After facing backlash, Target will limit which stores sell LGBTQ-themed merchandise for Pride Month.Last year, the retail giant became the target of a boycott for selling "tuck-friendly" bathing suits, LGBTQ onesies for babies, and other pro-trans and pro-LGBT merchandise. Target later removed some of the LGBTQ products — or moved them to less trafficked areas of their stores — after losing billions of dollars in market value.'Target’s decision is disappointing and alienates LGBTQ+ individuals.'The backlash resulted in a sizeable drop in revenue for the second quarter of 2023.Target executives have seemingly learned their lesson.This year, Target will use its discretion when placing LGBTQ products in its stores, only selling such items "in select stores, based on historical sales performance," the company announced last week. That's a significant policy change. In previous years, Target offered Pride Month merchandise in all of its retail stores. Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesDespite the change, Target still wants everyone to know it is an LGBTQ ally.A company spokesperson said:Target is committed to supporting the LGBTQIA+ community during Pride Month and year-round. Most importantly, we want to create a welcoming and supportive environment for our LGBTQIA+ team members, which reflects our culture of care for the over 400,000 people who work at Target.The ferociously pro-LGBTQ Human Rights Campaign, meanwhile, is upset at Target's decision."Pride merchandise means something," claimed HRC president Kelley Robinson. "LGBTQ+ people are in every zip code in this country, and we aren’t going anywhere. With LGBTQ+ people making up 30% of Gen Z, companies need to understand that community members and allies want businesses that express full-hearted support for the community. That includes visible displays of allyship. Target’s decision is disappointing and alienates LGBTQ+ individuals and allies at the risk of not only their bottom line but also their values."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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Apple has just released macOS 14.5 to Mac users. The company doesn't provide release notes for this software update, but Cupertino says it's fixing important bugs. As we approach the macOS 15 announcement, it’s more likely that Apple wants to make the system more stable while adding security patches than revamping macOS since we expect big features to be announced in June. That said, macOS 14.5 is fixing two main issues, according to Apple: FaceTime: This update fixes an issue where users might not be able to approve or decline a FaceTime link call because notifications might not be received on the caller side for them to accept or decline the call.  Mac (Designed for iPad) Apps: This update fixes an issue where macOS might launch the wrong version for (Designed for iPad) apps after double-clicking the icon or after building from Xcode. Besides that, macOS 14.5 adds a new game for Apple News+ subscribrers. With macOS 14.4, Apple also didn’t bring many new features. Still, Cupertino expanded multiple timers on macOS Sonoma with all ringtones currently available on the iPhone. Previously, only the classic tones were available. For Apple Music, Books, and Podcasts apps, Apple switched the Listen Now tab to Home. In addition, macOS 14.4 added 28 new emojis. Most of the figures are skin tone modifiers and gender variants. Still, the new emojis include a lime, shaking heads, a phoenix, and four new gender-neutral family emojis intended to be represented via silhouettes. Podcasts Episode text can be read in full, searched for a word or phrase, clicked to play from a specific point, and used with accessibility features such as Text Size, Increase Contrast, and Voice Over. It also brought Business Updates in Messages for Business, which lets you get updates that you’ve opted into, like order status, flight notifications, fraud alerts, or other transactions from trusted businesses. Finally, Safari Favorites Bar adds an option to show only icons for websites. BGR will keep following the latest changes with macOS 14.5 beta 2, and we’ll let you know if we discover anything new. Alongside macOS 14.5, Apple has also released iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, watchOS 10.5, and tvOS 17.5 to users. We'll let you know if we find anything new with these software updates. Don't Miss: macOS 15: Release date, AI, features, Mac compatibility, more The post Apple releases macOS 14.5 with two important bug fixes appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $3 Alexa smart plugs, Peloton sale, $250 HP laptop, Sony XM5 headphones, more Today’s deals: $179 AirPods Pro 2, $599 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano laptop, COSORI air fryers, Bose sale, more Today’s deals: $50 off new Beats Solo 4, $249 iPad 9th-Gen, $19 Roku Express, $180 ASUS laptop, more Today’s deals: MacBook Pro & Air blowout, $99 Bose speaker, $25 Fire TV Stick 4K, $15 TOZO earbuds, more

Ahead of the M4 iPad Pro release, Apple is now making available iPadOS 17.5 to all users. This is possibly the last main update for iPadOS 17 before Cupertino unveils iPadOS 18 in early June, which should bring AI-powered features to help users take advantage of Apple's newest tablets. These are all the latest features available. Pride wallpapers: To celebrate Pride 2024, Apple brings "bold, symbolic color to Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad. Signaling hope, strength, and fellowship to LGBTQ+ communities, the beams of light glow against a dark background and stack on top of each other to represent the everlasting impact of LGBTQ+ activism and its role in illuminating the path to greater equality for future generations.” Podcasts widget change: The Podcasts widget has a new dynamic color that changes depending on what you’re listening to. Tracking Notifications: Cross-platform tracking detection delivers notifications to users if a compatible Bluetooth tracker they do not own is moving with them, regardless of what operating system the device is paired with. Apple News+: For Apple News+ (or Apple One subscribers), users can have a new offline mode that gives access to the Today feed and News+ tab even when they don't have an internet connection. Quartiles: One of the possible iPadOS 17.5 more popular features could be Quartiles, a new and original daily word game for Apple News+. You can see new player data for Crossword, Mini Crossword, and Quartiles with a Scoreboard, including stats and streaks. Scoreboards: You can see the player's data for Crossword, Mini Crossword, and Quartiles with a Scoreboard, including stats and streaks. In addition to iPadOS 17.5, Apple is also releasing iOS 17.5, watchOS 10.5, macOS 14.5, and tvOS 17.5 to all users. BGR will let you know if we find anything new with these software releases. Don't Miss: iPadOS 18: Rumors, features, release date, iPad compatibility, more The post iPadOS 17.5 now available with these features ahead of M4 iPad Pro release appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Best Apple deals for May 2024 Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2024: Get $415+ free Best Fire TV Stick deals for May 2024 Today’s deals: $79 AirPods, $249 iPad 9, free smart bulbs, Lexar memory sale, 20% off Galaxy S24, more

tvOS 17.5 is now available to everyone with an Apple TV that can run tvOS. While Apple didn't provide release notes for this operating system update, Cupertino is enhancing the experience on its set-top box while making it more secure. That said, it doesn’t seem tvOS 17.5 brings anything major, as Apple is already preparing for the tvOS 18 update. We’ll discover more about this operating system on June 10 with the WWDC 2024 keynote. With tvOS 17.4, Apple also offered us a mild software update, although it was full of references for unreleased products and operating systems. With beta 1, the company added references to unreleased homeOS software. Most likely, this software could be used for a HomePod with a screen. Bloomberg and other outlets have reported on a HomePod with iPad integration, like an Amazon Echo Show product. Apple is also apparently working on a HomePod with a circular display. That said, instead of the current wave animations that we have on the HomePod, we could see music and weather data, for example. That would come in handy, as tvOS 17.4 beta was adding a SharePlay feature for Apple Music. iPhone users could scan a QR code on the Apple Music app for the Apple TV and join a SharePlay session to add songs to a list and create a listening party. Unfortunately, it seems Apple scrapped this feature for now. In addition, HomePod Software 17.4 added a new feature for Siri. According to the release notes, “This update enables Siri to learn your preferred media service, so you no longer need to include the name of the media app in your request.” With that, if you use Pandora or YouTube Music, you don’t need to ask the HomePod to play a song on that streaming, as Siri will understand this is where you usually listen to songs. BGR will let you know if we discover anything new with tvOS 17.5. Apple has also released iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, watchOS 10.5, and macOS 14.5 to all users. We’ll let you know if we find anything new with these updates. Don't Miss: tvOS 18: Release date, features, Apple TV compatibility, more The post tvOS 17.5 is now available to Apple TV users with these changes appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $50 off new Beats Solo 4, $249 iPad 9th-Gen, $19 Roku Express, $180 ASUS laptop, more Today’s deals: $89 Apple AirPods, $3.75 smart plugs, $89 robot vacuum, Samsung monitors, more Today’s deals: $179 AirPods Pro 2, $599 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano laptop, COSORI air fryers, Bose sale, more Today’s deals: $79 AirPods, $249 iPad 9, free smart bulbs, Lexar memory sale, 20% off Galaxy S24, more

OpenAI has debuted some big changes coming to its AI chatbot, including its new ChatGPT GPT-4o update, a desktop app, and some other big changes users can expect to see soon. Here are all of the biggest announcements from the OpenAI spring update. A new GPT model Perhaps one of the biggest announcements to come out of the spring update is the introduction of GPT-4o, the latest GPT model, which will start rolling out to ChatGPT users today. The new model’s API offers some massive improvements over GPT-4 Turbo, including being two times faster, 50 percent cheaper, and five times higher rate limits. The ChatGPT 4-o update will start rolling out today, but it won’t just be premium users getting access to the new model. OpenAI has also revealed that GPT-4o will be available with limited usage rates for ChatGPT free users, a huge improvement over past models like GPT-4, which was only available to those who subscribed to ChatGPT Plus. Official ChatGPT desktop app Alongside the new model, OpenAI is also launching a new desktop app with access to GPT-4o and other GPT models. The desktop app will feature options to capture your screen, listen to your voice, and directly interact with it through text and other means — like images and documents. It’s the first time that ChatGPT has offered an official desktop app, which should make it an even better option for those who want easier access to GPT on their computers without having to sign into their web browser. The post OpenAI debuts GPT-4o model, new desktop app, and more appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $50 off new Beats Solo 4, $249 iPad 9th-Gen, $19 Roku Express, $180 ASUS laptop, more Best Apple Watch deals for April 2024 Today’s deals: $299 Apple Watch Series 9, Dell laptop sale, KitchenAid mixers, $349 iPad 10, more Best Fire TV Stick deals for May 2024

OpenAI employees and acolytes were all over Twitter in the lead-up to Monday's spring update from the company, so much so that the breathless hype was practically unavoidable. "The world will change forever," one tweet promised. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman teased that what was coming felt like "magic" to him. And this was all on top of rumors that the ChatGPT maker is working on a Google Search rival, and that OpenAI is teaming up with Apple for a voice assistant. In reality, while there were a plethora of technical announcements that the company unveiled during its rather brisk live-streamed event (such as the release of a new desktop version of ChatGPT), one over-arching big reveal stood out to me. It's that the new ChatGPT-4o makes OpenAI's already impressive chatbot feel and sound so much more, dare I say it, human. Among other things, ChatGPT can now detect emotion in both the user's voice as well as from their facial expression, just like a human can. It also makes unprompted jokes, the way a human would who's trying to keep a conversation light, and it also lets you interrupt a response -- so that you no longer have to confine yourself to the stilted my turn-your turn dynamic of a conversation with a chatbot. https://twitter.com/mckaywrigley/status/1790073147431047248 To get a sense of what I mean about OpenAI making ChatGPT feel more human, check out this video the company posted in which the new GPT4-o model interacts via the camera with a cute dog. If you had your eyes closed, you'd think this is a real lady fawning over a cute puppy, when in fact it's an AI model that's learned how to express relevant and appropriate emotion -- in addition to making the same observations we would when we meet a cute dog for the first time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU_4vMu9xFI "GPT-4o ('o' for 'omni') is a step towards much more natural human-computer interaction," OpenAI explains about the update. "It accepts as input any combination of text, audio, and image and generates any combination of text, audio, and image outputs. It can respond to audio inputs in as little as 232 milliseconds, with an average of 320 milliseconds, which is similar to human response time in a conversation ... GPT-4o is especially better at vision and audio understanding compared to existing models." That last part really speaks to the magic I was alluding to above. During the event on Monday, for example, ChatGPT read a bedtime story (with plenty of whimsy, emotion, and drama added to the narration). In a conversation, it repeats thoughts back to the user for purposes of clarity, and adds hmmms and pauses, just like a human. Does the world need a chatbot to read bedtime stories with the same level of emotion that your parents did when you were young? Honestly, no -- but having said that, it makes the technology much more approachable, similar to the way Apple adding handles to those early candy-colored Macintosh computers was unnecessary but at the time kind of delightful. https://twitter.com/heykahn/status/1790071051172331807 Similarly, OpenAI's voice assistant also now has some pretty impressive abilities when it comes to live-translation, to the point that this part of the demo actually took my breath away. This is what I mean about the big reveal, as I see it, from Monday's OpenAI event. The more the company makes the technology feel delightful, the greater the uptake on ChatGPT is going to be. Be honest: When's the last time a company realized a product or software update that delighted you and felt like magic? Don't Miss: OpenAI’s Monday ChatGPT announcement isn’t search, but it’s still a direct attack on Google The post OpenAI’s big reveal: Making ChatGPT feel and sound so much more human appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $179 AirPods Pro, $299 Apple Watch Series 9, $300 off Bose Smart Soundbar, more Today’s deals: $89 Apple AirPods, $3.75 smart plugs, $89 robot vacuum, Samsung monitors, more Best Echo Dot deals for May 2024 Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales

More than 2 millennia before the French Revolution introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens, an ancient Near Eastern Read moreSection: ArtifactsAncient WritingsNewsRead Later