Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
A coalition of nonprofits is urging the U.S. government to immediately suspend the deployment of Grok, the chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, in federal agencies including the Department of Defense. The open letter, shared exclusively with TechCrunch, follows a slew of concerning behavior from the large language model over the past year, including most recently a trend of X users asking Grok to turn photos of real women, and in some cases children, into sexualized images without their consent. According to some reports, Grok generated thousands of nonconsensual explicit images every hour, which were then disseminated at scale on…
What is and isn’t a weed that needs to be eliminated in the field is determined by the eyes of the farmer — and now, increasingly, by a new AI model from Carbon Robotics. Seattle-based Carbon Robotics, which builds the LaserWeeder — a robot fleet that uses lasers to kill weeds — announced a new AI model, the Large Plant Model (LPM), on Monday. This model recognizes plant species instantly and allows farmers to target new weeds without needing to retrain the robots. The LPM is trained on more than 150 million photos and data points collected by the company’s…
A major investigative collaboration among five newsrooms shows how chemicals used to make carpets stain-resistant have contaminated swaths of the South.In the mills of northwest Georgia, workers treated carpets with these chemicals starting in the 1970s. Carried in manufacturing wastewater, the chemicals spread into rivers and, ultimately, drinking water.The odorless and colorless compounds — called PFAS by scientists and known colloquially as forever chemicals because they take decades or more to break down — are now everywhere in the region. That includes in people, where PFAS circulate in blood and lodge in some organs.As the carpet industry grappled with the…
Sometimes, you might be sitting on a hot product and not know it until the market demands it. After launching as a digital business card that doubled as a lead capture tool for sales teams, Birmingham, Alabama-based Linq pivoted a few times before landing on an idea last year: helping businesses better communicate with their customers by upgrading from SMS (text) to iMessage and RCS. Now, Apple already lets businesses do this via its Messages for Business service, and Twilio has built a $18.26 billion business by helping companies text their customers. But users can always tell when they’re talking…
Cortisol, what is known as the stress hormone, is the talk of the internet.Wellness influencers warn about the various symptoms of chronically high cortisol: waking up at 3 a.m., swollen “cortisol face” and accumulating belly fat. And many offer diet and exercise routines that they claim will help.But do you really need supplements and advice from influencers to control your cortisol? Doctors say it’s very unlikely.Don’t be so quick to label this hormone as a villain, they say. And if you suspect something is off, talk to a professional.Here’s what to know.Cortisol keeps you alive and disorders are relatively rareCortisol…
Feb 2 (Reuters) – Sanofi has breached the UK pharma code of practice with unsubstantiated claims that its Beyfortus was more effective than Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, the industry’s self-regulatory body said on Monday, responding to a complaint.The UK’s Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority also found the French drugmaker in breach of UK rules regarding the advertisement of a prescription-only medicine to the public.Sanofi said in an emailed statement to Reuters that it acknowledges the PMCPA ruling and has accepted the findings.”Sanofi remains committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and responsible external engagement,” the company added.Beyfortus is a…
STELLA, Wis. (AP) — The roughly 40 million Americans who get their water from private wells are particularly vulnerable to harmful forever chemicals. These well owners are often the last to know their water is contaminated, and the problem can take years to fix.The federal government has set strict limits on forever chemicals in drinking water that comes from public utilities and requires testing. But those rules don’t apply to private wells, which can leave people near industrial sites unaware they are consuming contaminated water.Forever chemicals, known to scientists as PFAS, are uniquely able to repel stains and moisture and…
Proposals to close Northern Nevada schools. Elimination of a Reno program for gifted students. Job cuts. Canceled teacher raises. Three years after Nevada school leaders celebrated a historical, 26 percent K-12 education funding increase, a number of their districts now face financial outlooks so dire that at least one is eligible for a state takeover and several are mulling options more often seen during a recession. What happened?Superintendents across the state say flat K-12 education funding, increased costs that have chipped away at their reserves, declining student enrollment and policy changes under the state’s new funding formula have created a…
Forget 2016, it’s time to make sound like 2001 again.Tony Fadell, creator of the iPod, said it is time for Apple to relaunch the device that changed the Cupertino-based tech giant and music forever.”I think there are smarter ways of making an AirPod that has an iPod in it. So, I think they need to bring back the iPod,” Fadell told Eric Newcomer during a recent interview on the tech journalist’s podcast.Fadell, widely known as “the father of the iPod,” said there are two reasons to bring back the device that is synonymous with his legacy. First, to cash in…
Entire books have been written to teach people how to beat a McKinsey interview. Now, the game is changing.For decades, consulting firms like McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company have relied on case interviews, during which prospective candidates work through simulated client problems with higher-ups at the firm.Now, as consulting firms race to both adopt AI and advise their clients on how to do the same — implementing the technology into everything from drafting reports to synthesizing data — the technology has become a new hurdle in the vaunted interview process at McKinsey, BCG, and others.The…