Tootfinder

The Federal Trade Commission sent letters to 13 data brokers warning them of their responsibility to comply with the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 (PADFAA).
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/pres…

FTC Reminds Data Brokers of Their Obligations to Comply with PADFAA
The Federal Trade Commission sent letters to 13 data brokers warning them of their responsibility to comply with the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 (PADFAA).

Protege, which offers an AI data platform to access high-quality, proprietary training data at scale, raised $30M from a16z, extending its $25M Series A (Duncan Riley/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2026/01/08/protege-raises-30m-grow-…

Protege raises $30M to grow governed marketplace for AI training data - SiliconANGLE
Protege raises $30M to grow governed marketplace for AI training data - SiliconANGLE

What the data says about Ukraine’s mobilization crisis: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/09/what-the-data-says-about.html

Japanese nuclear plant operator fabricated seismic risk data https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/japanese-nuclear-plant-operator-fabricated-seismic-risk-data/

Japanese nuclear plant operator fabricated seismic risk data
Company staff were very selective about how they modeled earthquake dangers.

Uber launches Uber Intelligence, an insights platform that lets advertisers tap into Uber's data about customer trips and deliveries (Lara O'Reilly/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-ads-launches-intelli…

Uber is turning trip and takeout data into insights for marketers
Uber has said its ad business is on track to generate $1.5 billion in revenue in 2025. It's hoping a new insights platform will encourage more spend.

Seoul cyber investigators seize data, devices from ‘South Korea’s Amazon’ following data breach https://therecord.media/seoul-cyber-investigators-seize-data-korea-tech-giant

An Airwallex executive warned in 2023 that China staff were pushing to access client data; Keith Rabois accuses Airwallex of enabling Chinese access to US data (Lucas Baird/Australian Financial Review)
https://www.afr.com/companies/finan…

Airwallex data access concerns over about China-based staff accessing customer data
A senior executive warned about improper access of private customer details presumably “driven by [China]“, but received pushback due to revenue concerns.

#DataRetention

Czechia illegally stored citizens’ phone data: here’s what it means
The ruling affects metadata from calls and texts, shows who communicated and where; lawmakers must revise rules, tightening access and protecting privacy.

»Instagram Data Leak Exposes Sensitive Info of 17.5M Accounts:
A significant security breach has compromised approximately 17.5 million Instagram user accounts, exposing sensitive personal information that is now circulating on the dark web«
Which of you is surprised or even shocked - as you are not now? Unfortunately, many still naively believe that they have nothing to hide.
🤷

Instagram Data Leak Exposes Sensitive Info of 17.5M Accounts
A significant security breach has compromised approximately 17.5 million Instagram user accounts, exposing sensitive personal information.

Five bold Super Bowl 2026 predictions that sound far-fetched -- until you look into the data

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/super-bowl-lx-bold-predictions-data-preview/

Una lectura mšs que obligatoria para entender lo que conlleva “la nube”
https://www.cloudwards.net/deep-dives/the-data-center-water-wars/
@…

Lets be honest, we spend too much time cleaning data. {janitor} can help with that: #rstats #datasciece

Cowboys Don't Chase Big Free Agents (5-Year Data) https://insidethestar.com/cowboys-dont-chase-big-free-agents-5-year-data

Future of Privacy Forum Appoints Matthew Reisman as Vice President of U.S. Policy
https://fpf.org/press-releases/future-of-privacy-forum-appoints-matthew-reisman-as-vice-president-of-u-s-policy/

New Jersey lawmakers OK plan to charge data centers for spiking electric costs - Route Fifty
https://www.route-fifty.com/infrastructure/2026/01/nj-lawmakers-ok-plan-charge-data-centers-spiking-electric-costs/410580/

💕 Data Love Is In The Air! Unter dem Motto "Where's the Data?" wird die Datenliebe im Rahmen der #LoveDataWeek vom 09.–13.02. mit zahlreichen Veranstaltungen zelebriert, und @… ist mit dabei 😍
HERMES | Humanities Education in Research, Da…

"Did the Upper Great Highway closure make Sunset neighborhood streets less safe? Supervisor Alan Wong claimed it did at a January 8, 2026 press conference, citing a simple year-over-year map comparison of crash data. But my analysis, using the same DataSF crash data with rigorous statistical controls, finds no evidence to support that claim, and if anything, the data suggest the opposite."

oh nice, redpocket brought back my favorite sim plan (for my kids), and they upgraded it!
For $30/yr, you get unlimited text/talk, and 200MB per month. For those of you with low data needs (or who specifically want to limit their kids data usage): https://www.ebay.com/itm/136840233242

$2.50/Mo RedPocket Prepaid Wireless Phone Plan+Kit: UNLIMITED Talk /Text + 200MB | eBay
Choose the network that works best for you and your phone! THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. B. Text Services. 200MB 5G Data. E. RedPocket service plans are for individual use only and not for resale.

Trump Posted Unpublished Jobs Data Early in Social Media Post (Reade Pickert/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-09/trump-posted-unpublished-jobs-data-early-in-social-media-post
http://www.memeorandum.com/260109/p43#a260109p43

On 16WW Mains Inlet Water Temperature - Domestic mains water temperature data for 16WW on tap; seasonal min/max about 10C/20C in winter/summer. #dataset #water #temperature -

On 16WW Mains Inlet Water Temperature
Domestic mains water temperature data for 16WW on tap; seasonal min/max about 10C/20C in winter/summer. #dataset #water #temperature

のびてるね、投票数
QT: https://fedibird.com/@tukine/115859321870564945

citeseer: CiteSeer citations (2014)
Citations among papers indexed by the CiteSeer digital library. If a paper i cites a paper j also in this data set, then a directed edge connects i to j. (Papers not in the data set are excluded.) Self-loops may be present.
This network has 384413 nodes and 1751463 edges.
Tags: Informational, Citation, Unweighted

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/companies/20251209/police-raid-coupang-over-massive-data-breach
This is what happens when you do bad cybersecurity.
Police reportedly seek to check for possible lapses in Coupang'…

Police raid Coupang over massive data breach
Police raided the headquarters of e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. on Tuesday over a massive breach of personal information that affected some 34 mill...

Advanced PHPUnit Data Provider shenanigans. #PHP
Part 1: https://peakd.com/hive-168588/@crell/fun-with-phpunit-data-providers
Part 2:

92% of ICE Detainees
since Sept 2025 are Immigrants with No Criminal Convictions
ICE published new detention data today that brings the current population to a record-high of 68,990.
Plus: ICE records first detention death of 2026
https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/92

92% of ICE Detention Growth in FY 2026 Driven by Immigrants with No Criminal Convictions
ICE published new detention data today that brings the current population to a record-high of 68,990. Get the full breakdown below. Plus: ICE records first detention death of 2026.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says xAI is set to spend $20B to build its MACROHARDRR data center in Southaven, its third in the greater Memphis area (Sophie Bates/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/xai-musk-data-center-missis…

Elon Musk's xAI to third data center in Memphis area
Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, plans to spend $20 billion on a data center in Southaven, Mississippi. Gov. Tate Reeves announced Thursday that this is the largest private investment in the state's history. The center, called MACROHARDRR, will be near Memphis, Tennessee, and is xAI's third in the area. xAI CFO Anthony Armstrong says it will house the world's largest supercomputer. The project faces scrutiny over environmental concerns, especially regarding air pollution near predominantly Black co…

The thing about a life-logger, is you input sensitive data about your life, lifestyle and activities, so privacy and data-integrity are some of the most important issues.
There can be no server, the data has to be yours and yours alone. Because you can’t tell what is happening to the data in a closed-source app, it must be completely free and open source.
You can’t trust a corporate diary, they must sell to anyone offering enough money.
So it is with my life log app, all data completely in your own device. No home server ever sees anything.
There is no home server. Just the code.
To achieve this Exocortex Log is a Progressive Web App. It downloads when you are online at the website and can be installed onto the homepage of your phone.
It keeps all data on the local device using indexdb.
This means you must be responsible for your own backups. Be sure to export and back up your data regularly. I have gaps in my ten year record where my phone was stolen and most recent backup was months prior.
Once installed it will work offline, airplane mode, no internet, down in the tube station at midnight, anywhere.
There's a blog on the website saying this and more: https://exocortexlog.com/news/articles/2025-12-06-release/

If you're going to use "futuristic" in a press release, at least include a mock-up of what things will look like. (I'm a sucker for photos of soldiers wearing wrist-mounted tablets running TAK or BATDOK.)
https://www.gov.uk/governm…

Soldiers to get new AI capable radios, headsets and tablets with futuristic sensor data
British soldiers will be able to make faster, better decisions on the battlefield through thousands of new radios, headsets and tablets.

Irgend jemand scheint unter "Digitale Souveränität" etwas ganz anderes zu verstehen als der Rest der Welt.
#DigitaleSouveränität #DigitalSovereignty

Very funny, #Sun: many of the small groups on the disk have flared in recent days - (1)4298 on the far right in this SDO HMI view https://jsoc1.stanford.edu/data/hmi/images/latest/HMI_latest_Int_4096x4096.gif from today just this morning with an X1.1: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1260371819450012 - but the big ones 4294 (center) and 4296 (left) that had received a lot of media hype and even press releases like https://www.dlr.de/de/aktuelles/nachrichten/2025/erhoehtes-sonnensturm-risiko-dlr-beobachtet-weltraumwetter-in-echtzeit have remained completely quiet during their march over the solar disk which is coming to an end soon.

Det kanadensiska samtalet om digital suveränitet är i full fart. Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives skriver under rubriken "Every data centre is a U.S military base".
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/every-data-centre-is…

ICE has arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal records, data shows https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/ice-arrested-nearly-75000-people-no-criminal-records-data-shows-rcna247377

ICE has arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal records, data shows
More than a third of the roughly 220,000 people arrested by ICE officers in the first nine months of the Trump administration had no criminal histories.

Or one could use LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice and not be dependent on some distant service provider.
Online office suites confuse me. It’s unclear what *modern* problem they address. Sharing files is a solved problem. Common data formats exist. https://mastodon.social/@DevOpsPink/11

Tatiana Mikhaleva (@DevOpsPink@mastodon.social)
Attached: 1 image Proton rolled out Proton Sheets - a spreadsheet Google can’t peek into. Gemini: “Show me your data?” You: “No.” Sheets: also no, but in Swiss.🇨🇭🔐 End-to-end encryption, zero-knowledge, even file names get the Swiss-bank treatment. You open a spreadsheet - Big Tech immediately cries. Somewhere in California, an AI whispers: “But… my training data…” Privacy 1 : 0 AI https://proton.me/blog/sheets-proton-drive #Proton #Privacy #Encryption #CyberSe…

Sources: OpenAI has been slow to expand in-app checkouts for ChatGPT as the startup and its partners Shopify and Stripe struggle to standardize merchant data (Ann Gehan/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-shopping-ambitio…

OpenAI’s Shopping Ambitions Hit Messy Data Reality
OpenAI’s efforts to turn ChatGPT into a go-to personal shopper are off to a slow start. Challenges with wrangling product data mean in-app checkouts aren’t yet widely available to the millions of shops that OpenAI said in September would soon be coming to ChatGPT. OpenAI and its early partners, ...

Meta proposal for less data sharing is approved by European Commission https://therecord.media/meta-less-data-sharing-european-commission

imagine spinning a little jet engine capable of supersonic flight next time you prompt your favorite LLM / genAI...
naturally, there are companies producing gas turbines for data centers, but like with RAM memory and SSD, the unexpected growth of data centers caused shortages, hence repurposing of jet engines for energy production...

Rechenzentrum-Projekt von NTT in Nierstein nimmt nächsten Schritt
Die Planungen für die 482-Megawatt-Anlage von NTT Data nehmen die erste rechtliche Hürde. Der gesamte Bau soll rund zehn Jahre dauern und 2027 starten.

Make Me Data Literate
features Dr Linda McIver interviewing fascinating people who work with Data, asking the question: What is the one thing you wish everyone knew about data...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/make-me-data-lit…

'Largest economic development in history': $20 billion dollar data center coming to Southaven (Hannah Kozlowski/Action News 5)
https://www.actionnews5.com/2026/01/08/largest-economic-development-history-20-billion-dollar-data-center-coming-southaven/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260108/p106#a260108p106

@… こちらを

Let's dissect this AI garbage
1. The camera is a "Hitachi MP-EG10", not the "Hitachi MP-Eg1"
2. It's actually not a driver for the camera but for the Hitachi MP-ADI1 ISA interface kit (the camera is from 1997 and predates USB and didn't have an easy way to directly transfer data)
3. It's in a little plastic baggy, not "sealed"
4. It's neither valuable nor for "anyone"
5. It doesn't enhance any experiences

from my link log —
What we’re talking about, when we talk about data destruction.
https://free-dissociation.com/blog/posts/2019/01/what-were-talking-about-when-we-talk-about-data-destruction/
saved 2026-01-0…

What We’re Talking About, When We Talk About Data Destruction
When I wrote my post back in May of last year about Apple’s recycled hardware reuse policy, I found myself frustrated by how hard it was to talk about how well a storage device had been destr…

Open Infrastructure Map
Open Infrastructure Map is a view of the world's infrastructure mapped in the OpenStreetMap database. This data isn't exposed on the default OSM map, so there built Open Infrastructure Map to visualise it.
🌎 https://openinframap.org
:mastodon:

The NHS Barts Health Hospital wants to legally ban the publication, use, or sharing of data stolen by the Clop gang by anyone.
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/uk-hospital-asks-court-to-stymie-ransomware-data-leak-a-30222

On 16WW Data Collections and Graphs - Open for research home #dataset - https://m.earth.org.uk/note-on-data.html

On 16WW Data Collections and Graphs
Open for research home #dataset

ICE arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal record during first nine months of Trump’s presidency
Data shows how arrests haven’t matched with the administration’s vow to go after the worst of the worst and violent criminals
https://www.

ICE arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal record during first nine months of Trump’s presidency, records show
The data shows how arrests haven’t always matched with administration’s vow to go after the worst of the worst and violent criminals

Uber launches Uber Intelligence, an insights platform that lets advertisers tap into Uber's data about customer trips and deliveries (Lara O'Reilly/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-ads-launches-intelli…

Uber is turning trip and takeout data into insights for marketers
Uber has said its ad business is on track to generate $1.5 billion in revenue in 2025. It's hoping a new insights platform will encourage more spend.

A district court judge denies Texas AG Ken Paxton's request for a restraining order preventing Samsung from collecting data on TV watchers (Ryan Autullo/Bloomberg Law)
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/sa…

Samsung Defeats Texas’ Bid to Halt TV Tech Following Court Error
Samsung Electronics America can continue to use technology that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) says allows it to unlawfully collect data on TV watchers, a judge ruled Friday.

Check out today's Metacurity for the most crucial cybersecurity developments you should know, including
--Man pleads guilty in the first successful US prosecution of a stalkerware operator,
--Korea warns of hacking forum that steals and sells data,
--NZ High court enjoins publication of stolen medical data,
--UK government launches $282m cyber action plan,
--Threat actor stole and threatens to leak data from insurer Prosura,
--Command injection flaw fou…

Man pleads guilty in the first successful US prosecution of a stalkerware operator
Korea warns of hacking forum that steals and sells data, NZ High court enjoins publication of stolen medical data, UK government launches $282m cyber action plan, Threat actor stole and threatens to leak data from insurer Prosura, Command injection flaw found in D-Link DSL routers, much more

Coupang CEO Park Dae-jun resigns after the company incurred South Korea's largest-ever data breach, in which the personal data of 30M people was compromised (Mark Anderson/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

sp_high_school: High school temporal contacts (2013)
These data sets correspond to the contacts and friendship relations between students in a high school in Marseilles, France, in December 2013, as measured through several techniques.
This network has 329 nodes and 502 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Weighted, Temporal, Metadata

Future Plans:
I have like ten years of data in my log, converted from those prior prototypes. I will be adding ways to more usefully compare and analyse data going this far back.
It could maybe use a milestone function, to track singular events which don't take actual time so don't spread on the grid. Snack tracking and the like.
It could likely use a flashcard system, with spaced repetition to review the flashcards, for better memory and recall.
Synching between devices might be nice, and lots will suggest doing that through Nostr, but Nostr is a bit public. Would need an encryption layer. Do nostr relays want to relay encrypted data from one user to themselves I suspect Veilid ( https://veilid.com/ ) would be a better option. The "no servers" ethos probably includes nostr relays.
Mostly I plan just more and better ways to view the ten years and growing of data I already have. And to do some other things for a bit so my log isn't just full of "Vibecoding Exocortex" like it is the last two weeks 😉

16WW Energy Series Dataset - Data series of electricity and gas and other energy generation and use. #energy #microgen #dataset -

16WW Energy Series Dataset
Data series of electricity and gas and other energy generation and use. #energy #microgen #dataset

Kristi Noem and DHS do not deserve the benefit of the doubt (Philip Bump/MS NOW)
https://www.ms.now/opinion/kristi-noem-dhs-ice-data
http://www.memeorandum.com/260109/p130#a260109p130

Five bold Super Bowl LX predictions that sound far-fetched -- until you look into the data

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/super-bowl-lx-bold-predictions-data-preview/

The People Tracking America's AI Data Centers https://www.404media.co/the-people-tracking-americas-ai-data-centers/

A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups
has demanded a national moratorium
on new datacenters in the US,
the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry
that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.
The green groups, including
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and dozens of local organizations,
have urged members of Congress to halt the pro…

Polymarket agrees to its first media partnership to supply Dow Jones outlets, including the WSJ and Barron's, with real-time prediction market trading data (Katherine Doherty/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Polymarket to Distribute Prediction Data to Dow Jones Outlets
Polymarket will supply Dow Jones with trading data under a new partnership, the latest in a string of deals between exchanges and media organizations that are putting prediction markets in front of a broader audience.

So Korea's Coupang's cyber insurance gives it coverage of only around $682,000.
https://www.chosun.com/english/market-money-en/2025/12/08/KXCKOF2BYJEFHJQJDYZI6MQZSE/

Coupang's 1 Billion Won Insurance Falls Short After 33.7 Million Data Breach
Coupangs 1 Billion Won Insurance Falls Short After 33.7 Million Data Breach Critics demand higher insurance limits as current minimums fail to cover massive breaches, with calls to increase coverage up to 100 billion won

On Website Technicals (2026-01) - Tech updates: new energy series, SSES peak tweak, Zenodo archives, data correction... - https://m.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals-104.html

On Website Technicals (2026-01)
Tech updates: new energy series, SSES peak tweak, Zenodo archives, data correction...

Substack notifies users about a "limited" data breach in October 2025, found on February 3 and now patched; a threat actor leaked a database of ~697K records (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/secu

Newsletter platform Substack notifies users of data breach
Newsletter platform Substack is notifying users of a data breach after attackers stole their email addresses and phone numbers in October 2025.

law_firm: Lazega law firm network
Multiplex network with 3 edge types representing relationships (coworkers, friendship, advice) between partners and associates of a corporate law firm. Data hosted by Manlio De Domenico.
This network has 71 nodes and 2571 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Multilayer, Unweighted
https://net…

Only one day left in the first work week of 2026, so don't miss today's Metacurity for a concise run-down of the top infosec developments you should know, including
--Salt Typhoon infiltrated US House China Committee, other committees, sources,
--TX court enjoins Samsung from using or selling consumer data,
--FCC exempts some Chinese tech at Pentagon's request,
--Man accused of stealing Snapchat access codes for 600 women for university coach,
--Ni8ma…

Salt Typhoon infiltrated US House China Committee, other committees, sources
TX court enjoins Samsung from using or selling consumer data, FCC exempts some Chinese tech at Pentagon's request, Man accused of stealing Snapchat access codes for 600 women for Northeastern Univ. coach, Ni8mare flaw allows takeover of N8N workflow automation platform, much more

After a White Town Rejected a Data Center, Developers Targeted a Black Area (Adam Mahoney/Capital B News)
https://capitalbnews.org/data-center-south-carolina-black-community/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260107/p86#a260107p86

Sources: Mercor rival micro1 has told investors it is now generating $200M in recurring revenue; Mercor is offering micro1 employees signing bonuses up to $2M (Anna Tong/Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/annatong/2026/02/05/the-ai-talent-wars-have…

The AI Talent Wars Have Hit Data Labeling
The AI Talent Wars Have Hit Data Labeling

It's a pretty big day in cybersecurity news, so don't miss today's Metacurity for the critical developments you should know, including
--Korean cops raid Coupang HQ looking for security lapses, breach perpetrator clues,
--Compromise NDAA bill is chock full of cyber provisions,
--FTC rejects petition from spyware company founder,
--Commonwealth Bank of Australia fined A$702k for breaching data rules,
--FBI warns of fake proof of life photos,
--Oz…

Korean cops raid Coupang HQ looking for security lapses, breach perpetrator clues
Compromise NDAA bill is chock full of cyber provisions, FTC rejects petition from spyware company founder, Commonwealth Bank of Australia fined A$702k for breaching data rules, FBI warns of fake proof of life photos, Oz teen social media limits go live tomorrow, much more

The European Commission says Apple and Google's Android-iPhone data transfer tool, which will be available globally, is an example of the benefits of the DMA (Chance Miller/9to5Mac)
https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/09/iphone-android-switching-ios-26/

EU says easier iPhone-Android switching is proof the DMA is working - 9to5Mac
The EU says Apple and Google’s new iPhone-Android switching tools show the DMA is working, delivering easier, faster data transfers for users.

ICE has arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal records, data shows (NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/ice-arrested-nearly-75000-people-no-criminal-records-data-shows-rcna247377
http://www.memeorandum.com/251207/p3#a251207p3

Sources: the White House is drafting a voluntary pact seeking commitments from tech companies to ensure data centers don't raise electricity prices and more (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/09/tru…

South Korean media: police raided Coupang's HQ, searching for evidence related to a historic data breach that compromised 30M people's personal information (Jane Lanhee Lee/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Snowflake agrees to acquire Observe, an observability platform built on Snowflake databases; the deal was previously reported to be valued at around $1B (Rebecca Szkutak/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/08/snowflake-announces-…

Snowflake announces its intent to buy observability platform Observe | TechCrunch
Snowflake is bolstering its data stack to make the platform better suited to the sheer volume of data produced by AI agents.

Internal documents and insider communications obtained by CDG News reveal that 700Credit, one of the auto industry's largest credit reporting and identity verification providers, experienced a data breach on or around October 25, 2025
https://news.dealersh…

700Credit suffers data breach exposing consumer SSNs, documents show
700Credit discovered the breach after being "alerted to suspicious activity within our proprietary web-based application 700Dealer.com," according to an internal memo shared with CDG. (3 min. read)

New York lawmakers propose a bill to impose a three-year moratorium on data center development, making NY at least the sixth state to introduce such legislation (Molly Taft/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/new-york-is-the-latest-state-to-consider-a…

New York Is the Latest State to Consider a Data Center Pause
Red and blue states alike have introduced legislation in recent weeks that would halt data center development, citing concerns from climate to high energy prices.

Coupang is facing scrutiny after a data leak revealed that major portions of its Korean-language service were built and maintained by Chinese devs--the main suspect in its recent breach is a former Chinese employee who worked on the company’s authentication systems.
http:/…

Coupang Data Breach Raises Scrutiny of Foreign Developer Hiring, Including Large China-Based Teams - Be Korea-savvy
SEOUL, Dec. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang is facing intensifying scrutiny after a major data leak revealed …

How the huge data center buildout is heating up local politics in US towns across red and blue states on issues like water, electricity, and noise (Evan Halper/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/06/da…

The data center rebellion is here, and it’s reshaping the political landscape
As the buildout of AI infrastructure alarms communities, it is fast emerging as a potent electoral issue across the political divide.

Sources: London-based 9fin, a data provider for debt markets, is in talks to raise as much as $150M at a pre-money valuation of $1B, about 20x its ARR of ~$50M (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-06/cred…

Credit Data Firm 9fin Seeks $1 Billion Valuation in Fund Talks
Debt intelligence provider 9fin Ltd. is in talks to raise fresh capital at a valuation of as much as $1 billion as it seeks to gain a stronger foothold in the highly competitive market for credit research.

Fundamental, which has developed an LTM to analyze structured data, comes out of stealth with $255M in funding, including a $225M Series A, at a $1.2B valuation (Russell Brandom/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/05/fund…

Fundamental raises $255 million Series A with a new take on big data analysis | TechCrunch
Fundamental has built a new foundation model to solve an old problem: how to draw insights from the huge quantities of structured data produced by enterprises.

Israeli data security startup Cyera raised a $400M Series F led by Blackstone Growth at a $9B valuation, up from $6B after raising $540M in June 2025 (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/01/08/cyera-c

Exclusive: Cyera CEO Yotam Segev on raising $400 million and why the stakes in cybersecurity are getting higher
Just six months after fetching a $6 billion valuation, cyber startup Cyera has raised $400 million at a $9 billion valuation.

Big Tech's AI data center plans, which are set to need an estimated 44GW of additional capacity by 2028, face a power crunch that could deflate the AI "bubble" (Financial Times)
https://ig.ft.com/ai-power/

IBM agrees to acquire data streaming software maker Confluent for ~$11B in cash, above its ~$8B market value as of its December 5 close, paying $31 per share (Lauren Thomas/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/ibm-nears…

Boom's move to modify its supersonic engine to power AI data centers is another example of industrial capacity being repurposed to serve the AI supply chain (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-12-09/the-ai-boom-is-absorbin…

The EU says it ordered X to retain all internal docs and data relating to Grok until the end of 2026, after criticizing Grok's nonconsensual image generation (Louise Breusch Rasmussen/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-commissio

Pomelo Care, which delivers 24/7 virtual care for women by using data to flag pregnancy risks and more, raised $92M led by Stripes at a $1.7B valuation (Amy Feldman/Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/20

This CEO’s $1.7 Billion Health Startup Began With Moms. Now She Wants To Expand To All Women.
Former Flatiron Health exec Marta Bralic Kerns raised $92 million to expand her virtual care model to women at all stages of their lives.

NextEra Energy expands its partnership with Google Cloud to develop data centre campuses across the US and secures 2.5 GW of clean energy contracts from Meta (Vallari Srivastava/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/next…

An interview with 10 Kenyan AI annotators shows Chinese companies hire data labelers via opaque middleman networks and WhatsApp groups to avoid accountability (Rest of World)
https://restofworld.org/2025/kenya-china-ai-workers/

The hidden Kenyan workers training China’s AI models
An unemployment crisis has created fertile ground for companies to step in with opaque systems built on WhatsApp groups, middlemen, and bargain-basement wages.

As data center development pressures power grids, officials have proposed requiring data centers to power down or switch to a backup when blackout risks rise (Katherine Blunt/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil…

Blackstone and Coatue grant a $10B loan to Australian AI infrastructure startup Firmus for data center expansion, among Australia's largest private credit deals (Sharon Klyne/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Apple and Google say they've developed new features that streamline the process of moving data between each platform as part of a joint collaboration (Abner Li/9to5Google)
https://9to5google.com/2025/12/08/android-iphone-switching/

Google and Apple partner on better Android-iPhone switching 
The latest Android Canary is available today and it features work by Apple and Google to make switching between Android and iPhone easier.

Japan faces bottlenecks in data center construction due to labor shortages and more; DC Byte says Japan's capacity has tripled to 6.8 GW in the past five years (Tsubasa Suruga/Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/techn

Bottlenecks in data center construction threaten Japan's AI ambitions
Labor shortages, rising costs and outdated building processes delay construction

Dutch media: ASML has sold parts to a subsidiary of a Chinese army supplier, per Chinese import and export data; ASML says it can't confirm the report (Toby Sterling/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/asml-c

David Sacks says AI preemption won't apply to state laws on child safety, communities won't be forced to host data centers they don't want, and more (David Sacks/@davidsacks)
https://x.com/davidsacks/status/1998125180753944985

David Sacks (@DavidSacks) on X
ONE RULEBOOK FOR AI I wanted to share a few thoughts on AI preemption and address some of the concerns. First, this is not an “AI amnesty” or “AI moratorium.” It is an attempt to settle a question of jurisdiction. When an AI model is developed in state A, trained in state B,

OpenAI unveils ChatGPT Health, which lets users import medical records and other data from health apps into ChatGPT, initially available to a small group (Ina Fried/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/07/chatgpt-health-tab-apple-fitness-apps

OpenAI adds ChatGPT Health for medical questions
OpenAI's new feature brings in medical records and data from Apple Health and MyFitnessPal.

Local governments across China are funding dozens of "robot training centers", where human trainers mimic movements like folding clothes to teach the robots (Rest of World)
https://restofworld.org/2026/china-robots-training-centers-workers/

In Chinese data factories, workers teach humanoid robots boring tasks
Local governments are building training centers to address a shortage of robotic data, as China makes embodied intelligence a national priority.

OpenAI and SoftBank says they will each invest $500M in SB Energy to support the infrastructure company's growth as a data center developer and operator (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-09/openai…

Boom Aerospace, which is building a supersonic plane, announces Superpower, a 42MW natural gas turbine using Boom's supersonic engine, to power AI data centers (Boom)
https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/ai-needs-more-power-than-the…

Boom - FlyBy - AI Needs More Power Than the Grid Can Deliver. Supersonic Tech Can Fix That.
Today, we’re announcing Superpower, our new 42 MW natural gas turbine, along with a $300M funding round and Crusoe as our launch customer.

Circle launches USDCx, a privacy-focused version of its USDC stablecoin on the Aleo blockchain, to give users "banking-level privacy" with a "compliance record" (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/09/circle-privacy-stablecoin-aleo-uds…

Exclusive: Circle stablecoin for ‘banking-level privacy’ to launch on Aleo blockchain
Blockchains make data public, but Aleo founder Howard Wu hopes to lure big banks and institutions to crypto through semi-private stablecoins.

Neara, which builds digital twins of critical infrastructure to help prepare for disasters, raised a AU$90M Series D, a source says at a AU$1.1B valuation (Rhiannon Hoyle/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/ar…

Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicro agrees to supply AWS with various chips, including for high-bandwidth connectivity and power management; STM jumps 5% (Christina Kyriasoglou/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202…