GoKawiil
Tech News
Spotify suffered an outage that stopped many users from playing or downloading audiobooks across phones, desktops, and the web, with symptoms ranging from stalled loading to chapters skipping without playing. Spotify acknowledged the problem on its Community forum and has since marked the incident as fixed, though some users still report ongoing playback issues.
Communities are pushing back against Flock Safety's automated license-plate cameras through visible, often theatrical protests, including people dressing as Darth Vader and tying red balloons near devices. The growing trend, dubbed 'Flocklash,' reflects widespread unease about the expansion of tech-enabled mass surveillance in public spaces.
Zillow and Redfin have settled with the FTC and five state attorneys general over a 2025 agreement in which Zillow paid Redfin $100 million to avoid competing in rental advertising. The settlement, reached just before trial was set to begin, requires Redfin to reenter the rental advertising market and removes limits on its ability to compete for property-management clients. Redfin will still display Zillow's rental listings but can now independently sell ads and pursue its own customers.
Researcher Matthew Callaghan discovered AliExpress running hidden scripts that generate silent, inaudible sound waves through the WebAudio API to create a unique fingerprint of each visitor's browser. He noticed the tracking only because it interfered with his multipoint Bluetooth headphones, cutting off phone audio whenever the AliExpress tab was open. The scripts muted the sound with a zero gain setting so users would never notice, but the browser still processed and transmitted the audio data back to the site.
CDPR joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski said the studio is targeting a 2028 release for The Witcher 4, calling it the company's most ambitious game yet. He confirmed the sequel won't appear at Gamescom this year, though CDPR will instead showcase The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past, a new expansion due in 2027.
Zillow has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over claims it paid Redfin $100 million to exit the internet listing service market for apartment rentals for up to nine years. The deal reverses that arrangement, requiring Redfin to relaunch its ILS business with significantly more listings and mandating Zillow to share employee information to help Redfin rebuild its team. Several states had joined the FTC's case, which was filed in September 2025 and later consolidated with the federal suit.
OpenAI is temporarily lowering the price of its GPT-5.6-Sol model, with the discount running until at least November 21. Separately, the company is phasing out its fine-tuning platform, closing it to new users while letting existing customers keep submitting training jobs for a limited time. Models already fine-tuned will still work for inference until their underlying base models are retired.
A 20-day randomized, placebo-controlled trial of 40 people with pre- and stage 1 hypertension found that those taking 100 μL of peppermint oil daily saw systolic blood pressure drop from 130.05 to 121.97 mmHg, compared to no meaningful change in the placebo group. The adjusted difference between groups was 8.48 mmHg, with high compliance and only one adverse event reported.
The FTC reached a settlement with Zillow ending its antitrust lawsuit over a 2025 rental listings arrangement with Redfin, which regulators said involved Zillow paying Redfin to syndicate listings while Redfin agreed to drop its own advertising business and avoid competing on multifamily listings. Under the settlement, Redfin can keep syndicating Zillow's rental listings without the restrictive terms, but must rebuild the rental advertising operation it had shut down. Several state attorneys general joined the FTC in approving the deal.
CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski said in a new video that the studio is aiming to release The Witcher 4 in 2028. Before that, the company plans a 2027 launch for Songs of the Past, an expansion for The Witcher 3, which will be featured at Gamescom's Opening Night Live this week.
A federal appeals panel rejected Xinuos's claim that IBM improperly contributed Project Monterey code to Linux, ruling the deadline to pursue such action had passed. Xinuos, a legal successor to SCO, now plans to petition for the case to be reheard by the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals rather than just a three-judge panel.
A free, community-built add-on called the 'I have ADHD' skill has gained traction online for trimming Claude's verbose, meandering responses into more concise, front-loaded answers. Android Authority's Calvin Wankhede tested it for two weeks across both Claude Chat and Claude Code, installing it via a skill.md file from GitHub and enabling it through Claude's Customize settings. He reports it significantly reduces the chatbot's tendency to preach and add unnecessary preamble.