GoKawiil
Tech News
Elgin Community College sought to end its contract with Flock Safety and began covering the company's surveillance cameras with trash bags and zip ties to stop them recording. According to facilities director Heinrich, unmarked vehicles believed to belong to Flock repeatedly removed the coverings during routine servicing visits, leading to a prolonged standoff between the school and the vendor.
A personal essay argues that corporate perks like decorated offices, gyms, and stocked kitchens are framed as happiness boosters but are actually designed to increase employee productivity and output. The author, reflecting on their own disillusionment with workplace culture, contends that companies substitute material additions for genuinely reducing employee stress or negatives, while loyalty rhetoric like 'we're a family' evaporates when workers underperform.
A commentary challenges the common belief that only business owners and founders can accumulate significant wealth. The author draws on observations of career professionals, arguing that traits like grit, continuous learning and converting salary into assets separate those who build wealth from those who merely earn high incomes. The piece frames a career as a 'wealth-building engine' rather than the end goal itself.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued a five-year exemption letting self-driving truck operators Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI use cab-mounted warning beacons instead of physically placed reflective triangles when a truck breaks down. The change addresses a rule that assumed a human driver would exit the vehicle to set out warning devices within 10 minutes of a breakdown, something autonomous trucks without drivers cannot do. Aurora had previously sued over the requirement and appealed to the D.C. Court of Appeals after an earlier denial.
Entrepreneur Dawn Myers created Richualist after noticing a lack of styling tools designed for textured hair, unlike devices that straighten or alter hair's natural texture. The company's product, Mint, detangles, conditions, gels and styles hair in one motion using refillable pods and built-in warming technology. Myers says the device cuts styling time from over an hour to roughly seven to ten minutes.
Google's Pixel release date page lists exact support end dates for each device. Pixel 6 and 7 series phones get five years of updates, while Pixel 8 and later models get seven years, with a-series phones following their own release-based timelines. Phones up to the Pixel 5a are already out of support.
A physical packet from the 2001 implementation of RFC1149, the humorous internet standard for transmitting IP datagrams via carrier pigeon, is being auctioned at Christie's. The current bid stands at USD 2,600, according to a Slashdot reader who shared the auction link.
A vulnerability discovered in the XRP Ledger reportedly could have let an attacker mint unlimited amounts of XRP-based tokens, effectively creating crypto out of thin air. The flaw has since been patched, and no evidence indicates it was exploited before the fix.
A Linux developer reverse engineered a commercial spatial-audio effect that made music sound farther away and less fatiguing to the ear, after finding no equivalent tool existed for Linux. Working on PipeWire, they experimented with HRTF datasets, rejecting the anechoic MIT KEMAR recordings in favor of the SADIE II database, which includes room reflections that better matched the sound they remembered.
Masashi Kishimoto and Studio Pierrot are preparing new Naruto content, including an additional manga and anime series, ahead of the franchise's planned live-action film. Details on the new story's scope and release timing have not yet been disclosed.
Waze, the crowdsourced navigation app owned by Google since 2013, includes a 'Drive to friends & family' feature that lets users start directions to a saved contact's address without typing it in manually. The feature requires granting Waze access to a phone's contact list, which can later be revoked through device settings on iPhone or Android.
Software engineer and YouTuber Anthony Sistilli built his own automatic license plate recognition camera designed specifically to track police vehicles, modeling it on networks like Flock Safety's. After he posted videos detailing the build and demonstrating it in use, two Peel Regional Police officers visited his home in Brampton, Ontario, to question him about his intentions.