A crackdown by authorities in Zimbabwe to support the local currency and fight inflation has increased the use of US dollars in the economy, according to the country’s oldest brokerage. “Ironically the authorities’ clampdown on Zimbabwe dollar payments created such a squeeze that it has had the unintended consequence of Read more…
UNDARK has an interesting interview with NYU professor emeritus Gary Marcus (PhD in brain and cognitive sciences, MIT) about Why Mastering Language Is So Difficult for AI. Marcus, who has had a front-row seat for many of the developments in AI, says we need to take AI advances with a Read more…
Ugur Sahin and and Özlem Türeci. The BBC calls them “the husband and wife team behind one of the most successful Covid vaccines” — the couple who co-founded the German biotech company BioNTech in 2008, “exploring new technology involving messenger RNA to treat cancer.” And though they partnered with Pfizer Read more…
NPR reports that astronomers have spotted a black hole finally “burping” out energy from a star that it swallowed back in 2018: How unusual is this? “Super unusual,” Yvette Cendes, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian and lead author of the paper, tells NPR. “We’ve never Read more…
“Hackers are on a roll in 2022, stealing over $3 billion in cryptocurrency,” writes Slashdot reader quonset (citing figures from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis). “And the year isn’t over yet. “For comparison, in 2021, only $2.1 billion in crypto currency was stolen during the entire year.” A big chunk of Read more…
Elon Musk’s latest internet jest has taken the form of a perfume with an unsavory scent: “Burnt Hair. ” The tech mogul, entrepreneur and sometimes internet troll announced the launch of the product on Twitter on Tuesday, calling it “the finest fragrance on Earth.” The perfume is apparently being sold Read more…
It’s been one year since Facebook changed its name to “Meta Platforms,” remembers The Street. So after Mark Zuckerberg “bought the Oculus Quest VR headset, rebranded it Meta Quest, and formed Reality Labs solely to work on all projects related to the metaverse” — what happened next? Meta’s shares and Read more…