Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
A new influenza strain this flu season is raising concerns as Americans hit the roads and take to the skies ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, with fewer people choosing to get vaccinated.What is the new flu strain subclade K?The new flu strain, called subclade K, is a variant of the H3N2 virus that has been circulating since the summer in other countries.Experts point to the new variant as a main driver of a spike in flu cases in Canada, Japan, and the U.K. Of nearly 150 test samples that were registered as the H3 lineage, over 50% were subclade K,…
The flu has started spreading earlier than usual in some parts of the country, prompting concerns that cases could soon erupt as millions of Americans travel and gather for Thanksgiving and other upcoming holidays.The warning signs come as a form of the virus, called H3N2 subclade K, has set off massive outbreaks in Canada and the U.K.Dr. Cameron Wolfe, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, said he’s noted a sharp increase in flu cases over the past few weeks.“Typically, I might see one or two cases a week at this point,” Wolfe…
Breaking news from the everything app: Not everything you see on the everything app is real.This is not news to you, of course: You are a savvy internet user.But lots of other people seemed to be shocked to learn that some high-profile accounts on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, are not who they say they are: A new feature on the app lets you see (more or less) where people are posting from, and it turns out that lots of X accounts that position themselves as very interested in American politics and culture are coming from places like…
OpenAI may have to go back to the drawing board to name a core feature of its popular AI video generation app, Sora.US District Judge Eumi K. Lee has ruled that OpenAI cannot use the word “cameo,” or any other similar name, tied to the use or promotion of its Sora app, until December 22.The AI company named a feature on the TikTok-esque app that creates a linkness of the user, a pet, or even an object in the app “cameos.” On October 28, Cameo, the personalized video company, filed a trademark suit against OpenAI in federal court in California…
A trial has been set for August 2026 in a lawsuit seeking to block the transfer of a parcel of prime Miami real estate to be used for President Donald Trump’s presidential library. The decision Monday by Circuit Judge Mavel Ruiz in Miami will further delay Miami Dade College’s plans to formally transfer the sizable plot of land to the state of Florida, which intends to gift it to the foundation for the planned library. Miami activist Marvin Dunn, a retired professor and chronicler of local Black history, filed the lawsuit arguing that the college board violated Florida’s Government in…
AI chatbots have been linked to serious mental health harms in heavy users, but there have been few standards for measuring whether they safeguard human wellbeing or just maximize for engagement. A new benchmark dubbed HumaneBench seeks to fill that gap by evaluating whether chatbots prioritize user wellbeing and how easily those protections fail under pressure. “I think we’re in an amplification of the addiction cycle that we saw hardcore with social media and our smartphones and screens,” Erika Anderson, founder of Building Humane Technology, which produced the benchmark, told TechCrunch. “But as we go into that AI landscape, it’s going…
(Reuters) -Abbott Laboratories said on Monday it has begun a correction in the United States for certain FreeStyle Libre 3 and FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus glucose monitoring sensors after internal testing showed some units may report falsely low glucose readings.About 3 million sensors are affected in the U.S., roughly half of which are estimated to have expired or already been used, the company said.Abbott has received 736 reports globally of severe adverse events and seven deaths that may be linked to the issue, none of which occurred in the United States.The problem, tied to one production line, could lead to…
WASHINGTON (AP) — A coalition of nursing and other health care organizations are angry over a Trump administration plan that could limit access to student loans in some cases.Students pursuing graduate degrees in nursing, physical therapy, public health and some other fields would face tighter federal student loan limits under the plan because it doesn’t consider them professional programs.The revamp is part of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress.While graduate students could previously borrow loans up to the cost of their degree, the new rules would set caps depending on whether the degree is considered a graduate or professional…
What actually makes a video go viral?Jay Neo, the 21-year-old self-described “content nerd” who formerly worked for YouTube’s most-followed creator, MrBeast, has been obsessed with finding the answer to that question since he was a teenager.Neo spent his teen years running Discord servers for games like Minecraft and making short-form video content.The key metric Neo had his eyes on was retention: Are people sticking around for the whole video? Or are they scrolling away?Neo said he meticulously studied each video’s retention graph to see where people were dropping off. Understanding how and why someone might scroll past a video can…
Short videos are in high demand. Across large platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, users are watching billions of videos every day, with companies benefitting massively from this content explosion. For creators, this often means there is pressure to create more content than ever before to be relevant and make a living out of it, especially as more AI-generated slop is infiltrating these platforms. Jay Neo, a creator and former content lead for short videos at MrBeast, thinks AI can help creators understand what is working for them and also help them create new content ideas in that direction.…