Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Even though Amazon just wrapped its fall Prime Day event, Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain the biggest shopping days of the year. Thankfully, like in previous years, we’ll be working to highlight the best prices on tablets, phones, TVs, gaming gear, and other tech throughout the deals-packed week, whether you plan to shop in-person or online.
You can always count on us to publish the best deals that you need to know about, however, if you want to be among the first people to discover price drops on the products you’re interested in, you’ll want to get set up with a price-tracking tool. We’ve included a few of our favorite examples below, pointing out how each can help you track deals in slightly different ways, each with its own…
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It also improves the list of shorts. | Image: YouTube YouTube is updating its website and app so Shorts, live streams, and regular videos each have their own tab on a creator’s channel, instead of being thrown together in a single list (via 9to5Google). In a support post, the company says the change is based on user feedback, and that it’ll “make it easier for viewers to discover the kinds of content they’re most interested in when exploring a creator’s channel page.”
Before the update, if you went to a channel you’d see a single tab labeled “videos,” which showed you a list of all the user’s uploads, including shorts, live streams, and regular-length videos. While there is a filter that lets you change which format the list shows, it gets reset every time you leave the page, so when you…
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Other unspecified categories of apps have also been paused. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has “paused ads related to gambling and a few other categories on App Store product pages” after developers and commentators criticized the types of advertisements showing up in the iPhone’s App Store, according to a statement from spokesperson Trevor Kincaid.
On Tuesday, Apple announced that companies could advertise their apps on the store pages for other apps, putting their icon in the “you might also like” section. Almost immediately, developers started showing examples of ads for gambling apps being recommended under their apps.
Twitter is also full of screenshots of very inappropriate ad placements: one Twitter user shows a slot machine app being advertised alongside gambling addiction recovery apps, and there are examples of…
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The new OM-5 is a small body, weighing 366 grams, designed to size up with the Zuiko line of f/4 zooms and compact prime lenses. | Image: OM System When Olympus sold its camera division and reformed as OM System, it hyped up a push toward computational photography with its new mirrorless cameras — this is not that camera. Today, OM System is announcing the new OM-5, a $1,199.99 mirrorless camera that launches late next month and looks like a zombified husk of Olympus. I’m sure it will be a fine camera, but I can’t help feeling depressed when I look at it.
Sure, the OM-1 was technically OM System’s first camera release, but it was still branded Olympus. Now, with the OM-5, it’s proudly wearing the OM System name on its forehead, something that’s sure to only please a handful of people in a marketing meeting somewhere.
Image: OM System We’ll have to get used to… Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WhatsApp is down in a major outage affecting the communications app. The service started experiencing issues at around 3AM ET, with users greeted with a “connecting” message. If you’re attempting to use WhatsApp web, you’ll see a “Make sure your computer has an active internet connection” error.
Downdetector has more than 60,000 reports of issues with the service, but WhatsApp parent company Meta hasn’t issued a comment on the problems yet. The outage appears to be affecting users globally.
This is the first major WhatsApp outage since the service went down as part of a massive outage that also took down Instagram, Messenger, Oculus, and Facebook last year. That outage took nearly six hours before it was resolved and WhatsApp was back…
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Nick Barclay / The Verge The Wire, an independent news outlet based in India, retracted its story that accused Meta of granting an Indian politician special permissions to remove posts on its platforms. In an update posted on Sunday, The Wire says it has decided to retract its report after “certain discrepancies” emerged in the evidence it used to back up its claims.
“Our investigation, which is ongoing, does not as yet allow us to take a conclusive view about the authenticity and bona fides of the sources with whom a member of our reporting team says he has been in touch over an extended period of time,” the outlet explains. “We are still reviewing the entire matter, including the possibility that it was deliberately sought to misinform or deceive The Wire.”
So…
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The Verge After Facebook’s Bitmoji-style avatars invaded Instagram and Messenger, now they’re coming to Whatsapp, too. According to a report from WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is rolling out support for customizable avatars in the latest 2.22.23.9 beta on Android, but only for some users.
Those with access to the feature will see a new “Avatar” category in their settings menu that they can use to customize the digital version of themselves. Just like on Meta’s other apps, WhatsApp will then generate a sticker pack with the avatar in various poses, which users can use to express themselves when messaging family and friends.
WhatsApp is releasing the ability to set up an avatar to some lucky beta testers on WhatsApp beta for Android!
An avatar is the best…
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And you might actually want to keep it on your phone, solving the issue of having to carry it around and remember it
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Image: Bethesda If you played The Elder Scrolls Online using Google’s now-doomed Stadia cloud gaming service, I have some good news. Bethesda is making good on its promise to let people port their ESO accounts over to Windows and Mac, including all their progress, characters, purchased content, achievements, and inventory items.
According to several members of the Stadia subreddit, the company has been sending out emails to players with instructions on how to get the game up and running on their computers, which basically just involves logging into the Elder Scrolls Online site and downloading the game. The company has also posted the information on its website. The one downside is that you won’t be able to transfer your account to the PlayStation or…
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M3gan the doll sitting among her fellow playthings. | Universal Pictures The poster alone for Universal’s upcoming horror M3gan, from director Gerard Johnstone, was enough to make it seem like the feature might be worthy of a spot in the great killer doll canon. But watching the movie’s trailer, it’s clear that M3gan’s going for a very of-the-moment kind of madness that owes just as much to Tesla’s totally real and almost functional robots as it does the Child’s Play franchise and classics like Small Wonder.
Written by Akela Cooper and co-producer James Wan, M3gan tells the tale of Gemma (Allison Williams), a roboticist whose work and personal life collide when her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) is suddenly orphaned after a car accident. Though Gemma’s not exactly keen on raising a child herself, in Cady, she…
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