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Tech Beat · 3 AM Update

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Virginia has drawn a line in the sand over AI power costs. The state, which hosts more data centers than anywhere else in the country, is now requiring those facilities to pay for the electricity infrastructure their growth demands. Everyday residents could save hundreds of millions of dollars as a result — a rare case of policy moving at the speed of the industry it is regulating.

On the question of finding information online, a piece in The Walrus is making the rounds with a pointed argument: Google Search is dying, and whatever replaces it may actually be worse. The concern is not just about market share shifting toward AI-generated answers, but about what we lose when the open web stops being the place people turn to first. It is a trade-off worth sitting with.

And for something that puts human scale in perspective — a developer has built a website that lets you scroll through every possible state of a Rubik's Cube. All forty-three quintillion, two hundred fifty-two quadrillion of them. The project is equal parts absurd and quietly profound, a reminder that some numbers only make sense when you try, and fail, to move through them.

Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.

Sources

  1. https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/01/a-c++-toolchain-from-357-bytes-in-bazel
  2. https://old.reddit.com/r/emacs
  3. https://www.techradar.com/home/coffee-machines/kitchenaid-kf2-review
  4. https://www.techradar.com/pro/virginia-cracks-down-on-electricity-firms-hiking-prices-for-ai-data-centers-move-could-save-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-for-everyday-users
  5. https://everycube.alen.is/
  6. https://starryprinceton.org/scattering_calculations_renderings?
  7. https://worldtrainmap.com/
  8. https://thewalrus.ca/google-search-is-dying/
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