Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
There are over 1,200 data centers scattered across the United States, and thanks to the AI boom, many more are on the way. Loading audio narration… Those data centers also, it seems, confirm the adage “familiarity breeds contempt.”A new survey from the Pew Research Council, conducted in January and published Thursday, found that the more Americans learn about data centers — and their effects on home energy costs, quality of life, the environment, local jobs, and tax revenue — the more cynical they feel about them.”Two-thirds of adults who have heard a lot about data centers say they’re mostly bad…
NEW YORK (AP) — As the U.S. flu season winds down, health officials say the flu vaccine didn’t work very well, with one of its worst effectiveness rates in more than a decade.A new strain that dominated the early winter was not well matched to the vaccine, leading to an intense early onslaught of flu.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday posted data that showed a continued decline in doctor’s office and hospital visits for flu symptoms through last week. The number of states reporting high flu activity dropped to 16, many of them in a belt stretching…
A few Fridays ago, I was feeling smug. I’d just sent another Tech Memo edition telling subscribers to stop worrying about AI eating tech jobs because Anthropic, the leading AI company pushing this narrative, is hiring so many engineers. Loading audio narration… So clever! Until I got an email from a reader, Kiran Maya Sheikh. She has a computer science degree from the University of California, Irvine. It’s a great school, and she graduated with an impressive GPA. And yet, she’s struggling to land that all-important first full-time software engineering job.”It’s bad advice to ‘not worry,'” she wrote. “AI is…
It’s been a whirlwind for NanoClaw creator Gavriel Cohen. About six weeks ago, he introduced NanoClaw on Hacker News as a tiny, open-source, secure alternative to the AI agent-building sensation OpenClaw, after he built it in a weekend coding binge. That post went viral. “I sat down on the couch in my sweatpants,” Cohen told TechCrunch, “and just basically melted into [it] the whole weekend, probably almost 48 hours straight.” About three weeks ago, an X post praising NanoClaw from famed AI researcher Andrej Karpathy went viral. About a week ago, Cohen closed down his AI marketing startup to focus…
At the SXSW conference on Friday, Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström announced a new feature, launching in beta, that will allow listeners for the first time to review and edit their Taste Profile, the algorithmically generated model of their music preferences. This Taste Profile is key to Spotify’s recommendations, including personalized playlists like Discover Weekly, Made For You recommendations, and the year-end review known as Spotify Wrapped, among other things. Starting with Premium listeners initially in New Zealand, Spotify will allow users to see all their listening data in one place in the app, including music, podcasts, and audiobooks. Users will…
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has pneumonia and is receiving treatment in an intensive care unit, a hospital in the capital, Brasilia, said Friday.Earlier in the day, Bolsonaro’s eldest son Flávio said on X that his father was being transferred from prison to the hospital after waking up with chills and vomiting.“I ask for prayers that it not be anything serious,” Flávio wrote. He has said he will run for president this year, and recent polls show him and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva almost tied.Jair Bolsonaro, 70, is serving a 27-year sentence for…
SAO PAULO, March 13 (Reuters) – Brazil’s imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro was hospitalized in an intensive care unit on Friday after being diagnosed with bronchopneumonia, according to a medical note from the DF Star hospital.Bolsonaro, 70, was taken to the hospital early on Friday with a high fever, chills and a drop in oxygen saturation, the note said, adding that he is being treated with antibiotics.The former president’s condition is serious and he is expected to remain in hospital for at least the next few days, one of the doctors treating him, Brasil Caiado, told reporters in Brasilia.Surgery has…
According to Index Ventures Partner Shardul Shah, cybersecurity startup Wiz sits “at the center of three tailwinds: AI, cloud, and security spend.” Those tailwinds powered what just became the largest venture-backed acquisition in history — Google’s $32 billion deal, finalized after a declined 2024 offer, antitrust review on both sides of the Atlantic, and an extra $9 billion to sweeten the pot. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Rebecca Bellan, and Sean O’Kane sit down with Shah to dig into what made Wiz worth that price tag and more of the week’s headlines. From DOGE data concerns…
Palantir CEO Alex Karp says AI will upend society and that even people in tech underestimate “how disruptive these technologies are.””If you are going to disrupt the economic and, therefore, political power significantly of one party’s base, highly educated, often female voters who vote mostly Democrat, and military and working class people who do not feel supported, and you feel like that’s, you believe that that’s going to work out politically — you’re in an insane asylum,” Karp told CNBC on Thursday on the sidelines of AIPCon 9 in Maryland.Karp said that, since AI will largely disrupt white-collar work, it…
Peacock is making a clear bet on two things: AI and mobile-first entertainment. Based on what the streamer previewed at a press event yesterday, Peacock’s mobile app is about to look a whole lot more like a mix of TikTok, a casual gaming hub, and a streaming service. From an AI-powered “Bravoverse” vertical video experience narrated by a digital avatar of TV host Andy Cohen to vertical live NBA broadcasts and mobile games, Peacock is rolling out several new features designed to keep viewers entertained on their phones even longer. The biggest reveal was a new feature called “Your Bravoverse,”…