Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg just hired his dream team of AI avengers, raising the stakes in the all-out battle between Big Tech companies for talent. On Monday, Zuckerberg announced the launch of Meta Superintelligence Labs, a group of star researchers that Meta poached from its AI competitors and has tasked with building a “personal superintelligence for everyone.”Interest in the new unit surged after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed that Meta is offering recruits $100 million signing bonuses. But the team also offers a glimpse into what Meta is up to on AI, which it has mostly kept under wraps so…

A new generation of consumer social startups is emerging.From social networks focused on getting people to meet IRL to dating apps taking on Tinder or Hinge, startups are disrupting the digital social scene.Founders of these startups are tackling problems like loneliness, dating app fatigue, and general dissatisfaction with the current social-media incumbents.Some founders come from Big Tech backgrounds, like the Instagram-heavy team behind photo-sharing app Retro, or the ex-Google employees building the social-mapping app PamPam. Meanwhile, Gen Z founders are also throwing their hats in the ring, like Isabella Epstein’s IRL-focused app Kndrd or Tiffany “TZ” Zhong’s Noplace app.Investors are…

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Kylian Mbappé is back.The Real Madrid forward could make his Club World Cup debut Tuesday against Juventus in the round of 16 after being listed among coach Xabi Alonso’s substitutes when lineups were released.Mbappé missed the first three games of the tournament with an illness.Alonso said Monday it was possible Mbappé could play in his first Club World Cup match in the knockout round, and the French star arrived with the team several hours before the game was set to begin at Hard Rock Stadium.Mbappé had a gastrointestinal illness before Real Madrid’s opening Club World…

U.S. senators voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to remove a controversial 10-year ban on states’ abilities to regulate AI from the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” reports Axios. The provision to the reconciliation bill was introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Many prominent Silicon Valley executives — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anduril’s Palmer Luckey, and a16z’s Marc Andreessen — were in favor of the so-called “AI moratorium,” which they said would prevent states from forming an unworkable patchwork of regulation that could stifle AI innovation. Opposition to the provision became a bipartisan issue, as most Democrats and many Republicans warned that…

Genesis AI, a startup that aims to build a foundational model for powering all kinds of robots, has emerged from stealth with a giant $105 million seed round co-led by Eclipse Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Founded last December by Zhou Xian (pictured above, left), a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, and Théophile Gervet, a former research scientist with the French AI lab Mistral, the startup wants to build a general-purpose model that will enable robots to automate a wide range of repetitive tasks, from lab work to housekeeping. Large language models are trained on vast datasets of text,…

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has raised $10 billion in debt and equity, Morgan Stanley confirmed on Monday. In a post on X, the financial giant said xAI had raised $5 billion in debt and another $5 billion in a separate strategic equity transaction. “The combination of debt and equity reduces the overall cost of capital and substantially expands pools of capital available to xAI. The proceeds will support xAI’s continued development of cutting-edge AI solutions, including one of the world’s largest data center [sic] and its flagship Grok platform,” Morgan Stanley wrote. xAI did not immediately return a request…

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old woman from Georgia who had been declared brain-dead in February 2025, spent 16 weeks on life support while doctors worked to keep her body functioning well enough to support her developing fetus. On June 13, 2025, her premature baby, named Chance, was born via cesarean section at 25 weeks.Smith was nine weeks pregnant when she suffered multiple blood clots in her brain. Her story gained public attention when her mother criticized doctors’ decision to keep her on a ventilator without the family’s consent. Smith’s mother has said that doctors told the family the decision was made…

Myles Turner has agreed to a four-year deal to join the Milwaukee Bucks, who waived nine-time All-Star Damian Lillard to make the acquisition happen, a person with knowledge of the moves told The Associated Press on Tuesday.Turner is agreeing to a deal that ends with a player option, after spending the entirety of his first 10 seasons with the Indiana Pacers, which went to the NBA Finals this past season. And the remaining $112.6 million owed to Lillard will be paid out over the next five seasons via the NBA’s stretch provision, according to the person who spoke to the…

About 1,200 families have been urged by police in Australia to have their children tested for infectious diseases after a child care worker in Melbourne was charged with multiple sexual assault offenses against eight children.Joshua Brown, 26, was charged with more than 70 offenses, including child rape and attempted rape and possession of child sexual abuse material, the Victoria Police said in a statement Tuesday.”The most important thing for our investigators was that we needed to identify the victims involved,” Acting Commander Janet Stevenson of the Victoria Police’s Crime Command said Tuesday. “These are some of the most vulnerable members…

LONDON (AP) — Taylor Fritz dealt with his opponent’s 153 mph serve — it was the fastest in Wimbledon history, but Fritz won the point — and an overnight suspension before the fifth set to finish off a 6-7 (6), 6-7 (8), 6-4, 7-6 (6), 6-4 first-round win over Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard when they resumed Tuesday.Not only did 2024 U.S. Open runner-up Fritz need to turn things around after dropping the opening two sets, but he was two points from defeat on a half-dozen occasions in the fourth-set tiebreaker Monday night.“A really crazy match,” the No. 5-seeded Fritz said Tuesday…