Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Smoke from Canadian wildfires is impacting multiple U.S. states, even as far south as Florida.As over 203 active fires rage in Canada as of June 4, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center, wind carrying smoke from the fires have engulfed states in the eastern and central U.S.Many states are reporting moderate air quality levels, but conditions are worse in areas closer to the U.S.-Canadian border.Multiple states in the mid-to-upper Midwest have been flagged as unhealthy for sensitive groups and unhealthy for the overall population, regardless of health conditions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow tracker. Areas…

Reddit is suing Anthropic for allegedly using the site’s data to train AI models without a proper licensing agreement, according to a complaint filed in a Northern California court on Wednesday. Reddit claims in the complaint that Anthropic’s unauthorized use of the site’s data for commercial purposes was unlawful, and alleges the AI startup violated Reddit’s user agreement. Reddit’s lawsuit makes it the first Big Tech company to legally challenge an AI model provider over its training data practices, joining a litany of publishers that have sued tech companies on similar grounds. The New York Times has sued OpenAI and…

“My wife taught me something,” Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told the crowd at London SXSW. He was addressing the headlines about the company looking to hire human workers after previously saying Klarna used artificial intelligence to do work that would equate to 700 workers. “Two things can be true at the same time,” he said. Siemiatkowski said it’s true that the company looked to stop hiring human workers a few years ago and rolled out AI agents that have helped reduce the cost of customer support and increase the company’s revenue per employee. The company had 5,500 workers two years…

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn moreThe Nintendo Switch 2 features 256GB of storage built in. Though that’s a lot more than the original Switch’s 32GB, it’s still a bit limited, especially if you plan to download a lot of games. Luckily, you can use a memory card to expand the Switch 2’s storage by up to 2TB, ensuring you have plenty of space to work with.The original Switch also supported memory cards, but while that system worked with standard microSD cards, the Switch 2 requires a new type: microSD Express. These…

AMD’s latest acquisition could help reduce Nvidia’s market dominance when it comes to AI hardware. Semiconductor giant AMD on Wednesday announced it acquired AI software optimization startup Brium. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Brium is a startup that appears to be in stealth mode. The startup builds machine learning applications to enable AI inference, the process a trained AI model uses to draw conclusions from new data, across a variety of different hardware options, according to a blog post on Brium’s bare-bones website. Cutting through that jargon a bit, Brium can help retrofit AI software to work with…

Snap has launched a stand-alone Lens Studio iOS app and web tool, the company announced on Wednesday. The new tools are designed to make it easier for anyone to create AR Lenses through text prompts and simple editing tools. With the Lens Studio app, users will be able to do things like generate their own AI effects, add their Bitmoji, and browse trending templates to create customized Lenses. Up until now, Lens Studio has only been accessible via a desktop application for professional developers. While the desktop application will remain the primary tool for professionals, Snap says that the new…

TOKYO (AP) — The number of newborns in Japan is decreasing faster than projected, with the number of annual births falling to a record low last year, according to government data released Wednesday.The Health Ministry said 686,061 babies were born in Japan in 2024, a drop of 5.7% on the previous year and the first time the number of newborns had fallen below 700,000 since records began in 1899.The decline comes about 15 years faster than the government prediction. Last year’s figure is about one-quarter of the peak of 2.7 million births in 1949 during the postwar baby boom.The data…

NEW YORK (AP) — Tom Thibodeau’s firing brought back some of the confusion and chaos the New York Knicks had seemingly left behind.After an era of stability and more success than they had enjoyed in a quarter of a century, the Knicks opened a coaching search few could have predicted when they fired Thibodeau on Tuesday.“When I first saw it, I thought it was one of those fake AI things. No way. There’s no way possible,” Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.Coaching searches weren’t unusual in New York for much of the 2000s, but the Knicks weren’t winning then. This…

Worldwide shipments of artificial intelligence personal computers, known as AI PCs, are expected to total 114 million units this year, and are projected to represent 43% of all PC shipments in 2025.By next year, they’re anticipated to be the only available PC that is sold to large companies, according to the research firm Gartner.The growing popularity of these devices — which have built-in AI hardware and software that help to speed up data processing — presents a new challenge for companies and their IT departments: Guarding their sensitive data troves against cyber threats.AI PCs integrate a specialized processor called a…

CNN  —  As the federal criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs continues, many parts of his past are being revisited. That includes his father’s friendship with the late gangster, Frank Lucas. Melvin Combs was a drug dealer who was fatally shot in 1972, when his son Sean Combs was three years old. “That’s not something I glorify, but he was in Harlem and he was doing his thing, selling narcotics,” Combs told journalist Toure in an interview 13 years ago. “And we all know what that gets you. That’s only going to have you end up in jail or dead.…