Free Republic

NEW YORK - International Business Machines shares plunged on Feb 23, after the artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic said its Claude Code tool can help with modernising COBOL, a dated programming language that’s mainly run on IBM computers. Shares sank 13 per cent in their biggest one-day percentage loss since October 2000. With the decline, the stock is now down 27 per cent in February, on track for its biggest one-month percentage decline since at least 1968, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “Modernizing a COBOL system once required armies of consultants spending years mapping workflows” but “tools like Claude Code...

Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting Alibaba founder Jack Ma in a Beijing meeting on Feb 17.PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM CCTV BEIJING - As Chinese head honchos gathered for a meeting at the Great Hall of the People stood up to applaud the arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping, a man clad in a black Mao suit looked especially cheerful. Mr Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, had every reason to smile. His very appearance at this rare meeting on Feb 17 between Chinese leaders and the heads of China’s biggest technology firms signals a rehabilitation of sorts for him, and...