GoKawiil
Tech News
A public research project called the Atlas of Surveillance has compiled the largest known database tracking police surveillance tools used across the United States, including automated license plate readers made by Flock Safety. The tool lets residents search by location to see whether local law enforcement agencies have deployed these camera systems in their area.
Analogue's FPGA-based N64 remake, the Analogue 3D, outputs video at up to 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, but the original games it plays were rendered natively at far lower resolutions, typically around 320 x 240 and occasionally up to 640 x 480. The console upscales and cleans up that old output—removing blur, distance fog, and choppy frame rates—rather than generating new high-resolution textures or geometry.
A developer recounts a year of experimenting with LLM coding assistants, from unusable output in mid-2025 to functional but messy 'spaghetti code' by early 2026. After growing tired of repeatedly correcting the same style issues in agentic tools like Antigravity and Claude Code, they created a persistent instruction file called agent.md that encodes coding style preferences so the AI applies them automatically in every session.
A developer released Thoreau BASIC, an interpreter compatible with GW-BASIC that can boot directly on bare-metal UEFI machines, with a Windows version also available. It supports classic BASIC constructs like DEF FN, GOSUB, error trapping, and graphics commands such as PSET, LINE, CIRCLE, and PAINT, working at native framebuffer resolution with 16-color EGA or 24-bit RGB.
Connecticut-based streamer Warren Pandiscia has filed a class action lawsuit against Twitch and Amazon, alleging the companies used his streams and videos to train AI models without licensing or consent. The suit follows Twitch's recent rollout of an opt-out (rather than opt-in) setting for AI training use of channel content, with a Twitch executive admitting few users would opt in if given the choice upfront.
Slovak investigators reportedly discovered a hidden backdoor of Russian origin embedded in the country's traffic speed camera systems. The finding raises concerns that the compromised devices could have been used for surveillance or remote manipulation without operator knowledge.
USB-C laptop chargers can be safely used to charge phones, and will speed up charging only if the phone supports higher-wattage fast charging via USB Power Delivery. Phones capped at 18-20W input won't charge any faster on a 65W or 100W charger, since the device only draws what it's rated for. Charger safety depends more on certification and build quality than wattage, as counterfeit units can pass dangerous voltage spikes and cheap cables may lack required safety components.
A new analysis revisits the 2022 'doom loop' theory that predicted falling office values would trigger a self-reinforcing cycle of shrinking tax revenue and service cuts in major cities. Researchers now argue that New York and San Francisco, initially seen as most vulnerable, have shown surprising resilience—New York's office market has rebounded and San Francisco has benefited from AI-driven growth—while other cities face greater hidden fiscal risk.
New employees face a steep learning curve involving unfamiliar projects, clients, and internal processes, often with only an employee handbook and a mentor to guide them. Career advisers suggest that using AI tools thoughtfully during this period can help new hires absorb information and reach competence more quickly than traditional onboarding alone.
Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson, working with the Digital Economy Lab, now says there is no evidence of economy-wide job losses from AI, though entry-level positions remain vulnerable. His updated research finds productivity growth accelerating instead, with nonfarm business productivity rising over 2% annually, the strongest pace since the late 1990s.
A hands-on comparison finds that liquid coolers, such as NZXT's Kraken 360mm AIO, deliver superior thermal performance for high-end CPUs like AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D, enabling demanding 4K/120FPS gaming without overheating. However, the piece notes these coolers cost upwards of $200, are harder to install, and require more long-term maintenance than air coolers, which remain the practical choice for mid-range builds.
A hobbyist developer has released a major update to their QuickTake program for the Apple II, adding full support for the Kodak DC50 Zoom camera from 1996. The update enables picture downloads, thumbnail previews, deletion, and settings adjustments over a custom serial cable, achieved after reverse-engineering the camera's protocol using tools like dcraw, libgphoto2, and old Kodak software.