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A California bill aimed at regulating surveillance-based pricing — where retailers use personal data to set individualized prices — failed to advance to Governor Newsom's desk before the legislative deadline. The California Retailers Association responded by expressing hope that lawmakers can restart negotiations next year by focusing on points of existing consensus.
Reports indicate Apple's hardware engineering chief John Ternus is emerging as the leading internal candidate to eventually succeed CEO Tim Cook. The framing centers on the scale of what he would inherit: a company with enormous revenue, market value and global reach built under Cook's leadership.
The Trump administration is pushing G20 countries to endorse a framework called the 'Carolina Principles,' which would discourage strict government regulation of artificial intelligence. The push aims to align global AI policy with a laissez-faire approach favored by U.S. tech companies.
Thieves used fraudulent subcontracting paperwork to arrange a fake pickup at a Pabst distribution center in Montclair, California, making off with roughly 40,000 pounds of beer worth about $25,000. Pabst responded with a tongue-in-cheek social media countdown demanding the return of its 'truck,' though police clarified no truck was actually stolen, just the cargo. A separate $45,000 shipment bound for Tucson vanished from the same facility the same day, and investigators are exploring a possible link.
Researchers have developed a plasma technology approach aimed at reducing the heavy carbon footprint associated with cement production, one of the most emissions-intensive industrial sectors globally. The method targets the chemical and energy-intensive steps in making cement, offering a potential pathway to lower greenhouse gas output from an industry long considered difficult to decarbonize.
An entrepreneur writing for Entrepreneur argues that after years building a company in the gold industry, the strongest competitive edge isn't a new feature, lower price or proprietary technology, but customer trust. That trust, they contend, is earned through everyday operational fairness and transparency rather than marketing.
A New York Times reporter who has tracked tech industry influence in education for over a decade argues in a new book, 'Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools,' that major technology companies help write learning standards, sit on curriculum committees, and push schools to adopt industry-aligned subjects like coding and AI. The reporter contends these efforts often function as marketing rather than neutral education, giving students and teachers a sanitized view of tech products and their risks.
Facing grassroots opposition that has already jeopardized roughly $130 billion in planned data center projects this year, tech executives are shifting their public messaging from AI-doomsday warnings to more optimistic narratives. Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian and venture capitalist Matt Higgins have both publicly acknowledged the need for a new communications strategy, while Meta's Mark Zuckerberg published a lengthy essay touting AI's potential to improve daily life.
Nvidia has registered a new federal political action committee that will collect voluntary donations of up to $5,000 a year from eligible employees to fund candidates and party committees. The company told staff that upcoming congressional decisions on AI regulation, export controls and infrastructure could significantly affect the industry. This move follows Nvidia's hiring of a new chief external affairs officer and five outside lobbying firms, alongside a jump in federal lobbying spending to over $2.5 million this year.
WIRED announced a livestream Q&A on September 10 where a panel of its reporters will field reader questions about the growing controversy surrounding AI data centers. Readers can submit questions in the comments, with the event covering political, environmental, and business angles on the issue.
Nvidia is deploying massive financial resources, totaling roughly $279 billion, to secure priority access to manufacturing capacity and components needed for its AI chips. The strategy aims to keep Nvidia ahead of rivals by ensuring it never faces the supply shortages that have plagued the chip industry, though it carries real financial risk.
The UK's grid connection queue is overwhelmed with speculative data center projects that are unlikely to ever be built, worsening wait times and complicating energy demand forecasts. Ofgem has proposed requiring developers to post large nonrefundable deposits, potentially reaching hundreds of millions of dollars for the biggest projects, and to demonstrate secured customers and funding before joining the queue. The plan is open for industry feedback until September before being finalized.