In fact, companies in the S&P 500 have added more than $1 trillion to their market values since Pfizer’s announcement, and both the Dow and the S&P set new record highs directly following Moderna’s tease on Monday. Stocks hailing from the financials, industrials, and energy sectors have contributed the bulk of those gains so far, at least in terms of raw dollar value. (If the visualizations on this page don’t show, try reloading this page in your browser’s “Desktop Mode”....

AB 1215, The Body Camera Accountability Act, was introduced earlier this year by assemblymember Phil Tang, a Democrat. Both San Francisco and Oakland previously passed similar bills preventing the use of facial recognition by law enforcement agencies, now the ban’s gone state-wide. The bill goes into effect on 1 January, 2020, and will be reviewed under a “sunset provision” in 2023. Tang, according to an ACLU statement, says the bill will protect Californians: US citizens have the right to privacy and the reasonable expectation that public surveillance systems are in place to protect us in the event that a crime is committed....

Yet there are more believers than skeptics. Even in the scientific community. It seems like the generally accepted belief on alien life can be boiled down to: the universe is very big and it would be silly to think that we’re all alone in it. But famed Italian physicist Enrico Fermi took a different perspective. Fermi was best known in his time for being one of the architects of the first atomic bomb....

Up front: Everyone’s heard of the Big Bang. And long-time Neural readers will certainly be familiar with the Big Rip. But it’s long past time we talked about the Big Crunch. This hypothetical event would be our universe’s final act. It would essentially be the exact opposite of the Big Bang. Our universe would collapse in on itself until it became an infinitesimal singularity – a single point containing everything that ever was....

The truth is, it depends. And with the average time it takes to contain and identify a data breach being just over nine months, and the average cost of a data breach at $3.86M, according to IBM, the stakes depending on it are pretty high. It depends on how much you trust the alternative of storage hardware. Your USB sticks, memory cards, external hard drives, network-attached, and other on-prem servers could get lost, stolen, damaged, or have a manufacturer fault that results in the loss of your data....

How steep? How does $1,500 off the usual asking price sound? So, here’s the thing. I know that a laptop retailing for slightly more than $2,000 isn’t cheap – not by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps it’s better to say that it’s really good value, especially when you consider it previously retailed for over $3,500. Anyway, let’s get into tech specifics. The Alienware 15 is primarily a gaming-focused machine, and that’s reflected both in its design, as well as the specifications....

With a 360-degree omnidirectional system, the Fluance Fi20 is capable of drenching a room with sound, ensuring your favorite tunes can be heard by all. Its 20-hour battery promises to last even the most demanding of events, while its AUX port lets you easily connect it to a laptop or vinyl player. The Fluance Fi20 boasts an eye-catching design, which incorporates open elements, allowing you to see inside the speaker....

If there’s one downside to using smart speakers, it’s the lack of a screen. As useful as it is to vocally give commands to something, humans are innately visual creatures, and there’s a lot of information we process better in that way. Considering choosing music for example. If you know exactly what, using your voice is fine. But if you want to browse? Having a screen makes this process so much simpler....

I’m a big fan of media streamers. Honestly, I think they’re one of the coolest aspects of modern household technology. Being able to send a YouTube video straight from your phone to a television still feels, well, magical. And while there are plenty of good media streamers out there, for me, one reigns above the rest: the Google Chromecast. We’re currently on the third iteration of the Chromecast and, if you have an older version or want another for a different TV in your house, now’s the time....

In addition to charting your ancestry, the company also offers a Health Predisposition report to reveal insights on whether you carry genetic markers that could hint at difficult health conditions, like Diabetes, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Parkinson’s Disease. It’s best to get ahead of these issues as much as possible, and 23andMe’s Health + Ancestry package includes more than 90 reports on your predispositions, carrier status, wellness, and traits. They’re accessible online, easy to read, and they all require only a single test....

Presidents’ Day may not have the cache of a Christmas or even a Valentine’s Day, but hey, a day off from work makes any holiday worth celebrating, right? Of course, even a day off from work doesn’t mean you aren’t thinking about work, especially if you’re a digital entrepreneur or freelance professional. In case that thinking is prompting some questions about whether your tech is all currently up to the task…well, it’s Presidents’ Day to the rescue again....

However, if you think Clearview AI, or other facial recognition systems are just a passing fad that will fall out of favor soon, you’re mistaken. A report by the Chigao Sun Times suggests police are more than happy to use it to catch criminals. Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, told the publication that facial recognition software like Clearview AI adds “jet fuel” to the department’s process of catching criminals....

One of the main ways in which species are achieving this is by changing the time of year at which they are active. Scientists refer to the timing of such lifecycle events as “phenology,” so when an animal or plant starts to do things earlier in the year it is said to be “advancing its phenology.” These advances have been observed already in a wide range of butterflies and moths – indeed, most species are advancing their phenology to some extent....

Researchers from Oxford University, the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security discovered the attack, which has since been dubbed KNOB, which is short for “Key Negotiation of Bluetooth.” (You, in the back. Stop laughing. This is serious.) The thrust of the KNOB attack sees an adversary trick the devices participating in a Bluetooth handshake to use a degraded encryption key with just one byte of entropy....

Washington-based Gladius Network said last week that it had “ceased operations effective immediately and has filed for dissolution.” “Despite our best efforts, the company no longer has funds to continue operations. Our code will remain available on GitHub for the next three months. We still believe in the power of our technology, and if anyone in the community is interested in pursuing it we welcome it,” the company added. Gladius Network, which helped clients fight off cyberattacks, agreed to refund investors in its digital token sale after the SEC said the company failed to advise them about potential business risks....

Even when I grew up, I used to listen to various standup shows on my walkman through cassettes. Years later, that love for stories got turned into an obsessive podcast habit. While reading stories in books is quite engaging, there’s a magical quality about someone reciting one to you. Heck, that’s why many kids demand bedtime stories. And while we are stuck in homes, audiobook platforms are offering some free stories for you to listen to while you do your dishes....

The link goes to a page called “Stories Matter,” which lists the members of Disney’s third-party advisory council that is “supporting our efforts to increase our cultural competency,” as Disney puts it. The council includes GLAAD Media Institute, the African American Film Critics Association, and The Science and Entertainment Exchange. Some of the films that now carry this warning are Dumbo, Peter Pan, The Aristocats, The Swiss Family Robinson, and Aladdin....

As a result of COVID-19, we’ve had to change and adapt at lightning speed — in most cases swapping offices for spare rooms (if you’re one of the lucky ones), and kitchen tables (or beds) for desks. These changes come with their own challenges. For example, struggling to stay focused and motivated when working remotely, dealing with countless video calls, and communicating effectively with peers and managers from a distance....

That’s why (or maybe some other reason) Dropbox is making its password manager feature available to everyone starting in April. The cloud storage service launched this feature last year for its paying customers. With this new announcement, anyone with a Dropbox account could use it. However, there are few caveats to this service: you can only store 50 passwords and sync up to three devices to access your credentials from anywhere....

According to Dutch news outlet Trouw.nl, D66 wants to turn 35 of the city’s 55 petrol stations into fast-chargers, over the next five years. [Read: Danes fish out 181 bicycles, 140 e-scooters, and a dildo from city harbor] Like the UK, the city of Amsterdam is banning all non-electric vehicles from 2030 onwards. The D66 says converting petrol stations is essential, as space and EV infrastructure in the city is already at a premium....