A Lyme disease vaccine produced by Pfizer and Valneva was deemed 70 percent effective by the companies after they reviewed the results from a phase 3 trial. If approved by regulators, it would be the only vaccine for humans against Lyme disease. “Lyme disease can cause potentially serious consequences – where individuals and families face… Source link
The AI image generation market has had an uncontested leader for months. Google’s Nano Banana family of models has set the standard for quality, speed, and commercial adoption, while competitors from OpenAI to Midjourney have jockeyed for second place. That hierarchy shifted on Sunday when Luma AI, a startup better known for its Dream Machine video generation tool, publicly released Uni-1 — a model that doesn’t just compete with Google on image quality but fundamentally rethinks how AI should create images in the first place. Uni-1 tops Google’s Nano Banana 2 and OpenAI’s GPT Image 1.5 on reasoning-based benchmarks, nearly matches Google’s Gemini 3 Pro on object detection, and does it all at roughly 10 to 30 percent lower cost at high resolution. In human preference tests using Elo ratings, Uni-1 takes first place in overall quality, style and editing, and reference-based generation, according to Luma. Only in pure text-to-image generation does Google’s Nano Banana retain the top spot. But the numbers alone don’t capture what makes this release significant. Uni-1 represents a genuine architectural …
Premium cabler Starz is reorienting itself in its post-Lionsgate era and making a notable round of layoffs. The company cut 7 percent of its workforce on Friday in what has been described as a shifting of resources across the Jeffrey Hirsch-led company. In its latest 10-K filing as of last June, Starz had 541 employees, which means the latest round of layoffs is impacting less than 40 staffers. The company, vulnerable to cord-cutting and a decline in linear TV households, has embarked on an expansion effort pitching itself to Wall Street as a pure-play streaming brand. Up until ten months ago, it had been housed as part of Lionsgate since the Jon Feltheimer-led studio made a $4.4 billion cash and stock deal in 2016 to acquire Starz with an eye toward growing its own subscription-based business. Lionsgate had doubled down on the Starz brand when it sold its 31 percent stake in premium channel Epix to MGM for $397.1 million. But the companies had mulled a split during the pandemic years and completed a formal …
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech If you think it’s hard to find a job now, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott says just wait until AI really gets going. Speaking to CNBC‘s “Squawk on the Street” panel, the AI software executive laid out an apocalyptic employment future for Gen Z in which nearly one in every three people will soon be unemployed. “I think it’s very natural to be concerned about jobs. I think young people coming out of university today [are experiencing] 9 percent unemployment,” McDermott told CNBC. “I think it could easily go into the mid-30s in the next couple of years.” “So much of the work is going to be done by agents, so it’s going to be challenging for young people to differentiate themselves in the corporate environment,” he said. The CEO isn’t exactly a neutral party as he stokes fears about AI. ServiceNow’s software-as-a-service model has struggled on the stock market in recent months, lagging due to investor excitement around …
Looking for a Bluetooth speaker that’s portable, affordable, and waterproof? You can pick up the Tribit Stormbox Mini+ for just $33 from Amazon, a $7 discount from its usual price. It’s super portable, totally waterproof, and has big, bold sound that’s great for traveling, backyard parties, or bike rides, making it an easy pick for our favorite portable Bluetooth speaker. While there are plenty of Bluetooth speakers that are table-worthy, there are far fewer competent speakers at this more pocketable footprint. At 4.69 inches tall and 3.58 inches and diameter, it’s just about the same size as the Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4, but at less than half the price. It sports similar features too, with 360-degree speakers for complete sound no matter where you’re standing, albeit without quite as much clarity. You can also pair up multiple speakers for a proper stereo setup that will cover your whole backyard, a trick not a lot of speakers at this price point have up their sleeve. Despite its compact size and affordable pricing, the Stormbox Mini+ is …
British officials have told both U.K. steel producers and downstream importers, who use steel in everything from construction to automotive manufacturing, to expect a 50 percent duty outside of new quotas in a move “likely to be similar to the EU,” said a second industry figure. Both industry figures were granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. Last October, the EU announced plans to reduce its quotas on foreign steel imports by almost half and levy a 50 percent tariff on goods exceeding the cap. The move is part of an overhaul of so-called safeguard protections that expire in both the EU and U.K., under World Trade Organization rules, at the end of June. The U.K.’s strategy setting out the future of the sector has been repeatedly delayed. On Thursday, Kyle will set out a new scheme of trade protections to replace the so-called steel safeguards scheme. A Tata Steel UK executive told lawmakers in early February that the government “had eight weeks to save the British steel industry” by shielding it …
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Another tech giant is culling immense numbers of workers. On Thursday, prominent Australian software firm Atlassian announced it was laying off ten percent of its workforce, or about 1,600 employees. Like a growing number of its peers, it wasn’t shy about sharing why: a pivot to AI. The company, which makes most of its money by selling collaboration software, said it will “rebalance” its resources to focus on the “future of teamwork in the AI era,” Reuters reported. 40 percent of the firings, or about 600 employees, will come from its workforce in North America. Another 30 percent will come from Australia and 16 percent in India, Atlassian said. The company, however, refused to characterize the firings as a sign of AI replacement. “Our approach is not ‘AI replaces people,’” CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said in a memo to employees. “But it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn’t change the mix of skills we need or the number …
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A seniors group said it is forecasting the cost-of-living adjustment for next year’s Social Security payments to remain steady at 2.8 percent as U.S. officials released the latest consumer inflation data on Wednesday. Blank Social Security checks are run through a printer at the U.S. Treasury printing facility in Philadelphia, Pa., on Feb. 11, 2005. William Thomas Cain/Getty Images The Senior Citizens League on Wednesday released its forecast adjustment for 2027’s Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments. “That would be the exact same as last year’s COLA of 2.8 percent, a far cry from the 8.7 percent COLA issued in 2023 to help benefits keep pace with pandemic-related inflation, which seniors continue to see as a top issue,” the group said, according to a news release. Government inflation data for the months of July, August, and September compiled by the Social Security Administration (SSA) is used by the agency to produce the COLA for the next year’s payments. The SSA usually announces the …
In September 2024, officials reported that the National Museum of Sudan in the country’s capital city, Khartoum, had been subjected to looting by members of the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during Sudan’s ongoing civil war. Now, museum officials have made public the extent of that looting. “More than 60% of the museum’s holdings were looted,” said Ghalia Jar Al-Nabi, the Sudanese director of the General Authority for Antiquities and Museums, according to a report by NBC News. “For months of the war, no one could know what became of these museums.” Several of the museum’s display cases are currently empty, Al-Nabi added, confirming that gold and jewelry from Sudan’s ancient kingdoms had been stolen. Related Articles The RSF occupied the museum from April 2023 to early 2024. Prior to the conflict, the museum contained more than 150,000 artifacts in its holdings. The National Museum said that some 8,000 pieces were taken from the exhibition halls alone. So far only 570 pieces have been recovered, Graham Abdel Qader, a culture undersecretary, told NBC News. Sudan’s …
Batteries aren’t magic. They’re chemical. And, like most things built by humans, they wear down over time. I don’t need to tell you this—anyone who has owned a MacBook knows that battery life gets worse and worse as it ages. But what if I told you it’s possible to slow that process down? One common bit of advice is to only charge your devices up to 80 percent most of the time. Battery University, funded by a consultancy that helps large companies get more out of batteries, suggests this based on its research. So does the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. But how do you actually follow this advice? The good news is that your MacBook already does this, sort of, and there’s a great free application that allows you to go even further. Built-In Optimization Your Mac is designed to only charge up to 80 percent—at least, under some circumstances. By default, Mac devices learn your charging and usage routines and juice up your battery based on that. According to Apple, “Your Mac delays charging …
