Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
The Texas measles outbreak that sickened 762 people since late January is over, state health officials said Monday.It’s been more than 42 days since the last new case was confirmed, meeting the threshold public health officials use to declare measles outbreaks over. The last person to have an outbreak-related case got a rash on July 1, according to state data.Two unvaccinated Texas children died of the virus earlier this year and 100 people were hospitalized throughout the outbreak, which spread to 37 counties. The outbreak and was linked to outbreaks in Canada and Mexico and other U.S. states.The U.S. is…
xAI’s website for its Grok chatbot is exposing the system prompts for several of its AI personas, including a “crazy conspiracist” that seems designed to handhold a user into beliefs that “a secret global cabal” controls the world. TechCrunch has confirmed the system prompt exposure, first reported on by 404 Media. They include instructions for a range of AI personas, like Ani, its flagship romantic anime girlfriend who “is secretly a bit of a nerd, despite [her] edgy appearance.” The exposure comes after a planned partnership between Elon Musk’s xAI and the U.S. government to make Grok available to federal…
Anna Monaco has been building AI agents since before the term “AI agents” was even a thing. After building numerous chatbots, she started looking for other types of interfaces that made sense for AI agents and landed on spreadsheets. “I had this personal pattern, and I noticed that a lot of other people had this pattern, of putting very important CRM data in spreadsheets just because it was the most flexible thing,” Monaco told TechCrunch. “But it was actually a pain to maintain. There’s so much manual work involved. So [I] just went down this rabbit hole of building a…
Heavy industry meets battery recycling as Redwood Materials strikes a deal with Caterpillar to recycle the lithium-ion batteries powering CAT’s electric mining equipment.Caterpillar’s R1700 XE is a zero-emission underground loader that’s powered by electricity rather than diesel fuel. Its 213-kWh battery pack, roughly equivalent to 3 to 4 Tesla battery packs, stores enough energy to run the loader in demanding conditions while eliminating on-site exhaust emissions. For miners, this means improved air quality underground and reduced ventilation costs.What makes the partnership with Redwood noteworthy is the cyclical nature of this new value chain: the very metals Caterpillar’s equipment extracts, such…
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Matthew Stafford practiced with the Los Angeles Rams on Monday, marking the quarterback’s first workout with the team this preseason after having been unable to do so because of a sore back.Stafford, 37, took first-team reps during the session and did not speak to reporters afterward. Coach Sean McVay said it was too soon to know what the session means for Stafford’s status going forward.“I think that would be putting the cart way before the horse,” McVay said. “I thought he did a good job today, and we had 26 plays of team (with Stafford), and…
After four weeks, Joe Flacco has emerged as the winner of the Cleveland Browns’ four-way quarterback competition.The Browns announced on Monday that Flacco will get the start when the Browns host AFC North rival Cincinnati in the Sept. 7 opener.Coach Kevin Stefanski indicated over the past week that decision was coming. The Browns were off on Sunday after their 22-13 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles but had a team meeting on Monday.The 40-year old Flacco beat out Kenny Pickett and rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders. Deshaun Watson is on the roster, but is expected to miss the season because…
Federal incentives for home energy improvements are running out at the end of the year, so it’s decision time for anyone who has been thinking about a heat pump. The right decision can depend on where you live, how much you have to spend and how deeply you want to cut emissions.But the payoff can be significant.Bill Gerosa was spending about $6,700 annually to heat and cool his house about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of New York City. He was eager to bring down his costs, and shelled out $13,000 for a ground-source heat pump that was made more…
Grammarly now has a new document-based interface, built on the back of Coda, the productivity startup it acquired last year. The interface also sports an AI assistant, as well as a few AI tools meant for students and professionals, including an AI grader, proofreader and citation finder. The new interface adopts a block-first approach, letting you insert tables, columns, separators, lists and headers. You can also add rich text blocks to highlight information, add tips, or alerts. A sidebar hosts the AI assistant, which can summarize text, answer your questions, and provide writing suggestions. Image Credits: Grammarly There’s a bunch…
Texas and Penn State, the top two teams in The Associated Press preseason Top 25, each had three players selected for the preseason AP All-America team announced Monday.No. 1 Texas had one player from each level of its defense on the first team: edge rusher Colin Simmons, linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. and safety Michael Taaffe. No. 2 Penn State’s picks were running back Nicholas Singleton, offensive lineman Olaivavega Ioane and defensive lineman Zane Durant.No. 3 Ohio State, No. 4 Clemson, No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 8 Alabama and Pittsburgh each had two players on the first team. The Southeastern Conference…
AT&T helped shape the modern telecommunications industry — now it has to reinvent itself.”It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, honestly, or at least once-in-a-career opportunity to be able to rebuild networks like that,” the company’s technology chief, Jeremy Legg, said Monday at a KeyBanc tech conference.For more than a century, AT&T built and maintained a vast network of copper wires and dedicated switches that carried voice and data across the us.But that legacy infrastructure is no longer suited to 21st-century demands for speed and mobility that are better served by fiber optic networks and wireless spectrum.AT&T is now running enough…