"In the report, Ren and his colleagues first set out to estimate how much power California data centers had consumed in recent years, then to forecast how much they would use in the coming ones. To determine that, they looked at figures and forecasts from reports issued last year by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Electric Power Research Institute. Using Berkeley Labs’ national numbers and calculating California’s from them by tapping the ratio of the state’s usage to the national number in the EPRI report, the researchers determined that California data centers consumed 5.5 terawatt hours of electricity in 2019. They estimated that amount rose steadily in ensuing years, hitting 10.82 terawatt hours in 2023. Ren and his team split the difference between Berkeley Lab and ERPI’s wildly different forecasts, estimating that data center energy usage in California would rise between 8.4% and 18.5% a year from 2023 to 2028. Based on that, they calculated that such power consumption by 2028 would grow to between 16.2 and 25.3 terawatt hours. Those projections represent as much as one-fourth of all commercial power consumption in the state last year, according to the California Energy Commission, and up to 8.9% of electricity usage across California as a whole. (...) All told, the on- and off-site pollutants emitted in California as a result of data centers resulted in $44.7 million in health-related costs in 2019, according to the Next10 study. That amount rose to $155.4 million in 2023. That jump was largely due to the large growth in the number of data centers over that period, according to the report. In all, health-care expenditures cost Californians $409 billion in 2023, according to the state Office of Health Care Affordability. The study forecast that the growth in costs would slow in coming years, increasing to between $167.1 million and $266.6 million in 2028."
San Francisco Examiner
Study: Data centers’ environmental impacts rising
Related emissions, water use, health costs all increasing
 #USA #California #DataCenters #Environment #Energy #Pollution
RT @TheHackersNews Attackers are abusing React2Shell to plant Linux backdoors like KSwapDoor and ZnDoor. This hits orgs that left React and Next.js servers unpatched. Microsoft saw reverse shells, Cobalt Strike, and stolen cloud tokens tied to CVE-2025-55182, and Shadowserver tracks over 111,000 exposed IPs. 🔗 Details →
The Hacker News
React2Shell Vulnerability Actively Exploited to Deploy Linux Backdoors
React2Shell vulnerability CVE-2025-55182 is actively exploited to deploy Linux malware, run commands, and steal cloud credentials at scale.
RT @rohanpaul_ai ☁️ Oracle’s latest quarterly filing shows $248B of future lease payments, mostly for data centers and cloud capacity. The key surprise is that this is roughly $150B more than earlier footnotes suggested. These are rent commitments that start between now and Oracle’s 2028 financial year. They are off the balance sheet today because many leases have not started, but they still signal a large fixed bill that will hit cash flow. Leasing can speed up AI data-center growth without buying everything upfront, but it adds debt-like pressure if cloud demand or pricing softens. Investors now have to judge whether Oracle’s AI revenue growth can comfortably cover a very rigid rent base.
Bloomberg.com
Oracle’s $248 Billion Rent is Another AI ‘Bombshell’
Of all the eye-popping numbers that Oracle Corp. published last week on the costs of its artificial-intelligence data center buildout, the most str...
"After years of lagging behind, Chinese AI models — especially open-weight LLMs — seem to have caught up or even pulled ahead of their global counterparts in advanced AI model capabilities and adoption. We profile and compare the capabilities and distinct features of four notable Chinese open-weight language model families, highlighting that China’s ecosystem of open-weight LLMs is driven by a wide range of actors who are prioritizing the development of computationally efficient models optimized for flexible downstream deployment. Diverse commercial strategies for translating open-weight model adoption into business success are emerging, yet their long-term viability remains uncertain. The Chinese government’s support of open-weight model development — while not the sole determinant of its success — has played a substantial role, though there is no guarantee it will continue. The widespread global adoption of Chinese open-weight models may reshape global technology access and reliance patterns, and impact AI governance, safety, and competition. Policymakers should ground their policy actions in a granular understanding of real-world deployment." https://hai.stanford.edu/policy/beyond-deepseek-chinas-diverse-open-weight-ai-ecosystem-and-its-policy-implications #AI #GenerativeAI #China #LLMs #Deepseek #Chatbots #OpenWeights #OpenSource
"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued five large TV manufacturers yesterday, alleging that their smart TVs spy on viewers without consent. Paxton sued Samsung, the longtime TV market share leader, along with LG, Sony, Hisense, and TCL. “These companies have been unlawfully collecting personal data through Automated Content Recognition (‘ACR’) technology,” Paxton’s office alleged in a press release that contains links to all five lawsuits. “ACR in its simplest terms is an uninvited, invisible digital invader. This software can capture screenshots of a user’s television display every 500 milliseconds, monitor viewing activity in real time, and transmit that information back to the company without the user’s knowledge or consent. The companies then sell that consumer information to target ads across platforms for a profit. This technology puts users’ privacy and sensitive information, such as passwords, bank information, and other personal information at risk.” The lawsuits allege violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, seeking damages of up to $10,000 for each violation and up to $250,000 for each violation affecting people 65 years or older. Texas also wants restraining orders prohibiting the collection, sharing, and selling of ACR data while the lawsuits are pending."
Ars Technica
Texas sues biggest TV makers, alleging smart TVs spy on users without consent
Automated Content Recognition brings “mass surveillance” to homes, lawsuits say.
 #USA #Texas #Samsung #SmartTVs #lg #TCL #Sony #Hisense #Surveillance #Privacy #ACR
"TikTok not only tracks its users while they are using the TikTok app itself, but it is increasingly integrated with many other websites and apps. For example, TikTok was able to track a person’s Grindr usage on his smartphone. However, that’s not all: In addition to tracking users across the digital space, TikTok also refuses to provide an interested users with a copy of all of their personal data. Therefore, noyb has therefore filed two complaints against TikTok and its data-sharing partners AppsFlyer and Grindr."
noyb.eu
TikTok unlawfully tracks your shopping habits – and your use of dating apps
TikTok tracks its users even if they're using other apps. The video platform therefore also knows what dating app you use
 #EU #SocialMedia #TikTok #Grindr #AppsFlyer #DataProtection #Privacy
Trumponomics is going great!! -> "The unemployment rate, at 4.6 percent, is now at its highest level since September 2021, as the economy was emerging from the pandemic. It’s up from 4 percent in January. One bright spot: The average work week ticked up to 34.3 hours, a sign that employers are not significantly cutting employees’ hours. The number of Americans who have been out of work for more than six months, the typical definition of long-term unemployment, rose to 1.9 million in November, up from 1.7 million a year earlier. The unemployment rate is especially grim for Black workers, up to 8.3 percent. That’s more than two percentage points higher since the beginning of the year. As I wrote following the September data, Black workers are often seen as harbingers of what’s to come in the labor market, and have been buffeted by federal policies over the past year, especially those federal layoffs. Most officials at the central bank forecasted the unemployment rate would peak at 4.5 percent this year before gradually easing in 2026, according to projections released alongside last week’s interest rate decision. So the rise in the unemployment rate in November to 4.6 percent is noteworthy. That said, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, warned last week that technical distortions in the data suggested it should be viewed with a “skeptical eye,” meaning December’s data to be released in January will likely have more bearing on what the central bank does next with interest rates. The recent projections showed that most officials saw just one quarter-point reduction next year, although there was a wide range of views across the Fed."
U.S. Unemployment Rate Rises, a Warning Sign for the Economy
Employers added 64,000 jobs in November, according to data delayed by the government shutdown. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6 percent, the ...
 #USA #Trump #Unemployment #Economy
"All told, more than half of Parkinson’s research dollars in the past two decades have flowed toward genetics. But Parkinson’s rates in the US have doubled in the past 30 years. And studies suggest they will climb another 15 to 35 percent in each coming decade. This is not how an inherited genetic disease is supposed to behave. Despite the avalanche of funding, the latest research suggests that only 10 to 15 percent of Parkinson’s cases can be fully explained by genetics. The other three-quarters are, functionally, a mystery. “More than two-thirds of people with PD don’t have any clear genetic link,” says Briana De Miranda, a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “So, we’re moving to a new question: What else could it be?” “The health you enjoy or don’t enjoy today is a function of your environment in the past,” says Ray Dorsey, a physician and professor of neurology at the University of Rochester. Your “environment” could be the refinery a town over, the lead in the paint of your mother’s home, the plastic sheath of the Hot Pocket you microwaved in 1996. It is air pollution and PFAS and pesticides and so much more. And this environment of yours—the sum of all your exposures, from conception to the grave—could be making you sicker than you realize. In a study of half a million Britons, Oxford researchers determined that lifestyle and the environment is 10 times more likely to explain early death than genetics. But that also offers a tantalizing prospect. If Parkinson’s is an environmental disease, as Dorsey and a small band of researchers emphatically believe, then maybe we can end it."
WIRED
Scientists Thought Parkinson’s Was in Our Genes. It Might Be in the Water
New ideas about chronic illness could revolutionize treatment, if we take the research seriously.
 #Parkinsons #ParkinsonsDisease #ParkinsonsResearch #Genetics
David James AKA @funkentechno always puts out great AOFT lists. This year's list is no exception, I think. "What a year, huh? Sometimes it seems like almost everything on earth is getting worse every single day, but we’ve also had an outrageous abundance of truly dazzling music, more than any of us could ever hear in a lifetime. The news sure looks bad most days, but you know who’s got our back? All the hardworking artists who create incredible work every single year, all while living in the same conditions that are making all of our lives collectively tougher. It’s a miracle, really, that despite everything going on, I can confidently state once again: Every year is a great year for music. In 2025, it’s easier than ever to just coast on whatever some corporation decides to put into your feed, consume the music that they paid to put in your ears, stay comfortably inside those guardrails that always seem to get narrower every year. So I applaud anyone going out of their way to discover something truly new, take a recommendation from a friend or even a stranger, roll the dice on an artist they never would’ve otherwise encountered. For some folks, I am that stranger. But I’m not special. I’m just a regular guy who spends a lot of time talking with artists and labels, scouring Bandcamp and reading music journalism, and mostly just spending time with great people who fill my life with magic every day. I’m forever grateful that I’ve found a community online where I can share it all and spread the love. I wouldn’t be here without all the great recommendations that have been shared with me all year long. So, here we are with my ever-growing annual album list. Twenty five of them are singled out at the end as the best of the best – especially masterful, poignant, mindmelting pieces of music that affected me more deeply than anything else I heard this year."
Optimistic Underground
100 Best Albums of 2025
What a year, huh? Sometimes it seems like almost everything on earth is getting worse every single day, but we’ve also had an outrageous abun...
 #Music #AOFT #AOFT2025
"OpenAI is facing increasing scrutiny over how it handles ChatGPT data after users die, only selectively sharing data in lawsuits over ChatGPT-linked suicides. Last week, OpenAI was accused of hiding key ChatGPT logs from the days before a 56-year-old bodybuilder, Stein-Erik Soelberg, took his own life after “savagely” murdering his mother, 83-year-old Suzanne Adams. According to the lawsuit—which was filed by Adams’ estate on behalf of surviving family members—Soelberg struggled with mental health problems after a divorce led him to move back into Adams’ home in 2018. But allegedly Soelberg did not turn violent until ChatGPT became his sole confidant, validating a wide range of wild conspiracies, including a dangerous delusion that his mother was part of a network of conspirators spying on him, tracking him, and making attempts on his life. Adams’ family pieced together what happened after discovering a fraction of ChatGPT logs that Soelberg shared in dozens of videos scrolling chat sessions that were posted on social media."
Ars Technica
Murder-suicide case shows OpenAI selectively hides data after users die
OpenAI accused of hiding full ChatGPT logs in murder-suicide case.
 #AI #OpenAI #GenerativeAI #ChatGPT #Chatbots #MentalHealth