Login.gov Is Now Accepting Mobile Driver's Licenses

by  Christian Robles

The feature builds on the federal government's effort to mandate that agencies use the digital identity verification platform.

Summary

Login.gov began widely accepting mobile driver's licenses for digital identity verification last month, offering protection against AI-generated deepfakes and counterfeit identity documents, the General Services Administration announced Tuesday. Users can share information from an eligible license stored in Google Wallet or Samsung Wallet, with support for other sources on the way. GSA said the option is “narrowly scoped to identity proofing for access to government services” and is not mandatory.

Users can preview and share only the attributes required for verification rather than their entire document. Cryptographic verification confirms a credential is valid and unaltered. As of March 2026, 20 states and one territory offer mobile driver's licenses, reaching roughly 71.5 million drivers.

Officials had planned to add the feature by March. It builds on an Office of Management and Budget directive mandating Login.gov use and other efforts, such as lower pricing.

 Read full story at NextGov

Why Federal Leaders Must Reclaim the Economics of AI

by  Darren Pulsipher

As AI systems gain wider adoption across government, agencies need to understand the cost advantages of deploying the right AI models and the right hardware.

Summary

Federal agencies are struggling to deploy AI at scale due to misconceptions about hardware requirements. /p>

While training AI models often requires GPUs, most inference workloads can be efficiently handled by CPUs and NPUs, significantly reducing costs.

Additionally, agencies should consider the “token trap” of agentic AI, where continuous reasoning loops can lead to unpredictable and volatile operating expenses.

 Read full story at FEDSCOOP

Winning the Adoption War: Diffusing AI Across the U.S. Military

by  FDD

Summary

The United States leads in frontier artificial intelligence, but cutting-edge technology available to only a few is a trophy, not a capability. History shows that nations rise during technological revolutions by adopting breakthroughs fastest across their institutions, not necessarily by inventing them. For the U.S. military, this makes broad AI adoption the central question of its advantage over China.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) hosts a conversation examining how the Pentagon can move from procuring AI to diffusing it across the force, what cultural and organizational changes an “AI-first” military requires, and how government can build and retain technical talent.

Speakers include Major Megan “Napalm” Hainline, Isaac “Ike” Harris, and Leah Siskind, moderated by RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery.

 Read full story at FDD

An Undercover Google Analyst Infiltrated a Notorious Supply-Chain Hacking Gang

by  Andy Greenberg

Google's threat intelligence group said it had a mole inside TeamPCP's inner circle.

Summary

Google's Threat Intelligence Group revealed that an undercover Mandiant analyst had infiltrated the hacker group TeamPCP nearly from its inception, monitoring the group's unprecedented software supply-chain attack campaign from the inside. TeamPCP compromised dozens of open-source tools, breached more than a thousand companies, and deployed a self-spreading worm to automate the process before two alleged Australian members were arrested last month.

Google's inside access allowed the team to warn breach targets, revoke stolen credentials through providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, and help patch an AI-generated zero-day exploit discovered within the group. A tip to the FBI—tied to a Gmail account backing up stolen data—ultimately helped identify a key suspect.

The investigation coincided with the launch of Google's Cyber Disruption Unit, reflecting a broader shift toward active countermeasures against cybercrime.

 Read full story at arsTechnica

GAO Report Spotlights Industry's Concerns About Overlapping Cybersecurity Regulations

by  Eric Geller

Representatives of three critical infrastructure sectors identified the conflicting and redundant rules that they said made their jobs more difficult.

Summary

A GAO report highlights industry concerns about overlapping cybersecurity regulations, particularly in the healthcare sector where differing definitions in CISA, SEC, and HIPAA reporting rules create challenges.

Healthcare executives struggle to balance reporting requirements with information protection, as HIPAA's security and privacy restrictions conflict with the Department of Health and Human Services' prohibition against limiting access to health data.

 Read full story at Cybersecurity Dive

LLMjacking Can Run Up Your Business' AI Bill Fast — How to Stop It

by  Charlie Osborne

Google analysts warn that stolen AI credentials are being sold underground, and businesses are footing the bill.

Summary

Security experts warn of a booming underground market for stolen AI account credentials, a trend known as LLMjacking. Google Threat Intelligence Group’s John Hultquist told the Financial Times the cybersecurity unit has seen a “major increase” in the activity throughout 2026. Similar to cryptojacking, LLMjacking involves stealing credentials or API keys to access business AI accounts, letting criminals run computing tasks, extract sensitive data, or poison training datasets without paying for tokens themselves.

Stolen access to models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI has been sold for up to 97% off, with unauthorized usage costing enterprises as much as $100,000 daily on top-tier models. Experts recommend phishing training, frequent security audits, least-privilege access, and prompt credential rotation to reduce risk.

 Read full story at ZDNet

Facilities Fueling Energy Storage Installations

by  Robert Freedman

The market for commercial systems will grow 27% over the next five years, say American Clean Power and Wood Mackenzie.

Summary

The commercial energy storage market is projected to grow 27% through 2031, driven by facilities seeking backup power and data centers facing grid-connection bottlenecks.

This growth is part of a larger trend, with utility-scale and residential storage installations expected to increase by over 50% in the same period.

The report highlights the role of innovation in battery technology, particularly long-duration systems, and supportive public policies like virtual power plants in driving this growth.

 Read full story at UtilityDive

Pressurized Experiments Could Help Wind Farms Generate More Power

by  MIT Energy Initiative Staff

A new way of simulating wind turbines in the field shows how tweaking turbine operation could unlock tens of thousands of dollars per turbine every year.

Summary

Researchers have developed a new experimental approach to wind turbine testing that bridges the gap between lab conditions and real-world performance. Published in PNAS Nexus, the study uses a high-pressure wind tunnel to simulate atmospheric flow physics, allowing scaled-down turbines to better replicate large-scale conditions. The team, led by MIT's Michael Howland and Princeton's Marcus Hultmark, found that adjusting a turbine's tip speed relative to its misalignment angle with the wind can significantly boost power output—a strategy rarely used today.

The experiments also validated a computationally lightweight model engineers can run on standard laptops to test turbine designs and control strategies. Researchers estimate that optimizing turbine alignment, blade pitch, and tip speed could generate tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue per turbine annually.

The pressurized tunnel approach offers a faster, lower-cost path to testing wind energy hypotheses that field experiments have historically made difficult to isolate and study.

 Read full story at MIT Energy Initiative

TVA is First U.S. Utility to Receive Construction Permit for BWRX-300 Advanced Nuclear Reactor

by  Paul Ciampoli

TVA continues negotiations with industry partners to ensure responsible cost sharing throughout design and construction.

Summary

The Tennessee Valley Authority reached a landmark milestone on Sept. 29 when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit for Clinch River Unit 1, a GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy BWRX‑300 small modular reactor near Oak Ridge, Tenn. TVA is now the first U.S. utility permitted to construct the BWRX‑300, marking only the second advanced reactor construction permit ever issued in the nation.

The permit establishes a repeatable licensing pathway for future SMR applicants, lowering barriers and accelerating deployment timelines nationwide. The Clinch River site's proximity to Oak Ridge National Laboratory positions it at the center of U.S. nuclear innovation.

SMRs generate up to 300 megawatts of electricity—roughly one‑third the capacity of traditional nuclear units—with modular components built in factories to reduce construction time and cost.

 Read full story at American Public Power Association