GoKawiil
Tech News
Google has released three new Gemini Audio models: 3.5 Transcribe, 3.5 Live, and 3.5 Live Experimental. Transcribe automatically strips out filler words like 'um' and 'uh', formats text, adapts to custom vocabulary and jargon, and can identify up to three speakers with word-level timestamps. The Live models improve handling of interruptions, multilingual recognition, and real-time reasoning narration for voice chat.
GoPro's new Mission 1 Pro ILS shares the same 8K/60 video, 1-inch sensor, open-gate recording and 960fps burst mode as the standard Mission 1 Pro, but swaps the fixed lens for a mount compatible with over 300 Micro Four Thirds lenses. The camera keeps the same battery and rear display, though attaching a lens adds bulk and weight depending on which optic is used.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch revealed she spent her first week back from the 10-day Artemis II lunar mission journaling about the experience while deliberately avoiding any mission photos. She wanted to capture her memories as they actually felt before the widely shared images could reshape them. Koch, along with commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and specialist Jeremy Hansen, completed the farthest human trip around the moon in over 50 years in early April.
Google's Pixel 11 Pro retains the vivid, bright screen praised in its predecessor, but review testing found it throttles and shows overheating and battery-drain warnings when graphics settings are pushed above minimum levels. Google also dropped the 128GB storage tier across the lineup, meaning the cheapest configuration now starts at $1,099 for 256GB, with only 12GB of RAM at that entry level. Google attributed the higher storage and pricing to an AI-driven RAM shortage raising component costs industrywide.
Amazon's Ring is rolling out a new encryption scheme called Throw Away the Key Encryption (TAKE) starting this September. Under the system, video is protected by rotating encryption keys, and Ring can only briefly access its stored copy of the key to power AI features like face detection or video summaries before permanently deleting that copy, cutting off further access to the footage.
PeopleFinders.com, the online data broker, has launched a new platform called Stud or Dud that lets users run background checks on potential romantic partners using just a name or phone number. The tool compiles public records—including court documents, bankruptcy filings, tax liens, and social media activity—into a single report covering finances, assets, employment, and criminal history, complete with an AI-generated summary and flagged 'red' or 'green' indicators.
QueryStory, founded by former Google Chronicle co-founder Shapor Naghibzadeh, has launched publicly after raising a $6 million seed round from Brightmind Ventures and New York Life Ventures at a $60 million valuation. The startup applies techniques Naghibzadeh developed for cybersecurity investigations to build large language model tools that let enterprises query proprietary databases and construct fact-based narratives from the results.
DuckLabs, the Amsterdam-based company founded by DuckDB creators Mark Raasveldt and Hannes Mühleisen, announced it will join Amazon Web Services effective early September. The team plans to stay together in Amsterdam and continue developing DuckDB, DuckLake, Quack and related community projects. DuckLabs said the core DuckDB stack will remain free and open source under the MIT license, with the nonprofit DuckDB Foundation continuing to oversee governance.
A pay-what-you-can dining initiative that started small in Mexico City has grown this year to include more than 100 restaurants across Mexico, the United States, and other countries. On August 26, 2026, participating eateries let diners choose their own price for meals based on what they can afford.
Arga, a startup led by CEO Philip Li, announced a $10 million seed round led by General Catalyst, with Box Group, Emergence, Gradient and SV Angel also participating. The company builds full replicas of enterprise tools like Salesforce, Workday and email clients, complete with permissions and web hooks, so AI agents can be trained and tested repeatedly without disrupting live systems.
Developer Niklas Gruhn coined the term 'meat proxy' to describe coworkers who forward unedited chatbot responses instead of engaging with the content themselves. He wrote that receiving these raw AI outputs adds no value, since colleagues could simply query the AI directly. The phrase follows other recent slang like 'clanker' that reflects growing frustration with AI's creeping presence in daily work and communication.
A blogger describes a quirk of using GHCi (and ghcid) for live code reloading: GHCi can only track one set of source files at a time, so a properly separated project with distinct executable, library and test components can't have all parts reloaded simultaneously. To work around this while editing both tests and program code, the author merges everything into a single component, a compromise unsuitable for serious projects but workable for small experiments.