Netflix To Take On Google and Amazon By Building Its Own Ad Server

Lauren Forristal writes via TechCrunch: Netflix announced during its Upfronts presentation on Wednesday that it’s launching its own advertising technology platform only a year and a half after entering the ads business. This move pits it against other industry heavyweights with ad servers, like Google, Amazon and Comcast. The announcement signifies a significant shake-up in the streaming giant’s advertising approach. The company originally partnered with Microsoft to develop its ad tech, letting Netflix enter the ad space quickly and catch up with rivals like Hulu, which has had its own ad server for over a decade.

With the launch of its in-house ad tech, Netflix is poised to take full control of its advertising future. This strategic move will empower the company to create targeted and personalized ad experiences that resonate with its massive user base of 270 million subscribers. […] Netflix didn’t say exactly how its in-house solution will change the way ads are delivered, but it’s likely it’ll move away from generic advertisements. According to the Financial Times, Netflix wants to experiment with “episodic” campaigns, which involve a series of ads that tell a story rather than delivering repetitive ads. During the presentation, Netflix also noted that it’ll expand its buying capabilities this summer, which will now include The Trade Desk, Google’s Display & Video 360 and Magnite as partners. Notably, competitor Disney+ also has an advertising agreement with The Trade Desk. Netflix also touted the success of its ad-supported tier, reporting that 40 million global monthly active users opt for the plan. The ad tier had around 5 million users within six months of launching.

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Bay Area City Orders Scientists To Stop Controversial Cloud Brightening Experiment

Last month, researchers from the University of Washington started conducting an experiment on a decommissioned naval ship in Alameda to test if spraying salt water into the air could brighten clouds and cool the planet. However, their project was forced to stop this month after the city got word of what was going on. SFGate reports: According to a city press release, scientists were ordered to halt the experiment because it violated Alameda’s lease with the USS Hornet, the aircraft carrier from which researchers were spraying saltwater into the air using “a machine resembling a snowmaker.” The news was first reported by the Alameda Post. “City staff are working with a team of biological and hazardous materials consultants to independently evaluate the health and environmental safety of this particular experiment,” the press release states. Specifically, chemicals present in the experiment’s aerosol spray are being evaluated to study whether or not they pose any threats to humans, animals or the environment. So far, there isn’t any evidence that they do, the city stated.

The prospect of a city-conducted review was not unexpected, the University of Washington said in a statement shared with SFGATE. “In fact, the CAARE (Coastal Aerosol Research and Engagement) facility is designed to help regulators, community members and others engage with the research closely, and we consider the current interactions with the city to be an integral part of that process,” the statement reads. “We are happy to support their review and it has been a highly constructive process so far.” The marine cloud brightening (MCB) technique involves spraying fine particles of sea salt into the atmosphere from ships or specialized machines. These sea salt particles are chosen because they are a natural source of cloud-forming aerosols and can increase the number of cloud droplets, making the clouds more reflective. The particles sprayed are extremely small, about 1/1000th the width of a human hair, ensuring they remain suspended in the air and interact with cloud droplets effectively.

By reflecting more sunlight, these brightened clouds can reduce the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface, leading to localized cooling. If implemented on a large scale, this cooling effect could potentially offset some of the warming caused by greenhouse gases.

You can learn more about the experiment here.

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US Regulators Approve Rule That Could Speed Renewables

Longtime Slashdot reader necro81 writes: The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which controls interstate energy infrastructure, approved a rule Monday that should boost new transmission infrastructure and make it easier to connect renewable energy projects. (More coverage here, here, and here.)

Some 11,000 projects totaling 2,600 GW of capacity are in planning, waiting to break ground, or connect to the grid. But they’re stymied by the need for costly upgrades, or simply waiting for review. The frustrations are many. Each proposed project undergoes a lengthy grid-impact study and assessed the cost of necessary upgrades. Each project is considered in isolation, regardless of whether similar projects are happening nearby that could share the upgrade costs or auger different improvements. The planning process tends to be reactive — examining only the applications in front of them — rather than considering trends over the coming years. It’s a first-come, first-served queue: if one project is ready to break ground, it must wait behind another project that’s still securing funding or permitting.

Two years in development, the dryly-named Improvements to Generator Interconnection Procedures and Agreements directs utility operators to plan infrastructure improvements with a 20-yr forecast of new energy sources and increased demand. Rather than examining each project in isolation, similar projects will be clustered and examined together. Instead of a First-Come, First-Served serial process, operators will instead examine First-Ready, allowing shovel-ready projects to jump the queue. The expectation is that these new rules will speed up and streamline the process of developing and connecting new energy projects through more holistic planning, penalties for delays, sensible cost-sharing for upgrades, and justification for long-term investments.

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Project Astra Is Google’s ‘Multimodal’ Answer to the New ChatGPT

At Google I/O today, Google introduced a “next-generation AI assistant” called Project Astra that can “make sense of what your phone’s camera sees,” reports Wired. It follows yesterday’s launch of GPT-4o, a new AI model from OpenAI that can quickly respond to prompts via voice and talk about what it ‘sees’ through a smartphone camera or on a computer screen. It “also uses a more humanlike voice and emotionally expressive tone, simulating emotions like surprise and even flirtatiousness,” notes Wired. From the report: In response to spoken commands, Astra was able to make sense of objects and scenes as viewed through the devices’ cameras, and converse about them in natural language. It identified a computer speaker and answered questions about its components, recognized a London neighborhood from the view out of an office window, read and analyzed code from a computer screen, composed a limerick about some pencils, and recalled where a person had left a pair of glasses. […] Google says Project Astra will be made available through a new interface called Gemini Live later this year. [Demis Hassabis, the executive leading the company’s effort to reestablish leadership inÂAI] said that the company is still testing several prototype smart glasses and has yet to make a decision on whether to launch any of them.

Hassabis believes that imbuing AI models with a deeper understanding of the physical world will be key to further progress in AI, and to making systems like Project Astra more robust. Other frontiers of AI, including Google DeepMind’s work on game-playing AI programs could help, he says. Hassabis and others hope such work could be revolutionary for robotics, an area that Google is also investing in.
“A multimodal universal agent assistant is on the sort of track to artificial general intelligence,” Hassabis said in reference to a hoped-for but largely undefined future point where machines can do anything and everything that a human mind can. “This is not AGI or anything, but it’s the beginning of something.”

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Comcast To Launch Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ Bundle

Later this month, Comcast will launch a three-way bundle with Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+. It will “come at a vastly reduced price to anything in the market today,” said. Comcast chief Brian Roberts. Variety reports: The goal is to “add value to consumers” and at the same time “take some of the dollars out of” other companies’ streaming businesses, he added, while reinforcing Comcast’s broadband service offerings. Comcast’s impending launch of the StreamSaver bundle come as other media companies have been assembling similar offerings. […] Like the other streaming bundling strategies, Comcast’s forthcoming Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ package is an effort to reduce cancelation rates (aka “churn”) and provide a more efficient means of subscriber acquisition — coming as the traditional cable TV business continues to deteriorate. Last week, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a three-way bundle comprising of Max, Disney+ and Hulu.

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Google Targets Filmmakers With Veo, Its New Generative AI Video Model

At its I/O developer conference today, Google announced Veo, its latest generative AI video model, that “can generate ‘high-quality’ 1080p resolution videos over a minute in length in a wide variety of visual and cinematic styles,” reports The Verge. From the report: Veo has “an advanced understanding of natural language,” according to Google’s press release, enabling the model to understand cinematic terms like “timelapse” or “aerial shots of a landscape.” Users can direct their desired output using text, image, or video-based prompts, and Google says the resulting videos are “more consistent and coherent,” depicting more realistic movement for people, animals, and objects throughout shots. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said in a press preview on Monday that video results can be refined using additional prompts and that Google is exploring additional features to enable Veo to produce storyboards and longer scenes.

As is the case with many of these AI model previews, most folks hoping to try Veo out themselves will likely have to wait a while. Google says it’s inviting select filmmakers and creators to experiment with the model to determine how it can best support creatives and will build on these collaborations to ensure “creators have a voice” in how Google’s AI technologies are developed. Some Veo features will also be made available to “select creators in the coming weeks” in a private preview inside VideoFX — you can sign up for the waitlist here for an early chance to try it out. Otherwise, Google is also planning to add some of its capabilities to YouTube Shorts “in the future.” Along with its new AI models and tools, Google said it’s expanding its AI content watermarking and detection technology. The company’s new upgraded SynthID watermark imprinting system “can now mark video that was digitally generated, as well as AI-generated text,” reports The Verge in a separate report.

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ChatGPT Is Getting a Mac App

OpenAI has launched an official macOS app for ChatGPT, with a Windows version coming “later this year.” “Both free and paid users will be able to access the new app, but it will only be available to ChatGPT Plus users starting today before a broader rollout in ‘the coming weeks,'” reports The Verge. From the report: In the demo shown by OpenAI, users could open the ChatGPT desktop app in a small window, alongside another program. They asked ChatGPT questions about what’s on their screen — whether by typing or saying it. ChatGPT could then respond based on what it “sees.” OpenAI says users can ask ChatGPT a question by using the Option + Space keyboard shortcut, as well as take and discuss screenshots within the app. Further reading: OpenAI Launches New Free Model GPT-4o

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Intel Aurora Supercomputer Breaks Exascale Barrier

Josh Norem reports via ExtremeTech: At the recent International supercomputing conference called ISC 2024, Intel’s newest Aurora supercomputer installed at Argonne National Laboratory raised a few eyebrows by finally surpassing the exascale barrier. Before this, only AMD’s Frontier system had been able to achieve this level of performance. Intel also achieved what it says is the world’s best performance for AI at 10.61 “AI exaflops.” Intel reported the news on its blog, stating Aurora was now officially the fastest supercomputer for AI in the world. It shares the distinction in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), which both built and houses the system in its current state, which Intel says was at 87% functionality for the recent tests. In the all-important Linpack (HPL) test, the Aurora computer hit 1.012 exaflops, meaning it has almost doubled the performance on tap since its initial “partial run” in late 2023, where it hit just 585.34 petaflops. The company then said it expected to cross the exascale barrier with Aurora eventually, and now it has.

Intel says for the ISC 2024 tests, Aurora was operating with 9,234 nodes. The company notes it ranked second overall in LINPACK, meaning it’s still unable to dethrone AMD’s Frontier system, which is also an HPE supercomputer. AMD’s Frontier was the first supercomputer to break the exascale barrier in June 2022. Frontier sits at around 1.2 exaflops in Linpack, so Intel is knocking on its door but still has a way to go before it can topple it. However, Intel says Aurora came in first in the Linpack-mixed benchmark, reportedly highlighting its unparalleled AI performance. Intel’s Aurora supercomputer uses the company’s latest CPU and GPU hardware, with 21,248 Sapphire Rapids Xeon CPUs and 63,744 Ponte Vecchio GPUs. When it’s fully operational later this year, Intel believes the system will eventually be capable of crossing the 2-exaflop barrier.

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Biden Admin Shells Out $120 Million To Return Chip Startup To US Ownership

Brandon Vigliarolo reports via The Register: Not everything in the semiconductor industry is about shearing off every last nanometer, which is why the Biden administration is splashing out CHIPS Act funding to those pursuing less cutting edge processor production. Case in point, today’s announcement that Bloomington, Minnesota-based Polar Semiconductor could be getting up to $120 million in CHIPS funds to double production capacity over the next two years, along with a possible buyout to return the business to U.S. hands.

Polar, which manufactures semiconductors used primarily for the energy industry and electric vehicles, will use the funds to double its production capacity of sensor and power chips and upgrade its manufacturing kit, as well as adding 160 jobs to boot. Along with expanding production, the U.S. Department of Commerce said the funding would trigger additional private capital investment to “transform Polar from a majority foreign-owned in-house manufacturer to a majority U.S.-owned commercial foundry, expanding opportunities for U.S. chip designers to innovate and produce technologies domestically.” In other words – sure it’ll expand the output, but the real win is another majority U.S.-owned foundry for the White House to tout.

According to its website, Polar is currently owned by Korean conglomerate SK Group and serves as the primary fab and engineering center for Japanese firm Sanken Electric. Not exactly companies in countries with poor U.S. relations – but overseas owners, nonetheless. “This proposed investment in Polar will crowd in private capital, which will help make Polar a U.S.-based, independent foundry,” said U.S. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo. “They will be able to expand their customer base and create a stable domestic supply of critical chips, made in America’s heartland.”

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Reddit Grows, Seeks More AI Deals, Plans ‘Award’ Shops, and Gets Sued

Reddit reported its first results since going public in late March. Yahoo Finance reports:

Daily active users increased 37% year over year to 82.7 million. Weekly active unique users rose 40% from the prior year. Total revenue improved 48% to $243 million, nearly doubling the growth rate from the prior quarter, due to strength in advertising. The company delivered adjusted operating profits of $10 million, versus a $50.2 million loss a year ago. [Reddit CEO Steve] Huffman declined to say when the company would be profitable on a net income basis, noting it’s a focus for the management team. Other areas of focus include rolling out a new user interface this year, introducing shopping capabilities, and searching for another artificial intelligence content licensing deal like the one with Google.

Bloomberg notes that already Reddit “has signed licensing agreements worth $203 million in total, with terms ranging from two to three years. The company generated about $20 million from AI content deals last quarter, and expects to bring in more than $60 million by the end of the year.”

And elsewhere Bloomberg writes that Reddit “plans to expand its revenue streams outside of advertising into what Huffman calls the ‘user economy’ — users making money from others on the platform… ”

In the coming months Reddit plans to launch new versions of awards, which are digital gifts users can give to each other, along with other products… Reddit also plans to continue striking data licensing deals with artificial intelligence companies, expanding into international markets and evaluating potential acquisition targets in areas such as search, he said.

Meanwhile, ZDNet notes that this week a Reddit announcement “introduced a new public content policy that lays out a framework for how partners and third parties can access user-posted content on its site.”

The post explains that more and more companies are using unsavory means to access user data in bulk, including Reddit posts. Once a company gets this data, there’s no limit to what it can do with it. Reddit will continue to block “bad actors” that use unauthorized methods to get data, the company says, but it’s taking additional steps to keep users safe from the site’s partners…. Reddit still supports using its data for research: It’s creating a new subreddit — r/reddit4researchers — to support these initiatives, and partnering with OpenMined to help improve research. Private data is, however, going to stay private.

If a company wants to use Reddit data for commercial purposes, including advertising or training AI, it will have to pay. Reddit made this clear by saying, “If you’re interested in using Reddit data to power, augment, or enhance your product or service for any commercial purposes, we require a contract.” To be clear, Reddit is still selling users’ data — it’s just making sure that unscrupulous actors have a tougher time accessing that data for free and researchers have an easier time finding what they need.

And finally, there’s some court action, according to the Register. Reddit “was sued by an unhappy advertiser who claims that internet giga-forum sold ads but provided no way to verify that real people were responsible for clicking on them.”

The complaint [PDF] was filed this week in a U.S. federal court in northern California on behalf of LevelFields, a Virginia-based investment research platform that relies on AI. It says the biz booked pay-per-click ads on the discussion site starting September 2022… That arrangement called for Reddit to use reasonable means to ensure that LevelField’s ads were delivered to and clicked on by actual people rather than bots and the like. But according to the complaint, Reddit broke that contract…

LevelFields argues that Reddit is in a particularly good position to track click fraud because it’s serving ads on its own site, as opposed to third-party properties where it may have less visibility into network traffic… Nonetheless, LevelFields’s effort to obtain IP address data to verify the ads it was billed for went unfulfilled. The social media site “provided click logs without IP addresses,” the complaint says. “Reddit represented that it was not able to provide IP addresses.”

“The plaintiffs aspire to have their claim certified as a class action,” the article adds — along with an interesting statistic.
“According to Juniper Research, 22 percent of ad spending last year was lost to click fraud, amounting to $84 billion.”

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