How data centers could spark the next populist revolt



Everyone keeps promising that artificial intelligence will deliver wonders beyond imagination — medical breakthroughs, massive productivity gains, boundless prosperity. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But one outcome is already clear: If data centers keep driving up Americans’ electricity bills, AI will quickly become a political liability.

Across the country, data center expansion has already helped push electricity prices up 13% over the past year, and voters are starting to push back.

Handled correctly, AI can strengthen America. Handled poorly — by letting data centers overwhelm the grid and drive families toward energy poverty — it will accelerate decline.

In recent months, plans for massive new data centers in Virginia, Maryland, Texas, and Arizona have stalled or collapsed under local backlash. Ordinary Americans have packed town halls and flooded city councils, demanding protection from corporate projects that devour land, drain water supplies, and strain already fragile power grids.

These communities are not rejecting technology. They are rejecting exploitation. As one local official in Chandler, Arizona, told a developer bluntly, “If you can’t show me what’s in it for Chandler, then we’re not having a conversation.”

The problem runs deeper than zoning fights or aesthetics. America’s monopoly utility model shields data centers from the true cost of the strain they impose on the grid. When a facility requires new substations, transmission lines, or transformers — or when its relentless demand drives up electricity prices — utilities spread those costs across every household and small business in the service area.

That arrangement socializes the costs of Big Tech’s growth while privatizing the gains. It also breeds populist anger.

A better approach sits within reach: neighborhood battery programs that put communities first.

Whole-home battery systems continue to gain traction. Rooftop solar panels, small generators, or off-peak grid power can recharge them. Batteries store electricity when it’s cheap and abundant, then release it when demand spikes or outages hit. They protect families from blackouts, lower monthly utility bills, and sometimes allow homeowners to sell power back to the grid.

One policy shift should become non-negotiable: Approval for new data centers should hinge on funding neighborhood battery programs in the communities they impact.

In practice, that requirement would push tech companies to help install home battery systems in nearby neighborhoods, delivering backup power, grid stability, and real relief on electric bills. These distributed batteries would form a flexible, local energy reserve — absorbing peak demand instead of worsening it.

RELATED: Your laptop is about to become a casualty of the AI grift

Photo by: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Most importantly, this model reverses the flow of benefits. Working families would no longer subsidize Big Tech’s expansion while receiving nothing in return. Communities would share directly in the upside.

Access to local land, water, and electricity should come with obligations. Companies that consume enormous public resources should invest in the people who live alongside them — not leave residents stranded when the grid buckles.

Politicians who ignore this gathering backlash risk sleepwalking into a revolt. The choice is straightforward: Build an energy system that serves citizens who keep the country running, or face their fury when they realize they have been sacrificed for someone else’s high-tech gold rush.

Handled correctly, AI can strengthen America. Handled poorly — by letting data centers overwhelm the grid and drive families toward energy poverty — it will accelerate decline.

We still have time to choose. Let’s choose wisely.

Trump Is About to Let Ai Destroy the Working Class, Here’s How to Stop It | Ro Khanna
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Trump Is About to Let Ai Destroy the Working Class, Here’s How to Stop It | Ro Khanna

Your laptop is about to become a casualty of the AI grift



Welcome to the techno-feudal state, where citizens are forced to underwrite unnecessary and harmful technology at the expense of the technology they actually need.

The economic story of 2025 is the government-driven build-out of hyperscale AI data centers — sold as innovation, justified as national strategy, and pursued in service of cloud-based chatbot slop and expanded surveillance. This build-out is consuming land, food, water, and energy at enormous scale. As Energy Secretary Chris Wright bluntly put it, “It takes massive amounts of electricity to generate intelligence. The more energy invested, the more intelligence produced.”

Shortages will hit consumers hard in the coming year.

That framing ignores what is being sacrificed — and distorted — in the process.

Beyond the destruction of rural communities and the strain placed on national energy capacity, government favoritism toward AI infrastructure is warping markets. Capital that once sustained the hardware and software ecosystem of the digital economy is being siphoned into subsidized “AI factories,” chasing artificial general intelligence instead of cheaper, more efficient investments in narrow AI.

Thanks to fiscal, monetary, tax, and regulatory favoritism, the result is free chatbot slop and an increasingly scarce, expensive supply of laptops, phones, and consumer hardware.

Subsidies break the market

For decades, consumer electronics stood as one of the greatest deflationary success stories in modern economics. Unlike health care or education — both heavily monopolized by government — the computer industry operated with relatively little distortion. From December 1997 to August 2015, the CPI for “personal computers and peripheral equipment” fell 96%. Over that same period, medical care, housing, and food costs rose between 80% and 200%.

That era is ending.

AI data centers are now crowding out consumer electronics. Major manufacturers such as Dell and Samsung are scaling back or discontinuing entire product lines because they can no longer secure components diverted to AI chip production.

Prices for phones and laptops are rising sharply. Jobs tied to consumer electronics — especially the remaining U.S.-based assembly operations — are being squeezed out in favor of data center hardware that benefits a narrow set of firms.

This is policy-driven distortion, not organic market evolution.

Through initiatives like Stargate and hundreds of billions in capital pushed toward data center expansion, the government has created incentives for companies to abandon consumer hardware in favor of AI infrastructure. The result is shortages that will hit consumers hard in the coming year.

Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are retooling factories to prioritize AI-grade silicon for data centers instead of personal devices. DRAM production is being routed almost entirely toward servers because it is far more profitable to leverage $40,000 AI chips than $500-$800 laptops. In the fourth quarter of 2025, contract prices for certain 16GB DDR5 chips rose nearly 300% as supply was diverted. Dell and Lenovo have already imposed 15%-30% price hikes on PCs, citing insatiable AI-sector demand.

The chip crunch

The situation is deteriorating quickly. DRAM inventory levels are down 80% year over year, with just three weeks of supply on hand — down from 9.5 weeks in July. SK Hynix expects shortages to persist through late 2027. Samsung has announced it is effectively out of inventory and has more than doubled DDR5 contract prices to roughly $19-$20 per unit. DDR5 is now standard across new consumer and commercial desktops and laptops, including Apple MacBooks.

Samsung has also signaled it may exit the SSD market altogether, deeming it insufficiently glamorous compared with subsidized data center investments. Nvidia has warned it may cut RTX 50 series production by up to 40%, a move that would drive up the cost of entry-level gaming systems.

Shrinkflation is next. Before the data center bubble, the market was approaching a baseline of 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSDs for entry-level laptops. As memory is diverted to enterprise customers, manufacturers will revert to 8GB systems with slower storage to keep prices under $999 — ironically rendering those machines incapable of running the very AI applications they’re working on.

Real innovation sidelined

The damage extends beyond prices. Research and development in conventional computing are already suffering. Investment in efficient CPUs, affordable networking equipment, edge computing, and quantum-adjacent technologies has slowed as capital and talent are pulled into AI accelerators.

This is precisely backward. Narrow AI — focused on real-world tasks like logistics, agriculture, port management, and manufacturing — is where genuine productivity gains lie. China understands this and is investing accordingly. The United States is not. Instead, firms like Roomba, which experimented with practical autonomy, are collapsing — only to be acquired by the Chinese!

This is not a free market. Between tax incentives, regulatory favoritism, land-use carve-outs, capital subsidies, and artificially suppressed interest rates, the government has created an arms race for a data center bubble China itself is not pursuing. Each round of monetary easing inflates the same firms’ valuations, enabling further speculative investment divorced from consumer need.

RELATED: China’s AI strategy could turn Americans into data mines

Grafissimo via iStock/Getty Images

Hype over utility

As Charles Hugh Smith recently noted, expanding credit boosts asset prices, which then serve as collateral for still more leverage — allowing capital-rich firms to outbid everyone else while hollowing out the broader economy.

The pattern is familiar. Consider the Ford plant in Glendale, Kentucky, where 1,600 workers were laid off after the collapse of government-favored electric vehicle investments. That facility is now being retooled to produce batteries for data centers. When one subsidy collapses, another replaces it.

We are trading convention for speculation. Conventional technology — reliable hardware, the internet, mobile computing — delivers proven, measurable utility. The current investment surge into artificial general intelligence is based on hypothetical future returns propped up by state power.

The good old laptop is becoming collateral damage in what may prove to be the largest government-induced tech bubble yet.

Trump Is About to Let Ai Destroy the Working Class, Here’s How to Stop It | Ro Khanna
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Trump Is About to Let Ai Destroy the Working Class, Here’s How to Stop It | Ro Khanna

Buckle up: We are headed for an AI collision with China



President Trump spoke by phone to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on November 24 and later posted on Truth Social, “Our relationship with China is extremely strong!” The warm feelings from Washington came on the heels of the two leaders holding a productive meeting in Korea recently and scheduling several more confabs for the year ahead.

But bubbling beneath the surface is a rivalry between the two countries over the most vital technology of the 21st century: artificial intelligence.

China is not abiding by the rules that are supposed to govern the global economy.

To understand the rivalry, consider a recent announcement by the U.S. Justice Department: On November 20, it charged two Americans and two Chinese nationals with a conspiracy to illegally export about 400 high-performance graphics processing units to China. Federal law requires a license for export of these technologies, which can be used to develop and strengthen AI.

The co-conspirators didn’t have a license — and never even applied for one. In fact, they lied about the destination of the GPUs when shipping them. And for their services, they received a cool $3.89 million in wire transfers from China.

The backdrop to this smuggling scheme is Beijing having set a goal for China to be the world’s leader in AI by 2030. And it’s made considerable headway. According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, “China is the global leader in AI research publications and is neck and neck with the United States on generative AI.” Additionally China is “advancing rapidly in AI research and application, challenging the United States’ dominance in this critical field.”

This progress stems from massive investments by the Chinese government. From 2000 to 2023, venture capital funds connected to the Chinese government made $184 billion in investments in China-based companies in the AI sector, according to a study published last year and conducted by professors at Harvard, MIT, and Oxford.

In an amusing coincidence, one day after the smuggling indictment, Huawei — a leading Chinese technology company — announced a tool called Flex:ai that it said “improves the utilization of artificial intelligence-based chipsets.” The announcement also made the obligatory nod to corporate citizenship, saying that the technology will “speed up the democratization of AI.” But the company buried the lede, saving the most important detail — which is curiously attributed to “sources” — for the final sentence: “The new software tool will help China create an analogue AI chip 1,000 times faster than Nvidia’s chips.”

Huawei is not just any company. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. And it’s also been engaged in the kind of skullduggery that resulted in the recent indictment. In 2020, the U.S. Justice Department indicted the company and four of its subsidiaries. The charges mostly revolved around attempts to steal trade secrets from U.S. companies.

The company used an array of tactics, but perhaps most brazen of all, it paid its employees bonuses if they procured confidential information from rival companies. And when U.S. law enforcement was investigating Huawei, the company told its employees not to comply.

RELATED: China’s AI strategy could turn Americans into data mines

iStock / Getty Images Plus

Suffice to say, there’s good reason not to trust the Chinese government and its proxy companies like Huawei.

The Trump administration recognizes the threat. In late June, it approved a merger among two American companies that compete with Huawei: Hewlett Packard Enterprises and Juniper Networks. A senior U.S. national security official told Axios: “In light of significant national security concerns, a settlement ... serves the interests of the United States by strengthening domestic capabilities and is critical to countering Huawei and China.” The official said blocking the deal would have "hindered American companies and empowered" Chinese competitors.

Given the economic importance of AI to countries throughout the world, the competition between the United States and China is regrettable. But it’s probably also inevitable. China is not abiding by the rules that are supposed to govern the global economy. And it’s using AI, says the Justice Department, to bolster its military, to test weapons of mass destruction, and to heighten surveillance.

Sometime next year, President Trump is scheduled to make a state visit to Beijing and Xi is scheduled to come to Washington. They’re destined to focus on the cooperative parts of the relationship, but you don’t need to ask ChatGPT to see that the two countries are on a collision course over AI. Buckle up.

Editor's note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

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China’s AI strategy could turn Americans into data mines



“The future of AI will either be ruled by American values or by China.”

That warning came last month from Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. It may sound abstract. It is not.

The question is no longer whether China seeks technological supremacy. It is how far it is willing to go — and how much Americans are willing to tolerate.

The Chinese Communist Party already appalled the world with its industrial-scale harvesting of organs from living human beings. Now it is pursuing something even more invasive: the exploitation of the human brain itself to power artificial intelligence and enforce political control.

This year, President Trump’s team prepared a national plan to secure American dominance in AI. At the same time, Guthrie and his colleagues — Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) and Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) — have been pressing government agencies and private firms with urgent questions about China’s activities and the risks to U.S. national security.

The evidence is alarming.

The CCP has harvested brain-wave data from some of the world’s highest-performing athletes, including a Formula 1 driver and elite alpine skiers. It has built systems to collect brain-wave data from Chinese schoolchildren at scale. Now concerns are mounting that it may be harvesting the brain-wave data of unsuspecting Americans through wearable headband devices sold openly on Amazon.

These devices represent a primitive form of brain-computer interfaces.

BCIs are an American innovation with legitimate and profound medical promise. Brain-computer interfaces allows paralyzed individuals to control prosthetics, smartphones, and computers using their thoughts. Physicians use BCIs to address cognitive impairments affecting memory, learning, and focus. Researchers see potential applications for treating depression, epilepsy, autism, schizophrenia, and Parkinson’s disease.

Elon Musk’s company Neuralink helped pioneer BCI development to restore autonomy to patients with severe neurological conditions. Musk has also argued that such technology could help humans keep pace as artificial intelligence grows more powerful.

The CCP’s motives are different — and far less virtuous.

Beijing views BCIs not as a therapeutic tool, but as a strategic weapon. By collecting and analyzing human brain-wave data, Chinese researchers have made advances in mind-reading and behavioral control designed to enforce obedience to the Communist Party. The regime is now exploring the use of this data to develop what it calls “super soldiers” — or humanoid combat robots integrated with human cognitive input.

Disturbingly, some of this progress has been enabled by elite American research institutions.

“China is working on pairing humanoid robotics with BCI,” said Sam Koppelman, publisher of the investigative research firm Hunterbrook. His team conducted a six-month investigation into BrainCo, a company founded at Harvard, funded by a People’s Liberation Army-linked entity, and later relocated to China.

In response, Guthrie, Bilirakis, and Joyce formally urged the Justice Department to investigate “potential national security risks posed by BrainCo.”

Their concerns followed Guthrie’s probe into DeepSeek, another AI company that his committee said maintains a “close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.”

"DeepSeek admits to sending Americans’ personal information to servers in China, where it is undoubtedly accessed by officials connected to the Chinese Communist Party," Guthrie said in a joint statement with Bilirakis.

According to Koppelman, China now prioritizes what it openly calls “cognitive warfare.”

RELATED: China is arming itself with minerals America refuses to mine

kritsapong jieantaratip via iStock/Getty Images

“This technology, as it develops, will be able to do things like read your brain,” he explained on a podcast. “They’re going to hack the human brain. That’s the idea.”

Hunterbrook reports that BrainCo and DeepSeek are among the CCP’s so-called “Six Little Dragons” of high-tech development.

BrainCo’s consumer-facing products include wearable EEG headbands marketed for meditation and focus. Its OxyZen and FocusCalm devices promise to help users “train your brain for better focus and a calmer mind.”

But critics warn the process may work in reverse — using American brain-wave data to train China’s planned army of super soldiers.

BrainCo disputes the allegations. Its FocusCalm website features a pop-up statement denying military ties and threatening legal action against critics.

The Trump administration is now weighing how to respond to what increasingly resembles a nightmarish penetration of American high-tech research and consumer markets. This month, the administration formally defined AI dominance as a “core, vital national interest.”

The question is no longer whether China seeks technological supremacy. It is how far it is willing to go — and how much Americans are willing to tolerate.

If the CCP can harvest our data, map our thoughts, and manipulate cognition itself, what will it do next?

Smartwatches: The WORST gift of Christmas 2025



More Americans than ever are buying smartwatches. Some are even gifting them in the run-up to Christmas, as if the spirit of the season is best expressed through a vibrating shackle.

I know, because I used to be shackled. A few months ago, I bought a Garmin Venu Sq 2. It’s a sleek little square that promises peace, progress, and a better VO₂ max.

I finally snapped the day the watch informed me that my stress was 'very high' while I was literally sitting still reading a book.

I’m an avid long-distance runner. I’ve run through heat waves, torrential rain, and entire breakups. A watch is supposed to free you, to only respond when you actually want information. Instead, mine turned into a digital probation officer, gleefully reporting every “weakness” it spotted. And it spotted plenty.

Passive-aggressive presence

At first, it was comfortable. A GPS-connected companion with the battery life of a camel. Then, slowly, it tightened its grip — not physically, but mentally. A passive-aggressive presence. A tiny narc. You only slept five hours. Your heart rate variability is low. Your stress is elevated.

No kidding. My stress was elevated because my watch wouldn’t shut up.

What began as a fitness tool became a full-time critic. Every step judged. Every pause logged. Every slight deviation from perfection recorded with the clinical joy of a bureaucrat stamping a form. The absurdity peaked on a Saturday morning when my wrist buzzed to announce that my “body battery” was low. This was a new level of shame: being scolded by a device I literally have to plug in to keep alive.

Mastered by metrics

The paradox at the heart of wearables is simple but worth spelling out. They sell serenity, yet they manufacture unrest. They promise control, yet they cultivate dependence. A smartwatch doesn’t enhance your intuition. Quite the opposite. It replaces it. Instead of listening to your breathing, you listen to a beep. Instead of feeling your cadence, you consult an algorithm. Before long, you become a servant to metrics you never asked for, chasing numbers that never stop multiplying.

Even worse, these trackers harvest every moment — your movement, your pulse, your snoring, your stumbles. Every second is sucked into some server farm, where it becomes a profit stream. A surveillance scheme disguised as self-improvement. Freedom isn’t a wearable. It’s the feeling that hits you the moment you rip the thing off.

Toxic timepiece

And then comes the part that feels almost satirical. Not only do smartwatches poison your mind, but they also poison your body. Recent studies show that many premium wristbands, especially the fancy fluorinated rubber ones, contain staggering concentrations of PFHxA, a “forever chemical” that sticks around longer than most New Year’s resolutions and certainly longer than any of my attempts at Dry January.

One band clocked in at over 16,000 parts per billion, making it less an accessory and more a portable toxic-waste site. To put that number in perspective, if a river tested that high, the EPA would show up in hazmat suits and politely ask the fish to evacuate.

These PFHxA compounds don’t just sit on the surface. They can seep, inch by inch, through the skin — our largest organ, the one we naïvely assume is busy protecting us instead of actively absorbing industrial runoff from a glorified pedometer.

Researchers say a significant percentage of this stuff can pass through human skin under normal conditions. To be clear, normal conditions simply mean you’re doing absolutely nothing unusual. Sitting at a desk, walking through Target, standing in line for coffee, trying to watch a show that isn’t drowning in homoerotic tension.

To make things worse, the more you sweat, strain, and move (the whole reason you bought a fitness tracker), the more efficiently the band can deliver its toxic little cocktail into your bloodstream. A device that poisons you precisely when you’re trying to be healthy. It’s as poetic as it is perverse.

RELATED: Your smart watch is poisoning you — and your children

Getty Images

'Heeeeeeere's Johnny!'

I finally snapped the day the watch informed me that my stress was “very high” while I was literally sitting still reading a book. That was the moment I had an awakening. The device wasn’t documenting my life. Instead, it was dictating it. I felt like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining," pacing the hallway and giving my smartwatch the same look he gave the door before smashing it in.

So I tossed it. Straight into the trash, like a cursed ring. And the strangest thing happened, almost instantly: peace. Pure, analog peace. I went for a run relying only on my own rhythm, my own breath, and my own internal clock — which has never once asked me to update its firmware. My pace felt smoother. My shoulders loosened. I remembered what running is supposed to feel like.

Your smartwatch needs you far more than you need it. Without you, it’s just a blinking brick. With you, it becomes a constant companion that collects your life, critiques your choices, and sells your data — all while constantly reminding you that you’re not enough without it.

If you’re wearing one right now, consider ripping it off. If you’re thinking of buying one, maybe don’t. And if you’re planning to gift one, absolutely stop. Your loved ones deserve better than a wrist-mounted tattletale. Give them socks. Give them chocolate. Give them a gift card they’ll use happily and mock you for later (because yes, you absolutely phoned that one in). Anything but a smartwatch.

Parents, think twice: The dark side of Christmas tech gifts for children



While the children may be nestled all snug in their beds, with visions of iPhones dancing in their heads, I hope, dear parents, that you will think twice about the gift of technology this Christmas.

No doubt a shiny new smartphone, Nintendo Switch, Meta Virtual Reality headset, or cool AI toy will be at the top of many children’s and teens’ Christmas lists this year. However, these “gifts” can arrive with hidden costs: anxiety, sleep loss, social pressures, addictive algorithms, exposure to pornography, a connection to predators, and development of a gaming addiction.

Many parents buy the myth that their child is immune from online risks or think that relying solely on parental controls will be enough.

To that end, Enough Is Enough just released its Naughty and Nice List of Holiday Gifts for Children and Teens that provides a much-needed guide of gifts to buy and to avoid. Perhaps it’s no surprise, but AI toys, smartphones, and Roblox gift cards are on the “naughty" list.

Even in my own family, I know that resisting the pressure to give tech products is strong. My grandsons want Roblox gift cards, so they can continue to play the online games they have enjoyed for years.

But the so-called “reward” of tech does not always outweigh the risks. The reality is that the online exploitation of minor children is a global pandemic, and it's growing exponentially worse, year after year.

At the very foundation, an internet-connected device is literally handing a child both the good, bad, and dangerous digital world — no guardrails, no safety net, no filters. A gaming platform will inevitably lead to increased screen time, possibly even leading to an online gaming disorder — now a DSM-5 mental disorder. Virtual reality is designed to feel real and may even become preferable to a teen.

Digging deeper, the risks are even greater than parents might realize. Many parents buy the myth that their child is immune from online risks or think that relying solely on parental controls will be enough.

But consider these sobering facts:

  • Younger and younger children are being targeted “on an industrial scale” by internet groomers, with a three-fold increase in imagery showing 7- to 10-year-olds.
  • Global financial sextortion is one of the fastest growing crimes targeting children, in particular minor-aged boys.
  • The Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health indicated social media could pose a “profound risk of harm” to the mental health and well-being of children, stating it’s a “defining public health challenge of our times.”

Predators use social media and even online gaming sites to groom children. A California man was recently sentenced for luring minors through Snapchat before sexually assaulting them. The FBI reported that a 22-year-old man used Discord to groom minors and sexually extort them.

The aforementioned Roblox — a gaming platform extremely popular with children — enables predators to contact children and is facing over 35 lawsuits as a result. The platform was described by Hindenburg Research as an “X-rated pedophile’s hellscape.”

Parents should rethink buying Roblox gift cards this holiday season.

Moreover a congressional hearing where two Meta whistleblowers testified confirmed every parent’s worst nightmare: If their children have used Meta’s virtual reality devices, their children have likely been sexually exploited.

RELATED: How smartphones expose your kids to predators — and why Congress must step in

Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Parents need to be aware of the growing trend of AI toys, falsely marketed as safe and educational for kids as young as 2. Most AI toys are powered by the same AI technology that has already harmed children, and the embedded chatbots are programmed to listen and speak with the child like a trusted friend and mimic human emotions. Examples include: Loona Robot Dog and Smart Teddy.

Recently, an AI teddy bear marketed to children told a tester “where to find knives, pills, and matches when asked ... spoke graphically about sex positions, sexual kinks, and ‘teacher-student role-play.’”

As our society becomes increasingly tech-focused, parents are becoming more aware of the negative impact tech can have on their children. But can they win the battle with their kids over the latest tech and more tech time?

Schools nationwide are rapidly embracing smartphone-free schools because they are distracting to students. Many schools are reporting success, and even students themselves have seen the benefits of not having their phones on them during school hours.

Some parents are wisely rethinking handing their phones to their children as a way to calm or distract them. One couple used a smartphone to pacify their 6-month-old daughter, saying they’d hand it to her frequently. Despite that the phone worked to calm the little girl down, the parents eventually realized it wasn’t what they intended, saying their daughter was “zoned in” on the phone.

They may think you’re the Grinch, but the rewards of a tech-free holiday are great.

You may be asking: If not an internet-connected tech gift, what do you suggest?

I realize that deciding on something else to give will take a little creativity.

Many children — especially older ones — enjoy experiences. Teens may relish time spent with their families taking a cooking class, going bowling, going to sporting events, or trying out an axe-throwing venue. Children of any age could appreciate an outing to a retro arcade, new board games, books, or art kits.

Even an outing to their favorite restaurant — where quality time can be spent with mom or dad — is a great option. In lieu of a material present, some families have successfully planned a place to visit or vacation together.

Instead of using the holidays to reinforce potentially unhealthy tech habits or introduce new tech gifts, consider delaying tech by not giving in to the notion that children need tech to be happy and productive. Grandparents my age remember fondly a merry childhood well before the computer and internet technologies were invented.

They may think you’re the Grinch, but the rewards of a tech-free holiday are great. And maybe, just maybe, your children will have sugarplums instead of iPhones dancing in their heads.

An ‘ankle bracelet’ for your car? AZ pushes new tech for serial speeders



Watch out, speed demons — the open road might be getting a little less free.

Arizona, known for its sun-soaked, sprawling highways, may soon become the first state to offer a high-tech alternative for habitual speeders: a “digital ankle bracelet” for your car.

With this new technology, Arizona may be taking the first step toward a future where cars themselves enforce the law.

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow drivers at risk of losing their licenses to keep their privileges by installing devices that actively prevent their vehicles from exceeding posted speed limits.

The proposal, spearheaded by Republican state Representative Quang Nguyen, would let drivers voluntarily equip their cars with speed-limiting technology. The system relies on a combination of GPS and cellular signals to determine the legal speed on any given road. Electronics connected to the car’s engine control unit then prevent the vehicle from exceeding that limit, no matter how hard the driver presses the accelerator.

Speed bump

For practical reasons, the technology does include an override mode that permits a temporary 10 mph boost up to three times per month, giving drivers a limited margin to react in emergencies or avoid accidents.

Nguyen estimates the devices would cost around $250 to install, with a daily operating fee of roughly $4. He has been working closely with companies that manufacture the technology, including Smart Start and LifeSafer, to ensure the system is effective and reliable. This makes me wonder if he owns a piece of the company or has stock in the company.

Under the bill, which Nguyen plans to formally introduce when the state legislature reconvenes in January, participation is optional — probably Nguyen’s earlier attempt to make it mandatory was a nonstarter.

Slow lane

Arizona is not alone in exploring this approach. Virginia, Washington State, and Washington, D.C., have already enacted similar laws. In Virginia, courts can require drivers with multiple speeding violations or reckless driving convictions to install electronic speed-limiting devices as an alternative to license suspension. Washington State has adopted a comparable program, giving judges discretion to mandate the technology for repeat offenders while monitoring compliance.

In Washington D.C., the program is more limited but aims to reduce repeat speeding among drivers with multiple moving violations. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is currently considering similar legislation.

These programs highlight a growing trend: Rather than grounding drivers entirely, some states are experimenting with technology as a way to enforce safe driving without taking away mobility. Proponents argue that these devices could prevent serious accidents while still allowing drivers to maintain employment, care for families, and perform other essential daily tasks. The technology also provides courts with a tangible tool to ensure compliance, rather than relying solely on citations and license suspensions.

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Machine learning

However, critics remain cautious. Some transportation and safety experts question whether the technology is advanced enough to accurately detect all posted speed limits. GPS mapping errors, temporary speed changes in construction zones, or malfunctioning sensors could cause a car to slow unexpectedly or fail to limit speed when needed, creating new safety risks. Privacy advocates also worry about how these devices track and store location data, raising concerns about government overreach or potential misuse.

From a practical standpoint, the legislation raises fundamental questions about the balance between personal responsibility and technological enforcement. Supporters argue it offers a lifeline to drivers who repeatedly violate speed laws but are otherwise safe, while critics maintain that it may encourage riskier behavior by transferring accountability from the individual to the machine.

There’s also the question of fairness. Not all drivers have access to new technology or the financial resources to participate in a program that charges daily operating fees. While $4 per day may seem modest, over a month or a year, it could be prohibitive for some families, effectively limiting the program to more affluent drivers. Additionally, the optional nature of the program could create inconsistencies across jurisdictions, leaving some habitual offenders unmonitored while others are under constant technological supervision.

Whether the measure passes will depend not only on lawmakers’ assessment of safety and effectiveness but also on public perception. Speeding remains the most common moving violation in the United States, and habitual offenders are a persistent concern for states nationwide. With this new technology, Arizona may be taking the first step toward a future where cars themselves enforce the law — but whether that future is practical, safe, or desirable remains up for debate.

At the very least, it’s a bold experiment in road safety and personal responsibility, one that could reshape the way states think about controlling speed without grounding drivers entirely. As the legislature prepares to weigh the bill, motorists, safety experts, and privacy advocates alike will be watching closely, asking the same question: Can a car truly keep its driver out of trouble, or is this just another way to shift accountability from human judgment to technology?