La Niña, a climate pattern that can affect weather worldwide, has officially arrived. La Niña is fueled by colder-than-normal Pacific ocean temperatures, which then affect the pattern of the Pacific jet steam. It’s the cooler counter to El Niño, which involves warmer-than-normal ocean waters. Both are part of a weather system called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). La Niña conditions emerged in September, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center said on Thursday. They’re expected to continue through the end of the year, and potentially until February 2026. This La Niña is expected to remain weak, weather experts said, but…
Author: Staff Writer
For many high-impact runners, it fels like Mom and Dad are fighting. Strava, the popular fitness-tracking app, is suing the fitness wearable giant Garmin over alleged patent infringement and breach of conduct. The lawsuit, filed Sept. 30 in a Colorado district court, alleges that Garmin is infringing on two patents — segments and heatmaps — and also broke a written agreement between the two companies, as first reported by DC Rainmaker. For many athletes, Strava and Garmin go together like Oakley sunglasses and On Running shoes. A trend report published last year by Strava showed that Garmin’s Forerunner was among…
Ask the most bullish representatives of big AI companies, and they’ll tell you that robotic colleagues and house staff are just around the corner. A massive market for robotic aids, powered by AI “brains,” could contribute huge sums to the bottom line of tech firms. Elon Musk predicted earlier this year that they could produce $30 trillion in revenue for his companies alone. Picture what those robots are, and your mind’s eye likely conjures an image of a humanoid robot: Two arms, two legs, a head, all in human-like proportions. That’s what the biggest players in the sector like Tesla,…
Here’s a question about the shutdown submitted by an Associated Press reader, Ryan S.: How might the shutdown affect the U.S. economy? Shutdowns of the federal government usually don’t leave much economic damage. But the one that started Wednesday looks riskier, not least because President Donald Trump is threatening to use the standoff to permanently eliminate thousands of government jobs, and the state of the economy is already precarious. For now, financial markets are shrugging off the impasse as just the latest failure of Republicans and Democrats to agree on a budget and keep the government running. Let’s take a look at a range…
In a single day, OpenAI laid out the two pillars of its next empire: first, it signed a sweeping deal with AMD to secure no less than six gigawatts of GPU compute, an agreement that could give it up to a 10% stake in AMD if certain milestones are met. Then, on stage at DevDay, it unveiled a new layer of “mini-apps” that live inside ChatGPT, turning the chatbot into something much bigger: not a product, but a platform. Together, these moves define OpenAI’s ambition with perfect clarity: control the power and control the interface. Power, literally The AMD deal…
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney raised the prospect of reviving the contentious Keystone XL pipeline project with U.S. President Donald Trump during his White House visit this week, a government official familiar with the matter said Wednesday. A Canadian company pulled the plug on it four years ago after the Canadian government failed to persuade then-President Joe Biden to reverse his cancellation of its permit on the day he took office. It was to transport crude from the oil sand fields of western Canada to Steele City, Nebraska. Trump previously revived the long-delayed project during his first term after it had stalled…
America’s advertising market has transformed so dramatically over the last decade that almost two-thirds of it is now in the hands of just five tech companies. This week, MoffettNathanson released a report called “U.S. Advertising: Are We Near the AI Tipping Point?” which highlights, among other things, how generative AI is disrupting TV advertising as interest in traditional media continues to shift away. The report suggests that the effects of AI have been prominent among some of the largest Big Tech companies, which have taken up incremental market share through improved targeting, engagement, and performant creative. For instance, the findings…
For its first brand refresh in 13 years, Domino’s updated its color palette, packaging, and font to look more engaging. When it came to making new tagline, though, the Michigan-based pizza chain is trying something unique: they just added more Ms to their wordmark. Mmm. Domino’s announced a rebrand Wednesday that includes brighter reds and blues and a new font called Domino’s Sans that was designed to “be thicker and doughier” and proves that using sans serifs doesn’t have to be bland. Team members will get new branded gear to wear in the kitchen and out delivering orders, and there’s…
Creativity has always been governed by time—not just how long it takes to bring an idea to life, but how long a creator can stay “in flow.” Every designer knows the frustration of an idea hanging in digital limbo. But those pauses, once accepted as inevitable, are now starting to vanish. Figma, the cloud-based interface design tool, and Google Cloud, the computing and storage platform, have announced the integration of Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash directly into Figma’s design platform. The collaboration aims to let designers generate visuals and make edits almost instantly, eliminating the lag between an idea and its execution.…
We’ve been expecting the tsunami of AI-generated videos ever since we first got a taste of AI’s image-making abilities several years ago. The results until recently were underwhelming. But now our social feeds are awash in increasingly realistic AI-created video. OpenAI, Meta, and Google have entered the game. At the end of September, Meta introduced Vibes, an AI-only video feed, in the newest version of its Meta AI app. It allows users to share videos created by the company’s generative tools in the Meta app, as well as on Facebook and Instagram. Five days later, OpenAI unveiled its Sora app,…