A list of the worst local performers includes some truly bottom-of-the-barrel returns. Cannabis tech company Agrify in Billerica suffered a 99.6 percent stock drop in 2022. Wireless Internet service Starry and diet-device maker Gelesis were close behind with losses of 99.5 and 99.3 percent, respectively. (All stock prices are as Read more…
The Australian city of Melbourne recently posted QR codes its citizens could use to report grafitti, reports Australia’s public broadcaster ABC. Unfortunately, someone overlaid “a number” of those QR codes with “alternative” QR codes leading to a pro-graffiti documentary: The City of Melbourne is investigating how many of the QR Read more…
“Cryptocurrency went through a transformation in 2022,” writes CNN, noting that its peak price last year occurred on January 1 of 2022, at over $47,000: Since then, the asset — along with other cryptocurrencies — has seen a steep fall in price, remaining well below $20,000 since early November…. [Current Read more…
January’s Communications of the ACM includes an essay predicting “the end of programming,” in an AI-powered future where “programming will be obsolete.” But IT analyst and ZDNet contributor Joe McKendrick remains skeptical, judging by a new essay sardonically titled “It’s the end of programming as we know it — again.” Read more…
Nearly 10,000 years ago, humans settling in the Fertile Crescent, the areas of the Middle East surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made the first switch from hunter-gatherers to farmers. They developed close bonds with the rodent-eating cats that conveniently served as ancient pest-control in society’s first civilizations. A new Read more…
If humankind detects a message from an advanced civilisation, “It would be a transformative event for humankind,” writes the Guardian, “one the world’s nations are surely prepared for. “Or are they?” “Look at the mess we made when Covid hit. We’d be like headless chickens,” says Dr John Elliott, a Read more…
Computers become increasingly capable and powerful by the year and new hardware is often the most visible cue for technological progress. However, even with the shiniest hardware, the software that plays a critical role inside many systems is too often antiquated, and in some cases decades old. This failing appears Read more…