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Increases in cruises and streaming divisions help group mitigate impact of falling visitors to US theme parksView the full article

Nearly every solopreneur starts their business saying “yes” to everything. After all, you’re trying to get clients and build a business. Revenue is unpredictable, and your brain treats every opportunity like it might be the last. But when you work for yourself, every “yes” comes at a cost. Agreeing to one project means declining another — or giving up time you can’t get back. Defaulting to “yes” is how solopreneurs end up overcommitted, underpaid, and working on projects that don’t move their business forward. Saying no is a business skill and, like any skill, it gets sharper with practice. Saying no to bad-fit clients Not every client who reaches out is a good fit (you’ll quickly realize). Some will cost too much in their demands on your time and energy. The frustration isn’t worth the revenue they bring in. In the beginning, the red flags might be hard to spot. But eventually, you’ll learn that a client with a vague scope will morph into a project you can’t control. Or a project outside your core expertise will take twice as long. Or something about the initial conversation makes you feel like your working style won’t match the client’s. Learning to trust your gut at the earliest stage — and to walk away before signing a contract — is one of the most protective decisions you can make for your business. If you’re early in your solo career, you might not feel like you can afford to say no yet. That’s completely understandable. But you can start building the muscle now, even if it means being more selective about which red flags you’re willing to tolerate. Over time, client selection becomes more of a core business practice. Saying no to protect your time Then there are the smaller yeses — the ones that don’t look like much individually — compound fast. Clients ask for a “quick call” that runs 45 minutes. You agree to an unpaid collaboration for “exposure” that turns into a multi-week commitment. Or you absorb scope creep because it’s easier than pushing back. Your time is what you’re trading. Every hour spent on low-value obligations is time not spent on billable work or building something for your business (or time spent on life outside of work). A simple filter can help: Does this serve my priorities right now? What am I giving up to do it? If you can’t answer these questions clearly, that’s a sign to decline. Saying no to shiny objects Sometimes, the hardest “no” for many solopreneurs isn’t to a client or a calendar invite… it’s to their own ideas. They think of a new offer for clients or a new product they can create and immediately start building. My personal and near-constant brush with “shiny object syndrome” is trying new apps and tools. I’m an incessant tinkerer. But these cost time and are a distraction from other business priorities if I don’t rein myself in. The temptation is real, especially if your core work starts to feel routine or mundane. However, chasing every new idea dilutes your focus and splits your energy across too many things. Before committing to something new, you might ask yourself: will this move my business forward, or is it merely a distraction? Saying no creates space Saying no feels uncomfortable for nearly every solopreneur at some point. Every declined opportunity felt like a missed one. But with practice, you’ll start seeing things differently, especially if you can reclaim your time or focus on projects that excite you. Saying no is about trusting that better-aligned opportunities will come — and that you’ll have the bandwidth to take them on when they do. View the full article

Presenter cites ‘ideological realignment’ of rival CBS after it was acquired by billionaire with close ties to The PresidentView the full article

AI search engines surface the same brands regardless of which sources they cite. PR and SEO professionals need to stop pretending those are different jobs. The post AI Just Handed PR Its Best Opportunity In SEO & Most Teams Are Missing It appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Google Pixel Fold launched in 2023 as Google’s first foldable, and while newer phones have come out since then, this current price changes how you might look at it. It is listed at $449.99 for the 256GB model, which is significantly lower than its earlier pricing and still below what you will find on places like Amazon. The deal is expected to run for the next ten days or until stock runs out. You also get free shipping if you are a Prime member (others pay $6), although it is worth noting that Woot does not ship to Alaska, Hawaii, PO boxes, or military addresses. Google Pixel Fold $449.99 at Woot $1,799.00 Save $1,349.01 Get Deal Get Deal $449.99 at Woot $1,799.00 Save $1,349.01 When it is closed, it works like a standard Pixel with a familiar Android interface and a smaller outer display. Open it up, and you get a 7.6-inch inner screen that gives you more room to work with—reading articles, watching videos, or browsing multiple tabs feels less cramped. Performance-wise, it runs on Google’s Tensor G2 chip with Android 13, so performance is steady for everyday use, even if it is not as fast as the latest flagships. It is also unlocked for 5G, so you can drop in a SIM from most major carriers and switch networks without much effort. That flexibility makes it easier to justify if you travel often or want a backup device ready with a different network. Pixel phones have a reputation for great cameras, and that carries over here, too—you get a 48MP main sensor with additional lenses, and the image processing is consistent with other Pixel phones, which means photos tend to come out sharp with good color even in low light. You can also prop the phone halfway open to take hands-free shots or use the rear cameras for selfies, which is something slab phones cannot do as easily. As for its battery life, it lasts around eight hours (according to this PCMag review), which is enough for a full day of moderate use but not much more. This is not a budget phone in design or intent, but at this price, it works well as a secondary phone, a travel device, or something you use when you want a bigger screen without carrying a tablet. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 3 Noise Cancelling Heart Rate Wireless Earbuds — $199.99 (List Price $249.00) Apple Watch Series 11 [GPS 46mm] Smartwatch with Jet Black Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band - M/L. Sleep Score, Fitness Tracker, Health Monitoring, Always-On Display, Water Resistant — $329.00 (List Price $429.00) Fitbit Versa 4 Fitness Smartwatch (Black) — $149.95 (List Price $199.95) Apple iPad 11" A16 128GB Wi-Fi Tablet (Silver, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Anker 20,000mAh Portable Power Bank With Built-in USB-C Cable — $49.99 (List Price $69.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

The AI data center building boom isn’t fueling just water shortage concerns and GPU-maker Nvidia’s coffers. It is now also firmly making memory chip makers and their investors significantly richer. Yesterday, two of the largest memory makers, Micron Technology and Sandisk, saw their stock prices soar more than 11% in a single trading session. And those gains are small potatoes compared to their five-day increases. But why is this happening? Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Yesterday, all four of the Nasdaq’s major memory chip makers saw their stock prices jump. Those four memory makers include: Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC) Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX) While there is some overlap, the first two on that list, Micron and Sandisk, focus on short-term memory chips (known as RAM), while Western Digital and Seagate specialize in long-term memory, known as SSDs. It’s the short-term memory chip makers, Micron and Sandisk, that saw their stock prices surge the most yesterday—up more than 11%. And both are currently up more than another 5% as of the time of this writing in premarket trading this morning. Western Digital and Seagate rose 5.1% and 4.3% yesterday, respectively, and are up just under 3% today. And looking back slightly longer, over the past five trading sessions, the gains that those memory chip makers have seen are even more stark. As of yesterday’s market close, during the past five trading sessions, Sandisk is up 40%, Micron is up nearly 27%, Seagate is up 33%, and Western Digital is up 19%. That is an astounding jump over such a short time. But the question is, why have these stocks risen so much now? Memory chips become the AI data center bottleneck When the AI boom kicked off in 2023, the most critical component in data center buildouts that companies threw themselves into was the GPU. These graphics processing units were critical components of the servers on which artificial intelligence’s large language models (LLMs) ran. The demand for GPUs made Nvidia the most valuable public company ever. While there is still massive demand for GPUs, in 2025 and early 2026, the AI data center bottleneck shifted from GPUs to memory chips. While GPUs process the AI tasks, memory chips are needed to store the outputs. Without them, AI is useless. The resulting memory chip shortage that has engulfed the industry has sent the share prices of memory chip companies soaring as demand for their products has gone through the roof. But in the past week or so, specifically, there have been several announcements that have given memory chip makers’ stock prices—particularly Micron and Sandisk—a major boost. The first was Sandisk’s Q3 2026 earnings results, which the company announced on April 30. Those results revealed that quarterly revenue surged 97% to $5.95 billion. And the company is expecting Q4 revenue to reach between $7.75 billion to $8.25 billion. Its surge in profits was even better: up 286%. These results led several investment firms to raise their price targets for the company—notably Bernstein, which increased its SNDK outlook from $1,250 to $1,700 per share (per TipRanks). Investors were also buoyed by Micron’s announcement yesterday that it had begun shipping the “world’s highest capacity commercially available SSD,” the Micron 6600 ION SSD, with a capacity of 245TB. This SDD is designed to provide the storage and speed that servers in AI data centers need, while also being up to 84 times more energy efficient than traditional storage methods. AI companies are acutely aware of the massive energy consumption that data centers need, leading investors to believe that Micron’s latest SSD will likely have widespread appeal in the industry. These recent bits of news seem to have spurred investors to pour money into the stocks of these companies over the past several days. The memory shortage rally While the memory shortage is frustrating for AI hyperscalers and costly for any consumer planning to buy a laptop or smartphone this year, it has been great for the stock prices of the four most prominent memory companies on the Nasdaq. As of yesterday’s market close, Sandisk’s stock price reached $1,406, up over 492% year to date. Micron stock reached $640, up 124% YTD. Western Digital reached $465, up 179% YTD. And Seagate reached $771, up almost 180% YTD. But looking back even father reveals just how good the AI boom and resulting memory chip shortages have been for the four companies. Over the past 12 months, these are the stock price gains: Sandisk: up 3,963% Western Digital: up 933% Seagate: up 723% Micron: up 696% Given that memory chip demand shows no signs of slowing, many investors clearly believe that the stock prices of these companies can continue to benefit for quite some time. View the full article

The Iran war is the latest mess to spring from the idea that ‘appeasement’ is always wrong View the full article

Over the past few months, a growing number of users have reported being locked out of their Facebook accounts — often suddenly, and sometimes permanently. What used to feel like a rare inconvenience has become a widespread frustration, affecting everyday users, creators, and business owners alike. So what’s actually driving the increase? It’s a combination of AI moderation, security shifts, platform economics, and evolving user behavior. Here’s what’s really going on behind the scenes. The rise of AI moderation — and its tradeoffs At the center of the issue is Facebook’s parent company, Meta, which now relies heavily on artificial intelligence to monitor activity across billions of accounts. These systems are designed to: Detect harmful content. Prevent scams and abuse. Enforce community standards at scale. But there’s a tradeoff. AI systems don’t understand nuance the way humans do. As a result, they can: Flag normal behavior as suspicious. Misinterpret context (especially in messages or posts). Trigger account restrictions based on patterns rather than intent. This has led to a rise in false positives, where legitimate users are locked out without clear justification. Reports of wrongful account disabling are widespread, often driven by AI-only moderation with little to no meaningful human review. In some cases, appeals are resolved almost instantly — suggesting minimal human intervention despite stated policies. Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with Account takeovers are increasing Cybercrime has surged in recent years, prompting social platforms to tighten security measures. Facebook now uses more aggressive signals to detect: Logins from new locations or devices. Rapid changes to account details. Unusual messaging or posting behavior. While these measures help stop bad actors, they also create unintended consequences: Traveling, using a VPN, or switching devices can trigger lockouts. Legitimate users can get caught in the same net as bad actors. The system is designed to act quickly — but sometimes, that speed comes at the cost of accuracy. Once a hacker gains access, they often change the email and password associated with the account, triggering security flags and locking the original owner out completely. From Facebook’s perspective, the account is now compromised — which it is — but recovery systems don’t always prioritize quickly restoring access to the rightful owner. The role of new features and identity verification Recent years have introduced additional layers of security, including: Two-factor authentication requirements. Identity verification checks. Paid support options tied to account verification. While these features improve security, they also introduce friction: Add friction to account recovery. Create barriers for users who can’t easily verify their identity. Lead to lockouts if verification fails. In some cases, users report being asked to submit identification multiple times without resolution, further compounding frustration. The business incentive behind platform changes Meta’s primary reason for heavily investing in AI moderation, automated enforcement and Meta’s heavy investment in AI moderation, automated enforcement, and self-service recovery tools is driven by a simple reality: it’s more cost-effective. Automation offers instant scalability, lower operational costs, and efficient handling of “standard” cases. However, this efficiency comes at a cost. Unless you are an agency or a larger entity operating within Business Manager, access to meaningful support is often limited — leaving many users stuck without a clear escalation path. Meta’s dominant position in social media advertising, combined with strong financial performance and significant political influence, creates relatively little external pressure to overhaul its support systems. Meanwhile, search results related to account recovery are often dominated by Meta’s own resources, funneling users back into the same limited support ecosystem — even when alternative solutions may exist. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. Platform scale is working against users There’s a fundamental reality at play: Facebook operates at an enormous scale. With billions of users, even a small error rate can impact millions of people. As a result, Meta’s support systems cannot realistically provide personalized assistance to everyone. Automation becomes the default — even when it’s imperfect. Internal fragmentation further complicates the issue. Facebook isn’t a single system — it’s an ecosystem that includes: Personal profiles. Pages. Ad accounts. Business Manager. Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. Each of these systems operates with its own rules, infrastructure, and support pathways. When issues span multiple systems — which is often the case — there’s no single team that fully “owns” the problem. This makes resolution slower, more complex, and more difficult to navigate. What feels like a deeply personal issue is often the result of a system optimized for global efficiency, not individual nuance. Facebook is designed to minimize large-scale risk — and that priority can conflict directly with fast, human-centered support. Lack of human support and regaining access One of the most consistent complaints isn’t just the lockouts — it’s what happens after. Users frequently report: Limited access to human support. Automated responses that don’t resolve the issue. Confusing or broken recovery workflows. While Meta has introduced new support tools, much of the process remains automated. If your issue doesn’t fit neatly into predefined categories, resolution becomes significantly more difficult. That’s largely because Facebook’s support system is built around rigid, predefined pathways — like “my account was hacked,” “I can’t log in,” or “my ad was rejected.” In reality, most issues don’t fall cleanly into one of these buckets. They’re often layered: part hack, part lockout, or tied to both personal accounts and Business Manager access, sometimes compounded by unclear or incorrect policy flags. When a case doesn’t align with a single category, the system struggles to route it properly. Instead of moving toward resolution, users are often pushed through repetitive workflows — submitting forms that don’t fully apply — leaving them stuck in frustrating loops with no clear path forward. William Jennings, sole proprietor of WKJ Consulting, a social account recovery consultancy, has seen firsthand how these gaps have fueled an underground recovery market. In some cases, fraudulent services exploit locked-out users by demanding payment through unconventional methods like game credits — an ecosystem that exists largely because legitimate, accessible recovery channels are limited. Accounts linked through Meta’s Account Center (Facebook and Instagram) tend to have a smoother recovery path. In some cases, users can subscribe to Meta Verified on a linked Instagram account to unlock chat support and file an admin dispute claim. Jennings notes: “Meta Verified acts like paid protection — roughly 90% effective at preventing wrongful restrictions or disabling, though it offers no guarantee if rules are actually broken.” A structured recovery approach often includes: Subscribing to Meta Verified for access to chat support. Filing an admin dispute claim with proper documentation (error screenshots, emails, account URL, and ID verification). Escalating to legal support in more severe cases. It’s important to note that hacked accounts must go through dedicated recovery flows (such as facebook.com/hacked or instagram.com/hacked), and prevention is significantly more effective than recovery. After regaining access, essential protective steps include enabling two-factor authentication, saving recovery codes, and maintaining enhanced security measures. See the complete picture of your search visibility. Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform. Start Free Trial Get started with Enforcement has scaled — recovery hasn’t Facebook lockouts are a direct byproduct of the platform’s evolution. As Meta continues to scale automation and prioritize efficiency, users are increasingly interacting with systems designed for speed, safety, and risk mitigation. Most of the time, these systems work quietly in the background. But when they fail, they can feel abrupt, opaque, and incredibly difficult to navigate. Access to real support is often tied to high ad spend, established business accounts, and paid verification products. This creates an uneven support landscape where large advertisers receive faster assistance, while individuals and small businesses are left with limited options. For a platform operating at global scale, this is largely by design. But for users caught in the system, the experience can feel deeply frustrating. View the full article

WordPress is losing market share, with over 10% of sites abandoned. Astro is downloaded 2.5 million times a week. The post WordPress Loses Marketshare. Is Astro Eroding Their User Base? appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Improve how products are surfaced and recommended by applying SEO principles directly to product feed optimization. The post How To Design URL Structures For AI Retrieval, Not Just Rankings appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Google is showing the full author name and the source, like LinkedIn - and name or Medium - and name, for the citations. It makes sense for these social platforms to show the name, because anyone can write anything on these platforms, so knowing the name makes it more useful.View the full article

Google is testing an update to the citations, anchor links, and favicons within the AI Mode results. This new experience seems to make the citations more clickable because the embedded links have larger favicons and seem to appear more often, near the text it is referencing.View the full article

In February, Google announced that UCP, Universal Commerce Protocol, powered checkout is available in AI Mode. Well, now you can use UCP powered checkout in the main search results for some retailers like Wayfair.View the full article

Google is testing letting searchers select the Gemini 3 model they want to use directly in the Google Search bar. The options can include, Pro, Fast or Auto, from what I can see. View the full article

Small businesses face a silent but looming danger. The password credentials to a growing number of apps vital to operations remain vulnerable. And U.S. businesses seem more at risk than their counterparts in other markets even though they spend more on security. A recent survey conducted by Tigon Advisory Corp uses 3,322 responses worldwide from nine regions and six industries to better understand the level of threat. Despite awareness of the problem however, a stunning number of companies have done little or nothing to address it. “Workforce password security sits at a critical inflection point,” the report explains. “Organizations understand the risk in theory but have not converted that understanding into deployed security infrastructure.” Fortunately, Zoho Corp., who commissioned the survey, offers a few solutions to consider when trying to avert the issue. Contact the Zoho team today or read on for more about the threats your business faces. U.S. Small Businesses Face Especially High Threat You may operate a car rental business in Phoenix, Arizona or a lawn and garden business in Lynchburg, Virginia. Though not specifically technology companies, either of these businesses may use software from digital booking apps to invoicing and client CRMs that make them vulnerable. In fact, in either case, these businesses stand a better chance of being a victim of a cyber attack simply because they are based in the United States. You read that right! According to the Tigon survey, 34% of U.S. businesses reported being victims of a cybercrime last year compared to just 32% worldwide. Application Sprawl Heightens Danger of Cyberattacks A big reason for this vulnerability comes down to something called application sprawl. You may run a chain of Cuban coffee shops in and around Miami, Florida. Or perhaps you founded a bike messenger service in New Orleans, Louisiana. In either case, growing reliance on everything from payment portals to scheduling apps and digital task management software also elevates risk. “As organizations grow more dependent on digital applications with most employees now accessing more than 15 business apps daily, credentials have become the most consistently exploited vulnerability in modern organizations,” the report adds. The Disappearance of Single Logins Leads to More Security Challenges Maybe you operate a vacation rental business in the Adirondacks in New York State. Or perhaps you manage a biotech company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. In either case, the use of more and more applications and more hybrid or even remote work, means greater security challenges. According to the survey, 63% of U.S. respondents say their employees use 15 or more apps daily, four points above the 59% global average. These statistics again demonstrate how those operating a business in the U.S. face a greater threat than those doing so in other global markets. Add to this the fact that only 40% of workers on average now work on site at businesses surveyed worldwide. Meanwhile, 35% of employees work hybrid while 25% now work fully remote. “The modern workforce no longer operates from a single login,” the survey concludes. “Employees access a sprawling constellation of business applications. Each application represents a credential that must be created, secured, and governed, creating an attack surface that most organizations cannot fully see.” Security Stacks Lack Future Readiness Most businesses surveyed admit they are not ready for the security risks of the future. Sure, 75% of U.S. businesses plan to increase their security budgets over the next five years. Only 72% of respondents worldwide plan to do so. But even this may not be sufficient. Afterall, 80% of responding organizations worldwide say their software architecture lacks the capabilities to stand up to tomorrow’s threats – even with added budgets. Risks Increase For Businesses With Smaller Teams Small businesses in particular will face risks related to password credential security both now and in the coming years. More than 50% of businesses with 250 employees or fewer don’t even have a dedicated security team, the survey says. This forces them to rely upon informal security policies. Imagine depending on your already busy employees to implement regular password updates, for example. But making the changes necessary to protect your businesses may not be optional. Your company’s very survival may depend upon it. Survey Highlights How U.S, Companies Face Greater Risk Despite Spending And again, businesses around the world from China to the Middle East face many of the same challenges when it comes to password credential security. But for U.S. businesses, the problem seems worse despite the fact that these companies budget consistently higher for security. The thesis these numbers suggest seems obvious. Budget matters less when protecting your business from cyberattacks than software architecture. Better Software Architecture Offers Greater Security “The organizations that will navigate the next five years most effectively are those investing in architectural simplicity, building governance models that scale with identity growth, and adopting AI-enabled orchestration to reduce friction,” says Helen Yu, founder and CEO of Tigon Advisory Corp. Fortunately for all businesses but especially those SMBs, you can take steps to future proof your security without big expenditures. “Budget is not the primary constraint on security maturity; architecture, talent, and visibility infrastructure are. The data in this report is a call to sequence correctly: fix foundations before chasing advanced capabilities,” Yu adds. To learn more about how software architecture helps shield your small business from devastating cyberattacks, contact Zoho today. The Digital Landscape Contains Many Threats The digital landscape has become a minefield. You may run a tour guide service in Nantucket, Massachusetts, or a fintech company in Burlington, Vermont. The threats to your business remain the same. Here are some of the top ranked risks according to survey responders from businesses just like yours. Phishing Phishing or some other kind of social engineering ploy topped the list of threats with 71% of U.S. respondents. A classic version of this attack involves a deceptive email sent to one of your employees. Perhaps this email appears to originate from a customer or supplier. But once your employee clicks on an innocent looking link inside the email, you’re hooked like a flounder. The link allows the sender to steal sensitive information, distribute malware or gain unauthorized access to your system. Weak Passwords We’re all guilty of this one. Nonetheless, 63% of U.S. respondents listed this as a major threat in the survey. Say your employees need to log into 15 or more apps during the course of their day as we’ve determined many do. They need a different password for each. But instead of picking a hard to guess password with letters, numbers and other symbols, they choose the first 12 letters of the alphabet. Then to make matters worse, they use the same password for all 15 apps so guessing one gives a cyberattacker access to them all. Inside Threats Sure, you like to trust all your people. And you want to believe none of them would do anything to intentionally jeopardize your business. But an unscrupulous employee with access to your payment portal or online bank accounts or a subcontractor with access to sensitive client information could certainly spell trouble. It seems a threat from the inside keeps at least 57% or U.S. survey responders up at night. Credential Stuffing This attack further amplifies the danger of weak or reused passwords. Though even businesses with strong passwords for each individual app could find themselves vulnerable if these passwords aren’t routinely updated. The scenario goes something like this. An attacker buys a list of passwords from a data breach, then uses a bot to stuff these passwords into multiple apps until access is gained. If your employees have carelessly failed to update their passwords or have reused them for multiple apps, an attacker could quickly gain complete control of your business. According to the survey, 49% of U.S. respondents worry about this threat regularly. Third Party Access Finally, 41% of business respondents to the survey worldwide fret about unmanaged third party access. Think of this as the digital equivalent of giving contractors or other non-employees unsupervised 24-hour access to your business office or other facilities. Suppose you run a massive website with hundreds of freelancers including content creators, designers, SEO consultants and web developers. Giving them access to your site so that they can load content, change banners and logos, optimize pages and update code makes sense. Otherwise you need to do all this work yourself. But giving hundreds of contractors unlimited and unmanaged access to your website may lead to trouble. Unscrupulous contractors might insert unwanted content, steal digital assets, sabotage SEO to benefit other clients or maliciously destroy website functionality. Threats Ranked Globally AI Provides A Better Option for Password Credential Security Most respondents to the Tigon survey agree AI holds the key to better security. However, almost no businesses seem ready to implement it. AI provides a more robust protection against cyberattacks and delivers better password credential security. It does so in a variety of ways and offers an attractive option for small businesses who lack a dedicated security team. Here’s what the survey reveals about preferred AI security features amongst respondents world wide. Anomaly and Threat Detection A reported 68% of respondents indicated a preference for anomaly and threat detection. AI alerts your team of unauthorized access to sensitive files. Perhaps you manage a physician’s office and need a way to detect suspicious attempts to access patient records, for example. Or perhaps the credentials of one of your team based in the U.S. is suddenly used to attempt access to your system from somewhere in Eastern Europe or South Asia. AI uses machine learning to detect unusual activities that might constitute a threat to your business and stops them in their tracks. Automated Policy Enforcement Another 61% of survey respondents favored automated policy enforcement as a preferred AI security feature. You may recall one of the greatest challenges facing small businesses lacking a dedicated security team. Employees need to rely on their own informal security policies. This would include things like remembering to update passwords and trying not to use weak or reused passwords. With AI, much of this can be automated leaving employees to focus on more high level tasks without interruption. AI can even detect when a user attempts to update a password by using a breached credential and blocks their access immediately. Behavioral Analysis An additional 54% of survey respondents believe behavioral analysis might be most helpful in neutralizing threats to your password credential security. AI can go the extra mile to secure your company’s logins. Again, using machine learning it establishes behavioral baselines. Then it springs into action if it detects activities deviating too far from those baselines – even if a user has the correct password. Suspicious logins by an employee at 4 a.m. on Sunday when they generally work 10 to 6 weekdays might raise a red flag, for example. Risk Based Access Control Finally, 47% of respondents worldwide indicated a preference for risk based access control. This AI security feature assigns risk scores to unusual actions like attempts to login from a previously unknown device. The AI then requires additional authentication from the user assuring against unauthorized access. U.S. Businesses Show Widest Gap Between Awareness and Implementation Whether you own a bakery in Des Moines, Iowa, or a PR firm in Peoria, Illinois, implementing AI security would put you at the head of the pack. While 91% of U.S. business respondents understand the importance of AI to their security, just 9% are ready to integrate AI security into their operations. This 82% AI gap between awareness and integration is wider than for businesses in any other region in the survey. What’s more, many U.S. businesses are far from ready to implement AI security for logins, the survey says. With password security still being managed by shared spreadsheets and browser saves, U.S. businesses must be prepared for big changes before adopting AI password security. In Conclusion You may operate a pick and pack plant in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. Or you may manage a light manufacturing company in St. Paul, Minnesota. Even in these businesses where employees traditionally work onsite, hybrid and remote roles are emerging. These hybrid and remote workers may perform logistics planning, data entry or inventory management tasks using a variety of software and with multiple logins. As discussed earlier, this multiple login environment combined with application sprawl creates greater risk to password credential security. This makes your business ever more vulnerable to an invisible army of cyberattackers scattered across the internet and around the world. But don’t panic! Future proof your security stacks with solutions that safeguard your business today and tomorrow. Contact the Zoho Sales team today. Images via Zoho This article, "Zoho Survey Warns of Huge Password Security Threat" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Small businesses face a silent but looming danger. The password credentials to a growing number of apps vital to operations remain vulnerable. And U.S. businesses seem more at risk than their counterparts in other markets even though they spend more on security. A recent survey conducted by Tigon Advisory Corp uses 3,322 responses worldwide from nine regions and six industries to better understand the level of threat. Despite awareness of the problem however, a stunning number of companies have done little or nothing to address it. “Workforce password security sits at a critical inflection point,” the report explains. “Organizations understand the risk in theory but have not converted that understanding into deployed security infrastructure.” Fortunately, Zoho Corp., who commissioned the survey, offers a few solutions to consider when trying to avert the issue. Contact the Zoho team today or read on for more about the threats your business faces. U.S. Small Businesses Face Especially High Threat You may operate a car rental business in Phoenix, Arizona or a lawn and garden business in Lynchburg, Virginia. Though not specifically technology companies, either of these businesses may use software from digital booking apps to invoicing and client CRMs that make them vulnerable. In fact, in either case, these businesses stand a better chance of being a victim of a cyber attack simply because they are based in the United States. You read that right! According to the Tigon survey, 34% of U.S. businesses reported being victims of a cybercrime last year compared to just 32% worldwide. Application Sprawl Heightens Danger of Cyberattacks A big reason for this vulnerability comes down to something called application sprawl. You may run a chain of Cuban coffee shops in and around Miami, Florida. Or perhaps you founded a bike messenger service in New Orleans, Louisiana. In either case, growing reliance on everything from payment portals to scheduling apps and digital task management software also elevates risk. “As organizations grow more dependent on digital applications with most employees now accessing more than 15 business apps daily, credentials have become the most consistently exploited vulnerability in modern organizations,” the report adds. The Disappearance of Single Logins Leads to More Security Challenges Maybe you operate a vacation rental business in the Adirondacks in New York State. Or perhaps you manage a biotech company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. In either case, the use of more and more applications and more hybrid or even remote work, means greater security challenges. According to the survey, 63% of U.S. respondents say their employees use 15 or more apps daily, four points above the 59% global average. These statistics again demonstrate how those operating a business in the U.S. face a greater threat than those doing so in other global markets. Add to this the fact that only 40% of workers on average now work on site at businesses surveyed worldwide. Meanwhile, 35% of employees work hybrid while 25% now work fully remote. “The modern workforce no longer operates from a single login,” the survey concludes. “Employees access a sprawling constellation of business applications. Each application represents a credential that must be created, secured, and governed, creating an attack surface that most organizations cannot fully see.” Security Stacks Lack Future Readiness Most businesses surveyed admit they are not ready for the security risks of the future. Sure, 75% of U.S. businesses plan to increase their security budgets over the next five years. Only 72% of respondents worldwide plan to do so. But even this may not be sufficient. Afterall, 80% of responding organizations worldwide say their software architecture lacks the capabilities to stand up to tomorrow’s threats – even with added budgets. Risks Increase For Businesses With Smaller Teams Small businesses in particular will face risks related to password credential security both now and in the coming years. More than 50% of businesses with 250 employees or fewer don’t even have a dedicated security team, the survey says. This forces them to rely upon informal security policies. Imagine depending on your already busy employees to implement regular password updates, for example. But making the changes necessary to protect your businesses may not be optional. Your company’s very survival may depend upon it. Survey Highlights How U.S, Companies Face Greater Risk Despite Spending And again, businesses around the world from China to the Middle East face many of the same challenges when it comes to password credential security. But for U.S. businesses, the problem seems worse despite the fact that these companies budget consistently higher for security. The thesis these numbers suggest seems obvious. Budget matters less when protecting your business from cyberattacks than software architecture. Better Software Architecture Offers Greater Security “The organizations that will navigate the next five years most effectively are those investing in architectural simplicity, building governance models that scale with identity growth, and adopting AI-enabled orchestration to reduce friction,” says Helen Yu, founder and CEO of Tigon Advisory Corp. Fortunately for all businesses but especially those SMBs, you can take steps to future proof your security without big expenditures. “Budget is not the primary constraint on security maturity; architecture, talent, and visibility infrastructure are. The data in this report is a call to sequence correctly: fix foundations before chasing advanced capabilities,” Yu adds. To learn more about how software architecture helps shield your small business from devastating cyberattacks, contact Zoho today. The Digital Landscape Contains Many Threats The digital landscape has become a minefield. You may run a tour guide service in Nantucket, Massachusetts, or a fintech company in Burlington, Vermont. The threats to your business remain the same. Here are some of the top ranked risks according to survey responders from businesses just like yours. Phishing Phishing or some other kind of social engineering ploy topped the list of threats with 71% of U.S. respondents. A classic version of this attack involves a deceptive email sent to one of your employees. Perhaps this email appears to originate from a customer or supplier. But once your employee clicks on an innocent looking link inside the email, you’re hooked like a flounder. The link allows the sender to steal sensitive information, distribute malware or gain unauthorized access to your system. Weak Passwords We’re all guilty of this one. Nonetheless, 63% of U.S. respondents listed this as a major threat in the survey. Say your employees need to log into 15 or more apps during the course of their day as we’ve determined many do. They need a different password for each. But instead of picking a hard to guess password with letters, numbers and other symbols, they choose the first 12 letters of the alphabet. Then to make matters worse, they use the same password for all 15 apps so guessing one gives a cyberattacker access to them all. Inside Threats Sure, you like to trust all your people. And you want to believe none of them would do anything to intentionally jeopardize your business. But an unscrupulous employee with access to your payment portal or online bank accounts or a subcontractor with access to sensitive client information could certainly spell trouble. It seems a threat from the inside keeps at least 57% or U.S. survey responders up at night. Credential Stuffing This attack further amplifies the danger of weak or reused passwords. Though even businesses with strong passwords for each individual app could find themselves vulnerable if these passwords aren’t routinely updated. The scenario goes something like this. An attacker buys a list of passwords from a data breach, then uses a bot to stuff these passwords into multiple apps until access is gained. If your employees have carelessly failed to update their passwords or have reused them for multiple apps, an attacker could quickly gain complete control of your business. According to the survey, 49% of U.S. respondents worry about this threat regularly. Third Party Access Finally, 41% of business respondents to the survey worldwide fret about unmanaged third party access. Think of this as the digital equivalent of giving contractors or other non-employees unsupervised 24-hour access to your business office or other facilities. Suppose you run a massive website with hundreds of freelancers including content creators, designers, SEO consultants and web developers. Giving them access to your site so that they can load content, change banners and logos, optimize pages and update code makes sense. Otherwise you need to do all this work yourself. But giving hundreds of contractors unlimited and unmanaged access to your website may lead to trouble. Unscrupulous contractors might insert unwanted content, steal digital assets, sabotage SEO to benefit other clients or maliciously destroy website functionality. Threats Ranked Globally AI Provides A Better Option for Password Credential Security Most respondents to the Tigon survey agree AI holds the key to better security. However, almost no businesses seem ready to implement it. AI provides a more robust protection against cyberattacks and delivers better password credential security. It does so in a variety of ways and offers an attractive option for small businesses who lack a dedicated security team. Here’s what the survey reveals about preferred AI security features amongst respondents world wide. Anomaly and Threat Detection A reported 68% of respondents indicated a preference for anomaly and threat detection. AI alerts your team of unauthorized access to sensitive files. Perhaps you manage a physician’s office and need a way to detect suspicious attempts to access patient records, for example. Or perhaps the credentials of one of your team based in the U.S. is suddenly used to attempt access to your system from somewhere in Eastern Europe or South Asia. AI uses machine learning to detect unusual activities that might constitute a threat to your business and stops them in their tracks. Automated Policy Enforcement Another 61% of survey respondents favored automated policy enforcement as a preferred AI security feature. You may recall one of the greatest challenges facing small businesses lacking a dedicated security team. Employees need to rely on their own informal security policies. This would include things like remembering to update passwords and trying not to use weak or reused passwords. With AI, much of this can be automated leaving employees to focus on more high level tasks without interruption. AI can even detect when a user attempts to update a password by using a breached credential and blocks their access immediately. Behavioral Analysis An additional 54% of survey respondents believe behavioral analysis might be most helpful in neutralizing threats to your password credential security. AI can go the extra mile to secure your company’s logins. Again, using machine learning it establishes behavioral baselines. Then it springs into action if it detects activities deviating too far from those baselines – even if a user has the correct password. Suspicious logins by an employee at 4 a.m. on Sunday when they generally work 10 to 6 weekdays might raise a red flag, for example. Risk Based Access Control Finally, 47% of respondents worldwide indicated a preference for risk based access control. This AI security feature assigns risk scores to unusual actions like attempts to login from a previously unknown device. The AI then requires additional authentication from the user assuring against unauthorized access. U.S. Businesses Show Widest Gap Between Awareness and Implementation Whether you own a bakery in Des Moines, Iowa, or a PR firm in Peoria, Illinois, implementing AI security would put you at the head of the pack. While 91% of U.S. business respondents understand the importance of AI to their security, just 9% are ready to integrate AI security into their operations. This 82% AI gap between awareness and integration is wider than for businesses in any other region in the survey. What’s more, many U.S. businesses are far from ready to implement AI security for logins, the survey says. With password security still being managed by shared spreadsheets and browser saves, U.S. businesses must be prepared for big changes before adopting AI password security. In Conclusion You may operate a pick and pack plant in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. Or you may manage a light manufacturing company in St. Paul, Minnesota. Even in these businesses where employees traditionally work onsite, hybrid and remote roles are emerging. These hybrid and remote workers may perform logistics planning, data entry or inventory management tasks using a variety of software and with multiple logins. As discussed earlier, this multiple login environment combined with application sprawl creates greater risk to password credential security. This makes your business ever more vulnerable to an invisible army of cyberattackers scattered across the internet and around the world. But don’t panic! Future proof your security stacks with solutions that safeguard your business today and tomorrow. Contact the Zoho Sales team today. Images via Zoho This article, "Zoho Survey Warns of Huge Password Security Threat" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

A few weeks ago, we uncovered the beta self-serve Ads Manager for ChatGPT Ads. It was before it officially launched but now OpenAI officially announced its "beta self-serve Ads Manager that allows advertisers in the US to sign up and purchase ads directly to appear in ChatGPT."View the full article

The Google Local Service Ads account access tab has not been loading and working for advertisers for the past several days. There are numerous reports of it failing throughout the day and it has become a huge frustration for a number of Google advertisers.View the full article

This article is republished with permission from Laser Wars, a newsletter about military laser weapons and other futuristic defense technology. The U.S. military has a message for America’s directed energy industry: it’s time to build. In a written posture statement submitted to the House Armed Services Committee ahead of a hearing on the U.S. Defense Department’s fiscal year 2027 budget request on April 29, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated that the Pentagon plans on buying “tens to hundreds” of directed energy weapons like high-energy laser systems in the coming years—the beginning of what Hegseth dubbed a “strong and consistent demand signal” to the U.S. defense industrial base that, after years of producing just “a limited number of prototypes,” the U.S. military is deadly serious about fielding such capabilities at scale. Here’s the relevant section from Hegseth’s posture statement: Directed Energy (DE) weapons represent a transformative capability, yet the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) is currently postured to produce only a limited number of prototypes. There are significant vulnerabilities and gaps in our DE defense manufacturing capabilities. To address this, the Department must create a strong and consistent demand signal for the production of greater quantities of these weapons, on the order of tens to hundreds of units. This increased demand is essential to enable the DIB’s manufacturing capacity to mature and scale to meet the tactical innovation of the warfighter. Overcoming the “business as usual” acquisition mindset is paramount. The Department must reform its procurement processes, warfighting tactics, and policy limitations to “demystify” Directed Energy weapons and facilitate their integration into the force structure. This includes developing new concepts of operation, training programs, and support infrastructure to ensure that these advanced weapons can be effectively fielded to our warfighters and employed on the battlefield. The successful integration of Directed Energy weapons will require a concerted effort to overcome institutional inertia and embrace a new way of thinking about warfare. The Department’s commitment to creating a demand signal is the first and most critical step in this process. While senior military and defense officials have vocally endorsed fielding directed energy weapons at scale in 36 months or installing “a laser on every ship,” Hegseth’s statement offers a more grounded (and familiar) diagnosis for observers of the U.S. military’s decades-long laser weapon ambitions: the technology has advanced, but the institutional mechanisms to transition mature systems to the field have not. The defense industrial base simply cannot invest in the manufacturing and supply chain capacity required for production at scale if it can’t predict how many systems it will actually be asked to build, especially if promising initiatives continually perish in the “valley of death” between research and development and procurement The defense industry has been making this point for years. A January 2024 report from the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) trade group on directed energy weapon supply chains, which is on based in-depth research and interviews with dozens of key industry stakeholders and subject matter experts, found that the lack of a consistent demand signal “was raised many times by industry leaders as negatively impacting all levels of the supply chain.” “Existing [directed energy weapon] supply chains can only produce small numbers of systems with long lead times,” the NDIA report says. “Once DoD’s strategic goals are articulated, appropriate DEW systems should be transitioned to programs of record and multi-year contracts used to send an extended demand signal. A clear, sustained demand signal, accompanied by the overarching strategic vision, will provide industry with the assurance that they can begin to make the internal investments necessary to secure DEW supply chains for the future.” This assessment isn’t wrong. Despite ramping up laser weapon efforts following a deliberate shift from bulky chemical systems to more reliable, compact, and efficient solid-state and fiber laser technology in the 2000s, the last two decades have been marked by abandoned projects. Here are some recent examples: U.S. Army officials touted its 50 kilowatt Stryker-mounted Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) as a major breakthrough when it deployed to the Middle East for real-world operational testing in 2024, but the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded the system “was not mature enough” to transition to a program of record. Army officials told Congressional Research Service as recently as this past January that they planned on transitioning the ambitious cruise missile-killing 300 kw Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) weapon to a program of record, but now say they only plan on taking delivery of a single system to use as a testbed to inform future laser weapon development efforts. The U.S. Navy’s 60 kw High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) weapon system, which only recently began testing at full power and frying drones aboard Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Preble after years of delays, has effectively disappeared from the service’s fiscal year 2027 budget request outside of a handful of sustainment dollars. The U.S. Marine Corps returned its five Compact Laser Weapon System (CLaWS) units to Boeing in pursuit of a “more deliberate programs of record,” years after touting the system as “the first ground-based laser approved by the Department of Defense for use by warfighters on the ground” (and without any explicit funding for laser weapon R&D in its fiscal year 2027 budget request). The U.S. Air Force spent years experimenting with Raytheon’s High-Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS) for counter-drone missions but abandoned the effort without successfully transitioning the system to a program of record, although the service appears poised to once again pursue ground-based laser weapons for airbase defense. These failures share a common pattern, according to a detailed 2023 GAO report on the Pentagon’s directed energy weapons efforts: projects advanced through prototyping without ever securing formal transition partners or drafting agreements that would bind developers and the acquisition community to shared requirements, timelines, and funding responsibilities. The Navy’s HELIOS effort, for example, identified a notional transition partner but never documented agreements detailing how to resolve various power and cooling integration challenges before the system headed to an actual warship for installation. The Air Force’s HELWS spent more than three years in development before the service even identified a transition partner, and when it did, the relevant program office had neither the funding nor the mandate to take it on. The Army’s comparatively more disciplined approach—embedding transition teams in prototyping efforts, drafting early capabilities documents, and regularly convening stakeholders to plan for future doctrine, training, and maintenance—shows what the other services didn’t do, and even that wasn’t enough to save DE M-SHORAD from demilitarization. There is simply too much “institutional inertia,” as Hegseth put it, to allow promising systems to drift toward obsolescence rather than fight the bureaucratic battles required to turn them into programs of record. So what does a “clear, sustained demand signal” actually look like? The Pentagon’s fiscal year 2027 budget request contains a few elements that indicate the beginnings of a firm institutional commitment to fielding laser weapons (although, as one defense official recently reminded me, justification books rarely survive contact with the budget process). First, the Joint Laser Weapon System (JLWS): a containerized 150-300 kw laser weapon designed to defeat incoming cruise missile threats as part of the The President administration’s new “Golden Dome for America” missile defense shield. As I’ve previously reported, the fiscal year 2027 budget documents lay out a planned R&D investment of $675.93 million through fiscal year 2031 to develop the joint Army-Navy system based on lessons from HELIOS and IFPC-HEL, among other higher-power laser weapon efforts. And while there are no explicit procurement plans yet, this investment will likely be augmented by additional funds from the $452 million the Pentagon has requested specifically for directed energy weapons as part of Golden Dome separate from the services. Second, the Enduring High Energy Laser (E-HEL): the modular 30 kw laser weapon the Army envisions as its counter-drone system of choice and eventual program of record. Beyond ongoing directed energy R&D efforts, the service has stated that it plans to “produce and rapidly field” 24 E-HEL systems over a five-year period, with plans to purchase two at a time for roughly $17 million apiece for the first two years before subsequently ramping up to batches of five. This program appears to be moving faster than most laser efforts before it, with the first E-HEL prototype expected no later than the second quarter of fiscal year 2026 and initial procurement units slated for delivery by end of fiscal year 2027. Even the Navy is exploring the E-HEL’s potential naval applications, per the service’s fiscal year 2027 budget request. It’s also worth noting that Hegseth’s posture statement invokes the 23 new Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAE) that the Pentagon has already established across the services, which are designed to transform the U.S. military acquisition processes to “prioritize performance and accountability.” A dedicated directed energy PAE with real budget authority behind it could prove a concrete test of whether this new framework changes outcomes rather than just incentive structures (although the posture statement doesn’t explicitly commit to one). Are bold declarations from military and defense leaders, a massive R&D budget, and renewed promises of programs of record a strong enough directed energy demand signal for the defense industrial base? Recent laser industry moves, both domestic and international, suggest as much. Huntington Ingalls Industries announced a new laser integration and test facility in support of the E-HEL effort in September 2025. The following November, IPG Photonics announced the grand opening of a new manufacturing facility in Huntsville, Alabama, dedicated to developing and producing laser weapons for defense applications. In January, nLight announced a 50,000-square-foot laser weapon manufacturing addition in Colorado before unveiling an expansion of Italy operations to support European directed energy development in April. Australia’s Electro Optic Systems (EOS) opened a laser weapon production hub in Singapore in February amid ongoing discussions with the U.S. and other potential customers. AV, the maker of the LOCUST Laser Weapon System that has become a fixture of U.S. counter-drone operations, announced a $30 million manufacturing expansion in Albuquerque, New Mexico earlier in March. Finally, start-up Aurelius Systems announced a brand new division focused on building fiber laser source modules in the U.S. in late April. But manufacturing expansions alone aren’t enough for the U.S. military to meet its near-term goal of rapidly fielding directed energy weapons at scale. Part of the problem is that laser weapons are arguably more complex and time-consuming to produce than, say, Raytheon’s Coyote interceptors; the new EOS Singapore hub, for example, can only produce five to 10 laser weapon systems annually, per company executives. But more importantly, a demand signal hundreds of laser weapons is only meaningful if the entire directed energy supply chain is ready to answer the call—and according to the NDIA report, it is far from ready. First, many critical components in laser weapons currently face long lead times due to lack of capacity. As the NDIA report notes, the precision mirrors and lenses that shape and direct laser beams require highly specialized grinding and polishing to tolerances that can take 12 to 18 months to produce for a single large optic. Beam directors, the devices responsible for precisely aiming and controlling the laser beam, are built by just two or three companies in the U.S., with lead times that regularly stretch beyond two years. Adaptive optics, which compensate for atmospheric distortion in real time, have only two or three suppliers for non-medical applications, with lead times of 18 to 24 months. Specialized optical fibers essential for efficient energy transmission are so niche that one NDIA interviewee mentioned a Scandinavian company as among the few viable suppliers. Ceramic laser gain materials are sourced from a single company in Japan. Diffraction gratings critical to laser amplification come from a single industry supplier. Beam dumps used in testing—a component so routine it barely registers in program discussions—are manufactured exclusively by one company in Israel, with lead times that have stretched to a year. Second, the raw materials required to make these components are subject to their own geopolitical bottlenecks, as I’ve previously noted. The essential lasing medium in most high-energy laser weapons is a solid-state or fiber gain medium doped with rare earth elements—neodymium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium. Unfortunately, Chinese exports accounted for 74% of U.S. rare earth element imports between 2018 and 2021, while Beijing controls more than 85% of global processing capacity. The laser diode pumps that drive most solid-state laser systems are typically built from gallium arsenide, but China controls 98% of global gallium production and announced fresh export controls in the summer of 2023. Germanium, a primary material in the infrared optics, is similarly exposed: 54% of U.S. imports come from China and are subject to those 2023 export controls. Even the copper used in laser weapon thermal management systems runs through Chinese processing, with 41% of all refined copper originating in China as of 2022 despite the US’s substantial domestic ore production. A determined U.S. effort to scale military laser weapon production to hundreds of units would face Beijing-controlled chokepoints at almost every major component layer. There’s a third constraint lurking beneath the manufacturing and materials challenges: the U.S. simply does not have enough people trained to build laser weapons at scale. The NDIA report identified three specific workforce categories facing acute shortages in the directed energy sector: optical coatings specialists, power electronics engineers, and opto-mechanical engineers. Optical coating construction and application is, in the words of industry participants, an “artform” that takes years to master, and there are only a handful of U.S. companies devoted to defense-grade coatings. Optics graduates are also scarce: only a handful of schools in the U.S. have dedicated optics programs, and they face intense competition from the medical device and consumer optics industries, which pay better and don’t require security clearances. Finally, power electronics engineers with the unique experience needed for the power conversion and charging systems in directed energy weapons are increasingly hard to find as broader demand for electrification across commercial industries drains the same talent pool. Taken together, these challenges are the reason “tens to hundreds” of directed energy weapons has remained an aspirational goal rather than a reality for so long—and they won’t be solved by a demand signal alone. A long-term solution will require sustained, coordinated investment across manufacturing, materials, and workforce development. While the Pentagon is already pursuing potential solutions with $100 billion requested in fiscal year 2027 to “supercharge” the defense industrial base, those investments will take years to translate into consistent production capacity, Still, Hegseth’s posture statement represents the clearest and most senior articulation yet that the Pentagon understands the systemic problems that have held back its directed energy programs and intends on addressing them. Whether it’s also a sufficient step will depend on whether E-HEL’s transition to a program of record actually happens on schedule, the $675 million JLWS investment survives the budget process, and the supply chain and workforce investments needed to back up a demand signal for hundreds of systems materialize alongside it. The defense industrial base has heard this kind of rhetoric before. What it needs now is the multi-year contracts, programs of record, and upstream investments in materials and workforce that will empower it to actually respond. The next budget cycle will reveal whether this time is different. This article is republished with permission from Laser Wars, a newsletter about military laser weapons and other futuristic defense technology. View the full article

For over two decades, parked domains generated income for advertisers and publishers. Recent Google Ads policy changes restricting ads on parked, expired, or mistyped domains show that nothing lasts forever. If industry shifts have affected you, this article may interest you. Today, we’ll take a deeper look at domain monetization and whether you can still stabilize and optimize income from domain traffic. The domain market shake-up In 2025, Google began rolling out significant changes to its Search Partner Network to improve inventory quality. These updates tightened controls and limited ad delivery across parked, expired, and mistyped domains. That process concluded Feb. 10, “Parked Domains” were removed as a dedicated ad placement option. Since then, ads no longer appear on these sites through the previous opt-in setup, signaling a broader shift away from this inventory. Given Google’s scale, this change affected many publishers and domain owners and couldn’t be ignored. It drove a notable market adjustment: some long-standing domain parking and monetization businesses shut down, others rebuilt their frameworks from scratch, and new entrants began exploring opportunities in the evolving landscape. New developments in domain monetization This shift is clear in recent developments. Across domain forums, users show uncertainty as they navigate the transition and assess new ways to monetize idle domains. At the same time, the rise of domain conferences worldwide highlights growing interest, attracting new players and creating new opportunities. Though this transformation is still in its early stages, a positive trajectory is emerging. Opportunities to monetize domains remain — this is a phase where new structures are taking shape. New players are building and testing solutions, some of which will likely prove viable and help move the market toward a more stable, sustainable direction. RollerAds’ domain monetization solution In response, several monetization platforms have adapted their infrastructure to better support domain traffic. One example is RollerAds, which supports parked domain traffic through its existing ad delivery ecosystem. The platform draws on experience in domain traffic monetization and focuses on formats such as Direct Click ads. A key factor in performance stability is a monetization model based on content-safe, high-demand verticals like eeommerce, which tend to deliver stronger payouts. A large share of revenue also comes from RSOC (Related Search on Content) units that guide users to sponsored search results, capturing and monetizing intent-based traffic. Through simple DNS integration, the platform lets you connect large domain portfolios at scale, turning them into ongoing revenue streams instead of unused holdings. Domain monetization example from RollerAds Here’s a representative example of monetization results from the RollerAds platform. A publisher acquired the ******.ws domain for $5.95 to monetize it. After connecting it exclusively to the platform, the domain began generating about $7 per month consistently, covering its initial cost relatively quickly. While the amount is modest, it comes from a single low-traffic domain and requires no ongoing management, making it a fully passive income stream. Now consider a scenario where the same publisher owns hundreds or thousands of similar domains. Instead of managing each individually, they can focus on expanding their portfolio or core business while maintaining automated revenue streams. With higher-quality domains and stronger traffic, earning potential scales upward. During its operation, this domain did not generate any abuse reports. Domains sale & monetization One key advantage of modern domain monetization setups is that you don’t have to choose between earning from a domain and selling it. You can do both in one place. A domain can keep generating income from traffic while it’s listed for sale, so it doesn’t sit idle. At the same time, the revenue it generates provides a clearer picture of its actual value instead of relying on guesswork. This combined approach is also available on RollerAds, where you can monetize domains and list them for sale within the same platform. Adapting to change in domain monetization The domain market is undergoing a period of change that brings challenges and new opportunities. In this environment, the key is to stay flexible, test different approaches, and use available tools — whether to monetize domains or sell them. If you’re facing monetization challenges or looking to list domains for sale, RollerAds may be the right partner. Get in touch with the managers to find a convenient, profitable solution for your needs. Domain monetization remains active and continues to build a more stable foundation as the market evolves. View the full article

Ride-hailing company posts weaker than expected first-quarter revenues but issues optimistic outlookView the full article

A yearslong battle between Sony PlayStation and its customers might soon be coming to an end after the approval of a preliminary settlement agreement for a class-action lawsuit on April 29. The lawsuit dates back to 2023, involving Sony’s decision to stop selling game-specific vouchers by third-party vendors, meaning the company would no longer allow the purchase of digital download cards from retailers like Amazon, GameStop, or Walmart, leaving Sony as the sole seller. Plaintiffs argue that the company violated federal antitrust law by eliminating competition for the sale of the game-specific vouchers, according to a press release by the plaintiffs’ law firm. Sony has denied wrongdoing. The settlement has undergone several revisions since 2024. Still, no court has ruled that Sony did indeed break any laws, and Sony has in the past come out and said the reasoning behind settling was “to avoid the further expense and distraction of continued litigation,” Reuters reported. Here’s what to know about the settlement. How big is the payout? The preliminary settlement approved by a judge in the Northern District of California could provide $7.85 million distributed to those affected. According to court documents, around 4 million users were automatically enrolled in the class-action. The amount distributed to individuals is still unclear, although reports state that around 25% of the settlement funds will go toward attorneys’ fees. Who is eligible for a payout? Users who are U.S. residents and purchased at least one digital game between April 1, 2019, and December 31, 2023, via the PlayStation Store may be eligible. Eligible games are listed here, including popular titles like The Last of Us, Resident Evil 4, and FIFA. How can I claim a payout? Most users who still have an active PlayStation Network profile will not need to take further action, with payments deposited to the wallet associated with the user’s account. Those with deactivated profiles will need to file a written request by emailing info@PSNDigitalGamesSettlement.com and sending in proof of purchase. Those wishing to opt out of the settlement will retain their rights to sue and will need to send a written request by July 2, 2026. View the full article

Whataburger is rethinking the fast-food kids meal. The Texas-based burger chain just relaunched its Kids Whatameal with a new focus on an engaging packaging experience over a singular plastic toy. In a sense, the packaging is now the toy: The meals come in a bright, white-and-orange box with a handle on top, an interactive maze printed on the side, and one of five collectible sticker packs inside. “We wanted to build something that was a bit more intentional and experience-led,” Scott Hudler, Whataburger’s chief marketing officer, tells Fast Company. But the experiential strategy is first visible in the food options themselves—essentially by providing kids with choice. “Kids are more likely to eat that full meal when they can have some control of the entrée, the sides, and the drink,” Hudler says. As such, kids can choose from a burger, grilled cheese, and chicken strips or bites, plus french fries or Mott’s applesauce, a drink, and a treat. The packaging came out of extensive user research that took place online and in person at Whataburger’s innovation center, which found that while food is a big driver of the decision, so is agency. The team adapted its design with those findings in mind. Whataburger considered several different formats for the kids meal packaging but ultimately decided on a box with a small handle that’s easy for kids to hold and carry—a handled box tested best because it gave kids a sense of independence and ownership. The packaging is also fun to play with. Whataburger’s research found that while traditional character-based plastic toys are “a nice to have,” sensory toys or activities outperformed plastic toys and even desserts. “In testing, tactile, sensory-driven items performed better,” Hudler says. “Kids consistently gravitated toward things they could actively touch and manipulate,” like stickers, games, activities, and fidget-style pieces. (For a limited time last year, McDonald’s launched blank Happy Meal packages kids could draw on, later returning to its classic red.) Ultimately, Whataburger sought to make its packaging “unmistakably Whataburger” by emphasizing visual brand assets like the orange-and-white stripes and the flying W. The box also shows the smiling face of Whataguy, the chain’s superhero mascot who first appeared on kids meal bags in 1999. Actress Eva Longoria, a longtime Whataburger fan, stars in a campaign promoting the kids meals with her son. The redesign better competes with McDonald’s brightly packaged Happy Meals, but it also serves much the same function as a butcher paper table covering and crayons for the kids at a sit-down restaurant. Sometimes the best toy is the box it comes in. View the full article

It’s hard enough to publish a book, but getting people to buy it is an entirely different battle. As new platforms reshape how readers gather and interact online, authors are finding that sometimes platforms built to showcase writing can also double as powerful engines for discovery. The most high-profile example so far might be Girls creator Lena Dunham, who bolstered the traditional press tour for her new memoir Famesick with interviews and features on the newsletter platform Substack. In an interview with Arielle Swedback for her On Substack newsletter (which is published, of course, on Substack), Dunham made the case in blunt terms: “Someone I trust told me that, in book sales at least, every single Substack follower is the equivalent of many more Instagram or X followers … While I don’t have the actual numbers, that feels anecdotally true to me. There’s an appreciation of the written word that suffuses this whole place.” While promoting her memoir, Dunham did interviews with a range of the platform’s newsletters, from Emilia Petrarca’s Shop Rat, which has 32,000 subscribers, to Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me, with more than 150,000 readers. To Dunham’s point, many of these newsletters are built around tightly defined audiences that tend to be more engaged than those on broader social platforms. “It’s been really interesting to see how committed certain audiences are. I love that a newsletter with more followers but a less engaged audience doesn’t have the same value as someone with a tiny but rabid fan base,” Dunham added. And while Dunham may be the latest high-profile convert, she’s hardly alone. “Ten years ago the publishing industry’s center of gravity was the bookstore and the New York Times list,” Andrea Barzvi, an agent and president of Empire Literary, tells Fast Company. “Today, discovery has been outsourced to algorithms. And the publisher relies more heavily than ever on social media—whether it’s the author’s own platform, or the mere power of social media.” Social media’s influence on book sales takes many forms, including the wildly popular TikTok community BookTok, which has driven major sales for titles like The Song of Achilles, It Ends With Us, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. But while those platforms often depend on algorithmic luck, Substack offers something more direct: a line of communication between author and reader. Jenn Lueke, author of Don’t Think About Dinner, says Substack offers a rare level of reliability. “I know my subscribers will actually see my posts,” she says, noting that the consistency makes readers more likely to try her recipes and follow her guides. For Lueke, Substack became a tool for building her own community, one that followed her work before the book even reached the market. “I think someone who enjoys reading a newsletter might be more likely to enjoy reading a book,” she says. “My strategy was to utilize all social platforms I had to promote the book in different ways, with my Substack home being the center of it all.” Some experts say Substack’s rise fits into a longer arc in publishing, one shaped by the early wave of self-publishing tools like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and Smashwords in the late aughts. Those platforms opened the door for self-published authors, but didn’t solve the marketing problem. “That lack of support required self-published authors to be resourceful,” says Kris Austin, CEO of the self-publishing platform Draft2Digital. “Major publishing houses have taken note of indie authors’ business savvy and their ability to create fervent fanbases who are eager to purchase. This has led to traditional publishers moving away from status quo marketing spend, like print advertising, and leaning into newer opportunities.” Those opportunities now extend well beyond Substack, giving authors multiple ways to cultivate an audience before a book even hits shelves. “Press tours are decentralized now,” says Bookshop.org CEO Andy Hunter. “Individual creators can have a much bigger impact than old-school media.” Dunham’s approach reflects that shift, and judging by early sales figures, it’s already paying off in a big way. View the full article

It’s the three-row SUV of big-box retail. Target’s bold red shopping cart has always anchored customers inside a Target store, promising a middle-class fancy experience. For the next few years, Target will be replacing its fleet of half a million shopping carts with an even beefier model that promises to hold more stuff while making it easier to maneuver around the store. It’s the first all-plastic design Target will launch nationwide, while paradoxically being more sustainable than Target carts of yore. And yes, it’ll even hold your big dumb cup. “The cart for us is the first touchpoint that the guest meets right when they walk in the store,” says Sarah Deuth, VP of store design at Target. “It’s the most used item in our store, and then also it’s that item that carries you throughout the store.” In recent years, Target has seen its share of troubles. It has faced boycotts after reversing course on DEI, and watched its stock price tank as consumers swapped Target’s ever-so-more premium retail brand for Amazon’s ease of ordering and Walmart’s clean UX and commitment to affordability. Target’s new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, plans to turn things around by going back to the company’s roots in an affordably chic retail experience. That alone might not work. But customer experience will always be an important differentiator in retail, and since introducing its iconic red cart in the 1970s, Target has been refining that cart’s design. Now the company is rolling out its latest version, the Series 3, informed by its last 20 years of consumer research and a few more modern trends. It’s an investment in the most literal touchpoint of shopping possible. What’s new in Target’s shopping cart? As Target considered the latest iteration, which it designed in-house, it focused on the one thing it had heard and observed to be the most important part of any shopping cart: how it drives. “You’ll see guests, they’ll have their phone in one hand, beverage [in the other], and they’re pushing it with their elbows. Or they’re pushing it with one hand,” Deuth says. “We are doing a million things while we’re shopping, so maneuverability and what they called ‘ease,’ ‘smooth ride,’ and ‘a cart going straight’ was more important than anything.” A decade ago, Target had already addressed part of this issue by swapping out its polyurethane wheels for rubber, which grips floors better. But a lot of controlling the cart has nothing to do with the wheels, casters, or bearings. If the frame bends, it stops steering predictably. This insight led Target to reconsider its “hybrid” cart design that had been in use since 2014, which, like most shopping carts, used a metal frame—but wrapped that frame in plastic components. This seemed like a good idea: Metal is durable and plastic is durable. But metal is more prone to bending. And when fused together in Target’s shopping cart design, it was common for plastic and metal components to get misaligned at their junctions. So Target built the Series 3 completely out of plastic (save for a few components in the wheels)—which stays rigid so the cart should always drive straight. It also has modular components that can be swapped in and out if one breaks. Truth be told, Target dreamed of an all-plastic cart 20 years ago, with a model it crafted in 2006, but it wasn’t considered good enough to scale. Its latest cart iteration has optimized the plastic build, with geometries and ergonomics Target insists make it easier to steer. Its handles look something like Theragun grips. Notably, the plastic used in Target’s carts is recyclable for a cart’s end of life. Also, overall, it’s more durable than the older metal designs, according to the company, which has seen cart lifespan increase two- to threefold in early testing. No doubt about it, the cart’s thick plastic frame gives it borderline maximalist proportions, but the overall sensation that this is a bigger cart is more than a visual trick. Target increased the cart’s payload by a “slight” amount because “guest behaviors have changed,” according to Deuth. “In some instances, they are looking to buy more bulk,” she notes, hinting at the budget-minded nature of shoppers today. “And so that was important for us to look at that average basket of the guests and design into that.” Other creature comforts Beyond durability and payload, the new cart is full of improved ergonomics. Anyone who has taken a child to Target knows that the child seat in front is a standout feature. Customers complained, though, that the seat’s incline was too shallow, making it hard for a child to sit up straight—while possible for them to climb out. The new version features a steeper backrest and a deeper bowl. Around the seat, the cart now features two prominent cupholders. Before, the cupholders were nothing but round holes, designed to catch a Starbucks drink. These holes have been replaced with fully molded cupholders (complete with edges and bottoms). Their capacity is also supersized for snacks and beverages that no longer fit in a rapidly shifting drink vessel culture. And a squared-off design ensures they can accommodate cups of different shapes and sizes. “Yes [it’s for] the Stanley Cups and the Starbucks,” says Deuth with a laugh. “Those are important, and sometimes both of those at the same time.” Call it an SNL punch line, or call it knowing your base. In any case, Target’s new cart does seem to demonstrate the company’s ongoing obsession with its customer experience. But for Target, it’s also time to lock in on every other aspect of its retail business, too. View the full article