Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Google’s engineers have been on an AI sprint in recent weeks. Now, with a big launch in the rearview mirror, CEO Sundar Pichai says it’s time to catch up on some sleep.”I think some folks need some sleep,” Pichai said on the “Google AI: Release Notes” podcast released Wednesday. He added that hopefully he and his teams “get a bit of rest.”On November 18, Google released its latest AI model, Gemini 3, and the company is now edging toward a $4 trillion market cap. Its stock price has surged nearly 70% this year — including a 12% jump following Gemini…

In August, parents Matthew and Maria Raine sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, over their 16-year-old son Adam’s suicide, accusing the company of wrongful death. On Tuesday, OpenAI responded to the lawsuit with a filing of its own, arguing that it shouldn’t be held responsible for the teenager’s death. OpenAI claims that over roughly nine months of usage, ChatGPT directed Raine to seek help more than 100 times. But according to his parents’ lawsuit, Raine was able to circumvent the company’s safety features to get ChatGPT to give him “technical specifications for everything from drug overdoses to drowning to…

A nasty, highly contagious virus is spreading across the country ahead of the holiday season — and it’s not the flu or Covid.Norovirus, also called the “winter vomiting disease,” has been rising across the nation since as early as mid-October, especially in states like Louisiana, Michigan and Indiana, according to data from WastewaterSCAN, an academic program through Stanford University in partnership with Emory University.With data through Nov. 21, Amanda Bidwell, scientific program manager for the WastewaterSCAN program, said norovirus wastewater concentrations have increased nationwide by 69% since October.“Right now, we’re in the high category for norovirus at the national level,”…

The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers about 19 types of cookware that may contain lead, increasing the risk that the toxic metal could wind up in people’s food.Consumers should check whether they have the items in their homes, and throw them away if they do, the FDA said in an alert posted on its website.”Do not donate or refurbish this cookware,” the agency noted.The suspect cookware, all manufactured outside the U.S. and mostly in India, is made from aluminum, aluminum alloys and brass that have been tested by the FDA and state agencies, with the results showing that…

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership with Apple for its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, the release of GPT-4o with voice capabilities, and the highly-anticipated launch of its text-to-video model Sora. OpenAI also faced its share of internal drama, including the notable exits of high-level execs like co-founder and longtime chief…

Every Thanksgiving, myths of the quasi-magical powers of tryptophan rise again.There’s the turkey/drowsiness myth: Eating lots of juicy turkey meat supposedly makes people feel tired because it contains an amino acid called tryptophan. This molecule travels into the brain, where it’s converted into a neurotransmitter called serotonin, which in turn is converted into a hormone called melatonin. Voila! Sleepiness.But science and the internet agree: It’s not the turkey’s tryptophan to blame for your post-feast nap. All protein sources, and even vegetables, contain some tryptophan; turkey isn’t at all special in this regard.So the sleepiness myth of turkey may be fading,…

Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this story included a video, which has been removed, that incorrectly identified the nasal spray brand being recalled.Medical Products Laboratories, a Philadelphia-based medical supply company, has recalled over 41,000 bottles of Walgreens-branded nasal spray due to a possible bacteria that could be dangerous for those with weakened immune systems or respiratory issues.The product, Walgreens Saline Nasal Spray with xylitol, may be contaminated with bacteria, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website.The 41,328 bottles distributed nationwide may contain pseudomonas lactis, a type of bacteria commonly found in the environment, like in…

Palmer Luckey is a gamer at heart — and he’s been cooking up something new.The Oculus cofounder first made his mark on gaming by changing the VR landscape. Then he began releasing new gaming designs and modern versions of retro consoles.Luckey is back with another design soon to hit the market: a take on the Nintendo 64.The ModRetro M64 will be fully revealed on Black Friday, Luckey wrote in an X post with a teaser video.”Much has changed since we launched early bird pricing at $199 earlier this year, things like inflation, component shortages, tariffs, and more,” he wrote.The ModRetro…

Artificial intelligence startup xAI, founded by Elon Musk, told city and county planners in Memphis last week that it plans to build a solar farm next to its Colossus data center — one of the world’s largest facilities for training AI models. The project would occupy 88 acres to the west and to the south of the data center. A 136-acre vacant lot owned by the developer that also owns the Colossus property currently borders the site. Given the proposed size, the solar farm would likely produce around 30 megawatts of electricity, only about 10% of the data center’s estimated…

Artificial intelligence startup xAI, founded by Elon Musk, told city and county planners in Memphis last week that it plans to build a solar farm next to its Colossus data center — one of the world’s largest facilities for training AI models. The project would occupy 88 acres to the west and south of the data center. A 136-acre vacant lot owned by the developer that also owns the Colossus property currently borders the site. Given the proposed size, the solar farm would likely produce around 30 megawatts of electricity, only about 10% of the data center’s estimated power use.…