Google sells robotics firm to Japan’s Softbank

Boston Dynamics, known for its robots such as Atlas and BigDog, has been sold by Google to Japanese telecoms giant Softbank for an undisclosed sum. Boston Dynamics’ robots, which also include the dog-like Spot and the sprinting Cheetah, have become sensations on...

L’Occitane mobile location campaign lights up high street

L’Occitane and ThreePipe utilised xAd’s Blueprints technology to draw polygons around specified stores identified as popular stores across UK high streets. Targeting those who were considering gifts for occasions such as Mother’s Day, L’Occitane used proximity based...

Siri in your living room: Apple unveils $349 HomePod

Apple is taking on Amazon’s Echo and Google Home with a voice-activated $349 speaker called the HomePod. Unvieled at this week’s WWDC17 conference, the new device uses personal digital-assistant Siri and core Apple services like Apple Music. However,...

New global cross-device tracking tool launched by CJ Affiliate

Global affiliate marketing network CJ Affiliate (has launched Cross-Device Solution to accurately identify consumer transactions across multiple devices and reach multi-device shoppers on a deeper level than previous industry capabilities allowed. The Cross-Device...

Snapchat launches augmented reality glasses in Europe

Snap made its Spectacles available across Europe today, almost seven months after the company debuted them in the US. Spectacles are a one-size-fits-all pair of sunglasses that can record 10 seconds of video at a time and sync wirelessly with the mobile Snapchat app....

Mobile ad blocking trends: frustration key motive

Ad blocking continues to be a controversial subject, but only half of US users are aware of filtering software, according to a new report. This special report in collaboration with Adblock Plus, The State of Mobile Ad-blocking in 2017, takes a deep-dive into the...

Eurovision case study: New app boosts song contest engagement

International creative agency, Perfect Fools, has made an app that has won the hearts of the Swedish population and revived their nation’s favourite song contest. Perfect Fools added ‘hearting’ to the voting system of the mother of all song contests,...

Instagram tests direct response ads in stories

Instagram has allowing marketers to push sign-up and app-install promotions within its Stories section. Until now, Instagram Stories ads have only offered broad “reach” objectives for branding purposes and not more targeted marketing goals. The new move...

Unilever Africa uses online gaming to select new staff

Unilever has introduced a digital recruitment programme that will use online gaming to select the best candidates. The Unilever Digital Recruitment Programme is an online initiative that mixes gaming with video interviews to find the best graduates. The selection...

Instagram audience in France still growing

Nearly one-fifth (19.8%) of internet users in France, or 10.4 million people, will Instagram regularly in 2017, according to new research. The study, from eMarketer, alos found that by comparison, more than half (51.8%) will use Facebook at least monthly this year—a...

Digital assistants “to outnumber people by 2021”

Globally, the native digital assistant installed base is set to exceed 7.5 billion active devices by 2021, which is more than the world population according to the US Census Bureau on May 1, 2017. But fear not – Skynet, from the popular Terminator movies, does not...