Virtual power plants let utilities remotely adjust smart thermostats, EV chargers, batteries and solar panels in homes to reduce strain during peak demand, in exchange for bill discounts or signup bonuses. More than 500 such programs already run across the US, with about 4 million smart-thermostat households enrolled as of last year, and interest is growing as companies like Google invest in the technology to support data centers.
Public records show that Alpharetta, a small Atlanta suburb with about 120 officers, has built a license-plate surveillance network through Flock Safety cameras that now exchanges data with over 2,000 outside organizations, including colleges, airports, fraud investigators and federal inspectors. In exchange, Alpharetta receives data from more than 1,300 other entities, some of which have already faced scandals over misuse of the same technology. The network has grown sharply in the past year, with outgoing data-sharing partners up 42 percent and incoming partners up 125 percent since June 2025.
US District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Defense Department's labeling of Anthropic as a supply chain risk was illegal and unconstitutional, blocking certain federal agencies from enforcing Trump's directive to stop using the company's Claude AI tools. The conflict began after Anthropic refused Pentagon pressure to remove safeguards preventing Claude from being used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, leading Trump to order a government-wide phase-out of Anthropic products. Anthropic had sued in two federal courts over separate bans, and this ruling resolves one of those cases in its favor.
Hugging Face, the widely used repository for open-source AI models and developer tools, is reportedly the target of a potential investment or acquisition move by Nvidia. The platform is a central hub where developers share, download and test AI models, giving it outsized influence over the open model ecosystem despite limited public name recognition.
Tim Cook announced Apple will make a donation to support relief and rebuilding efforts after flash floods and mudslides killed hundreds of people in Nepal and Tibet. The disaster was triggered by a partial glacier collapse in the Himalayas that dammed a river before bursting, sending debris downstream and damaging homes, roads and bridges.
A San Francisco federal judge ruled that the Department of Defense acted unconstitutionally when it labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March, a designation that barred defense contractors from using its Claude AI models. Judge Rita Lin found the move stemmed from the Pentagon's frustration with Anthropic's public criticism rather than any legitimate security concern, violating the company's First Amendment rights. The dispute arose after talks collapsed over how the military could deploy Claude, with Anthropic refusing to allow its technology to be used for autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance.
DeepSeek, the AI lab founded by Liang Wenfeng, has relied on his hedge fund High-Flyer Quant for early funding and computing power, but is now courting outside investors as its needs expand. Meanwhile, High-Flyer's affiliates have taken sizable pre-IPO stakes in Chinese hard-tech firms like memory chipmaker CXMT and robotics company Unitree, even as volatility in AI and chip stocks has hit the fund's returns.
Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to US states and roll out new safety features for teen users of Facebook and Instagram, resolving litigation over the platforms' impact on youth mental health. Coming changes include a two-hour daily usage cap for under-18s and a block on access between midnight and 6 a.m., with some restrictions removable only by a parent or guardian. The settlement applies only within the United States.
A batch of newly reviewed titles spans wildly different territory: Suzanne Simard's account of her Mother Tree Project reforestation effort in British Columbia, Antonio Melechi's historical survey of theories about the unconscious mind, and Jeffrey Marlow's exploration of the little-studied deep ocean floor. A fourth title, Valerie Tiberius's Artificially Yours, is also noted among the season's book releases.
A California district judge ruled that the Defense Department's decision to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk earlier this year violated the First Amendment. The court found the move came after Anthropic refused to drop restrictions barring its AI from being used for mass surveillance of Americans or fully autonomous lethal weapons systems, part of a broader Pentagon push to renegotiate AI vendor contracts.
After a March 2025 executive order targeted the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund for elimination, B:Side Capital CEO faced an existential threat to the SBA-backed lender's operations. Rather than scrambling for a new strategy, the CEO relied on a previously established written code of decision-making principles to guide the organization through the weekend crisis and present a plan to staff and board by Monday.
Anthropic has released a research preview of what it calls the Model Hardware Standard, a set of standardized drivers that let AI agents communicate directly with physical devices like lasers, microscopes, and cameras. The system replaces custom 'translator' software normally needed to connect disparate lab equipment, aiming to cut experimental setup time from weeks to hours. The idea grew out of observing a neuroscientist's manual effort to coordinate multiple instruments for a memory-formation study.
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