Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Slowly but surely, the stars of Houston’s 2017 World Series-winning team have scattered about in the years since. George Springer is in Toronto now, Alex Bregman in Boston and Carlos Correa in Minnesota. Justin Verlander pitches for San Francisco. Jose Altuve and Lance McCullers Jr. are still with the Astros, but it feels like it’s only a matter of time before Houston’s dominance of the AL West comes to an end.The question is whether anyone else in the division has what it takes to force a changing of the guard.If it weren’t for Oakland’s division title in the pandemic-shortened 2020…

Uber’s chief product officer has one AI tool on his to-do list.In an episode of “Lenny’s Podcast” released on Sunday, Uber’s product chief, Sachin Kansal, shared two ways he is using AI for his everyday tasks at the ride-hailing giant and how he plans to add NotebookLM to his AI suite.Kansal joined Uber eight years ago as its director of product management after working at cybersecurity and taxi startups. He became Uber’s product chief last year.Kansal said he uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to summarize long reports.”Some of these reports, they’re 50 to 100 pages long,” he said. “I…

CNN  —  Music festivals are facing a crisis. On the brink of what should be another exciting summer festival season, dozens of music festivals are shutting down. The trend has been simmering for years — the longstanding Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago isn’t returning this summer, following similar announcements last year from Atlanta’s Music Midtown and Kickoff Jam in Florida. Meanwhile, festivals like Jay-Z’s Made in America festival and Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival haven’t returned since 2022. This year, more than 40 festivals have already been canceled, according to one count. These cancellations aren’t the only signs that something is…

JINJA, Uganda (AP) — Simon Tigawalana dreamed for years of doing something about the dirt floors in his small house, blaming them for making his family sick. But in a rural area in one of the world’s poorest countries, making them over with concrete was simply out of reach.Then a company called EarthEnable approached him to offer an alternative: a clay-based earthen floor that could give him a durable, sealed floor for less than half the cost of concrete. Tigawalana now has the new floor in two rooms and hopes to add it soon in the last room.“I’m happy that…

CNN  —  Actress Hailee Steinfeld and Josh Allen have tied the knot. Steinfeld and the Buffalo Bills quarterback wed in a ceremony in California on Saturday, according to People magazine, who published photos from the event. CNN has reached out to a representative for Steinfeld for comment. The “Sinners” star and Allen have been romantically linked since 2023 and debuted their relationship the following year, when Allen posted a photo with Steinfeld overlooking the Eiffel Tower in Paris. In 2024, the pair announced their engagement on their Instagram pages, sharing a photo of Allen bent on one knee during what…

CNN  —  As the fourth season of “Hacks” came to a wild end this week, one thing that really stood out was the show’s impressive list of public personalities appearing as themselves over the season. From Jimmy Kimmel to Kristen Bell and Seth Rogen, the only other current comedy to rival the collection of cameos on HBO Max’s “Hacks” is Rogen’s “The Studio,” Apple TV’s similarly industry-centric satirical show that features Hollywood heavyweights like Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard playing themselves in hilarious turns. “Hacks” co-creator Paul W. Downs – who also figures in the regular cast as frazzled agent…

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China blasted the U.S. on Monday over moves it alleged harmed Chinese interests, including issuing AI chip export control guidelines, stopping the sale of chip design software to China, and planning to revoke Chinese student visas. “These practices seriously violate the consensus” reached during trade discussions in Geneva last month, the Commerce Ministry said in a statement. That referred to a China-U.S. joint statement in which the United States and China agreed to slash their massive recent tariffs, restarting stalled trade between the world’s two biggest economies.But last month’s de-escalation in President Donald Trump’s trade wars…

Yoeven Khemlani knew he wanted to build a product for engineers like him.The Singaporean’s friends told him they were spending tons of time maintaining code, web scraping, and translating their work for different markets. In July 2024, he launched JigsawStack, a company to create small models that could automate those tasks. One country — not his own — quickly became the source of his customers.”We saw a huge uptake of users and realized a lot of the early-stage customers that we got were from the US,” Khemlani said.JigsawStack, which raised $1.5 million in pre-seed rounds from the venture capital firm…

CNN  —  Patti Lupone has issued an apology after making what she now describes as “demeaning and disrespectful” comments about two fellow Broadway stars in an interview with the New Yorker last week. The “Evita” star’s apology comes after hundreds of performers from the Broadway and theater communities issued an open letter first published by Playbill and called for accountability in light of Lupone’s “deeply inappropriate and unacceptable public comments” about Broadway stars Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald. In the interview, Lupone referred to Lewis as a “b*tch” and said McDonald was “not a friend,” prompting a wave of backlash…

(Reuters) -The founder of 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki, has asked a U.S. judge to reopen an auction for the genetic testing company, saying she has the support of a Fortune 500 company with a current market capitalization of more than $400 billion.Wojcicki did not name the Fortune 500 company in court filings.South San Francisco, California-based 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in April, seeking to sell its business at auction after a decline in consumer demand and a 2023 data breach that exposed sensitive genetic and personal information of millions of customers.Last month, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals agreed to buy the firm for $256 million,…