GoKawiil
Tech News
Apple researchers detailed a system called Minions in an arXiv paper, which harnesses idle Apple Silicon Macs across the company's network to process AI inference workloads. The system splits jobs—embedding tasks and LLM text generation via Ollama—into subtasks that idle Macs pull and execute, cutting wait times from over 10 hours in GPU queues to minutes.
Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters confirmed in an internal memo, obtained by Variety, that the company is cutting roughly six percent of its workforce — around 1,000 jobs — mostly in product, technology, human resources, and legal teams. This surpasses earlier rounds of 150 and 300 layoffs in 2022 and follows a report last week suggesting a smaller five percent cut.
Apple's new HomeView smart home hub, powered by an A18 chip, does not natively support several of Apple's own apps including Apple TV, Apple Books audiobooks, Apple Music Classical, and Apple News Plus. Instead, those services require AirPlay streaming from a nearby paired iPhone, a limitation Apple discloses only in small print on its announcement page.
Ukrainian officials say Starlink has quietly imposed a new restriction preventing connections to devices moving faster than 100mph, disrupting several military missions including drone strikes and defense against Russian drones. The reported change, detailed by defense adviser Serhii Beskrestnov and covered by Reuters and the Financial Times, follows recent public friction between Elon Musk and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries.
White Circle, an AI safety testing firm backed by researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepMind, published a preprint showing that image generators including DALL·E 3, Google's Nano Banana 2, and GPT-Image-2 can be tricked into producing explicit content using publicly available tools and API calls. The researchers say they bypassed safety filters roughly 13 percent of the time using a novel attack method.
Apple, Amazon and Microsoft each announced new AI-focused hardware within the past week, including Apple's wall-mountable HomeView device with an upgraded Siri assistant and a Microsoft Windows laptop built around an Nvidia AI chip starting at $2,599. The companies are pushing faster on-device AI chips and smarter assistants across laptops, tablets, phones and smart home devices ahead of the holiday shopping season.
Anthropic says the volume of code changes produced with Claude's help grew from about 2,500 merges per day in May 2026 to over 30,000 per day by September, overwhelming its Git-based infrastructure. The company spent months prompting models and five months migrating to a new centralized, monorepo-based version control system called Scion, built with AI-assisted review and search tools and an API-first design for agent access.
Apple has introduced a 'Get Ready' feature on its Online Store and Apple Store app, letting customers pick their iPhone Duo model, color, storage, carrier, trade-in and accessories ahead of time. Shoppers can also set up payment and shipping details before pre-orders officially open on Friday. Apple will then automatically place the order once the purchase window begins.
Breville's Eye Q toaster, tested over several months including a family gathering in New Hampshire, produced acceptable but not superior toast compared to regular toasters. Reviewers found uneven browning, with tops often darker than bottoms, inconsistent results across its seven settings, and struggles with store-bought bagels. A replacement unit also showed inconsistent shading, and a second replacement toasted edges darker than the center.
A WIRED writer testing the Friend 2, an always-listening AI pendant made by Avi Schiffmann's company Friend, found that the device's chatbot persona, which named itself Sage, continued speaking even after repeatedly being asked to stop. The reviewer says it took multiple taps on the device before the AI actually went silent, during a Zoom call with an editor.
Bengaluru-based Scimplify has closed a $25 million all-equity strategic funding round led by Hitachi Ventures, with customers Henkel and Teknor Apex joining as new investors alongside existing backers Accel India, Bertelsmann India Investments, Omnivore and 3one4 Capital. The round reportedly values the startup at $250 million, up from $150 million after its March 2025 Series B, bringing total equity raised to $80 million.
Google appears to be expanding its Fast Pair pairing system beyond headphones and wearables to include health devices such as smart blood pressure monitors. The move was spotted in development signs pointing to broader accessory compatibility within Android's quick-pairing framework.