Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

It made for an irresistible narrative.The large, slow incumbent — in this case, Google — was caught flat-footed by a more nimble upstart by the name of OpenAI. It was the type of story Silicon Valley built its legend on.In Sundar Pichai’s first letter to shareholders in 2016 after becoming CEO, he said Google would shift to an “AI-first world.” Yet, in late 2022, a relatively unknown company suddenly pulled the rug from under Google’s feet. ChatGPT was an overnight sensation, and Google, which had long seen itself as the leader in AI, appeared to be lagging behind.In the years…

The season of never-ending sneezing and stuffy noses is underway, sending Americans to pharmacy lines in hopes of keeping illness at bay with yearly shots.While flu and COVID-19 vaccines are an annual given for many people, the RSV vaccine isn’t quite as universal. Many people associate the virus with babies and young children, but it is more common than many realize, often misdiagnosed as a cold or flu.After a tumultuous year of changing vaccine guidance and concerns about access, RSV immunization recommendations have remained unchanged. Here’s what to know about who should get an RSV shot and where to find…

For Slack cofounder Stewart Butterfield, embarrassment can be a useful and motivating tool.Butterfield led Slack, which is now owned by Salesforce, from 2009 to 2023 as CEO. In 2014, he gave an interview where he called the early product “terrible.” Employees responded by putting posters up around the office, he said on “Lenny’s Podcast” — but he stands by it.”I try to instill this into the rest of the team, but certainly I feel that what we have right now is just a giant piece of shit,” he told the MIT Technology Review in 2014. “Like, it’s just terrible, and…

Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital and early investor in several of Elon Musk’s companies, says people aren’t focusing on niche chemicals enough.On an episode of the “Relentless” podcast that aired on November 17, Maguire said that he might invest in the chemicals industry if he had $10 billion to start a business.”The chemicals industry is one of the most underrated industries in the world for many reasons,” Maguire said. He added that most people don’t think about the industry, which supports production for nearly all commercial and household goods, according to a 2022 report from the Cybersecurity and…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Devang Sharma, a 27-year-old senior software engineer at Meta, based in Menlo Park, CA. The following has been edited for length and clarity.The first time I joined Meta was in 2022. I uprooted my life in London and moved to Toronto to work there. I stayed for around four and a half months before being laid off.Meta is an amazing organization, one I saw myself retiring at, but there was nothing I could do to keep my job.Three years later, a recruiter from Meta reached out to me, and I had…

Alena Wells could have entered the world surrounded by her family and medical professionals.Instead, she was born on Nov. 16 in the front seat of a Chevrolet Silverado as her father, Leon Wells, rushed from one Indiana hospital to another.Wells was driving away from Franciscan Health Crown Point, the hospital that he says discharged his wife while she was in active labor. His mother-in-law filmed the exit in astonishment.Franciscan Health President and CEO Raymond Grady has acknowledged that Alena’s mother, Mercedes, was discharged just moments before she gave birth. Grady said a doctor and nurse lost their job; the hospital…

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Fifty of the 303 schoolchildren abducted from a Catholic school in north-central Nigeria’s Niger state have escaped captivity and are now with their families, the school authority said Sunday, bringing relief to some distraught families after one of the largest school abductions in Nigeria’s history.The schoolchildren, aged between 10 and 18, escaped individually between Friday and Saturday, according to the Most Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Niger state and the proprietor of the school. A total of 253 schoolchildren and 12 teachers are still held by the kidnappers, he…

With a runway of smoking-hot coals laid out before them, residents in San Pedro Manrique, Spain, steel themselves as thousands of onlookers cheer them on. The crowd roars when they walk across the fire, sometimes carrying another person on their back.Although the walkers and the crowd perform very different roles during the annual June ritual, they report similar feelings: an ineffable feeling of togetherness, as if the entire group becomes one, said Dimitris Xygalatas, a cognitive anthropologist at the University of Connecticut, who witnessed the Spanish ritual years ago as a researcher.He has experienced similar feelings in a stadium while…

The Trump administration has been targeting state-level AI regulation, with the president declaring in a social media post this week that the industry needs “one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes.” This comes after a 10-year ban on state AI regulation was initially included in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” before ultimately getting removed by the Senate in a 99-1 vote.  The idea then apparently took on a new form, with the administration reportedly drafting an executive order that would establish an AI Litigation Task Force with a mission to challenge state AI laws through lawsuits.…

Waymo continues to expand its reach, with the robotaxi company posting Friday that it’s now “officially authorized to drive fully autonomously across more of the Golden State.” Waymo already operates in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles (and outside California as well, in Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix). But maps published by California’s Department of Motor Vehicles showed that the company can now test and deploy its autonomous vehicles across a much larger area in both the Bay Area and Southern California. In the Bay Area, Waymo’s approved areas of operation now include most of the East Bay and North…