Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Fewer Americans are reporting that they drink alcohol amid a growing belief that even moderate alcohol consumption is a health risk, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.The survey finds that 54% of U.S. adults say they drink alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer — “the lowest by one percentage point in Gallup’s nearly 90-year trend,” the analytics company says.And a record high percentage of U.S. adults, 53%, now say moderate drinking is bad for their health, up from 28% in 2015. The uptick in doubt about alcohol’s benefits is largely driven by young adults — the age…

Three parents—Reni Cao, Xiao Zhang, and Susan Rosenthal—were worried about their children’s screen time, so they left their tech jobs to create a product that encourages children to engage with the real world while also helping them learn a new language. Their move has paid off, as the company recently raised $4.8 million in funding. The newly launched gadget is called Dex and resembles a high-tech magnifying glass with a camera lens on one side and a touchscreen on the other. When kids use the device to take pictures of objects, the AI utilizes image recognition technology to identify the…

NEW YORK − Health officials are still finding cases in one of the city’s largest Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks in years as they continue monitoring Harlem cooling towers suspected of sickening more than a hundred people.On Aug. 19, New York City health officials identified a fifth person died before mid-August from the central Harlem outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, which is a severe type of pneumonia. Since the outbreak began in late July, 108 people have been identified as sickened, according to the New York City health department.The outbreak is concentrated across five ZIP codes in central Harlem, a historically Black neighborhood…

The College Football Playoff selection committee announced Wednesday it will place more emphasis on strength of schedule this year when determining which teams make the 12-team field.The committee said in a statement that the schedule strength metric has been adjusted to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule.“This metric rewards teams defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team,” the committee said. “Conversely, these changes will provide minimal reward for…

Hundreds of thousands of conversations that users had with Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot Grok are easily accessible through Google Search, reports Forbes. Whenever a Grok user clicks the “share” button on a conversation with the chatbot, it creates a unique URL that the user can use to share the conversation via email, text or on social media. According to Forbes, those URLs are being indexed by search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, which in turn lets anyone look up those conversations on the web.  Users of Meta and OpenAI‘s chatbots were recently affected by a similar problem, and like…

FieldAI, an Irvine, California-based robotics startup, has raised $405 million across multiple previously undisclosed rounds to develop what it calls “foundational embodied AI models” — essentially robot brains designed to help everything from humanoids to quadrupeds to self-driving cars adapt to new environments. The company announced the funding Wednesday; the most recent round raised $314 million in August and was co-led by Bezos Expedition, Prysm and Temasek. FieldAI’s other backers include Khosla Ventures, Intel Capital, and Canaan Partners, among others. Unlike traditional AI that processes text or images, embodied AI refers to AI that controls physical robots moving through real-world…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The governing body for Olympic-style boxing will require sex testing for all fighters wishing to compete in the women’s division at its world championships next month.World Boxing already had announced its plan to require competitors to undergo a polymerase chain reaction test or an equivalent genetic screening test to determine their sex at birth. The rules will be implemented ahead of the World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, in early September, the organization announced Wednesday.The tests identify the presence or absence of Y chromosome genetic material as the indicator of biological sex.“World Boxing respects the dignity…

There may be no evidence that AI is conscious, but Mustafa Suleyman is concerned that it might become advanced enough to convince some people that it is.In a personal essay published Tuesday, the Microsoft AI CEO described this phenomenon as “Seemingly Conscious AI,” which he defined as having “all the hallmarks of other conscious beings and thus appears to be conscious.”Its arrival could be “dangerous” for society, Suleyman wrote, because it could lead to people forming attachments to AI and advocating for AI rights.”It disconnects people from reality, fraying fragile social bonds and structures, distorting pressing moral priorities,” he said.Suleyman,…

Mustafa Suleyman is worried about AI misleading people into thinking it’s conscious.The Microsoft AI CEO calls this “Seemingly Conscious AI” and warns it’s “inevitable and unwelcome.”In a personal essay, he said there should be guardrails to ensure people don’t become disconnected from reality.There may be no evidence that AI is conscious, but Mustafa Suleyman is concerned that it might become advanced enough to convince some people that it is.In a personal essay published Tuesday, the Microsoft AI CEO described this phenomenon as “Seemingly Conscious AI,” which he defined as having “all the hallmarks of other conscious beings and thus appears…

NEW YORK (AP) — States are warning beachgoers about a summertime surge in infections from a frightening, flesh-eating bacteria found in coastal waters.Vibrio vulnificus are becoming an annual threat along the Gulf Coast and — increasingly — up the Eastern Seaboard.People should listen to the warnings, said Bernie Stewart, a 65-year-old retired bounty hunter in Florida who counts himself lucky to have survived an infection.In August 2019, Stewart’s right leg was infected while he was kayak fishing in Pensacola Bay. What at first appeared to be a sun blister led to three months in the hospital, where doctors performed 10…