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Huffman Family Foundation Commits $2 Million+ to Philanthropic Efforts Across Maryland

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Investments Support Students & Families Through Education, Community Partnerships, and Access to Opportunity

BALTIMORE, July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Huffman Family Brands, a unified umbrella company dedicated to social development, innovation, and empowerment, has donated over $2 million to support schools, universities and community organizations across Maryland through the Huffman Family Foundation. The investments reflect the organization’s ongoing commitment to expanding educational opportunities, strengthening student experiences, and supporting families throughout Maryland.  

“Success isn’t measured only by what we build as an organization, but by the opportunities we help create for others,” said Richard Huffman, Founder & CEO of Huffman Family Brands. “Supporting education and community organizations is a responsibility we take seriously because those investments shape future leaders, strengthen families, and create a ripple effect that benefits entire communities for generations.”

Investing in Student Experiences Across Maryland

Calvert Hall College High School: The Huffman Family Foundation recently committed $800,000 toward the creation of The Huffman Family Sports Performance Center at the high school. The project, expected to finish before the start of the 2026-2027 school year, will transform the existing space into a multi-purpose facility designed to support both academic and athletic development, with a lecture hall, athletic training and film review areas, as well as upgraded locker rooms, bathrooms, and team meeting spaces.Notre Dame Preparatory School: The Huffman Family Foundation made a historic $1 million gift to the school’s Common Ground: Building NDP’s Future campaign. The $7.5 million initiative will fund a new Student Commons designed to foster connection, collaboration and a stronger sense of community among students.Salisbury University: The foundation recently supported the development of The Huffman Family Sports Performance Center, a dedicated facility that enhances student-athlete training while reinforcing the university’s holistic approach to education by supporting academic, athletic, and personal development.

Expanding Access to High-Quality Early Childhood Education
Education and community impact remain at the core of Huffman Family Brands’ mission. Through the Huffman Family Foundation and Celebree School, the organization continues to expand access to high-quality learning opportunities while supporting programs that strengthen children, families, and local communities.

Celebree School has grown into a franchise leader in early childhood education, providing infant and toddler care, preschool, and summer camp programs for families across the nation. The brand was recently selected as the largest authorized provider of Maryland’s Pre-K Expansion Grant Program.

Through this partnership, qualifying families may access FREE, high-quality Pre-K education in a safe, nurturing, and holistic learning environment designed to prepare children for kindergarten and beyond.

Strengthened Support for Families Though Ronald McDonald House Charities
Huffman Family Brands’ commitment to families extends beyond education.

After Huffman joined the Board of Directors of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Maryland in 2023, Huffman Family Brands expanded its partnership through financial support and volunteer engagement.

Building on that commitment, participating Celebree School locations will donate $50 to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Maryland for every new student registered and started by August 31.

“Strong communities are built when schools, families, and organizations work together,” added Huffman. “We are proud to support initiatives that create lasting opportunities for students and provide meaningful support for families throughout Maryland.”

Huffman Family Brands is deeply committed to empowering communities through its platform, leveraging expertise and resources to drive meaningful change.

For more information on Huffman Family Brands, please visit: https://huffmanfamilybrands.com/

About Huffman Family Brands
Huffman Family Brands (HFB) is a unified platform company dedicated to fostering social development, innovation, and community empowerment through its portfolio of powerful and beloved brands. Led by founder Richard Huffman, HFB builds on decades of success with brands like Celebree School, Caliday School Age Programs, Celebree Enterprise, and more. Together, all operating brands under HFB provide early childhood education, enrichment programs, franchise opportunities, and philanthropic support to communities across the United States. With over 150 locations open or in development in 15 states, Huffman Family Brands continues to lead the way in supporting families, entrepreneurs, and communities. For more information, visit huffmanfamilybrands.com.

About Celebree School
Founded in 1994, Celebree School is a leader in early childhood education that provides infant and toddler care, preschool, before and aftercare, and summer camp programs. With a mission to Grow People Big and Small™, Celebree School believes success in early childhood development is equal parts curriculum and connection. Each school employs a customized program that addresses the physical, social, emotional, and academic needs of children and follows applicable state guidelines. In 2019, Celebree School launched its franchise offering. In 2024, Celebree School’s founder, Richard Huffman, launched a new parent company called Huffman Family Brands, merging Celebree affiliated concepts under one multi-brand company structure. Learn more about how we grow confident children who are prepared for school and life at Celebree.com. Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

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MicroCloud Hologram Inc. Practical Approximate Quantum Multiplier Achieves Low-Depth High-Fidelity Computation

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SHENZHEN, China, July 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — MicroCloud Hologram Inc. (NASDAQ: HOLO), (“HOLO” or the “Company”), a technology service provider, has made an important breakthrough centered on the NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) environment — the practical approximate quantum multiplier technology. This technology takes approximate computing as its core idea and conducts systematic optimization targeting the two key performance bottlenecks of quantum circuit depth and T-gate count, providing a feasible path that balances efficiency and precision for current noisy quantum devices.

HOLO first started from the most basic arithmetic unit — the adder — and performed a structural reconstruction of the traditional quantum adder circuit. Standard quantum adders usually rely on a bit-by-bit carry propagation mechanism, with circuit depth growing linearly with the number of input bits and requiring a large number of T gates to implement non-Clifford operations. In the newly proposed approximate adder, by weakening the carry precision of some low-weight bits and truncating or simplifying the originally strictly executed carry chain, a constant-depth (O(1)) circuit structure is achieved. This design is not a simple deletion of logic, but ensures through probability analysis and error modeling that the impact of errors on the overall computation remains within an acceptable range.

At the specific implementation level, the technology proposes four approximate adder circuits with different precision levels. These circuits introduce parameterized control mechanisms during design, allowing users to flexibly choose between precision and resource consumption according to specific application requirements. For example, in application scenarios with low error sensitivity, a highly compressed version of the adder can be selected to achieve extremely low circuit depth and T-gate count; while in scenarios requiring higher computational precision, a more complete carry path can be enabled to improve result accuracy. This adjustable precision design concept enables quantum arithmetic modules to possess performance gear characteristics similar to those in classical computing for the first time.

After completing the construction of the approximate adder, HOLO further used it as a core module to build a complete approximate quantum multiplier. Unlike traditional multipliers that rely on multi-stage addition accumulation structures, this multiplier achieves significant simplification of the overall circuit structure by optimizing some product generation paths and combining them with approximate addition units. Particularly in terms of T-gate count, the technology significantly reduces implementation costs by decreasing the number of high-cost non-Clifford gates used. This is especially important in current quantum hardware architectures, because T gates typically require complex fault-tolerant encoding and magic state distillation processes to implement, with resource overhead far higher than that of Clifford gates.

It is worth noting that this approximate multiplier outperforms existing mainstream quantum multiplier schemes in both key metrics of depth and T-count. The reduction in circuit depth means that quantum states are exposed to the noisy environment for a shorter time during evolution, thereby reducing the impact of decoherence; while the reduction in the number of T gates directly lowers the cumulative risk of gate operation errors. This dual optimization enables the multiplier to achieve a higher execution success rate on actual NISQ devices.

To verify the practical effectiveness of this technology, HOLO conducted tests on various quantum simulation environments and real quantum hardware. The experimental results show that, under the same input scale, although the approximate multiplier exhibits slight deviations in result precision, the overall error distribution presents controllable characteristics without systematic bias. At the same time, due to the significant reduction in circuit depth, the fidelity of the final output results is actually superior to that of traditional exact multipliers. This phenomenon indicates that, in noise-dominated NISQ environments, moderate approximation can instead improve overall computational quality.

Further analysis shows that this technology has broad potential in error-tolerant applications. For example, in quantum machine learning tasks, the model itself has certain robustness to small perturbations in input data, so the approximate multiplier can fully replace exact arithmetic modules, thereby significantly reducing training costs. In quantum optimization problems, the objective function usually has smooth characteristics, and local errors do not significantly affect the search process for the global optimal solution, which also provides application space for approximate computing.

From an engineering implementation perspective, this technology also possesses good scalability. Since its core structure is based on a modular adder design, it can be easily integrated into more complex quantum arithmetic systems, such as quantum dividers, exponential operation modules, and polynomial computation circuits. In addition, the design is compatible with existing quantum compilation frameworks and can be directly mapped for execution on mainstream quantum hardware platforms without requiring additional hardware support.

At a more macroscopic level, this technology reflects an important development trend: quantum algorithm design is shifting from theoretical optimality to engineering usability. In the past, research focus was often on the asymptotic advantages of algorithm complexity, but now, under hardware-constrained real-world conditions, how to reduce resource consumption and improve execution success rate is becoming a more critical evaluation criterion. The introduction of approximate computing is a typical embodiment of this shift.

In the future, this technology is expected to become an important component in building practical quantum software stacks. As the scale of quantum hardware gradually expands and algorithm complexity continues to increase, the performance requirements for underlying arithmetic modules will also keep rising. Approximate computing strategies can not only be applied to multiplication operations but can also be extended to a wider range of quantum logic designs, thereby forming a complete set of low-resource quantum computing methodologies.

HOLO’s practical approximate quantum multiplier technology for NISQ devices not only achieves breakthroughs in technical indicators but also provides a new direction of thinking at the methodological level. It demonstrates that, in the current transitional stage of quantum computing development, the limitations caused by insufficient hardware can be effectively compensated by introducing cross-disciplinary ideas and performing engineering optimizations. This practicality-oriented innovation path may become an important driving force for advancing quantum computing from the laboratory to industrial applications.

About MicroCloud Hologram Inc.

MicroCloud Hologram Inc. (NASDAQ: HOLO) is committed to the research and development and application of holographic technology. Its holographic technology services include holographic light detection and ranging (LiDAR) solutions based on holographic technology, holographic LiDAR point cloud algorithm architecture design, technical holographic imaging solutions, holographic LiDAR sensor chip design, and holographic vehicle intelligent vision technology, providing services to customers offering holographic advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS). MicroCloud Hologram Inc. provides holographic technology services to global customers. MicroCloud Hologram Inc. also provides holographic digital twin technology services and owns proprietary holographic digital twin technology resource libraries. Its holographic digital twin technology resource library utilizes a combination of holographic digital twin software, digital content, space data-driven data science, holographic digital cloud algorithms, and holographic 3D capture technology to capture shapes and objects in 3D holographic form. MicroCloud Hologram Inc. focuses on the development of quantum computing and quantum holography. With cash reserves exceeding 390 million USD, the company plans to invest over 400 million USD in blockchain development, quantum computing R&D, quantum holography technology, as well as in the development of derivatives and technologies in cutting-edge fields such as AI, AR, and more. MicroCloud Hologram Inc.’s goal is to become a global leader in quantum holography and quantum computing technologies. 

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. When the Company uses words such as “may,” “will,” “intend,” “should,” “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “project,” “estimate,” or similar expressions that do not relate solely to historical matters, it is making forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results to differ materially from the Company’s expectations discussed in the forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks including, but not limited to, the following: the Company’s goals and strategies; the Company’s future business development; product and service demand and acceptance; changes in technology; economic conditions; reputation and brand; the impact of competition and pricing; government regulations; fluctuations in general economic; financial condition and results of operations; the expected growth of the holographic industry and business conditions in China and the international markets the Company plans to serve and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing and other risks contained in reports filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including the Company’s most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K and current report on Form 6-K and its subsequent filings. For these reasons, among others, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements in this press release. Additional factors are discussed in the Company’s filings with the SEC, which are available for review at www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date hereof.

 

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Ruya AI Assessed “Awardable” for Department of War work in the CDAO’s Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace

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AUSTIN, Texas, July 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ruya AI, a builder of frontier AI for sovereign institutions, today announced it has achieved “Awardable” status through the Department of War’s (DoW) Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace.

The Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace is the premier offering of Tradewinds, the DoW’s suite of tools and services designed to accelerate the procurement and adoption of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, and analytics capabilities across government agencies.

Ruya AI builds frontier AI that generates intelligence for sovereign institutions to own, control, and command. Its systems model the deeper patterns behind emerging threats, tracking how they form and evolve across complex environments. Fusing that insight with signals drawn from across the information landscape, Ruya AI converts it into actionable intelligence that gives defense institutions a decisive advantage.

“Tradewinds accelerates how government gets access to frontier capability, and we’re proud to be part of it. We’ve spent a long time building quietly. Tradewinds is where we start building in the open,” said Elvin John, Chief Commercial Officer of Ruya AI. “Our commitment is simple: sovereign institutions protecting the West should never be outmatched on technology, and we intend to make sure they aren’t.”

Ruya AI was recognized among a competitive field of applicants to the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace whose solutions demonstrated innovation, scalability, and potential impact on DoW missions. Government customers interested in viewing the video solution can create a Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace account at www.tradewindai.com.

About Ruya AI
Ruya AI builds frontier AI that sovereign institutions and allied governments own, control, and command for themselves. For more information, visit www.ruya.ai.

About the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace
The Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace is a digital repository of post-competition, readily awardable pitch videos that address the Department of War’s most significant challenges in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, and analytics. All awardable solutions have been assessed through complex scoring rubrics and competitive procedures and are available to government customers with a Marketplace account. Government customers can create an account at www.tradewindai.com. Tradewinds is housed in the DoW’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office.

For more information or media requests, contact: Success@tradewindai.com

Media Contact:
Elie Jacobs, Purposeful Advisors
elie@purposefuladv.com
+1 646 330 2585

Frank De Maria, Purposeful Advisors
frank@purposefuladv.com
+1 347 647 0284

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IAB Releases Redefining Media Types Standard for Public Comment

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New Framework, Developed in Partnership With IAB Tech Lab, Establishes Shared Definitions for Digital Video Formats Aligned with Viewer Experiences

In Public Comment Until August 8

NEW YORK, July 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the leading trade organization for the digital advertising ecosystem, today announced the release of the Redefining Media Types (RMT) Standard for public comment, with IAB Tech Lab setting the technical standards needed for wide adoption. The public comment period will remain open through August 8, 2026 as IAB gathers feedback from brands, agencies, publishers, ad tech partners, networks, and other industry stakeholders.

“As the video marketplace has expanded across platforms, formats, and viewing experiences, the industry needs a more consistent way to define and classify digital video environments,” said Jamie Finstein, VP, Media Center at IAB. “The Redefining Media Types Standard is intended to give buyers, sellers, publishers, and platforms a shared, future-proof language that improves planning, execution, and measurement across the entire ecosystem.”

The RMT Standard is designed to help define the digital video ecosystem by creating comprehensive, standardized definitions for digital video product types and their associated advertising formats, including Connected TV, Online Video, social video, FAST, video podcasting, and retail video. The definitions consider channels, screens, context, and ad formats, with the goal of serving as an authoritative guide for media agencies, publishers, networks, technology partners, and brands.

“Many of the technical systems supporting digital advertising still rely on inconsistent or outdated classifications for video,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “By partnering with IAB on this framework, we can help connect these definitions to the technical standards and infrastructure needed to support adoption across the industry.”

The standard addresses a core problem in video advertising: legacy media classification terms were built to describe distribution technology and business models, not consumer experience.

For brands and agencies, inconsistent definitions can lead to misaligned planning strategies, incomparable measurement across platforms, and media investments that do not reflect the intended viewing environment. For publishers and platforms, inconsistent terminology can create confusion around inventory packaging, monetization, and buyer expectations. For ad tech and measurement providers, the lack of standardized classification makes it more difficult to support interoperability and consistent reporting across systems.

The RMT Standard provides a two-layer classification system designed to support both strategic planning and operational execution.

The first layer organizes video advertising environments into four macro buckets grounded in consumer viewing experience:

Lean Back ViewingPersonal Screen ViewingPassive and Communal Viewing

These buckets are based on how a viewer is cognitively and physically oriented to the screen, rather than the technology delivering the content or the business model funding it.

The second layer applies binary impression-level attributes that allow individual impressions to be classified with precision across platforms and devices, including:

Sound stateSkip-enabled versus completion-requiredFull-screen presentationAddressabilityAvailability of signalsMeasurabilityDeviceAd Formats

This operational layer gives planners, buyers, measurement vendors, and ad tech platforms a shared set of signals that can be used at the point of transaction.

Together, the two layers support both planning and technical execution. The macro buckets give the industry a shared language for strategy and cross-platform planning, while the operational attribute layer provides a framework for impression-level classification that can be encoded into OpenRTB bid requests and Project Eidos taxonomy fields.

The framework is intended to create clearer expectations and more consistent communication across the buy-side, sell-side, and technology ecosystem by:

Helping brands and agencies align media investment with the intended consumer viewing experienceGiving publishers and media owners more consistent ways to package and describe inventorySupporting more interoperable reporting and measurement across platformsProviding ad tech and measurement providers with standardized signals that can be used operationally at the point of transactionCreating a more stable standards foundation as video formats, platforms, and viewing behaviors evolve, and new media types enter the mix

The standard is intended to support everyone from the CMO setting a cross-platform video strategy to the engineer building the infrastructure, and as agentic workflows accelerate, a shared language is no longer optional. Without definitional alignment, agents acting on behalf of advertisers and sellers may produce costly and consequential errors.

“Given the extent of change in the video marketplace, from what and where people watch to how advertisers execute ad campaigns, it was critical to come together as an industry and develop a new, contemporary video marketplace framework,” said Adam Gerber, Head of Strategy, Media.net. “The ambiguity and obsolescence of legacy definitions and ways of working were holding back growth and creating friction in the market. This new standard attempts to fix that and provide a common language for all marketplace participants to apply within the context of their individual businesses.”

“With the constant innovation and increased complexity of our digital ecosystem, it is important for the industry to have consistent guiding principles in place,” said Alex Stone, SVP, Managing Director, Horizon Media. “These IAB standards are our guardrails which we will use as our progression accelerates for years to come.”

“As streaming and cross-platform video consumption continue to evolve, premium video remains one of the most effective environments for brands,” said Michael Reidy, Senior Vice President, Small and Medium Business Growth, Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal. “As an industry, we have an opportunity to align around clearer, more consistent standards that drive greater media effectiveness and deliver simplicity for our partners across buyers, sellers, and technology platforms.”

“The way people watch video has changed dramatically, but the language the industry uses to describe it hasn’t kept pace,” adds Colt Cheadle, Sr. Manager, Sales Activation, Spectrum Reach. “As video continues to evolve across platforms, screens, and viewing experiences, establishing a common framework is essential to reducing complexity, improving collaboration, and helping buyers and sellers make more informed decisions.”

The RMT Standard arrives as programmatic video investment, CTV spending, and cross-media video planning continue to grow, and as members across the buy-side, sell-side, and technology layer have acknowledged the need for definitional clarity. The framework is also designed to feed into IAB Measurement Center’s Project Eidos taxonomy work and inform IAB Tech Lab’s OpenRTB and AdCOM specifications, allowing it to work seamlessly with technical standards rather than a standalone document.

The public comment period for the RMT Standard is open from July 8, 2026, through August 8, 2026. IAB and IAB Tech Lab will continue working with industry stakeholders, working group participants, and standards contributors to refine the framework and support adoption across the ecosystem.

To learn more about the Redefining Media Types Standard and to provide feedback, click here.

About IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. Its membership comprises more than 700 leading media companies, brands, agencies, and the technology firms responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital ad marketing campaigns. The trade group fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies, and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. In affiliation with the IAB Tech Lab, IAB develops technical standards and solutions. IAB is committed to professional development and elevating the knowledge, skills, expertise, and collaboration of the workforce across the industry. Through the work of its public policy office in Washington, D.C., the trade association advocates for its members and promotes the value of the interactive advertising industry to legislators and policymakers. Founded in 1996, IAB is headquartered in New York City.

 

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SOURCE Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)

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