Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
Paradromics, a competitor of Elon Musk’s Neuralink, recently completed its first brain implant in a human patient, marking a major milestone in the startup’s decadelong effort to use brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to restore lost human functions.The startup announced Wednesday that its Connexus brain-chip was implanted in a Michigan woman who has difficulty speaking due to a motor neuron disease. The woman’s identity has not yet been disclosed to protect patient privacy.The procedure was part of an FDA-approved clinical study conducted at University of Michigan Health. The operation, which took place in early June, lasted about four hours, a representative for…
As global investors race to fund the infrastructure underpinning the artificial-intelligence boom, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s CPP Investments has committed up to ₹70 billion (about $741 million) to Indian data center operator CtrlS, betting on India’s growing role in the global buildout of cloud and AI infrastructure. Under the partnership announced on Wednesday, CPP Investments will invest ₹40 billion (around $423 million) to acquire an 8.2% stake in CtrlS and commit up to ₹30 billion (about $317 million) to a joint venture to develop hyperscale data center campuses across India. CPP Investments will own 48% of the joint venture,…
At conferences, speakers are often delivering their keynote or panel discussions in languages that many attendees might not know. That leads to users scrambling for their phones and opening translation apps to capture audio from a distance, which is not always effective. Mixhalo, a real-time audio startup that solves for situations like these, is joining DeepL to boost the German startup’s translation suite to help improve these kinds of translation experiences. Mixhalo was founded in 2016 by Incubus guitarist and songwriter Mike Einziger, violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger, and Vik Singh, who is now the CEO of the startup. The company’s…
Pinterest on Wednesday announced a new experimental app called “Ask Pinterest” that will allow the company to explore a more conversational approach to shopping and product discovery that could eventually find its way to the main Pinterest app. It also introduced other AI initiatives, including Pinterest Model Context Protocol (MCP), designed for advertisers running campaigns on Pinterest’s platform, and other AI ad tools. The news comes just ahead of the adtech industry’s annual gathering at Cannes Lions, which is this year mainly focused on how AI can serve the needs of advertisers and marketers. The “Ask Pinterest” online application gives…
A few years ago, Allbirds was Silicon Valley’s favorite sneaker company. Now it’s betting its future on AI infrastructure.After selling off its footwear business and shedding most of its workforce, the company formerly known for its eco-friendly wool sneakers has reinvented itself as Smartbird, an AI infrastructure provider led by a CEO who has never worn its signature shoes.The transformation is one of the most dramatic pivots of the AI boom and a test of whether a struggling public consumer company can transition into an AI company.”I’m more of a high heels person myself,” Nadia Carlsten told Business Insider in…
Pylon CEO Marty Kausas had to make a difficult choice: scale back token spending, or stomach a $1.4 million bill.Kausas said that his AI software company was fast approaching 150 employees on its Anthropic plan earlier this month, a point where the bill would more than triple. That realization got Kausas to declare the era of unlimited spending over — and he decided to set ceilings for tokens, the units of data that determine how AI is priced, for some of his non-technical employees.Pylon’s VP of finance is now exploring “where we should set caps,” Kausas said. “This is just…
Legal technology wants its vibe-coding moment. But first, it has to prove the tools can think like a lawyer.Taking up the task is Crosby, a startup-meets-law-firm that sells basic legal services to companies, including Cursor and Rogo. On Wednesday, it released the Redline Bench, a tool built to measure how well artificial intelligence models perform real-world legal tasks, starting with contract review.Software engineers have spent the past few years watching these systems get shockingly good at writing code and debugging errors. Now legal tech companies are chasing a similar prize: artificial intelligence that can review contracts, spot risks, and haggle…
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sean McDonnell, 43, who lives in England. McDonnell is the founder of the web design company Kaizen and the SaaS website Consigns. The following has been edited for length and clarity.Developing my website would not have been possible without AI.I started my web design business earlier this year, which also led me to create a website that provides software to help companies track their waste. I run both of these ventures with my partner, and we enlist contractors for some operations and software development.We’re a small team, and AI tools are…
After more than a decade of work, Snap on Tuesday unveiled Specs, a new pair of augmented reality glasses with a price tag more commonly seen on a gaming PC or high-end TV: $2,195.The launch marks Snap’s biggest bet yet on a future where computing moves from smartphones to eyewear, a sentiment frequently shared by Mark Zuckerberg, who made the prediction that smart glasses will become the next major computing platform, much as smartphones displaced PCs as the primary way people access digital services.Still, Specs cost far more than Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which start around $350, though they’re cheaper than…
Anthropic is having a month. The AI lab finished May by surpassing OpenAI in market share of business spending for the first time, Ramp just revealed. It raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation (also besting OpenAI) at the end of May, then waltzed into June by filing confidential paperwork for an IPO, reportedly on the strength of its first-ever profitable quarter. Then on Friday, the Trump administration renewed its war on the model maker by sending a letter demanding it ban non-Americans, including Anthropic’s employees, from accessing its state-of-the-art models: the limited-release Mythos 5 and the more guarded…