Author: Geek Planet

Australia is already the first country to ban social media use for children under 16. And now, it is considering expanding its youth protection rules to target other parts of the internet, including app stores, search engines, and AI services. The country’s internet regulator has said that it could press big digital gatekeepers to block access to services that don’t implement robust age verification systems. What Australia is proposing In an interview with Reuters, officials from Australia’s eSafety watchdog said they may extend age-gating to app stores and search engines that make it easy for minors to access AI tools…

Nothing has officially teased the highly anticipated Phone 4a once again. After revealing the light pink variant last week, the full roster has now made a public appearance. But while we’re only getting tidbits from the brand, these pictures arrive just a day after a big leak revealed most of the important hardware details of the upcoming device. Everything in the official teaser For photography, the rear will retain the triple camera setup like its predecessor, but bump up the optical zoom level on the telephoto lens to 3.5x. The main camera is another 50MP shooter, accompanied by an 8MP…

Gmail users have been clamoring for a way to change their email addresses for years, and Google is finally acting on the request. The company began rolling out the ability to change email addresses late last month, but the feature is not widely available yet. Until now, Google’s support page for the feature was only available in regional languages. According to 9to5Google, the page is now live in English, offering more clarity on how changing Gmail addresses works and its limitations. How changing your Gmail address works The support page notes that users need to head to myaccount.google.com/google-account-email and sign…

The Trade Desk is at a crossroads. Companies don’t make this many moves unless they see storm clouds on the horizon. Between intensifying competition and a bruised reputation, the pressure is real. Still, the first quarter proved it’s far from faltering. Digiday listened in on the company’s earnings call and spoke with clients, partners and industry insiders to get a read on what’s next — for better or worse. No surprise here: The Trade Desk is doubling down on direct deals with big advertisers. These joint business plans are essentially structured trading deals and are being struck at an all time…

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Google’s search engine isn’t the only one in town, and marketers are taking notice. Increasingly, people are shifting search behaviors to AI chatbots, like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This means marketers’ search engine optimization playbook might soon need to be revamped to account for AI-generated product discovery, recommendations and more. At Digiday’s Programmatic Marketing Summit in Palm Springs, California, Elena MacGurn, svp of search at Digitas, broke down how the agency is adapting its search marketing strategy for clients amid the AI boom. Live from Palm Springs, Tim Peterson, Digiday’s executive editor of video and audio, and…

ChatGPT can now more reliably find information from your earlier conversations. If you are a Plus or Pro subscriber, you can now search through your entire chat history, all the way back to when you first created your account, and ask questions that refer to anything you’ve talked about before. ChatGPT does store your chat history, and you can search it manually, but the feature has been unreliable. It often struggles to surface the right conversation, especially when you have multiple similar threads. This update, called PersonalContextAgentTool in the system, helps ChatGPT fetch details from past conversations. That means you…

After months of leaks and speculation, Apple has officially unveiled its latest budget iPhone today. As expected, the iPhone 17e looks largely the same as its predecessor, but introduces a handful of meaningful upgrades while keeping the price unchanged. The iPhone 17e packs Apple’s A19 chip, the same processor powering the flagship iPhone 17, delivering a significant boost in performance and efficiency over last year’s model. The device also features the C1X modem, which Apple claims is 2x faster than the C1 modem found in the iPhone 16e. Apple addressed one of the biggest complaints users had with the iPhone…

As a few agency execs put it while chatting with me on Monday, there’s a constant nervous energy in the industry right now, with everyone wondering what new geopolitical shift marketers will have to react to next. Monday morning, for example, stateside marketers awoke to the news that the United States and China had agreed to a truce with both easing tariffs temporarily; the U.S.’s tariffs on China will come down from 145% to 30% and China will reduce its tariffs from 125% to 10% for 90 days. While that’s arguably good news that marketers were hoping would come (those…

Apple’s OLED MacBook Pro seems to be one step closer to hitting store shelves. According to a Korean blog post, production of OLED panels for the purported MacBook models has already begun, by none other than Samsung. What’s even more interesting is that the display manufacturing process is said to be running ahead of schedule (initially planned for the second quarter of this year). If that’s true, Apple has already finalized the display technology, size, and other specifications, right on time for the rumored 2026 launch. The manufacturing breakthrough behind Apple’s OLED Macs The blog post mentions that Samsung’s display…

It’s upfront week, and YouTube’s influence looms large over every pitch and negotiation. No better moment to revisit how, over the past 20 years, it’s become the tip of the spear in the transformation of how people watch TV. Watching YouTube on TV screens isn’t new but the pace of its monetization is accelerating fast. In the first quarter of 2025, YouTube ads served on TVs rose 88% year-on-year, according to Tinuiti’s latest benchmark report. TV screens now command 43% of YouTube video ad spend nearly doubling from 24% last year. Mobile slipped to 42%, down from 51% while desktop…