Author: Geek Planet

This article, Proposed Oregon Initiative Would Outlaw Animal Agriculture and Hunting, is republished from National Review’s The Corner with the permission of the author. Animal rights activists pretend to be about animal welfare, but in reality, they want to outlaw all instrumental uses of animals. We can see this illustrated in Oregon, where animal rights activists are attempting to qualify Initiative Petition 28 for the November ballot. Proponents claim it is about ending cruelty. But the actual purpose is to effectively outlaw animal agriculture and hunting in the state. First, if passed, the law would create a legal equality between animals and people. From…

It is widely acknowledged that AI companies use web articles to train their models without compensating creators or obtaining permission. Publishers such as The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Toronto Star have already filed lawsuits against this practice. Now, another prominent organization has joined the legal proceedings. Techcrunch has reported that Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the AI giant committed “massive copyright infringement” by scraping and using nearly 100,000 of its online articles to train its LLMs without permission. What’s this lawsuit about? Britannica claims that ChatGPT generates…

There’s been no shortage of headlines in the last year detailing how X (formerly Twitter), under current owner Elon Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino, has had a fraught relationship with the advertising industry — sometimes resulting in legal swings taken at some of its players. Market research firm Forrester on Tuesday issued guidance to its clients on how advertisers ought to handle the pressures exerted by X, in a blog post authored by analysts Jay Pattisall and Kelsey Chickering. Titled “X-tortion: How Advertisers Are Losing Control Of Media Choice,” the analysts recommend three steps advertisers should take to maintain as much…

Commerce media is having a moment — and with a market expected to exceed $112 billion in 2025, according to the Winterberry Group, it’s easy to see why. But people keep mixing up retail media and connected commerce, casually swapping one buzzword for the other. They share some DNA, but conflating them is like mistaking the cashier for the entire store.Here’s why commerce media is its own beast, and how marketers are finally waking up to it.  What is connected commerce? Connected commerce is the holy grail of seamless shopping, blending online and offline experiences so shoppers can browse and…

Dell has officially refreshed its Precision lineup with four new laptops, and there’s something here for every professional. The new range includes the Precision 5 Series in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes and the more powerful Precision 7 Series in the same size configurations. All four laptops are designed for users who demand more than a standard laptop can deliver.  All models are powered by the Series 3 Intel Core Ultra processors, with a built-in NPU that handles local AI tasks at up to 50 TOPS. You can spec the Precision 5 laptops with Intel Core Ultra 5, Ultra 7, and…

Independent agencies have discovered their latest edge over the big guys: better tech. They’re hiring CTOs, spinning up their own tech platforms, even reselling third-party tech they don’t own. Forget scale and leverage — the indie pitch now is agility, innovation and a tech playbook nimble enough to charm advertisers who don’t need (or want) the big agency industrial complex. “If I were starting an agency tomorrow then one of the first roles I’d hire would be a chief technology officer,” said Robin Skidmore, founder and CEO of performance marketing agency Journey Further. Eight years in to starting his own, he’s…

On March 24, 2026, Apple released iOS 26.4, the fourth major installment in the iOS 26 upgrade cycle. The latest iPhone operating system, which takes up 16.46 GB on my iPhone 17, comes with plenty of new features. You can download it on your iPhone by heading to Settings > General > Software Update.  iOS 26.4 doubles down on Apple Music To begin with, iOS 26.4 comes with Playlist Playground (beta), a new Apple Music feature that uses AI to generate full playlists, along with titles, descriptions, and tracklists, from a simple text prompt. All you need to do is…

If you’ve been wondering when ChatGPT might start handling spicier conversations, OpenAI has some clarity for you. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company plans to let adults generate erotic text exchanges while keeping a firm ban on explicit images, voice clones or video content. A spokesperson described the planned feature as smut rather than pornography, signaling a careful attempt to offer racier interactions without turning the chatbot into a full-blown adult entertainment platform. The rollout has hit delays though. OpenAI recently pushed back adult mode, originally scheduled for the first quarter, citing technical hurdles and internal debates over…

The number of retailers launching their own media, commerce, financial, travel (you get the point) networks continues to grow. At this point, more than 250 retail media networks exist globally, according to retail media intelligence platform Mimbi, and they’re all fighting for the same ad dollars. To better compete, retail marketing networks have spent the past few months rebranding their names and logos, hosting events and retooling their offerings. At the same time, RMNs are moving beyond on-site search and display ad opportunities and opening up ad formats with creators and streaming services. All signs point to retail media networks…

There was a time when subscriptions felt like a novelty. Those were times of (digital) peace. A seamless payment feature on cool new apps that brought unlimited access (for the month). You paid for Netflix, and maybe Spotify, and that was usually about it. Now, it’s streaming, cloud storage, fitness apps, editing apps, AI chatbots, random free trials you forgot to kill three weeks ago, and so much more. The subscription economy didn’t just grow — it exploded, with the blast radius covering nearly every corner of the digital space. It has become so pervasive that there’s a real subscription…