“Solar has been doing the ‘heavy lifting’ to help Europe meet its energy needs amid a string of blistering heatwaves,” Euronews tells us. Meanwhile, as Europe’s energy demands rise with the heat, jellyfish have been causing shutdowns and reduced power output at multiple reactors at French nuclear plants, as we already discussed.

A new analysis from energy think-tank Ember found that solar output in European countries rose by up to 17 percent on heatwave days in June and July. Researchers say that this helped power the grid as electricity demand increased by as much as a quarter on hot days. Heatwaves often trigger a spike in electricity consumption due to the sudden need for cooling, mainly from energy-intensive air conditioning (A/C) units.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that space cooling, which is mostly A/C units and fans, consumed around seven percent of the world’s electricity in 2022. Even in countries where A/C ownership is low, countries experience energy demand spikes when scorching temperatures hit. During the early summer heatwaves of 2025, France, for example, recorded an evening electricity peak that was 25 percent above the off-season average due to air conditioning.

Ember’s analysis found that during the late-June heatwave this summer, daily electricity demand rose byup to 28 percent in Italy, 23 percent in Hungary, 14 percent in France and 13 percent in Spain compared with pre-heatwave days. It says as heatwave-driven demand increased, solar was the only major power source to perform “better than usual.” Compared with other days in June and July, average daily solar generation during the heatwaves was 17 percent higher in France and Hungary, five percent higher in Spain and the same in Italy.

Buy now, pay later” loans took off during the pandemic as a way for online shoppers to go on retail splurges without using a credit card. Now, lenders are offering the loans as a means for people to finance basic households needs. The lending apps Flex and Zip allow customers to take out loans to pay for their broadband, electricity, health insurance, mobile phone service, mortgage and water bills. Affirm, one of the most popular pay-later apps, has started providing some tenants loans to extend their monthly rent payment for a few weeks. Many dentists, veterinarians and medical clinics now often offer instant pay-later financing, and Intuit this year started promoting “File Now, Pay Later” loans to TurboTax users who owe money in their tax return.

Pay-later loans are becoming the “working capital for the modern middle class,” said Karen Webster, the chief executive of Pymnts, a news and market research company for the payments industry. “Consumers are using it more for essential, everyday things.” Americans spent $160 billion last year through pay-later loans, according to research released recently by Federal Reserve economists — nearly twice what consumers spent two years earlier, in 2023. That’s still a fraction of the more than $3 trillion U.S. shoppers spend annually on consumer credit cards. But the industry continues to expand by double-digit rates each year.

How much of that growth reflects consumer preferences, versus desperation, is a question economists and industry analysts are trying to unravel. The rise in pay-later financing comes as many households are leaning more on debt to keep up with their daily expenses. Paying interest — to afford basic needs — adds to the overall cost of living, which has already been rising amid higher medical, housing and fuel costs. For many borrowers, the loans have become their only option: Half of those using them said they could not make ends meet otherwise, according to the latest edition of a survey that LendingTree, a loan marketplace, has compiled for years.

The Supreme Court today rejected Verizon’s attempt to get a $47 million refund from the Federal Communications Commission. In a list of orders (PDF) issued by the court, Verizon’s petition was denied without explanation. The denial apparently ends any possibility of Verizon asking a lower court to review the fine and order the FCC to issue a refund. However, AT&T and T-Mobile are continuing to challenge similar fines on grounds that selling device-location data did not violate US telecom law.

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon were fined a total of $196 million in 2024 for selling mobile users’ real-time location data without their customers’ consent. The carriers sold device-location information to data aggregators, who resold it to other firms. The carriers paid the fines and sought to have them overturned in courts, claiming their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial was violated. Challenges by AT&T and Verizon were combined into a single case, and the Supreme Court ruled against the carriers in June of this year.

The court ruled that the FCC penalty process does not violate the Seventh Amendment because the carriers could have obtained jury trials if they refused to pay the fines and waited for the government to try to collect. The ruling (PDF) against the carriers was 8-1, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting.

A few days ago, North Carolina’s DMV announced that it plans to launch a mobile ID program later this year. As reported by WRAL, North Carolina residents will be able to set up a digital ID through a new NC Wallet app starting in December, with Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, and Samsung Wallet support to follow in “early 2027.” As mentioned, you do not need to unlock, show, or hand over your device to present an Apple Wallet ID in person, ensuring user privacy.

Apple Wallet IDs are generally not accepted by law enforcement, so carrying a physical ID is still legally required for traffic stops. In addition, the number of businesses that accept Apple Wallet IDs is still quite small. At least for now, Apple Wallet IDs are designed to be a convenient alternative where they are accepted. “Your mobile ID is a valid form of identification in North Carolina,” the DMV said, in a FAQ on its website. “However, as retailers, restaurants and other businesses transition to mobile IDs, some may not be set up to accept them right away. For now, carrying your physical card gives you a backup when needed.” According to code seen by MacRumors, Apple Wallet IDs are also coming to Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia, but there is no timeframe for availability.

Under his order, Nine PBS is to identify a third-party vendor, such as a former OSS employee, who can assist in accessing and retrieving the data from the infrastructure that’s housed in Iron Mountain’s center within 30 days. Elliff acknowledged the complexities of Iron Mountain’s position as a vendor to OSS, which, according to Nine PBS’ complaint, is in delinquency. Iron Mountain is the “custodian” of Nine PBS’ data, but it isn’t the vendor that contracted with the station to store and preserve its data. That obligation remains with OSS. Under the order, Nine PBS will pay Iron Mountain current and past-due fees for data storage, starting from when OSS stopped paying Iron Mountain for use of its data storage facility.

During the hearing, Gregory Rich, an attorney representing Nine PBS, said the station seeks access to a physical cage where the data is housed within Iron Mountain’s facility. The station is in contact with a former OSS employee who is willing to help obtain the data. The attorney noted that the data could potentially be stored in physical form, such as tapes that could be easily retrieved. But if the materials are on a server, Nine PBS could lose the materials forever if Iron Mountain shuts it down. William Cravens, the attorney representing Iron Mountain, told the judge his client doesn’t know the format of Nine PBS’ materials that were stored by OSS. He expressed concern about whether Nine PBS’ archival material is lumped together with data from other OSS clients. Iron Mountain wants to avoid potentially corrupting the other data, Cravens added.

Elliff ordered the immediate return of any physical devices that hold Nine PBS’ data once access to OSS’ storage system is granted. If data retrieval turns out to be more complicated — if it is encrypted, for example — he will schedule another hearing to determine how to proceed. Once Nine PBS retrieves its data, the station must work with a third party to ensure that no data from other OSS customers is among those materials.

The trial kicks off Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, after Meta lost a last-ditch attempt to get the case dismissed last week. It could see testimony from top officials at Meta, including Mark Zuckerberg, and could result in record-breaking penalties for the company. The case stems from a 2023 lawsuit brought against Meta from dozens of states, which accused Meta of intentionally creating addictive features and violating consumer protection laws. The action came after a multi-state investigation into the company’s safety practices that officials said revealed serious harms to children and teens.

During the trial, federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will hear claims from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey that Meta violated state consumer protection laws by intentionally misleading the public about the safety of its apps. Those four states and 25 others are also suing Meta over alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The states allege Meta broke the law because it knew Instagram and Facebook had users under the age of 13 and collected data about them without permission. […] For Meta, the stakes are especially high because the company is currently facing thousands of other lawsuits that accuse it of harming users. Juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico have already ruled against Meta in high-profile trials that deal with similar issues. (Meta has said it will appeal in both cases.) Another loss could not only be a financial blow, it could give other lawsuits an easier path forward. And while Meta isn’t exactly hurting for money, its legal costs are adding up. The company said it spent $2.4 billion on legal costs in the second quarter of 2026 alone.

The jury in the case has already been selected and opening arguments are set to begin Tuesday, August 18. The trial is expected to last about six weeks. Unlike in a standard jury trial, the eight-member jury will serve in an “advisory” role, as Law360 explains. The judge will have full power over the final verdict and penalties. Along the way, the trial could also see testimony from some of Meta’s most visible executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. Both men are likely to testify, according to Reuters. […] Audio from the trial will be live streamed on the court’s YouTube channel.

PJM Interconnection, the biggest U.S. grid operator, proposed on Thursday a new framework that would force data centers to use back-up generators when electricity supply on the grid approaches dangerously low levels. The grid operator’s proposal dovetails with President Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, a non-binding initiative to protect residential customers from getting saddled with costs related to data center power consumption, PJM said.

A new emergency procedure would notify utilities to reduce or transfer the electricity demand from data centers and other large power users ahead of any action that would shut off traditional consumers such as households. PJM said it does not, however, currently have the authority to curtail power to those sites and would require the cooperation of individual state governments.

PJM manages the electricity for 67 million people in a territory that stretches from Washington, D.C. to Chicago. Its proposal highlights a growing tension between the rapid expansion of data centers and the ability of the nation’s power grid to keep up. If PJM cannot close its supply gap, millions of residents and businesses face an increased risk of blackouts, and the cost of new generation could be passed on to other power consumers.

The facility — which will be built and owned by SoftBank’s SB Energy — illustrates the immensity of the computing and power needed to fuel the growth of the AI economy. The data center will have 8 IT-gigawatts of computing capacity, powered by 10 gigawatts of new energy generation, on private land and federal property formerly used for uranium enrichment.

Nvidia — which will be the exclusive provider of chips to the site — agreed to guarantee up to $105 billion in conditional lease and power payment obligations to SB Energy, according to an SEC filing (PDF). The so-called “land, power and shell” deal structure could allow for multiple upgrade cycles for new generations of Nvidia infrastructure at the site, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on X.

A massive 9.2 gigawatts of new gas-fired power is ultimately envisioned for the Ohio project, which U.S. officials say Japan is funding under the 2025 trade and investment deal. SB Energy and SoftBank “will build at least 10 GW of new energy generation,” a joint announcement from Nvidia, OpenAI and SB Energy states. Nvidia also said today that it’s investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy to back its “continued evolution into a leading AI infrastructure developer.”

Amazon is buying massive quantities of books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying them in the process. A 404 Media investigation was able to reveal Amazon’s book buying operation, which hasn’t been previously reported, by placing a tracking device in a rare book we suspected would be acquired by an AI company for training data, and following it around the country to its final destination. That final destination was an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Amazon employees who work at this location say all they do is receive massive shipments of printed books which they then cut the bindings off in order to scan the books more quickly. The printed book is destroyed in the process. The logo of the Amazon team that works at this warehouse, called VGT3, is a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands.

Amodei’s comments came in response to investor Gavin Baker, who argued — both on the All-In podcast and on X — that Amodei’s warnings about the dangers of AI have helped to fuel a backlash in the United States, particularly against data centers.

Claiming that Amodei has “lost the argument” when it comes to AI regulation (Anthropic has advocated for some regulations, including a California bill that imposes transparency requirements on large AI companies), and given that “he is about to be the CEO of one of the most important companies in the world,” Baker wrote, “I respectfully think he should make an effort to be a more positive advocate for his own industry.”

Baker is far from the only one arguing that AI skepticism and even government crackdowns are a natural response to the dire warnings of some AI executives. But in a series of posts, Amodei disagreed with the idea that his “messaging has been disproportionately negative.” Instead, he said that his writing has been “about equally balanced between risks and benefits,” and that he wrote his essay "Machines of Loving Grace" because he “didn’t feel the AI industry was painting an inspiring enough picture of how the technology could radically transform the world for the better.”

Nonetheless, Amodei acknowledged that “the public has a negative view of AI” and he agreed that “this is a big problem.” Where he disagreed was with the idea that this negativity is “primarily caused” by Amodei “or any other AI leader warning about AI’s risks.” “I think it is fundamentally a crisis of trust,” Amodei said. “I think that ordinary people don’t trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over.”

If you want to record whatever you do on a computer, send those records to OpenAI, use more ChatGPT tokens, and increase your vulnerability to prompt injection, then OpenAI has something for you. It’s called Computer History, an opt-in way to record your computer interactions across apps and websites as memories organized on a timeline.

Why would you want to do so? Maybe you found Chronicle, the predecessor of Computer History which compiled similar histories using screenshots, a bit too intrusive but don’t mind Computer History’s approach — recording input events and storing them unencrypted locally for 48 hours (or more), with a brief visit to OpenAI’s servers. Maybe you’re not bothered by the warning OpenAI includes in its documentation: “Computer History files can contain sensitive information. They are not encrypted by Computer History, and other programs running as your macOS user may be able to access them.”

Perhaps, having given OpenAI’s Codex and GPT Work the run of your computer, you’re already sold on the suggestion that storing your computer activity in memory files and arranging those interactions in a timeline will improve ChatGPT responses, surface opportunities for automation, and make it easier to resume prior work. Computer History is, to put it bluntly, a keylogging and event capture system.

To be clear, our position has long been that police, at a minimum, need to get a warrant, signed by a judge, in order to search for historic ALPR data regarding specific vehicles. For us, it’s common sense: if police want to dip into historic ALPR data like they were going back in time to retroactively follow your comings and goings, they need a warrant.

This all leads to the bigger and more important issue: We should not be letting companies decide how much privacy we deserve… It shouldn’t be up to Flock or any other ALPR vendor to decide how long police can collect and retain data on millions, if not hundreds of millions, of innocent people. We need lawmakers to step up and pass laws that restrict police’s use of surveillance technology.

After all, the surveillance business model is the problem, and a few company-imposed slapdash reforms aren’t going to change that.

In an email sent to customers on Friday, the company said a new “arbitration agreement and class-action waiver” will require shoppers to resolve disputes outside the courts but said they could still file small claims, cases that typically limit damages to a few thousand dollars… The user-agreement update isn’t necessarily binding in court. Plaintiffs attorneys could still seek class-action lawsuits against Amazon, and it would be up to a judge to determine if the user agreement prevents them from doing so.

The confirmation came during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on the Epic Games Store’s community Discord server. When a user asked whether Epic had any plans for a Linux version of its launcher, an Epic staff member confirmed that it is coming “soon(TM)" in emoji form. Of course, that is far from confirming any kind of date, but it is official confirmation of a Linux version nonetheless.

And while it’s not related to gaming, OpenAI’s [“preview”] release of a ChatGPT app for Linux is another milestone for the platform… OpenAI said: “Linux has been one of the most-requested platforms for the desktop app, and this launch extends ChatGPT and Codex across every major desktop operating system.” The Epic Games Store arriving natively is great news for gamers running Linux — including SteamOS — as it means a much more convenient way of playing games from the store, as opposed to the current situation with fudging and workarounds (using a third-party app such as the Heroic Games Launcher)…

Epic’s own Fortnite doesn’t work on Linux (and that’s down to Epic actively blocking the game from running due to issues around cheating, which remains a source of controversy). Given the apparent changing attitude here with its launcher being ported over, maybe Epic will reverse course on Fortnite eventually. Some gamers on Reddit are highly skeptical about that possibility though, and as one doubting Redditor put it: “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

Some local officials said the public safety promises weren’t worth the cost. The cameras “didn’t help us with anything. From a utility aspect, they were just kind of not useful,” said Eric Couture, a Democratic first selectman in Killingworth, Connecticut, another city that recently canceled its contract with Flock. “I’d say it was a net negative.”

By targeting Flock cameras, activists are building momentum for a larger rebellion against the tech industry — and against political leaders who are complicit in their assault on our freedoms. Flock Safety embodies the dishonesty that has been the prevailing theme of tech corporate communications and marketing for at least the past decade. While the cameras are sold to the public as a banal traffic safety measure, they have prompted an outpouring of stories about how they’re being used to violate civil liberties and undermine democracy…

According to an exhaustive 10-month analysis by Electronic Foundation Frontier, a nonprofit dedicated to defending civil liberties in our digital age, local police were using the cameras to track protesters, such as those at No Kings rallies, who were then put in a national database to be used across all jurisdictions. Despite claims that the cameras only record license plates, the technology-focused outlet 404 Media found that the database is also being used to collect information on individual people whom cops can then search for using descriptions of clothing, race, gender and body type.

The Flock uprising, though, is the stirrings of public understanding that none of this inevitable — and we have the right to fight back… Along with protests against data centers, it’s a sign that the public is desperate for a way to fight back against not just AI, but also the anti-democratic forces fueling this latest tech wave.

City council meetings in which citizens swarm to protest paying for the cameras are the new must-see TV. In Huntington, West Virginia, a small city in the heart of Appalachia, one man became an internet folk hero when he stood up at a city council meeting and said, “I’m not gonna waste your time; I’m kinda hungry. But one last thing: Every single Flock camera has about 2-3 pounds of copper and about 1-2 grams of gold. Do with that information what you will.” He then walked off in triumph.