He afterward spent concerning 45 minutes introducing five new Echo astute speakers and displays — the Echo Show 16, Echo Time, Alexa Photo Frame, Echo Studio alongside Home Camera, and a new Echo Dot — alongside all merchandise sitting on plinths in the warehouse-like space.

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• Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Patience is the name of the equivalent for "Fourth Wing" fans these days.

"Fourth Wing" introduced readers to Violet Sorrengail, a pupil at Basgiath War College training to be a dragon passenger as war looms exterior the school. The 2023 novel was an instant bestseller for author Rebecca Yarros, who has since written two additional installments in the "Empyrean" series, as fine as a novella (more on that in a minute).

After it was published in January 2025, "Onyx Storm," the third publish in the series, became the fastest-selling grownup novel published in the former 20 years, alongside complete 2.7 myriad copies sold in one week.

The "Empyrean" series is set to have five books in total, and the fourth volition hopefully determine the cliffhangers Yarros left in "Onyx Storm." However, during Yarros has confirmed she started penning publish four, she has yet to province a publish date for the novel.

It volition be a during before the next "Fourth Wing" publish hits bookshelves, but luckily, fans can peruse akin novels, akin those alongside imagination settings or enemies-to-lovers romances.

You can capture up on all our safety below, including the six biggest announcements and our hands-on alongside the Echo Show 16 and Echo Time.

• 

  Inside Amazon’s Echo hardware event

  

  

  Amazon exchanged its customary big autumn hardware showcase this twelvemonth for a sequence of smaller launches throughout October. So far this month, it has announced new Fire TV devices, new Kindles, the Alexa Tablet Pro 12, Ring’s archetypal astute lock, new hardware from AI-wearable startup Bee, and new Blink 4K cameras.

  Then this week, it hosted journalists at a small event in New York City’s financial district to showcase its new Echo hardware.

  Read Article >

• 

  Amazon’s new Echo row is here: the 6 biggest updates

  

  

  Amazon has fair taken the wraps off a bunch of new devices as part of a string of autumn announcements. Today’s news focuses mostly on new Echo speakers, alongside a few new astute residence gadgets scattered in.

  Here’s a roundup of all of the updates Amazon revealed on Wednesday.

  Read Article >

• 

  Amazon’s Alexa Home Map is getting a smarter 3D redesign

  

  

  Amazon’s astute residence map interface that shows you anywhere all your connected devices are has been overhauled alongside new graphics, features, and energetic effects. The new Alexa Home Map is now an interactive 3D perspective of not fair everything that’s inner your property, but exterior of it too — using compatible Ring cameras to provision a 360-degree perspective that animates cars and group moving nearby.

  Even fair visually speaking, it’s a significant upgrade from the 2D map that was introduced to the Alexa app in 2023. This new type looks akin to Samsung’s SmartThings Map View, and makes it easier to see exactly anywhere all of your Echo devices, Ring and Blink cameras, Fire TV, lights, locks, thermostats, and another connected devices are located about your home.

  Read Article >

• 

  Spending period alongside the Echo Time

  

  

  Photo: Owen Grove / The Verge

  Amazon fair announced its newest astute alert clock — the Echo Time. The baseball-sized astute speaker alongside a screen, the Time looks akin an Echo Dot alongside Clock and an Echo Spot had a much bigger baby. It features a 3.2-inch touchscreen that prominently displays your choice of a huge choice of clockfaces and includes a sleep-sensing characteristic that promises to rouse you at fair the correct period in your sleep sequence to assistance you awareness additional rested. It expenses $199.99 and is accessible to command now.

  I spent several period alongside the Time at Amazon’s event in New York City and was impressed by multiple upgrades complete the Spot, one of my favorite astute alert clocks. The biggest is that you can set an alert using the touchscreen, so you won’t awaken your partner whenever you try to set one alongside your sound delayed at night.

  Read Article >

• 

  Our archetypal appearance at Amazon’s big new Echo Show 16

  

  

  Amazon’s latest Echo Show astute display is big, gorgeous, and eye-wateringly expensive. Announced today, the Echo Show 16 expenses $499.99 (wall mount included) and is accessible to preorder now. There’s a Nanomatte display choice for $569.99, affirmative a $100 preorder discount onward of its publish afterward this year.

  After spending period alongside the equipment at a small media event in New York City this week, I think the Echo Show 16 could be the versatile family hub Alexa users have been asking for. The sleek hardware brings alongside it a entirely new application experience, including improved astute residence controls, a much-improved calendar interface, and a genuine photo example choice — all completely customizable.

  Read Article >

• 

  Amazon’s new Echo Studio speaker has a camera

  

  

  Photo: Owen Grove / The Verge

  Amazon is giving its premium astute speaker a camera. The new Echo Studio alongside Home Camera, announced today as part of Amazon’s big blast of announcements, has a built-in camera for monitoring a area during you’re away, showing things to Alexa, and, soon, to use alongside video calls on Fire TV devices. It’s an repeat on the revised Echo Studio announced final year, which had a brand-new design.

  The Echo Studio alongside Home Camera additionally offers several audio updates. Amazon says a new characteristic called “Advanced Room Adaptation” volition continuously tune audio to the area that the speaker is in. There’s additionally an “Adaptive Volume” characteristic that raises or lowers quantity depending on anywhere you are in a area so that “your music or audiobook maintains the identical quantity as you move about.”

  Read Article >

• 

  Amazon’s archetypal digital image example lets you add sound notes to photos

  

  

  Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

  Amazon’s screen-equipped astute speakers have lengthy been capable to display your family’s photos, but its new Alexa Photo Frame is purpose-built for that task. It’s designed to vie alongside another digital image frames from companies akin Aura, and Amazon’s incorporates a astute speaker alongside admission to Alexa Plus’ capabilities through sound commands. However, dissimilar the Echo Show and Amazon’s another astute residence hubs, the Alexa Photo Frame lone always displays your photos, and you’ll never be served an ad.

  The Alexa Photo Frame is accessible starting today; it’s $199.99 for a dreary example or $229 if you desire to upgrade to a example made from birch or walnut wood. It pulls images from Amazon Photos, which offers unlimited retention for Prime members, but alternatively the example doesn’t necessitate a subscription. The Amazon Photos app can rear up photos from your Android or Apple devices and drag images from iCloud Photo, but importing from Google Photos isn’t supported yet.

  Read Article >

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• Emma Roth

Few things discarded a boardroom gathering akin defending Google Analytics 4 figures that don’t align alongside the store-reported numbers. It erodes rely and leaves everyone alongside an incomplete, misleading picture, and complete the former 12 months I’ve established it harder to get GA4 to do the job it’s set up for. It’s challenged me and my squad to keep a much nearer check, alongside alerts on the tracking we depend on to fairness success.

So, onward of this year’s holiday season, I audited GA4 at eight U.K. ecommerce brands, putting its Q4 numbers for 2024 and 2025 next to shop orders. I expected gaps, but not ones this big, or this fine hidden.

Between Christmas Day 2025 and Jan. 4, 2026, GA4 told a U.K. retailer its income was downward 68% a day on the twelvemonth before. The retailer’s own command records showed a autumn of 13%.

GA4 recorded 81% of the store’s web orders in Q4 2024, 41% in Q4 2025 and fair 32% complete the Christmas period.

Six of the eight stores let me equivalent GA4 to their own command records. At three, GA4 told a extremely distinct story. At two, the biscuit banner had been switching itself off for days or weeks at a time, and GA4 gave no sign item was missing. At the third, GA4 recorded no purchases for five weeks, afterward loaded them in delayed and counted hundreds twice. A fourth store’s GA4 was inundated alongside bots this September.

Most are setup problems that could happen at any store, including yours.

What I Compared

For six brands, I compared GA4 orders alongside web orders, week by week anywhere I could. At two stores, the counts contain several phone or backing orders the phase couldn’t distinct out. I checked all fig against its source. Retailers A to D are the four stores alongside the biggest problems, and Retailer A is the one from the opening. (Disclosure: I activity for a digital agency that has worked immediately alongside all eight brands.)

See also: Why Your Search Data Doesn’t Agree (And What To Do About It)

5 Pitfalls To Look Out For In GA4

A Steady Gap

One brand’s GA4 recorded 76% of its web orders in the two Q4 2024 and Q4 2025, and another’s between 72% and 84% all week of Q4 2025. That’s the form biscuit consent produces, alongside a akin portion of shoppers declining tracking all week.

What to appearance for: A grasp charge (GA4 orders as a portion of shop orders) that stays in the identical collection all week. Allow for it, and use GA4 for trends, not totals.

A Cookie Banner That Switched Itself Off

Retailer A’s GA4 sessions dropped out in blocks of days, and all obstacle ended on the 14th of the month.

Retailer B’s blocks ended on the 20th. Its GA4 recorded 94% of the store’s orders in Q4 2024 and 36% in Q4 2025, and showed income downward 69% during the store’s net revenue rosy 18.5%.

The logic was the biscuit banner, twice over. Both stores moved to a new consent setup in 2025, so a portion of shoppers stopped being tracked: the dependable benevolent of gap. Each consent scheme additionally covered a set figure of leaf views a month, and formerly they ran out, the banner stopped showing until the next billing date. At Retailer B, GA4 recorded up to 68% of orders in weeks the banner stayed up and between 10% and 22% in weeks it switched off. GA4 kept receiving several data, so nothing looked broken, and the missing days peruse akin a decline in sales.

In the Black Friday billing cycle, Retailer A’s allowance ran out on December 1, and GA4 didn’t regain until December 15.

What to appearance for: Sessions dropping out in blocks that commencement or end on the identical date all duration during shop orders transport on. Size your consent scheme for highest traffic and create certain its bounds warnings attain marketing, not fair developers.

A Blackout And A Late Backfill

From Oct. 28 to Dec. 4, 2025, Retailer C’s shop recorded 2,215 orders, and GA4 recorded no purchases at all.

On Dec. 9, GA4 recorded 1,261 orders in one day, 1,000 of them alongside command numbers from inner the gap. Blackout orders were being loaded in late, and all but five went to Unassigned.

What to appearance for: Days alongside sessions but no purchases, and abrupt runs of purchases in Unassigned.

The Same Order Counted Twice

Google’s direction on transaction IDs says GA4 “deduplicates acquisition events alongside the identical transaction ID,” although lone from the identical user. At Retailer C, 657 of the 3,365 command numbers GA4 recorded in Q4 2025 had additional than one acquisition event, adding 735 purchases to its total. Across the quarter, the errors nearly canceled out: GA4 recorded 4,100 purchases against 4,501 shop orders. Check lone the quarterly total, and it looks fine.

What to appearance for: In a GA4 exploration, catalog the acquisition event figure for all transaction ID. Anything complete one is twice counting.

Visitors Who Weren’t Shoppers

Its known bot-traffic exclusion filters out “known bots and spiders,” but another bots that run a site’s code akin a browser figure as visitors.

Retailer D’s GA4 recorded 23,187 sessions on September 27, 2026, and 25,622 the next day, against 300 to 900 a day in mid-September. Almost all were direct, desktop Chrome visits averaging concerning a second of engagement. Search Console clicks didn’t move.

What to appearance for: Session spikes that orders don’t follow. Exclude them from reports and obstacle them at your firewall, sparing verified crawlers akin Googlebot.

Use Search Console As An Early Warning

Search Console counts a click whenever a outcome sends person to a leaf exterior Google, any the site’s tags are doing. Divide GA4’s Google integrated sessions by Search Console clicks all week, and a tracking nonaccomplishment shows up as a abrupt drop.

In Retailer C’s blackout, Google sent 4,244 clicks in the week of November 3, and GA4 recorded 57 Google integrated sessions.

See also: Why Is Organic Traffic Down? Here’s How To Segment The Data

What It Does To Budget Decisions

Retailer A’s Q4 web orders rosy from 5,874 to 7,686 during GA4 showed them falling by a third. GA4 additionally had Google Ads’ come back on expend falling from 8.07 to 4.79 and integrated hunt income nearly halving. Matched to shop orders in a premium multi-touch attribution tool, Google Ads’ come back rosy from 4.42 to 7.93 on 20% small spend, and income attributed to integrated and straightforward visits rosy 58%. The attribution models differ, but they shouldn’t item in contrary directions. Cutting either conduit on GA4’s numbers would have pulled prosperity from channels that were working, which is why I fairness them together against shop orders.

Retailer C’s GA4 put income from Google, paid and organic, downward 86% during the store’s net revenue rosy 4.8%.

See also: Google Ads Budget Misallocation Is More Common Than You Think – And Harder To Spot

A Check To Run Before The Holidays

1. Export weekly web orders for Q4 2024 and Q4 2025, without marketplace, subscription, and manual orders.
2. Pull GA4 purchases for the identical weeks as distinct transaction IDs on acquisition events. Avoid the transactions metric, which counts refunds as fine as purchases.
3. Divide GA4 purchases by shop orders. A stage change, a near-zero week, or a week complete 100% is a tracking problem.

How To Explain GA4’s Pitfalls To Stakeholders

Agree on the origin of fact before the holidays. Orders and income arrive from the store; GA4 explains behavior and trends; ad platforms study what they claim.

Lead alongside the grasp rate. “GA4 recorded 41% of our web orders this quarter, downward from 81% final year” is a declaration any backing director understands.

Explain the consent gap in plain terms. In the U.K., the ICO’s guidance on consent expects a consent scheme to create it “as uncomplicated to refuse consent as it is to accept,” so several shoppers volition continually decline, and GA4 volition continually undercount. In the U.S., opt-out signals specified as California’s Global Privacy Control Act chiefly power promotion tags, during browser privacy features and ad blockers part distant at analytics.

Give promotion perspective of item that moves its figures. Consent limits, checkout updates, and tag changes frequently sit alongside developers. Put shop and GA4 income side-by-side and date all change, so a autumn in GA4 isn’t peruse as a autumn in sales.

Move Purchase Tracking Server-Side

Most GA4 setups document a acquisition in the shopper’s browser, anywhere a checkout update, a manuscript error, an ad blocker, or a refresh can endure it or figure it twice.

Instead, dispatch the acquisition from the store’s own scheme whenever the command is created, through the Measurement Protocol or a server-side tagging receptacle fed by the store, keyed on the command number. It no longer depends on the confirmation page; a refresh can’t copy it, and all event matches a shop order. Moving browser tags to a server receptacle doesn’t do this on its own, since the acquisition motionless starts in the browser. Pass the shopper’s GA4 client ID and meeting ID alongside it, captured at checkout, so GA4 can associate the command to the visit. Keep the browser tag for behavior: Google says the Measurement Protocol is meant “to augment automatic collection,” not substitute it.

Server-side tracking doesn’t alter your consent obligations, so the dependable gap stays. If you’re starting now, I’d dispatch it to a distinct GA4 asset through Q4, so nothing is counted twice, fairly than switching complete in November.

Count Orders Where They Happen

GA4 is motionless the finest liberated tool most ecommerce teams have for understanding behavior, but it isn’t a document of sales. Before you cut or shove expend this holiday season, figure your orders anywhere they happen: in the store.

More Resources:

• How To Track AI Traffic In GA4 Without Undercounting It
• Designing A Measurement Framework Before You Touch GA4
• How To Track User Journey In GA4 To Make SEO Wins More Visible

Featured Image: PeopleImages/Shutterstock

Would you shop from a nourish of AI-generated images?

The startup Dalet Labs is betting you will.

The AI-commerce business exclusively told CMO Insider that it raised a $7 myriad pre-seed circular led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and is launching its archetypal product, a buying app called Scene.

Founded by Omer Bar-Tal in 2025 following he remaining the AI video startup Runway, Dalet Labs lately came out of stealth mode. The startup raised its pre-seed in delayed 2025, before finalizing its merchandise highway map. In supplement to Lightspeed, project chief resolute SV Angel and idiosyncratic angel investors participated in the round.

Lisa Han, the Lightspeed partner who led the round, stated that Bar-Tal has a blend of "video AI investigation expertise" and a "deep understanding of what consumers want."

Scene, which became accessible on the Apple App Store in the US on Wednesday, lets group scroll through a nourish of shoppable AI-generated images. The app volition be invite-only at launch, and isn't yet accessible on Android. While the images of group or scenes are AI-generated, the products themselves arrive from genuine brands throughout categories akin fashion, residence decor, and sports.

Bar-Tal envisions Scene as a tool group can rotate to whenever they desire to buy item but are motionless uncertain concerning exactly what they have in mind. It's akin to scrolling through Pinterest or TikTok in hopes of being inspired to buy something, but Bar-Tal stated there's a key difference: You arrive to Scene to shop, not be entertained.

Bar-Tal sees Scene as a virtual "mall" anywhere users can window-shop, preserve items to their cart, and create purchases.

Commerce has rotate into an increasingly appealing use case for AI tools akin chatbots and agents (including Meta's Muse). However, Bar-Tal argues that AI buying tools are missing something.

"AI is amazing whenever you cognize what you want, but it's really crucial to really have an capability to detect and to see things," Bar-Tal said. Agentic commerce, he added, "misses the item in buying — which is basically a delightful experience."

As a Scene person scrolls and interacts alongside products connected in the app, the nourish adapts to what category of brands or items the person is curious in. Then, Scene uses AI to create scenes alongside group wearing or using those items.

Bar-Tal did not comment on which third-party models Dalet Labs uses.

Bar-Tal stated Dalet Labs doesn't see its merchandise as replacing influencers, but fairly as "complementary."

"The satisfied current is AI, but it is not aiming to substitute creators since we are not aiming to create entertainment," he said.

However, equal if Scene isn't competing alongside influencers for entertaining content, it's motionless competing alongside their endeavor model: making prosperity by promoting brands' products and ultimately driving sales.

Scene has a catalog of hundreds of brands and retailers, Bar-Tal said, and is making additional partnerships. The business did not portion additional particulars on what brands Dalet Labs has already established relationships with.

Bar-Tal stated the business is additionally leveraging affiliate marketing to monetize the app first on, operating alongside affiliate networks to acquire from all in-app transaction.

Dalet Labs' Scene is entering a crowded market of apps offering group ways to detect brands and goods, akin TikTok's expanding Shop existence in the US or Pinterest's ocular hunt prowess. Startups akin Doji and Alta have additionally raised millions on the commitment of tech that lets group try on apparel using AI-generated versions of themselves.

How volition Dalet Labs get group to download an entirely new app?

Using influencers and social media to advance the app volition be a center part of Dalet Labs' person acquisition plan. It additionally plans to rotate out a coupon run during the holidays, offering new users discounts on purchases made through the Scene app. Bar-Tal didn't portion whether the discounts would be funded by Scene or by brand partners.

The New York-based startup, meanwhile, is using its pre-seed backing to employ additional engineers and researchers to build out Scene.

Read the 5-page throw phase Dalet Labs used to lift its $7 myriad pre-seed:

The phase starts alongside backdrop on the technology

Here's what the glide says:

For complete fractional a century, all important change in computing has been driven by an interface revolution.

The move from terminals to graphical person interfaces (GUIs) transformed computers from expert tools into mass-market products.

The increase of the web and mobile extended that pattern: all new average made digital communication additional visual, intuitive, and consumable.

Text, by nature, demands energetic cognitive effort; Visual interfaces go a stage additional by allowing users to grasp elevated bandwidth data nearly immediately alongside minimal cognitive effort.

Then it explains Dalet Labs' thesis

Here's what the glide says:

Today, synthetic intellect represents the most profound computing change since the PC. Yet, paradoxically, our interface to AI remains stuck in the terminal era.

We converse alongside models through content prompts and obtain content streams in come back in synchronous manner. Our merchandise thesis is uncomplicated and inevitable: AI requires a native GUI.

We accept the GUI to AI volition not be code-based, but fairly generated by media models.

It afterward outlines the competition

Here's what the glide says:

The center merchandise of AI use platforms is inseparable from their textual conversation interfaces.

For example, the OpenAI brand is strictly connected alongside the conversation interface of ChatGPT.

Moreover, by decoupling the person interface from any particular example provider, we can merge multiple frontier models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or open-source systems) and concentration our innovation on the new media generation GUI platform. This modularity becomes increasingly precious as AI models are commoditized. In addition, their specialized stacks are anchored in the code generation paradigm, in difference to our concentration on Media Models.

Finally, it introduces Dalet Labs' founder

Here's what the glide says:

Omer Bar-Tal

• Research cognition from Weizmann Institute.

  • Built the archetypal method for editing real-world videos using text
  • Papers in CVPR, ECCV, ICML, ICLR etc.
• Trained video basis models (Google, Pika, Runway)
• Built imaginative applications alongside media models (eg video editing, reference-to-video, etc.)
• Led applied investigation teams and merchandise launches

Are you ill of the algorithms that assist you video on elephantine platforms akin YouTube and TikTok?

Or are you a video-maker who's ill of the algorithms that don't assist your material to would-be watchers?

Andrew Morse would akin to conversation to you.

Morse, who spent years operating in big media (Bloomberg, CNN) and most lately in local news (The Atlanta Journal-Constution), is construction Phareo, a startup he hopes volition one day competitor net media heavyweights. The concealed sauce, he says: his own AI-powered finding motor that volition create the two video-watchers and video-makers happy.

This is, to put it politely, a extremely lofty order.

But it's motionless value talking about, since Morse is homing in on a issue you comprehend a lot concerning in creator circles these days: the awareness that group who create satisfied are getting increasingly bad deals from platforms, since they can't authority who sees their stuff.

Phareo (the name is an allusion to Pharos, the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria) says it can resolve that issue by giving creators genuine incentives to create exclusive material for the company, via levers akin income portion and options. Morse plans to initiate in January alongside an first collection of 25 creators. The app volition commencement out as a free, ad-supported service, but he hopes to eventually recommendation a paid tier.

I talked to him this week concerning his plans, the shifting media landscape, and why he's increasingly concerned concerning the creator economics — at the identical period he's launching a creator economics app. This is an edited excerpt of our conversation:

Peter Kafka: You have a traditional chicken/egg problem: Consumers are not going to use a new app unless it has compelling satisfied they can't get location else. 
Content-makers don't desire to put their material there unless there's a big audience.

Andrew Morse: It is the most crucial inquiry we have to solve.
It starts alongside dissatisfaction, and it starts alongside a condemnation from consumers and creators, that they're not being currently served as fine as they could be. So we're operating alongside creators who accept that there have to be a improved alternative.

We don't really have item to lose, stated the direction that the platforms are taking and stated the overreliance that their imaginative activity has on algorithms that don't assist them. We're going to build alongside creators and try to build a super-passionate center and develop from there.

But YouTube, TikTok, Reels, etc do a awesome job of giving me lots of video. And they have unlimited content. How do you move me complete from the platforms I'm already using?

It's an ironic conundrum — we're trying to resolve the finding problem, but we have to be discovered ourselves.

Over the years, I've seen many companies say they're trying to resolve a finding problem. 
But it doesn't appear akin consumers have a finding problem. It's the satisfied owners who have a issue getting their material in forefront of consumers. What's the incentive for consumers to move to a phase content-owners like? 


There's an inherent assumption that consumers are satisfied alongside the platforms. I don't think that that's true. I think consumers are on these platforms since they have to be. Whether they're getting what they desire in an productive way is an entirely distinct story.

Any direction for your erstwhile CNN colleagues who are now operating for David Ellison?

Stay focused on the work. It's continually the reporting that matters. 
And the fact and the facts and awesome storytelling volition continually increase to the top.

We have seen a dependable stream of journalists leaving places akin CNN and starting their own thing. Do you think that trend accelerates or booths out as group acknowledge how difficult it is to do solo media for a living?

I'm concerned concerning this creator economics — which is really concerning about businesses that have built themselves on the rear of YouTube. If you go rear to 2016, 2017, a figure of really clever, really imaginative businesses were built on the rear of social platforms. When the algorithms changed, it became nearly unattainable for these businesses to remain afloat. It was difficult for us at CNN, but we had a big adequate endeavor that we were capable to mitigate and journey the wave. For these another companies, it was disastrous. 


I think you're going to see additional and additional group trying to go out on their own — and that's what scares me. 
Because I think that the sands may commencement to change a small bit.

But at twice the cost of the $250 Echo Show 11 and $200 additional than Apple’s new HomeView astute display, it may be too expensive, equal for diehard Alexa fans.

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• Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

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• Jess Weatherbed

Quark Expeditions chopper aviator Jonathan Mutch is operating his fifth season in Antarctica, flying high-paying tourists to several of the planet's most distant places.

Mutch told Business Insider that flying helicopters across the seventh continent is no uncomplicated feat.

It takes a squad of pilots, escape engineers, mountain guides, and expedition leaders to run the procedure safely. Quark says it has strict ecological parameters to evade affecting wildlife.

He stated that since Antarctic climate can be harsh and unpredictable, guests must have realistic and elastic expectations.

"It's a lot additional complex than it looks," Mutch said. "We'll commencement alongside a study of our maps and charts and former cognition alongside the weather, and we'll concise complete the preceding days."

Helicopter flightseeing excursions are included in all Antarctic itineraries on the Ultramarine, the luxury container anywhere Quark guests live during their voyage and anywhere the helicopters obtain off and land.

Mutch stated Quark prioritizes getting everybody a 15-minute flightseeing trip, followed by possible landings.

Pricing for the 2026-2027 period starts at concerning $20,000 per individual and includes flightseeing, meals, housing, and another activities. Helicopter landings are $995 extra.

Deep-pocketed tourists can additionally pay $30,000 or additional per individual for a additional helicopter-focused tour that includes landing near an Emperor penguin colony.

Helicopter flying is distinct in Antarctica

Mutch stated Quark has two Airbus-made H145 helicopters, which are fitted alongside safety innovation for polar operations, specified as two redundant engines and an advanced autopilot.

The helicopters are stored and maintained in hangars atop the ship. Here, guests commission and disembark, the airplane are refueled between trips, and the squad plans flights.

Mutch stated the two helicopters are needed to prep the landing sites before taking passengers. Pilots and engineers justify that things akin lighting and recirculating snow won't power safety or visibility.

Jake Morrison, elder director of expedition operations, told Business Insider that a flightseeing operation requires at smallest 13 employees, or 20 or additional for ice landings.

Experienced mountain guides test the landing ice thickness and justify the sites are harmless for strolling and void of crevasses.

"We won't get airborne if the cognition is going to be lackluster or if there's any hazard of leaving anybody out there," Mutch said. He added that Quark operates to the identical standards as airlines and that the ships' squad volition continually track the helicopter's location.

Mutch stated Quark pilots are trained beyond minimum standards, including twice a twelvemonth in a escape simulator, and have a backdrop in complex flying.

"We'll put the airplane into white-out conditions and test the pilots' decision-making," Mutch said, speaking concerning the simulator training. "We desire guys who are not going to be too arrogant [that causes them] to shove on and create mistakes."

There are ecological considerations

Flying carbon-emitting helicopters throughout Antarctica volition effect the environment, but Quark stated it does what it can to minimize its footprint.

Morisson stated the H145 helicopters are additional fuel-efficient and quieter than akin airplane in their category.

Mutch stated flightseeing tours are intended to display the landscape, so pilots volition not fly inside a mile of wildlife. The flight-following squad on the container helps keep distance.

When he performs Emperor penguin landings, Mutch stated there is typically an iceberg between the birds and humans, so Quark guests are "virtually inaudible and invisible."

"The final item we desire to do is alter the behavior of any wildlife or engage in any way alongside the wildlife downward here, whether it be penguins, seals, sea birds, or whales," Mutch said. "We explain this to passengers whenever we board."

These are necessary considerations as Antarctic conservation is a hot topic. A record-breaking figure of tourists sojourn the continent: About 120,000 group visited during the 2025-2026 season, up from concerning 100,000 the twelvemonth before.

As ice levels decrease, wildlife is at hazard of pollutants from ships, aircraft, and humans. A September 2026 study interviewed 25 erstwhile Antarctic tour guides who stated they remaining the industry following facing a ethical battle between their jobs and their concerns concerning ecological and wildlife harm.

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, an Antarctic assistance group, responded, saying the points were valid and have to be heard, but they may not portray the views of the complete 6,600-person directing community on Antarctica. IAATO added that tourism helps instruct and protagonist for conservation, and the agency tries to curb risks by limiting the figure of group on the mainland at any stated time.

Visitors should have realistic expectations

The climate volition decide whether a escape can run safely, so there are several days whenever a tour is scheduled but cannot fly — definition guests must prepared for doubt and imaginable disappointment.

It's uncomplicated to get disappointed considering the elevated disbursal of the tour, but that's the reality of flying in the polar south.

"We're fairly traditional concerning whenever we fly, but we'd ideally desire a blue-sky day," he said, adding the business completes an average of 200 flights per season. "We'd akin to fly three or perchance four times per trip, but it's really what the climate volition authorize us."

Most group do get the chance to fly complete Antarctica, gratitude to lengthy itineraries and a assortment of destination options.

The single-pilot flightseeing tours transport up to six passengers, alongside everyone getting a opening seat. To optimize capacity, landings volition transport up to nine, as premier seating is unnecessary.

"There's Fournier Bay on Anvers Island, an amphitheater of steep ice cliffs, and if we can get complete the ridge, you can see up to 100 miles of the Antarctic Peninsula on a apparent day," Mutch said, speaking concerning his favorite sites. "It's not different to have guests welling up, overwhelmed alongside emotion."

How much is Anthropic paying for the direction of the UK's erstwhile premier minister? A lot small than Microsoft.

Rishi Sunak, who led the nation from 2022 to 2024, final twelvemonth took on elder adviser roles alongside Anthropic, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs.

As he motionless serves as a associate of Parliament, the payments are detailed in a community enroll of MPs' financial interests. The most latest register, published Monday, shows Sunak earned additional than £2.2 million, or complete $2.9 million, from the three jobs.

Sunak, who started his occupation as a Goldman expert before completing an MBA at Stanford, donated these earnings to charity. He and his spouse Akshata Murthy set up The Richmond Project, which plant to enhance people's numeracy skills.

The brace is jointly value concerning $750 million, according to The Sunday Times Rich List, alongside much of that prosperity coming from Murthy, whose begetter founded Indian tech resolute Infosys.

Anthropic hired Sunak as a elder adviser final October, paying him alongside equity in the AI firm. The enroll shows the shares were value £373,000, or $495,000, whenever his one-year agreement began.

Working an estimated 70 hours a year, that translates to concerning $7,000 an hour.

Also final October, Sunak started advising Microsoft. The tech elephantine paid him £741,735 a year, or nearly $1 million. For an estimated 96 hours of work, per the register, that plant out to concerning $10,200 an hour.

Sunak's function alongside Goldman is the most lucrative. He was paid nearly £1.1 myriad a year, or concerning $1.5 million.

The enroll shows the function involves an estimated 175 hours of activity a year, suggesting he earns concerning $8,300 an hour.

Alongside his activity in tech, Sunak writes a pillar for The Sunday Times. He additionally donates this prosperity to charity, but it pales in difference to the earnings from his another jobs. The enroll shows he earns £28,500 a fourth for five hours of activity a week — concerning $580 an hour.

Sunak's agency did not immediately answer to a petition for comment.

Keep calm: We have a plan.

That's basically been the adtech industry's reply to Apple's latest crackdown on web trackers.

The workaround may lone be a impermanent fix, however.

Apple lately implemented new restrictions in its Safari browser designed to stamp out "identity resolution," a method used to track users throughout distinct devices and websites by linking data points specified as IP addresses, email addresses, and another identifying data collected concerning them.

Adtech has mostly joined about a projected solution: Move the character resolution procedure so it takes location inner publishers' and adtech companies' servers fairly than in the browser, anywhere Apple has additional control. Adtech industry execs have stated the move volition mitigate disruptions to publishers' income and measure from Apple's blockers, during motionless allowing them to regard users' privacy choices.

Privacy experts, on the another hand, say that during the server-side change power win temporarily, it's far from a imperishable solution. Apple has made it apparent that attempts to circumvent its tracking protections could trigger additional restrictions on adtech companies.

"It's durable to foretell how lengthy Apple would need to discover ways to obstacle workarounds, but adtech companies that bet against the browser are in for a rude awakening at several item in the future," stated Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity investigator and cofounder of the adtech transparency phase DecryptAds.

The stakes broaden beyond the adtech companies whose innovation Apple is blocking. Publishers and advertisers have increasingly relied on character resolution to mark particular audiences and to measure whether campaigns are working. If character resolution becomes small effective, advertisers could change additional of their budgets distant from web publishers and to platforms akin Google and Meta that have reams of their own logged-in person data.

Anthony Katsur, CEO of the IAB's Tech Lab, which created the Trusted Server project, stated its estimates display that the Apple-powered browser ecosystem accounts for 40% of total web traffic, which leaves a ample chunk of possibly unaddressable ad inventory.

"That creates enormous downside for media companies to afterward demonstrate themselves to agencies and brands they activity alongside that, yes, a person saw this ad, and they converted," Katsur said.

How Apple could thwart adtech's server-side solution

How could Apple obstacle character resolution if the data matching occurs lone on servers exterior its control?

There is a precedent. When Apple blocked third-party tracking cookies in Safari, several adtech companies used a workaround called CNAME cloaking. It made third-party trackers appear to Safari as if they belonged to the website a audience had chosen to sojourn — known as "first-party" activity. Apple shortly identified and developed protections against that tactic.

Edwards stated many server-side tracking systems motionless depend on cookies or another identifiers stored in a user's browser to acknowledge them throughout websites. Apple can obstacle the gathering of identifying data before it reaches the server.

Privacy-focused browser business Brave, for example, already blocks scripts that are known to collect and document data used for server-side identification, stated Pete Snyder, the company's chief researcher.

Katsur of the IAB Tech Lab stated the toggle to server-side isn't an attempt to trick the browser.

"This isn't concerning circumventing person privacy preferences; this isn't concerning circumventing regulations; it's concerning moving the promotion stack to a publisher-controlled server-side resolution that complies alongside lawful regulations," Katsur said.

He added that through the Trusted Server, publishers can additionally band out unwanted third-party tracking identifiers from ads.

Katsur acknowledged Apple was apt to clamp downward on server-side character resolution eventually, but that the tech elephantine risks breaking essential web functionality if it goes too far.

The person opt-out option

Some server-side matching may be unattainable for Apple to halt through browser innovation alone. If person provides their residence location to an e-commerce location for shipment of their purchase, Apple's Safari can't forestall the retailer from knowing it. The retailer could afterward possibly use that data to equivalent the client against another databases.

Snyder stated it's why Brave supports person opt-out mechanisms akin the Global Privacy Control signal, a browser environment that tells a website a person doesn't desire their data sold to or shared alongside third parties for targeted advertising, a penchant companies must regard anywhere the law requires it. Starting January 1 next year, the province of California volition necessitate browsers to provision an easy-to-find environment that lets users opt out of having their individual data sold or shared.

"Protecting users against this benevolent of tracking requires 'privacy in depth,' or using a broad range of privacy protections, by default and automatically, to minimize how frequently users portion identifiers, and to, whenever possible, obstacle sites trying to collect those identifiers," Brave's Snyder said.

Moving character resolution to servers may temporarily put the method out of Safari's current reach, but not necessarily out of Apple's sights.

"This is basically a cat-and-mouse game, but the cat in this case is a trillion-dollar business controlling among the most precious person data provision chains in the world," Decrypt Ads' Edwards said.

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• Lauren Feiner

Since 19 October 2026, Apple has been blocking the certificates of the compromised eMudhra intermediate Certification Authorities (CAs) that matter TLS certificates, and is making additional updates to this block.

• If you don't use Terminal as part of your workflow, you don't need to do anything. Your Apple devices now automatically obstacle these certificates in Safari, Mail, and apps that use Apple's networking and safety frameworks.

• If you use Terminal as part of your workflow (such as scheme administrators or developers), you power use command-line tools that can motionless obtain these certificates. Some tools included alongside macOS or the Xcode Command Line Tools — akin curl and git — inspect certificates against /etc/ssl/cert.pem and can motionless obtain these certificates until a forthcoming application update. To halt those tools from accepting them sooner, you can eliminate base CA certificates from the file.

The personal keys of eight intermediate CAs operated by eMudhra were compromised. Two of these CAs matter code signing certificates, which Apple's frameworks don't trust. The another six matter TLS certificates. Someone alongside keys from these six CAs could create certificates that appear valid for any website. eMudhra and Sectigo have revoked the affected certificates.

Each of the 6 TLS intermediate CAs has two certificates, for 12 in total:

• A certificate issued by emSign Root TLS CA - G3, which chains to emSign ECC Root CA - G3

• A certificate cross-signed by Sectigo, which chains to AAA Certificate Services

View a catalog of these 12 certificates

On 19 October 2026, Apple began blocking these 12 certificates on Apple devices. Updates to certificate configuration data are sent to devices automatically and as needed, so you don't need to instal a application update to get this change. Apple is making additional updates to this block, which volition additionally be delivered automatically. On 23 October 2026, Apple additionally began blocking the emSign ECC Root CA - G3.

Apple is making additional changes to obstacle these certificates in another places on Mac anywhere application checks certificates, specified as the command-line tools included alongside macOS or the Xcode Command Line Tools that use /etc/ssl/cert.pem. These changes volition be accessible in a forthcoming application update, and you won't need to edit any records to get them.

Most users don't need to edit /etc/ssl/cert.pem. Safari, Mail, and apps that use Apple's networking and safety frameworks don't use this file, and your Apple devices obstacle these certificates in them automatically.

On Mac, several command-line tools included alongside macOS or the Xcode Command Line Tools (including curl, git, python3, ruby, perl, and openssl) inspect certificates against /etc/ssl/cert.pem. For certificates that sequence to a base CA certificate in this file, these tools don't inspect Apple's obstacle or whether the certificate has been revoked. This document volition be updated in a forthcoming macOS update. If you use these tools and don't desire to delay for the update, you can eliminate base CA certificates from the file.

Some apps and tools contain their own catalog of base CA certificates and don't use Apple's obstacle or /etc/ssl/cert.pem. For those apps or tools, contact the developer.

Rather than delay for the upcoming application update, administrators can choose to eliminate the base CA certificates to which the blocked certificates sequence from /etc/ssl/cert.pem.

• These steps power all tool that uses /etc/ssl/cert.pem. Afterward, tools that use lone this document power not be capable to verify several websites whose certificates sequence to these base CA certificates through intermediate CAs that weren't affected.

• A macOS application update can substitute /etc/ssl/cert.pem alongside Apple's version. Until you instal the application update that includes Apple's changes, run the command in stage 4 following all application update. If it lists a base CA certificate that you removed, the update replaced the file. Delete the old backup using sudo rm /etc/ssl/cert.pem.orig, afterward reiterate these steps. After you instal the update that includes Apple's changes, you don't need to reiterate these steps for the command-line tools included alongside macOS or the Xcode Command Line Tools.

• You need an director account, or you can deploy the commands alongside your equipment administration solution. Copy all command exactly as written. Learn what to do if you get an vigilant concerning imaginable malware whenever pasting the command into Terminal.

To eliminate base CA certificates from /etc/ssl/cert.pem:

1. Back up the file. If a backup already exists, this command keeps it:

   • [ -e /etc/ssl/cert.pem.orig ] || sudo cp -p /etc/ssl/cert.pem /etc/ssl/cert.pem.orig

2. Remove emSign ECC Root CA - G3. This command makes a copy of the document without emSign ECC Root CA - G3, checks that the copy isn't empty, and replaces the original. It shows nothing whenever it succeeds:

   • t=$(mktemp) && awk -v s='=== /C=IN/OU=emSign PKI/O=eMudhra Technologies Limited/CN=emSign ECC Root CA - G3' '/^(===|###) /{skip=0} $0==s{skip=1} !skip' /etc/ssl/cert.pem > "$t" && [ -s "$t" ] && sudo instal -m 0644 -o base -g rotor "$t" /etc/ssl/cert.pem; rm -f "$t"

3. Optional: Removing emSign ECC Root CA - G3 doesn't obstacle the six certificates that Sectigo cross-signed, since these tools can motionless verify them through AAA Certificate Services. To halt these tools from accepting those six certificates through the document until you instal Apple's application update, you can additionally eliminate AAA Certificate Services. This command plant the identical way as the one in stage 2:

   • t=$(mktemp) && awk -v s='=== /C=GB/ST=Greater Manchester/L=Salford/O=Comodo CA Limited/CN=AAA Certificate Services' '/^(===|###) /{skip=0} $0==s{skip=1} !skip' /etc/ssl/cert.pem > "$t" && [ -s "$t" ] && sudo instal -m 0644 -o base -g rotor "$t" /etc/ssl/cert.pem; rm -f "$t"

4. Check the result. This command lists either base CA certificate if it's motionless in the file. If you removed both, it shows nothing. If the command shows an error, reconstruct the backup from stage 1.

   • openssl crl2pkcs7 -nocrl -certfile /etc/ssl/cert.pem | openssl pkcs7 -print_certs -noout | grep -E 'emSign ECC Root CA - G3|AAA Certificate Services'.

Published Date: October 23, 2026

Google takes aim at a new origin of SEO spam, indication that platforms, tools, and services may visage consequences for satisfied published by their users. It’s additionally a alert to SEOs and website owners who leverage these kinds of sites for links and AI hunt influence.

The three changes are:

1. Adds sharing platforms as a category of location that can be penalized for UGC spam.
2. Provides steps that platforms can obtain to forestall UGC Spam
3. Advises on how to rotate into conscious of harmful activities and manual actions

All three advisories are particular to platforms which method that Google may obtain actions against these kinds of sites. SEOs who are promoting sites alongside these kinds of sites should rotate into conscious of these policies and the phase owners should additionally be conscious of these new guidelines.

Change 1: Spam Advisory Addresses Sharing Services

The archetypal alter is the supplement of a few words that add these sharing platforms as the kinds of sites that the guidelines use to.

These are the new words added to the page:

• “…and tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content, or web apps…”
• “pages or”

This is the complete context, alongside the newly added words in italics:

“Spammers frequently obtain advantage of open comment forms and another person generated satisfied inputs and create spammy satisfied on an unsuspecting casualty site. Hosting platforms and tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content, or web apps may be likewise open to abuse; spammers may create a ample figure of pages or sites that breach our spam policies and add small or no value to the web.”

Takeaway for SEOs and Platform Owners

Google may be preparedness to mark tool and app platforms that allow users to create content. SEOs should add this to their location audits to inspect if clients are using these kinds of sites in manipulative ways. Platform owners should obtain notice and create necessary changes as outlined in the next sections.

Google may in the near forthcoming expert downward on tool and app platforms that allow users to create satisfied on the web pages of those platforms.

Change 2: Defending Against UGC Spam

The second alter to the spam assistance leaf explains what phase owners should do in command to forestall harmful behavior on their platforms that could outcome in a manual act by Google (removal from the hunt results).

Google added an entirely new division that is targeted at platforms or websites that authorize person generated content. The new guidelines outline steps the platforms should obtain to evade receiving a manual action.

These steps are particular to platforms that allow users to create web pages. This additionally includes services that are meant for satisfied sharing or collaboration.

Typical platforms:

• Services
• Tools
• Sites
• Apps

The new division advises users of these kinds of sites and platforms to use the no-index directive on pages that are not meant to be indexed by hunt engines. For example, use a no-index regulation in either the robots.txt or alongside a meta no-index tag if the function of a assistance is to create shareable pages or tools but are not meant to be indexed.

The new guidelines advise:

“Only indicator satisfied meant for Search
If your assistance lets users create shareable pages, generated outputs, or interactive tools, regard whether that satisfied is meant to be established through hunt engines or lone accessed immediately by group alongside a link.

When pages are created for straightforward sharing, collaboration, or usefulness fairly than community hunt discovery, use the noindex regulation (using a robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag HTTP reply header) or obstacle crawling in robots.txt by default.”

Change 3: Preparation For Manual Action

The third and final alter to Google’s spam leaf is an clarification of how to track and acknowledge the signs that users are causing possibly negative changes to a a website and how to cognize whenever a location has reached a item anywhere Google has taken act against it.

This is the new division added to the website:

“Verify your location or subdomain in Search Console so you obtain email alerts if Google issues a manual act against your location or detects safety issues. Also inspect the Page Indexing study and Search achievement study regularly for unexpected spikes in indexed pages, impressions, or queries that don’t equivalent your platform’s purpose.

Track platform-level innovation and indexing metrics, and set up alerts for anomalies specified as spikes in newly published community pages or a small figure of users generating a ample portion of indexable URLs.”

Takeaways

• Google Expands Its UGC Spam Guidelines
  Google’s updated policies now explicitly location platforms that allow users to publish shared pages, AI-generated content, and web apps, extending the direction beyond traditional user-generated content.
• Platforms Face Greater Responsibility For User-Generated Spam
  Google’s changes put phase owners on notice that allowing users to publish spam can disclose the complete phase to hunt penalties.
• Google Draws A Distinction Between Shareable Content And Indexable Content
  Not everything users create is intended for hunt engines. Google advises platforms to forestall indexing of satisfied intended chiefly for sharing, collaboration, or utility.
• Spam Prevention Becomes A Platform-Level Responsibility
  Google’s updated direction emphasizes proactive prevention, monitoring, and first finding of abusive publishing action fairly than waiting for a manual action.
• Implications For SEO Audits
  SEOs should regard whether clients use third-party publishing platforms in ways that breach Google’s spam policies and whether the platforms themselves are susceptible to abuse.
• Potential For Expanded Enforcement
  The changes propose Google may be paying nearer notice to spam originating from platforms that allow users to publish generated content, although the updated direction does not established that a crackdown is imminent.

Google updated its user-generated spam guidelines to explicitly location platforms that allow users to publish shared pages, generated content, and web apps, putting phase owners on notice that they may visage hunt penalties for spam published by their users. The changes propose Google is taking a nearer appearance at how these platforms are being abused and may be preparing for greater enforcement.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/ra2 studio