The Weight of the Internet Will Shock You

The internet is massive. But does it have … actual mass? Big server farms and miles of fiber-optic cables do, of course, but we don’t mean the infrastructure of the internet. We mean the internet itself. The information. The data. The cybernetics. And because storing and moving stuff through cyberspaceContinue Reading

Trump’s Aggression Sours Europe on US Cloud Giants

Dave Cottlehuber, the founder of SkunkWerks, a small tech infrastructure firm in Austria, says he has been moving the company’s few servers and databases away from US providers to European services since the start of the year. “First and foremost, it’s about values,” Cottlehuber says. “For me, privacy is aContinue Reading

Satellite Internet Will Let Us Put AI in Everything

T-Mobile recently partnered with Starlink to provide connectivity to customers in reception dead zones. Starlink on T-Mobile, Sag says, is an example of this satellite technology being implemented in a simple and effective way. If you go out of the range of a terrestrial T-Mobile reception tower, your phone canContinue Reading

Nvidia Bets Big on Synthetic Data

Nvidia has acquired synthetic data firm Gretel for nine figures, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal. The acquisition price exceeds Gretel’s most recent valuation of $320 million, the sources say, though the exact terms of the purchase remain unknown. Gretel and its team of approximately 80Continue Reading

Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture

In a 1985 paper, the computer scientist Andrew Yao, who would go on to win the A.M. Turing Award, asserted that among hash tables with a specific set of properties, the best way to find an individual element or an empty spot is to just go through potential spots randomly—anContinue Reading

OPM Watchdog Says Review of DOGE Work Is Underway

The Office of Personnel Management’s acting inspector general has confirmed that the independent office is investigating whether any “emerging threats” to sensitive information have arisen as a result of Elon Musk’s DOGE operatives introducing rapid changes to protected government networks. “The OPM OIG [office of the inspector general] is committedContinue Reading

US Judge Extends Order to Block DOGE From Treasury Department Data

A Manhattan Federal Court judge on Friday extended the temporary restraining order that bars staffers from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency from accessing US Treasury Department data—which attorneys general from New York and other blue states have slammed as an unlawful threat to privacy—while she considers whether to imposeContinue Reading