Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Google rolled out a new feature on Thursday that allowed users to deploy Nano Banana 2, its AI image generator, to create fabricated images inside its satellite imagery mapping app Google Earth. The whole point of this feature, Google said, was to get creative with geography. But critics quickly pointed out that the tool could be used to create and spread misinformation. The tool, which was prompt-based and allowed pretty much any image to be superimposed over real maps, seemed like a recipe for a deluge of geospatial slop. “There’s no way that this new AI image generation feature on…

After years of pushing full speed ahead on AI, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says maybe it’s time for the AI industry to “pace” itself. The comments came just days after one of OpenAI’s own models broke out of its test environment and got tangled up in a breach at Hugging Face — though as Equity’s hosts point out, sloppy security seems to have been just as much to blame as the model itself. And Altman’s not alone in this stance: both OpenAI and Anthropic have come out in support of a petition echoing that same message.  On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into whether the…

Snapchat is the latest company to strengthen its stance against AI slop. The social network platform will no longer reward fully AI-generated videos, as it seeks to prioritize human-made content.  Snapchat announced the update on Friday, stating that its recommendation systems will be adjusted to ensure that only videos created by real people are eligible for Spotlight recommendations. Snapchat expressed in its blog post that it wants Spotlight to “remain a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people, because we believe there’s enduring value in rewarding original perspectives, personal storytelling, and the moments that people choose to…

In his final earnings call as CEO of Apple, Tim Cook said that the company’s long-awaited Siri AI upgrade could come with some paywalled limits. While Cook conceded that these plans are not set in stone, he envisions users being able to buy more compute for Siri AI via its existing iCloud+ subscriptions, which offer extended cloud storage. “We do believe there will be people that want to use [Siri AI] a lot, and so we will have some kind of upgrade possibilities on iCloud+, where people can buy up the stack on iCloud+, and we’ll see how the pickup…

Alex Karp continue to drag the AI labs — while defending one of their leaders, Dario Amodei.The Palantir CEO spent July outlining his thesis for “sovereign AI.” Firms should want to keep their data, he said; they shouldn’t fork it over to a third-party like OpenAI or Anthropic. (You might remember that testy CNBC interview.)In an all-hands meeting, Karp continued to lay out his theory — and rip into his AI competitors. He called the companies “wildly unlikable.””They are actually unwilling to respond to any questions about: How do you build the models without ripping off someone’s IP, migrating your alpha…

Clean up on aisle Phia.The shopping startup cofounded by Bill Gates’ 23-year-old daughter, Phoebe, is doing damage control after a bombshell Bloomberg report revealed it had been earning commissions on sales it didn’t help drive.Phia is working with at least one affiliate network, Impact.com, to refund affected parties and correct attributions, an email viewed by Business Insider shows.A Phia spokesperson confirmed that the company has offered transaction reversals to brands.Phia’s basic premise is that it can help shoppers find discounts on clothes and other items. The startup makes money by taking a cut of the sales it drives to brands,…

SpaceX said on Thursday that it will remove the unpermitted turbines powering its xAI data centers near Memphis as it transitions to a permanent, 1.2 gigawatt natural gas power plant.  The turbines won’t be completely removed until July 2027, though. SpaceX said that it’s currently operating 69 gas turbines to power the Colossus data centers, of which many have been operating for months. The NAACP and Southern Environmental Law Center have sued xAI over the use of unpermitted turbines. SpaceX acquired xAI in February.  In its IPO filing, SpaceX said it plans to buy $2.8 billion worth of gas turbines…

While AI agents are increasingly capable of solving customer support problems, most people can still tell immediately when they’re talking to a machine instead of a human. Smallest.ai, a startup founded in late 2024, is betting the next leap in voice agents will not come from making large language models faster, but from using smaller, specialized models built for human conversation. Simply put, the company wants to make speaking to an AI agent indistinguishable from talking to a human. To do so, it’s developing a small voice model designed to mimic how humans process information by listening, thinking, and speaking…

Every day, even after the Taliban barred Afghan girls from education, Fariba went to school. The teenager left the house with her head held high, smiling, saying she would ask her teachers when she could wear her uniform again. Every evening, a crestfallen Fariba returned home.“She looked so devastated that we couldn’t recognize her,” says her mother, who asked not to be named out of fear of reprisal. “Months passed like this.”One night, the family went to bed unaware of what was to come. “We didn’t think she could reach such a breaking point,” her mother says. At just 16,…

For several years, Big Tech has operated under a simple rule: spend more on AI, or investors will assume you’re falling behind. This earnings season, that rule may have changed.Even a year ago, if one of the cloud giants had merely held its AI spending plans steady while rivals kept increasing theirs, Wall Street probably would have panicked. Investors would have assumed AI demand was cooling or that the company had lost confidence in its competitive position.Instead, Microsoft did exactly that this week, and its stock exploded higher — adding the most market value in one day by any US…