Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

The future of aviation isn’t a sleek jet — it’s a tiny whale-shaped airplane that could turn The Jetsons fantasy of aerial commuting into reality.Vermont-based startup Beta Technologies aims to convince US consumers that electric aviation has arrived in ways that will change how they travel for work and leisure, and invited media to ride in the state-of-the-art all-electric aircraft that it calls the Alia CX300.For 20 minutes, we zipped above Burlington at over 100 miles per hour as test pilot Chris “Pooter” Caputo showed us how it banks, glides, and manages energy. The ride was smooth, quiet, and surprisingly…

BENICIA, Calif. (AP) — The handwritten sign at a Northern California public library warned patrons to expect more noise than usual. That warning quickly proved to be an understatement as professional wrestlers, accompanied by booming music, thundered into the reading space and jumped into a ring flanked by row upon row of bookshelves. Dozens of children and adults greeted the theatrics with hoots and hollers at the Benicia Public Library in Benicia, California. Welcome to “Lucha Libro,” a high-energy, action-packed story time that is bringing live wrestling matches to libraries across the U.S. to promote literacy. Founded in 2024, “Lucha…

Anthropic wants the world’s leading AI labs to come together to consider a potential pause of leading global AI development.”We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology,” two top Anthropic officials wrote in a blog post.On Thursday, Marina Favaro, who leads Anthropic’s research institute, and Jack Clark, an Anthropic cofounder, suggested that AI labs develop a partnership similar to how countries monitor the proliferation of nuclear weapons while stressing that the…

SpaceX has added another lucrative deal to its revenue stream just ahead of its anticipated IPO.Google has agreed to pay SpaceX $920 million a month for compute capacity from October 2026 to June 2029, according to a SpaceX filing submitted to the SEC on Friday.The filing said the compute power included “approximately 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, CPUs, memory, and other related components.” Starting in 2027, either side can terminate the deal with 90 days’ notice, according to the filing. Google said in a statement to Business Insider that the deal was needed to meet demand for Gemini Enterprise, its agentic AI…

Founders, your window to enter Startup Battlefield 200 closes in just three short days. Applications for Startup Battlefield 200 officially close on June 8, 11:59 p.m. PT. Now’s not the time to wait any longer. Secure your shot at competing on the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 this October at San Francisco’s Moscone West. Thousands of startups have already stepped forward. If you’re building a company with the potential to reshape an industry, now is the time to make your move. Apply or nominate a startup before the deadline. Image Credits:Kimberly White / Getty Images What is Startup Battlefield 200? Startup Battlefield 200 is where ambitious early-stage startups go from…

SpaceX has lined up another compute deal ahead of its historic IPO, this time with Google. The company announced the deal in a regulatory filing on Friday. Under the terms of the deal, Google will pay SpaceX $920 million per month from October 2026 through June 2029 for access to “approximately 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, CPUs, memory, and other related components.” The deal is similar in length and scope to the one SpaceX announced with Anthropic in late May. As part of that deal, Anthropic agreed to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month through 2029 to rent all the available compute…

When far-right influencer Nick Shirley posted a viral video in January alleging fraud at Minnesota daycares, he showed his 1.6 million followers on X something else too: a gray hoodie emblazoned with the Polymarket logo.Polymarket had made other appearances in the 24-year-old’s content, like in a series of man-on-the-street interviews about the “current state of America” posted in December.The first post came after Shirley began receiving money from Polymarket’s chief marketing officer, Matthew Modabber. The second came after he had taken in a total of $3,100 from Modabber, according to records reviewed by POLITICO.This daycare “Creative Minds Daycare” was SHUTDOWN…

While the AI fundraising machine keeps breaking its own records, some founders are building in the other direction.  Mirror founder Brynn Putnam just raised money for Board, a startup focused on bringing people together through in-person games and social experiences. Cyberdeck creators are going viral crafting whimsical DIY computers that literally encourage users to touch grass. Unlike the AI-free browser crowd, this doesn’t just feel like backlash, but also people genuinely gravitating toward things that feel a little more human.  On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into the week’s headlines, from the “together tech” wave to what Anthropic’s confidential IPO filing means against the backdrop of Alphabet’s $80 billion AI raise,…

Microsoft uses a lot of AI agents. To help manage them, it’s starting to think of them like human employees.CEO Satya Nadella said the software giant is figuring out what kinds of tools and policies it needs to oversee all the agents it’s created. That includes giving agents specific permissions for what they can and cannot access within the company, as well as ways to audit their work, he said.”You need to give them identities, you need to give them sandboxes, then you need to set policies to govern them,” Nadella told Reid Hoffman in an episode of the “Possible…

Elon Musk is kicking off SpaceX’s public debut with a personal pitch to employees at a critical Terafab supplier.The SpaceX founder will participate in a virtual fireside chat with ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet at the company’s annual technology conference next Thursday, according to internal communications seen by Business Insider.The event will see Musk “share his vision on AI, robotics, space, and semiconductor manufacturing, including the Terafab concept” with ASML engineers and other employees, according to a description posted on an internal employee portal.ASML describes the technology conference, which is not open to the public, as a global event for employees…