Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, is the magical place where data goes to become “insights” with just a few clicks. Because who needs extensive training or complex analysis when you can slap together a dashboard and call it a day? It’s the perfect tool for those who want to look busy while avoiding the actual work of interpreting data. Just throw in some colors, charts, and voilà! You’re a data wizard. The best part? It’s free! Which is ideal for all those who enjoy the thrill of getting something for nothing. So, jump on the Looker Studio bandwagon and let the world believe you’re a data genius—at least until they ask you to explain it. #LookerStudio #Data

Reading Time: 9 minutes In marketing, data isn’t a buzzword. It’s the lifeblood of all successful campaigns. But are you truly harnessing its power, or are you drowning in a sea of information? To answer this question, we sat down with Ankur Kothari, a seasoned Martech expert, to dive deep into this crucial topic. This interview, originally conducted for Chapter 6 of “The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die” explores how businesses can translate raw data into actionable insights that drive real results. Ankur shares his wealth of knowledge on identifying valuable customer engagement data, distinguishing between signal and noise, and ultimately, shaping real-time strategies that keep companies ahead of the curve.   Ankur Kothari Q&A Interview 1. What types of customer engagement data are most valuable for making strategic business decisions? Primarily, there are four different buckets of customer engagement data. I would begin with behavioral data, encompassing website interaction, purchase history, and other app usage patterns. Second would be demographic information: age, location, income, and other relevant personal characteristics. Third would be sentiment analysis, where we derive information from social media interaction, customer feedback, or other customer reviews. Fourth would be the customer journey data. We track touchpoints across various channels of the customers to understand the customer journey path and conversion. Combining these four primary sources helps us understand the engagement data. 2. How do you distinguish between data that is actionable versus data that is just noise? First is keeping relevant to your business objectives, making actionable data that directly relates to your specific goals or KPIs, and then taking help from statistical significance. Actionable data shows clear patterns or trends that are statistically valid, whereas other data consists of random fluctuations or outliers, which may not be what you are interested in. You also want to make sure that there is consistency across sources. Actionable insights are typically corroborated by multiple data points or channels, while other data or noise can be more isolated and contradictory. Actionable data suggests clear opportunities for improvement or decision making, whereas noise does not lead to meaningful actions or changes in strategy. By applying these criteria, I can effectively filter out the noise and focus on data that delivers or drives valuable business decisions. 3. How can customer engagement data be used to identify and prioritize new business opportunities? First, it helps us to uncover unmet needs. By analyzing the customer feedback, touch points, support interactions, or usage patterns, we can identify the gaps in our current offerings or areas where customers are experiencing pain points. Second would be identifying emerging needs. Monitoring changes in customer behavior or preferences over time can reveal new market trends or shifts in demand, allowing my company to adapt their products or services accordingly. Third would be segmentation analysis. Detailed customer data analysis enables us to identify unserved or underserved segments or niche markets that may represent untapped opportunities for growth or expansion into newer areas and new geographies. Last is to build competitive differentiation. Engagement data can highlight where our companies outperform competitors, helping us to prioritize opportunities that leverage existing strengths and unique selling propositions. 4. Can you share an example of where data insights directly influenced a critical decision? I will share an example from my previous organization at one of the financial services where we were very data-driven, which made a major impact on our critical decision regarding our credit card offerings. We analyzed the customer engagement data, and we discovered that a large segment of our millennial customers were underutilizing our traditional credit cards but showed high engagement with mobile payment platforms. That insight led us to develop and launch our first digital credit card product with enhanced mobile features and rewards tailored to the millennial spending habits. Since we had access to a lot of transactional data as well, we were able to build a financial product which met that specific segment’s needs. That data-driven decision resulted in a 40% increase in our new credit card applications from this demographic within the first quarter of the launch. Subsequently, our market share improved in that specific segment, which was very crucial. 5. Are there any other examples of ways that you see customer engagement data being able to shape marketing strategy in real time? When it comes to using the engagement data in real-time, we do quite a few things. In the recent past two, three years, we are using that for dynamic content personalization, adjusting the website content, email messaging, or ad creative based on real-time user behavior and preferences. We automate campaign optimization using specific AI-driven tools to continuously analyze performance metrics and automatically reallocate the budget to top-performing channels or ad segments. Then we also build responsive social media engagement platforms like monitoring social media sentiments and trending topics to quickly adapt the messaging and create timely and relevant content. With one-on-one personalization, we do a lot of A/B testing as part of the overall rapid testing and market elements like subject lines, CTAs, and building various successful variants of the campaigns. 6. How are you doing the 1:1 personalization? We have advanced CDP systems, and we are tracking each customer’s behavior in real-time. So the moment they move to different channels, we know what the context is, what the relevance is, and the recent interaction points, so we can cater the right offer. So for example, if you looked at a certain offer on the website and you came from Google, and then the next day you walk into an in-person interaction, our agent will already know that you were looking at that offer. That gives our customer or potential customer more one-to-one personalization instead of just segment-based or bulk interaction kind of experience. We have a huge team of data scientists, data analysts, and AI model creators who help us to analyze big volumes of data and bring the right insights to our marketing and sales team so that they can provide the right experience to our customers. 7. What role does customer engagement data play in influencing cross-functional decisions, such as with product development, sales, and customer service? Primarily with product development — we have different products, not just the financial products or products whichever organizations sell, but also various products like mobile apps or websites they use for transactions. So that kind of product development gets improved. The engagement data helps our sales and marketing teams create more targeted campaigns, optimize channel selection, and refine messaging to resonate with specific customer segments. Customer service also gets helped by anticipating common issues, personalizing support interactions over the phone or email or chat, and proactively addressing potential problems, leading to improved customer satisfaction and retention. So in general, cross-functional application of engagement improves the customer-centric approach throughout the organization. 8. What do you think some of the main challenges marketers face when trying to translate customer engagement data into actionable business insights? I think the huge amount of data we are dealing with. As we are getting more digitally savvy and most of the customers are moving to digital channels, we are getting a lot of data, and that sheer volume of data can be overwhelming, making it very difficult to identify truly meaningful patterns and insights. Because of the huge data overload, we create data silos in this process, so information often exists in separate systems across different departments. We are not able to build a holistic view of customer engagement. Because of data silos and overload of data, data quality issues appear. There is inconsistency, and inaccurate data can lead to incorrect insights or poor decision-making. Quality issues could also be due to the wrong format of the data, or the data is stale and no longer relevant. As we are growing and adding more people to help us understand customer engagement, I’ve also noticed that technical folks, especially data scientists and data analysts, lack skills to properly interpret the data or apply data insights effectively. So there’s a lack of understanding of marketing and sales as domains. It’s a huge effort and can take a lot of investment. Not being able to calculate the ROI of your overall investment is a big challenge that many organizations are facing. 9. Why do you think the analysts don’t have the business acumen to properly do more than analyze the data? If people do not have the right idea of why we are collecting this data, we collect a lot of noise, and that brings in huge volumes of data. If you cannot stop that from step one—not bringing noise into the data system—that cannot be done by just technical folks or people who do not have business knowledge. Business people do not know everything about what data is being collected from which source and what data they need. It’s a gap between business domain knowledge, specifically marketing and sales needs, and technical folks who don’t have a lot of exposure to that side. Similarly, marketing business people do not have much exposure to the technical side — what’s possible to do with data, how much effort it takes, what’s relevant versus not relevant, and how to prioritize which data sources will be most important. 10. Do you have any suggestions for how this can be overcome, or have you seen it in action where it has been solved before? First, cross-functional training: training different roles to help them understand why we’re doing this and what the business goals are, giving technical people exposure to what marketing and sales teams do. And giving business folks exposure to the technology side through training on different tools, strategies, and the roadmap of data integrations. The second is helping teams work more collaboratively. So it’s not like the technology team works in a silo and comes back when their work is done, and then marketing and sales teams act upon it. Now we’re making it more like one team. You work together so that you can complement each other, and we have a better strategy from day one. 11. How do you address skepticism or resistance from stakeholders when presenting data-driven recommendations? We present clear business cases where we demonstrate how data-driven recommendations can directly align with business objectives and potential ROI. We build compelling visualizations, easy-to-understand charts and graphs that clearly illustrate the insights and the implications for business goals. We also do a lot of POCs and pilot projects with small-scale implementations to showcase tangible results and build confidence in the data-driven approach throughout the organization. 12. What technologies or tools have you found most effective for gathering and analyzing customer engagement data? I’ve found that Customer Data Platforms help us unify customer data from various sources, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions across touch points. Having advanced analytics platforms — tools with AI and machine learning capabilities that can process large volumes of data and uncover complex patterns and insights — is a great value to us. We always use, or many organizations use, marketing automation systems to improve marketing team productivity, helping us track and analyze customer interactions across multiple channels. Another thing is social media listening tools, wherever your brand is mentioned or you want to measure customer sentiment over social media, or track the engagement of your campaigns across social media platforms. Last is web analytical tools, which provide detailed insights into your website visitors’ behaviors and engagement metrics, for browser apps, small browser apps, various devices, and mobile apps. 13. How do you ensure data quality and consistency across multiple channels to make these informed decisions? We established clear guidelines for data collection, storage, and usage across all channels to maintain consistency. Then we use data integration platforms — tools that consolidate data from various sources into a single unified view, reducing discrepancies and inconsistencies. While we collect data from different sources, we clean the data so it becomes cleaner with every stage of processing. We also conduct regular data audits — performing periodic checks to identify and rectify data quality issues, ensuring accuracy and reliability of information. We also deploy standardized data formats. On top of that, we have various automated data cleansing tools, specific software to detect and correct data errors, redundancies, duplicates, and inconsistencies in data sets automatically. 14. How do you see the role of customer engagement data evolving in shaping business strategies over the next five years? The first thing that’s been the biggest trend from the past two years is AI-driven decision making, which I think will become more prevalent, with advanced algorithms processing vast amounts of engagement data in real-time to inform strategic choices. Somewhat related to this is predictive analytics, which will play an even larger role, enabling businesses to anticipate customer needs and market trends with more accuracy and better predictive capabilities. We also touched upon hyper-personalization. We are all trying to strive toward more hyper-personalization at scale, which is more one-on-one personalization, as we are increasingly capturing more engagement data and have bigger systems and infrastructure to support processing those large volumes of data so we can achieve those hyper-personalization use cases. As the world is collecting more data, privacy concerns and regulations come into play. I believe in the next few years there will be more innovation toward how businesses can collect data ethically and what the usage practices are, leading to more transparent and consent-based engagement data strategies. And lastly, I think about the integration of engagement data, which is always a big challenge. I believe as we’re solving those integration challenges, we are adding more and more complex data sources to the picture. So I think there will need to be more innovation or sophistication brought into data integration strategies, which will help us take a truly customer-centric approach to strategy formulation.   This interview Q&A was hosted with Ankur Kothari, a previous Martech Executive, for Chapter 6 of The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die. Download the PDF or request a physical copy of the book here. The post Ankur Kothari Q&A: Customer Engagement Book Interview appeared first on MoEngage. #ankur #kothari #qampampa #customer #engagement

With the ongoing jobs cuts across the gaming industry, the shift of “Grand Theft Auto 6” from release this fall to a launch next spring, and the distraction of the first new Nintendo console in eight years, there was a chance that Summer Game Fest 2025 wouldn’t have the same allure as the annual video game showcase has had in years past.Related Stories But the gamers came out in full force for the Geoff Keighley-hosted event on June 6, which live-streamed out of the YouTube Theater at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Popular on Variety “Viewership was up significantly year over year,” Keighley told Variety. “Stream charts said it doubled its audience year over year for the peak concurrency to over 3 million peak concurrent viewers, which does not include China.” In person, both the Summer Game Fest live showcase event and its subsequent weekend Play Days event for developers and press saw “significantly higher” media creator attendance this year: more than 600 registered attendees vs. “somewhere in the 400s” in 2024, per SGF. The boost is an indicator that both the current U.S. political climate and significant changes in 2025’s game release schedule, like the delay of “Grand Theft Auto 6” until next May, didn’t affect interest in the event. “Things happen in the industry all the time that are big news worthy happenings,” Summer Game Fest producer and iam8bit co-creator Amanda White. “Switch 2 just happened and we’re here, it’s all working out, everybody’s having a great time playing games. It’s not irrelevant — it’s just part of the way things go.” As big a hit as the Switch 2 was with consumers upon release — selling more than 3.5 million units during the first four days after its June 5 launch — and noted multiple times during the Summer Game Fest live showcase on June 6, Nintendo’s new console was not the star of the three-day Play Days event for developers and media in Downtown Los Angeles, which ran June 7-9. “I have not seen a single attendee with a Switch 2 on campus,” SGF producer and iam8bit co-creator Jon M. Gibson said with a laugh. “There’s a few Switch 2s that Nintendo supplied. Some dev kits for Bandai and for Capcom. Of course, the launch happened on Thursday, so bandwidth from Nintendo is stretched thin with all the midnight launches and stuff. But they’re really supportive and supply some for some pre-release games, which is exciting.” Some big video publishers such as EA, Take-Two and Ubisoft skipped this year’s SGF, eliminating potential splashy in-show hits for eagerly anticipated games like “Grand Theft Auto 6.” But SGF still managed a few big moments, like the announcement and trailer release for “Resident Evil Requiem.” Gibson and White attribute that reveal and other moments like it to the immense trust the festival has managed to build up with video game publishers in just a few years. “We are very proud of our ability to keep the trust of all the publishers on campus,” Gibson said. “Six years into SGF as a whole, four years into Play Days, we’re very good. Because we have to print everything ahead of time, too. So there are lots of unannounced things that we’re very careful about who sees what. We have vendors who print and produce and manufacture physical objects under very tight wraps. We’re just very protective, because we know what it means to have to keep a secret because we’ve had our own games that we’ve had to announce, as well. Capcom is a great example with ‘Resident Evil.’ We knew that for a very long time, but they trusted us with information, and we were very careful about what our team actually knew what was going on.” And even though some of the gaming giants sat this year out, White says conversations were already happening on the Play Days campus about who is ready to return next year and what they’ll bring. “People get excited, they come and see. And each year we grow, so people see more potential,” White said. As for next year, the June show will take place just a few weeks after the planned May 26 release for “GTA 6.” While Switch 2 didn’t seem to distract too much, will the draw of playing the newly launched “GTA 6” prove to be so powerful it outshines whatever could be announced at SGF 2026? “My view is that all boats rise with ‘GTA’ launch,” Keighley said. “It is a singular cultural event that is the biggest thing in all of entertainment this decade. It will bring more people into gaming, sell lots of consoles and bring back lapsed gamers. There will never be a better time to feel the excitement and energy around gaming than SGF 2026.” See more from Variety‘s Q&A with Keighley about Summer Game Fest 2025 below. How was this year’s show impacted by the date shift for “GTA 6”? How much was planned before and after that big announcement? So far as I know there wasn’t any material impact, but I think the date move did allow a number of teams to feel more confident announcing their launch dates. Halfway through the year, what do you see as some of the biggest trends in gaming for 2025, and how did you look to reflect that in the show? We continue to see some of the most interesting and successful games come from smaller teams outside of the traditional publisher system – games like “Clair Obscur,” “Blue Prince” and “REPO.” So we wanted to highlight some of those projects at the show like “Ill” and “Mortal Shell 2.” What game announcements and trailers do you think resonated most with audiences after this show? What assets were the most popular? “Resident Evil Requiem” was a massive moment. Also we saw a lot of love for “Ill” from a small team in Canada and Armenia. #inside #summer #game #fest #how

In April 2025, at the ITER Private Sector Fusion Workshop in Cadarache, something remarkable unfolded. In a room filled with scientists, engineers and software visionaries, the line between big science and commercial innovation began to blur.   Three organisations – Microsoft Research, Arena and Brigantium Engineering – shared how artificial intelligence, already transforming everything from language models to logistics, is now stepping into a new role: helping humanity to unlock the power of nuclear fusion.  Each presenter addressed a different part of the puzzle, but the message was the same: AI isn’t just a buzzword anymore. It’s becoming a real tool – practical, powerful and indispensable – for big science and engineering projects, including fusion.  “If we think of the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, the AI revolution is next – and it’s coming at a pace which is unprecedented,” said Kenji Takeda, director of research incubations at Microsoft Research.  Microsoft’s collaboration with ITER is already in motion. Just a month before the workshop, the two teams signed a Memorandum of Understandingto explore how AI can accelerate research and development. This follows ITER’s initial use of Microsoft technology to empower their teams. A chatbot in Azure OpenAI service was developed to help staff navigate technical knowledge, on more than a million ITER documents, using natural conversation. GitHub Copilot assists with coding, while AI helps to resolve IT support tickets – those everyday but essential tasks that keep the lights on.  But Microsoft’s vision goes deeper. Fusion demands materials that can survive extreme conditions – heat, radiation, pressure – and that’s where AI shows a different kind of potential. MatterGen, a Microsoft Research generative AI model for materials, designs entirely new materials based on specific properties. “It’s like ChatGPT,” said Takeda, “but instead of ‘Write me a poem’, we ask it to design a material that can survive as the first wall of a fusion reactor.”  The next step? MatterSim – a simulation tool that predicts how these imagined materials will behave in the real world. By combining generation and simulation, Microsoft hopes to uncover materials that don’t yet exist in any catalogue.  While Microsoft tackles the atomic scale, Arena is focused on a different challenge: speeding up hardware development. As general manager Michael Frei put it: “Software innovation happens in seconds. In hardware, that loop can take months – or years.”  Arena’s answer is Atlas, a multimodal AI platform that acts as an extra set of hands – and eyes – for engineers. It can read data sheets, interpret lab results, analyse circuit diagrams and even interact with lab equipment through software interfaces. “Instead of adjusting an oscilloscope manually,” said Frei, “you can just say, ‘Verify the I2Cprotocol’, and Atlas gets it done.”  It doesn’t stop there. Atlas can write and adapt firmware on the fly, responding to real-time conditions. That means tighter feedback loops, faster prototyping and fewer late nights in the lab. Arena aims to make building hardware feel a little more like writing software – fluid, fast and assisted by smart tools.  Fusion, of course, isn’t just about atoms and code – it’s also about construction. Gigantic, one-of-a-kind machines don’t build themselves. That’s where Brigantium Engineering comes in. Founder Lynton Sutton explained how his team uses “4D planning” – a marriage of 3D CAD models and detailed construction schedules – to visualise how everything comes together over time. “Gantt charts are hard to interpret. 3D models are static. Our job is to bring those together,” he said.  The result is a time-lapse-style animation that shows the construction process step by step. It’s proven invaluable for safety reviews and stakeholder meetings. Rather than poring over spreadsheets, teams can simply watch the plan come to life.  And there’s more. Brigantium is bringing these models into virtual reality using Unreal Engine – the same one behind many video games. One recent model recreated ITER’s tokamak pit using drone footage and photogrammetry. The experience is fully interactive and can even run in a web browser. “We’ve really improved the quality of the visualisation,” said Sutton. “It’s a lot smoother; the textures look a lot better. Eventually, we’ll have this running through a web browser, so anybody on the team can just click on a web link to navigate this 4D model.”  Looking forward, Sutton believes AI could help automate the painstaking work of syncing schedules with 3D models. One day, these simulations could reach all the way down to individual bolts and fasteners – not just with impressive visuals, but with critical tools for preventing delays.  Despite the different approaches, one theme ran through all three presentations: AI isn’t just a tool for office productivity. It’s becoming a partner in creativity, problem-solving and even scientific discovery.  Takeda mentioned that Microsoft is experimenting with “world models” inspired by how video games simulate physics. These models learn about the physical world by watching pixels in the form of videos of real phenomena such as plasma behaviour. “Our thesis is that if you showed this AI videos of plasma, it might learn the physics of plasmas,” he said.  It sounds futuristic, but the logic holds. The more AI can learn from the world, the more it can help us understand it – and perhaps even master it. At its heart, the message from the workshop was simple: AI isn’t here to replace the scientist, the engineer or the planner; it’s here to help, and to make their work faster, more flexible and maybe a little more fun. As Takeda put it: “Those are just a few examples of how AI is starting to be used at ITER. And it’s just the start of that journey.”  If these early steps are any indication, that journey won’t just be faster – it might also be more inspired.  #fusion #how #private #sector #tech

Navigating the dense urban canyons of cities like San Francisco or New York can be a nightmare for GPS systems. The towering skyscrapers block and reflect satellite signals, leading to location errors of tens of meters. For you and me, that might mean a missed turn. But for an autonomous vehicle or a delivery robot, that level of imprecision is the difference between a successful mission and a costly failure. These machines require pinpoint accuracy to operate safely and efficiently. Addressing this critical challenge, researchers from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausannein Switzerland have introduced a groundbreaking new method for visual localization during CVPR 2025 Their new paper, “FG2: Fine-Grained Cross-View Localization by Fine-Grained Feature Matching,” presents a novel AI model that significantly enhances the ability of a ground-level system, like an autonomous car, to determine its exact position and orientation using only a camera and a corresponding aerialimage. The new approach has demonstrated a remarkable 28% reduction in mean localization error compared to the previous state-of-the-art on a challenging public dataset. Key Takeaways: Superior Accuracy: The FG2 model reduces the average localization error by a significant 28% on the VIGOR cross-area test set, a challenging benchmark for this task. Human-like Intuition: Instead of relying on abstract descriptors, the model mimics human reasoning by matching fine-grained, semantically consistent features—like curbs, crosswalks, and buildings—between a ground-level photo and an aerial map. Enhanced Interpretability: The method allows researchers to “see” what the AI is “thinking” by visualizing exactly which features in the ground and aerial images are being matched, a major step forward from previous “black box” models. Weakly Supervised Learning: Remarkably, the model learns these complex and consistent feature matches without any direct labels for correspondences. It achieves this using only the final camera pose as a supervisory signal. Challenge: Seeing the World from Two Different Angles The core problem of cross-view localization is the dramatic difference in perspective between a street-level camera and an overhead satellite view. A building facade seen from the ground looks completely different from its rooftop signature in an aerial image. Existing methods have struggled with this. Some create a general “descriptor” for the entire scene, but this is an abstract approach that doesn’t mirror how humans naturally localize themselves by spotting specific landmarks. Other methods transform the ground image into a Bird’s-Eye-Viewbut are often limited to the ground plane, ignoring crucial vertical structures like buildings. FG2: Matching Fine-Grained Features The EPFL team’s FG2 method introduces a more intuitive and effective process. It aligns two sets of points: one generated from the ground-level image and another sampled from the aerial map. Here’s a breakdown of their innovative pipeline: Mapping to 3D: The process begins by taking the features from the ground-level image and lifting them into a 3D point cloud centered around the camera. This creates a 3D representation of the immediate environment. Smart Pooling to BEV: This is where the magic happens. Instead of simply flattening the 3D data, the model learns to intelligently select the most important features along the verticaldimension for each point. It essentially asks, “For this spot on the map, is the ground-level road marking more important, or is the edge of that building’s roof the better landmark?” This selection process is crucial, as it allows the model to correctly associate features like building facades with their corresponding rooftops in the aerial view. Feature Matching and Pose Estimation: Once both the ground and aerial views are represented as 2D point planes with rich feature descriptors, the model computes the similarity between them. It then samples a sparse set of the most confident matches and uses a classic geometric algorithm called Procrustes alignment to calculate the precise 3-DoFpose. Unprecedented Performance and Interpretability The results speak for themselves. On the challenging VIGOR dataset, which includes images from different cities in its cross-area test, FG2 reduced the mean localization error by 28% compared to the previous best method. It also demonstrated superior generalization capabilities on the KITTI dataset, a staple in autonomous driving research. Perhaps more importantly, the FG2 model offers a new level of transparency. By visualizing the matched points, the researchers showed that the model learns semantically consistent correspondences without being explicitly told to. For example, the system correctly matches zebra crossings, road markings, and even building facades in the ground view to their corresponding locations on the aerial map. This interpretability is extremenly valuable for building trust in safety-critical autonomous systems. “A Clearer Path” for Autonomous Navigation The FG2 method represents a significant leap forward in fine-grained visual localization. By developing a model that intelligently selects and matches features in a way that mirrors human intuition, the EPFL researchers have not only shattered previous accuracy records but also made the decision-making process of the AI more interpretable. This work paves the way for more robust and reliable navigation systems for autonomous vehicles, drones, and robots, bringing us one step closer to a future where machines can confidently navigate our world, even when GPS fails them. Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to join our 100k+ ML SubReddit and Subscribe to our Newsletter. Jean-marc MommessinJean-marc is a successful AI business executive .He leads and accelerates growth for AI powered solutions and started a computer vision company in 2006. He is a recognized speaker at AI conferences and has an MBA from Stanford.Jean-marc Mommessinhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/jean-marc0000677/AI-Generated Ad Created with Google’s Veo3 Airs During NBA Finals, Slashing Production Costs by 95%Jean-marc Mommessinhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/jean-marc0000677/Highlighted at CVPR 2025: Google DeepMind’s ‘Motion Prompting’ Paper Unlocks Granular Video ControlJean-marc Mommessinhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/jean-marc0000677/Snowflake Charts New AI Territory: Cortex AISQL & Snowflake Intelligence Poised to Reshape Data AnalyticsJean-marc Mommessinhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/jean-marc0000677/Exclusive Talk: Joey Conway of NVIDIA on Llama Nemotron Ultra and Open Source Models #epfl #researchers #unveil #fg2 #cvpr

The 2025 edition of Summer Game Fest saw an 89% year-over-year growth in live peak viewership, according to StreamsCharts. Airing live across YouTube, Twitch and Xon June 6, the Geoff Keighley-hosted video game showcase, which was held out of the YouTube Theater at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, reached more than 50 million livestreams. That marks a record high in viewership for the event, which is now in its sixth year. Related Stories Major games announced or further teased during the show included the reveal of “Resident Evil Requiem,” “Atomic Heart 2,” “Scott Pilgrim EX,” “Mouse: P.I. for Hire,” “Game of Thrones: War for Westeros,” “Marvel’s Deadpool VR,” “007 First Light,” “Death Stranding 2: On the Beach” and “ARC Raiders.” Popular on Variety SEE ALSO: Variety’s Summer Game Fest Recap Per a Friday press release from Summer Game Fest, which is produced by Keighley and iam8bit, “In total, the peak concurrent audience for SGF reached more than 3 million live simultaneous viewers across Twitch and YouTube, with significant year over year growth on both platforms in terms of average viewership, watch time and co-streams.” Peak viewership stood on YouTubewas up 43% compared to 2024, with the average audience up 38%, per StreamCharts data provided by SGF. The archived video version of the live show has currently racked up more than eight million views. In total, the peak concurrent audience on YouTube reached over 1.5 million viewers globally, On gaming-focused social media platform Twitch, peak viewership for SGF was up 38% with more than 8,900 channels co-streaming the show. The total concurrent live audience stood at more than 1.4 million viewers worldwide. SGF was the top global trend on X/Twitter with 17 out of the top 30 trends in the U.S. related to Summer Game Fest, per the event. #summer #game #fest #viewership #jumps

With its comfortable, laid-back decorating vibes, no room says “come and sit awhile” or “aah, I’m home” quite like a beautifully inviting rustic and cozy living room. Whether you live in a farmhouse, cabin, cottage, a new-build in the suburbs, or even a city apartment—rustic living room ideas bring a certain homespun style that ranges from downright traditional to modern and chic.Here at Country Living, we’ve discovered that the very best classic and country rustic living room ideas begin with good ol’ tried-and-true character-rich decor. We're talking reclaimed wood, stone focal points, and a casual mix of natural textures and materials. More modern rustic living room ideas include a less-is-more approach with calming neutral color palettes and clean-lined furniture. Paint colors, fabrics, and accessories in grays, browns, and greens pulled from nature make for the just-right warmth—all simple rustic living room ideas at their finest. So relax and sink into our best country rustic living room ideas from some of our all-time favorite Country Living house tours!Here are more creative ways to make your home feel rustic and cozy:1Fill the Room With CharacterSean LitchfieldFrom floor to ceiling and wall to wall, this rustic living room packs in loads of character. Comfy leather and upholstered furniture, a vintage patterned rug, and a blue and yellow painted cupboard found on Facebook marketplace sit well together against a backdrop of rustic wood.2Source Local MaterialsLincoln BarbourIn this beautifully rustic Mississippi barn. the owners sourced local wood materials from a nearby military depot to clad the walls and ceiling, bringing maximum warmth and texture. Large windows let in loads of natural light during the day, while a chandelier and mounted sconces make for a romantic glow come nighttime.RELATED: These Wood Ceiling Ideas Bring Country Charm to Any RoomTOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSEAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below3Pick a Cozy Paint ColorAlpha Smoot for Country LivingThis cozy living room has a built-in warmth, thanks to saturated navy blue walls. Its handsomely worn floorboards, doors, mantel, and warming cabinet above the fireplace complement the dark blue beautifully. The fire and candlelight emit a magical glow.Get the Look:Wall Paint Color: Dark Navy by BehrTOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE4Lay a Comfy RugSara Ligorria-TrampWhat's cozier than a roaring fire on a cool night? A soft, fuzzy rug in front of it! The fireplace features mantel made from a tree felled on-site and white Zellige tile. The artwork is a vintage find paired with a contemporary painting.TOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSEAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below5Embrace Log Cabin DetailsLisa FloodIn this stunning Wyoming log cabin, the family usually gathers in the wonderfully rustic great room. Its cozy factor is off the charts, thanks country decorating classics like unpainted log walls and beams, a woodburning stove, textural rugs, and a sweet swing that hangs from the ceiling. Get the Look:Swing: The Oak & Rope CompanyTOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE6Wrap a Room in WoodMarta Xochilt PerezIn this rustic and cozy cabin, an original fieldstone fireplace creates the warmest welcome. A pair of cushy leather sofas piled with pillows blankets face off, anchoring the wood-wrapped space, and providing the perfect perches for game night. TOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE Advertisement - Continue Reading Below7Build an Rustic Stone Accent WallMarta Xochilt Perez for Country LivingThis impressive wall of moss rock surrounds the fireplace. Chiseled stone corbels provide mantel supports. On cool nights, you can count on a roaring fire! Throughout the home, carved timbers, rough-cut stone, and walls of windows reflect a combination of the homeowners’ Scandinavian heritage and Irish roots.TOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE8Go Big in a Small SpaceEmily FollowillThis tiny living room is packed with so much character. Designer James Farmer added decorative oomph with a large tobacco basket, an art-forward fireplace screen, and natural design elements like plants. Details like arranging the paneling on the diagonal to “point” upward enhance the vertical space. Says James, “Tall ceilings, bold plant arrangements, and large light fixtures have even more impact in a small home. Play with scale to find what feels right.” Advertisement - Continue Reading Below9Mix and Match FurnitureLincoln BarbourFor the ultimate collected-over-time vibe, forgo matching furniture. Here, a wingback chair and a spool chair look right at home in this living room. Other period-appropriate decor found in this 100-year-old home: painted paneled walls, exposed ceiling beams, and a rustic mantel wood.TOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE 10Let There Be LightChristopher DibbleWe put this family room in the “rustic light” category. For a top-to-bottom cabin-like feel, designer Max Humphrey wrapped the space in eight-foot knotty pine planks on the ceiling and walls. A clear coat of polyurethane protects the wood while letting its natural color shine through. Colorful national park posters, globes, camp grounds signage, and a linen modern sectional create a hip yet homey living space.Advertisement - Continue Reading Below11Customize a Focal PointHomeowners Victoria and Marcus Ford’s vision of a custom wood fireplace surround included open shelves and striking floor-to-ceiling firewood nooks. “We figured go big or go home,” says Victoria. Brass sconces provide a library-like touch, and a custom frame has the TV looking picture-perfect above the mantel.Get the Look:Wall and Trim Paint: Endless Sea by Sherwin-WilliamsCeiling Paint: Oyster White by Sherwin-WilliamsTOUR THE ENTIRE SPACE12Incorporate Rustic Furniture FindsAnnie SchlechterTopped with a plaid cushion, a rustic yellow daybed nestled in the corner makes for the coziest spot to take in lake views. The 22-foot cathedral ceilings are clad in wood, warming up this lofty open-concept space designed by Amy Meier that also includes a dining area and kitchen.TOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE Advertisement - Continue Reading Below13Paint the FloorsDane Tashima for Country LivingWhile the homeowners of this New Jersey dairy barn were able to salvage the structure’s original knotty beams, the walls and floors in the soaring 25-foot-high space needed to be replaced. Simple poplar planks painted white got the job done affordably. A new cast-iron pellet stove warms the space with a rustic, authentic look. Get the Look:Wall and Floor Paint Color: Alabaster by Sherwin-WilliamsTOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE14Tell the BackstorySean LitchfieldWhere possible, the original Eastern Hemlock posts and beams of this 1819 Maine barn were carefully preserved when, in 1999, the structure was disassembled and then reassembled several miles down the road. Hand-split slabs of Maine graniteand brick were used to fabricate the massive woodburning fireplace. The walls and floors are lined in rough-hewn, nonuniform wood planks. The sofa table, made from an old piece of barn wood found on the farm, shows off collections of books, ceramics, and shells.Advertisement - Continue Reading Below15Use Old Materials for New BuildsBrie WilliamsIn this new build, reclaimed materials create instant patina for a warm and welcoming family room. Here’s what makes it rustic: reclaimed beams came from an 1800s mill in Massachusetts mill; log skins salvaged from old Midwest barns; North Carolina stone on the fireplace. A soft palette for the furniture and window treatments was inspired by the antique rug that covers the ottoman.TOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE 16Balance Natural Wood with ColorNick JohnsonA pretty blue on the fireplace and in the fabrics balances the overall rustic vibe in this country house. “I wanted this room to feel rich and cozy and warm—the kind of place you’d sit by the fire to read a book,” says Erica Harrison of Detroit-based design firm Hudson and Sterling.TOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSEAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below17Make It WorkHelen NormanDespite the renovation challenges, this cozy sitting area situated just off the open kitchen works. The fireplace, which had to be rebuilt from the inside, was covered in stucco to balance all the exposed brick that was discovered underneath damaged drywall. For attic access, a ladder that was found in a barn on the property gets the job done in lieu of stairs. On the other side of the fireplace, a sturdy wooden bookshelf replaces an existing one that was crumbling.18Paint It WhiteZIO AND SONSFor the ultimate modern farmhouse vibe, start with an all-white palette, like in this home of designer Anthony D’Argenzio. This allows you to layer in character-rich architectural elements, like wide-planked wood floors and ceiling beams. A comfy sectional piled with pillows balances perfectly with hard elements, like the wood-and-iron coffee table, handmade oak stump side table, and a round iron chandelier. The hanging chair in the corner provides a wink to this serene design. RELATED: The Best Warm White Paint Colors For Every Room in Your HouseAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below19Leave Materials NaturalJames MerrellRustic meets cozy in this cabin that features walls constructed of hand-hewn logs, a stone fireplace, exposed ceiling beams, and a pair of comfy armchairs. Leaving all materials in their natural finish and unpainted contributes to the overall homespun feel.RELATED: The Best Places to Find or Buy Reclaimed Wood Near You20Choose Neutral FurnishingsSeth SmootIn this California living room, a comfortable collection of neutral furnishings complements the home’s rustic redwood walls. The solid sofa and barrel chairs that are upholstered in linen leave room for visual delights, like the wicker and fringe lamps, an antique rug, a patterned ottoman, and piles of pillows.Jennifer KopfJennifer Kopf is the Executive Editor of Country Living. She also covers antiques and collecting.Amy MitchellManaging EditorAmy Mitchell is the managing editor for VERANDA and Country Living, where she writes articles on a variety of topics—decorating and design, gardens, and holidays. Amy’s experience in the shelter magazine category spans more than 20 years, as she’s previously held positions at Coastal Living and Cottage Living. Her personal pursuits include cooking, gardening, and hunting her favorite tag sale spots for the next piece of Pyrex for her prized collection. #rustic #living #room #ideas #coziest