The most valuable signals for advertising optimization already exist inside your data platform: purchases, sign-ups...

The model expands the AI chip giant’s non-hardware offerings.

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Apple is adding a new subscription option that lets app developers offer lower monthly pricing in exchange for a 12-month commitment.

Revenium'a new research reveals the financial risks of autonomous AI agents, and a practical framework for governing costs before they spiral.

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I've been a solo traveler for the past 10 years. Emily Hart Over the past 10 years, I've traveled to all 50 US states and every US national park.  Although there's no wrong way to travel, some locations are better than others for a solo getaway. Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Moab, Utah, are two of my favorite places to visit on my own. Over the last decade, I've traveled solo to every US national park and all 50 US states. Because of this, I'm often asked which states, cities, or general areas are "best" for those new to solo travel. Although I believe there's no wrong way to solo travel, some locations lend themselves better to a solo getaway than others. Personally, I like to return to smaller, budget-friendly cities that are easy to navigate and offer various outdoor activities, museums, and great food and drink options. Here are the locations I'd recommend to first-time solo travelers. One of my most memorable solo trips was to the Georgia coast. Emily Hart One of my most memorable solo trips was one I didn't expect — road-tripping the coast of Georgia. Starting on the Florida/Georgia border, I stopped at Cumberland Island National Seashore to take in the history, do some hiking, and see wild horses. I recommend heading to St. Simons Island for laid-back beaches and great food, then following the coast to Savannah for museums, food, and maybe a ghost tour. Northern New Mexico was described to me as introvert heaven. Emily Hart The first place I traveled to alone was Northern New Mexico, and it's still the first place I recommend for first-time solo travelers. Long the home and getaway spot for loners like Georgia O'Keeffe and D.H. Lawrence, the areas in and around Taos and Santa Fe are perfect for solo travelers. From museums to hiking, hot springs, ski hills, wineries, and eclectic short-term rentals, it's no wonder it's been described to me as introvert heaven. Don't miss a detour to Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch — an impressive 21,000-acre National Natural Landmark and former home of Georgia O'Keeffe — for hiking and history. Traveling to Moab, Utah, feels like stepping into another world entirely. Emily Hart Home to two national parks, Moab has many outdoor activities available to suit any type of traveler. Although it's popular for families and group travel, it's the perfect spot for solo travelers as well. The proximity of Moab — with great restaurants, breweries, and lodging options — to the well-trafficked parks and outdoor adventure outfitters make it incredibly accessible for solo travelers who want to get outside. Kennebunkport, Maine, is the perfect spot for a relaxing getaway. Emily Hart As a whole, Maine is a great place for solo travel. With gorgeous rugged coastlines, ample forests, quaint small towns, and bed and breakfasts on seemingly every corner — it's the perfect place to reset. I especially love visiting Kennebunkport in the shoulder seasons for some solo self-care. The coastal town is easily accessible from Boston and has plenty of shops, nature trails, resorts, beaches, and lobster rolls. Chattanooga, Tennessee, is a walkable and friendly city. Emily Hart Chattanooga, Tennessee, is one of my favorite southern cities to travel to solo. The town is hip and has urban pockets, but it's still surrounded by plenty of nature. Easily accessible for a weekend trip from Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville, and Birmingham, the city is walkable and friendly, and hosts several festivals throughout the year to explore. For a unique adventure, I recommend doing a stand-up paddleboarding excursion to a bat cave with Outshine Adventures. California's "SLO coast" of San Luis Obispo County is one of my favorite places to travel. Emily Hart Roadtripping the California coast is a bucket-list experience for many travelers. But if the entire 655 miles of Pacific Coast Highway isn't something you want to undertake solo, head to the central coast. With fewer crowds and incredible beauty, the "SLO coast" of San Luis Obispo County is one of my favorite places to travel. From San Luis Obispo to Avila Beach, Pismo Beach, and Morro Bay — each stop is just as impressive as the last. Don't miss taking a slight inland detour to Paso Robles for wine tasting. The Olympic Peninsula is the perfect solo travel destination. Emily Hart The Pacific Northwest is an outdoor lovers' paradise, and Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula is one of its crown jewels. I've returned to Washington several times to visit the peninsula and its stunning rocky beaches. Its dense and quiet rainforests and towering mountain ranges, with plenty of campsites, lodges, and short-term rentals, are perfect for a solo adventurer and conveniently located near Seattle. It's a great long weekend getaway. Don't miss detouring to Cape Flattery, part of the Makah Reservation and the northwesternmost point of the contiguous United States. Alaska is the perfect place to try out a solo cruise. Emily Hart I hesitated to hit the seas solo on a cruise to Alaska, thinking I might feel out of place as a solo traveler. However, the trip was heavenly, with plenty of activities and excursions, food and drink, and spa services at my fingertips. I especially loved visiting Glacier Bay National Park. Only two ships are allowed in the park daily by the park service, and it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. This story was originally published on December 23, 2023, and most recently updated on April 28, 2026. Read the original article on Business Insider

I've loved living in Japan, but several aspects of life here have taken me by surprise. Alessa Hickman Moving to Japan improved my life in many ways, but it's also surprised me. Japan's strict trash-sorting rules and rental "key money" system were new adjustments for me. Although I'm not fluent in Japanese, I've been able to navigate daily life with ease. Ready for a change of pace after living in Canada, I moved to Japan four months ago. I spent my first couple of months in Tokyo before relocating to Osaka, and I'll be based here until the summer. I've been staying in long-term Airbnbs in both cities, and I plan to explore other parts of Japan over the next year. Since arriving, I've noticed improvements in many areas of my day-to-day life, but there have also been a few surprises and lessons learned along the way. Not everything is more affordable here — especially fruit. captiontktk Alessa Hickman I used to live in Ottawa, one of Canada's largest cities. Overall, my cost of living has gone down a ton. Eating out is much more affordable. Back home, I'd easily pay over 20 Canadian dollars for a bowl of ramen. In Japan, the best ramen I've had costs the equivalent of around CA$8 to CA$11 — I've even had a solid CA$4 bowl. Now, my husband and I can go out for a full (and delicious) meal together for around 2,900 Japanese yen, or under CA$25 total. Not everything is cheaper, though — and fruit has been the biggest surprise. I used to think fruit in Canada was pricey, but in Japan, I've become even more selective about what I buy and when. I've seen pineapples cost around CA$8, melons for CA$30, and strawberries priced anywhere between CA$10 and CA$40. I'd heard fruit could be expensive here, but seeing the prices in person has definitely changed how I shop. These days, I reach for cheaper options like bananas and appreciate pricier fruit more when I do buy it. Trash sorting is extremely specific. captiontk Alessa Hickman Another adjustment has been Japan's highly structured trash system. Back home, sorting was relatively simple: paper, plastic, garbage, and compost. In Japan, it's much more detailed. Waste is typically divided into categories like burnable, non-burnable, recyclable, and oversize items, each with its own collection schedule. When I was in Tokyo, I could only put out certain types of garbage on specific days of the month, and only on the morning of pickup. Now that I'm in Osaka, my building is a bit more flexible — I can bring garbage downstairs to a designated area at any time, but the sorting rules still apply. Even disposing of large items works differently. In Canada, I just left my old couch at the curb, and it was picked up without issue. In Japan, you need to buy a special sticker and register oversize items for pickup. It took some getting used to, but it's also very manageable. Plus, my apartments have had labeled bins with pictures, which makes it much easier to sort everything properly. "Key money" was a completely new concept to me. captiontk Alessa Hickman When I first started apartment hunting in Japan, I came across something I'd never heard of before: "key money." Key money is a nonrefundable, one-time payment made to a landlord when signing a lease. It's essentially considered a gift or gesture of gratitude for being allowed to rent the property, usually equivalent to one month's rent. Coming from Canada, I was used to paying first and last month's rent upfront, but the idea of paying an extra month's rent — that I would never get back — was new. Though it's not mandatory at every property, it ultimately influenced my decision to stick with Airbnb rentals while I move around the country. Getting around without speaking fluent Japanese is easier than I expected. captiontk Alessa Hickman Before moving, one of my biggest concerns was the potential language barrier. I studied Japanese beforehand and use basic phrases every day — while ordering food, shopping, and getting around — but I'm far from fluent. I expected that to make everyday life much more difficult. In reality, it's been way more manageable than I thought. Many signs and menus use English, especially in cities, and I've generally found people to be very helpful if I don't understand something. When I went to my local ward office to register my address, I was nervous about handling paperwork in Japanese — but the staff used handheld translation devices to communicate with me, speaking into them in Japanese and translating everything into English in real time. I could also respond the same way, which made the process a lot easier to navigate. Translation apps have also been really helpful when I'm shopping and eating out, especially for reading menus and product labels. Japan's public transportation system has exceeded my expectations. captiontk Alessa Hickman Japan's public transportation system has easily been one of the most impressive parts of living here. I'm originally from Ottawa, where public transit often feels pretty unreliable. It's also expensive, with fares over CA$4 no matter how far you're going. In Japan, it's the complete opposite. Trains are frequent, clean, and most importantly, on time. Fares are also based on distance, so short trips are super affordable. A trip from my neighborhood to the more central Dotonbori area costs around CA$2 and takes about 10 minutes, whereas walking would take close to an hour. This has made getting around feel incredibly easy day to day, and I'm so excited to keep exploring more of the country while I'm here. Read the original article on Business Insider

Many rural communities are viscerally opposed to AI infrastructure.

People Inc CEO Neil Vogel used to rely on Google. Now he's looking to deals with AI companies, among others, to bring in revenue. Brad Barket/Getty Images for Fast Company People Inc., like lots of digital publishers, used to depend on traffic from Google. That traffic is now going away. That's fine, says CEO Neil Vogel, who says he figured this out early and pivoted to new business models. Now, Barry Diller has renamed his IAC holding company People Inc. and put Vogel in charge of the whole thing. Lots of publishers are freaked out about "Google Zero" — the notion that one day, Google will stop sending them any traffic at all. That's more or less already happened at People Inc., says CEO Neil Vogel: Vogel says Google referrals used to account for 70% of his properties' traffic, but dropped off quickly in the last couple of years. Now Google represents about 25% of its mix. That decline is supposed to be an existential problem for people like Vogel, who spent years building sites designed to harvest search traffic. Instead, he's growing at a double-digit clip. One reason People Inc. is doing well is that Vogel, backed by Barry Diller's IAC, bought People, along with all the other titles owned by magazine publisher Meredith, back in 2021. Turns out many of those brands still mean something to lots of people. Meanwhile, Vogel has been happy to sign deals with AI companies like OpenAI. (Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, also has an OpenAI deal.) Isn't there a chance those companies will end up being unreliable partners, just like platforms of the past? Sure, Vogel says. But he's willing to take the chance — and the money those AI companies are providing — and figure it out as he goes. "There is a chance we are a hundred percent wrong on all of this," he tells me. "There's a chance that we're a hundred percent right. The truth is probably somewhere in between." One vote of confidence just came from Diller: On Tuesday, Diller renamed his IAC holding company People Inc. and put Vogel in charge of the whole thing. "I do believe we have an unlimited opportunity to build a unique new day publishing model that has no equal in its ability to grow into a large enterprise," Diller wrote in a memo announcing the reorg, which will involve some layoffs that will cost the company $14 million in severance charges. I spoke to Vogel last month on my Channels podcast. The following is an edited excerpt of our conversation: Peter Kafka: You are a long-tenured media executive. Is that a good thing these days? Neil Vogel: The narrative that media is failing, it can't be successful, it's structurally broken, is something we've never subscribed to. We believe if you have great brands, you have what you need to build a media business. If you have great brands, it gives you the opportunity to build strong, durable audiences. If you have great brands and can build great audiences, you have a great business. What happens between great brands and building audiences is where people get confused. We don't care and have never cared whether we are reaching people on the web, on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube, on Apple News, in print magazines, you name it. We are ruthlessly unsentimental about how we do it or how we used to do it. Making your sites visible to Google used to be your main job. Now you've moved on from that. After we bought Meredith, which was Meredith and Time Inc., the knock on us was that 75% of our audience came from Google. Cut to today: We've lost 50% of our Google sessions over the last two years, and we're still growing 15%. So it can work. We were very good at making content people liked, and we were very good at Google. But we were so Google-dependent that we were also the first people to see Google start to change. We saw that search page changing. At first, it was all their stuff [being featured on the search results], like YouTube. Then Reddit, and then AI showing up. And we're like, "Wait a minute, this is not sustainable. We've got these great brands, we have this great distribution channel. We need more." So without a lot of fanfare, we built an incredible email presence. We built TikTok, we built Instagram, we built Apple News, we built all of these things. We built our own assets. We're doing all kinds of things to connect directly with advertisers and users. So when Google really fell off a cliff two years ago. We were prepared for it. You would think that we would be the guys that would be doing the worst. Now we're kind of the guys doing the best. Publishers had been complaining about Google as long as there's been Google. These platforms, they don't owe us or any publisher anything. They're going to operate in their self-interests. What we realized a few years ago is there are platforms that our incentives are more aligned with. TikTok and Instagram need our content to attract users, more so than Google. With Google, we wanted them to send people to us. That is not in their interest. The best thing is to be there directly. Where they come to your apps, they come to the things you're building. This is what every publisher I talk to says: We're going to survive because our brand means something. People are going to come to us. We're going to have a direct relationship. I'm sure that will be true for a very small number of publishers. How do you make sure you're in that very small group? We're in it. We are on the other side of it. Google's actions don't knock us around in the way they would've like five or six years ago. We don't think about that very much anymore. We think much more about making things that will resonate with humans and the different ways we can connect with them. The upside of the Google model is that people come to your site and you can show them ads. What happens when they see your stuff on platforms you control? Our business used to be very easy to understand: Get traffic to website, sell out. X times Y equals Z. We are not that anymore. We are now 40 brands, and 10 brands that matter. Our 10 brands all have dramatically different business models that do dramatically different things to make money. For instance, the No. 1 thing we do at Better Homes and Gardens is a license — we sell products inside of Walmart. That's a great business for us. Food & Wine, the biggest thing we do is an events business. Southern Living is events and old-school publishing. People looks like something you'd be familiar with. InStyle looks like something totally brand new. If you look at a media business and you want to have one model across everything, you need to do something else. You're moving away from Google, and you're aware of the dangers of being dependent on platforms. But at the same time, you are cutting deals with AI companies. Don't you run the same risk of being abused by them? We're very aware. If you zoom out and you think about what an AI company needs, they need three things: They need a model. They need a lot of power. And they need data to put in that model. The world is currently out of data. Everything that can be crawled has been crawled. There's a little bit of new stuff created every day, but that's about it. And who's making that is us. So we're very important. But the worry is that so much of this is a commodity — if they can't get it from you, they can get it from somebody else, or they can get it from somebody who summarized your work. It's very possible that your stuff is not worth nearly as much as you think it is: It's your entire business, but to these guys, it's a fraction of a fraction. Maybe it's possible. I don't think that's true based on what's going on. We produce a ton of new content every day, every month. They want that. They want our historical archives, they want our videos, they want our pictures. They need our things. Don't you worry that they'll end up creating new products, built with your data, that will end up competing with you? The case that you're outlining is search. And we've already lost more than half of our referrals from Google. And we're fine. If we lose even more, we're still going to be fine. The trick for us is our content has to be good enough to stand on its own with brands that resonate and people care about. In this current environment with a lot of uncertainty, both in media and in the broader universe, people default to brands because they trust them. People don't know what's real. They know that they don't just want an LLM answer or an artificial experience. You work for Barry Diller. Does he really care about this stuff? I know it's his business and it's growing, but it's not sexy. Whenever I see him being interviewed, people are asking him about Hollywood, which he hasn't been working in for years. Or whether he'll buy CNN. I can show you the inbox of my phone and tell you that he really cares. He has believed in us from the jump. He's given us a couple of billion dollars to buy Time Inc. and Meredith. And I would hope to think that he's very proud of where we've landed now — as this profitable, stable, growing media business that has brands America cares about. Look: Every day working for Barry Diller is not Christmas. But that's kind of the good part, too. He calls it creative conflict — the encouragement of the argument, and the best idea wins. It is not always the easiest room, but it's a fun room. Read the original article on Business Insider

The hands-free, eyes-on driver assist only works on geofenced highways.

Users will be able to chat with a brand's AI agent to do things like ask questions and get recommendations.

Build and deploy secure, clinical-grade AI in one of the world’s most complex domains; healthcare.

YouTube is rolling out the new AI search feature to Premium subscribers in the U.S. on an opt-in basis.

Blast-radius control tells you how much to break. Intent tells you what breaking it will teach. Only one of these has mature tooling. The post The Next Frontier of AI in Production Is Chaos Engineering appeared first on Towards Data Science.

<blockquote cite="https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/2049105745132585161"><p>Five months in, I think I've decided that I don't want to vibecode — I want professionally managed software companies to use AI coding assistance to make more/better/cheaper software products that they sell to me for money.</p></blockquote> <p class="cite">&mdash; <a href="https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/2049105745132585161">Matthew Yglesias</a></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/agentic-engineering">agentic-engineering</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/vibe-coding">vibe-coding</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-assisted-programming">ai-assisted-programming</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai">ai</a></p>

The vendor’s goal is achieving superintelligence.

When people talk about artificial intelligence, they usually focus on what it produces: Human-like text, stunning images, or eerily accurate recommendations. What rarely gets attention is how AI understands anything in the first place. That understanding begins with encoders. Think of an encoder as a translator that converts messy, real-world information into a structured language […] The post The evolution of encoders: From simple models to multimodal AI appeared first on AI News.

AI agents may soon be buying your stuff for you. The FIDO Alliance has teamed up with Google and Mastercard to try to ensure that shopping in the near future isn't a complete disaster.

When you're out and about, your face isn't just visible − it's captured. John Keeble/Getty Images A woman strolls into a grocery store, thinking about grabbing some apples. Before she even reaches the produce aisle, a security camera has scanned her face. Whether the system is checking for shoplifters or simply logging her arrival, her face has joined a digital ledger, a trace she can’t easily erase. Retailers, banks, airports, stadiums and office buildings are doing the same. But what if the woman’s facial information is stolen or misused? If a cybercriminal steals her password, she can change it. If they acquire her credit card number, she can cancel the card. But she can’t reset or revoke the appearance of her cheekbones. Facial recognition systems don’t keep actual images. They convert a face into a mathematical template that maps the positions and proportions of the face’s features. When another camera scans a person later, the system checks their live face against these templates to confirm an identity. In my work as a cybersecurity professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, I have found that even though templates are more secure than photos – which anyone online can capture and manipulate – templates, too, can be stolen. Once that happens, these digital keys create a lifelong vulnerability. If a facial recognition database is breached, the “locks” that a template opens – accessing a bank app, getting through security at an airport, entering an office building – can’t be reset. A person’s face is permanent, and so is the threat. The threat isn’t theoretical. Biometric data has been stolen in data breaches. In 2024, biometric data from a facial recognition system used at bars and clubs in Australia was hacked. And in 2019, biometric data from a pilot facial recognition system set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection was breached in an attack on a subcontractor’s network. It’s not clear whether anyone’s stolen biometric data has been exploited, however. Catching a ballgame? Security cameras might be catching and digitizing your face. AP Photo/Matt Slocum Tracking your face All biometric identifiers carry risks. Fingerprints and iris scans, however, are typically used in controlled situations, such as unlocking a person’s phone or allowing someone to enter a building. In these cases, a person has to deliberately look at a scanner. Cameras in public spaces, in contrast, can capture faces as people walk by, from a distance and without the people whose faces are scanned realizing it. If a fingerprint or iris database is breached, a thief still needs to physically present that finger or eye, or a fake of it, to a scanner. However, someone could match a stolen facial template against images from surveillance cameras or photos circulating online, making it easier to identify a person of interest or track someone’s movements and activities. There’s also a big difference, technically and ethically, between keeping a face on a phone versus handing it over to a database. On modern Apple devices and many Android systems, biometric data used to unlock the devices is stored locally in a dedicated hardware chip and is not shared with the manufacturer or cloud services for authentication. As a result, a breach of corporate or cloud systems would not expose these device-level biometric templates. Some street and security cameras in public are passive, just watching as people pass by, with no long-term records. But others may be following people’s steps, linking faces to databases and creating a persistent digital trail. The risk rises when organizations use systems to track particular people across multiple databases. Airport systems could compare a traveler’s face against passport or airline databases. Stadiums may compare faces against local security watch lists or law enforcement lists. The company that manages Madison Square Garden has used facial recognition to bar entry to lawyers at firms that represented people who sued the company. Some large retail chains, such as Wegmans and Target, also use facial recognition systems in their theft prevention efforts. Every new capture adds another permanent record. Demonstrators hold images of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in front of their faces during a protest over the company’s facial recognition system. AP Photo/Elaine Thompson Many companies do not have expertise in cybersecurity and rely on third-party vendors to manage their data. If those centralized systems are breached – or the datasets are linked across platforms, vendors or data brokers – your face can become a sort of persistent identifier, which can be used to expose or track you. In some cases, when combined with other compromised data, your captured face can lower the barrier to impersonating you. When a person’s face meets their data A face can function like a “primary key” – a unique and stable identifier that connects records. If one database links a facial template to an email address, and a data breach connects that email to financial or personal records, an identity thief with a stolen template could access all that information. And combining a template with AI tools such as deepfakes or three-dimensional face models could, in some cases, allow a criminal to impersonate an individual in systems that require proof of a live face, slipping into a forged digital identity like slipping into a costume. When criminals combine biometric templates with other leaked data, such as logins for social media profiles or home addresses, they can build “super-profiles” connected to many of a person’s activities. Because the face acts as a permanent linking key, this level of identity theft is difficult to reverse. How to minimize the threat People are still figuring out how to live with widespread biometric collection. The convenience of smoothly passing security checks or making purchases is appealing, but it often comes with a permanent risk to privacy and security. To lessen the threat, organizations can follow several data privacy best practices. They can keep only information that is necessary, erase the rest quickly and encrypt every mathematical template. They can store only encrypted templates rather than raw photos. They can use safeguarding techniques, such as the latest liveness detection techniques, to help ensure that their systems are interacting with real people rather than photographs, masks or deepfakes. And they can adopt a privacy-by-design approach, which means they will keep data only as long as necessary, clearly document how it’s used and restrict who has access. Consumers can take steps as well. In places with privacy laws, such as California, Illinois and the European Union, people can submit a data access request to see what biometric data a company holds and, in some cases, ask for its deletion. They can also ask retailers anywhere what data is collected, how long it is kept and how it’s protected. Jonathan S. Weissman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.