Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Apple’s John Ternus is a 25-year veteran of the tech giant, but one of his first engineering gigs was at a lesser-known company building virtual reality headsets. Loading audio narration… Defense startup founder and Oculus headset creator Palmer Luckey reminisced on X about a product that Ternus, who is set to become Apple’s CEO in September, might’ve had a hand in during his early engineering days.Luckey posted a photo of an old V8 head mount display from Virtual Research.”From what I can tell, he was the lead mechanical engineer on the V8 I obtained when I was 16!,” Luckey wrote, referring…

Around 600 Google employees sent a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday, urging him not to let the company’s AI technology be used by the US military for classified operations. Loading audio narration… The letter, signed by employees in Google’s DeepMind and Cloud divisions, cited a recent Information report that Google and the Pentagon were negotiating the use of Google’s Gemini AI in classified settings.”As people working on AI, we know that these systems can centralize power and that they do make mistakes,” the employees wrote in the letter. “We feel that our proximity to this technology creates a responsibility to…

On Monday, Microsoft and OpenAI announced that they have, once again, renegotiated the deal binding the two companies. Despite some opinions on X that frame it as a victory for the ChatGPT maker over the Windows giant, both sides are walking away winners. Most important, the new terms solve an issue that was hanging over OpenAI’s head since it signed its up-to-$50 billion dollar deal with Amazon. With this new deal, instead of Microsoft having exclusive access to all of OpenAI’s products and IP until the magical day when OpenAI produces AGI, it’s partnership has a definitive timeline. This contract…

Ineffable Intelligence, a British AI lab founded a mere few months ago by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, has raised $1.1 billion in funding at a valuation of $5.1 billion to join the race for novel AI models that could outperform large language models. According to its newly launched site, Ineffable aims to create a “superlearner” capable of discovering knowledge and skills without relying on human data by leveraging reinforcement learning — a technique in which AI systems learn through trial and error rather than studying human-generated examples. This is Silver’s area of expertise. A professor at University College London,…

Skye, an iPhone app still in private testing, wants to change how people interact with AI on their smartphones. And even before it’s launched, it’s already attracted interest online and from investors and “tens of thousands” of users, according to its creator — a sign that consumers might want a more AI-aware iPhone. Instead of launching an app or speaking to an AI chatbot, the startup is working to design an “agentic homescreen” for the iPhone, using iOS widgets as its interface. Through those widgets, Skye would bring a sort of ambient intelligence to your device, offering personalized insights about your…

OpenAI has the green light to work with Amazon or any other cloud provider, though there are some strings attached. Loading audio narration… On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft — its largest investor — announced yet another shake-up to their long-term partnership. The modified terms came around 6 months after the pair restructured their agreement in October 2025, following OpenAI’s completion of its corporate restructuring.As part of the new deal, Microsoft will remain OpenAI’s primary cloud partner and OpenAI will ship its products on Azure first “unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities.” In that event, OpenAI…

Around small tables and colorful magnifying glasses, Lori Legger six teaches young children about living and nonliving things.Leggert’s child-care center runs much like a traditional school: the students say the Pledge of Allegiance, and there are plenty of books available. But other aspects are different: There are hens and roosters outside, and Leggert’s youngest student is 18 months old. Leggert is the owner and teacher of The Sky’s the Limit Family Childcare. Her business is participating in the state of Michigan’s new pilot program to test no-cost pre-K in home-based child care settings. Two of her children are participating, with…

China’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said on Monday it has blocked Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of Manus, an agentic AI startup founded by Chinese engineers that relocated to Singapore before Mark Zuckerberg scooped it up late last year. The move marks one of China’s most significant interventions in a cross-border deal, one that extends well beyond U.S.-China tensions and into the broader AI industry. For Meta, it could deal a serious blow to its ambitions in the fast-moving AI agents space. With no explanation offered, China’s NDRC ordered both parties to unwind the deal…

There have been plenty of rumors about OpenAI’s hardware plans, which involve launching a pair of earbuds. A new note from industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that the AI company might be working on a phone in collaboration with MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Luxshare. Kuo, who has reported on several Apple hardware plans in the past, said that OpenAI would develop a smartphone chip with MediaTek and Qualcomm, with Luxshare acting as a co-design and manufacturing partner. The analyst’s note also suggests that instead of apps, the smartphone could rely on AI agents to complete different tasks. Currently, Apple and Google…

ROME (AP) — Archaeologists and researchers at the ancient Roman site of Pompeii have used artificial intelligence for the first time to digitally reconstruct the face of one of the victims of the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius that smothered the city, offering a new way to understand one of history’s most famous natural disasters.The digital portrait represents a man who was among two victims discovered as they attempted to flee the city toward the coast of what is now Italy during the volcanic eruption. Researchers believe the man died early in the disaster, during a heavy fall of…