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- The Trump Administration’s insistence on low-cost BEAD proposals has left a $21 billion slush fund of leftover BEAD monies
- The NTIA is currently trying to decide what to do with these non-deployment funds
- Meanwhile, an industry consultant predicts there will be defaults in the BEAD program
Many stakeholders in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program are too polite to call the program a “dud.” But they’re starting to question whether BEAD — since the Trump administration changed the rules in mid-2025 — is going to make a real difference in closing the digital divide. There are concerns about the large amount of BEAD funds that are leftover. People are also questioning whether satellite will provide enough bandwidth over time. And at least one industry consultant predicts there will be defaults in the BEAD program. First, there’s concern that only about half of the $42.5 billion that was allocated for BEAD is going toward connecting households. The remaining non-deployment funds are still in limbo-land.
ZDNET's key takeaways - Nvidia's NemoClaw aims to make OpenClaw agents more secure.
- OpenClaw agents are highly capable, but come with risks.
- The company also launched a multi-lab open-source model coalition.
"What's your OpenClaw strategy?" Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang asked rhetorically to the crowd at Nvidia GTC, the company's annual AI conference, on Monday. The company is full steam ahead on AI agents -- and it's hoping its latest release can fix OpenClaw's security problem. During the keynote, Huang announced Nvidia's new NemoClaw stack, which is built to shore up the OpenClaw agent platform, the viral open-source assistant framework that has impressed users with its autonomous capabilities.
We studied the performance of 14 of the largest municipal networks from December 2024 through December 2025, and compared their performance to each other and to their ISP competitors. Key Takeaways: - When compared to their broadband competitors, eight municipal providers in the U.S. that we monitored using Ookla Speedtest data beat their broadband competitors in median upload speeds and one municipal provider, Sherwood Broadband, outpaced the competition in median download speeds. We monitored a total of 14 municipal providers, however, one provider —EBP— did not have any competitors with enough test samples to compare its performance against.
Washington (March 15, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr, urging him to resign over his latest social media post threatening to revoke broadcasters’ licenses if they do not cover the illegal war with Iran with Donald Trump’s preferred narrative. Senator Markey highlights this post as an extraordinary abuse of FCC authority and a clear violation of the First Amendment, as well as the Trump administration’s latest authoritarian attempt to weaponize the FCC’s statutory authority to censor the media.
The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed since February 28, 2026. Brent crude broke $100 a barrel, the IEA took the unprecedented step of releasing 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, and the entire market is focused on oil prices and what happens at the pump. But I spend my time picking apart energy bottlenecks for AI data centers, and what I see behind the oil headlines looks more consequential — and far less priced in — than a temporary fuel cost spike. My thesis: the Hormuz crisis shifts the US data center buildout timeline by 12 to 24 months on a significant share of projects — not through a single channel, but through five parallel supply chain shocks with different delay lags, several of which reinforce each other. The probability-weighted estimate of a material delay sits around 50%. That’s not a tail risk. That’s a coin flip.
Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war with Iran, his latest move in a campaign to stomp out what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts. As the war entered its third week, Mr. Carr accused broadcasters of “running hoaxes and news distortions” in a social media post and warned them to “correct course before their license renewals come up.” “Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” he said. Mr. Carr shared a Truth Social post by President Trump that criticized the news media for its coverage of the war with Iran. Mr. Trump referred to a story published by The Wall Street Journal that reported five American refueling planes had been struck in Saudi Arabia, claiming its headline was “intentionally misleading.” He accused the news media of wanting the United States to lose the war.
The investors for the TikTok USDS Joint Venture will pay out the total across several payments, according to a Wall Street Journal report. There may have been some extra incentive for the Trump administration to get the TikTok US deal done. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration is set to receive a total of $10 billion in the deal that allowed TikTok to remain in the US. The new investors who acquired stakes in the US entity of TikTok already paid a $2.5 billion fee to the administration when the deal closed in January, but WSJ's latest report noted that the group of investors would continue to make payments until the total hits $10 billion.
Selling on Amazon is a tough business. Sure, you can reach a lot of customers, but this comes at a very high price: the junk fees that Amazon extracts from its sellers amount to 50–60% of the price you pay. That’s a hell of a lot of money to hand over to a middleman, but it’s not like vendors have much choice. The vast majority of America’s affluent households are Prime subscribers (depending on how you define “affluent household” it’s north of 90%). Prime households prepay for a year’s worth of shipping, so it’s only natural that they start their shopping on Amazon, where they’ve already paid the delivery costs. And because Amazon reliably meets or beats the prices you’d pay elsewhere, Prime subscribers who find a product on Amazon overwhelmingly stop their shopping at Amazon, too. At this point you might be thinking a couple things:
In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the world of the “military-industrial complex” — an economic system that puts the war economy above all else, even the needs of a democracy. Eisenhower said that the “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist” when big government strikes lucrative defense deals with big industry. He called on “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” to ensure that U.S. national security aligned with peaceful, democratic goals. Fast forward 65 years to the Trump White House and Eisenhower’s warning remains a major concern — only the complex has changed from an industrial one to a technological one. Despite their earlier commitments to do no harm, Big Tech’s largest firms are now ever-ready to supply the U.S. government with the high-tech tools it needs to go to war against Donald Trump’s imagined enemies, both foreign and domestic.
WASHINGTON, March 13, 2026 – Some rural broadband providers are struggling to secure fiber that complies with a $42.45 billion grant program’s domestic manufacturing rules. Two ISPs participating in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, plus a distributor, contractor, and others described orders for fiber being unexpectedly canceled in recent weeks. Most requested anonymity to avoid jeopardizing business relationships.
The time for careful consideration of AI regulation options is now. In a few years, it could be too late. A few weeks ago, I wrote that, from a legal perspective, 2026 would be a make-or-break year for AI. The regulatory Wild West we are currently living in cannot possibly persist without chaos reigning and people realizing that they are fully unprotected from the negative consequences of AI development and deployment. We are still in March, but it has already become clear that this is the year in which democratically elected authorities must take bold decisions on AI. - An important factor that has led us to where we are now is that the risk profile and the social impact of AI have been clearly underestimated over the past 10-15 years of AI policy debates. They did not take into ac
On Sunday stars will take to the red carpet for the 98th Academy Awards in front of a heavy backdrop of fascism, war and corruption coming straight from the White House. We’ve already seen household names from Samuel L. Jackson to Billie Eilish using their celebrity to decry ICE at previous awards shows. We hope that artists continue to speak out against the xenophobia tearing apart our country, illegal wars and the innocent lives lost. We also need to be talking about how Trump is angling to capture Hollywood and control its movie-making machine. That’s why Free Press is driving a billboard around Los Angeles this weekend showing Trump pulling the strings behind the massive media merger that threatens to upend Hollywood and the news business, too. Paramount Skydance has won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, a storied studio that also happens to own CNN, Nickelodeon and HBO. David Ellison, the son of tech centibillionaire and Trump ally Larry Ellison, runs Paramount Skydance, and the Ellisons have made it no secret that they’re willing to contort their massive media conglomerate into a Trump propaganda megaphone. We couldn’t have scripted a more detestable cast of bad guys.
WASHINGTON, March 13, 2026 – Can you have too much of a good thing? Former Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly seems to think so. The former Republican FCC Commissioner sees USDA programs as wasteful and unnecessary. In an op-ed published Wednesday, O’Rielly called on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to oppose the renewal of three broadband programs run through the Department of Agriculture, arguing that National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) program and the FCC’s Universal Service Fund make these programs unnecessary.
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Daniela Amodei, who cofounded Anthropic with her brother Dario, said uniquely human qualities will actually be more critical in the age of AI, not less. In an interview with ABC News that aired on Saturday, she said the number of jobs that AI could do without help from people is “vanishingly small.” At the same time, even the most cognitively challenging tasks that humans excel at can also be augmented by AI. “I continue to believe that humans plus AI together actually create more meaningful work, more challenging work, more interesting work, high-productivity jobs,” Amodei added. “And then I think it will also open the aperture to a lot of access and opportunity for many people.”
SAN JOSE, March 16, 2026 (AP) – Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Monday elaborated on his vision for keeping his company at the forefront of the artificial intelligence boom that he predicted will produce a $1 trillion backlog in orders within the next year. Huang, 63, also touched upon many of the themes that he has been trumpeting since he emerged as one of Silicon Valley's most influential voices during the past few years, including his thesis that the AI buildup remains in its infancy.
Fierce Network recently had an interesting article about Consumer Cellular. This is a cellular MVNO that you might not have heard of. For those not familiar with the term, an MVNO is a cellular company that buys wholesale minutes and data from one of the large cellular carriers and markets the cellular product under its own brand name. Consumer Cellular operates on the AT&T network. The company was founded over thirty years ago, aligns with AARP, and has always marketed to older cellular customers. Consumer Cellular stresses affordable cell plans, and its average revenue per customer is around $30 per month. The most interesting thing about the company is that it is growing while many other MNVOs are shrinking. The company has grown to over 4.4 million customers and is still seeing continued customer growth.
A month after Seedance 2.0's launch in China sparked cease-and-desist letters from Disney and Paramount Skydance over its use of copyrighted materials, its developer ByteDance has reportedly hit pause on the release of the AI video tool in other regions. According to The Information, which spoke to two anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter, ByteDance has suspended Seedance 2.0's global rollout. Engadget has reached out to ByteDance for comment and will update this story if we hear back with more information. Seedance 2.0 caught heat from Hollywood studios almost immediately upon its release, after user-generated videos including a viral AI clip of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise sparked concerns that copyrighted works were used in training the model. In February, ByteDance told the BBC that it is "taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users." It's unclear when exactly ByteDance planned to release the tool more widely.
ROME - Mr. Peter Thiel, the US billionaire venture capitalist and early supporter of President Donald Trump, launched on March 15 a series of closed-door lectures in Rome exploring the concept of the Antichrist, drawing scrutiny from Catholic commentators. The invitation-only conference, which runs until March 18, is not open to the press and its venue has not been publicly disclosed. Organisers quoted in the media say participants are drawn from academia, technology and religious circles. A co-founder of Palantir Technologies, an AI software company with deep ties to the US defence and intelligence agencies, Mr. Thiel has in recent years devoted increasing attention to religious and philosophical ideas. In 2025, he held a similar series of talks in San Francisco exploring the possibility that the Antichrist – a figure who opposes or denies Christ – could emerge on the global stage.
Software demos and Pentagon records detail how chatbots like Anthropic’s Claude could help the Pentagon analyze intelligence and suggest next steps. An ongoing and heated dispute between the Pentagon and Anthropic is raising new questions about how the startup’s technology is actually used inside the US military. In late February, Anthropic refused to grant the government unconditional access to its Claude AI models, insisting the systems should not be used for mass surveillance of Americans or fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon responded by labeling Anthropic's products a “supply-chain risk,” prompting the startup to file two lawsuits this week alleging illegal retaliation by the Trump administration and seeking to overturn the designation. The clash, along with the rapidly escalating war in Iran, has drawn attention to Anthropic’s partnership with the military contractor Palantir, which announced in November 2024 that it would integrate Claude into the software it sells to US intelligence and defense agencies. Palantir says the Claude integration can help analysts uncover “data-driven insights,” identify patterns, and support making “informed decisions in time-sensitive situations.”
The Trump administration has asserted for months that its “bargain” version of the federal $42.5 billion grant program to expand access to broadband internet would save taxpayers money. That made states and their representatives in Congress nervous that funds left over after deployment proposals would be clawed back. Under pressure from senators at an appropriations hearing, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick last month sought to calm fears when he said that so-called “non-deployment” funds under the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment, or BEAD, program would not be rescinded. But with no guidance so far from the department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which was expected but delayed this week, lawmakers and others are pushing to have their voice heard on exactly how states will be able to use the $21 billion pot of money.
SUGARLOAF, Penn., March 13, 2026 (AP) — For John Zola, the 40 acres were like a paradise: apple orchards tucked into northern Pennsylvania's rolling hills, a barn, meadows and more than enough land for four houses: one for himself and his wife and each of his three adult children. It’s been “hell,” however, since a contractor hired by the local power utility knocked on Zola's door in late 2024 and informed him that it planned to build a 500-kilovolt power line through his property. High-voltage power lines cost tens of billions of dollars a year and are the latest front line in the battle over tech giants' massive operations. This line and others like it are being planned in accelerating numbers in the United States to deliver power, sometimes across hundreds of miles, to enormous data centers run by the world's biggest tech companies.
Utah became the first state to allow AI to prescribe drug refills. Creepy and crazy ... or a solution to health care woes?
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