DJI just announced a more affordable Mavic 3 drone

The Mavic 3 Classic is the latest camera drone to join the DJI family. | Image: DJI

DJI has launched the Mavic 3 Classic, an accessible variant of the original Mavic 3 drone that rocks many of its best features at a more palatable price point.

The Mavic 3 Classic costs $1,469 for the base unit, which then climbs to $1,599 when paired with a DJI RC-N1 controller or $1,749 with the DJI RC controller. By comparison, prices for the original Mavic 3 start at $2,049. The Mavic 3 Classic is also compatible with the DJI’s premium RC Pro controller, available for an additional $1,199.

Image: DJI

The DJI Mavic 3 Classic (pictured here with the DJI RC) is compatible with any existing DJI RC-N1, DJI RC, or DJI RC Pro controller.

So what are you getting for your money? The Mavic 3 Classic drops the...

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Elgato’s hefty 4K webcam sticks out with 60 frames per second recording

The Facecam Pro includes a monitor mount that attaches with a quarter-inch thread (not shown above) and a USB-C to USB-C cable. | Image: Elgato

Elgato has released the $299.99 Facecam Pro, its second creator-focused webcam that adds impressive features that aren’t in its original Facecam. Its standout feature is the ability to record 4K resolution footage at a smooth 60 frames per second, while many other competing 4K options are limited to 30 frames per second. You won’t necessarily see those benefits in Zoom calls since the internet compresses video quality, but if you’re a streamer, this could be worth checking out.

$299.99 for the Pro is indisputably high — the smaller Facecam is now selling for $149.99 — but it might deliver the updates you were hoping for. 4K resolution recording aside, it also lets you choose between auto or manual focus mode. Being able to choose between...

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The new Apple TV 4K offers unmatched power at a better price

Packing more speed than ever (and now HDR10 Plus) at a cheaper price, the Apple TV 4K is the best overall streamer on the market — even if tvOS is falling behind in places

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Nvidia’s cloud streaming GeForce Now service is currently 40 percent off

Image: Nvidia

In case you missed it (because lord knows we did), Nvidia is currently running a sale on the Priority tier of its GeForce Now cloud game streaming service. Until November 20th, a six-month subscription to the tier costs $29.99, a 40 percent discount compared to the usual $49.99 price. The promotion is available to “new users and existing ones upgrading from a free or one-month Priority Membership, as well as for those who are on an active promotion or gift card,” according to Nvidia.

Priority is the middle subscription tier of GeForce Now. Paying for it raises the maximum session length to six hours, up from the one hour you get on the free tier. It also offers resolutions of up to 1080p and frame rates of up to 60fps. For 4K / 120fps,...

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Arlo’s new Pro 5S 2K camera pairs securely with its Home Security System

The new Arlo Pro 5S 2K camera. | Image: Arlo

Arlo has announced its new Pro 5S 2K security camera, which offers features like dual-band Wi-Fi for versatile connectivity, a 160-degree viewing angle, 2K resolution with HDR, a spotlight and siren built-in, and 30 percent longer battery life than the previous Pro 4. It’s now available for preorder at Best Buy and Arlo’s website for $249.99, and it will ship by December 6th.

The new camera can also securely connect to Arlo’s new home security system, which was announced at CES earlier this year, thanks to the company’s encrypted SecureLink wireless technology. The full security system comes with a keypad that doubles as a motion sensor, and wirelessly talks to impressive all-in-one sensor units that detect open doors and windows,...

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Twitter might let users paywall video content: report

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is exploring the option to let users put video content behind a paywall, according to an internal company email obtained by The Washington Post. Mockups suggest users would be able to enable the “Paywalled Video” feature after adding video content to a tweet, and then choose from preset prices, such as $1, $2, $5, or $10. Other users would be able to like or retweet the content regardless of whether they’ve paid to view it.

The Washington Post notes that it’s unclear whether the plans predate Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the social media company. In recent years, Twitter has been exploring more non-advertising sources of revenue, including a Super Follows feature that lets users pay for subscriber-only...

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Weird cars are becoming the new normal

The Hyundai Ioniq 5, with its pixelated lights and evocative design, is part of a trend of weird cars that are trying to make a statement in the age of electrification. | Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

It’s been a real WTF kind of year for car releases, new machines in new shapes with offbeat marketing leaning on gimmicky features that nobody asked for. Gimmicks are nothing new, but as I was pondering yet another incredibly quick, perfectly quiet EV, it occurred to me that I’ve been having an increasing number of head-scratching reactions to new cars over the past few years.

Cars are, by my estimation, getting weirder on the whole. While an endless number of oddball models have come and gone over the decades, we’re presently awash in an incredible density of quirky gimmicks and outré styling exercises. Why? Because the looming wave of electrification is commoditizing many of the features traditional brands have historically leaned...

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Xiaomi concept clips a full-size Leica lens onto a smartphone

The mounting system attaches a Leica M-series lens to Xiaomi’s phone. | Image: Agatha Tang

Xiaomi’s new concept phone allows a full size Leica camera lens to be attached to the back of a prototype version of its 12S Ultra. The version of the smartphone released earlier this year is already notable for having a 1-inch-type camera sensor on its rear, which is far larger than those typically used in phones and more in line with what you might find in a compact standalone camera. Xiaomi’s new concept gives it both a secondary 1-inch sensor, as well as a full size lens to match.

In a teaser trailer, Xiaomi shows how the concept is designed to work with lenses in Leica’s M-series lineup. The Chinese tech giant previously collaborated with Leica to co-develop the camera system used in the 12S Ultra, which GSMArena reports included...

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Google’s putting its Lens image search right on its home page

Google Lens is now built into its search bar.

Google has been integrating its Lens image recognition tech into several of its products for quite a while now, including Google Photos and Chrome, but now it’s putting it front and center. As 9to5Google points out, Google’s added a Lens button right to its home page, in its famous search bar. That’s a big deal, according to Rajan Patel, a vice president of engineering at Google who’s in charge of Search and Lens — as he said on Tuesday, the Google homepage doesn’t change often.

Clicking on the Lens button (a little camera in Google-y colors) prompts you to upload an image or paste a URL to one. Once you do so, you’ll be taken to a page that’s pretty familiar if you’ve ever used the Lens app or any of its other integrations.

The...

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022: deals, news, and more

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

We’re rounding up all of the best deals from across the internet to help you cross some names off your holiday shopping list.

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Google is discontinuing support for the standalone Street View app and pulling it from app stores

Did you know Google had a separate Street View Map? I didn’t. | Illustration: The Verge

Google will be pulling the standalone Street View app from app stores in the “coming weeks” and discontinuing support for the app in March 2023, spokesperson Madison Gouveia confirmed in a statement to The Verge. 9to5Google first spotted evidence in a recent update indicating the search giant was planning to move on from the app.

The dedicated Street View app, available on both Android and iOS, lets you check out places on Google Maps with Street View and contribute 360-degree imagery, or what Google calls “photo spheres,” to help make Street View better. But you can also use Street View in the main Google Maps app and contribute 360 imagery with the Street View Studio web app. That all makes the separate app somewhat redundant, and...

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Microsoft makes it easier to use pictures from your Android phone in Word or PowerPoint

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft’s rolling out a feature to Office Insiders that lets you insert images from your Android smartphones directly into a web-based Word or PowerPoint file. While Microsoft already offers ways to transfer content between Windows PCs and Android devices via the Phone Link app Microsoft revamped back in March, this marks the first time it’s building the functionality into one of its apps.

To get started, open a web-based Word or PowerPoint document, and then hit Insert > Pictures > Mobile Device. If you haven’t yet linked your Android device to your PC, you’ll have to take the extra steps to do so.

Image: Microsoft

You can also replace a document’s existing picture with one from your phone.

This involves...

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AMD’s profits have cratered as the PC and crypto miner markets slow down

Image: AMD

AMD was riding high last year as consumers bought computers in droves and cryptocurrency miners snapped up every GPU they could get, but this year, the company has come crashing down to the ground. While it’s bringing in more money than it was before, thanks in part to better sales in the data center and gaming space, its third quarter profits dropped by 93 percent compared to last year.

According to its earnings report, AMD earned $66 million in profits in Q3 on around $5.6 billion in revenue. That’s not a particularly impressive figure on its own, but it gets worse when you compare it to its Q3 performance last year, where its profits were $923 million on $4.3 billion in revenue.

AMD says it missed its targets for the quarter because...

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Tumblr will now allow nudity but not explicit sex

Illustration: The Verge

Tumblr has made an update it hinted at in September, changing its rules to allow nudity — but not sexually explicit images — on the platform.

The company updated its community guidelines earlier today, laying out a set of rules that stops short of its earlier permissive attitude toward sexuality but that formally allows a wider range of imagery. “We now welcome a broader range of expression, creativity, and art on Tumblr, including content depicting the human form (yes, that includes the naked human form). So, even if your creations contain nudity, mature subject matter, or sexual themes, you can now share them on Tumblr using the appropriate Community Label,” the post says. “Visual depictions of sexually explicit acts remain off-limits...

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Walmart is clearing out stocks of the fourth-generation iPad Air

The 64GB and 256GB models of the fourth-gen iPad Air are available for their lowest price ever at Walmart. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

While the 2020 iPad Air originally sold for as much as $599 at launch, you can currently get the fourth-generation featherweight tablet for as little as $349 at Walmart. The 64GB Wi-Fi configuration of the 2020 iPad Air is currently available for $349 (originally $599) in all colorways at Walmart, while the 256GB model is discounted to $499 from its original $749.99 price.

With the anticipation for new iPad models reaching a fever pitch, retailers are offering deep discounts on the last-gen model, granting a prime opportunity to pick one up for well under retail. The older iPad Air may lack the speed of Apple’s M1 processor, but its A14 Bionic CPU still delivers plenty of power for the vast majority of apps. The Air is also compatible...

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Instagram won’t make an iPad app, but its web interface is getting better

The new Instagram for web interface.

Instagram’s CEO has made it clear that an iPad app isn’t a huge priority for the company, but it is at least doing something to make the big-screen experience better. Some people, including a few members of The Verge’s staff, have started noticing a slightly redesigned version of Instagram for the web, which features a navigation sidebar with links to pages like search, explore, messages, and notifications instead of having those as unlabeled buttons at the top.

The design is relatively similar to how Twitter is laid out and definitely seems more at home on a bigger screen — you get more info about what the buttons are and what they do, and the options to access settings, your saved posts, or the ability to switch accounts have been...

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T-Mobile is reportedly adding an activation fee for online orders

The Uncarrier image is fading fast. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

What’s that in the air? Why, it’s the scent of crisp autumn leaves, pumpkin spice everything, and companies finding ways to charge you for things that were previously free. T-Mobile appears to be cashing in on the latter trend, as The T-Mo Report warns that the Uncarrier is about to instate a new activation fee.

T-Mobile hasn’t responded to our request to confirm the new charge, but according to the internal documents obtained by The T-Mo Report and corroborated on Reddit, the $35 Device Connection Charge will be applied to all new postpaid device activations. Previously, the company only charged an activation fee if you used an “assisted channel” like in-store customer support to set up a device on a new line of service. Online orders...

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Mercedes-Benz EQE electric sedan will start at $76,050

Image: Daimler AG

Mercedes-Benz just announced the pricing of its all-electric luxury sedan the EQE, and unsurprisingly, it starts north of $76,000. But unlike its electrified sibling the EQS, it’s not being listed at a price lower than its gas-powered equivalent.

The EQE sedan is a slightly smaller sedan built on the same technical platform as the EQS. It was first revealed in late 2021 and is finally expected to hit dealerships in the US in just a matter of weeks.

The EQE is expected to hit dealerships in the US in just a matter of weeks

The rear-wheel drive launch model of the EQE will use the same 90kWh battery pack that powers the base model of the EQS, which the company says will be good for up to an impressive 305 miles of range — which is less...

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King Ranch will be the site of the largest carbon capture project yet

Signage is displayed outside of Occidental Petroleum Corp. offices in Carlsbad, New Mexico, US, on Friday, September 11th, 2020.

Oil giant Occidental announced an enormous escalation of its plans to take planet-heating carbon dioxide out of the air. It signed a lease agreement on 106,000 acres in Kleberg County, Texas, where it would build up to 30 new facilities capable of drawing CO2 out of the ambient air. The land sits within the historic King Ranch in South Texas, where up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 could be stored underground in geologic reservoirs.

Despite being one of the biggest oil producers in the country, Occidental is trying to position itself as a leader when it comes to deploying new climate tech. The Direct Air Capture (DAC) plants Occidental envisions for its new digs in King Ranch would filter CO2 out of the air to keep it from building up...

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What are Apple’s audiobook rules, anyway?

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

This is the free weekly edition of Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. You can sign up here.

Hello, hello, hello. I hope you’re all ready for a busy, Amazon-packed issue. Because there’s a lot of Amazon news to go around today. First: Amazon and the Apple App Store. Second: Amazon Prime and Amazon Music. Third: Amazon Amp. And fourth: …some stats about talk radio from NPR, as a little breather.

A quick note for Insiders: we aren’t planning issues for Thursday and Friday this week while we’re out in LA for Hot Pod Summit. We’re really looking forward to the event and bringing back some takeaways for all of you.

Now, to the news.

What are Apple’s audiobook rules, anyway?

Say you want to offer...

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Disenchanted’s first trailer looks like all of Disney’s evil witch stories rolled into one

Amy Adams as Giselle in Disenchanted. | Disney

While Enchanted was a surprisingly inspired riff on the studio’s archetypical princess fairytales, Disenchanted, director Adam Shankman’s upcoming sequel to the movie, looks like a straightforward redux of Disney’s recent stories about witches fiddling with reality in its first trailer.

Disenchanted continues the tale of Giselle Philip (Amy Adams), the former princess-to-be of the animated kingdom of Andalasia who left her magical, sing-song life behind in Enchanted in order to marry divorce attorney Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey) in the “real” world. Though Giselle was all too happy to join Robert in his world, and she doesn’t entirely regret leaving her life as a princess behind, Disenchanted spotlights how there are some things about...

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Google is offering a pair of Nest Audio speakers for just $89 today

The Google Nest Audio speaker can be paired with a twin for stereo sound. | Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge

Lots of retailers are wasting no time gearing up for Black Friday, Best Buy and Target are already rolling out some excellent deals you can check out, and it appears Google is kicking things off by offering its Google Nest Audio speaker for its lowest price ever.

Until now, the lowest price we’ve seen for a single Google Nest Audio speaker was $49.99. However, you can currently grab a pair from the Google Store for just $89 (normally $199.99). While the Nest Audio is going to have a difficult time competing with dedicated stereo systems, it still manages to offer robust, clear sound that’s significantly better than its predecessor. The smart speaker’s attractive design and support for Google Assistant also help make this deal worthy of...

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Elon Musk will let you pay $8 to be a verified ‘lord’ on Twitter

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk has announced that a new version of Twitter Blue will include some sort of verification accessible for $8 per month in the US, with the price “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.” He announced the shake-up of the premium service by saying that “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.”

Musk also says that the service will get you:

• Priority in replies, mentions, and search, which Musk argues is “essential to defeat spam/scam”
• Ability to post long video and audio
• Half as many ads
• And “paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us”

Musks tweets on Tuesday announcing the new Blue system.

Until this point, Twitter...

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FTC sues Chegg after the homework helper suffered four data breaches in three years

The FTC has taken action against Chegg for exposing sensitive student data | Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint on Monday against education technology provider Chegg, which has experienced four data breaches since 2017 (via The New York Times).

In one 2018 incident, a former Chegg contractor gained access to one of its third-party cloud databases, exposing personal information such as names, email addresses, and passwords in addition to students’ religion, sexual orientation, disabilities, and parents’ income. Some of the stolen data was later found for sale online. Officials also said Chegg didn’t have a written security policy until January 2021 and failed to provide sufficient security training to its employees.

Data stolen by an ex-Chegg contractor was later found for sale online

Now the FTC says...

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Audio-Technica’s 1980s Sound Burger portable turntable is back

In honor of its 60th anniversary, Audio-Technica is rereleasing the AT-727, its iconic portable record player better known as the Sound Burger. This time, it arrives with a few hardware updates for the modern era of music listening for $199.

The Sound Burger, also once branded as Mister Disc, was Audio-Technica’s answer to the Sony Walkman for vinyl records — a battery-powered turntable you can plug your headphones into, portable enough to easily move from room to room and take with you on the go.

The 2022 limited-edition version of the Sound Burger is almost identical to the original design, keeping the same slim clamshell that harbors only the center of the record, exposing the record grooves and the tone arm. It has a 3.5mm output for...

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Twitch partners with Xbox for free PC Game Pass subscriptions when you buy subs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitch is partnering with Xbox this week to give away three months of PC Game Pass subscriptions when you purchase or gift two new Twitch subs. The free PC Game Pass offer will give new subscribers access to the service, which includes titles like A Plague Tale: Requiem, Persona 5, and Microsoft’s first-party games like Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, and Sea of Thieves.

The promotion will start at 1PM ET on November 3rd and run until 6PM ET on November 11th, and you’ll need to be a new PC Game Pass subscriber to be able to redeem the deal. Once two subs are gifted or purchased, a code will appear in your Twitch notifications inbox that can be redeemed on the Xbox site.

Microsoft regularly offers three months of PC Game Pass for $1, so...

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What you should know before buying refurbished gadgets

Gadgets get a second life when you buy refurbished. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Most people know that buying a refurbished tech product will save you money compared to buying it new. It also gives a device a second life instead of sending it off to be recycled. Even though demand isn’t as high for gadgets as it was during the height of the pandemic, buying refurbished is sometimes a clever workaround for finding new or tough-to-find products at a lower price. If you’re gifting tech for the holidays (and perhaps you want to avoid the Black Friday and Cyber Monday rush), it’s not a bad idea to see what kinds of stuff you can find refurbished across the web.

Those are all good things — yet “refurbished” is still a loaded word for a lot of people. New means new, a product that nobody else has used. On the other hand,...

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Xbox Game Pass’ November lineup includes two of the best games of the year

Return to Monkey Island hits Game Pass on November 8th. | Image: Devolver Digital

Xbox Game Pass is getting some great games in November, including the official Xbox releases of two of my favorite games of the year: Return to Monkey Island and Vampire Survivors.

Return to Monkey Island is the newest entry in the Monkey Island point-and-click adventure game series. It’s a delightful homage to the classic titles that adds some much-needed polish to smooth out some of the more annoying aspects of old-school LucasArts adventure games. It first launched on Steam and Nintendo Switch in September, and it will be available on Xbox Series X / S, Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, and PlayStation 5 on November 8th.

Return to Monkey Island is pretty chill, so if you’re looking for something that offers complete sensory overload, V...

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Tilda Swinton is her own mother in the first trailer for A24’s The Eternal Daughter

Tilda Swinton as Julie in The Eternal Daughter. | A24

Director Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter,starring Tilda Swinton, mesmerized audiences at this year’s Venice Film Festival with its quiet, arresting story about a woman and her elderly mother being haunted by the mysterious presence dwelling within a hotel. After watching the movie’s first trailer, it’s easy to see why it left such a lasting impression.

The Eternal Daughter expands on the semi-autobiographical world of Hogg’s previous The Souvenir films with the story of Julie Hart (Tilda Swinton), an artist who decides to make a go of connecting with her elderly mother Rosalind (also Swinton) by traveling with her to a strange hotel. While Rosalind has fond childhood memories of the hotel from before it was renovated and turned into...

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Ring is almost ready to release its first car alarm

Ring recently added this image to its Android app. | Image: Zatz Not Funny!

Ring may be getting closer to launching the car alarm it announced over two years ago. A new report from Zatz Not Funny!reveals an image of the device recently added to the Ring Android app as well as a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the Amazon-owned company submitted on Monday.

The image of the alarm aligns with what we saw when Ring first revealed the thing: a black brick-like device with Ring’s branding and signature blue circle. As outlined in a support page on Ring’s website, the $59.99 alarm will connect to your car’s OBD-II diagnostic port and send notifications to your phone whenever it detects an attempted break-in or a bump from another car. It’s also supposed to come with a siren that you can trigger...

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