Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
As part of its 25th birthday celebration, the Wikimedia Foundation announced a series of new partnerships with AI tech companies that are now customers of its commercial product, Wikimedia Enterprise. Developed by the foundation, Wikimedia Enterprise allows large-scale reuse and distribution of Wikipedia content, as well as content from other Wikimedia projects. In addition to the previously announced partnership with Google in 2022, the organization shared publicly for the first time that it has formed other partnerships with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI, and Perplexity over the past year. Other partnerships, like Ecosia, Pleias, and ProRata, have been mentioned before…
How are your New Year’s resolutions going? If you’ve given up on them, you’re not alone.Every January, people across the world seek a fresh start and set goals for the year to improve their health and quality of life. Dry January and new gym memberships accompany a desire to shake off the stress and holiday pounds.But research shows that resolutions typically don’t last. As a practicing psychologist and professor of counseling psychology, I have seen many people start off the new year with lofty self-improvement goals, only to become frustrated and give up early into the new year.This happens so…
The tech world’s deepfake pornography problem is now bigger than just X. In a letter to the leaders of X, Meta, Alphabet, Snap, Reddit and TikTok, several U.S. senators are asking the companies to provide proof that they have “robust protections and policies” in place, and to explain how they plan to curb the rise of sexualized deepfakes on their platforms. The senators also demanded that the companies preserve all documents and information relating to the creation, detection, moderation, and monetization of sexualized, AI-generated images, as well as any related policies. The letter comes hours after X said it updated…
Berlin-based Parloa has raised $350 million in Series D funding from existing investors, valuing the six-year-old customer service AI startup at $3 billion. The round comes just eight months after the company raised $120 million at a $1 billion valuation. The new round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from returning backers including EQT Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Durable Capital, and Mosaic Ventures. Parloa is one of many startups developing AI agents that promise to automate the kind of customer service work previously handled by human representatives and help desk staff. The company’s competitors include Sierra, co-founded by OpenAI Chairman…
WhatsApp is allowing AI providers to continue offering their chatbots to users with Brazilian phone numbers, days after the country’s competition regulator ordered the company to suspend its new policy that bars third-party, general-purpose chatbots from being offered on the app via its business API. Under the new policy, the company is providing a 90-day grace period starting January 15 to developers and AI providers, mandating them to cease responding to user queries on the chat app, and notify users that their chatbots won’t work on WhatsApp. Now, Meta told developers that they don’t have to notify users with Brazilian…
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Federal prosecutors charged 20 people on Thursday, including 15 former college basketball players, in what they called a betting scheme to rig NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games.Of the defendants, 15 played basketball for Division 1 NCAA schools as recently as the 2024-25 season. The other five defendants were described by authorities as fixers. They include two men who prosecutors say worked in the training and development of basketball players. Another was a trainer and former coach, one was a former NCAA player and two were described as gamblers, influencers and sports handicappers.The charges, filed in federal…
There’s something different about the “Heated Rivalry” online fandom from what I typically see — something strange brewing in the feeds, something I haven’t seen in a long time, or maybe ever.It’s easy for a topic to suddenly take over my Instagram Reels or TikTok feeds — those algorithms seem so sensitive that interacting with just a handful of posts on a topic can instantly send you down a rabbit hole. What made me realize that “Heated Rivalry” fandom was breaking through to some new level was that it managed to take over my X feed. X tends to be…
Nvidia has added high-profile names to its senior leadership and technical ranks over the past year, as the chipmaker reaches new levels of visibility and wealth.Nvidia’s latest major hire is its first chief marketing officer, Alison Wagonfeld, a veteran of Google Cloud. Over the past year, the company has also acqui-hired senior software leaders through startup deals, tapping its balance sheet to supercharge growth. It has also sought talent from outside the tech industry, including hires from government and academia.Taken together, they underscore Nvidia’s position as an AI chip designer expanding its software products, with added cybersecurity and marketing muscle…
A federal appeals panel on Thursday reversed a lower court decision that released former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from an immigration jail, bringing the government one step closer to detaining and ultimately deporting the Palestinian activist.The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t rule on the key issue in Khalil’s case: whether the Trump administration’s effort to throw Khalil out of the U.S. over his campus activism and criticism of Israel is unconstitutional.But in its 2-1 decision, the panel ruled a federal judge in New Jersey didn’t have jurisdiction to decide the matter at…
HONG KONG, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Births in Hong Kong fell to a record low of 31,714 in 2025, down 14% from a year earlier, the city’s government said on Thursday, despite a raft of measures over the past three years to encourage baby making.The news, disclosed in a government email, comes as mainland China is set to report a drop in births and a fourth consecutive decline in population on January 19.The Asian financial hub is one of the world’s most expensive places in the world to own a house. Homes are often tiny, while long work hours and…