Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Elon Musk spent the better part of three days on the witness stand this week in his lawsuit against OpenAI, and it’s already getting messy. Emails, texts, and his own tweets are surfacing in court, and there are plenty more witnesses to come. Musk’s argument against OpenAI? By converting the company to a for-profit model, Sam Altman betrayed the “nonprofit for the benefit of humanity” mission Musk signed up to fund. As Musk keeps reminding the courtroom: “You can’t steal a charity.”   On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec and Sean O’Kane break down what’s actually at stake in the courtroom and what to watch for as…

Apple is playing catch-up with surging demand for its Mac Mini, which has gotten an unexpected boost from AI. Loading audio narration… CEO Tim Cook said on Thursday’s March earnings call that the Mac Mini and Mac Studio, two of its desktop computer models, are both “amazing platforms for AI and agentic tools.””The customer recognition of that is happening faster than what we had predicted,” Cook said. “And so we saw higher-than-expected demand.”He said the company is facing supply constraints on both models heading into the June quarter, and that it “may take several months to reach supply-demand balance.”In the March quarter,…

After landing agreements with Google, SpaceX, and OpenAI, the U.S. Defense Department said on Friday that it has signed deals with Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Reflection AI that allow it to deploy their AI tech and models on its classified networks for “lawful operational use.” “These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare,” the statement reads. The deals come as the U.S. Department of Defense has accelerated its diversification of AI vendors in the wake…

Big Tech’s AI spending is surging, though not necessarily because companies are building significantly more capacity. Loading audio narration… This week, industry executives pointed to the same underlying issue: sharply rising component costs, especially for memory chips, are inflating capital expenditures spent on data centers and other equipment.”We are increasing our infrastructure capex forecast for this year. Most of that is due to higher component costs, particularly memory pricing,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on Wednesday.Microsoft echoed that trend, with CFO Amy Hood saying that roughly $25 billion of its projected $190 billion in 2026 capex is tied to…

Reports of the death of SaaS may have been greatly exaggerated. Loading audio narration… Shares of software-as-a-service companies Atlassian, Twilio, and Five9 soared on Friday morning after reporting earnings beats on Thursday.Each of the companies cited AI as a reason for accelerating revenue — the very same technology that has pummelled their share prices this year over fears that companies could use AI to build the software they sell.Atlassian’s share price was up as much as 25% in premarket trading on Friday morning, Twilio rose as much as 20%, and Five9 gained 16% and continued to rise at market open.…

Nearly four years after their arrests, the criminal case against Epic Charter Schools’ founders took a step forward Thursday.Oklahoma County Special Judge Jason Glidewell concluded prosecutors presented enough evidence for nearly all of the charges against David Chaney, 47, and Ben Harris, 50, to move forward to trial. Prosecutors in 2022 charged Chaney and Harris with 14 felonies each in connection with their roles managing the online school, alleging they diverted tens of millions of dollars meant for students’ education into their private companies. They are charged under the state’s racketeering statute with embezzlement, conspiracy and fraud.The judge on Thursday…

For some ChatGPT users, February 13 was dark. That was the day OpenAI finally retired ChatGPT 4o, the model beloved for its engaging and vibrant — some said sycophantic — personality. Loading audio narration… Now, with the recent release of ChatGPT’s latest model, 5.5, some people who mourn 4o say they’re hopeful the new version might have some of the same spark of their old pal and thought partner — though they’re still skeptical.Martina Wanis, who works in agricultural innovation in Slovenia, is one of those people. She told me she used ChatGPT for typical work things, like analyzing Excel…

Tesla’s bill for Elon Musk’s security has gotten a whole lot more expensive. Loading audio narration… The EV giant spent about $4.8 million on Musk’s security in 2025, up from $2.8 million the year before, according to Tesla’s latest 10K SEC filing, as concerns about threats to high-profile executives continue to grow.Tesla’s spending on Musk’s security through to February more than doubled to $1.3 million from $500,000 in the same period a year earlier.This is not the total cost of Musk’s security — his other companies, including SpaceX and xAI, also pay for some of it as part of efforts…

LONDON (AP) — A woman who drove a Land Rover into a tea party outside a London primary school celebrating the last day of classes in 2023, killing two 8-year-old girls and injuring several other people, was charged Friday with dangerous driving, authorities said.Prosecutors said they decided to charge Claire Freemantle, 49, with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and seven counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving after the Metropolitan Police reopened its investigation and discovered new evidence. The London police force apologized for how it initially treated the crash and said it had referred its…

When Khozema Shipchandler took the helm as CEO of the cloud communications company Twilio in early 2024, activist investors were demanding cost cuts. Its stock had declined sharply since its pandemic high in 2021. Loading audio narration… The company has worked to turn itself around, and its bets on AI may be paying off. Twilio stock soared by more than 19% in out-of-hours trading — hitting its highest level in four years — after a strong earnings report on Thursday.Twilio builds tools that help companies make calls or send texts from apps. For example, if you’ve ever made a call…