Kalakshar US

Google has denied “extremely inaccurate claims” that it may have violated its own rules and misled advertisers over ad viewership on third-party websites. 

Through the Google Video Partners network and TrueView (an ad product that’s also used on YouTube), the company handles placement of video ads on external websites and apps. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google tells brands that their ads will be on “high-quality” sites, appear before the main content of a video and run with audio on. It also says that advertisers won’t pay if users skip the ads. However, a third-party analytics company suggested in a report that Google fails to live up to these standards around 80 percent of the time.

Adalytics said the ads often appear on lower-quality websites, such as those with misinformation or pirated content, and that they can be positioned in small video players on the side or bottom of the screen, away from the main “in-stream” content. Some of the ads run without any audio, according to the report, while in other cases, there were was “little to no video content in between consecutive TrueView ads.” Adalytics says other ads autoplayed without the viewer engaging with them.

In some instances, the company notes, the skip button that typically appears after five seconds was obscured, forcing viewers to watch the whole ad. That’s “a direct violation of Google’s quality standards for TrueView ads,” Adalytics says, and it may have contributed to artificially inflated ad metrics, leading to advertisers paying more.

Adalytics reviewed ad campaigns for more than 1,100 brands between 2020 and this year. It says customers that might have bought “muted, auto-playing, mis-declared TrueView skippable in-stream inventory include” the US government, the European Parliament, Disney+, HP, Samsung, Sephora, TikTok, Microsoft and General Motors. As it happens, some other Google divisions (Google Career Certificates and Google Workspace Domains) are on the list.

Media buyers Adalytics shared the report with accused Google of conducting “ad fraud” and suggested brands weren’t getting what they paid for. Others have demanded a refund. The “misalignment” could have cost brands billions in advertising dollars, Adalytics said. One “major consumer goods brand” found that 20 percent of a $75,000-plus campaign budget was directed toward YouTube channels, with the remainder spent on ads that ran on third-party destinations such as investing.com and Candy Crush Saga.

Google has firmly rejected the report’s findings. The company’s global video solutions chief, Marvin Renaud, asserted in a blog post that Adalytics “used unreliable sampling and proxy methodologies.” An “overwhelming majority of video ad campaigns” run on YouTube, Renaud claimed, with brands having the option to opt out at any time from running their ads on Google Video Partners-affiliated apps and websites.

Even so, over 90 percent of Google Video Partners “are visible to people across the web,” Renaud argued. “We use real-time ad quality signals to determine if people are present and paying attention that help us decide whether to serve a video ad in a Google Video Partner site or app.”

In addition, Renaud wrote, Google rigorously enforces policies that prohibit third-party sites from using deceptive or disruptive techniques to generate advertising revenue, such as placing ads in hidden browser windows. Renaud added that, last year, Google stopped running ads on more than 143,000 websites it deemed to violate its rules.

The Adalytics claims come as Alphabet faces close scrutiny over its advertising practices. The Department of Justice sued the company earlier this year in an attempt to break up its ad business. This month, the European Union said in a preliminary finding that the only remedy it could see for Google to address its antitrust concerns would be to sell off part of the advertising empire.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-refutes-claims-it-violated-its-own-guidelines-and-misled-advertisers-164550902.html?src=rss 

If Vizio’s TV interface has felt stale as of late, don’t worry — it’s getting a makeover. The company is rolling out a redesigned home screen that it hopes will make it easier to find content. The revamp is meant to be more intuitive, with new navigation features, menus and settings. There’s also a reworked on-screen keyboard to help you search faster.

Discovery is likewise a major focus. The updated home screen incudes recommendations as well as parental guidance and Rotten Tomatoes scores. Genre pages help you dig into a given category faster. There’s more customization, too, with a personalized “app row” that lets you flag favorites with one remote click. You’ll get recommendations on a per-app basis, and a My Watchlist section pools together movies and shows from multiple apps.

Vizio hasn’t detailed just which TV models are receiving the new home screen, or when the rollout will be complete. We’ve asked the company for more details. There’s no guarantee older sets will get the upgrade, then, but you won’t necessarily need to buy new hardware.

Interface updates aren’t new to TVs, but there is a tendency in the industry to limit major revamps to new or very recent TV sets. LG didn’t bring 2018’s webOS 4 to webOS 3 TVs released just a year earlier, for example. If Vizio delivers the new home screen to more than its latest sets, it’s providing better aftermarket support than some of its larger competitors.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/vizios-redesigned-tv-interface-helps-you-quickly-find-shows-170037252.html?src=rss 

Your local store might only need a smartphone to accept your payments. PayPal is rolling out tap to pay on Android for Venmo and Zettle businesses in the US. Shops can accept Apple Pay, Google Pay and other contactless services or cards, including digital wallets, without requiring a card reader. You might not have to bring out your wallet, in other words. Setup takes just minutes, PayPal claims.

Initial setup is free. Tap to pay will roll out to all Venmo businesses in the country over the “coming months,” PayPal says, but would-be clients can sign up for early access now. The approach is already available for all PayPal Zettle users in the US. The company adds that Tap to Pay on iPhone is now available for some American users, and should reach all of them “soon.”

The incentive for PayPal is clear. TechCrunchnotes Venmo and Zettle take 2.29 percent plus nine cents for every transaction. If a store relies on either brand’s tap to pay for many of their sales, they stand to profit even if the customers themselves never use those services. You can already use Venmo as a customer in major stores like Starbucks — this theoretically gives PayPal more of a stake in the entire retail process.

As with Square, Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhone and similar offerings, PayPal’s approach potentially makes contactless payment more accessible. It lowers the costs of entry, and lets small businesses take your preferred payment method wherever they happen to be, such as outdoors or at a convention. That, in turn, could reduce the need for cash and conventional credit or debit cards. It’s just a question of whether or not the tech and its costs gain enough traction among retailers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/venmo-now-supports-tap-to-pay-on-android-phones-164527267.html?src=rss 

This summer, North America’s first hydrogen-powered train began traveling across the Canadian countryside. The French passenger train is a short-term demonstration, running through the end of September, that aims to spark adoption in Canada and the US. “I think the most important thing that’s going to come out of it is people’s awareness and comfort with the technology,” Robert Stasko, executive director of Ontario’s Hydrogen Business Council, toldCBC News.

The Canadian loaner runs from Montmorency Falls in Quebec City to Base-Saint-Paul — a two-and-a-half hour trip — on Wednesdays to Sundays through September 30th. The train has a top speed of 140 km/h (87 mph) and can carry up to 120 people in its two passenger cars. The French company Alstom, which makes the train, says its acceleration and braking performance is comparable to standard diesel-engine trains — sans the emissions. While much of Europe uses trains with electric rails or overhead wires, hydrogen trains are ideal for places like the Canadian countryside, with its long distances and relatively low commuter density. (Much of the US would fit that bill as well.)

The same model of train, the Coradia iLint, has already made runs in eight European countries. As many as 14 of the same model began running a route in Lower Saxony, Germany, last year. Alstom began testing the trains in 2018 and has additional contracts in Germany, Italy and France. The company says European clients have ordered 41 of the trainsets.

The Coradia iLint uses a ballpark of “about 50 kilograms of hydrogen a day,” says Serge Harnois, CEO of Hanois Énergies, the train’s hydrogen fuel supplier. The same journey using a standard engine would burn around 500 liters of diesel fuel. It only emits water vapor along its journey as a byproduct of combining hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to generate its power.

There are some asterisks to attach to the three-month demo. First, it requires a diesel-powered truck to transport the hydrogen to the train every time it refuels. (Harnois says that, ideally, the hydrogen would eventually be produced onsite to avoid this step.) We also have to wonder about the emissions produced on its presumed voyage from Europe to Canada for its mere three-month demo. However, the train will move on to other North American cities after its summer residence. The long-term goal is for the tour to help promote widespread hydrogen-train adoption across different North American regions, which — if successful — could more than offset the carbon footprint from its diesel-truck top-offs and journey across the Atlantic.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/north-americas-first-hydrogen-powered-train-debuts-in-canada-173019365.html?src=rss 

Google is about to make it a lot easier for you to buy and rent movies across streamers — for better or worse for your wallet. The company has announced it’s adding a Shop tab on Android TV, where you can browse, purchase and store movies.

Though it looks a bit similar, the Shop tab differs from the Android TV’s Discover tab in a few ways. Both pages show content from a variety of streaming platforms, but the Discover tab displays recommendations based on your viewing habits, whether or not the titles cost anything to watch. On the other hand, the Shop tab only features content you can, well, shop. Instead of having to click through each app individually, you can see all the movies that are available to rent or buy across the streamers you subscribe to.

The Shop Tab also has a Library section that displays every title you’ve purchased with your Google account on Google TV devices and its mobile app, Android TV devices and YouTube. Speaking of the Google TV mobile app, you can log in to it on your phone or tablet to download content from your Library for offline access later on. The wait to access this new feature shouldn’t be long, as Google reports that the Shop tab will roll out across the US and 23 other countries over the next few weeks.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/android-tvs-new-shop-tab-lets-you-buy-movies-from-different-providers-160012505.html?src=rss 

Although Big Tech is still (sometimes clumsily) figuring out generative AI’s ethics and implications, the genie is out of the bottle, and the technology is already integrating into the workforce. From that perspective, Microsoft announced a new program today to train workers on AI. The initiative will offer free coursework through LinkedIn, including certification. It’s somewhat ironic since the appeal of generative AI is that it’s dead simple to use: It automates content creation using everyday language. But the courses could still provide tips for composing the most effective prompts while showing beginners the ropes, giving them a chance to keep pace with our rapidly changing world.

Microsoft’s AI Skills Initiative, part of the company’s Skills for Jobs program, will include free courses created by (Microsoft subsidiary) LinkedIn, offering learners “the first Professional Certificate on Generative AI in the online learning market.” Microsoft says the courses will cover introductory AI concepts and “responsible AI frameworks,” culminating in certification. It’s launching in English only, but the company says it will add Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Simplified Chinese and Japanese “over the coming months.”

In addition, the company is launching a trainer toolkit for educators with “downloadable, bite-sized content for trainers” and a separate AI course for teachers and other trainers.

Microsoft also announced an open grant program for AI with an eye on boosting historically marginalized populations. The Generative AI Skills Grant Challenge is a collaboration between data.org, Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab and GitHub. It aims to “explore, develop, and implement how nonprofit, social enterprise and research or academic institutions can train and empower the workforce to use generative AI.” Grant recipients will receive financial support, group learning opportunities, data training / guidance and access to Microsoft events and cloud-computing resources. The grant program is accepting applications now with an August 15th deadline. You can learn more and apply here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-is-already-offering-a-generative-ai-certification-program-160023724.html?src=rss 

It seems a whole lot of people still enjoy the dulcet mews of chocobos and the ever-present Cid, as Final Fantasy XVIhas sold over three million units since launching on June 22. This new darker take on the series is a PS5 console exclusive, making these sales figures even more impressive. For comparison’s sake, Final Fantasy XVsold five million copies during its launch week back in 2016, but that was a multi-platform title available for both PS4 and Xbox One.

Square Enix says that this three million figure represents both digital and physical sales throughout the globe. This falls slightly short of the recent FF7 remake, which sold 3.5 million units during its first three days of availability. Again, the remake was available on multiple consoles. It’s also worth noting that the PS4 never had availability issues like the PS5, so the install base was much highers (though that’s slowly changing.)

All of these numbers pale in comparison to Nintendo’s crown jewel The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which sold a massive 10 million copies in just three days. However, JRPGs have typically struggled with reaching sales numbers in line with open-world adventures, particularly in the West.

Positive reviews and word of mouth likely led to the impressive sales numbers for Final Fantasy XVI. We praised the gorgeous environments, spectacular bosses and nuanced combat system in our review of the title.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/final-fantasy-xvi-has-already-sold-over-3-million-copies-161529945.html?src=rss