Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Disney CEO Bob Iger says his company’s major licensing deal with OpenAI is all about establishing a foothold in a new realm of entertainment and engaging younger audiences.The licensing agreement gives ChatGPT and OpenAI’s Sora video platform access to Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader. Disney is also investing $1 billion in the AI company and becoming a “major customer.”Speaking on CNBC about the deal with OpenAI’s Sam Altman on Thursday, Iger said it gives Disney a chance to get in on a fast-growing area of tech.”It gives us an opportunity, really, to play a part in what is…

The race to release world models is on as AI image and video generation company Runway joins an increasing number of startups and Big Tech companies by launching its first one. Dubbed GWM-1, the model works through frame-by-frame prediction, creating a simulation with an understanding of physics and how the world actually behaves over time, the company said. A world model is an AI system that learns an internal simulation of how the world works so it can reason, plan, and act without needing to be trained on every scenario possible in real life. Runway, which earlier this month launched…

Arneetrice Lane was determined to finish college this time.She’d previously taken classes at Indiana Wesleyan University and Ivy Tech Community College, but didn’t graduate from either. Neither school felt right for her. But when she enrolled at Martin University, she felt right at home.“You can express yourself without being judged or without feeling shunned for your opinion,” Lane, who is 34, said. “You can agree to disagree and still maintain positive relationships.”This week, though, Lane’s plans were thrown into jeopardy when Martin University announced it would close at the end of the semester with no reopening date. The news came…

The Walt Disney Company announced on Thursday that it has signed a three-year partnership with OpenAI that will bring its iconic characters to the company’s Sora AI video generator. Disney is also making a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI. Launched in September, Sora allows users to create short videos using simple prompts. With this new agreement, users will be able to draw on more than 200 animated, masked, and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars, including costumes, props, vehicles, and more. These characters include iconic faces like Mickey Mouse, Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Baymax, and Simba, as…

Darth Vader is coming to ChatGPT and OpenAI’s Sora AI video app.The House of Mouse and OpenAI struck a three-year licensing agreement on Thursday to make Disney “the first major content licensing partner on Sora.”It’s also investing $1 billion into the AI pioneer and receiving warrants to purchase additional equity.Shares of Disney jumped .6% in premarket trading and climbed over 2% after the opening bell.”As part of this new, three-year licensing agreement, Sora will be able to generate short, user-prompted social videos that can be viewed and shared by fans, drawing from a set of more than 200 animated, masked…

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The father of two Kentucky State University students charged with murder in an on-campus shooting that killed one student and critically injured another was ordered held on $1 million cash bond Thursday.Jacob Lee Bard appeared by video from jail during the brief hearing. His attorney, Mark Hall, entered a not guilty plea in court on Bard’s behalf to charges of murder and first-degree assault.Police said Bard fired shots at the victims at a residence hall at the college, which is about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) east of the Capitol building in Frankfort, “There is so much…

Each December, TIME Magazine names a person of the year — someone who has most influenced the news and world, for good or ill. Last year, TIME chose President Donald Trump for the second time. The year before that, it was Taylor Swift, who many claimed saved the economy from a recession with her Eras Tour. In 1938, the magazine chose Adolf Hitler.  This year, TIME has chosen to bestow its award on not just one person, but a group of people: the so-called “Architects of AI,” comprising the CEOs shaping the global AI race from the U.S. With AI on…

If you were one of the tens of millions of AT&T customers whose personal data was leaked online in recent years, you could be eligible for up to $7,500 as part of a settlement.The company revealed in March 2024 that information belonging to millions of current and past customers had been leaked on the dark web. Four months later, AT&T said additional customer data had been illegally downloaded from a company workspace on a third-party cloud platform back in 2022.Both incidents spurred lawsuits against AT&T, which has denied any wrongdoing.Affected customers filed a consolidated class-action suit against the company in…

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two California colleges have reached settlements with Jewish organizations and individuals who filed complaints alleging antisemitism arising from pro-Palestinian campus protests, including a $60,000 payment to an Israeli sociologist and dance researcher who says she was not rehired by the University of California, Berkeley despite the popularity of her class.UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons on Wednesday issued an apology to Yael Nativ, a visiting 2022 professor who was found in a campus investigation to have been the victim of discrimination, the Los Angeles Times reported. She is also invited to teach her class in a semester…

It’s a rare occasion when my worlds of biomedical informatics and serialized lesbian melodrama fandom collide.But that’s exactly what happened earlier this summer when two of my favorite actresses appeared on a popular podcast. I was excited to hear them talk about their new book and their history of working together, so I was confused but delighted when their conversation took a turn toward my area of expertise – electronic health records.One actress noted that on a recent trip to the optometrist, she was asked about her ethnicity. “And I was like, what difference does it make?” she said.The host…