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Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 Review: Iteration Overshadowed By Innovation
Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 8 might be the best clamshell foldable smartphone on the market for the money, but it's just not much of an upgrade over the Z Flip 7.
The Center for Addiction Science and Innovation Holds First Outreach Event
The Center for Addiction Science and Innovation brought addiction science research out of the lab and onto the UConn Storrs campus with their outreach event.
Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.
TAMS Names Joel Hanson as Executive Director
Executive previously led global innovation business development for CWT
Green Science Alliance opens Swiss battery recycling lab
The Japanese chemical and greentech firm has opened a battery recycling laboratory at the Switzerland Innovation Park Biel/Bienne (SIPBB) in the canton of
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CAS collaborates with Microsoft to enable faster innovation in pharmaceutical, life sciences, and chemical industries
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As Science and Technology Advance, Nurses Become More Essential to Successful Organ Transplants
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Oracle and AstraZeneca Partner to Advance AI-enabled Healthcare Innovation
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Tisha Campbell Signs With Innovative Artists
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Symposium highlights MIT’s wide range of innovations for aging brain health
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Arpit Davé on Using Tech to Deliver Greater Impact for Patients
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Metascience Fellowship
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Indiana University Kelley School’s Brian Williams named ‘Professor of the Year’ by national business education publication Poets&Quants
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Under new management: Oak View Group takes the reins at Riverview Health Arena
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Forge’s Fierce Life Sciences Announces 2026 Fierce Innovation Awards Finalists and Unveils the Fierce Vanguard Gala
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eMazzanti Technologies Named NJBIZ 2026 Business of the Year Finalist
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Dartmouth Health launches innovative home care initiative with help of $20M gift
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Atossa Therapeutics Common Stock to Begin Trading with Stapled Contingent Value Rights After Close of Business Today
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Lead with gut health substantiation, not speculation at SupplySide Global
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A – C | NJBIZ In the Lead 2026: Women-Owned Businesses
In the Lead: Enterprises that innovate, disrupt, break molds and showcase the energy, talent, intellect and perseverance of women as business leaders.
D – L | NJBIZ In the Lead 2026: Women-Owned Businesses
In the Lead: Enterprises that innovate, disrupt, break molds and showcase the energy, talent, intellect and perseverance of women as business leaders.
M – S | NJBIZ In the Lead 2026: Women-Owned Businesses
In the Lead: Enterprises that innovate, disrupt, break molds and showcase the energy, talent, intellect and perseverance of women as business leaders.
T – Z | NJBIZ In the Lead 2026: Women-Owned Businesses
In the Lead: Enterprises that innovate, disrupt, break molds and showcase the energy, talent, intellect and perseverance of women as business leaders.
Infleqtion Convenes Business Leaders in London to Chart Quantum Commercial Value
OXFORD, England, October 19, 2026--Infleqtion (NYSE: INFQ), a global leader in quantum computing and quantum sensing powered by neutral atom technology, will host the first Quantum Application Forum, an exclusive one-day event convening senior business and technology leaders on 3 November 2026 at IET Savoy Place in London. Executives responsible for technology, innovation and investment decisions will explore how quantum technology can address critical challenges, unlock commercial value and dri
An Uncertain Landscape for Science Funding (opinion)
New obstacles for early-career researchers could undermine U.S. innovation and competitiveness in the long term.
South Texas Health System (@stxhealthsystem)
2 likes, 1 comments - stxhealthsystem on October 18, 2026: "Put Your Skills at the Heart of Innovation: South Texas Health System is seeking skilled and dedicated Cardiac Cath Lab Technologists to join the cardiovascular teams at STHS Heart and STHS Edinburg. In this vital role, you’ll support advanced cardiac procedures, help deliver potentially lifesaving care and make a meaningful difference for patients when it matters most. Join a team committed to clinical excellence, innovation and compassionate care. Ready to take your career to the next level? Explore opportunities with the Rio Grande Valley’s largest integrated healthcare network. STHS offers competitive pay, comprehensive benefits and an increased sign-on bonus for qualified applicants. Ready to make your next career move? View current openings and apply at the link in our bio.".
Alejandra Mendez: Honored to Receive the 2026 Innovators in Health Award
Alejandra Mendez: Honored to Receive the 2026 Innovators in Health Award / 2026 Innovators in Health Award, Alejandra Mendez, cancer, Childhood Cancer, Chile,
This Michigan group hopes to strengthen US business ties to Israel
The U.S.-Israel Innovation Exchange has Israel’s backing — and its organizers are attracting protests
Detroit summit boosts Israeli business in face of pro-Palestinian wave
Michigan Israel Business Accelerator drew fire ahead of the Innovation Exchange Summit at Huntington Bank HQ, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib demanding state end funding for group
Dreaming Big, Building Better: Hugg & Hall Reaches A Major Milestone
Hugg & Hall Equipment Co. celebrates 70 years in business, highlighting its Arkansas roots, family leadership, growth and innovation in construction equipment.
Sister Monica Heeran, longtime PeaceHealth leader and Northwest healthcare pioneer, dies at 95
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. — PeaceHealth mourns the passing of Sister Monica Heeran, a visionary leader who rose through the ranks of Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene and would shape healthcare throughout the Northwest and beyond.Sr. Monica died Oct. 9 at St. Mary on the Lake in Bellevue, Wash. She was 95.She boldly led PeaceHealth through a period of great innovation, guided by her faith, compassion and generosity toward those in need.
As US business ties to Israel are scrutinized, this Michigan group hopes to strengthen them nationwide
The U.S.-Israel Innovation Exchange has Israel’s backing — and its organizers are attracting protests.
National 2D materials research hub names new director
Stephanie Law, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State, has been named director and principal investigator of the Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium-Materials Innovation Platform, a U.S. National Science Foundation-supported national user facility within Penn State’s Materials Research Institute.
Long Beach student advances to national science competition finals
Long Beach student Hanna Heitefuss is the only New Yorker among 30 finalists in the 2026 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge, earning national recognition for her research on saltwater intrusion and its effects on plants and aquatic life.
This week in health care policy: October 8–15, 2026
Innovation watch Merck expects faster production of its personalized cancer vaccine. CEO Rob Davis told CNBC the six-week turnaround for intismeran autogene, built from each patient’s tumor and paired with Keytruda, will shrink over time. In August, Merck and Moderna reported that the vaccine delayed recurrence and spread in a 1,137-patient Phase 3 melanoma trial, […]
ALTOUR Unveils ALTOUR iQ During Innovation Faceoff at Business Travel Show America 2026, Moving Business Travel Beyond Reporting to Decision Intelligence
/PRNewswire/ -- ALTOUR, a global leader in business travel management, has unveiled ALTOUR iQ, its proprietary AI-powered conversational travel intelligence...
THE BUSINESS COUNCIL ANNOUNCES LEADERSHIP TRANSITION AS GOLDMAN SACHS CEO DAVID SOLOMON TAKES THE HELM
Washington, D.C., Oct. 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Business Council today announced that Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon will become its next leader, succeeding Brian Cornell, Executive Chair of Target Corporation. In this role, Solomon will chair one of the nation’s most distinguished business organizations, bringing together the world’s foremost CEOs to confront emerging challenges, advance innovation, and help define the future of global leadership. Cornell has led The Busin
Rice graduate students showcase innovative research at synthetic biology science cafe
The Science and Technology Policy Program at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy hosted a “science cafe” Oct. 13 to bring research to reality and answer questions from the public, giving attendees a look at projects underway in university laboratories and an opportunity to ask questions about the science, its potential applications and its implications for society.
You’re Invited: What Can We Achieve When We Put Food First For Health?
Join Food Tank in Philadelphia to talk about the collaboration, legislation, and innovation that prioritizes our dietary well-being.
Innovation@Brown Showcase highlights new science, technology ventures
The event awarded prizes to inventor, startup and innovation of the year.
Hollywood Casino hosts inaugural Maine Science Awards
Honorees were recognized in five categories: Lifetime Achievement, Innovation, Impact, Surprising Science, and Advancing Trust in Science.
Cardinals Chosen As Innovative Philanthropic Company Of Year By Phoenix Business Journal
Arizona Cardinals Official Team Website I Arizona Cardinals – AZCardinals.com
Berkeley Haas unveils strategic plan with new initiatives in AI, entrepreneurship, healthcare, and sustainability & social impact - Haas News
UC Berkeley Haas today unveiled a new strategic plan designed to strengthen its standing as a global business education leader, a school where analytical rigor, human judgment, and innovation work together to move business forward. The plan rests on three foundational pillars essential to the school’s mission: expanding the impact of its research; strengthening its […]
UnityPoint Health brings pop-up innovation lab to Sioux City
This provided Unity Point team members the opportunity to take challenges with equipment and brainstorm with engineers to create solutions.
13News Now
13News Now (WVEC) is made up of storytellers, innovators, content creators, and idea generators. We stand for passion. Passion for our people, passion in our product, and above all- passion in our community. We value honesty, accuracy, and solutions. We serve as the local ABC affiliate for Hampton Roads. We strive for interaction with our audience and are constantly working on our presentation so that you have the best experience when consuming our products. Whether on air, online, or on the go- we are everywhere you go. Digitally we lead the market by more than a million actions over our nearest competitor. Join the conversation with us, help us tell the Stories of Now. About our parent company TEGNA- TEGNA Inc. (NYSE: TGNA) is an innovative media company that serves the greater good of our communities. With 46 television stations in 38 markets, TEGNA delivers relevant content and information to consumers across platforms.
Women in Science Honored for Advancing Healthcare Innovation - National Cancer Centre Singapore
Women in Science Honored for Advancing Healthcare Innovation - National Cancer Centre Singapore / AI, cancer, Joanne Ngeow, National Cancer Centre Singapore,
13News Now
13News Now (WVEC) is made up of storytellers, innovators, content creators, and idea generators. We stand for passion. Passion for our people, passion in our product, and above all- passion in our community. We value honesty, accuracy, and solutions. We serve as the local ABC affiliate for Hampton Roads. We strive for interaction with our audience and are constantly working on our presentation so that you have the best experience when consuming our products. Whether on air, online, or on the go- we are everywhere you go. Digitally we lead the market by more than a million actions over our nearest competitor. Join the conversation with us, help us tell the Stories of Now. About our parent company TEGNA- TEGNA Inc. (NYSE: TGNA) is an innovative media company that serves the greater good of our communities. With 46 television stations in 38 markets, TEGNA delivers relevant content and information to consumers across platforms.
Two decades of publications reveal research institutions becoming more alike worldwide
Where researchers go, their knowledge goes. And that shapes where innovation happens. "Recruiting researchers is one way institutions gain new knowledge and steer their research in particular directions," ...
Clinton Policy Institute outlines maternal health solutions for states
Health Care Clinton Policy Institute outlines maternal health solutions for states It’s the first major report from the project, which launched in July to foster nonpartisan policies to improve the wellbeing of children and families. Stephanie Akin 10:00 AM, Oct 15, 2026 Dr. Jacob Lenz performs an ultrasound at the Oklahoma State University obstetrics and gynecology clinic in Tulsa, Okla., on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon) The Clinton Policy Institute is calling on states to lead efforts to curb maternal mortality, releasing a 61-page playbook Thursday highlighting successful policies that could be adopted nationwide. The playbook is the first major report from the Clinton Foundation’s project, which launched in July to foster nonpartisan state and local policies to improve the wellbeing of children and families. “Eighty percent of maternal deaths are preventable, and we know what works,” CPI Chair Jennifer Klein said. “The solutions are well established and evidence-based.” CPI’s mission is to convene political leaders from both parties, policy experts, state officials and other stakeholders to explore solutions to longstanding problems. “What we aim to do is bring together people who are deeply engaged, but may not be meeting together in the same room,” Klein said, noting that state policymakers might not always be aware of what their peers are doing in other states. In May, CPI brought together lawmakers from Virginia and Pennsylvania, two of the 14 states that have passed bipartisan maternal health “Momnibus” packages modeled after a comprehensive federal proposal that has repeatedly stalled, called the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act. Other participants included Dr. Mona Hanna, founder of Rx Kids, a Michigan program that provides direct cash allowances to pregnant women and infants. Pennsylvania Rep. Morgan Cephas, who was part of the group, said she learned about funding opportunities she hadn’t come across during her decade in the Legislature. “As legislators we can issue grants, we can pass legislation, we can move policy, but we want to ensure that funding opportunities and programs that are tackling this issue are sustainable,” Cephas said. The playbook outlines broad areas where state policy can make a difference, such as allowing Medicaid to pay for doulas and remote patient monitoring, and using federal and private grant funding to pay for home visits to pregnant and postpartum women. For each category, it highlights innovative programs that can serve as models, with examples of specific actions state lawmakers and governors’ offices can take. Those include the Rx Kids model, which gets funding from the Michigan state budget; Pennsylvania’s Healthy Moms Vibrant Futures strategic action plan, emphasizing equity-centered maternal care, regional collaboration, Medicaid innovation, and workforce development that was launched this year with more than 160 stakeholders; and Kansas’s Bridging Plan, which reserves three slots and provides at least $26,000 in loan forgiveness for obstetric residents who commit to practicing in rural or underserved communities for 36 months. CPI emphasizes that its work is nonpartisan. Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council under former President Joe Biden, acknowledged that CPI also takes positions on abortion, Medicaid funding, and the need to address the economic and social drivers of poor health, which might rankle some conservatives. “We don’t shy away from talking about those things that we think are part and parcel of the maternal health crisis in this country,” Klein said. “That said, there are so many policies that are both evidence-based and have been tried successfully in both red and blue states, and people can see that they can have real impact.” She pointed to the federal option to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months that was made available during the Biden administration and has since been adopted by every state but Arkansas. Other initiatives embraced across party lines include Medicaid coverage for midwives and doulas, as well as “bundled” payments for prenatal and postpartum care. That alternative payment model, pioneered in states such as Arkansas, Colorado and Tennessee, incentivizes fixed fees to cover all healthcare services associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Advocates say it promotes more coordination among caregivers, discourages unnecessary interventions, and expands postpartum support. In addition to maternal health, the initiative is also focused on addressing family economic security, children’s well-being, and democracy and civic resilience.
Vizient Hosts Congressional Briefing on Hospital Innovation
IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 15, 2026--
TIME Best Inventions of 2026
NASA’s new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was among the year’s top innovations recognized Thursday on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2026 list.
Massachusetts can protect data privacy without hurting small businesses
As lawmakers debate the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act, they should be careful not to adopt an approach that unintentionally makes it harder and more expensive for local businesses to compete, grow, and innovate online.
Is the EU research budget actually increasing?
Is a Horizon Europe budget of €158 billion a 10% cut or a significant increase to the EU’s support for research and innovation? What would seem like a question of fact has divided opinion in Brussels since the Irish presidency of the EU Council presented its negotiation box on October 10. The answer depends on factors such as how you adjust for inflation, whether you account for increases in overall EU wealth and if you care about absolute or proportional figures. The €158 billion budget in current prices, proposed by the Irish presidency of the EU Council, was quickly criticised by university lobbies and rejected by the high-level expert group led by former Portuguese science minister Manuel Heitor. It was also decried by the four pro-European political groups in the European Parliament. “How can Europe close its competitiveness gap while cutting the European Competitiveness Fund by 13% and Horizon Europe by nearly 10%?” asked a joint statement by the European People’s Party (EPP), Renew Europe, the Socialists and Democrats and the Greens/European Free Alliance. Together, these parties hold 63% of seats in the Parliament.In stark contrast, Irish foreign affairs minister Helen McEntee said that the proposal “significantly increases investment in competitiveness, research and innovation,” Meanwhile, a presidency press release said that, compared to the current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the proposal would “double the volume of competitiveness related programmes.” So, who is right? That depends on how you make the calculation.Compared to the Commission figure or the previous budget?The first thing to notice is the difference in baselines. When the MEPs say the Irish presidency will cut Horizon Europe by “nearly 10%” they are using the European Commission proposal for the MFF from July 2025, which allocated €175 billion in current prices to Horizon Europe. However, when the Irish foreign affairs minister said the research and competitiveness budget is increasing significantly, she is comparing it to the 2021-27 MFF, which had a Horizon Europe budget of €84.9 billion in 2018 prices.Her point holds when accounting for inflation. Applying a 2% annual inflation rate, the calculation method used by the Commission, the 2021-27 Horizon Europe would have a budget of €97.5 billion in 2025 prices. In comparison, the Irish presidency’s €158 billion figure in current prices translates to €140 billion in 2025 prices. Does the ECF count?But there is more to the dispute. In its statements, the Irish presidency lumped the research budget in with the overall budget for competitiveness. The Parliament statement, however, kept the two separate. This matters because the next MFF includes plans to add a new European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) to fund programmes meant to boost the continent's competitiveness. The Irish negotiating box allocated €245 billion in current prices to this programme.When this is added to the €158 billion for Horizon Europe, as well as programmes such as the EU education programme Erasmus+, the total for “competitiveness, prosperity and security” in the Irish proposal becomes €514 billion in current prices. But it is still uncertain how big a share of this competitiveness budget would go to research. The Commission proposal of July 2025 for the MFF included clear links between the ECF and Horizon Europe, indicating some ECF money will go to research. At the same time, the structure of the ECF is still being negotiated, and a substantial part of its budget is expected to support non-research activities such as defence manufacturing, decarbonisation and digital infrastructure. Related articlesCouncil floats 9.6% budget cut to next Horizon EuropeResearch community to appeal to national governments over planned EU budget cutEU own resources ‘essential’ for future research budget, says leading MEPSo, it is by looking at competitiveness rather than research, or combining the two, that the Irish presidency can claim that its proposed budget will significantly increase investment in competitiveness, research and innovation.According to the Irish presidency proposal, Horizon Europe and other competitiveness-related programmes in the current multiannual budget received €221 billion in current prices. However, since this money is being distributed from 2021 to 2027, it is not directly comparable to the €514 billion in current prices which will be distributed from 2028 to 2034.Research as a proportion of the MFFBut the relative rise in competitiveness-related programmes points to another important distinction: whether you look at the research budget in absolute terms or as a share of the overall MFF. Here, too, the size of the research budget has risen, although only slightly. In the 2021-27 MFF, Horizon Europe accounted for 7% of the total budget. In the Irish presidency’s proposal, it amounts to 8.7%. The share for the total competitiveness envelope went from 17.7% in the current MFF to 28.1% in the Irish presidency proposal.This proportional share may seem irrelevant to universities looking for research funding, but it is becoming significant as budget negotiations between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council begin. On October 2, a group of 17 southern and eastern European countries sent out a statement calling for the EU agriculture and cohesion budgets to be protected. The Parliament’s co-rapporteur on the budget, Siegfried Mureșan of the EPP, has also said that the research envelope is likely to be cut disproportionately as the budget is slimmed down during negotiations.
Medical Alley opens studio for health innovation
Plus: Crisp & Green acquires two salad chains and Rocket55 finds a buyer.
UMass Memorial Health Announces Unified Data Platform Multi-Year Initiative, Investments in AI-Powered Innovation in Partnership with Accenture and Microsoft
NEW YORK & WORCESTER, Mass., October 15, 2026--UMass Memorial Health today announced a multi-year initiative with Accenture and Microsoft to modernize its data platform.
Leading life science organizations collaborate for second London Bio-Innovation Week
One Nucleus, The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), and ELRIG today announced that they will be collaborating during the second London Bio-Innovation Week, to facilitate multi-event and community networking and partnering opportunities for life science companies, academic researchers, bio-entrepreneurs, investors and advisers.
What is it like running a Fortune 500 business? HP’s regional CTO on adopting AI safely and motivating tech teams
Over the past few months, Fortune has spoken with senior HP leaders to understand how the company is evolving—from innovation and culture to customer engagement and the future of work.
Bay Area Science Festival set for Saturday; free event to feature games, robots, animals and experiments
13th annual gathering at UC San Francisco Mission Bay Campus showcases innovation and research, with a focus on kids
Choctaw Nation Doctor Appointed to Health Tribal Advisory Committee
Overview: The Chief of Staff of Choctaw Nations Health Service has been appointed to a federal tribal health advisory committee. Dr. Amanda Chisum-Price has been appointed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Tribal Advisory Committee as an At-Large Delegate. She currently serves […]
Leading Life Science Organisations Collaborate for Second London Bio-Innovation Week
One Nucleus, SLAS, and ELRIG will connect their communities through cross-event networking and partnering opportunities during London Bio-Innovation Week, taking place 7th - 11th December 2026
SPECIAL REPORT: Tough Business
A string of vacant restaurant buildings shows that many restaurants in the region are struggling — and several are closing By Stefan Yablonski [caption id=attachment_11132 align=alignright width=401] Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill on Route 31 in Clay closed its doors in April. It had been in operation since at least 2008.[/caption] By their nature, most restaurants have a limited life. An astonishing 60% go out of business within three years of opening, largely due to fundamental flaws in the planning of the operation. But even restaurants that experience years of success almost always face eventual closure. The restaurant business is very hard and because of both personal factors and external factors beyond anyone’s control, restaurants don’t last forever. For many restaurants, age is a big factor, according to Kenneth Walsleben, professor of practice, entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises at Syracuse University. “The owners have been at it for 20 or 25 years, if not longer, they want some time to themselves,” he said. Such was the case for Jocko’s Famous Ritz Diner in Oswego. Jocko Reitz bought the building in the late 1970s from Robert Shapiro. However, when he stepped away from the business, it eventually closed. [caption id=attachment_11142 align=alignright width=402] For nearly 80 years, Vona’s Restaurant passed through three generations of family in Oswego. It closed its doors on Dec. 31, 2025.[/caption] For nearly 80 years, Vona’s passed through three generations of family in Oswego. Vona’s Restaurant officially closed its doors on Dec. 31, 2025, when no family member wanted to take over. It is on the market. The Ruby Tuesday in Oswego operated for about two decades before permanently closing in April 2026. The restaurant faced multiple temporary health department closures in 2024 and 2025 due to persistent fruit fly and foundation pest issues. Management posted a final closure notice on the doors in mid-April 2026 and the building was put up for sale. The same pattern has been happening in Onondaga County. The big building once used by Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill on Route 31 in Clay remains empty, more than six months after the restaurant closed its doors in April. It had been in operation since at least 2008. [caption id=attachment_11130 align=alignright width=401] Ruby Tuesday in Oswego operated for about two decades before permanently closing in April 2026.[/caption] Just down the road from Smokey Bones, the popular Outback Steakhouse closed in August 2024. Another restaurant took its place, La Cocina Mexican Restaurant, but it closed shortly after. The building sits empty. Other very popular restaurants in the northern suburbs of Syracuse have recently closed. Among them, Fireside by the River in Baldwinsville and Primo Nestico’s Bistro Bar in North Syracuse. “I haven’t really paid attention to the Syracuse area. There has always been some turnover, but there probably has never been a tougher time to be a restauranter than now. It’s just brutal,” Walsleben said. In the first year, roughly 20% to 25% of restaurants close or change hands, according to the National Restaurant Association. [caption id=attachment_11122 align=alignright width=401] Outback Steakhouse closed in August 2024. Another restaurant took its place, La Cocina Mexican Restaurant, but it closed shortly after. The building sits empty.[/caption] “Depending on what statistics you look at, you’ll find that any business has a high mortality rate in the first year. That is just the nature of entrepreneurship,” Walsleben said. “There are certain ones that are getting hit hard while others are more fruitful. “And when you look at the restaurant industry you have to factor in labor which is a large part — typically a third of your expenses — and those costs are going up. And there is always turnover which means investing money to train people. Then you’ve got food costs, which is also a third of the typical restaurant budget. Since the pandemic labor has gone up 41%, food costs have gone up 35%. That’s a big tight squeeze righty there. That’s two-thirds of your budget that has gone up 35% to 40% in the last few years. And then the only way you can make that work is to raise the prices.” The National Restaurant Association reports menu prices are up 36% since February of 2020. In a survey released by the association, more than eight in 10 restaurant owners reported that their food, beverage and labor costs are now higher than before the pandemic. You have to deal with the reality of are the customers willing to pay for that? Walsleben added. Restaurants historically have very thin margins; their profit margin is about 5%. “You have a third that goes into food, a third that goes into labor and about 28%, 29% that goes into everything else — overhead, insurance etc. So that brings you down to your 5% leftover,” he said. “Everything is going up. Customer expectations are going up and people aren’t going to spend that much more. So, you have a tight squeeze here,” Walsleben continued. “Restaurants who use delivery apps, they pay a fee to those guys. Those guys don’t work for free. So, you can kind of see where the squeeze comes from.” Stuck in the middle There are pockets of opportunity; the two extremes of the market can make a profit. But the middle gets squeezed out. “If you are a low-end fast-food kind of place, there is room for that. People have changed their budgets. They are still going out, but they are not spending more,” according to Walsleben. “The high end remains positive. If you have a restaurant that brings a specific experience … a great food product or you are catering to high end customers who aren’t so budget conscious, those patrons are going to expect a high-end experience. They expect excellent food every time. They are expecting excellent service. If you can meet those expectations there is room for you at the top. It’s just the guys in the middle are getting the squeeze from both ends. Tough competition, customer expectations, costs are up. Menu items, you can’t raise the prices as much as you need to. That is why you are seeing a lot of restaurants baling out.” The ones that can adapt quickly are the ones who are doing OK. “Success is heavily dependent on the strength of a restaurant’s concept development and the planning of its execution. Eventually things aren’t always new. Things change. So, if you are in the restaurant business you have got to change your menu — keep things new, fresh and update your meals. It is very fickle industry. One year carbs are out, the next year berries are out. Everybody’s diet changes — constantly chasing the latest phase. You have got to adjust your menu and move with those modifications. If you have a static menu that you have used the last couple years that hasn’t changed except for the pricing, you’ve got a problem,” he said. A lot of times these buildings are singular purpose, he added. “You have a commercially viable kitchen and you got a seating area. There is not a lot of other businesses that cater to that type of a layout. So, it’s pretty common to see another restaurant slide in,” he said. One of the things a banker learns early on is you don’t lend money to restaurants … because they fail so quickly. It is very hard to predict who the winners will be. So, if you are a restaurant in addition to all the other challenges, it is very difficult to get loans, according to Walsleben. “You might work really well in the kitchen. But that doesn’t mean you are a great businessperson,” he said. “Restaurants can fail because the owner didn’t know how to manage things properly. There are a lot of challenges. “There is opportunity at the high end and the low end. But in the middle, that’s the death valley. There are just so many things working against you. You really need to have something that will pull people in and continue to pull people in because you to constantly have to change. Think about a theme and a product that is unique to the area people don’t travel that far these days you have to be able to deliver it in an innovative fashion and keep updating to keep people coming in the door.” Out of Business? How Fast? Do nine out of 10 restaurants fail in their first year, as commonly claimed? No. Survival analysis of 1.9 million longitudinal microdata for 81,000 full-service restaurants in a 20-year U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics non public census of business establishments in the western US shows that only 17% of independently owned full-service restaurant startups failed in their first year, compared with 19% for all other service-providing startups, according to ResearchGate. The median lifespan of restaurants is about 4.5 years, slightly longer than that of other service businesses (4.25 years). However, the median lifespan of a restaurant startup with 5 or fewer employees is 3.75 years, slightly shorter than that of other service businesses of the same startup size (4.0 years). What Makes a Restaurant Successful? Opening and maintaining a successful restaurant is not as easy as creating a great menu and serving excellent food. It takes more than that, according to local restaurant owners who have been in business for decades in the region. They all agree that there are some guidelines to running a successful restaurant. • Quality food: Successful restaurants know exactly what they serve and who they serve it to. Delivering the same great taste every single time builds loyal customers. • Smooth operations: Friendly greetings and attentive staff make guests feel welcome from the moment they walk in. Hiring staff for personality and training for skill ensures reliable, caring service. • Smart marketing: Exceptional food and experiences naturally get people talking and sharing online. Word of mouth can help entice customers. Consistent social media and targeted advertising brings in new and repeat guests also. The menu is what keeps patrons coming back to Mimi’s Diner in Fulton, located at 201 N. Second St. “We locally source our produce and our meats. Our chicken and biscuits is a popular, popular special,” said Richard Tagliareni, the third-generation owner and general manager. “It’s all homemade. We have consistently served quality food.” His grandfather started the business more than 55 years ago. Mimi’s is engrained in the community. They cater to the community and are very involved in everything from the schools to local events. The first Mimi’s Drive-In opened in Mexico. Then a second in Oswego and then Fulton. Fulton’s Mimi’s is the only one left. “The last couple of weeks have been kind of slower than normal. October is usually a busier month for us People will start coming back around again. Also, the price of gas is affecting some things,” Tagliareni added. “We try to keep our prices in line. You go out to eat, you’re going to spend about a hundred bucks or so for two people for dinner. You come here to Mimi’s you are probably for two people for dinner it’s between $50 and $60. We are trying to keep our prices in line. We did have to increase our prices a little bit but things are looking OK.” For the Press Box, 29 E. First St., Oswego, it’s also about great food and a family atmosphere. “Our sports bar and restaurant was established in 1984,” said Alison Canale Scanlon, manager. “I think putting the time into everything makes a big difference and treating people like family when they walk into your restaurant. That’s how we have always operated since 1984.” “It’s the family oriented aspect,” she added. “Consistency, quality and presentation of our food — that’s the secret to a successful restaurant. We try to be very consistent with it. We treat people like family when they come in; because we know how we want to be treated when we go to a restaurant. We treat people the same or better.”
N. Syracuse Manufacturer Marks Milestone, Plans for the Future
Air Innovations has grown from a small local manufacturer into a global business, selling its products in 74 countries organizations. Some of its clients include NASA, Blue Origin and SpaceX. By Stefan Yablonski [caption id=attachment_11117 align=alignright width=450] Michael Wetzel, president and CEO, and his father, Larry, who currently is an adviser to the board of directors. Larry served as the chairman of the board until 2024, when the company was acquired by Altus Capital Partners, a private equity firm.[/caption] Air Innovations in North Syracuse hopes to add more employees and possibly even expand its facility in the near future. The company is a global leader in designing and building environmental process control systems for applications that can’t be addressed with standard HVAC equipment, according to Michael Wetzel, president and CEO. “We customize solutions for temperature, humidity, filtration and pressurization, with additional capabilities in direct-expansion, chilled-water and thermoelectric technologies. Our business now is entirely focused on specialty or niche markets.” Air Innovations celebrated its 40th anniversary on Sept. 18, marking four decades of doing business, manufacturing products and growing in Central New York. In the beginning [caption id=attachment_11138 align=alignright width=451] A worker, Ezzy Salehi, tests a Wine Guardian condenser unit at Air Innovations.[/caption] “A guy by the name of Jim Kelley started the business [known as Floratech] in 1986. It was focused on refrigerated display cases for supermarket fresh flowers,” Wetzel said. “My father [Larry] started Clean Room Technology in the early 1980s, then sold that to a French company called Clestra Cleanroom. “My father and I bought Floratech in 1996 — 30 years ago, 10 years after it was started. Then in 1999, Floratech bought a portion of Clestra and their building. At that point everything was still called Floratech. But, as that was not reflective of the diversity of the business, we rebranded as Air Innovations in 2001.” The company rebranded to pursue a strategy of diversification in specialty HVAC systems. Wetzel explained that since then, it has become a trusted global partner, earning the President’s “E” Award for Exports and securing contracts in the most demanding fields, including aerospace, defense and semiconductor manufacturing. Air Innovations has grown from a small local manufacturer into a global business, selling nearly 70,000 units in 74 countries and territories and developing custom environmental control systems for companies and organizations including NASA, Blue Origin and SpaceX. “We work with all the big names you ever heard of and some you never heard of,” Wetzel added. The Wetzels sold the business two years ago to Altus Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on control investments in lower middle-market, niche manufacturing companies in North America. Founded in 2003, Altus Capital Partners’ headquarters is in Wilton, Connecticut, with an additional office in Lincolnshire, Illinois. “They are an equity firm. Both my father and I both maintain a small minority share. I am going to continue to be involved. I call myself a part-time CEO. I will continue that role for the foreseeable future; I don’t see any change there.” Building to the future “We are at 58 employees right now, which is a little bit down. We had a high of 70. That moves along with the activity we have,” Wetzel said. “We’ll start ramping up here in the fourth quarter into next year. More than 20% of our employees have been with the company for more than a decade. “I am fairly certain that sometime in the next several years we are going to have to enlarge the footprint of our facility and for sure we are going to have to add employees. We already are. We are probably going to have to add five or six people next year. We are always in the market for HVAC technicians; we always need those.” Air Innovations will remain in Central New York, with its current workforce staying in place, he added. “I believe the primary driver of our success over time is the diversity of our business which is a direct result of our willingness to tackle new challenges,” Wetzel said.
Broward Health Medical Center Introduces Bispecific T-Cell Engager Therapy for Cancer Patients - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
OCTOBER 13, 2026 – Broward Health Medical Center has introduced bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) therapy, an innovative immunotherapy that harnesses the body’s immune system to target and destroy cancer cells. […]
Baptist Health Foundation Announces $1 Million Grant from Knight Foundation to Advance Healthcare Technology Innovation Fellowship - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
Renewed investment will support the next five years of the Baptist Health Knight Foundation Fellowship in Healthcare Technology Innovation October 13, 2026 – Baptist Health Foundation today announced a $1 million […]
BROWARD HEALTH MEDICAL CENTER INTRODUCES BISPECIFIC T-CELL ENGAGER THERAPY FOR CANCER PATIENTS - Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report
October 13, 2026 – Broward Health Medical Center has introduced bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) therapy, an innovative immunotherapy that harnesses the body’s immune system to target and destroy cancer cells. […]
Famous And Innovative Duke Nukem, Quake Level Designer 'Levelord' Has Died
News of Richard Gray's death was shared online by his wife
DOW Unveils Initiatives Under White House Science Strategy
DOW has rolled out initiatives under the White House science strategy, covering research reform, STEM talent and innovation security.
SparkLab entrepreneurship program helps students develop business skills
UTICA — On Oct. 5, Utica Community Schools students and faculty celebrated the kickoff of SparkLab’s eight-week entrepreneurship program that provides hands-on experience in entrepreneurship, innovation, business strategy, marketing, finance and professional presentation skills.
A Home for Science and Technology: Meet Poland’s Innovators
Vibrant Ingredients Names Marie Wright Chief Science & Innovation Officer
Technical and innovation leader joins Vibrant to integrate capabilities and drive customer-focused growth...
This week in health care policy: October 5–9, 2026
Drug pricing and 340B PhRMA sues to block GLOBE. On October 7, PhRMA sued to block the most-favored-nation drug-pricing model CMS finalized last week. The suit argues GLOBE is a price control rather than a “test,” exceeds the Innovation Center’s authority, and fails the major questions doctrine. CEI commented on the GLOBE pilot earlier this […]
Debra Lienhardt, RWJBarnabas Health Executive Vice President, Chief Business Development and Legal Officer, Named Finalist for New Jersey Legal Awards
Debra Lienhardt, Executive Vice President, Chief Business Development and Legal Officer at RWJBarnabas Health, has been named a finalist in the “In-House Impact” category of the 2026 New Jersey Legal Awards, presented by the New Jersey Law Journal. The recognition highlights her strategic leadership, innovative approach to legal and business development, and contributions to advancing healthcare across New Jersey.
Debra Lienhardt, RWJBarnabas Health Executive Vice President, Chief Business Development and Legal Officer, Named Finalist for New Jersey Legal Awards
Debra Lienhardt, Executive Vice President, Chief Business Development and Legal Officer at RWJBarnabas Health, has been named a finalist in the “In-House Impact” category of the 2026 New Jersey Legal Awards, presented by the New Jersey Law Journal. The recognition highlights her strategic leadership, innovative approach to legal and business development, and contributions to advancing healthcare across New Jersey.
GC America A Century of Restorative Material Science Now on the Midas Digital Press
SprintRay, the leader in dental 3D printing, and GC, a global R&D and manufacturing leader in dental materials science announced GC's first restorative, GC GRADIA® PREMi, custom designed and engineered for the SprintRay Midas Digital Press. While the partnership was announced earlier this year, the new material was unveiled on Oct. 10 to dental professionals at 3DNext, SprintRay's summit in Miami. This combines GC's 105 years of restorative material science with SprintRay's innovation in dental
Brett Fischer, Kelly Jones, Chris Lee, Maruf Rahman, RWJBarnabas Health Leaders, Named Becker’s 2026 Rising Stars
Four rising leaders at RWJBarnabas Health have been named to Becker’s Hospital Review’s 2026 Rising Stars: 188 Healthcare Leaders Under 40 list! Congratulations to Brett Fischer, Kelly Jones, Christopher Lee and Maruf Rahman on this national recognition of their leadership, innovation and commitment to advancing healthcare.
Centene CEO Sarah London says Medicaid patients are the last to benefit from health care innovation. She wants AI to change that
The head of the country’s largest Medicaid insurer wants to see AI impact medical access deserts, not just more billing.
2026 Patient Innovators Awards Winners Announced at Courier Health's Annual Summit
/PRNewswire/ -- Courier Health, the leading technology company for managing patient experiences, today announced the winners of the second annual Patient...
Integrative Health Meets Clinical Science: OmniActive Launches Fenavari; Names Dr. Taz Bhatia, MD, As Women's Health Partner
/PRNewswire/ -- OmniActive Health Technologies (OmniActive), a global leader in the consumer wellness industry through innovative science and natural...
Labcorp and Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global Collaborate to Launch Thrive 5 Health Test
/PRNewswire/ -- Labcorp (NYSE: LH), a global leader of innovative and comprehensive laboratory services, today announced the launch of the Thrive 5 Health...
Orbis International Named Winner of 2026 AWS Children's Health Innovation Award
/PRNewswire/ -- Global eye care nonprofit Orbis announces it has been selected as a winner of the 2026 Amazon Web Services (AWS) Imagine Grant: Children's...
Prostate health: Discover fucoidan at SupplySide Global
Fucoidans are innovative marine ingredients sought after by trusted nutraceutical brands. Ahead of SupplySide Global, Marinova – the global leader in fucoidan science – highlights new clinical findings paving the way for fucoidan to enter the growing men’s health category
Rhode Island Life Science Hub and Cognito Therapeutics Launch Brain Health Collaboratory to Advance Innovation in Alzheimer's Disease
The Rhode Island Life Science Hub (RILSH) and Cognito Therapeutics today announced the launch of the Rhode Island Brain Health Collaboratory, the third Collaboratory in Cognito's growing national network, following collaborations with the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute in 2025 and Ochsner Health in 2026. Together, RILSH and Cognito will partner to establish a first-of-its-kind statewide platform that brings together research, clinical care, industry, and community pa
Rhode Island Life Science Hub and Cognito Therapeutics Launch Brain Health Collaboratory to Advance Innovation in Alzheimer's Disease
/PRNewswire/ -- The Rhode Island Life Science Hub (RILSH) and Cognito Therapeutics today announced the launch of the Rhode Island Brain Health Collaboratory,...
Inside Gore-Tex’s Testing Lab: The Science Behind Everest-Ready Materials
As it celebrates 50 years in business, the American company invited media inside its product innovation and quality lab in Germany… - Modaes Global
Applications for N.C. rural health fund open next week, expanding healthcare access in rural communities
The N.C. Rural Health Innovation Fund aims to improve rural health outcomes through technological innovation.
Access to Genius: 10 Scientists and Thinkers Who Changed What We Know
5 WOMEN Five voices across science and scholarship 5 MEN Five more stories across discovery and innovation 10 FOR OCTOBER Ten people across a two-part October feature October is National Disability Awareness Month, an annual observance recognizing the contributions of people with disabilities to workplaces and communities. The 2026 theme, “Celebrating Value and Talent,”...
St. Anthony Catholic School receives $50,000 education innovation award
St. Anthony Catholic School in Des Moines has been awarded $50,000 after being selected as a semifinalist for the 2026 Yass Prize, a national award recognizing innovation in education. The school was recognized during the Yass Prize Awards Celebration on Oct. 6 in Philadelphia. St. Anthony is the only Catholic dual-language Spanish immersion school in…
Senator Baldwin is urging federal officials to dismantle a newly introduced 25 percent matching funds requirement that targets regional Dairy Business Innovation Initiative centers.
A major policy shift by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is creating friction for local agriculture, prompting quick action from lawmakers.
CHIME time, AI transparency in research, ‘Evolution’ on PBS, and faculty honors
Yale researchers help prove the utility of an innovative radio telescope in understanding the expanding universe and offer thoughts on how to best use AI in science. Meanwhile, faculty members in physics and astronomy are honored for breakthroughs across an array of fields.
Governor's Report: Massachusetts, Moving Forward
Governor Maura Healey on the state’s talent, innovation ecosystem and strategy for attracting and growing business.
Women’s health landscape shifting, but systemic hurdles remain
Closing the data gap with inclusionary research and educating investors on the promise of women’s health innovations remain key steps to health equity.
Particle Engineering Takes Center Stage as Formulation Science Pushes Drugs Toward the Clinic
A January 2027 special issue of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation will spotlight how particle engineering and formulation science translate laboratory innovations into manufacturable drug dosage forms.
Two Indian American scientists receive NIH innovative research awards
Neeraj Lal and Kavita Rangan among 42 recipients of federal support for early-career biomedical research projects.