Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
BEIJING (AP) — Even as China’s expansion of solar and wind power raced ahead in 2025, the Asian giant opened many more coal power plants than it had in recent years — raising concern about whether the world’s largest emitter will reduce carbon emissions enough to limit climate change.More than 50 large coal units — individual boiler and turbine sets with generating capacity of 1 gigawatt or more — were commissioned in 2025, up from fewer than 20 a year over the previous decade, a research report released Tuesday said. Depending on energy use, 1 gigawatt can power from several…
Feb 3 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca said on Tuesday the U.S. health regulator has rejected its application for a self-injectable version of lupus drug Saphnelo, pushing back the approval timeline for a possible approval to the first half of 2026.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a complete response letter for the subcutaneous version of Saphnelo, which would allow patients to inject the drug themselves at home rather than receiving intravenous infusions at a clinic or hospital.The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said it has since provided the information requested by the FDA and will continue working with the regulator to advance the…
The Gates Foundation will not change course in the face of massive foreign aid cuts, holding out hope that the U.S. specifically will return to funding the global health projects the foundation has long championed, its CEO said Tuesday.Instead, the foundation — one of the largest in the world — will concentrate at least 70% of its funding over the next 20 years on ending preventable maternal and child deaths and controlling key infectious diseases. A third goal focused on poverty will divide its work between U.S. education and agriculture in poorer countries.“We are saying not only will we not…
XAI told workers the company won’t be changing its name anytime soon, even after it announced SpaceX had acquired the company on Monday.In a Q&A sent to employees on Monday, the company said xAI’s mission remains “unchanged” and that its price-to-share valuation will remain the same. Workers will soon learn more about how the acquisition will impact their equity, according to the Q&A.The joint venture is still continuing to prepare for a “possible IPO in 2026,” according to the memo.”Whether it actually happens, when it happens, and at what valuation are still highly uncertain,” it said.SpaceX, which Musk founded in…
SpaceX has acquired Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, creating the world’s most valuable private company, the spaceflight company announced Monday. Musk, who is also the CEO of SpaceX, wrote in a memo posted to the rocket company’s website that the merger is largely about creating space-based data centers — an idea he has become fixated on over the last few months. “Current advances in AI are dependent on large terrestrial data centers, which require immense amounts of power and cooling. Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing…
Proton VPN is widely considered one of the safest services for anyone looking for a VPN that prioritizes privacy and transparency. It has a history, backed by regular third-party audits that emphasize strong encryption, public accountability, and minimal data collection.If you’ve come here because you’re wondering specifically about the free tier of Proton VPN compared to the various paid subscription tiers, we’ll run through the differences there as well, but after testing both tiers extensively, reading through audits and checking up on the company, we can say, yes Proton VPN is safe as long as you understand what a VPN…
Elon Musk and Reid Hoffman are once again trading blows online after the latest release of the Epstein files.The new round of bickering between Musk and the LinkedIn cofounder kicked off on Friday and lasted throughout the weekend, with the billionaires each lobbing criticism at each other over their inclusion in the Epstein files.Neither Musk nor Hoffman has been implicated in any wrongdoing related to their past ties to Epstein, who looms large in their social-media spat.Their latest back-and-forth — the two have publicly criticized each other in recent years — appears to have started on Friday, when Musk reshared…
Cloud data company Snowflake has entered into a $200 million multi-year AI deal with OpenAI on Monday, the latest signal that enterprise AI competition continues to heat up. Under the deal, Snowflake’s 12,600 customers will have access to OpenAI models across all three major cloud providers. Snowflake employees access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise as well. The two companies are also partnering to build new AI agents and other AI products. “By bringing OpenAI models to enterprise data, Snowflake enables organizations to build and deploy AI on top of their most valuable asset using the secure, governed platform they already trust,”…
Firefox will begin catering to those who don’t want AI in their browser. On Monday, Mozilla announced that Firefox will soon let users block all current and future generative AI features. Users will also have the option to block certain AI features in Firefox, while keeping others. Starting with Firefox 148, which is rolling out on February 24, users will find a new AI controls section within the desktop browser settings. People who don’t want access to any AI features from Firefox can turn on the “Block AI enhancements” toggle. When this setting is turned on, they won’t see pop-ups…
AI is already having a seismic impact on how software is written, with much of the grunt work of programming now performed by swarms of agents and subagents. But as developers experiment with new interfaces and form factors for human-AI collaboration, it’s become hard for even the most advanced AI labs to keep up. The current trend is for agentic software development — systems where AI agents can work independently on coding tasks — epitomized by the Claude Code and Cowork apps. In the meantime, OpenAI has been gradually building out its Codex tool, which launched as a command line…