This is today’s edition of The Download , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Silicon Valley claims to know the future. So why did it get the midterms so wrong? —Aaron Zamost, a tech communications consultant and a former executive at Square

The self-styled visionaries of Silicon Valley have built careers claiming to see the future. Yet five weeks before the midterms, many gathered at the White House to pose with Trump and endorse his “Super Intelligence” agenda, despite growing opposition to AI and data centers. Their decision to lash themselves to President Trump was a catastrophic misreading of the political landscape. Now, not only have they jeopardized their companies’ fates, but they’ve also raised questions about their vision and judgment. Here’s why Silicon Valley’s tech leaders may be less visionary than they think . Nvidia privately confirmed it could track chips to fight smuggling, even as industry publicly questioned feasibility

Nvidia representatives told Illinois representative Bill Foster that it was possible to implement the anti-smuggling measures called for in the Chip Security Act, Foster told MIT Technology Review on Thursday, despite an industry group claiming they were “potentially infeasible.” Foster, a Democrat who serves on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, is a cosponsor of the act, which would introduce geotracking requirements to verify the location of advanced AI chips and prevent their smuggling to China. The act is drawing renewed attention following Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s resignation and reported affair. Find out what the proposed tracking measures would involve . —James O’Donnell

More autonomy, fewer NDAs: Volunteers have new requests for brain implant trials

Scientists have been working on ways to decode brain activity for decades. Teams have developed brain implants that can control robotic limbs and computers, and even “speak.” The people who volunteer for trials of these devices play a vital role in that research, and they ought to be recognized for their contributions, says Ian Burkhart, who had one implanted in his own brain back in 2014. He’s been working on a set of guidelines for ethical trials to respect participants’ autonomy—and access their own brain data whenever they want. Read the full story on the push to give volunteers in brain implant trials more rights . —Jessica Hamzelou

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday. The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 A major Microsoft outage has disrupted services worldwide
The disruption has affected Outlook, Teams, and Copilot. ( Reuters $)
+ Traders were forced to do business by phone and fax. ( Bloomberg $)
+ Microsoft says the outage isn’t a cybersecurity incident. ( BBC )

2 Jensen Huang’s resignation will leave a trail of damage
It should change how America does AI. ( Axios )
+ Who is Colette Kress, Nvidia’s new interim CEO? ( NBC News )
+ And who could get the permanent role? ( NYT $)
+ Trump has backed Apple’s Tim Cook for the job. ( WP $)
+ Nancy Pelosi’s replacement plans to regulate AI…