US voters reject dozens of AI data centers

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US voters reject dozens of AI data centers LINK

• In the midterm elections, American voters across several counties rejected dozens of AI data center projects, passing 33 measures to restrict their development with six more leading, while only one measure in North Dakota failed.
• The ballot questions ranged from permanent bans to time-limited moratoriums and size or power limits, and voters in Piqua, Ohio, and Yukon, Oklahoma, recalled local officials who had earlier backed data center bans.
• The results are a setback for the Trump administration's AI push, though only three projects totaling 2.3 gigawatts have been delayed so far, as polls show 70% of Americans oppose data center build-outs over utility costs and noise.

ChatGPT eats 20% of Google's search volume LINK

• OpenAI's Adam Fry says ChatGPT now handles about a fifth as many search-like queries as Google, a figure that would put it ahead of Microsoft's Bing, which holds roughly 5% of the search market.
• Fry explained that a "search" counts whenever someone asks a question that sends ChatGPT to the web, often for current details about people, places, finance, or health, where up-to-date and factual answers matter most.
• He said ChatGPT has grown from one billion to 1.2 billion weekly users in just two months, adding roughly 100 million people every 30 days, while Google maintains that its own search volume sits at an all-time high.

Google cuts off Search for schools that ban AI LINK

• Google will make K-12 schools that reject its AI tools lose access to Google Search on school-managed student accounts, forcing educators to pick between banning AI and keeping the widely used search engine.
• Starting in early 2027, Google will switch off Gemini, NotebookLM, Gemini in Classroom, and AI-infused Search by default for K-12 students, leaving administrators to turn them on themselves after complaints from teachers and parents.
• The rule covers managed student accounts, not personal ones, and districts cannot separately disable AI Overviews or AI Mode in Search through standard controls, pushing some to build their own workarounds or weigh rival search engines.

Apple opens Siri AI to every app LINK

• Apple has opened Siri AI to every app developer through a Developer Preview, letting any app bring its content and actions into the assistant across the iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3, macOS 27.3 and visionOS 27.3 betas.
• Developers can now use App Intents to expose custom actions like checking a delivery or booking a reservation, plus skills that teach Siri to combine several actions, while Spotlight items can surface in results.
• Apple is already adding these abilities to 15 of its own apps, including Mail, Maps, Photos and Safari, with the first integrations reaching customers in a few months and App Store submissions opening in the spring.

🇨🇳 Nvidia can fill only 1% of China's GPU orders LINK

• Nvidia will deliver only about 1%, a few tens of thousands, of the RTX Pro 5500 workstation GPUs that Chinese firms like ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent ordered over the coming months, Bloomberg reports.
• Demand has swamped Nvidia's output, with Chinese companies said to have placed roughly $70 billion in orders at $11,000 per chip, far more than the company can build right now.
• The RTX Pro 5500 is popular because it matches the RTX 5090's CUDA cores but adds 84GB of memory for AI work, and faces no U.S. export limits, so it can ship to China freely.

SpaceX taps Qualcomm to build Starlink 5G network LINK

• SpaceX has hired Qualcomm to build a ground-based 5G network for Starlink Mobile, with deployment of base stations across the US set to begin in 2027.
• The multi-year deal covers "tens of thousands" of sites using Qualcomm's Dragonwing platform, letting Starlink combine its satellites with a terrestrial network for mobile service and last-mile AI connectivity.
• The network will use Massive MIMO radio units with 64 transmit and 64 receive paths to widen coverage, and both companies describe the deal as a step toward AI-native 6G infrastructure.

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Trending tools

Notch Metrics: displays live revenue, MRR, and subscriber counts from Stripe, Polar, and Paddle in your MacBook notch, with provider keys encrypted server-side. LINK

ChatInbox: turns email into chat-style threads by contact, auto-files newsletters and receipts, and works with Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, and IMAP on Apple devices. LINK

AutoShelf: automatically files invoices, sorts screenshots, and organizes photos using EXIF data like camera model, lens, GPS, and date with customizable sorting rules. LINK

Enclave: end-to-end encrypted community platform letting creators keep 90% of earnings, host public or private spaces, and grow audiences through live interaction. LINK

Scape: an AI email client that drafts replies, flags important messages, and captures meeting context in one click for faster follow-ups. LINK

JIMMY: a Windows AI agent you control from your own WhatsApp chat to find files, open apps, and run tasks with approval prompts and undo. LINK

Trending papers & reports

Medical AI assistants often quietly pull up patient identifiers they never need or show, a privacy gap invisible to tests that only check answers, though a pre-task permission check nearly eliminated the unnecessary access. LINK

Gender bias in AI evaluators showed that simply labeling a candidate's gender shifted approval rates by up to ~1.7 points and flipped up to ~3.3% of decisions, meaning identity quietly sways automated candidate judgments. LINK

Trust in national news rose 6 points in a year to 62% of US adults, while trust in social media information held flat at 38%, a Pew survey of 5,193 adults finds. LINK

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