“Orbital, a new firm that emerged in May from a16z’s startup accelerator program Speedrun with a $5 million seed round, is the latest company promising to do inference in space — just as soon as Starship is flying regularly.” Tech Crunch
Monthly Archives: June 2026
Anatomy of Kentucky’s data center regulations
Daviess County enacted a one year moratorium on data center developments after concerns about transparency and land deals by unknown data center entities. Boyd County officials got an earful from residents over NDAs with what residents believe to be data centers. A bill in the state legislature that would have ensured electric rates did not […]
The Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026
There’s a draft of a 3 year federal AI preemption over state AI laws is circulating. The legislation is named The Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026. The bipartisan bill would codify AI Safety standards established under the Biden Administration. The 4 pillars of AI safety: establishing frontier artificial intelligence model governance, collecting insight into […]
AI raise identity fraud
AI is bringing with it an increase in “Synthetic identity fraud”. What is synthetic identity fraud? It is fraud committed with fake identities using a mix of real and fabricated data. Financial losses tied to synthetic identity fraud are expected to reach $3.1 billion in 2026. This is up from $1.8 billion in 2020. […]
New Texas data center group
Meet Texas Connects. “Texas Connects is a nonprofit organization representing a broad coalition of stakeholders who support the essential infrastructure data centers provide in our daily lives and modern 21st-century economy.”
New AI term: RSI
RSI, recursion self improvement, means “an AI system that can continuously upgrade itself. Once AI systems can manage the upgrade cycle better than humans, the process can become a closed loop, limited only by the compute power they can access, and humans are no longer necessary or even helpful. ” We’re not at a place where […]
Location data as a security threat
“In a letter shared by Sen. Ron Wyden with TechCrunch, U.S. Central Command said it was aware of hostile actors using purchased location data to track U.S. servicemembers.” The FBI is suggesting that people use ad blockers to minimize available data. What does this mean? Location data tracking is heading toward legislative and regulatory limitations. Tech Crunch
Legislating mandatory AI safety audits
Illinois is the first state to require safety audits for AI. The bill would apply to “large AI developers — those with more than $500 million in annual gross revenue — to publish explanations of how their products could pose a “catastrophic risk” and how those risks would be addressed. The requirements would take effect […]
Veto: Surveillance pricing ban
In the veto letter for House Bill 26-1210 Colorado’s Governor stated that “Instead of specifically defining and targeting unethical conduct and practices, the bill takes a broader approach to capture any technology that incidentally influences a price or wage amount. Because of the broad sweep, the bill would punish differentially lower prices, not just higher prices.” Colorado Newsline