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NEW YORK (ANP) - De aandelenbeurzen in New York zijn donderdag flink lager gesloten. Beleggers hadden onder meer aandacht voor de stijgende olieprijzen door de oorlog in het Midden-Oosten. Zo nam de prijs van een vat Brentolie donderdag toe tot ruim 100 dollar per vat.
De Jementitische Houthi's zeiden dat ze twee Saudische olietankers in de Rode Zee hebben aangevallen. Dat vergrootte de bezorgdheid over een uitbreiding van het conflict in het Midden-Oosten. Daarnaast heeft de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump gedreigd met het bombarderen van Iraanse infrastructuur. Hij stelde voortaan een brug of elektriciteitscentrale in Iran te bombarderen voor elke Iraanse aanval op een schip in de Straat van Hormuz.
De Dow-Jonesindex daalde 1 procent tot 51.711,65 punten. De brede S&P 500-index zakte 1,2 procent op 7408,30 punten. Techgraadmeter Nasdaq verloor 2,2 procent naar 25.137,70 punten. Woensdag lieten de graadmeters nog minnen tot 0,6 procent zien.
De prijs van Brentolie steeg donderdag naar het hoogste niveau in zes weken. Wel zakte die later weer tot iets onder de 100 dollar per vat. De prijs van een vat Brentolie, de maatstaf voor olie uit het Midden-Oosten, kostte 6,1 procent meer op 99,79 dollar. Een vat Amerikaanse olie werd 5,4 procent duurder tot 91,50 dollar.
Verder verwerkten beleggers de kwartaalresultaten van een aantal bedrijven, waaronder die van Tesla. De elektrische autofabrikant van Elon Musk zakte 14,5 procent. Tesla verkocht het afgelopen kwartaal meer auto's, maar boekte door onder andere prijsverlagingen minder winst.
Alphabet daalde 7,1 procent. De eigenaar van Google presteerde afgelopen kwartaal beter dan verwacht door de sterke groei van zijn cloudactiviteiten. Het bedrijf kondigde echter aan nog meer te investeren in kunstmatige intelligentie (AI). Daarnaast maakte de Europese Commissie bekend Google boetes op te leggen van in totaal 890 miljoen euro voor het voortrekken van zijn eigen diensten in zijn zoekmachine en concurrentiebeperkingen in zijn appwinkel.
Lockheed Martin steeg 10,5 procent. Het grote defensieconcern presteerde afgelopen kwartaal beter dan verwacht. Het bedrijf profiteert van de wereldwijd oplopende geopolitieke spanningen die de defensie-uitgaven van landen opdrijven en verhoogde de omzetverwachting voor het hele jaar.
American Airlines zakte 8,4 procent na publicatie van de resultaten. De luchtvaartmaatschappij verlaagde de winstverwachting voor het hele jaar door de hogere brandstofkosten. Door het opgelaaide geweld in het Midden-Oosten zijn de kerosineprijzen weer sterk gestegen.
“A beloved, useful, free website, run carefully by a competent, honest person for nearly thirty years, was crushed between two features of the new AI economy.” (AI bots and prediction market dipshits.)
After the Los Angeles Police Department allowed its contract with Flock to expire, the surveillance company’s CEO, Garrett Langley, told local news that people don’t understand how its technology works, and that its automated license plate readers (ALPR) only take a “static picture” of a car. “The technology is really simple,” he told ABC7. "A car drives by, we take a picture. It's a static picture of a car, and then we read the license plate. That's what the technology is—it's actually not that complicated, it's pretty simple."
But for the last year, Flock has been marketing a new upgrade that allows “all” of its ALPRs to record live video. Langley is either dramatically underselling what Flock’s technology can do while saying that people don’t understand it, or Flock has quietly rolled back a major product feature without telling anyone. Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Flock has not been quiet about this live video upgrade; its salespeople have pitched the upgrade to cities, and the company has mentioned it in numerous blog posts (though it recently deleted one of them), and Langley even spoke about the capabilities with Forbes last year, suggesting cops could pull video in real time from its ALPR cameras: “We will just open up the five nearest cameras in real time and say, here's what's happening right now,” Langley said.
In June of last year, a Flock blog post called “Why video is the missing link in your LPR program,” the company wrote “All existing Flock LPRs will soon stream live video and capture clips with a free, optional software update. No new hardware, no permits, no extra cost. Same lens, same angle and field-of-view as the LPR. See basic video clips for every plate read. Zero lift for your team. Free and optional to opt in.”
The blog post describes several potential use cases, and different setups that police officers could use, which include adding a separate video camera to the poles that Flock cameras are installed on but also, crucially, includes the fact that all Flock ALPR cameras are capable of taking video: “Fixed live video is coming to all LPR cameras, free by end of 2025.”
And, in a now-deleted product launch blog, Flock wrote “LPR Cameras Can Become Video Cameras,” and added it was a “move that will transform the largest network of LPR cameras in the nation.”
“Flock customers don’t have to do a thing or pay a thing,” said Flock’s Chief Strategy Officer Bailey Quintrell in the blog post. “This will be a no-cost software update we push over the cloud.”
Text messages obtained using a public records request by Jason Hunyar, an activist in Dunwoody, Georgia, show that cops in Dunwoody turned on this feature. The text messages are between John Watson, a Flock employee, and a Dunwoody police officer from January of this year.
“Are y’all able to live stream LPR video yet?,” Watson asks.
“Yes,” the officer says.
“When did they turn that on and how has it been. And who turned it on?” Watson responds.
“It’s been about a month and it’s pretty cool feature,” the officer says. “Small angles but cool for incidents if needed. I’ve been working with Vijay [Dhamija, Flock’s Director of Product] on it.”
“Gotcha. Any stability issues?,” Watson asks.
“Not that I have noticed,” the officer responds.
Relationships between Formula 1 drivers and their fathers can be complicated. Sometimes the latter prefer to adopt a “tough love” approach that can raise a few eyebrows. Kimi Antonelli and his father Marco could be the poster boys for the opposite approach, and yet, as Antonelli revealed on Thursday, his father is also his biggest critic – and isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.
There was an end-of-term feeling in the Budapest paddock on Thursday as Formula 1's teams and drivers convened for one last time before the summer break. There were plenty of stories bubbling away at the Hungaroring, which is also celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen is hopeful that Red Bull can continue their “upward trend” at the Hungarian Grand Prix, having been encouraged by the “nice improvements” the team are making so far in 2026.
Scientific American reports that the 2026 Fields Medals went to four mathematicians for work ranging from the theory of knots to the motion of fluid: The Fields Medals went to Hong Wang of New York University and France's Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies (IHES), Yu Deng of the University of Chicago, John Pardon of Stony Brook University and Jacob Tsimerman of the University of Toronto. In the awards' 90-year history, Wang is only the third woman to win one, after mathematicians Maryam Mirzakhani and Maryna Viazovska in 2014 and 2022, respectively. Wang and Deng represent the prizes' only Chinese-born recipients besides mathematician Shing-Tung Yau, who won a Fields Medal in 1982.
Hong Wang co-proved the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, establishing a fundamental limit on how little space is needed to rotate a line through every possible direction. Mathematician Nets Katz called it the field's "holy grail" problem and said the achievement made her "a central figure" in the area.
Yu Deng and his collaborators reconciled the microscopic and macroscopic mathematics of fluid motion, proving that equations describing chaotic molecular interactions and large-scale fluid behavior are fundamentally connected. N.Y.U. mathematician Scott Armstrong called it "a truly spectacular, singular result."
John Pardon made an early breakthrough in knot theory by proving that certain sequences of knots can have arbitrarily large "distortion," a measure of how difficult they are to traverse. Princeton mathematician David Gabai said the problem had "attracted much interest among mathematicians during the previous 25 years."
Jacob Tsimerman and two collaborators proved the Andre-Oort conjecture, giving mathematicians a stronger way to understand special points on complex geometric objects known as Shimura varieties. Collaborator Jonathan Pila described him as "a brilliant mathematician" known for his "brilliance and resourcefulness." Tsimerman has also advanced Hodge theory and hopes pure mathematics can help researchers better understand AI.
Hong Wang co-proved the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, establishing a fundamental limit on how little space is needed to rotate a line through every possible direction. Mathematician Nets Katz called it the field's "holy grail" problem and said the achievement made her "a central figure" in the area.
Yu Deng and his collaborators reconciled the microscopic and macroscopic mathematics of fluid motion, proving that equations describing chaotic molecular interactions and large-scale fluid behavior are fundamentally connected. N.Y.U. mathematician Scott Armstrong called it "a truly spectacular, singular result."
John Pardon made an early breakthrough in knot theory by proving that certain sequences of knots can have arbitrarily large "distortion," a measure of how difficult they are to traverse. Princeton mathematician David Gabai said the problem had "attracted much interest among mathematicians during the previous 25 years."
Jacob Tsimerman and two collaborators proved the Andre-Oort conjecture, giving mathematicians a stronger way to understand special points on complex geometric objects known as Shimura varieties. Collaborator Jonathan Pila described him as "a brilliant mathematician" known for his "brilliance and resourcefulness." Tsimerman has also advanced Hodge theory and hopes pure mathematics can help researchers better understand AI.
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