California Governor Gavin Newsom rejected Senate Bill 1130, which would have regulated secret recording via wearable devices like smart glasses, citing overly broad definitions and redundancy with existing law. The bill, authored by state senator Eloise Gómez Reyes, would have made California the first state to specifically regulate smart glasses, imposing fines or prison time on violators and noncompliant manufacturers.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-01
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott described Flow, a new AI-powered conversational service desk built internally like a startup, as the company's answer to competitors criticizing its slow implementation times and separate-portal model. The tool aims to let employees get help within the apps they already use rather than navigating a dedicated portal.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-01
Bill Gates told New York Times columnist Ezra Klein that automation replacing human workers should trigger the same FICA payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare. He proposed defining a unit of labor so that work performed by robots or AI would be taxed like human wages, funded by the savings companies gain from not employing people. This echoes an August essay in which Gates also called for taxing AI tokens and noted that robots, unlike human employees, can be written off as business expenses.
techspot.com
· 2026-10-01
Rep. Ro Khanna plans to introduce the "Human Control Over AI Act," which would prohibit AI models from recursively self-improving or altering their own objectives, containment or shutdown controls until a new federal agency establishes safety rules. That agency would oversee frontier models from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and xAI, handling licensing, audits and security testing. Khanna told CNBC the legislation addresses both a possible loss-of-control risk and risks from misuse of the technology.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-28
California vineyard owners report they cannot find buyers for large portions of this year's wine grape harvest, as US and global wine consumption has fallen more than 20% over five years. Growers say roughly a quarter of the state's vineyards are being taken out of production, with some leaving grapes to rot or replacing vines with crops like almonds and pistachios. Lodi-area grower Bill Berryhill says he cannot sell grapes from 200 of his 500 acres and plans to remove 50 acres after harvest.
kqed.org
· 2026-09-28
In an interview aired on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Bill Gates said a kill switch for AI systems isn't sufficient on its own to address risks, and argued companies should instead track exactly how sophisticated AI models are being used. He said the more pressing danger is people using AI for cyberattacks or bioterrorism rather than AI systems acting autonomously, and called for legislation mandating safeguards since voluntary industry self-regulation isn't enough.
slashdot.org
· 2026-09-28
State Sen. John Kane has introduced the Protect Our Games Act in Pennsylvania, which would require video game publishers to give 60 days' notice before cutting off access to a title. Companies would then have to offer offline play, a server-independent patch, or a refund based on the game's highest price over the past year, capped at no less than 25% of its original cost.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-09-28
Bill Gates said on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that he believes he may be positioned to persuade President Trump to support AI regulation. He warned that without intervention, AI could 'drive events' leading to as many as a billion deaths, underscoring what he described as the stakes of leaving the technology unchecked.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-09-28
Bill Gates told NBC News' Meet the Press that it is "completely irresponsible" for AI systems to lack safeguards and monitoring capabilities, and voiced support for legislative involvement in setting such requirements. He said he wouldn't oppose California Governor Gavin Newsom's proposed AI "kill switch," but argued the more urgent threat is people with malicious intent exploiting AI tools for things like bioterrorism or large-scale financial fraud.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-27
A newly introduced bill would allow workers in physically demanding 'blue collar' occupations to claim full Social Security retirement benefits earlier than the current age of 67. Roughly 40% of U.S. civilian workers hold jobs involving heavy lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling, a group the bill's supporters say faces greater physical strain by retirement age. The current 67-year threshold applies to anyone born in 1960 or later.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-24
Former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson criticizes China's space ambitions in his memoir 'Space Odyssey,' set for a January 2027 release by Harper Horizon. He recounts NASA's involvement in the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident, framing it as a signal of an intensifying space race with China, which he says has higher stakes than the Cold War.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-23
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is starting a new academy aimed at training aspiring startup founders, backed by $42 million in funding. The program is positioned as an alternative to traditional college education for people who want to build tech companies.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-23
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