'It Just Fits a Larger Pattern': Harris Blows Off Hurricane Preparedness Briefings for Photo Ops

The adult version of the Ünos by Sz shoes can expand a full size to accommodate growing feet. | Image: Target Target is introducing a new line of sneakers with a clever design that allows them to grow alongside the wearer, extending how long they can be worn before they’re too small. The ÜNOS by Sz shoes (which is short for “U Need One Size”) are available in kids sizes for $34.99 and adult sizes for $49.99, in 16 different color options. The ÜNOS by Sz feature a sole that’s split into two sections by a Z-shaped channel, but each side remains connected by flexible fabrics. The design allows the shoes to expand in width and length while still being providing a secure fit — up to a half size in the kids version and up to a full size in the adult one. Image: Target The kids version of the ÜNOS by Sz also feature elastic laces... Continue reading…

Toyota is betting big on air taxis. | Image: Toyota Toyota is investing another $500 million in Joby Aviation to support the air taxi startup’s certification and commercial production of eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft for use in a ridehailing service. The automaker has now invested a total of $894 million since 2018. Toyota’s investment will come in the form of two $250 million tranches, the first of which will be completed this year and the second in 2025. The automaker will also establish a manufacturing alliance with Joby for the first commercialization phase. The companies had signed an agreement in 2023 to let Toyota make powertrain components for Joby’s air taxi. The California-based Joby Aviation is run by JoeBen Bevirt, who started the company in 2009. The... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, asked rival hosting service WP Engine to hand over 8 percent of its revenue each month before igniting a very public battle over what you can and can’t do with an open-source project. On Wednesday, Automattic published the proposed deal that it sent to WP Engine on September 20th. The proposal lays out a seven-year agreement that gives WP Engine the right to use the WordPress trademark in exchange for a hefty payment. The 8 percent cut could either be paid as a royalty fee to Automattic or as salaries for WP Engine employees who would contribute to the WordPress.org open-source project. If WP Engine chose to pay a royalty fee, Automattic said it would publicly attribute part of its... Continue reading…

AFMF 2 is now widely available after rolling out to beta testers earlier this year. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AMD has officially launched the latest version of its Fluid Motion Frames tech that can boost gaming frame rates on RDNA 2- and RDNA 3-based graphics hardware. Following its technical preview in July, Fluid Motion Frames 2 (AFMF 2) is now widely available after being released on Tuesday alongside its supporting Adrenalin 24.9.1 GPU driver. AFMF is a frame generation technology similar to Nvidia’s DLSS Frame Generation but operates on the driver level instead of game-specific integration. The second-gen AFMF update can be enabled in OpenGL, Vulkan, DirectX 11, or DirectX 12 games — meaning FPS can now be improved in titles that don’t support FSR and DLSS — and currently works on AMD Radeon RX 6000, RX 7000, 700M, and 800M GPUs. ... Continue reading…

You can’t talk about generative AI software like ChatGPT without thinking of Nvidia, which is one of the big winners of the early days of the genAI revolution. But Nvidia is best known so far for providing the chips that companies like OpenAI need to process all of their complex generative AI functions. Fast-forward to early October 2024, and Nvidia stunned the AI world by announcing NVLM 1.0, a family of large multimodal language models that can perform at least as well as ChatGPT’s GPT-4o model. Before you get too excited about Nvidia’s potential consumer-facing NVLM product, you should know the company is choosing a different avenue to show its genAI strength. Rather than releasing a direct rival to ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, it’s making the model weights publicly available so others can use NVLM to develop their own AI apps and systems. Continue reading... The post Nvidia stunned the world with a ChatGPT rival that’s as good as GPT-4o appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: First AirPods 4 discount, $6 smart bulbs, $110 off Dyson V8, $6 MagSafe chargers, more Best Echo Dot deals for Fall Prime Day 2024 Today’s deals: $76 off Nintendo Switch OLED, $190 memory foam mattress, $90 Chefman Air Fryer+, more Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales

That was a painful three days of ICANN claiming (erroneously) that I was previously unverified but recently verified and to wait it out for 48 hours. Almost 72 hours later, I still have no idea why the verification process went awry in the first place, but our long History Blog nightmare is over. Please hold for the return of regular programming.

For the second time in the past eight years, astronomers examining stars in the Milky Way close to Earth discovered a planet orbiting one of these celestial objects. The first such discovery took place in 2016, when astronomers identified an exoplanet (the name for any planet beyond our solar system) orbiting the star Proxima Centauri in the 4.2-light-years-distant Alpha Centauri solar system. The latest discovery was confirmed earlier this year, when professional stargazers positively identified a small-sized planet circling a lone solar traveler known as Barnard’s star, a red dwarf that can be found 5.96 light-years from Earth. This planet was found by researchers affiliated with the Europe Southern Observatory (ESO), using a Very Large Telescope (VLT) array installed by the ESO on the summit of Cerro Paranal mountain in the Atacama Desert region of northern Chile. This extremely sensitive and powerful array of four interconnected telescopes includes an instrument known as the Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO), which can detect tiny gravitational wobbles in the orbit of a faraway star caused by another celestial body orbiting around it. The newly discovered planet caused these wobbles in the motion of Barnard’s star, and further analysis of the orbital path of this planet over a five-year period verified its true identity. Read moreSection: NewsScience & SpaceRead Later 

Many residents of the Carolinas still lacked running water, cellphone service, and electricity Wednesday as rescuers searched for people unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage across the Southeast and killed at least 166 people.

One of two doctors charged in the investigation of the death of Matthew Perry is expected to plead guilty Wednesday in a federal court in Los Angeles to conspiring to distribute the surgical anesthetic ketamine. Dr. Mark Chavez, 54, of San Diego, signed a plea agreement with...