Latest news with #PalmPilot
Politico
5 days ago
- Business
- Politico
‘Unlike Anything We've Seen': The Energy Industry is Counting on the AI Boom
'Load growth has been flat, basically flat, for 20 years or more in the U.S.,' said Tom Wilson, a grid expert at the Electric Power Research Institute, a think tank. 'And so the idea of load going up allows you, at the very highest level, to spread any sort of system-wide cost that should be allocated to the various players over a larger number of kilowatt-hours.' The broader uncertainty across the energy policy landscape helps explain why utilities are clinging to tech so fiercely now. And while tech may not have stuck its neck out particularly far on behalf of renewable tax credits, it's still going to be the power sector's best customer. The electric power industry's relative dispassion may also give it a valuable role in the continuing partisan battles over solar and wind power's reliability, as my colleague Nico Portuondo reported last month. When Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) dinged renewables at a hearing on electricity demand, Jeff Tench, executive vice president at Vantage Data Centers, offered a mild corrective. 'Our observation and our requirement is for more electrons, and Vantage is relatively agnostic as to the source of those electrons,' he said. So far, data centers have only increased total U.S. power demand by a tiny amount (they make up roughly 4.4 percent of electricity use, which rose 2 percent overall last year). But the two industries' fates are already linked. When Chinese firm DeepSeek unveiled an AI model in January that it billed as 10 to 40 times cheaper and more efficient than U.S. models like ChatGPT, the stock of tech giants like NVIDIA and Oracle plummeted — as did that of power providers like Constellation, Vistra and GE Vernova. There are risks in a hidebound, tightly regulated industry like power, which is essentially physical in nature, hitching its wagon to mercurial tech. 'There is a scenario where utilities benefit from this,' said Michael Wara, director of Stanford University's climate and energy policy program. 'And there's also a scenario where they overplay their hand dramatically.' There are several ways utilities could do that. One is taking demand estimates at face value and overbuilding. The tech industry is famous for its ability to improve its efficiency — and, simultaneously, for its tendency to overstate the energy use of new widgets. Computing history is littered with laughable-in-retrospect claims, like the one about a Palm Pilot using as much electricity as a refrigerator. 'Nobody has any idea how much demand is going to be from AI in five years, and anyone who says that they know that is lying,' said Jonathan Koomey, a researcher who's devoted decades to debunking demand projections and coined Koomey's Law, which holds that computing energy efficiency doubles every 18 months. There are solutions, though. In Virginia, for example, where data centers make up a quarter of demand and are projected to quadruple again by 2040, Dominion Energy is requiring data centers commit to buying fixed amounts of power for 14 years, to protect against unexpected efficiencies.
Newsweek
21-07-2025
- Newsweek
Woman Intrigued by Mystery 1990s Gadget—Online Sleuths Know What To Do
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A woman was helping her stepbrother clear out his room when they found an old digital device, and the pair had no clue what it could be. Reddit user u/Walter_uses_agi took to the r/WhatIsThisThing sub on July 21, where, as the name implies, posters ask fellow internet users to identify something they have found. Submissions can range from items discovered while metal-detecting, unusual tools, strange weather phenomena—or, in this particular case, retro technology. "Found this weird seemingly digital object in my stepbrother's room while helping him move out—he doesn't know what it is," the Reddit poster wrote. "It's a little bigger than a credit card. It doesn't seem to turn on. I'm incredibly curious on what it might be so thought I'd ask here." She shared a photo of the small, gray and blue device with what appeared to be just two buttons on its face—mode and power. And to those not in the know, it could appear to be anything from a calculator to a tablet or game. But Reddit users acted quickly, and, within an hour, she had an answer: an ASI Hand Pilot, a type of personal digital assistant with an alarm and calendar, which converts currency and gives the current time in different places around the world. One helpful commenter even shared links to the product on sale on resale sites like eBay and Amazon. Hand Pilots were a Chinese brand following the success of the PalmPilot personal digital assistants, first released in 1996, before the rise of smartphones. As the mystery was solved, the original poster thanked commenters and said they were aware of Hand Pilots and PalmPilots, but had forgotten about them—and "thought it was some sort of Leap Pad." Stock image: A person works at a retro desktop computer. Stock image: A person works at a retro desktop computer. gorodenkoff/Getty Images Other commenters also basked in nostalgia, with one saying they "kept better track of my life on those things … than I ever did with a smartphone or tablet." Another posted: "Think of it like an old mobile phone, without phone or WiFi." A third shared: "I still have my old Palm Pilot. I transferred the data out a long time ago, but still love the device and will never get rid of it." And as one comment put it: "Wow this brings back memories! I had one of these as a kid. Don't know where I got it or why but I sure did feel grown up tapping [on the] stylus." Newsweek has contacted u/Walter_uses_agi via Reddit for comment on this story. Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures you want to share? Send them to life@ with some extra details, and they could appear on our website.
