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Google has found another way to turn your eyeballs into money: by turning paused YouTube videos into a new real estate for ads. A YouTube communications manager told The Verge theyve seen strong advertiser and strong reviewer responses since they rolled out Pause ads to all advertisers. YouTube first started looking at using ads on pause screens in 2023 with select advertisers. Googles chief business officer Phillip Schindler announced last April that advertisers loved the new ad concept. YouTubes viewers arent as enthusiastic about the idea. Reddit users posted screenshots of the new pause screen ads and to say they arent happy with the ads is the understatement of the year. The new ads arent just showing up on the website. Ads also pop up when you pause videos on the YouTube mobile app, according to others on the site. Pause screen ads are not a new concept. Streaming services like AT&Ts DirecTV and Hulu show ads when the screen is paused if you have one of the lower tier subscription plans. Some Amazon products like the Fire tablets also show ads on the lock screen and Amazon announced last May that it plans to expand its ad space offerings for living-room devices, according to Amazons official blog.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/youtube-is-now-showing-ads-when-you-pause-videos-193622495.html?src=rss
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Autonomous vehicle outfit Cruise is slowly returning to operation in California following an incident in which a pedestrian was struck and dragged by a robotaxi for approximately 20 feet in October 2023. The company posted on X that it is reintroducing human-operated mapping vehicles to the streets in Mountain View and Sunnyvale. Its next stated goal is "to progress to supervised testing with up to 5 AVs later this fall." The past year has not been a pretty picture for Cruise, which was acquired by GM in 2016. On October 2 last year, a pedestrian in San Francisco was hit by a human driver who fled the scene, but the impact put her in the path of a Cruise driverless taxi that dragged her 20 feet and ultimately stopped on top of her leg. After the incident, Cruise was stripped of its license to operate autonomous vehicles in California. The company stopped all operations of both its driverless cars and its manned robotaxi service in order to engage in a comprehensive safety review. CEO Kyle Vogt resigned in November, followed by the exit of co-founder and chief product officer Daniel Kan. GM announced plans to slash Cruise's funding and to restructure leadership based on external safety reviews. Nine more members of Cruise leadership were dismissed in December, and nearly a quarter of the company's workforce was also cut that month. The final blow was an investigation by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2024, questioning whether the company failed to disclose additional details about the accident during reviews with regulators. Since then, however, Cruise has gradually been bouncing back. Vehicles with drivers returned to Arizona in April and to Houston in June. The re-emergence in Texas was paired with an announcement that GM would invest $850 million into Cruise in support of its operational costs. Now it's rejoined the California market, if in an extremely attenuated capacity. These new excursions have all been preliminary and none of the driverless cars have returned to the streets yet. But Cruise still has a long road ahead to prove its safety credentials and win back public trust.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/cruise-resumes-operations-in-california-thankfully-with-human-drivers-191522681.html?src=rss
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The long-awaited PC port of God of War: Ragnarok is out. This comes nearly two years after the game was released for PS4 and PS5 to positive reviews. This is a pretty big deal on its own, but the port has a feature that not even the original console release had. Players can finally tell Kratos son Atreus to shut the heck up, as first reported by Kotaku. In the original release, Atreus was like Ocarina of Times Navi on Adderall. He was, in a word, talkative. Even worse? He tended to ruin puzzle solutions by offering up hints unprompted. Many players complained that this happened even when they werent attempting a puzzle. In any event, the settings tab includes an option to reduce puzzle hints. This applies to the babbling Atreus, but also other companions throughout the game. Im no game designer, but adding a mute button to some characters doesnt seem like a difficult fix. In other words, bring this to the console versions Sony. Digital children should be seen and not heard. The PC port also brings some other features to the table. There are now audio descriptions for the games cinematics and a set of streamer gifs to use on Twitch or YouTube. Of course, the port integrates with both NVIDIA and AMDs upscaling tools, with support for ultrawide monitors. Lets hear it for playing games as nature intended, with a ridiculous aspect ratio of 32:9. The port needs a massive amount of hard drive space, anywhere from 175GB to 190GB, so start the install early in the morning for an afternoon play session. Its available now via Steam and the Epic Games Store. As a bit of bad news, the PC specs required to play this game are on the beefy side, so performance on the Steam Deck will likely be underwhelming. Redditors are saying that it runs, but is only playable in 30FPS on the lowest settings.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/god-of-war-ragnaroks-pc-port-is-out-and-it-fixes-one-of-the-games-most-annoying-quirks-185925455.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
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