Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Luxury smartphone brand Vertu on Thursday unveiled a foldable phone powered by an AI agent that connects with enterprise software and coordinates workflows. The company is targeting executives who manage business operations and communications on the move. Called the Alphafold, the foldable smartphone starts at $6,880 for the calfskin version. Higher-end models feature bespoke finishes including alligator leather, 18K gold, and natural diamond accents, along with customized detailing. This continues Vertu’s long-standing strategy of positioning its phones as luxury status symbols aimed at affluent buyers. The company told TechCrunch that its highest-end standard model is currently priced at $46,800, with…

The DOJ said a Google engineer used confidential company information to mint over $1 million in profit on Polymarket.A New York district attorney, Jay Clayton, said in a Wednesday news release that Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo used the tech giant’s confidential business information to make “more than $1.2 million in trading profits on Polymarket.”Spagnuolo, who the DOJ identified as a 36-year-old Italian citizen living in Switzerland, created a Polymarket account in 2024 under the username “AlphaRaccoon.” Between October and December last year, he bet about $2,754,000 on markets related to Google’s internal information.James C. Barnacle, Jr., an FBI assistant…

Short-seller Andrew Left defied conventional wisdom to take the stand and testify in his own defense at his securities fraud trial this week. On Wednesday, he faced hours of cross-examination by a prosecutor — and it turned testy at times.A federal judge had to direct Left to answer questions at least a half-dozen times, and also scolded the government’s lawyer for editorializing as the closely watched case entered its final days.Left, the founder of the influential Citron Research, is accused of manipulating the market by putting out reports on companies that moved the stock — and then making his own…

GILGIL, Kenya (AP) — At least 16 students died in an overnight fire that started in the dormitories of a girls’ boarding school, a government official said, in the latest such incident to rock the East African nation. Education Minister Julius Ogamba said Thursday that 79 others were injured at the Utumishi Girls School, which has more than 800 students in the Gilgil area of central Kenya. The cause has not yet been established. Ogamba said authorities would investigate whether the school’s fire safety manual had been adhered to.Police said they were leading rescue and emergency response efforts about 120…

How many Ps are in Google? According to Google, there are two. There’s also is also “exactly 1 ‘r’ in the word ‘poop’,” Google’s AI Overview says, as well as two ‘d’s in the word journalism, yet spelled it: j-o-u-r-n-a-d-i-s-m. Google did at least identify that there is one P in the last name of the U.S. president, but spelled it as t-r-p-u-m. You didn’t need to be a prophet to predict that Google’s AI-forward Search overhaul was going to go over poorly. We’ve done this before. The first time Google added AI Overviews to Search, the feature ended up…

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. (AP) — The little girl approached the therapy dog outside the school library, reaching out to touch her fluffy blond coat. Social worker Nicole Herje leaned in.“How does it feel when you pet Sage?” Herje said. “I like it,” the girl said. “In Ecuador, I had a dog.”A few months earlier, this girl and many of her classmates at Valley View Elementary were staying off the streets to avoid the immigration officers flooding their suburban Minneapolis community. Attendance plummeted as families kept their kids from school during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge.Sage the goldendoodle is not just…

Hours before a scheduled meeting on a Nottingham, New Hampshire, data center proposal — which had to be moved to a larger venue because of growing backlash — the developer abruptly withdrew the plans.”There was a lot of opposition, so I’m not surprised,” a coordinator for Nottingham’s Planning Department, Tracey Stickney, told Business Insider on Tuesday, adding that it was “nice” to see people come together and care about their local community.She said she still expected residents of the town, with a population of about 5,300, would show up to the meeting to voice their concerns.The proposed project, backed by…

People are submitting their own designs for Google’s new app icons, and the trend has caught the attention of CEO Sundar Pichai.Some of the icons for your go-to Google apps are getting a revamp over the next several weeks. The company said Tuesday that the new visual design is meant to drive “consistency and cohesion” across the Google Workspace, which includes apps like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more.It’s also spawning memes on platforms like X, poking fun at the redesign.Some users took a more literal approach to Google’s app icons, such as using Doc Martens to represent Google Docs, bed…

Meta wants a slice of the subscriptions pie.The social media giant and budding AI superpower unveiled a host of subscription options for its services on Wednesday, including its AI chatbot, as well as its core social media offerings.Meta stock jumped on the news. Shares of the tech giant gained 4% by the closing bell, though the stock is still down about 4% year to date.The company said it was rolling out subscription plans for its Meta AI platform, which would allow users to pay for greater functionality.The company is selling two subscription tiers, at $7.99 a month and $19.99 a…

Cloud data storage giant Snowflake has signed a new $6 billion five-year agreement with Amazon Web Services, the companies announced on Wednesday. Snowflake has always run on AWS, though obviously, these days, it is also available on Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. For comparison on just how big this deal is for these companies, Snowflake has sold $7 billion worth of its services via AWS Marketplace total since it was founded in 2012, AWS says. So this new contract is close to all the money it has ever brought in from that cloud. It can do that because Snowflake’s customers…