GoKawiil
Tech News
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing data center-related permits until ERCOT finishes auditing the state's grid connection waitlist. This broadens an August moratorium that had already paused new grid approvals for data centers, extending the freeze into environmental sign-offs needed for construction.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission concluded a five-year inquiry into how Google Ireland handled location data across Web & App Activity, Location History and Location Accuracy features between 2018 and 2020. The regulator found multiple GDPR violations spanning lawfulness, transparency, accountability and data retention, and has fined the company €403 million while giving it six months to fix its practices.
Concrete Ship Constructors has published a listing for a vessel type designated B5-BJ2, referred to as an 'Ice Cream Barge'. No further technical or commercial details were provided in the available material beyond the name and model designation.
A software professional describes a growing trend where colleagues use AI to retroactively generate design documents, pull request summaries, tickets, and even personal messages after work is already done. The writer argues these AI outputs are technically detailed but lack context, perspective, and human judgment, making them exhausting and frustrating to read despite AI's usefulness for improving writing speed and quality elsewhere.
Despite the shift toward wireless devices, many high-end and gaming keyboards remain wired or offer no Bluetooth option at all, largely because of measurable input delay. Bluetooth connections introduce a few extra milliseconds of lag between a keypress and its registration on a computer, which barely matters for typing but can affect gaming or music production. A 2.4GHz USB dongle connection offers a faster alternative to Bluetooth, often approaching wired performance for latency-sensitive tasks.
Security researchers discovered that Meta's new macOS AI assistant Muse contains a vulnerability allowing any locally installed app or terminal command to access the authentication token tied to a user's Muse account, bypassing Apple's built-in permission protections. The flaw also lets outside processes alter numerous undocumented settings, some of which could grant deeper control over connected accounts like WhatsApp, email and calendars. Separately, Amazon has begun blocking Muse from its platform.
WhatsApp is rolling out an update that lets Apple Watch users react to messages with any emoji from watchOS's full library, organized into eight categories including Smileys, Nature, and Objects. Previously, reactions on the Apple Watch app were limited to six default emojis, requiring an iPhone for anything else. Tapping and holding a message still shows the six defaults, but a new picker offers recent emojis and the complete system set.
Napster, now owned by AI/VR firm Infinite Reality, has partnered with GEMS Education in the UAE to create AI-generated avatars of teachers that answer student questions around the clock in multiple languages. The system will run on Napster Learn and a wearable device called Napster View, with a rollout planned across GEMS Middle East schools by the end of 2026.
Google allows users to turn off Timeline, its location-history feature in Google Maps, through device-specific settings rather than a single global switch. Users can choose to simply pause tracking, delete all past data, or set auto-delete rules for activity older than three, 18, or 36 months. The app also provides options to export Timeline data or back it up in encrypted form to a Google account.
New code found in iOS 27.2 beta 2 shows Apple continuing development of an internal feature called AutoLock, which detects signals like sudden acceleration, loss of connection to a paired Apple Watch, or extended network dropout to guess that an iPhone has been snatched and lock it automatically. The code also reveals safeguards, including biometric checks, familiar-location detection, and a voting system where certain signals can veto a false lock trigger. The feature remains inactive and unavailable to users in this beta.
Trail of Bits reports that ahead of auditing the Miden zero-knowledge VM, its team spent six months using AI agents to build an LSP server, decompiler, static analysis engine, and a Lean formal model of the VM executor from scratch, since almost no developer tooling existed for Miden's custom assembly language. The resulting tools and formal proofs helped uncover a security flaw allowing a malicious prover to forge Falcon signatures and steal funds from Miden account holders, plus 95 machine-checked correctness proofs covering much of the Miden core library.
A CNET journalist testing the Apple Watch Series 4's ECG feature against a hospital-grade electrocardiogram unexpectedly had the device flag an irregular heartbeat in his own heart, matching the hospital's findings. Doctors later determined the anomaly was benign, likely caused by stress and sleep deprivation, but the moment shifted his view of the watch from a novelty gadget to a legitimate health tool. He later gave Apple Watches to his parents, and one flagged an issue that led to his father's diagnosis and treatment for a serious heart condition.