Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Palantir is having a moment. The software and defense tech company has been on a tear in 2025; its stock is up over 100% this year, as of Tuesday’s close. As shares soar, what about their employees’ paychecks?Palantir is gaining ground with early-career talent — including some recruits who haven’t even started college — thanks to cushy software engineering salaries and a growing appetite among younger techies for defense tech work. The company is also riding a tone shift in Silicon Valley, where working with the government is no longer taboo.Google, for instance, quietly dropped its ban on using its…

Microsoft pay guidelines obtained by Business Insider reveal how much the software giant generally will pay technical talent, shedding light on an opaque hiring process.The documents, last updated in May, do come with a carve-out: In competitive situations, recruiters can seek approval for higher offers for exceptional candidates.That’s a key caveat considering big tech companies are in an all-out battle for AI talent, with some offering staggering pay packages to engineers and researchers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Meta is offering engineers $100 million signing bonuses. Meta also reportedly poached a former top Apple AI engineer with a pay package…

Elon Musk says he has banished the job title “researcher” from his AI startup, xAI.The distinction between researcher and engineer is a “thinly masked way of describing a two-tier engineering system,” Musk wrote in an X post on Tuesday.”There are only engineers,” Musk said.”Researcher is a relic term from academia.”Musk then drew a comparison to his rocket company, SpaceX, which he said did more “meaningful, cutting-edge” research on rockets and satellites than “all the academic university labs on earth combined.””But we don’t use the pretentious, low-accountability term ‘researcher,'” Musk said.xAI did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.OpenAI,…

Zac Brown, 46, says he doesn’t consume gluten, dairy, sugar, or alcohol.He also gets regular NAD drips and has a trailer gym inspired by a tip from Bruce Springsteen.He says he weighed 265 pounds at his heaviest. He’s now down to around 200 pounds.Fortnite, NAD, no seed oil — country musician Zac Brown’s approach to health isn’t what you’d expect.In an interview with GQ published on Tuesday, the front man of the Zac Brown Band spoke about how his diet and fitness routine have helped him transform his body.Brown told GQ he’s cut out gluten, dairy, sugar, and alcohol from…

India has overtaken China to become the top smartphone exporter to the US, and the country has Apple to thank for its new ranking.India’s share of smartphone exports in the quarter that ended in June rose sharply from the same time last year.The country’s dethroning of China is largely driven by Apple’s shifting supply chains, according to analysis from research firm Canalys published on Monday.”Apple has scaled up its production capacity in India over the last several years as a part of its ‘China Plus One’ strategy and has opted to dedicate most of its export capacity in India to supply the US market so…

SINGAPORE (AP) — Léon Marchand broke the world record in the 200-meter individual medley on Wednesday at the world championships in Singapore, clocking 1 minute, 52.69 seconds to surpass the 1:54.00 set in 2011 by American Ryan Lochte.The Frenchman set the mark swimming in the semifinals and, in theory, could break it again in Thursday’s finals.Marchand won four Olympic gold medals a year ago in Paris, but he’s swimming only the 200 and 400 medley – and relays – in Singapore. Planning the lighter schedule in what he calls a “transition year” keeps him fresh to chase the world marks.Marchand…

The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday along party lines, 51 to 47, to confirm Susan Monarez as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.President Trump nominated her for the role in March, praising her as “an incredible mother and dedicated public servant” who “understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future.”CDC Director Susan Monarez / Credit: Centers for Disease Control and PreventionMonarez has been serving as the acting head of the CDC since January, and previously worked as the head of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. She was viewed as somewhat…

NEW YORK (AP) — Investigators are piecing together more details about how a former high school football player who blamed the game for his mental health problems carried out a deadly attack on an office building that is home to the NFL.Shane Tamura killed four people on Monday before killing himself, spraying the skyscraper’s lobby with bullets and then continuing his rampage on the 33rd floor, authorities said. Inside his wallet, a handwritten note claimed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known at CTE, and accused the NFL of hiding the dangers of brain injuries linked to contact sports, investigators said.…

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The man who stormed a Manhattan office tower with a gun, killing four people before killing himself, worked in the surveillance department of a Las Vegas casino, part of an industry built on watching for threats before they unfold.Shane Tamura, 27, didn’t show up to work his usual shift Sunday at the Horseshoe Las Vegas. Instead, authorities say, he got in his car and drove across the country to carry out a mass shooting inside the skyscraper that houses the National Football League’s headquarters. A fifth person, an NFL employee, was wounded in the Monday attack.As…

CINCINNATI (AP) — Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani had another first in his MLB career.Ohtani struck out in his first four plate appearances Tuesday night against the Cincinnati Reds, the first time he has done that in his eight seasons and 981 games in the majors.Against the Seattle Mariners on July 17, 2021, while playing for the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani popped up to the shortstop in his first at-bat and then struck out in his next four times at the plate.Despite Ohtani’s tough night at the plate, the Dodgers rallied for a 5-4 victory on an RBI…