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Teams from Liga MX and Major League Soccer face each other in the Leagues Cup tournament to stoke rivalries and define American soccer–the North American game, specifically. Mexico, the United States and Canada will welcome the FIFA World Cup in 2026, and their national teams just got a small regional preview of that event in…Read More

Department store chain Belk is standing up an advertising business. The company is starting an ad arm called Belk Media Network that will sell ads to brands trying to reach the retailer’s shoppers. Belk is a regional department store chain with nearly 300 stores in 16 Southern states including Texas, Florida and Maryland. Belk competes…Read More

Google is giving advertisers a little more control over where their Performance Max ads appear. The tech giant rolled out a series of updates on July 30 to ensure greater brand safety and more transparency into ad buys bought using Performance Max, Google’s big AI-driven buying tool that is both popular and at times controversial…Read More

Fox is looking to buck the trends as it closes upfront talks. The company has officially wrapped negotiations, growing volume on both digital and linear, according to a statement from Jeff Collins, Fox’s president of ad sales, marketing and brand partnerships. “Our focused portfolio of market-leading properties in sports, news, entertainment and streaming delivered year-over-year…Read More

Today, Disney laid off 140 members of its Disney Entertainment Television workforce. That represents roughly 2% of the division’s headcount, according to a person familiar with the matter. National Geographic was particularly hard hit as that team will be reduced by approximately 13%. A representative for the company declined to comment. The layoffs represent an…Read More

Cottagecore, balletcore, gorpcore … just a few of the many labels that seemed to dominate the discussion in the last few years, causing brands to look for new ways to capitalize on the emerging trends of the moment. But in a recent breakdown from trend forecaster @thedigifairy, these “cores” have faded just as quickly as…Read More

Google DeepMind announced today the release of the 2 billion (2B) parameter version of Gemma 2, the second generation of its Gemma AI models. First launched in February this year, Gemma is a family of lightweight, text-to-text open models designed for developers and researchers — and built on the technology that powers Google Gemini. DeepMind released Gemma 2 in June, in two different sizes: 9 billion (9B) and 27 billion (27) parameters. The new 2B model learns from larger models through distillation and produces outsized results, DeepMind says. The company also claims that it outperforms all GPT-3.5 models on the…

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The EU has awarded €1.8mn to 15 startups to help tackle online misinformation, fraud, and fake identities with blockchain-based technologies. The grant funding is part of the NGI TrustChain initiative, which focuses on building a more decentralised, trustworthy, and user-centric internet by supporting innovations in blockchain. To date, TrustChain has provided over €4.5mn in funding to 43 companies. Among the initiative’s key targets is the protection of human rights and democratic processes in online spaces. Both are threatened by misinformation and fake identities — be it through distorted information, manipulation, or even weaponisation. “Misinformation and deepfakes are inescapable in this…

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A push for single-pilot planes is a “dangerous gamble,” a leading aviation union has warned. The European Cockpit Association (ECA) sounded the alarm over plans to automate commercial flights. Aircraft makers want software to support a new single-pilot model. Known as extended minimum crew operations (eMCO), the concept removes one pilot from the flight deck during an aircraft’s cruise phase. Automation tech would take over their supporting role. The second pilot can then rest while their colleague stays at the controls. The EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is now evaluating the proposals. If the regulator approves eMCO, commercial planes could…

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