All posts tagged: data

One fallen power line exposed a growing AI data center problem. Here’s how to fix it.

One fallen power line exposed a growing AI data center problem. Here’s how to fix it.

Published by skeptic

A power line went down outside of Washington, DC, this week. Normally, the grid would only need a few seconds to recover from such an event. But this one took more than 10 minutes because more than 3 gigawatts of data centers stopped drawing power nearly simultaneously. The event caused voltage across the PJM grid to spike from Northern Virginia to Chicago, according to data collected by Ting Labs, a startup that runs an IoT sensor network out of people’s electrical sockets. The event didn’t cause a blackout, but it did cause lights across the region to flicker. The incident demonstrated the effect that data centers can have on the grid — an outcome that experts believe will become more frequent. Northern Virginia, which is in PJM’s territory, is home to the highest concentration of data centers in the world. “It’s the canary in the coal mine,” Ricardo de Azevedo, CTO at ON.Energy, told TechCrunch. These sorts of events involving large loads like data centers are “happening more and more,” he added. The event echoes …

Over 148,000 Mail Ballots Rejected In California’s Primary Election, Data Show

Over 148,000 Mail Ballots Rejected In California’s Primary Election, Data Show

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times, Election data that was provided by California state officials for last month’s primary elections show that more than 148,000 mail-in ballots were rejected, an uptick of more than 40,000 from the 2024 primary. Election workers conduct ballot tabulation at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center during California’s state primary election in the City of Industry, Calif., on June 2, 2026. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images All in all, 148,241 were rejected in the state’s June 2 primary election, according to data released by the California Secretary of State’s office, which manages elections. The figure represents 1.73 percent of all mail-in ballots. According to the data released earlier this month, more than 93,000 mail-in ballots were rejected by officials because they arrived too late. Another 8,300 were rejected because there was no voter signature on the ballot, and nearly 44,000 were rejected due to a non-matching signature. Meanwhile, some 580 weren’t used because no photo ID was provided, more than 740 were rejected because the voter …

Solar generated more electricity than coal and wind in May – EIA data

Solar generated more electricity than coal and wind in May – EIA data

Published by skeptic

Hornet Solar. Photo: Vesper Energy In May alone, solar-generated electricity exceeded that of both coal and wind, according to new data just released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign.  Moreover, solar, wind, and battery storage are projected to add about 83.0 gigawatts (GW) of new generating capacity in the US by May 31, 2027, while total fossil fuel and nuclear power capacity will fall by almost 4.7 GW. Electrical generation by renewables grew over 10% According to the EIA’s latest “Electric Power Monthly” report released July 23 (with data through May 31, 2026), electricity generated by renewables during the first five months of 2026 was 10.1% higher year over year. The growth was led by utility-scale (>1 megawatt) solar (up 21.6%), small-scale solar (<1 MW) (up 12.8%), hydropower (up 10.8%), and wind (up 4.8%). The electrical output of the nation’s nuclear and natural gas plants grew much more slowly – 1.3% and 2.5%, respectively. Electricity produced by US coal facilities dropped by 10.9%. Advertisement – scroll for …

European researchers want to study social media’s harms but can’t get the data

European researchers want to study social media’s harms but can’t get the data

Published by skeptic

Iamnitchi is one of several misinformation researchers who told WIRED that, despite being legally entitled to obtain platform data under EU law, they face obstacles, obfuscation, and, in some cases, court battles to obtain it. Last year the law was broadened to increase researcher access, but it’s the implementation not the scope of the law itself that researchers say is the issue. In recent years, social media companies shut down public access tools like Meta’s CrowdTangle and replaced them with content libraries, or, like X, paywalled their API data, forcing academics to pay “hundreds of dollars a month,” said Duncan Allen, a research officer at Democracy Reporting International (DRI) in Germany. Researchers say that without API access, what Iamnitchi describes as the “black holes” in what society knows about how these platforms recommend content or handle reports regarding sensitive content will only grow. Others, like TikTok, cap how many posts any researcher account can pull each day, which Allen said can make it “impossible to study anything at scale.” The DSA was meant to solve …

‘Burnham bounce’ and World Cup lift mood in July, says data firm | Consumer spending

‘Burnham bounce’ and World Cup lift mood in July, says data firm | Consumer spending

Published by Jenni Sidey

Consumer confidence in the UK jumped this month by its biggest margin for nearly three years as the prospect of Andy Burnham becoming prime minister became almost certain. The data company GfK said a “Burnham bounce” along with a strong run by the men’s England football team at the World Cup and sunny weather had lifted the mood of consumers in its long-running monthly survey. Burnham’s byelection victory on 18 June, which put the former mayor of Greater Manchester in pole position to take over from Keir Starmer, was credited with helping to improve consumers’ outlook for the economy over the next year by eight points. Their view of the economy’s performance over the previous year also improved by 10 points. The overall score in the GfK index increased by six points to -17 in July, the highest level since January and the biggest rise since November 2023. The prospect of an end to the conflict in the Middle East was also seen by consumers as a reason to be cheerful. Neil Bellamy, consumer insights …

Ratepayer bill gains steam amid data center backlash

Ratepayer bill gains steam amid data center backlash

Published by Sam Flores

{beacon} Technology Technology   The Big Story  Ratepayer bill gains steam amid data center backlash A bill that seeks to mitigate data centers’ impacts on Americans’ electric bills is gaining steam in the House, as lawmakers face pressure to act in the face of sharp backlash to the sprawling AI infrastructure. © AP Photo/Jenny Kane… Source link

Is today the hottest day of the summer? The ‘Old Farmer’s Almanac’ has 30 years of data for an answer.

Is today the hottest day of the summer? The ‘Old Farmer’s Almanac’ has 30 years of data for an answer.

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. It’s already been a brutal summer by pretty much any metric, with record-breaking temperatures affecting millions of people across the United States and parts of Europe. Although predicting the forecast for any given week is becoming increasingly difficult due to climate change, historical data can still point us in the right direction. Barring all the chaos, when can someone expect to endure the season’s most sweltering conditions? The Old Farmer’s Almanac recently delved into nearly 30 years of meteorological data to determine the country’s hottest day of the year—and the answers may vary more than you might expect. July predictably contains peak temperatures for most of the U.S., but certainly not all of it. “Many regions in the United States—from the Rockies to …

AI agents aren’t confidently wrong because of bad context — they’re wrong because of bad data engineering

AI agents aren’t confidently wrong because of bad context — they’re wrong because of bad data engineering

Published by skeptic

You spend weeks tuning an AI chatbot. Answers are accurate. Stakeholders sign off, and you ship it. Three months later, the system is confidently wrong about a third of what users ask. Nobody changed the model, and nobody touched the prompts. The world moved, pricing changed, a policy updated, a product spec shipped a new version, and the underlying knowledge store didn’t move with it. This is not a hypothetical. It’s one of the most common production failure modes in enterprise AI right now, and most data engineering teams don’t have the right tooling to catch it, regardless of how the AI system retrieves the data. The failure that doesn’t look like a failure  An AI application doesn’t care whether it’s retrieving from a vector store, a document index, or an API call. Whatever the mechanism, nothing in a standard retrieval pipeline checks whether what it’s serving is still correct. A stale pricing document retrieves just as confidently as a current one, because the system is scoring relevance or availability, not correctness. A record with …

How to Build Power Apps from Existing Data Quickly

How to Build Power Apps from Existing Data Quickly

Published by skeptic

Creating your first app doesn’t have to be a daunting process, especially with the low-code capabilities of Power Apps. In a recent breakdown by Microsoft Mechanics, you’ll see how to build an app directly from your existing data in just a few steps. For instance, if you’re working with customer data stored in an Excel spreadsheet, Power Apps can automatically generate an app complete with interactive forms and dashboards, eliminating the need to manually design core components. This approach makes it possible to turn raw data into functional applications without requiring advanced technical skills. Dive into this guide to discover how to connect data sources like SharePoint or SQL Server, customize the app’s interface and integrate features such as AI-driven insights. You’ll also learn how to enhance workflows by automating repetitive tasks and creating tailored solutions that align with your business needs. Whether you’re modernizing legacy systems or starting from scratch, this overview offers practical tips to help you streamline app development and unlock new efficiencies. Create Apps Directly from Your Data TL;DR Key Takeaways …

US agency proposes ending racial and gender workforce data collection | Labour Rights News

US agency proposes ending racial and gender workforce data collection | Labour Rights News

Published by Sam Flores

Republican-led EEOC proposal to end workforce diversity reporting heads to public commentary amid sharp criticism. Published On 21 Jul 202621 Jul 2026 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the chief regulatory agency for enforcing US anti-discrimination laws, has proposed ending a decades-old requirement that US employers submit annual data on the racial and gender breakdown of their workforces. In a 2-1 vote, the Republican majority advanced the proposal, which will now move to a 30-day public comment period before final approval of the measure. The commission is set to hold a public hearing for the measure on August 11. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The reports, known as EEO-1, collect aggregate data of demographics rather than specific identification of workers. They are designed to help the federal government understand employment patterns and trends as well as identify any patterns of systemic discrimination. For the last 60 years, the EEOC has required companies with at least 100 employees or federal contractors with at least 50 workers to submit this data. It is now …