GoKawiil
Tech News
MapQuest launched a new 'Surveillance' layer this week that marks the locations of automatic license plate readers from Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions, Genetec, Axon and several other manufacturers. Users can enable it via the app's Layers menu, and tapping a marker reveals the camera type and exact coordinates. The company has not disclosed how it sources this location data.
MapQuest has introduced a new toggleable map layer that displays locations of outdoor surveillance cameras and license plate readers, including devices from Flock, Motorola Solutions, Genetec, Axis Communications, Axon and several other manufacturers. The feature sits alongside existing traffic and incident layers in the app.
E Ink has announced Kaleido 4, a new color e-paper display technology that doubles color gamut volume to over 40,000 colors and improves white reflectance and contrast. The company says an added oxide backplate lets the screen refresh fast enough to show video at 18 fps, addressing a longstanding weakness of e-paper displays. Kaleido 4 is currently used only in Hanvon Technology's M10 C II tablet.
E Ink has announced Kaleido 4, a successor to its widely used Kaleido 3 color e-paper technology found in most color e-readers. The company says it doubles color gamut volume, increases white reflectance by 15 percent, boosts contrast by 50 percent, and uses a new oxide TFT backplane enabling refresh rates up to 18fps. Hanvon Technology will be first to use the display, in its upcoming M10C II tablet, which will only be sold in China.
Musician and investigative researcher Benn Jordan testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism at a hearing on Flock Safety and other automatic license plate reader systems. The company, which makes ALPR cameras and software, is now under investigation by Sen. Josh Hawley, has seen hundreds of local governments cancel contracts, and reportedly plans to cut about 18 percent of its workforce, according to Reuters. Jordan says he communicates directly with Flock's CEO Garrett Langley and reports security vulnerabilities to the company despite his criticism of its practices.
At TechCrunch's Disrupt 2026 conference, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said the company has never ended a contract with a police department over misuse of its license plate reader systems, despite numerous reports of officers abusing database access to stalk people. Langley said Flock would cut off a customer that knowingly broke the law, but has so far judged individual officer misconduct cases as not warranting termination of the underlying agency's access.
A reader survey found that most Kindle owners are unwilling to pay for Amazon's new Page-Turn Cover accessory, which lets users flip pages via buttons on the cover. Respondents cited the cost of the add-on as the main reason for passing on it despite its added convenience.
Canadian software engineer and YouTuber Anthony Sistilli built his own automatic license plate reader using a 4K surveillance camera and AI coding tools, configuring it to flag only police cruisers rather than ordinary vehicles. He tested the dashboard-mounted prototype in real traffic, refining it after early lag issues, and detailed the project in a YouTube video. Local police subsequently visited his home in September to question him about the device.
Flock Safety, valued at $8.4 billion, is expanding its drone-for-police program even as its automated license plate readers face vandalism and municipal bans across the country. Cities have blacked out, painted over or wrapped the company's cameras in protest, citing surveillance concerns, while the company pivots growth toward aerial surveillance tools for law enforcement.
Reporting has raised questions about whether companies other than Flock Safety operate similar automated license plate recognition networks that collect and share vehicle location data. The discussion centers on how widespread such surveillance infrastructure may be across the industry, not just at one vendor.
Penguin Young Readers is releasing a set of special-edition children's books this fall featuring decorative touches like gold foil, glitter, and sprayed edges. One edition, a new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, includes a physical Golden Ticket insert packaged with the book.
As public backlash grows against Flock Safety's automatic license plate readers, police departments are increasingly adopting Axon's Fusus platform, which merges feeds from body cameras, dashcams, 911 calls, gunshot detectors, drones and CCTV into a single dashboard. Law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson told NPR these 'real-time crime centers' already combine far more surveillance tools than ALPR cameras alone, including video analytics with retroactive search capability.