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Ars Technica’s gift guide for Father’s Day: Give dad some cool things

Greetings Arsians! It's time—at least in some parts of the world—to celebrate dads. Father's Day is nearly here, and as there's a custom of gift-giving, many of us will have to choose something. Below, various Ars editors have identified a few things they've bought recently that they think could be great gifts for dads—with the caveat that there are an indefinably large spectrum of variations of what dads are like. Still, we did our best to include a few things that are pretty general, and a few

Amazon Prime Video Now Showing Nearly 6 Minutes of Ads Per Hour, Double What It Was

Amazon is now showing four to six minutes of advertisements per hour on its Prime Video streaming service. That's about double the ad load from when the company introduced ads in January 2024, according to a report from ADWEEK. According to the report, which is based on information from six ad buyers and documents, Amazon notified investors of the increase in ads but has not made a public announcement of the change. Despite initial grumbling from consumers, Amazon introduced ads to Prime Video

Topics: ad ads amazon prime video

Amazon may double the time you spend watching ads on Prime Video

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR A new report says Prime Video is increasing its ad load to four to six minutes per hour. This doubles the amount of ad time ad-tier users were previously exposed to. In terms of lightest to heaviest ad experience, it’s said Amazon’s platform is now in the middle tier. Despite immense pushback from customers, Amazon introduced ads to Prime Video in 2024. While no one likes the idea of going from no ads to ads, at least the ad experience was light comp

Topics: ad ads amazon prime video

Samsung Ads expands its GameBreaks with 4 new titles

Samsung Ads, the advanced advertising arm of Samsung Electronics, today announced a major expansion of its award-winning GameBreaks portfolio, adding four new interactive titles. Ripplash, the next new GameBreak, is now available for advertisers and builds on the momentum of The Six, the franchise’s inaugural game, which will expand to audiences in the United Kingdom for the first time later this year. Built natively for Samsung Smart TVs, GameBreaks is altering the utility of ad time by trans

Meta sues maker of Crush AI nudify app over Facebook and Instagram ads

What just happened? Meta's mission to crack down on AI "nudify" programs has led to it suing the maker of one of these apps. The social media giant has launched a lawsuit against Joy Timeline HK Limited, which developed an app called Crush AI. In the suit, which has been filed in the company's home of Hong Kong, Meta states that Crush AI made multiple attempts to circumvent Meta's ad review process and continued placing the ads. The ads appeared across Facebook and Instagram, and while Meta re

Topics: ads ai crush meta nudify

Meta urged to go further in crackdown on 'nudify' apps

Meta urged to go further in crackdown on 'nudify' apps 8 minutes ago Share Save Tom Gerken Technology reporter Share Save Getty Images Meta has taken legal action against a company which runs ads on its platforms promoting so-called "nudify" apps, which typically using artificial intelligence (AI) to create fake nude images of people without their consent. It has sued the firm behind CrushAI apps to stop it posting ads altogether, following a cat-and-mouse battle to remove them over a series

The number of ads on Amazon Prime Video has doubled in less than 18 months

A hot potato: Do you feel like Amazon Prime Video has more ads than it used to? It's not your imagination. The streamer has reportedly increased the amount of ads to nearly double the number it showed when the basic tier became ad-supported. Amazon promised "limited advertisements" when it announced the controversial change to bring commercials to its Prime service, forcing customers to pay an extra $2.99 on their subscription to remove the interruptions. The ads arrived on Prime in January 20

Topics: ad ads amazon free prime

Meta sues app-maker as it cracks down on 'nudifying'

Meta sues app-maker as it cracks down on 'nudifying' 2 hours ago Share Save Tom Gerken Technology reporter Share Save Getty Images Meta has taken legal action against a company which ran ads on its platforms promoting so-called "nudify" apps, which typically using artificial intelligence (AI) to create fake nude images of people without their consent. It has sued the firm behind CrushAI apps to stop it posting ads altogether, following a cat-and-mouse battle to remove them over a series of mo

Topics: action ads ai legal meta

Amazon Prime Video Now Comes With Double the Ads!

It wasn’t that long ago that an ad-free experience was the default for streaming services. But companies need to make sure the line keeps going up, and one way to do that is to monetize the audience by serving them ads. Amazon introduced ads to its Prime Video streaming service last year, with the promise that it would be light and unintrusive. Well, time to juice those profits, because Adweek reports that Amazon will double the number of ads that it serves per hour to its viewers. Look at this

Meta cracks down on nudify apps after being exposed

Meta is suing a company that advertised generative AI apps on its social media platforms that enable users to “nudify” people without their consent. The lawsuit against Joy Timeline comes after hundreds of ads for the digital undressing apps were discovered on Meta’s Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Threads platforms by a CBS News investigation published last week. “This legal action underscores both the seriousness with which we take this abuse and our commitment to doing all we can to prot

Meta files lawsuit against developer of CrushAI 'nudify' app

Meta is suing a company that ran ads on its services to promote an app that lets people create non-consensual, sexualized images of others using AI technology, the social media company said Thursday. The lawsuit is against Joy Timeline HK Limited, which develops the app called CrushAI and its variants. The Hong Kong-based company ran ads on Facebook and Instagram to promote CrushAI, an app that uses artificial intelligence to take a photo of someone and create nude imagery of them. Meta filed

Topics: ads app company meta said

Meta is cracking down on AI 'nudify' apps

Meta is finally cracking down on "nudify" apps that use AI to generate nonconsensual nude and explicit images of celebrities, influencers and others. The company is suing one app maker that's frequently advertised such apps on Facebook and Instagram, and taking new steps to prevent ads for similar services. The crackdown comes months after several researchers and journalists have raised the alarm about such apps. A recent report from CBS News identified at least "hundreds" of ads on Meta's plat

Topics: ads ai apps company meta

Amazon Prime Video subscribers sit through up to 6 minutes of ads per hour

Amazon forced all Prime Video subscribers onto a new ad-based subscription tier in January 2024 unless users paid more for their subscription type. Now, the tech giant is reportedly showing twice as many ads to subscribers as it did when it started selling ad-based streaming subscriptions. Currently, anyone who signs up for Amazon Prime (which is $15 per month or $139 per year) gets Prime Video with ads. If they don’t want to see commercials, they have to pay an extra $3 per month. One can also

Topics: ad ads amazon prime video

Meta sues AI ‘nudify’ app Crush AI for advertising on its platforms

Meta has sued the maker of a popular AI “nudify” app, Crush AI, that reportedly ran thousands of ads across Meta’s platforms. In addition to the lawsuit, Meta says it’s taking new measures to crack down on other apps like Crush AI. In a lawsuit filed in Hong Kong, Meta alleged Joy Timeline HK, the entity behind Crush AI, attempted to circumvent the company’s review process to distribute ads for AI nudify services. Meta said in a blog post that it repeatedly removed ads by the entity for violati

Topics: ads ai crush meta said

Threads is getting native DMs as Meta reverses course

It took long enough, but Meta has finally admitted what Threads users have been saying from day one: the platform needs its own direct messaging system. Not something tied to Instagram, not a redirect, just DMs, right where the conversations are happening. And now, that’s exactly what they’re finally getting. Starting this week (via The Verge), Threads is testing a native DM inbox in three countries: Hong Kong, Thailand, and Argentina. The rollout is limited for now, but according to Mark Zuck

Threads is finally getting its own DM inbox

Nearly two years after launching Threads, Meta is finally giving in to users on one of the most requested features for the service: direct messaging. The company is beginning to test a dedicated inbox for Threads, beginning with Hong Kong, Argentina and Thailand, Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a post on Threads. Threads has had some messaging capabilities since last year, but the feature only allows users to send Threads posts to friends via their Instagram DMs. This is more than a little clunky a

Prime Video reportedly shows almost twice as many ads as it used to

If it feels like you spend a lot more time watching ads in Prime Video than you used to, that may not be a mistake. Amazon has increased the number of ads or "ad load" in Prime Video to four-to-six minutes of ads per hour, Adweek reports. Amazon's plan to increase the amount of advertising in its streaming service was previously reported in October 2024. Shifting to a max of six minutes of ads per hour is nearly double the up to three-and-a-half minutes of ads that could play when Amazon first

Topics: ad ads amazon prime video

The UK Accelerates Its Self-Driving Car Ambitions

Slow and steady. When it comes to autonomous vehicles on city roads, that’s been the approach in most of the world’s countries. But on Tuesday, the UK announced it would put a cautious foot on the pedal, when the Department of Transport said it would accelerate plans to allow companies to operate self-driving cars on public roads in limited pilot programs starting spring of next year. The British government had initially planned to open up its roads for self-driving vehicles more than a year la

My Virtual Avatar No Longer Looks Terrible in the Apple Vision Pro

Remember Apple’s Vision Pro? That's the $3,499 mixed reality headset the company launched early in 2024 that failed to garner much public interest. Apple has steamed ahead with updates for the platform over the past year, and soon there will be a new version upgrade: visionOS 26. (Apple announced at WWDC it was changing the way it named its operating systems to match the following year.) I got a chance to try out a few of the new capabilities, but two stuck out to me more than the others. First

Apple will fix many Vision Pro pain points in visionOS 2.4

One of the big problems with a VR headset is that anything you want to do, you have to do inside it. Apple is looking to tackle that and other Vision Pro pain points with visionOS 2.4, which will offer improvements to the guest user experience and two new apps for finding new things to do and watch, whether you’re wearing the headset or not. The update also adds Apple Intelligence, which you can read about here. Letting another person use your Vision Pro is a hassle, and something you can’t rea

The Vision Pro is getting Apple Intelligence in April

Apple Intelligence is heading to the Vision Pro, as part of an upcoming operating system update. Apple confirmed on Friday that its generative AI platform will arrive on the extended reality headset as part of VisionOS 2.4. A beta version of the software is currently available for developers. The public version is set for an April release Like the iPhone and Mac before it, the Vision Pro will receive Apple Intelligence updates in waves. The first set includes several familiar offerings, focused

Twitch streamers' uploads and highlights can no longer exceed 100 hours

Twitch is putting a cap on how much storage a streamer can take up for their uploads and highlight videos. The streaming service has announced that starting on April 19, all uploads and highlights will count towards a new 100-hour storage limit for each streamer, whether the videos are published or not. To note, the cap doesn't apply to past broadcasts, which are previous livestreams saved to a streamer's account for on-demand viewing, or clips, which are minute-long segments that can be shared

You can now sign up to be a contributor to Meta's Community Notes feature

After announcing its plan to end third-party fact-checking in January 2025, Meta's crowdsourced replacement is finally starting to take shape. You can now join a waitlist to be a Community Notes contributor on Facebook, Instagram and Threads when the feature rolls out in the coming months. Contributors are expect to provide context via a note when a post on one of Meta's platforms "might be inaccurate or confusing," according to the company's sign-up page. Community Notes will be able to be add

Best Headsets for Working From Home in 2025

A few years ago Shokz turned its OpenRun (formerly Aeropex) bone-conduction headphones into a more communications-friendly headset with an integrated boom microphone called the OpenComm ($140), which remains available. The second-generation OpenComm 2 UC costs more than the original, but it has an upgraded Bluetooth 5.1 chipset that improves performance a bit and now allows for the firmware upgrades that are required for Zoom certification. Additionally, the microphone has moved from the left ea

Twitch is limiting streamers to 100 hours of highlights and uploads

Twitch is planning to cull some of the content archived by streamers to save on storage costs. On Wednesday, the streaming platform announced that it will introduce a 100-hour storage cap for highlights and uploads starting on April 19th, warning that users will have their content automatically deleted until it falls below the limit. Twitch says it’s doing this because “Highlights haven’t been very effective in driving discovery or engagement,” and it isn’t worth the cost of storing thousands o