Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — The head of the new regulatory body for college sports said “if there was a time to stick out your neck, it’s now,” in urging schools to sign an agreement sent out nearly two months ago pledging to abide by new rules that govern how to pay players.Bryan Seeley, the CEO of the 7-month-old College Sports Commission, used his presentation at the NCAA convention Wednesday to thank leaders from four schools who put out a statement backing the agreement, while urging others to sign on.“My sense is that the vast majority of schools want to…
Kent Syverud, the man chosen Monday as the next leader of the University of Michigan, knows the job won’t be easy. For one thing, he said, U-M and other universities are in a fight to retain the United States’ place as a world leader in higher education. “These are challenging times for Michigan, for higher education and the whole world,” Syverud, currently chancellor and president of Syracuse University, said Monday after the Board of Regents, in a special meeting, unanimously approved his hiring. “We have a choice in how to respond. We can curl up in a ball … or…
Jan 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency jointly issued principles for safe and responsible use of artificial intelligence in developing medicines, aiming to speed up innovation while safeguarding patients.The principles, issued on Wednesday, offer broad guidance on how AI should be used to generate and monitor evidence across a drug’s lifecycle, from early research and clinical trials to manufacturing and safety surveillance.The move comes as regulators push to expand the use of AI in drug discovery and development to shorten timeline and reduce animal testing.The FDA has a generative AI tool, Elsa,…
Brands that cheap out on social media marketing risk losing out on sales.About a quarter of revenue on US retail sites during the holiday season was driven by either clicks from social media posts or affiliate marketing links via influencers, publishers, or other partners, according to an Adobe analysis of online consumer transactions. Despite its growth, influencer marketing remains behind more mature categories, such as search and digital video, in annual US ad spend.Affiliates and partners, a marketing category where brands pay influencers, publishers, and other promoters a commission for linking to products, contributed around 20% of roughly $258 billion…
Skild AI, which makes foundation models for robots, seems to have more than tripled its valuation in just seven months. The startup has raised a $1.4 billion Series C round that values it at more than $14 billion, Bloomberg reported. The round was led by SoftBank, and Nvidia, Macquarie Group, 1789 Capital and others also invested. Skild AI last raised a funding at a $4.5 billion valuation this prior summer, Bloomberg reported. The company hasn’t disclosed the exact value of that round — it was rumored to be around $500 million — but Skild AI CEO Deepak Pathak told Bloomberg…
Google is escalating the competition in artificial intelligence by leaning into a key advantage its rivals largely lack: an ecosystem of consumer apps used daily by billions of people.On Wednesday, Google unveiled Personal Intelligence, a new beta capability in the Gemini app that allows the assistant to tailor responses by reasoning across a user’s connected Google services, starting with Gmail, Photos, Search, and YouTube history.The feature rolls out in the US on Wednesday to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers. The company said it will also bring the technology to the free Gemini app and AI Mode in Search.While…
Google announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new beta feature in the Gemini app that allows the AI assistant to tailor its responses by connecting across your Google ecosystem, starting with Gmail, Photos, Search, and YouTube history. Although Gemini could already retrieve information from these apps, it can now reason across your data to provide proactive results, such as connecting a thread in your emails to a video you watched. Google says this means Gemini understands context without being told where to look. The tech giant notes that this beta experience, called Personal Intelligence, is off by default, as…
Cybercriminals are increasingly using AI in their attacks. At the same time, cyber defenders are also turning to the technology to fight back. Depthfirst, a security startup positioning itself at the forefront of this AI-powered defense, announced Wednesday that it had raised $40 million in a Series A round. Founded in October 2024, the company raised the round from Accel Partners, which led the investment, with participation from SV Angel, Mantis VC, and Alt Capital. Depthfirst offers a platform called General Security Intelligence, an AI-native suite that helps companies scan and analyze their codebases and workflows for signs of trouble.…
Meals and snacks with “GLP-1 Friendly” labels on the packaging are becoming more common in U.S. supermarkets as a growing number of Americans try obesity drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound to lose weight.But the labels aren’t regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, unlike the popular medications themselves. Dieticians say people taking GLP-1 drugs need to read ingredient lists and talk to experts about what nutrients they need – and don’t need.“A drug does not educate you on how to eat properly,” said Suzy Badaracco, a registered dietitian and president of the food trends forecasting firm Culinary Tides. “You’re…
When you think of tools for studying substance use and addiction, a social media site like Reddit, TikTok or YouTube probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Yet the stories shared on social media platforms are offering unprecedented insights into the world of substance use.In the past, researchers studying peoples’ experiences with addiction relied mostly on clinical observations and self-reported surveys. But only about 5% of people diagnosed with a substance use disorder seek formal treatment. They are only a small sliver of the population who have a substance use disorder – and until recently, there has been…