Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

The Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants to scholars, writers, research groups and other organizations was unconstitutional, and the Department of Government Efficiency had no authority to end the funding, a federal judge in New York ruled on Thursday.U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan sided with The Authors Guild, several other groups and several people who had their grants canceled and sued DOGE and the National Endowment for the Humanities. McMahon permanently barred the administration from terminating the grants and criticized DOGE’s use of artificial intelligence in nixing the funding.Government lawyers had argued that…

Ryan Cohen’s eBay auction briefly hit a snag: eBay itself. Loading audio narration… The GameStop CEO announced on Wednesday that he was “selling stuff on eBay to pay for eBay,” a reference to the company’s unsolicited bid, though any of his earnings here would be a drop in the bucket relative to the $56 billion deal offer.The lot includes a GameStop hat (current bid $4,650), Donald Trump baseball card (current bid $5,770), and socks (current bid $14,188).Less than ten hours after his announcement, Cohen posted that his account had been suspended by eBay.A person familiar with the matter told Business…

Perplexity’s Personal Computer, its answer to OpenClaw and other local AI agents, is now available to all Mac users via its desktop app, the company announced on Thursday. As a reminder, Personal Computer is an expansion on Perplexity’s general-purpose, multi-model digital worker dubbed, confusingly, Perplexity Computer. “Personal Computer,” meanwhile, is designed to bring those capabilities to your own device. It does so by allowing AI agents access to local files, applications, and connectors, as well as the web, in order to handle the individual user’s personal, multi-step workflows. Or, as the company describes Personal Computer, it “takes Computer out of…

Elon Musk’s legal effort to dismantle OpenAI may hinge on how its for-profit subsidiary enhances or detracts from the frontier lab’s founding mission of ensuring that humanity benefits from artificial general intelligence. On Thursday, a federal court in Oakland, California, heard a former employee and board member say the company’s efforts to push AI products into the marketplace compromised its commitment to AI safety. Rosie Campbell joined the company’s AGI readiness team in 2021, and she left OpenAI in 2024 after her team was disbanded. Another safety-focused team, the Super Alignment team, was shut down in the same time period.…

Will dating app malaise finally kill off the swipe? For Bumble, at least, that seems to be the case. In an interview with Axios on Thursday, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd confirmed that Bumble will get rid of swiping, the defining feature of 2010s dating apps. “We are going to be saying goodbye to the swipe and hello to something that I believe is revolutionary for the category,” Wolfe Herd said. Bumble is planning to overhaul its app later this year, following several disappointing quarters in which the app consistently lost paying users. In this year’s first quarter, Bumble’s paid…

You might think twice before sending that text in your work group chat. Loading audio narration… The Musk v. Altman trial has exposed a 2023 text exchange between Mira Murati and Sam Altman — and it’s a reminder for workers of the risks of putting sensitive information in writing.The two-day viral conversation took place amid Altman’s high-profile ouster from OpenAI. The messages show him repeatedly asking for a meeting with a board and Murati, who was acting as interim CEO, repeatedly telling him they didn’t want him back.Murati was having conversations with OpenAI’s board in real time, so it may…

Want a software job at Google? Bring your AI wingman. Loading audio narration… The company is piloting a new interview process for software engineering candidates that will let them use an AI assistant, according to an internal document reviewed by Business Insider.The change is part of a broader overhaul of Google’s interview process, which the document says is being made “to better align with the modern engineering landscape.”Google will test the new format, which applies to junior to mid-level roles, to select teams in the US and plans to scale it more widely across the company and regions later if…

When Anthropic unveiled its new Mythos model in April, it also delivered a stern warning to anyone developing software. The model was so powerful at sniffing out software vulnerabilities, the lab claimed, that it had discovered thousands of high-severity bugs that would need to be fixed before it could be made public. Now, security researchers for Mozilla’s Firefox browser are providing a closer look at what that process has looked like in practice, and what Mythos’ powers mean for software security at large. In a post published on Thursday, Mozilla said Mythos has unearthed a wealth of high-severity bugs, including…

Startup Battlefield 200 applications are open, but only for three more weeks. Apply by May 27 for your shot at VC access, global visibility, TechCrunch coverage, $100,000 equity-free, and more opportunities for major scaling impact. Pre-Series A founders — and anyone who knows a startup worth backing — this is your reminder: The deadline is approaching fast, and the strongest contenders are already entering the arena. If your startup has been nominated, don’t wait. Complete your application now before the window closes. Know a startup that deserves to step into the spotlight? Nominate them now to give them time to complete the application by the deadline. Image Credits:TechCrunch Global visibility that’ll launch your…

You can spend months trying to get in front of the right people. Or you can show up where they’re already looking. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, more than 10,000 founders, investors, and operators will gather at Moscone West from October 13–15. And at the center of it all — where deals start, conversations accelerate, and new companies get discovered — is the Expo Hall. If startup visibility, traction, and real conversations matter, you should be on the Disrupt exhibit floor, not on the sidelines. Get your exhibit table at Disrupt before your competitor does. Image Credits:Slava Blazer Photograpy Why exhibiting at Disrupt works Disrupt isn’t a passive audience; it’s an active ecosystem. Investors, operators, and…