Technology

There are a lot of rich and powerful people in Silicon Valley who have said some strange things about democracy.It would be easy to dismiss some of this as tech entrepreneurs doing what tech entrepreneurs have always done: dreaming about moving fast and breaking stuff, and making enormous claims about the future.But the journalist Gil Durán thinks that dismissing all of this as blather would be a mistake.In his new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, Durán argues that these ideas actually belong to an emerging political ideology — one that has moved from obscure books and blogs into some of the most powerful institutions in the United States.

A law passed earlier this year would have required adult websites to continue enforcing age restrictions for Utah users — even if those users tried to disguise their location with a VPN.

A new Utah law requires platforms to let users report AI-generated intimate images made without consent. It also cracks down on metadata storage to improve transparency around AI-altered content.

Last week, Gov. Spencer Cox and bill sponsor Sen. Lincoln Fillmore announced plans to pursue a bell-to-bell cell phone ban in all Utah schools.

Cache, Box Elder, Morgan, Weber, Davis, and Rich Counties are switching from the CodeRed emergency alert system to Everbridge, this week, due to added features and new technologies offered by the latter.

Drivers of snow plows, public transportation buses, and other government-operated vehicles are using technology that can direct traffic lights to change in order to improve safety and travel time.

In other news: A Forbes Advisor article finds that Utah ranks high in technological jobs.

As Utah leaders look to avoid a repeat of the severe flooding impacts of 1983, the state is turning to a tool it didn’t have back then.

The U.S. Department of Energy has opened a short public comment window on an experimental nuclear technology in Idaho.