GoKawiil
Tech News
Researchers studying the remains of an ancient city in Asia have found evidence of sophisticated engineering and social organization, according to a report highlighted by Nature. The findings point to coordinated planning and construction techniques that allowed the settlement to function as a complex urban center.
Researchers are redesigning drug molecules and delivery systems so a single injection or implant can maintain therapeutic effects for weeks, months, or even years instead of requiring daily dosing. Techniques include chemical modifications that slow drug breakdown, polymer depots, and implantable devices that release medication gradually over extended periods.
Cisco Talos researchers identified two separate ClickFix-style social engineering campaigns that trick victims into executing malicious code themselves, one aimed at stealing cryptocurrency and another designed to gain persistent enterprise network access. One campaign uses a publicly shared Google Sheet to distribute malicious browser code that hijacks Chrome transaction interfaces, while both operations abuse legitimate cloud services and trusted software to disguise malicious activity as normal user behavior.
Google Cloud and Accenture are forming the Accenture Gemini Enterprise Business Group, a joint unit that will place trained engineers directly inside client companies to help them adopt Google's AI tools. Google plans to train up to 1,000 Accenture engineers for this 'forward-deployed' role, following similar moves by OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Malik Piara has released an updated version of LogiCola 3, a modern port of Professor Gensler's 2008 Windows-only logic drill software, after two years of work. The new release restores infinite translation drills for mastery learning and reintroduces the original's colorful, playful visual style, responding to feedback from Hacker News, GitHub and email.
Google Research, working with HHMI Janelia Research Campus, published the first complete map of an adult male fruit fly's brain and central nervous system, called MaleCNS v1.0. The AI-assisted project stitched together millions of 2D images into a 3D model reconstructing more than 166,000 neurons. Within days, software engineers used the connectome data to train a simulated version of the fly's neural circuitry to play Doom and Super Mario 64.
Jane Street released a puzzle challenging participants to reverse engineer an ASIC chip from just two files: a GDS layout file and a VCD file with example inputs and outputs. Kjartan van Driel and Leander Post worked through the challenge, breaking down how the chip's physical layout, organized into layers and reusable cells representing logic gates, could be decoded to understand its function without access to the original Verilog design.
A software engineer reflects on how years of routine coding work and constant smartphone distractions have dulled their thinking and reading habits compared to their more intellectually demanding early career and university years. They describe attempting to counter this decline by deliberately unplugging and cutting back on short-form content, games, and other low-effort entertainment during a recent vacation.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and GTA III are once again playable directly in a web browser, this time hosted on a site called Quenq, after an earlier browser port on DOS Zone was pulled following a DMCA claim from Take-Two. The new version still carries DOS Zone branding in its pause menu, supports keyboard, controller and touchscreen input, and includes a save/mod manager plus adjustable frame rate, running smoothly past 100 FPS on desktop and working instantly on mobile devices like the OnePlus 12.
Microsoft is expanding GitHub Copilot's coding agent to manage more of the software development pipeline, including setting up Windows development environments, running linters and tests, and opening pull requests for human review. GitHub also added agent support for Windows Subsystem for Linux, helping teams that build on Windows but test or deploy on Linux. Microsoft Distinguished Engineer David Fowler said on X that 'typing code is absolutely over,' pointing to a shift in what developers actually spend time doing.
An instructor is launching a 12-week introductory course focused on quantum oracle engineering, teaching students how to build actual quantum circuits rather than relying on theoretical constructs. The course addresses a common gap in quantum computing education where oracles are often assumed to exist without demonstrating how to implement them.
Thoughtworks' Europe CTO Giles described an internal experiment in Barcelona where 10 engineers used heavily agentic AI coding practices to build a simulated airline irregular-operations (IROps) system in just four days. Working in a single shared code repository, the team discovered that requiring agents to constantly commit and rebase against the main branch produced unexpected coordination effects, effectively turning the codebase into a shared communication point between agents.