GoKawiil
Tech News
Following midterm election gains, Reuters reports that the new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are preparing legislation targeting AI companies and data centers. The proposed measures reportedly include rules to curb energy-price increases tied to data center growth and a bill establishing product liability standards for AI developers.
A proposed New York City law would require Amazon to classify delivery drivers like Luc Rene as direct employees rather than workers for subcontracted delivery companies. Rene and other drivers currently wear Amazon-branded uniforms and drive Amazon-logoed vans despite being employed through the company's network of third-party delivery service partners.
A technical proposal argues that US federal statutes should be tracked like source code, with line-by-line attribution showing which public law changed a provision, when it took effect, and what the text read on any given date. It uses the shifting small-business debt limit in 11 USC § 1182(1) — altered repeatedly by the CARES Act and subsequent extensions between 2020 and 2025 — to illustrate how current amendment notes and effective-date prose make it hard to reconstruct the law as it stood at a specific moment.
Ten states—including Utah, Virginia, Colorado, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey and California—have passed legislation legalizing plug-in or 'backyard' solar systems, with effective dates ranging from 2025 through 2027. These systems typically include solar panels, an inverter and a battery that plug into a standard 120-volt outlet to power nearby appliances. Roughly two dozen additional states reportedly have related legislation stalled or in progress.
Canada is weighing legislation that critics say would effectively mandate backdoors and expanded data retention in encrypted services. Psiphon VPN and Signal have said they would leave the Canadian market rather than comply, while Apple, Meta, DuckDuckGo and NordVPN have also criticized or said they'd reconsider their presence in the country.
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have required smart glasses and other wearable devices to include a light or sound signaling active recording starting in 2028. The bill also would have penalized secret recording in private spaces like changing rooms and doctor's offices, and banned tools designed to hide recording indicators. Newsom said the bill's definition of a wearable recording device was too broad, noting existing state law already bars nonconsensual recording in private spaces.
Gavin Newsom vetoed SB-1130, a bill that would have made it a misdemeanor to secretly record people with smart glasses in places like changing rooms and doctors' offices. The bill also would have required recording indicators on wearables and banned tools designed to hide them. Newsom said the bill's definition of 'wearable recording device' was too broad and could unintentionally cover common smartwatches.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation prohibiting California's elected officials from issuing memecoins, a cryptocurrency category built around jokes, trends or celebrity personas. The law also bars any company from creating a memecoin using an official's likeness or image, regardless of the official's involvement. Newsom's office cited reports that roughly one million investors lost about $3.8 billion buying the memecoin President Trump launched in 2025 as reasoning for the measure.
The House of Representatives voted with strong bipartisan support to pass the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, which would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require automakers include AM radio in new cars, trucks and SUVs at no extra cost. The measure now moves to the Senate, where a companion bill co-sponsored by Sens. Ed Markey and Ted Cruz already has 60 co-sponsors, enough to survive a filibuster.
A major cryptocurrency market-structure bill known as the Clarity Act has failed to advance, even after the industry poured hundreds of millions of dollars into lobbying efforts to secure its passage. The setback leaves crypto firms without the clearer federal rules they had hoped would settle long-running regulatory disputes.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said AI companies should implement their own safety controls rather than waiting for government regulation to catch up with the technology's rapid development. He warned that AI's fast progress carries real risks and could go badly if not managed responsibly by the firms building it.
An Anthropic researcher resigned publicly, warning that AI labs are 'gambling with our lives,' and two colleagues echoed the concern. In response, Senator Bernie Sanders announced plans to introduce legislation banning the development of superintelligent AI.