Leaders to discuss climate change finance at British-Irish Council summit
Molly-Mae Hague shares major fashion line update after backlash over Maebe clothing brand
We will soon put 2024 in the history books, and what a year it was for the stock market. So far, the S&P 500 index has reached a new all-time high a whopping 50 times. There are multiple reasons for the rise, like a resilient economy and expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep lowering interest rates. However, perhaps the largest reason is artificial intelligence (AI) enthusiasm. Some believe that the stock market is in a bubble, or at least overextended, and there are definitely stocks that appear overvalued. However, the AI market is massive and expanding quickly, as shown below. The AI market could more than quadruple 2024 revenues by 2030, so companies (and investors) are scrambling for a piece of it. AI covers a lot of different applications, one of which is voice recognition technology. This tech communicates with people conversationally and has many applications. One of the leading companies in the field is SoundHound AI ( SOUN 12.60% ) , whose stock has rocketed 578% in 2024 as of this writing. Will this continue in 2025? SoundHound's market opportunity The financial implications of conversational speech recognition are gigantic. Order-taking at drive-thru restaurants and automated customer service will save companies vast sums of money on employee costs. Well-known companies like White Castle, Papa John's , Applebee's, and many more are testing or deploying SoundHound's tech. SoundHound just reported that Torchy's Tacos rolled out the tech at their locations. Automotive is another massive market using SoundHound. The tech accesses a vast database to answer questions like "What's the most scenic route?" "What will the weather be like in Detroit this weekend?" or "Where is a nearby Italian restaurant, and what is the fastest way to get there?" This is a significant advancement from the days of "call so and so" and "play music." I believe that voice recognition tech like this will soon be the standard at drive-thrus and automobiles. Statista predicts the market will more than double by 2030, as you can see below. Revenue is growing faster than the market for SoundHound. Is SoundHound stock a buy now? SoundHound reported an 89% year-over-year increase in revenue to $25 million in the third quarter. It also expanded its customer base significantly in 2024. The company expects sales of $82 million to $85 million for 2024, potentially doubling sales with $165 million as the guidance midpoint of 2025. The revenue growth is incredible; however, investors should note that the company is not profitable and does not produce positive cash flow from operations. This makes the stock riskier than profitable companies. SoundHound's valuation is in question after its recent epic run that saw the stock soar 171% over the past 30 days. The company trades for 33 times its potential $165 million in sales for 2025 based on its $5.5 billion market cap at the time of this writing. That is quite high for any company, let alone one that isn't profitable. Analysts put an average price target on SoundHound of $8.07, well below the current price of $14.62. I am enthusiastic about SoundHound's future and was recently high on the stock; however, investors should consider waiting for a pullback after this run.Parkinson’s community ‘felt left out in the cold’ – Rory Cellan-Jones
Stacy Fernández is a freelance writer, project manager and communications specialist. She’s worked at The Texas Tribune, The Dallas Morning News and run social for The Education Trust New York. Her favorite hobby is finding hidden gems at the thrift store, she loves a good audio book and is a chocolate enthusiast.
It’s axiomatic that the Universe is expanding. However, the rate of expansion hasn’t remained the same. It appears that the Universe is expanding more quickly now than it did in the past. Astronomers have struggled to understand this and have wondered if the apparent acceleration is due to instrument errors. The JWST has put that question to rest. American astronomer Edwin Hubble is widely credited with discovering the expansion of the Universe. But it actually stemmed from relativity equations and was pioneered by Russian scientist Alexander Freedman. Hubble’s Law bears Edwin’s name, though, and he was the one who confirmed the expansion, called Hubble’s constant, and put a more precise value to it. It measures how rapidly galaxies that aren’t gravitationally bound are moving away from one another. The movement of objects due solely to the Hubble constant is called the Hubble flow. Measuring the Hubble constant means measuring distances to far-flung objects. Astronomers use the cosmic distance ladder (CDL) to do that. However, the ladder has a problem. The first rungs on the CDL are fundamental measurements that can be observed directly. Parallax measurement is the most important fundamental measurement. But the method breaks down at great distances. Beyond that, astronomers use standard candles, things with known intrinsic brightness, like supernovae and Cepheid variables. Those objects and their relationships help astronomers measure distances to other galaxies. This has been tricky to measure, though advancing technology has made progress. Another pair of problems plagues the effort, though. The first is that different telescopes and methods produce different distance measurements. The second is that our measurements of distances and expansion don’t match up with the Standard Model of Cosmology, also known as the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model. That discrepancy is called the Hubble tension. The question is, can the mismatch between the measurements and the LCDM be explained by instrument differences? That possibility has to be eliminated, and the trick is to take one large set of distance measurements from one telescope and compare them to another. New research in The Astrophysical Journal tackles the problem by comparing Hubble Space Telescope measurements with JWST measurements. It’s titled “ JWST Validates HST Distance Measurements: Selection of Supernova Subsample Explains Differences in JWST Estimates of Local H 0 . ” The lead author is Adam Riess, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and Thomas J. Barber Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. Riess is also a Nobel laureate, winning the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae,” according to the Nobel Institute. As of 2022, the Hubble Space Telescope gathered the most numerous sample of homogeneously measured standard candles. It measured a large number of standard candles out to about 40 Mpc or about 130 million light-years. “As of 2022, the largest collection of homogeneously measured SNe Ia is complete to D less than or equal to 40 Mpc or redshift z less than or equal to 0.01,” the authors of the research write. “It consists of 42 SNe Ia in 37 host galaxies calibrated with observations of Cepheids with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the heritage of more than 1000 orbits (a comparable number of hours) invested over the last ~20 yrs.” In this research, the astronomers used the powerful JWST to cross-check the Hubble’s work. “We cross-check the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Cepheid/Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) distance ladder, which yields the most precise local H 0 (Hubble flow), against early James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) subsamples (~1/4 of the HST sample) from SH0ES and CCHP, calibrated only with NGC 4258,” the authors write. SH0ES and CCHP are different observing efforts aimed at measuring the Hubble constant. SH0ES stands for Supernova H0 for the Equation of State of Dark Energy, and CCHP stands for Chicago-Carnegie Hubble Program, which uses the JWST to measure the Hubble constant. “JWST has certain distinct advantages (and some disadvantages) compared to HST for measuring distances to nearby galaxies,” Riess and his co-authors write. It offers a 2.5 times higher near-infrared resolution than the HST. Despite some of its disadvantages, the JWST “is able to provide a strong cross-check of distances in the first two rungs,” the authors explain. Observations from both telescopes are closely aligned, which basically minimizes instrument error as the cause of the discrepancy between observations and the Lambda CDM model. “While it will still take multiple years for the JWST sample of SN hosts to be as large as the HST sample, we show that the current JWST measurements have already ruled out systematic biases from the first rungs of the distance ladder at a much smaller level than the Hubble tension,” the authors write. This research covered about one-third of the Hubble’s data set, with the known distance to a galaxy called NGC 4258 serving as a reference point. Even though the data set was small, Riess and his co-researchers achieved impressively precise results. They showed that the measurement differences were less than 2%. That’s much less than the 8% to 9% in the Hubble tension discrepancy. That means that our Lamda CDM model is missing something. The standard model yields an expansion rate of about 67 to 68 kilometres per second per megaparsec. Telescope observations yield a slightly higher rate: between 70 and 76 kilometres per second per megaparsec. This work shows that the discrepancy can’t be due to the different telescopes and methods. “The discrepancy between the observed expansion rate of the universe and the predictions of the standard model suggests that our understanding of the universe may be incomplete. With two NASA flagship telescopes now confirming each other’s findings, we must take this [Hubble tension] problem very seriously—it’s a challenge but also an incredible opportunity to learn more about our universe,” said lead author Riess. What could be missing from the Lambda CDM model? Marc Kamionkowski is a Johns Hopkins cosmologist who helped calculate the Hubble constant and recently developed a possible new explanation for the tension. Though not part of this research, he commented on it in a press release. “One possible explanation for the Hubble tension would be if there was something missing in our understanding of the early universe, such as a new component of matter—early dark energy—that gave the universe an unexpected kick after the big bang,” said Kamionkowski. “And there are other ideas, like funny dark matter properties, exotic particles, changing electron mass, or primordial magnetic fields that may do the trick. Theorists have license to get pretty creative.” The door is open, theorists just have to walk in.
South Korea's National Assembly has approved the resolution to arrest President Yoon Suk-yeol, highlighting a significant moment in the country's political landscape. The decision was made following allegations of corruption and abuse of power against the President, demonstrating a bold step towards upholding justice and accountability at the highest levels of government.For Manchester City, the key to securing victory lies in their ability to control possession, dictate the tempo of the game, and exploit the attacking prowess of their star-studded lineup. Guardiola's tactical acumen and strategic approach to the game will be crucial in outwitting Barcelona's defense and unlocking their backline with incisive passing and movement.