GoKawiil
Tech News
Solar cells are rated at 25°C (77°F) under standardized test conditions, but that figure doesn't represent an outdoor sweet spot for peak output. In practice, panels become less efficient as temperatures rise because voltage drops faster than current increases with heat, meaning cooler conditions technically yield higher efficiency.
Reverse engineering of Windows Paint and Photos apps found that both send user prompts to a Microsoft server for moderation even when image generation runs locally via onboard AI models. That server returns a GUID alongside the approved prompt, and this GUID gets invisibly embedded into the pixels of the generated image, separate from the visible watermark toggle users can control. This applies even on Copilot+ PCs where generation happens entirely on-device.
Security researchers say hackers are exploiting two chained vulnerabilities, CVE-2026-61979 and CVE-2026-15981, in the miniOrange SAML 2.0 Single Sign On plugin to forge SAML responses and log into WordPress sites as administrators. The plugin, made by Xecurify, lets sites authenticate through identity providers like Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Google Workspace or OneLogin, and comes in a free version plus six paid editions used by roughly 30,000 customers.
General Intuition, a New York startup building foundation models for AI agents that navigate space and time, is reportedly negotiating a new funding round at a $6 billion pre-money valuation. New backers reportedly include Valor Equity Partners, Point72 Ventures and Seven Seven Six, alongside existing investors Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst, just weeks after the company raised $320 million at a $2.3 billion valuation.
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.
Amazon has lowered the price of Apple's 4-pack AirTag 2 bundle to $79.99, down from $99, marking the lowest per-unit price of $20 tracked since its 2026 release. The retailer had already discounted the bundle to $89.99 and then $85 in recent days before this latest cut. Other deals include Apple's M5 MacBook Pro configurations discounted by $320 and $500, plus a $25 Anker Find My wallet card and a heavily discounted LG 6K Thunderbolt 5 monitor.
A roundup highlights inexpensive accessories that improve the CarPlay experience, including the Carlinkit Mini Ultra 3 wireless adapter ($43.99) that converts factory wired CarPlay to wireless, and the Krunia 9.26-inch portable touchscreen ($89.99) that adds wireless CarPlay to older cars without removing the factory stereo. A permanent dash receiver option, the BOSS Audio BVCP9700A, is also mentioned for drivers wanting a built-in installation.
As part of Google Summer of Code 2026, contributor Emmanuel Nyarko has been enhancing NetBSD's RAIDframe disk management system. The work adds an N-way RAID 1 extension letting mirrors span more than two disks with one primary and multiple secondaries, and introduces scrubbing support to proactively detect read failures across disks.
Retailer Very has published an early listing for an unannounced Philips Hue Play Sync Box Lite, a stripped-down version of Hue's HDMI light-syncing device. The Lite model offers just one HDMI input versus four on the current 8K model, caps out at 4K/60Hz, and drops IR remote support, but costs £109.99 versus £299.99 for the full version.
Shadow library Anna's Archive went offline in mid-August after what appears to have been a coordinated attack on its network infrastructure, sparking fears of a legal takedown given its ongoing court battles. The site has already lost its .org, .se, .pm and .vg domains this year following lawsuits from music companies and major book publishers, and now operates from .gl, .pk and .gd domains registered outside U.S. jurisdiction. Combined default judgments against the site's anonymous operators now total roughly $340 million, yet the archive keeps returning online.
Taiwan's Keelung District Prosecutors' Office has indicted nine individuals for orchestrating a five-step scheme to divert Nvidia B300 GPU servers meant for Taiwan into China, bypassing Supermicro's export compliance checks. Prosecutors say trading firm Flying Tiger Tech used whitelist status, a distributor intermediary, and a fake colocation lease to pass an on-site inspection despite lacking the infrastructure to actually run the 130 servers it ordered.
Xiaomi's new Xring O3 processor scored 3,945 in Geekbench single-core and 15,221 in multi-core tests, putting it roughly on par with Apple's silicon on single-threaded work but far ahead on multithreaded tasks. The chip packs 44MB of cache, more than most laptop CPUs, and its top C1-Ultra cores feature 21 execution ports with SME2 and SVE2 support for AI and SIMD workloads.