editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

Your TV is watching you — how to turn off data collection on LG, Samsung, Roku and more

April 17, 2026 No Comments

Your smart TV knows too much about you

Your smart TV is collecting detailed information about everything you watch. From which apps you open to what shows you stream, your TV monitors your viewing habits and reports back to the manufacturer. That data gets used for targeted advertising or sold to third parties.

This tracking happens through technology called Automated Content Recognition (ACR), which samples pixels from your screen to identify what content you’re watching. It works whether you’re streaming through apps or watching from external devices like cable boxes or game consoles.

1. Samsung TVs

Samsung TVs use Tizen software and include tracking features for viewing data, voice recognition, and advertising.

Go to Settings, then Support, then Terms & Privacy, then Privacy Choices. This menu contains all the privacy settings you need to adjust. Select Viewing Information Services to disable ACR tracking. This stops Samsung from monitoring what content you watch

To turn off personalized ad tracking, select Interest-Based Advertising. This prevents Samsung from using your viewing data to target ads. If you use Samsung’s voice features, select Voice Recognition Services to disable voice data collection. This stops the TV from recording and analysing voice commands.

2. LG TVs

LG smart TVs run webOS and collect viewing data through several separate services, which means you’ll need to disable more than one setting to fully opt out.

First, go to Settings, General (or System, depending on your model) and select Live Plus, then turn it off. This disables LG’s Automated Content Recognition (ACR), which identifies what you’re watching across apps and external devices.

Next, return to Settings, General, Advertisements and enable Do Not Sell My Personal Information or Limit Ad Tracking. This limits how LG uses your data for targeted advertising.

Finally, open Settings, User Agreements and review each option carefully. Opt out of Viewing Information, Interest-Based Advertising, Voice Information, and Live Plus Automatic Content Recognition wherever those toggles appear.

3. Amazon Fire TVs

Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Series TV (2025) on a table

Amazon Fire TV devices, including Fire TV Edition TVs from brands like Toshiba and Insignia, collect viewing and usage data through Amazon’s platform.

Go to Settings, Preferences, and Privacy Settings. This menu contains Amazon’s main privacy controls. First, select Device Usage Data and turn it off. This limits how Amazon collects information about how you use the device and its features.

Next, select Collect App and Over-the-Air Usage and disable it. This reduces tracking of which apps you use and what live or broadcast TV content you watch. Finally, select Interest-Based Ads and turn it off. This stops Amazon from using your activity to personalize ads, though you’ll still see advertising.

4. Roku TVs

Roku TVs (initially made by TCL, Hisense, and sold under Roku’s own brand) and Roku streaming devices collect viewing data through the Roku platform.

First, go to Settings, then Privacy. This menu contains all privacy-related options. Select Smart TV Experience and disable “Use Info from TV Inputs.” This turns off ACR tracking for content from external devices like cable boxes.

To adjust ad tracking settings and limit personalized advertising, select Advertising. Select Microphone to control settings for Channel Microphone Access and Channel Permissions if your Roku remote has voice features.

5. Android and Google TVs

TVs running Android TV or Google TV — including models from Sony, TCL, Hisense, and others, collect viewing and usage data primarily through Google’s advertising and account services. Some models also include third-party Automated Content Recognition (ACR), such as Samba TV.

To limit Google’s ad tracking, go to Settings, Privacy, and Ads. Then turn off Ad Personalization to prevent Google from using your activity on the TV to personalize ads. On some models, this may instead appear under Settings, Accounts, Google, and Ads.

If you’re signed into a Google account on your TV, you can also manage ad settings at the account level by selecting your Google account and reviewing privacy and ad preferences.

On Sony TVs, there is an additional ACR system to disable. Go to Settings, System or Settings, Privacy and turn off Samba Interactive TV. This stops Samba TV from identifying what you’re watching across apps and external inputs.

6. Vizio TVs

Vizio SmartCast TVs collect detailed viewing data through an ACR system built directly into the platform. This makes disabling these settings especially important if privacy is a concern.

Go to Settings and Admin & Privacy. This is where Vizio groups its privacy controls. Select Viewing Data and turn it off. This disables Vizio’s ACR system, preventing the TV from identifying what you’re watching across apps and connected devices.

Next, select Advertising and disable it to limit ad personalization and tracking tied to your viewing behaviour.

Feature image credit: Samsung

By Kaycee Hill

Sourced from tom’s guide

In News

Podcast: the future of platforms and marketing

April 17, 2026 No Comments

By Chris Sutcliffe,

Social platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook offer huge opportunities for marketers. They are the new de facto gatekeepers to huge audiences, and there are very few other means to reach younger audiences at scale with ease. But that access comes with trade-offs, and different platforms emerge and disappear rapidly. As part of our Predictions season, The Drum Network seeks to examine where brands and agencies fit into that environment.

TheDrum · The Future of Platforms in Marketing

To discuss that rapidly evolving landscape, and how we can ensure the primacy of brands when it comes to marketing on platforms, we’re joined by three experts from across the industry. Amy Gilbert, head of social at The Social Element; Tahir Rashid, paid media manager at UNRVLD; and Callum Gill, head of insight and innovation at DRP Group, join The Drum’s senior reporter Chris Sutcliffe to discuss all things platform-related.

The Drum Network Podcast can be found on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and your favourite podcast app.

By Chris Sutcliffe,

Sourced from The Drum

In News

I stopped fighting YouTube ads and paid for YouTube Premium — and I’m never going back

April 16, 2026 No Comments

By Joe Maring

I watch YouTube every single day, but I don’t like sitting through advertisements before and during my videos. Because of this, I pay $14/month for YouTube Premium to remove those ads and get on with my day — as do millions of other YouTube Premium subscribers.

However, some people use a different approach: ad blockers. Using ad blockers to bypass YouTube ads is not a new practice, and each year, YouTube becomes more aggressive in cracking down on such behaviour. With each new measure it introduces, YouTube makes ad-blocking a less and less attractive option.

No one likes ads, and no one likes paying for another subscription. But as someone who finally subscribed to YouTube Premium about a year ago, I’m here to tell you that if you’re still determined to fight Premium with ad blockers, you’re doing it wrong.

Why aren’t you paying for YouTube Premium?

687 votes

I can’t afford it

16%

YouTube used to be free, it should remain free

14%

Ad-blocking and other hacks make Premium worthless

12%

I don’t want to give Google any more of my money

14%

I don’t use YouTube enough to justify it

12%

I do pay for YouTube Premium

32%

The necessary evil of YouTube ads

An advertisement before a music video on YouTube.

An ad playing before a music video on YouTube

No one likes ads. I don’t like ads, you don’t like ads, and I imagine 99.99% of people reading this don’t like ads. The 0.01% of people who say they do are lying.

This is especially true, if not more so, for ads on YouTube. Having to sit through 30 seconds of advertisements before your video starts — and often additional ads throughout the video — is a frustrating user experience. And yet, it’s an experience that’s also completely necessary.

No matter which YouTube creators/channels you watch, the reason they’re able to keep creating new videos is because of that very advertising we all hate. We might despise sitting through ads while watching videos, but without them, we wouldn’t have those creators in the first place. It’s the same story for online advertising for your favourite social media app, recipe website, or tech blog (including Android Authority). Like it or not, ads pay the bills.

Most of us likely know this already, but it’s a good reminder and baseline to establish. Because while ad blockers make your life easier, they don’t just hurt YouTube — they also hurt the creators you watch. While I couldn’t care less if a multi-billion-dollar company loses a few dollars here and there, I do care about ensuring the creators I watch get their fair share of money from me watching their content. But if I watch YouTube with an ad-blocker, they don’t.

YouTube Premium is a fair (and great) solution

Although I’ve personally avoided ad blockers for this reason, I have tried other, more ethical solutions to manage YouTube ads over the years. After starting a video, I’d knock out a quick chore or handle something for work until the pre-roll ads finished. If a video had additional ads throughout its runtime, I’d use that time to doom-scroll on my phone, grab a snack, etc.

For a while, this method worked. It wasn’t perfect, but I was still watching all the YouTube videos I wanted without paying a dime — even if it meant my viewing experience wasn’t 100% ideal.

After years of not paying for YouTube Premium, I signed up for a YouTube Premium Lite subscription last April to test the waters. A few months later, I went all-in with a fully-fledged YouTube Premium plan. In the 10 months since, I have not once considered cancelling my Premium subscription. Why? Because the product you get with YouTube Premium is that good.

YouTube app showing the Premium Benefits page.

Naturally, much of this comes down to YouTube Premium’s hallmark feature: ad-free videos. When you open a video, you get it and nothing else — no ads before the video, during, or after. It’s an unquestionably better user experience compared to the ad-supported model, and you have the peace of mind that the channels you watch aren’t being ripped off — something that will never be possible with an ad blocker.

But it’s not just ad-free videos that have kept me paying month after month. While that’s the main draw (and why I initially started with Premium Lite), everything else you get with YouTube Premium is equally worth the monthly fee.

I don’t use background playback all the time, but every time I do, I’m happy to have it. The Jump Ahead feature makes it so easy to skip through sponsored segments in videos. Continue Watching is great for picking up where you left off on a video you didn’t finish, and video downloads are essential when I’m traveling for work.

$14/month for YouTube Premium is money well-spent.

To get all of this — and an included YouTube Music Premium subscription — for just $14/month is about as good a value as you’ll find in the modern streaming landscape. And if none of those extras matter to you, YouTube Premium Lite for $8/month remains an excellent deal if all you care about is removing ads and nothing else.

Keep in mind, I say all of this as someone who’s actively in the process of cancelling numerous streaming subscriptions. I can’t justify paying $18/month for Netflix or $17/month for Peacock when I use them maybe once a month, but $14/month for YouTube Premium — which dramatically improves my daily YouTube watching — is money well-spent.

This isn’t a difficult choice

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that everyone needs to subscribe to YouTube Premium. Maybe you’d like to subscribe, but it’s not in your budget. Perhaps you don’t use YouTube enough to justify the monthly fee. Or maybe you truly don’t mind watching ads in between videos. Whatever the case may be, there are plenty of valid reasons not to have YouTube Premium.

However, if the ads annoy you to the point where you’re looking for loophole after loophole to keep watching YouTube with ad blockers, I think it’s time to admit defeat and pay up.

Ad blockers are only getting worse and will continue to hurt creators.

Google may never fully disable ad blockers on YouTube, but the experience of using them is only getting worse and will continue to hurt creators. Meanwhile, YouTube Premium is getting better — whether that’s through new features or more flexible plans like Premium Lite.

We’d be having a very different conversation if YouTube Premium were a bad product, but when it’s (somewhat miraculously) as good as it is, being so resistant to subscribing just doesn’t make sense. I’ve enjoyed my time with Premium since giving in last year, and if you haven’t made the jump already, I really think you will, too.

By Joe Maring

Sourced from Android Authority

In News

Tesla insists it isn’t guilty of false advertising

April 16, 2026 No Comments

By Daniel John

The company is fighting back against a recent lawsuit.

Towards the end of last year we brought you the news that Tesla had hit a major branding roadblock, with a judge ordering the EV manufacturer to rename its ‘Autopilot’ and ‘Full Self-Driving’ features.

A judge ruled that these names were misleading, implying that the cars can drive themselves. And Tesla was ordered to change them or face a sales ban in its most popular state, California. But now Tesla is hitting back at the ruling.

Tesla car inside. — The brand has already renamed its “Full Self-Driving Capability” (Image credit: Tesla)

And now, in an unexpected twist, Tesla is suing the DMV, calling the ruling “factually wrong, legally flawed, and unconstitutional.” In a new legal complaint, Tesla suggests the DMV “wrongfully and baselessly labels Tesla a false advertiser for marketing its industry-leading advanced driver-assistance systems(“ADAS”) under the brand names “Autopilot” and “Full-Self Driving Capability.”

“Tesla made clear—and has always made clear—that they do not make Tesla vehicles autonomous, and that active driver supervision is required,” the complaint adds.

A stainless steel Tesla Cybertruck driving down a long, open road toward snow-capped mountain peaks. — Tesla has called the ruling “factually wrong, legally flawed, and unconstitutional.” (Image credit: Tesla)

In response to the legal challenge, the DMV tells CNBC, “An Administrative Law Judge found that Tesla broke state law by misleading consumers with the term ‘autopilot.’ Tesla agreed to stop this practice, and now they’re challenging it anyway. DMV is committed to protecting the traveling public and will defend the Administrative Law Judge’s findings and decision in court.”

Indeed, it’s curious that Tesla is challenging a ruling that is has already complied with. The brand has changed the name of Full Self-Driving Capability, going for Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Meanwhile, the company’s support web page now makes the following caveat when describing Autopilot: “Autopilot refers to a suite of advanced driver assistance features that are intended to make driving more convenient and less stressful. None of these features make Model Y fully autonomous or replace you as the driver.”

Feature image credit: Tesla

By Daniel John

Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles. He has interviewed leaders and designers at brands including Apple, Microsoft and Adobe. Daniel’s debut book of short stories and poems was published in 2018, and his comedy newsletter is a Substack Bestseller.

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

In Uncategorized

5 ChatGPT Prompts To Overtake Your Fiercest Rivals In Business

April 15, 2026 No Comments

By Jodie Cook

Your rivals are winning deals that should be yours. They’re getting the clients, the partnerships, the recognition. You’re wondering what they know that you don’t. It’s time to flip the script. You’re better than this, and you’re one move away from greatness.

Gain an unfair advantage and crush your rivals with ChatGPT. Copy, paste and edit the square brackets in ChatGPT, and keep the same chat window open so the context carries through.

Beat Your Business Rivals: ChatGPT Prompts To Get Ahead

Magnify your biggest advantage

Every business has something it does better than anyone else. You know what yours is. But you’re not shouting about it loud enough. Your ace cards are sitting there while you blend into the background trying to be everything to everyone. Stop that. Double down on what makes you different.

“Based on what you know about me and my business, identify the 3 biggest strengths that set me apart from others in my field. For each strength, explain why it matters to my ideal customers and how I’m currently underusing it. Then create a 30-day plan to amplify each advantage across my marketing, sales conversations, and client delivery. Ask for more detail if required.”

Build your personal brand

Founder-led businesses are winning. I built my social media agency from scratch and sold it in 2021. The thing that set us apart was the personal connection clients felt with me as the founder. People choose the brand with the face they trust.

“Based on what you know about my expertise and background, help me develop a personal brand strategy that positions me as the obvious choice in my field. Identify 5 unique angles from my story that would resonate with my target audience. For each angle, create specific content ideas and talking points I can use across LinkedIn, my website, and sales conversations. Include phrases that make my perspective memorable.”

Create a referral network

When prospects face too many options they ask for recommendations. Your job is to be the name that comes up. Find businesses with your same ideal customer but different services. Stop chasing clients. Let them come to you.

“Based on what you know about my business and ideal customers, identify 10 types of businesses or professionals who serve the same audience but aren’t direct rivals. For each one, suggest a specific collaboration idea that benefits both parties. Then create outreach messages I can send to initiate these partnerships. Make the messages personal and focused on mutual value, not transactions.”

Focus on your own game

Watching your rivals will drive you mad. You’ll copy their moves, react to their announcements, and lose sight of what makes you great. The answers to your biggest business breakthroughs are already in your data. The campaigns that worked best. The reasons your top customers bought. What they would buy again. Get obsessed with your metrics instead of theirs. Grow twice as fast.

“Based on what you know about my business, help me conduct a self-analysis to find hidden growth opportunities. Ask me about my best customers, highest-performing campaigns, and most profitable services. Once you understand the patterns, identify 5 specific actions I can take to double down on what’s already working. Create a weekly tracking system so I can measure progress without getting distracted by what others are doing.”

Get real about your gaps

You know why people choose your rivals. Deep down you can list exactly where they beat you. Maybe it’s their marketing. Maybe it’s their delivery speed. Maybe it’s their pricing model. Stop pretending those gaps don’t exist. Expose your blind spots and close them one by one. The pain of facing reality is nothing compared to the cost of staying stuck.

“Based on what you know about me, help me conduct an honest gap analysis of my business. Ask me probing questions about where I lose deals, what customers complain about, and where rivals consistently outperform me. For each gap identified, rate its impact on my revenue from 1 to 10. Then create a prioritized action plan to close the top 3 gaps within 90 days. Be direct and don’t let me make excuses.”

Outperform your rivals: ChatGPT prompts to dominate your market

Stop watching the competition win. Magnify your unfair advantage and shout about what makes you different. Build your personal brand so people choose the face they trust. Create referral partnerships that send clients your way without chasing. Focus obsessively on your own metrics and what’s already working. Get brutally honest about your gaps and close them fast.

You have everything you need to become the one your rivals worry about. The prompts are ready. The strategy is clear. Your move determines whether you stay where you are or leap ahead. Start today and watch the game change.

Featured image credit: Getty

By Jodie Cook

Find Jodie Cook on LinkedIn. Visit Jodie’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Claude just made two of its best features free — here’s how to use Projects and Artifacts

April 15, 2026 No Comments

By Amanda Caswell

There’s never been a better time to use Claude

As more ChatGPT users migrate to Claude, Anthropic appears to be making the switch easier. Less than a week ago, the company quietly made Memory free, a move designed to help new users transition more smoothly from ChatGPT to Claude.

But some users may not be aware that two of the most powerful tools are also free for everyone. Previously limited to paying subscribers, Projects and Artifacts turn Claude from a simple chatbot into something closer to a real workspace — one that can organize information, build documents and even create interactive tools. Here’s what changed and how to use these features.

What just changed — and why it matters

AI companies have been carefully balancing what they give away for free versus what they reserve for paid plans. Anthropic’s latest update signals a shift toward making Claude more accessible as competition with OpenAI and Google intensifies.

With the expanded free tier, Claude users now get access to:

Projects to organize conversations and documents into dedicated workspaces
Artifacts to preview code, documents and apps in a live side panel
Web search for current information
A 200,000-token context window (roughly 500 pages of text)
File uploads of up to 20 files per chat

That’s a surprisingly powerful toolkit — especially for a free plan. But the real upgrardes are Projects and Artifacts.

What is Projects — and why it matters

Before Projects, every Claude conversation started from scratch. You had to re-explain your work, your writing style or the context of your task each time you started a new chat. But, similar to ChatGPT Projects, Claude Projects solve that problem. If you have been using Projects within ChatGPT, the core features are almost identical.

The biggest differences I’ve found is that Claude is far more integrated for document analysis. If you’re working on content-heavy projects like writing a novel or deep research, you may find Claude to be a better support. Unlike ChatGPT, Claude does not provide image generation within the chat, so you will need to generate those elsewhere such as Gemini’s Nano Banana 2 and upload.

Claude remembers the context of what you’re working on when you create a Project. You can upload documents, set instructions and keep all related conversations together.

I use Claude Projects for different parts of my life. I have Projects for work, Projects for my side hustles, Projects for research and I even have one for personal tasks.

It’s a great way to stay organized while keeping the context inside each workspace so you don’t have to repeat yourself.

How to use Claude Projects

Click Projects in Claude’s sidebar
Create a new Project and give it a name
Upload documents like resumes, notes, briefs or style guides
Add instructions explaining what Claude should know

From that point forward, every conversation inside that Project automatically uses that context. For example, for my AI pizza brand, Crusted, I use Projects as a “Brand Book,” so the tone and information stays the same. I can change, edit or even rename the Project at any time.

What are Artifacts — and why they’re a game changer

If you’ve used ChatGPT Canvas, to write or code, than you’ll probably appreciate the benefits of Artifacts. This feature allows users to create standalone outputs that appear in a live preview panel next to the chat.

Instead of just reading raw code or instructions, you can actually see the result. This allows you to make changes in real-time without starting over.

Within Artefacts, Claude can generate:

Web pages
Formatted reports
Dashboards
Visualizations
Interactive tools

The Artifact updates in real time as you ask Claude to revise it. For people who aren’t programmers, this makes a huge difference. You don’t need to copy code into another program or environment just to see what it does. Everything happens directly inside Claude.

How to use Claude Artifacts

Ask Claude to build something visual or interactive — for example:

A dashboard
Calculator
Formatted report
Small web page

If the output benefits from a preview, Claude will automatically open it as an Artifact in the side panel.

5 ways to use these features right now

Person typing on a laptop in a low lit room

These tools aren’t just experimental AI features — they’re designed for everyday work. Whether you’re organizing a job search, managing finances or turning messy notes into something useful, Projects and Artifacts make Claude feel less like a chatbot and more like a real productivity workspace.

Here are five practical ways to start using them today.

1. Build a job search command centre: Create a “Job Search” Project, upload your resume and notes about target companies. Claude can generate tailored cover letters, outreach messages and interview prep using your background.

2. Create a personal finance tracker: Upload a spreadsheet or spending data, then ask Claude to build an Artifact with a visual budget dashboard or spending breakdown you can actually interact with.

3. Run a content workflow: Writers and creators can store their brand voice, audience profile and past work in a Project so Claude produces content that already matches their style.

4. Build a research hub: Upload PDFs, articles and notes into a Project and ask Claude to create an Artifact that turns everything into a structured report or briefing.

5. Turn meeting notes into action plans: Paste meeting notes into a Project and ask Claude to generate an Artifact with action items, timelines or project summaries ready to share.

Bottom line

Knowing Claude is giving away some of their most powerful features for free, may make you wonder, what’s the catch? Well, there are still a few limitations. Free tier users are limited to Claude Sonnet, while paid subscribers can use Claude Opus, Anthropic’s most powerful model.

For most everyday tasks Sonnet is more than capable, but advanced coding or complex analysis may still benefit from Opus. Another limitation: Claude Code, the company’s developer tool, is still restricted to paid plans.

However, with these features, plus Memory, Claude’s free tier is significantly more capable of tackling your toughest projects. These updates have turned Claude into something closer to a real productivity workspace rather than just a chatbot.

If you haven’t tried these features yet, it’s worth opening a Project and experimenting — you may find Claude suddenly feels far more useful. Give them a try and let me know in the comments what you think.

Feature image credit: Image credit: Shutterstock

By Amanda Caswell

Amanda Caswell is one of today’s leading voices in AI and technology. A celebrated contributor to various news outlets, her sharp insights and relatable storytelling have earned her a loyal readership. Amanda’s work has been recognized with prestigious honours, including outstanding contribution to media. Known for her ability to bring clarity to even the most complex topics, Amanda seamlessly blends innovation and creativity, inspiring readers to embrace the power of AI and emerging technologies. As a certified prompt engineer, she continues to push the boundaries of how humans and AI can work together. Beyond her journalism career, Amanda is a long-distance runner and mom of three. She lives in New Jersey.

Sourced from tom’s guide

In News

Meta’s Moltbook deal points to a future built around AI agents

April 14, 2026 No Comments

By Sarah Perez

When news broke Tuesday morning that Meta bought Moltbook, the social network for AI agents, it may have left some people scratching their heads. What on earth would Meta — an ad-supported company — want with a social network where the users are bots? Bots, after all, are not the target audience of brand marketers and advertisers.

Meta isn’t saying much. Its only official comment was a brief statement that the Moltbook team was joining Meta Superintelligence Labs, which would open up “new ways for AI agents to work with people and businesses.”

Reading between the lines, this was an acqui-hire. A network built for bots isn’t exactly a natural home for brand advertising — even if Moltbook was never entirely non-human. What Meta really wanted was the talent behind it — people who are having fun brainstorming and experimenting with AI agent ecosystems. And that, counterintuitively, could be a boon for its advertising business.

As Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last year, he believes in a future where “every business will soon have a business AI, just like they have an email address, social media account, and website.” On an agentic web, one where AI systems act independently on users’ behalf, AI agents could interact with each other, doing things like buying ads, making bookings, and responding to customers.

AI is also being used to generate ad creative and tailor its output based on who’s viewing it. AI systems could also manage product pricing or generate personalized offers.

On the consumer side, agents could be used to find the best prices and deals, manage bookings, and shop for products. In some limited cases, agents can already check out and pay on consumers’ behalf. (Agentic commerce is still in its early days, and these systems don’t always work as well as advertised. But the market has been moving fast, and improvements seem likely soon enough.)

As Facebook once built the “friend graph” — a network defined by social connections between people, where every individual is a node — an agentic web could benefit from an “agent graph,” a system that maps out how various agents are connected and what actions they can take on each other’s behalf.

**Image Credits:**akinbostanci (opens in a new window)/ Getty Images

For an agentic web where businesses’ agents and consumers’ agents can work together, though, the agents first need to be able to find each other, connect, and coordinate their activities. As Facebook once built the “friend graph” — a network defined by social connections between people, where every individual is a node — an agentic web could benefit from an “agent graph,” a system that maps out how various agents are connected and what actions they can take on each other’s behalf. This could span areas like travel, online shopping, media and research, productivity tools, and more.

This, too, could be where advertising slots in. Today, humans view and click on ads when they see something of interest, but on an agentic web where agents are shopping on users’ behalf, ads might look quite different. Instead of influencing a human to buy a product, a business’s agent may need to negotiate directly with a consumer’s agent to make the sale.

Maybe the consumer wants to buy that shirt or that lipstick, but only in a certain colour and at a certain price. Maybe the systems become so complex that these considerations go beyond product and price — perhaps the consumer prefers to support small businesses, or shops only with eco-friendly companies. Maybe the consumer only buys items when they’re on sale or purchases generic versions if the ingredients are the same. And so on.

In that case, it’s not just a matter of connecting the AI agents but also ranking products by whichever one best fits that individual customer’s needs. If Meta could capitalize on that market — AI at the orchestration layer, meaning the system decides which agents talk to each other and in what order — it could potentially expand its ads business into entirely new territory.

This all depends on whether consumers actually embrace the agentic web, or ever trust AI enough to let it act on their behalf. But the very existence of OpenClaw, the personal AI assistant that populated Moltbook with content, suggests that at least some people are already leaning into autonomous AI agents.

Of course, there’s another possible reason Meta bought Moltbook. The company lost the acqui-hire of OpenClaw’s creator, Peter Steinberger, to rival OpenAI, so it went after Moltbook, the platform Steinberger’s tool helped build, instead. Petty? Maybe. But it kept Meta’s Superintelligence Labs in the news.

Feature image credit:Anadolu / Contributor(opens in a new window)/ Getty Images

By Sarah Perez

Sourced from TechCrunch

In News

Crypto’s Next Expansion Will Be Licensed, Not Borderless

April 14, 2026 No Comments

By Bitcoinist

The industry is not entering an era of blanket legalization. It is moving into a phase of permissioned growth, where the winners may be the firms that can operate under real supervision.

The crypto industry has spent years asking the wrong regulatory question. “Which countries are pro-crypto?” sounds useful, but in 2026 it explains less and less. The more relevant question now is whether a serious firm can launch, scale, and keep operating inside a jurisdiction with a visible compliance path, known supervisory expectations, and a realistic licensing process. That is a harder standard, but it is also the one that increasingly matters.

The Market Is Moving From Ambiguity To Permission

A recent BitBullNews Quarter Crypto Regulation Tracker described the shift with a useful phrase: permissioned growth. That framing works because it captures what is actually happening across major jurisdictions. The market is not seeing broad deregulation, and it is not seeing a universal crackdown either. What it is seeing is a more usable environment for firms that are prepared to be governed like financial institutions, paired with a less forgiving environment for operators still relying on offshore ambiguity, weak controls, or aggressive marketing into markets where they lack authorization.

That is why some jurisdictions look more attractive than they did six months ago while also becoming harder to enter casually. The contradiction is only apparent. Clearer rules can be pro-growth for compliant operators and hostile to informal ones at the same time.

The US, UK, And Hong Kong Are Building Controlled Entry Points

In the United States, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has moved beyond political debate and into operational rulemaking. The OCC’s February 25, 2026 notice of proposed rulemaking sets out regulations tied to the GENIUS Act for permitted payment stablecoin issuers, foreign payment stablecoin issuers under OCC jurisdiction, and certain custody activities by OCC-supervised entities. That is a meaningful shift because it places stablecoin issuance deeper inside prudential-style supervisory design rather than leaving it in the realm of abstract policy discussion.

BitStarz Player Lands $2,459,124 Record Win! Could you be next big winner?

The United Kingdom is following a similarly structured path. The FCA says the application period for firms seeking authorization under the new cryptoasset regime is expected to run from September 30, 2026 to February 28, 2027, with the regime expected to come into force on October 25, 2027. In other words, the UK is not offering a free-for-all. It is offering a timetable, a perimeter, and a route. That is exactly the kind of signal institutional operators tend to prefer.

Hong Kong may be the clearest example of the “more legitimate, more constrained” tradeoff. The HKMA’s stablecoin issuer regime is already in place, with licensing guidance, supervisory expectations, and AML/CFT requirements published. But the regulator’s own register currently shows no licensed stablecoin issuer. That matters because it demonstrates the difference between having a regime on paper and actually clearing the bar in practice.

Why Stablecoins Sit At The Center Of This Shift

Stablecoins have become the pressure point where crypto regulation and traditional financial supervision increasingly overlap. That makes sense. Stablecoins sit close to payments, custody, reserves, redemptions, consumer expectations, and, in some cases, treasury demand. Once a digital asset starts looking like financial plumbing, regulators stop treating it like a side issue.

That is why stablecoins now anchor so much of the new rulebook. In the BitBullNews tracker, the quarter’s regulatory pattern is not described as a broad crypto opening, but as a stablecoin-heavy migration into formal supervision across jurisdictions including the US and Hong Kong. That reading is consistent with what official agencies are now publishing. Stablecoins are no longer merely tolerated products at the edge of the system. They are increasingly being designed into the perimeter itself.

Compliance Is No Longer A Wrapper Around The Product

The deeper implication is operational, not rhetorical. Crypto firms can no longer treat compliance as something added around the edges once growth has already been captured. Product design itself is becoming a regulatory question. Reserve disclosures, custody arrangements, sanctions screening, governance, onboarding, communications controls, and even marketing flows are all moving closer to the center of licensing logic. The BitBullNews tracker puts this well: product controls and communications controls are becoming licensing controls.

That change affects nearly every business model in the stack. Exchanges and broker-dealers are being pushed toward more formal market-infrastructure models. Custodians are facing higher evidentiary burdens. Wallets and front ends are increasingly judged not just by what they enable, but by how they gate, monitor, and present access. Payment firms and stablecoin issuers are being pulled toward bank-like expectations even when they are not literally banks.

What This Means For Bitcoin And Institutional Adoption

Bitcoin itself does not need permission to exist. But the rails that make it easier for large pools of capital to access, hold, settle, and move around Bitcoin increasingly do. Stablecoin issuance, regulated custody, broker-dealer access, and compliant fiat connectivity all shape how institutional adoption actually scales in practice.

That means the next phase of crypto growth may look less like the offshore, slogan-driven expansion many market veterans still associate with earlier cycles. It may be slower, cleaner, and more tightly intermediated. For some in crypto, that will feel less romantic. For institutions, it may feel much more investable. And that is the crucial point: the next expansion may not belong to the loudest firms. It may belong to the ones that can survive a real license review, a real audit trail, and a real supervisory relationship. That is not anti-crypto. It is the form mainstream adoption is increasingly taking.

Final Take

Crypto is not entering an age of universal approval. It is entering an era of selective legitimacy. The jurisdictions that matter most are not the loosest ones, but the ones that give serious operators a credible path to enter and stay. That is why “permissioned growth” may be the most accurate regulatory phrase of 2026.

For the industry, the message is blunt: ambiguity is losing value. Permission is gaining it. And for firms that want to be part of the next institutional wave, that shift may prove more bullish than many realize.

By and sourced from Bitcoinist

In News

YouTube just crushed Hollywood in a major milestone

April 13, 2026 No Comments

By Hillary Remy,Edited by Celine Provini

For decades, Disney, NBC, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery sat at the top of the advertising world. In 2025, a 21-year-old video platform built on cat videos and bedroom creators officially knocked them off.

YouTube’s total revenue across ads and subscriptions exceeded $60 billion in 2025, according to Alphabet’s official earnings release, making it larger than Netflix, which reported $45.18 billion for the full year.

A separate analysis by financial research firm MoffettNathanson found that YouTube’s advertising revenue alone surpassed the combined $37.8 billion ad haul from Disney, NBCU, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery. It is the first time YouTube has crossed that threshold.

A year earlier, the tables looked different. In 2024, YouTube’s $36.1 billion in ad revenue fell short of the $41.8 billion those four studios earned collectively.

The reversal in just 12 months is as striking as it is telling about where the advertising industry is heading.

The numbers behind the YouTube advertising milestone

Ad revenue is only part of the story. When subscriptions are included, YouTube’s total 2025 revenue climbed to more than $60 billion, making it larger than Netflix, which reported $45.18 billion for the full year. Only Disney, with $95.7 billion in total revenue, topped YouTube among entertainment companies.

YouTube’s parent company broke out the video platform’s total revenue for the first time in Alphabet’s latest earnings report, a signal of just how central YouTube has become to the broader business.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai noted the company now has over 325 million paid subscriptions across consumer services, a figure that includes YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, YouTube Music, and Google One.

YouTube TV alone surpassed 10 million U.S. subscribers as of November 2025, according to Cord Cutters News, making it the third-largest multichannel TV provider in the country, behind only Charter and Comcast.

How Hollywood lost the ad crown to YouTube

YouTube’s advertising dominance didn’t emerge overnight. It has been building for years as audiences, particularly younger ones, quietly migrated away from traditional TV toward on-demand and creator-driven content.

Each of the four major studios reported declining advertising revenue in 2025. WBD’s ad revenue fell 17% in its most recent quarter. NBCU’s domestic advertising declined 6.8% year over year. Disney and Paramount reported similar trends across their linear networks. These declines reflect a structural problem, not a temporary one.

YouTube, meanwhile, is winning the living room. In Q1 2025, YouTube ad spend on connected TV screens surpassed mobile for the first time, accounting for 43% of YouTube ad placements versus 42% on mobile. That is nearly double the CTV share from a year earlier, when it stood at just 24%.

Where YouTube’s growth comes from

YouTube’s blockbuster advertising business derives from several compounding factors that traditional studios simply cannot replicate at the same scale or speed.

Key drivers behind YouTube’s ad surge

Shorts momentum: YouTube Shorts now averages 200 billion daily views, up significantly from the 70 billion figure cited earlier in 2025, giving advertisers enormous short-form inventory.
Living room dominance: YouTube holds a 12.4% share of total U.S. TV viewing time, ranking first among all media companies, per Nielsen data.
Podcast growth: Viewers watched more than 700 million hours of podcasts on YouTube via TV screens in October 2025 alone, up 70% year over year.
Creator scale: YouTube has paid out more than $100 billion to creators, music companies, and media partners cumulatively, sustaining a content flywheel no studio can match.
Live sports: YouTube’s first exclusive NFL game in September 2025 drew 19 million global viewers across more than 230 countries.

Why advertisers flock to YouTube

The advertiser migration to YouTube is not purely about audience size. It is about measurability.

Brands allocating budgets to YouTube can track outcomes in ways that linear TV has never been able to offer, from view-through attribution to cross-device tracking and real-time performance data.

YouTube allows advertisers to track outcomes in ways that linear television can’t.

Thomas/Getty Images

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pointed to AI as a key accelerant of that advertiser shift. AI can deliver “the most relevant ad across surfaces and [match] advertisers against additional queries they weren’t reaching before,” Pichai said on the Q3 2025 earnings call. “AI Max helps advertisers discover new customers at the exact moment they need their product or service.”

That kind of precision targeting is something linear TV simply cannot offer.

It’s a striking endorsement for a platform that still trails Meta, which pulled in $196.2 billion in ad revenue in 2025, by a considerable margin. But in the media and entertainment category specifically, YouTube’s position is now uncontested.

Movie, TV studios are not standing still

Disney, NBCU, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery are all pouring resources into their own streaming platforms, and some are even beginning to distribute content on YouTube itself to chase the audiences that have already moved there.

But the gap is widening, not narrowing. YouTube’s ad revenue grew by nearly $4 billion year over year in 2025, while the combined studio total fell by roughly $3 billion. That is a $7 billion swing in a single year.

For investors watching Alphabet (GOOG), the YouTube story is no longer a footnote in the earnings report. It is increasingly the headline.

By Hillary Remy

Hillary Remy is a finance and technology journalist with over five years of experience covering financial markets, fintech innovation, and emerging technologies that are reshaping the investing landscape. He specializes in stock markets, digital finance, and blockchain‑based financial systems, with a focus on how new technologies are transforming payments, investing, and capital markets. Hillary has contributed analysis and reporting to leading financial publications including Benzinga, Investing.com, and TipRanks, bringing a data‑driven and risk‑aware perspective to complex financial topics.

Edited by Celine Provini

Celine is a writer and editor with over 20 years of experience and has covered diverse news, features, academic/research, and legal topics. At TheStreet.com, Celine is a senior editor with experience across retail, stocks, investing, personal finance, technology, the economy, and travel.

Sourced from The Street

In News

How to communicate like a human in the age of AI

April 13, 2026 No Comments

By Julie Zhu

AI-generated messages are seen as more polished, but less trustworthy. Here’s how to make sure no one thinks you wrote that draft with ChatGPT.

I can tell within two sentences if ChatGPT wrote your email.

It sounds like every other one I’ve read today. Professionally mediocre. Perfectly bland tone. Strategic use of “leverage.” Transitions so smooth they may as well be butter slathered on a biscuit.

As for what it doesn’t have?

You. No sauce, no flavour, no quirks.

I work with entrepreneurs and leaders on their marketing and communication, and it’s true: more and more, people continue to polish away anything distinctive (then wonder why no one responds).

Your pitch deck sounds like their pitch deck sounds like that other person’s pitch deck. Your LinkedIn post? Could’ve been written by literally anyone in your industry. That newsletter you wrote sounds like the 820 other emails in people’s inboxes.

A 2025 study surveyed 1,100+ professionals on this same topic, with telling results: AI messages were rated as more professional but less trustworthy. When employees know their manager used AI to write most of a message, only 40% consider it sincere. The number climbs to 83% when AI is used for light editing instead.

Turns out, sounding professional and being effective aren’t the same thing. Instead, here’s what I’ve found works for communicating effectively today.

Just say the thing

You can either say “We’re committed to fostering open dialogue across all organizational levels” OR “I want to know what you actually think about [insert topic here]. Can we talk Thursday?”

The first one sounds nice. The second one actually asks for something—something tangible.

Jargon lets you fill space without saying anything real. People would rather know what you actually want from them.

You’re probably thinking: Doesn’t being too direct sound unprofessional? There’s a difference between clear and careless, however. You can indeed be direct and still thoughtful and compassionate, all at the same time. You can use the words and still be taken seriously. What’s actually unprofessional? Making people work to figure out what you’re asking for.

Write to one person

Forget about “my audience” or “potential clients.” Think of one actual human whose face you can picture.

Maybe it’s someone reading at 11 p.m. after a day of back-to-back meetings, with real life still waiting—texts to answer, dishes in the sink, and an inbox hosting 147 unread messages. They’re tired. They’re not looking for more information. They’re looking for something that helps.

Write to that person.

For example, a nutritionist might end every newsletter with: “Let me know if you have any questions.” It’s polite, but it’s vague. It makes the reader do the work.

Now picture one real person: Jess, reading on her phone at 11 p.m., trying to eat better but too exhausted to “figure it out.” Suddenly, the ending changes:

“If feeding yourself has been weirdly hard lately, here are three most-loved free resources to start with:

Five-minute warm, nourishing breakfasts
The anti-inflammatory grocery list
A no-cook dinner template for busy nights”

It’s a small shift, but you’re making it easy for the other person to participate. That’s what makes the tone feel human.

When you write in this way, you’re writing to someone whose situation you really know. You know what’s relevant and which story will land, which detail will actually help, and which example gets your point across. It doesn’t matter if that person is real or simply just like five people you’ve worked with. What matters is you can picture them and sound like yourself in the process, not like a Very Professional Person™ saying Very Professional Things™.

Use AI as a thought partner

I’m not saying you have to stop using AI entirely. But stop asking AI to replace your thinking and writing. Instead, ask it to serve as your thinking buddy.

Jot down ten messy ideas for what you’re trying to say, then ask ChatGPT to rank them or simply isolate the top three. That’s your starting point, not a polished draft but clarity on what you’re actually trying to communicate.

You can also use this approach to strengthen your argument: “Where is this weak? What am I missing?” Let it challenge you before you hit send, asking: “Does this sound like I’m talking to someone or at someone?” This question alone will show you where you’re performing instead of communicating.

The overarching goal isn’t to sound casual or professional but simply like yourself—clearer, sharper, and always respecting the other person’s time.

Feature image credit: ImageFlow/Adobe Stock

By Julie Zhu

Julie Zhu is an award-winning marketing and communication strategist and adjunct professor based in NYC. Connect with her on LinkedIn for more fresh, practical communication tips. More

Sourced from FastCompany