Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Chris Caldwell is more focused on tablets these days than AI tokens.The chief information officer of Chili’s parent company, Brinker International, has spent his 2½ years in the role figuring out how to overhaul WiFi systems at restaurants and replace thousands of handheld devices that waitstaff use to take customers’ orders, he told Business Insider.Many restaurants are adding AI to their operations. At Starbucks and Burger King, for instance, AI agents are listening to drive-thru orders and fetching recipes for baristas.Chili’s, meanwhile, has largely stayed away from such uses. Instead, it’s turned around its same-store sales in part by focusing…

Meta’s new ad is a Lisa Frank wet dream. There are rainbows, butterflies, bear hugs, and smash-cuts between three grinning children.It’s a smiley, cloying vision for AI. The ad’s narrator beckons us to call Meta’s staff “optimists” and “dreamers,” and says that the company is “betting on people” — tell that to the 8,000 workers Meta just laid off. It promises that the “future is for everyone” — a surprisingly collectivist mission for a company that has recently hired several acolytes of Donald Trump.While Meta turns up the cheer on AI, the American public has soured. 40% of Americans predict…

OpenAI launched its first piece of hardware last week — a fancy little keypad built to pair with ChatGPT. Micro, which was developed in collaboration with specialty keyboard designer Work Louder, is essentially an artisanal workplace novelty that many tech enthusiasts will love and that may leave everyone else a little puzzled. OpenAI’s entrance into the hardware market hasn’t arrived without drama. Several weeks ago, Apple sued the AI lab and accused it of trade theft — kicking off what’s certain to be a long-simmering legal battle. Meanwhile, news of another smart home product in development at OpenAI has also…

Prentis, a new AI research lab focused on computer use models, co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das and tech heavyweights Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus, is in talks to raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Launched in April, Prentis is training models to learn how office workers navigate routine workflows across documents and systems, with the goal of building AI agents that can control computers to automate those tasks. Prentis will ostensibly develop agents tailored to these customers’ needs, such as handling insurance claims and automating customs duty refund exceptions…

KUMAGAYA, Japan (AP) — The humble blackboard is serving as the canvas, and colorful chalk the paint, for young Japanese artists.“Kokuban Art Koshien ” is an annual national chalk art championship for high school students. Combining the word for “blackboard” (“kokuban”) and the famous stadium where high school baseball is contested, the contest attracts artworks, all drawn on blackboards, usually over summer break, from about 300 high schools and junior high schools. Each work — many dazzling in their artistry and often dreamlike themes — is a collaborative endeavor bringing together anywhere from one or two youngsters to dozens, all…

TikTok is ripping a page from Amazon’s playbook.The social-video app is testing a Prime-style membership program for some US shoppers, according to screenshots of the offering viewed by Business Insider.The program, called TikTok Shop Plus, is built into Shop, its e-commerce platform. Like Amazon Prime, it offers members a mix of perks like free shipping, product discounts, and coupons.In one example of the service in action, a hair product normally sold on TikTok for around $57 was discounted to $47 for Plus members, along with free three-day shipping. In another, Plus members were offered a $5 discount on a beauty…

By Jeff Green, co-founder and CEO, The Trade DeskWhen Google went public in 2004, co-founder Larry Page made a commitment to shareholders and the world. A well-functioning society, he wrote in his founder’s letter, should have abundant, free, and unbiased access to high-quality information.For 20 years, Google kept that promise by doing one thing well: It connected its visitors to other companies’ content. You asked a question, Google handed you a list of doors, and you walked through them to the millions of sites built by merchants, publishers, universities, and anyone with something to say. Google created the world’s greatest…

Poke, the AI assistant you text like a friend, is making its next big move. The company behind the assistant, The Interaction Company of California, has been acquired by AI coding startup Cognition in a deal valuing the startup in the “low nine figures.” The deal will bring Poke’s interaction model and personality to Cognition’s coding assistant Devin. Meanwhile, Poke will take advantage of Cognition’s models and infrastructure to become faster and more reliable, Cognition said. What makes Poke interesting to consumers — and now, to its acquirer — is how it engages with users’ requests. Instead of functioning like…

Facebook helped make TikTok huge by showing its users tons of ads for the Chinese video company.Now Facebook may end up becoming something that … looks and feels a lot like TikTok.That’s the takeaway from a product update Meta’s social network provided Friday: Starting this fall, it is going to start testing a version of the Facebook app that essentially turns it into a TikTok-like video player, as a default setting.Per Tom Allison, the Meta executive who oversees Facebook, the test will provide a “reimagined experience that puts a subset of people who we think want more video on Facebook…

WASHINGTON (AP) — A’Zariah Miles’ dream of attending Howard University was a few weeks from being realized. Then it all came crashing down.Miles, 17, of Knoxville, Tennessee, is one of more than 500 incoming first-year students at Howard who learned this week that they have been unenrolled from the prestigious, historically Black Washington, D.C., university and no longer have spots for the upcoming fall semester that begins Aug. 17.Many have taken to social media — some in tears — to share their stories. Some posts have gone viral.After Miles learned she had been unenrolled, her mother, Kendra Miles, said the…