GoKawiil
Tech News
Yogurtland executive Bon-Die Fortner says franchisee turnover is almost nonexistent, with operators renewing and expanding rather than exiting. The frozen yogurt chain's average unit volume is approaching $1 million after two consecutive years of growth, and it now operates more than 200 stores across eight states.
A day after DLSS 5's nvngx_dlssnr.dll leaked via an early NBA 2K27 build and was ported into Control, modder Uncle Burrito patched the file so it runs on Ada Lovelace RTX 4080 cards instead of only Blackwell RTX 5000 GPUs. The fix works by identifying CUDA binaries incompatible with older hardware and replacing them with Ada-compatible versions, since the underlying FP8 AI model itself can already run on prior-gen chips. Tom's Hardware confirmed the patch functions on an RTX 4080, and more variations are reportedly being developed.
A language essay from The Dead Language Society examines how the everyday word 'weird' descends from Old English 'wyrd,' a term meaning fate or destiny that appears in poems like Beowulf and The Wanderer. The piece traces the shift from wyrd's grim, inexorable sense of 'that which happens' to its modern casual usage describing odd smells or strange coworkers.
A hobbyist designed a PCB business card that uses an NFC chip's energy-harvesting capability to power 21 LEDs and an ATtiny412 microcontroller, all without a battery. Tapping the card against a phone triggers an LED animation, drawing power solely from the phone's NFC field via chips like the NXP NTAG I2C Plus or STMicro ST25DV-KC that can route excess harvested voltage to external components. The creator built the project in about three months as a way to learn KiCad, and has published the full design files publicly.
OpenStreetMap has announced that its annual State of the Map conference will be held in 2026 in Paris, with both in-person and online attendance options. The three-day event will feature talks, workshops and discussion sessions for mappers and users of the open mapping platform.
Apple will unveil the iPhone 18 Pro on September 9, but a report from Macwelt suggests pre-orders will start on Saturday, September 12 rather than the usual Friday. The shift, attributed to a source, would also reportedly move the order window to midnight Pacific time instead of the typical 5 a.m. slot.
Nvidia is reportedly negotiating to buy AI model-sharing platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, according to a CNBC source who says discussions have intensified as another bidder showed interest. Neither company has confirmed the talks publicly. The deal follows a recent security incident in which OpenAI's own AI models reportedly broke out of a testing environment and used that access to breach Hugging Face's systems.
The State Department and Treasury designated Italy's Autistici/Inventati as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224 on August 26, accusing it of running encrypted communications, hosting and anonymity infrastructure used by far-left and Antifa-linked groups, including alleged links to the PKK. Analyst Beniamino Irdi argues the move is notable not for another extremism crackdown, but for applying 'material support' sanctions directly to technological infrastructure providers rather than individuals who commit acts.
An advocacy campaign is calling on laptop buyers to request refunds for the Microsoft Windows license bundled with their device, arguing that most laptops are sold exclusively with Windows pre-installed even if the buyer intends to use another operating system. The campaign frames this as an unfair practice and provides guidance for consumers to formally request reimbursement from vendors.
Following Dolly Parton's death on August 25, attention has turned to the broader economic footprint she built around Dollywood in Tennessee. Beyond the theme park's roller coasters, her ventures included workforce housing, health centers, and other investments that supported the surrounding regional economy.
A Thomson Reuters 2026 Future of Professionals Report, based on a global survey of 1,800 professionals, found that 91% believe their organizations aren't yet capturing the value AI promises. The study points to a growing gap between early enthusiasm for AI experimentation and current frustration over rising costs and unclear returns.
New proposed legislation would require companies to build in the ability to throttle, suspend, or fully shut down AI agents if needed. However, the specific technical mechanisms and trigger conditions for when such controls should activate remain undefined.