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NPR's Scott Simon remarks on the legacy of Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy. She died Oct. 10 at the age of 96.

(Image credit: AP)

The Hindu holiday of Navaratri involves some complicated dance moves, passed down from parents to children. But as one mother discovered, the line between passing on cultural traditions and mortifying your teenager daughters can be perilously thin.

(Image credit: Justin Kramon)

In the year since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, the occupied West Bank has seen an increase in Israeli military raids and attacks by Israeli settlers. More than 600 Palestinians have been killed.

(Image credit: Maya Levin for NPR)

Katy residents have many options for fast, affordable, and reliable internet service. Based on speed, coverage, and cost, here are our top choices for the best internet providers in Katy, Texas.

This week, after months of waiting for a follow-up to the hugely successful Nintendo Switch handheld we finally got brand new Nintendo hardware in form of a clock called Alarmo. We also saw some major AI developments for Gemini, and the RTX 5090 price leaked (spoiler, it ain't cheap).

To catch up on all of this and more, we've collected the week's biggest news stories here so you can find out about everything you missed.

Once you're up to speed why not check out our picks for the seven new movies and TV shows to stream this weekend (October 11).

8. Apple struggled to keep a lid on the M4 MacBook Pro

(Image credit: Wylsacom)

Apple doesn’t really do leaks, so this week was something of a shock for tech fans used to its watertight launches.

Not only did we see a wave of credible video and benchmark leaks for the rumored M4 MacBook Pro, several people in Russia claimed to be selling the unannounced laptop on a classified ads site. Not quite on the level of leaving an iPhone 4 prototype in a bar, but not far off.

While it’s possible that those now-pulled adverts were fakes, the sheer number of convincing leaks suggests that an M4 MacBook Pro is coming soon – potentially with more Thunderbolt ports and a Space Black version.

• Read more: The M4 MacBook Pro leak circus just got even wilder

7. Toyota revealed a future powered by hydrogen cartridges

(Image credit: Toyota)

Hydrogen hit the headlines again this week as a possible fuel source for cars and even homes as Toyota revealed some concept portable cartridges that look like giant AA batteries.

Toyota says the cylinders have been developed using its experience in shrinking the hydrogen tanks in its fuel-cell electric vehicles. The concept is certainly an alluring one – rather than having to refuel at petrol stations or EV charging points, you could just swap out your power source when your hydrogen levels run low. In theory, at least.

Whether the concept makes it to reality remains to be seen, but it’s hopefully at least somewhere down the road – we can’t endure broken EV charging networks for much longer.

• Read more: Toyota’s portable hydrogen cartridges look like giant AA batteries – and could spell the end of lengthy EV charging

6.Nintendo finally launched new hardware

Nintendo announced new hardware this week, but it wasn’t the Nintendo Switch 2. Instead it revealed (of all things) a new sound clock called Alarmo.

It features a 2.8-inch LCD screen that tells you the date, time, and shows a playful Nintendo mascot – including Link, Olimar, and (of course) Mario – who react to what you and Alarmo are doing. Though if you stay in bed for too long Alarmo might send a less friendly face to motivate you – like the evil king Bowser.

What makes this smart alarm clock clever however is its in-built motion sensor which can track your movements. Alarmo can track your sleep habits which you can review in the morning, can be waved at to snooze your alarm, and can detect when you sit up to stop your alarm.

Alarmo’s only available to buy for people who are paid Nintendo Switch Online members right now, but it should be launching to the general public in January 2025.

• Read more: Nintendo Alarmo looks like a delightfully fun smart alarm clock

5. Google's Imagen 3 rolled out worldwide

(Image credit: Google)

This week Google updated its Gemini AI chatbot to use the latest Imagen 3 software for generating images. It’s easy to use too, you just ask Gemini to create an image using the same text prompts that you use to talk to Gemini normally. Imagen 3 sees considerable improvements over the previous version, with much better detail in images, especially where text is concerned.

Imagen 3 is available to everybody who can access Gemini, on a laptop or smartphone, even if you are on the free tier, however, while the image quality of Imagen 3 is superb, and there don’t seem to be limits on how many images you can create a day, there is one slight annoyance – you need to be a Gemini Advanced subscriber if you want to use it to generate images of people.

• Read more: Google Gemini’s new AI image generator just rolled out to everyone for free

4. The Apple Intelligence release date leaked

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple Intelligence finally has a release date... sort of. We were told Apple’s AI tools would arrive on iPhone, iPad, and Mac as part of a software update in October, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has given us a date.

Gurman suspects iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 will arrive on October 28, ushering in a new era for Apple as it moves into the AI-powered future. It’s definitely an exciting time to own Apple products, but will features like Writing Tools, Clean Up, and notification summaries be enough to make people care about AI?

At WWDC, Craig Federighi called it ‘AI for the rest of us’, but time will tell if the ‘rest of us’ even want AI to begin with. Expect to see Apple Intelligence features roll out over the next year with Genmoji and Image Playground arriving before the end of the year and Siri’s long-anticipated update set to release in early 2025.

• Read more: Here's when the first AI features are set to arrive on your iPhone

3. The Loop Dream helped us sleep well

(Image credit: Future)

Loop released its latest noise reducing ear buds, Loop Dream, which are specifically designed for sleep. Offering the highest noise reduction in the Loop range at 27dB, Loop Dream features redesigned oval tips that put less pressure on your ear canal as well as a new, silicon-coated loop that secures the buds in the cavum of your ear.

These handy little buds proved to be massively useful for our Managing Editor of Lifestyle, who's been using them for the last three weeks - and finally slept well because of it.

• Read more: I tried sleeping with Loop Dream

2. Nvidia apparently losing its mind with next-gen GPU pricing

The RTX 4090 (Image credit: Nvidia/Future)

It was a rocky ride for Nvidia this week from the rumor mill, and the most eye-opening piece of speculation came regarding the purported price tags that Team Green could pin on RTX 5000 graphics cards when they arrive (likely early next year).We were seriously shocked to discover that Nvidia is apparently mulling – and it is just a consideration at this point – a price of between $1,999 and $2,499 for the flagship RTX 5090. And the leaker who shared this – YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead – reckons that the company is looking more towards the $2.5K mark, than a mere two grand. Yikes.

Furthermore, Nvidia may be thinking about pitching the RTX 5080 from $1,199 up to $1,499, and the RTX 5070 could go for $599 to $699. An RTX 5070 that is potentially equipped with only 12GB of VRAM, we should note, adding to the indignation around this week’s Nvidia-related leaks.

What’s going on with these prices? We’re honestly a bit baffled, but a theory proposed that maybe Nvidia is testing the reaction to this pricing, when the figures were inevitably leaked, could offer up some hope that there’ll be a reversal of course here. Come on, Nvidia – don’t do this to us. The worst thing, in some ways, is that these days it almost feels inevitable that Team Green will push the envelope when it comes to expensive, and that worse still, this gives AMD no incentive to price more competitively with RDNA 4 GPUs, either, when they arrive. Meh…

• Read more: Rumored RTX 5000 GPU price leaks are shocking – Nvidia should just call the RTX 5090 a Titan if it’s going to charge up to $2,500 for it

1. Panasonic revealed the world’s smallest zoom lens for full-frame

(Image credit: Panasonice)

Panasonic's new Lumix S 18-40mm F4.5-6.3 became the world's smallest and lightest zoom lens with autofocus for full-frame cameras – and it's an ideal pairing with the Lumix S9 mirrorless camera, for which a big firmware update was also announced, plus improvements to Panasonic's Lumix Lab app.

Tipping the scales at just 0.34lb / 155g and measuring just 40.9mm in length when retracted, the 18-40mm is positively tiny yet still packs a wider than average 18mm perspective that's ideal for video creators, weather resistance, focus breathing suppression, plus decent close focusing capabilities – just 0.15m / 0.49ft. It's exactly the lens that Panasonic's polarizing Lumix S9 for content creators needed, a camera that we labeled "small, simple, powerful, flawed" in our Lumix S9 in-depth review, but whose compact form felt rather redundant without a complementary L-mount lens. That changed with the new 18-40mm which, along with the firmware update, gives the Lumix S9 gets a second wind and could realize its potential as one of the best YouTube cameras.

• Read more: The Lumix S 18-40mm is officially here, and it's officially tiny

Have a peek at the pictures in our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 review and you'll see distinctive, black circles around the camera lenses on the back – a design choice that's apparently coming to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra too, as per the latest leak.

This comes via an image from well-known tipster @UniverseIce, and you can see in the post embedded below there's a distinctive difference from the camera ring design choice on the current Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra model.

The image also matches previously leaked renders of this flagship, so it now seems pretty certain that this is the way Samsung is going to go with next year's Ultra model. More rounded edges and an asymmetrical frame have also been rumored.

Considering that the exact same design tweak has also been tipped for the Galaxy S25 Plus, there's a good chance that we're actually going to see this rear camera design on all three Samsung Galaxy S25 phones – which are expected to arrive in January.

Ringing the changes

The final answer of S25 Ultra camera: It is similar to the camera ring design of Fold6, but not exactly the same. pic.twitter.com/WFYZZUGfj3October 11, 2024

You could argue that the new-look camera rings are less discreet and subtle in terms of their aesthetics than what we've got on the current Ultra model – but they have a certain sort of style of their own, and look likely to keep the actual cameras well protected.

According to this tipster, the camera rings will be "similar to the camera ring design of Fold 6, but not exactly the same". We'll have to wait until these handsets are actually announced to see if we can spot the differences.

There have actually been quite a few unofficial renderings of the Galaxy S25 Ultra leaked online in the last few months, so we've got a very good idea of what the phone is going to look like – assuming the leaks are accurate, of course.

We've also heard that the phone could have a slightly bigger screen (6.86 inches instead of 6.8 inches, thanks to thinner bezels), and aside from the design there's also been talk of 16GB of RAM on board (up from 12GB) and a significant performance boost.

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Sorry Netflix, but I haven't forgiven you for canceling one of the best drama shows The Society. Yes, I know it's been years now, but with the amount of cancelations the best streaming service has recently done, it's a hurtful reminder of the beloved shows that were cut short by the Netflix ax.

The harsh memory of The Society's cancelation was brought back to the front of my mind while writing about Netflix quietly canceling the most realistic zombie show I’ve ever seen Black Summer (sob!). Unfortunately, the streaming giant has scrapped over 15 shows this year so far, with dark comedy Greek mythology-inspired series Kaos being the most recent show to be controversially canceled.

The Society definitely deserves a space on my list of seven shows canceled by Netflix in 2024 so far that you should still watch, even though it was canceled four years ago – but I'm just not over it. And I'm not the only one either, with watchers creating a Change.org petition to renew The Society for a second season.

Following its debut in May 2019, the YA drama was renewed for a second season in July of the same year. Production was set to start in March 2020 for the new instalment, but Netflix decided to can The Society season 2 due to the Covid--19 pandemic.

This best Netflix show with 86% on Rotten Tomatoes isn't just your average teen drama with the formulaic tropes of teenage angst, high school gossip and best friend backstabbing. It's actually a thoughtful and realistic portrayal of community, politics and culture with a unique premise that had a lot of potential to become a huge success.

Why you should stream The Society

What would you do if there was a killer in your community? With no police or prison around, would you execute the criminal or lock them up and throw away the key? What if you're pregnant and there's no hospital staff or midwives to help you deliver your baby? These are the sorts of issues that arise in The Society.

Commonly described as a modern take on The Lord of the Flies, The Society follows a group of teenagers who return home from a school trip and realize all of the town's adults have mysteriously disappeared. In order to survive, they create their own society, which quickly descends into chaos and becomes a "survival of the fittest" with shocking deaths, betrayals, and secrets as the high school students rebel against the rules.

While the intense plot, unpredictable twists, and unraveling mystery will keep you intrigued throughout the 10-episode series, it's also the complex and authentic characters that make The Society a must watch. There's an eclectic mix of teenagers you meet - some you love and some you hate. From a manipulative psychopath to a devout Catholic, they all have their own stories to tell and deal with their issues in various ways.

The Society also raises awareness on important social issues such as teen pregnancy, domestic abuse, mental health, and living with a disability that makes this fantastical story all the more true to life and engrossing.

(Image credit: Seacia Pavao/Netflix )

Hopes of The Society season 2 was struck down with even more bad luck when the show creator revealed to Variety that he and his creative partners nearly released a graphic novel that would have revealed season 2's storylines, but the publisher went out of business.

However, he did add that the writing crew are working out how to continue the story in a new way. He said: "I have consistent conversations with a bunch of the writers and Marc Webb about how we might bring this back in some way. We don’t have an answer yet, and I wouldn’t count on it, but I don’t do that with every show that gets canceled."

"The audience still wants to talk about it. They are still moved by it and want answers to the questions and then new questions are posed. I just don’t know whether the world is going to work in a way that aligns for us, but we’ll keep trying for a while because it’s gotten under my skin as well." Fingers crossed this happens!

Now that The Society has been canceled before season 2, I won't ever get the answers to the series biggest mysteries – please Netflix, I need to know where the adults went and who the mystery father of Becca's (Gideon Adlon) baby is. Despite this, The Society is definitely still worth the watch, and deserves as much praise as it gets.

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In a world of increasingly powerful hurricanes and other rising climate threats, those with vested interests in promoting certain locations have sold the public a dream.

The one-of-a-kind killing of a Kentucky judge, allegedly by the local sheriff, has shaken tight-knit Letcher County, leaving people baffled and unnerved as police try to figure out a motive.

(Image credit: Arden Barnes for NPR)

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(Image credit: Karen Brown/New England Public Media)

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From PlantTok to BookTok to ADHD-tok, influencers are touting hundreds of products, but it’s hard to know which ones are legitimate. So we sifted through them so you don’t have to. Here are the best TikTok gifts that are worth all their hype both online and off.

Holiday shopping is underway, and a new TV could be the ultimate gift. After thorough rounds of testing in our TV lab, we've put together a selection of models that deliver great value for the price. And all of them would make excellent gifts.

Scammers in Southeast Asia are increasingly turning to AI, deepfakes, and dangerous malware in a way that makes their pig butchering operations even more convincing.

The plight of the river, which empties into Lake Erie at Cleveland, helped inspire the Clean Water Act. Now it attracts kayakers and anglers and could soon be removed from an EPA watchlist.

Only specific sleep phases grant restorative rest. If you're waking up tired despite getting enough sleep, this might be why.