration and the states of Illinois and Minnesota sued tractor and agricultural manufacturer John Deere Wednesday, arguing that the company’s anti consumer repair practices have driven up prices for farmers and have made it difficult for them to get repairs during critical planting and harvesting seasons. The lawsuit alleges that Deere has monopoly power over the repair market, which 404 Media has been reporting on for years.

The lawsuit, filed by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorney generals of Illinois and Minnesota, is the latest and most serious legal salvo against Deere’s repair monopoly. Deere is also facing a class-action lawsuit related to its repair practices from consumers in Illinois that the Department of Justice and other federal entities have signaled they are interested in and support, as we reported last year. 

“The Federal Trade Commission today files suit against agricultural equipment manufacturer Deere & Company, stating that it has illegally restricted the ability of farmers and independent technicians to repair Deere equipment, including tractors and combines,” FTC commissioner Lina Khan wrote in a formal comment explaining the decision. 

Deere has become notorious for cornering the repair market on its machines, which include tractors, combines, and other major agricultural equipment by introducing software locks that prevent farmers from fixing the equipment they buy without the authorization of John Deere.

It has also made repair parts difficult to come by. Deere previously promised to make certain repairs easier for consumers with a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) signed with a farming organization that would have made it possible for farmers to do some repairs and obtain some specific parts; implementation of that MOU has been incredibly uneven, according to farmers. In October, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that Deere was not honoring that agreement and demanded answers to several questions about it; Deere has not yet responded.

The FTC lawsuit specifically states that that MOU was designed to kill right to repair legislation and repair regulation against the company.

"Deere invoked its release of Customer Service ADVISOR and its MOU with the Farm Bureau to stymie state 'right-to-repair' legislation that would otherwise have required Deere to make fully functional repair tools available to customers," it stated.

It also highlights the fact that Deere has released a version of its repair software, called "Service Advisor," to the public (which costs $3,160 per year). But the version of the software released to the public can only do certain repairs and is not fully functional.

"Deere offers two versions of its electronic repair tool: (1) Full-Function Service ADVISOR, a fully functional repair tool that Deere makes available only to Deere dealers, and (2) a degraded Customer Service ADVISOR, which Deere licenses to equipment owners, IRPs [Independent repair providers], and others," it states.

"Deere has acquired and maintained monopoly power in a relevant market for the provision of repair services that require the use of a fully functional repair tool. Through its limited distribution of the repair tool, Deere controls entry into, and limits output in, the provision of such services," the lawsuit added. "As a consequence, Deere’s dealers are able to maintain a 100% market share and charge supracompetitive prices for restricted repairs, and Deere itself reaps additional profits through parts sales."

Farmers have told 404 Media that they remain unable to do many types of repairs, and that it can sometimes take days for “authorized” John Deere or John Deere dealer technicians to come fix broken equipment. In farming, this delay can result in lost harvest, crucial delays in planting, and dying crops during critical periods of the farming season. 

“These delays can mean that months of hard work and much-needed income vanish, devastating their business. In rural communities, the restrictions can sometimes mean that farmers need to drive hours just to get their equipment fixed,” Khan wrote. “For those who have long fixed their own equipment, these artificial restrictions can seem especially inefficient, with tractors needlessly sitting idle as farmers and independent mechanics are held back from using their skill and talent.”

The lawsuit, in the waning days of the Biden administration, is the most serious punitive act the federal government has ever taken to break up a repair monopoly and to support consumers’ right to repair. For years, the FTC has issued reports about repairability and manufacturer dominance of the repair market, but aside from a few small fines, has not formally sued any company. The steps Deere has taken to secure a repair monopoly are among the most egregious of any manufacturer in any industry, which has led farmers in some cases to resort to hacking their own tractors for the purposes of repair, sometimes using software pirated from Ukraine and other countries. 

“We shouldn’t tolerate companies blocking repair,” Nathan Proctor, consumer rights group PIRG's Senior Right to Repair Campaign Director, said. “When you buy something, you should be able to do whatever you want with it. The FTC’s enforcement action will help farmers, and everyone else who believes people should be able to fix their stuff.”

While you could say this about every single year, 2024 was a big year for Google, but 2025 promises to be even bigger – here’s just what we expect to launch, plus a few extras we hope to see.

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Deals on Chipolo’s waterproof ONE Google Find My Device item trackers continue, but we are also now tracking a new all-time low on Samsung’s 512GB Galaxy Tab S10+ at over $220 off. Those offers sit alongside a massive price drop on the mint unlocked Pixel 8 Pro at $439 off the list price and TCL’s 75-inch 120Hz NXTFRAME Google smart TV at over $1.000 off the price it launched at last summer. Joining a host of charging gear and accessories, the transparent Nothing Ear ANC wireless earbuds are now back at the $114 Amazon all-time low. Everything awaits down below. 

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Today’s fresh batch of price drops join ongoing deals on iPad mini 7 and Apple Pencil Pro, not to mention the 2024 Apple Watch Milanese Loop in black. To kick things off we have some notable deals on Apple Watch Ultra 2 with open-box and certified refurbished listings as low as $475, or $324 off the sticker price. That deal sits nicely alongside the return of all-time low pricing on Apple’s latest navy Alpine Loop, AirTag down at $23 (or the 4-pack at $70) as well as even more accessories and charging gear. Everything awaits down below. 

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James Harr had a great idea to capitalize on a social media moment. Then most of the platforms removed him.