Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

AMD has acquired Enosemi, a startup designing custom materials to support silicon photonics product development. The terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, weren’t disclosed. Silicon photonics uses light — photons — to transmit data, offering a faster and more efficient alternative to traditional electrical communication. AMD and other chipmakers have shown an increasing interest in the tech. Late last year, AMD reportedly teamed up with several Taiwan startups for a silicon photonics R&D collaboration. AMD says that its acquisition of Enosemi will “accelerate [its] co-packaged optics innovation for AI systems.” “As AI models grow larger and more complex, the need for…

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it has started rolling out the beta version of its Copilot for Gaming experience. Beta testers can access the experience in the Xbox app on iOS and Android. The early version of the experience allows the assistant to answer questions about the games you’re interested in, give you links to more information, and answer questions based on your account, play history, achievements, and more. For example, you could ask something like: “What’s my gamer score and can you give me some tips to raise it?” or “I love horror movies. Any suggestions for what game…

Context, a startup building an AI-powered office suite, on Wednesday announced that it raised $11 million in a seed round led by Lux Capital with participation from Qualcomm Ventures and General Catalyst. The round, which brings the company’s total raised to around $15.75 million, values Context at $70 million. Founder Joseph Semrai, a Thiel Fellow, started working on Context in 2024 after he realized that current digital office suites are not well-suited to take advantage of AI models. “[W]e have a bunch of disparate applications that aren’t necessarily built keeping the power of [AI models] in mind,” Semrai told TechCrunch…

For accounting departments, no software is more important than the general ledger system. It’s the central hub that summarizes all financial transactions, providing the essential data needed to create accurate financial statements. “The general ledger is the beating heart of the finance function, and so asking a company to remove it is a kind of open-heart surgery,” said Julien Bek, a partner at Sequoia Capital. Until a few years ago, Bek believed that VCs wouldn’t dare to invest in startups building new general ledger software. It’s not only difficult to get customers to switch from their existing accounting software, but…

Meta has been working on plans to open physical stores and hire retail workers, Business Insider has learned.The company has a project to expand its retail footprint, which is not broadly known internally yet, according to an internal communication seen by BI. The communication also said Meta planned to hire retail employees.Meta has only one physical retail space, Meta Store, which it opened on its campus in Burlingame, California, in 2022. The store lets shoppers test out some of its hardware products, including its Meta Quest VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, much like its rival Apple, which has…

Jurors in the Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal racketeering and sex-trafficking trial have heard from 19 witnesses so far. Here are the latest developments on Day 11: Mistrial motion denied: The defense moved for a mistrial, claiming prosecutorial misconduct, citing LAFD arson investigator Lance Jimenez’s testimony that fingerprint evidence taken from Kid Cudi’s home after a December 2011 trespassing incident was destroyed. Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said the prosecution’s implications within that questioning were “outrageous.” Prosecutor Christy Slavik said a mistrial was “absolutely unwarranted.” Judge Arun Subramanian denied the mistrial motion and instructed the jury that “the questions regarding the destruction…

Venture firms are normally in the business of backing high-flying tech startups, so many in the industry were scratching their heads when General Catalyst bought a chain of hospitals.The San Francisco-based firm spun out a separate healthcare unit, dubbed the Health Assurance Transformation Company or HATCo, in 2023 to buy Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health the following year. GC committed about $1 billion over seven years for the acquisition from the firm’s balance sheet, outside its typical fund structure.The deal was perplexing. Healthcare rarely delivers the kinds of sky-high returns that define venture success; even within GC’s own $36 billion portfolio,…

BEIJING (AP) — Six people remained missing and search and rescue efforts continued Wednesday morning after an explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China shook nearby buildings, killing at least five people and injuring 19.The blast on Tuesday, occurring in an industrial park in the city of Weifang, in Shandong province, knocked out windows at nearby buildings and spewed a thick plume of white smoke, according to videos shared on social media.It was not immediately clear what had caused the explosion, which occurred at a plant owned by Gaomi Youdao Chemical Co., a producer of pesticides and chemicals for…

A French court will deliver its verdict Wednesday in one of the country’s largest-ever child sex abuse cases, which has raised questions about how a pedophile surgeon was able to rape hundreds of victims over a period spanning more than two decades.Joël Le Scouarnec, a 74-year-old former surgeon, stands accused of raping and sexually assaulting 299 children. On Friday, prosecutors requested the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, describing Le Scouarnec as “a devil in a white coat.” He’s already serving a 15-year prison sentence, for a conviction in 2020 for the rape and sexual assault of four children,…

CNN  —  A night spent watching music videos is a most sacred ritual. It begins, for me and my loved ones, when the night feels like it’s ending. It’s late, we’re drowsy and conversation is dwindling. Someone turns on YouTube and starts playing the music video to a song they love. We perk up. Chappell Roan’s “My Kink is Karma” kicks us off. Inspired, my friend requests a video of Kelly Clarkson covering the same song. Then I request a Kelly Clarkson single that appeared in “The Princess Diaries 2.” And down the rabbit hole we go, spending hours singing…