GoKawiil
Tech News
A phase III trial of intismeran, a personalized cancer vaccine developed by Merck and Moderna, showed that melanoma patients who received it had longer recurrence-free survival than those given a placebo. The double-blind study of more than 1,100 participants builds on an earlier phase II trial with 157 patients and moves the vaccine closer to regulatory approval.
A batch of newly reviewed titles spans wildly different territory: Suzanne Simard's account of her Mother Tree Project reforestation effort in British Columbia, Antonio Melechi's historical survey of theories about the unconscious mind, and Jeffrey Marlow's exploration of the little-studied deep ocean floor. A fourth title, Valerie Tiberius's Artificially Yours, is also noted among the season's book releases.
A Nature briefing discusses how singer Dolly Parton has become an unlikely fixture in scientific culture, with researchers naming newly discovered species and phenomena after her. The piece highlights the crossover between pop culture and taxonomy, noting several examples where scientists have honored Parton in their published work.
Proton's new report examined VPN apps available in the US and found that 64 are linked to Chinese companies, many collecting device IDs, network data, carrier information and even user location. These apps were downloaded more than 13 million times in June alone, and 31 relied on shell companies in places like Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK to obscure ownership. About a quarter of the flagged apps were found actively tracking location data.
Apple has unveiled several Apple Pay upgrades tied to iOS 27, including a redesigned checkout screen that lets users swipe between cards and view balances and rewards at a glance. The company also partnered with American Express to let customers redeem Membership Rewards points directly during checkout, valued at 0.7 cents per point. Additionally, a new 'Tap to Share' feature extends Tap to Pay on iPhone, letting shoppers share contact and loyalty info with merchants in-store.
X has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Nitter, a free tool that let people view public tweets without logging in or agreeing to X's terms. Nitter initially relied on X's API, then switched to scraping public web pages after that API access was cut off; now X is treating even that as an illegal circumvention of its platform.
Rockstar co-studio head Rob Nelson told IGN that Grand Theft Auto VI will replace the series' simple hotwire button with varied theft methods tied to each vehicle's make and model. Some cars will require tools like key cloners, others will demand careful speed control to dodge GPS tracking, and an in-game app will help players identify what's needed and what a car is worth. Players can still carjack any driver directly, but stealing parked vehicles will be gated by story progress and acquired equipment.
Despite ranking among the world's top five smartphone makers by shipments, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have essentially no official retail presence in the United States. US buyers largely see only Apple, Samsung, Google and Motorola on carrier shelves, even as these Chinese brands dominate sales across Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Adobe introduced AI Assisted Editor, a new Photoshop interface that lets users edit images through natural language prompts alongside the existing Pro Editor workspace. The company also unveiled a light adjustment layer, Instruct Edit with Masks, and a Markup tool for drawing edit instructions directly on images. These features are currently available in the $23-per-month Photoshop beta.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that Amazon is now part of YouTube's e-commerce affiliate network, letting eligible U.S. creators tag Amazon products in long-form videos, livestreams, and Shorts. Creators will earn commissions when viewers buy tagged items, expanding an affiliate program YouTube launched in 2022.
Longtime Marley Spoon subscribers say their boxes have arrived with melted ice, warm proteins and dozens of missing ingredients since the meal kit brand switched fulfillment to Misfits Market. The shift followed the April bankruptcy of former supplier FreshRealm, which also served Blue Apron, and customers report getting little help from customer service when reporting damaged or incomplete deliveries.
A new open-source project called Experiential offers an OpenAI-compatible gateway and router for agent workflows, letting teams route requests across hosted, bring-your-own-key, and local models through a single API. It includes controls over which users and agents can access specific models, spending limits, and a wizard that sets up a local gateway with a one-time API key in minutes. A hosted version is also available, supporting both OpenAI and Anthropic Messages API formats and integration with coding agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.