Google Drive users have recently been reporting that files and folders have gone missing, with some saying that months worth of data has disappeared from their accounts. Now, Google has acknowledged the issue, saying that it appears to be caused by the Drive for Desktop app, 9to5Google has reported.

The issue is pretty alarming, obviously. One user on Google's support forums said that an expense spreadsheet they regularly updated has lost all data from nearly the last five years, with the version history showing the latest version as January 2019. "I'm really mad as this had all the important data which I do not have any local copy for. I need this data retrieved at any cost." Another poster said the drive reverted to May 2023, with all subsequent data disappearing, and others report similar issues.

In a post from yesterday, Google said that "we’re investigating reports of an issue impacting a limited subset of Drive for desktop users and will follow up with more updates." It noted the problem affects Drive for desktop v84.0.0.0 - 84.0.4.09. It advised users not to click "disconnect account" within Drive for desktop, and to not delete or move a specific app folder called DriveFS as detailed here. It even recommends making a copy of the app data folder if you have room on your hard drive. 

Google offers several ways to recover (or at least check) deleted files. That includes checking the trash, which is now automatically emptied after 30 days. It's also a good idea to check the activity panel, which shows any files deleted or moved along with the relevant date. For this latest issue, however, the activity panel doesn't appear to show that the files have gone missing, according to Google's support forum users. 

If your loved one is into action sports, filmmaking or photography, a camera or accessory would be a highly appreciated gift, to say the least. And there’s never been a better time to own a new camera, as the latest technology will let them take better photos and video than ever. It can be difficult to know where to start, though, with all the camera models out there, let alone the numerous accessories like backpacks, memory cards, tripods and more. Fortunately, we’ve done all the research and found cameras at a wide range of prices, along with accessories that will help your giftee get the most out of their gear.

Canon EOS R100

Fujifilm Instax Square SQ40

GoPro Hero 12 Black

Joby Gorillapod 3K Stand

WD My Passport SSD

Lowepro ProTactic BP 350 AW II Backpack

Peak Design Everyday Messenger Bag

Nanlite LitoLite 5C RGBWW Mini LED Panel

Rode VideoMic Go and Wireless Go II

Lexar Professional 1667x 64GB SDXS UHS II card

ProGrade Digital CFexpress 2.0 Type B Gold card

Amazon Basics 60-inch tripod

Giottos Rocket Air Blaster

SmallRig SD Memory Card Holder

Lenspen L-DSLRK1N lens cleaning kit

Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.6

Understanding Exposure, Fourth Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera

Black Friday means savings on cameras for content creation, travel photography and more. This year is no exception as all the major manufacturers, including Sony, Canon, DJI, Nikon, GoPro, Fujifilm and Nikon have some stellar deals. Sony is offering its latest compact vlogging camera, the ZV-1F, at just $398 ($100 off), while Canon's new EOS R100 mirrorless APS-C camera is available with a kit lens for just $449. Panasonic has its full frame Lumix S5 on sale for $1,298 (38 percent off), DJI's Avata Pro-View combo is $999 (30 percent off) and GoPro's Hero 11 is down to $300, for a savings of 14 percent. 

Sony's ZV-1F is its third and most affordable vlogging camera, designed for creators as a "step up" from smartphones. It does that job well thanks to a lightweight body, built-in high-quality microphone, flip-out display, best-in-class autofocus and excellent image quality. The 20mm fixed lens makes it better for vlogging than the ZV1 with a 24-70mm, but the lack of a zoom is its biggest drawback. 

Canon's 24.2-megapixel R100 gives buyers the benefit of a mirrorless camera, namely the ability to change lenses. It also offers features like 4K 24p video, decently fast 6.5 fps shooting speeds with autofocus, excellent image quality and more. The main issue is the lack of a flip-out display, so it's not an ideal vlogging camera. It normally costs $600 with a 16-50mm lens, but you can now pick one up for $450, making it the cheapest APS-C mirrorless camera by a good margin. 

we gave the Hero 11 Black a largely positive review when it launched in September. The camera is an iterative upgrade over the excellent Hero 10 Black, meaning it still allows for crisp video at up to 5.3K/60 Hz, 4K/120 Hz, or 2.7K/240 Hz (for extra slow-motion shots), excellent stabilization that keeps moving footage looking smooth, and a rugged, waterproof design that's small enough to fit on a helmet, bike handle, surfboard, or most other tight spots.

With the arrival of the Lumix S5 II, Panasonic is offering some stellar deals on its predecessor, the S5. It’s smaller and costs less than the Lumix S1, but it actually delivers better video features. That includes a flip-out display, five-axis in-body stabilization and 10-bit 4K recording at up to 60 fps. The autofocus is faster and more accurate than the S1, but not as good as Sony and Canon’s systems for video. Still, at this price, it's one of the best cameras currently available for content creators.

The Avata is a solid little drone that produces decent-quality 4K 60p log footage. Its biggest advantage over other drones is the speed and maneuverability, along with the propeller guards that let you operate the drone around people. It does have some weird flaws and limitations — the Googles 2 aren’t ideal if you wear glasses, plus the motion controller isn’t ideal for precise FPV flying. Still, there aren’t many other ready-to-fly drones that can do what it does.

Nikon's Z6 II improves the original with faster speeds, improved eye-detect autofocus and more. You can shoot 4K at up to 60 fps, and grab photos at up to 14 fps. It also offers features like a flip screen, 3.69-million dot EVF and more. It's normally $1,997, but you can save $400 with Amazon's current deal. 

Other notable camera and accessory Black Friday deals

Those products are just a smattering of what's available, but there are others as well. Panasonic also has its brand new S5 II mirrorless camera — its first with phase-detect autofocus — on sale for $1,698 for a savings of $300 (15 percent). 

Sony also has its new A7 IV camera on sale for $2,298, saving you $200 off the list price, while the A7 III is marked down to $1,498 ($502 off) — the best price we've ever seen on this model. It's also got deals on a large number of lenses — to see more, check out its Amazon camera store. Meanwhile, if you're looking for the latest Panasonic cameras in a bundle, the company has a few solid deals, and Nikon has multiple bundles as well.

There are some notable deals on accessories, too. Lexar's V60 II memory cards (250MB/s read and 120MB/s write) are up to 35 percent off, with a pair of the the 128GB models priced at just $65 and the 256GB model in a two-pack at $105. If you need faster V90 cards, PNY's 128GB EliteX-Pro90 Class is marked down $20 to $75, while the 64GB cards are just $48 (20 percent off). MicroSD cards for drones or action cameras are also on sale, including SanDisk's Extreme 512GB model for $32 (or 71 percent off). More camera deals could arrive later, so stay tuned.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Broadcom's mega $61 billion VMware acquisition has closed following considerable scrutiny by regulators, the company announced in a press release. With China recently granting approval for the acquisition with added restrictions, the network chip manufacturer had secured all the required approvals. 

"Broadcom has received legal merger clearance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Israel, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions," the company said. "We are excited to welcome VMware to Broadcom and bring together our engineering-first, innovation-centric teams."

The Broadcom/VMware deal lacked the glamour of tech's other mega acquisition involving Microsoft and Activision. However, San Jose-based Broadcom's products form the structure of much of the internet, as they're widely used for data centers, cloud providers and network infrastructure. VMware, meanwhile, makes virtualization and cloud computing software that allows corporations to safely link local networks with public cloud access. 

That made VMware a logical target for Broadcom, but it also placed the acquisition in the crosshairs of regulators in multiple regions. The European Commission, for one, was concerned that Broadcom could harm competition by limiting interoperability between rival hardware and VMware's server virtualization software. It also worried the company could either prevent or degrade access to VMware's software, or bundle VMware with its own hardware products.

Broadcom gained EU approval for the deal in the summer though, mainly by providing IP access and source code for key network fiber optic components to its main rival, Marvell. The EU also concluded that fears of VMware bundling were unfounded and that Broadcom would still face competition in the storage adapter and NIC markets. 

There were also concerns that tensions between China and the US could scuttle the deal, after the Biden administration announced new rules in October making it harder to export high-end chips to China. However, approval in that market was announced yesterday, with conditions imposed by China on how Broadcom sells products locally. Namely, it had to ensure that VMware's server software was interoperable with rival hardware, China's regulator said in a statement. 

Stable Diffusion's generative art can now be animated, developer Stability AI announced. The company has released a new product called Stable Video Diffusion into a research preview, allowing users to create video from a single image. "This state-of-the-art generative AI video model represents a significant step in our journey toward creating models for everyone of every type," the company wrote. 

The new tool has been released in the form of two image-to-video models, each capable of generating 14 to 25 frames long at speeds between 3 and 30 frames per second at 576 × 1024 resolution. It's capable of multi-view synthesis from a single frame with fine-tuning on multi-view datasets. "At the time of release in their foundational form, through external evaluation, we have found these models surpass the leading closed models in user preference studies," the company said, comparing it to text-to-video platforms Runway and Pika Labs. 

Stable Video Diffusion is available only for research purposes at this point, not real-world or commercial applications. Potential users can sign up to get on a waitlist for access to an "upcoming web experience featuring a text-to-video interface," Stability AI wrote. The tool will showcase potential applications in sectors including advertising, education, entertainment and more. 

The samples shown in the video above appear to be of relatively high quality, matching rival generative systems. However, it has some limitations, the company wrote: it generates relatively short video (less than 4 seconds), lacks perfect photorealism, can't do camera motion except slow pans, has no text control, can't generate legible text and may not generate people and faces properly. 

The tool was trained on a dataset of millions of videos and then fine-tuned on a smaller set, with Stability AI only saying that it used video that was publicly available for research purposes. The origin of the data set is important, given that Stability AI was recently sued by Getty Images for scraping its image archives. 

Video is a key goal for generative AI, due to its potential to simplify content creation. However, it's also a tool with the most potential for abuse via deepfakes, copyright violations and more. And unlike OpenAI with its ChatGPT product, Stability has had less success commercializing its Stable Diffusion product and burned through cash at a high rate, TechCrunch noted. And last week, vice president of audio at Stability AI, Ed Newton-Rex, resigned over the use of copyrighted content to train generative AI models. 

Sam Altman is returning to OpenAI as CEO after his firing five days ago launched the company onto one of the wildest rollercoaster rides in tech history, the company announced in post on X. Former president Greg Brockman, who resigned on Friday in protest, will also return, The Verge's sources say. The original board has been disbanded and replaced by a new, temporary three-man board with Bret Taylor (chair), Larry Summers and original board member Adam D'Angelo. 

The agreement has been struck "in principal," and must still be approved by all parties. The only job of the initial board will be to vet and appoint a permanent board with up to 9 members that will resent OpenAI's governance. One of those seats will likely to go Microsoft and Altman himself, The Verge reported.

Altman confirmed the news in a separate post. "With the new board and with Satya's support, I'm looking forward to returning to OpenAI and building on our strong partnership with [Microsoft]," he said. That means Altman likely won't be joining Microsoft after all, though he added that he felt his decision at the time "was the best path for me and the team." 

"We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella added in another post. "We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance."

Another major OpenAI investor, Thrive Capital, issued a statement calling Altman's return "the best outcome for the company, its employees, those who build on their technologies and the world at large." Helen Toner, who reportedly had a hand in ousting Altman in the first place, said "and now, we all get some sleep." 

The timeline over the last week reads like "a legit telenovela," as one of my colleagues put it. It commenced with the shocking termination of CEO Altman on Friday, November 17th, followed by Brockman announcing that we would quit in protest. 

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There's never been a better time to buy the Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen), as it has fallen to another new low on Amazon. Both sizes (40mm and 44mm) are available with discounts of $70, with the 40mm GPS Watch SE starting at just $179, or 28 percent ($70) off and the 44mm model starting at $209 (25 percent off). That's an all-time low, besting the $189 price we saw just two days ago. 

With solid performance, a familiar design and support for numerous apps, the 2022 Watch SE scored a solid 89 in our Engadget review. It looks nearly identical to the latest Watch models, and delivers smooth performance despite the slightly older processor. Most importantly, it offer all the same features you'd get in the more expensive models, like all-day heart rate monitoring, built-in GPS, fall detection, Apple Pay support, sleep-tracking and more. Battery life has also been improved over the previous model.

It doesn't include a blood oxygen sensor or ECG, nor the always-on display of the Series 8 or Series 9 models. If those things aren't terribly important, you'll still get a full Watch experience. The other main drawbacks with all Watch models are sleep tracking that doesn't quite measure up to the competition, and less than a full day of battery life.

If you want the higher-end models, there's more good news too. All the Watch Series 8 models are on sale, starting at $299 for the Watch Series 8 (GPS 41mm), $329 for the Watch Series 9 (in red only, $100 off) and $359 for the Watch Series 9 in other colors.  

Starfield just received some key updates promised by Bethesda a couple of months ago, the developer announced. Version 1.8.86 comes with DLSS support that finally gives users with supported NVIDIA cards features including DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), Reflex Low Latency and DLSS frame generation. That should assuage numerous grumbling users, many of whom used a controversial DLSS mod to tide themselves over. 

Along with DLSS, the update includes GPU performance optimizations that will help users with higher-end cards. Bethesda has also addressed memory leaks and other related issues, improved renderer threading and made a number of other stability and performance improvements. On the graphics side, it added brightness and contrast controls (!), while addressing issues around ambient occlusion, shader compilation, HDR brightness (Xbox and Windows 11 only), material issues, crowd character eyes and more.

Gameplay also sees some welcome updates. You can now "eat the food placed in the world" via a "consume button" without having to add items to inventory, a nice quality-of-life fix. Bethesda also adjusted stealth to be more forgiving, resolved the problem of Andreja's head staying permanently cloaked, fixed an issue that could prevent players from firing weapons, resolved a problem with naked NPCs, fixed mouse issues and more. It also resolved quest problems that mostly revolve around inconsistent game play. 

Bethesda beta tested the new features earlier this month on Steam before deeming them fit for release. In September, it said that it's "working closely" with NVIDIA, AMD and Intel on driver support, possibly in response to a Digital Foundry technical report saying the game had "disproportionately poor NVIDIA and Intel performance." Starfield is among the best-selling games of 2023 (thanks in part to being free on Game Pass), with the company having reported 10 million players as of the end of September. 

OpenAI may grab all the headlines, but Amazon has been quietly toiling on AI across all its divisions and even using AI-powered robots in its warehouses. Now, in a bid to attract new talent, the company is launching a free program called "AI Ready," with the aim of providing generative AI training to two million people globally by 2025. 

Consisting of eight free courses, the classes will be available through Amazon's learning website and offered to non-Amazon employees as well. They'll teach people AI skills including the generative AI technology that powers ChatGPT and other language models. 

They're designed for beginners and advanced users in both tech and tech-adjacent roles. Three courses are aimed at business and nontechnical users, while five are designed for developer and technical audiences. Along with the classes, Amazon announced that it's providing Udacity scholarships valued at more than $12 million to more than 50,000 high school and university students from underrepresented communities around the world. 

 "The goal of AI Ready is to help level the playing field of AI education, supported by the new initiatives we're launching here today," said AWS VP of data and AI, Swami Sivasubramanian. "If we are going to unlock the full potential of AI to tackle the world’s most challenging problems, we need to make AI education accessible to anyone with a desire to learn."

AI technology has been in use for some time now in field ranging from medical research to retail customer assistance — but it really exploded with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT virtual assistant. The field is still in its teething stages and systems are notoriously complex, however, so there's a serious shortage of qualified programmers, technicians and others. Amazon notes that 73 percent of employers say that hiring AI-skilled talent is a priority, but three of four are unable to find qualified people. 

Amazon said its aim is to "democratize" generative AI education, noting that the program will benefit not just its own employees but its enterprise customers who seek workers with prompt engineering and other skills. It could also help AWS (Amazon Web Service) customers as several courses are based on its own platforms including Bedrock AI and CodeWhisperer, a tool that automatically generates code. 

In another twist on the OpenAI saga that raged over the weekend, Microsoft has swooped in and hired Sam Altman and Greg Brockman just after OpenAI confirmed Altman's firing, CEO Satya Nadella announced in a post on X. The pair, along with colleagues are joining Microsoft "to lead a new advanced AI research team." Nadella added that Microsoft "remain[s] committed to our partnership with OpenAI," but the move looks a giant hedge on that bet. It also means the much of OpenAI's talent may be moving to Microsoft, which may stall the latter's progress with its widely-used ChatGPT product. 

The appoint was announced just after it was suggested that Altman may return to OpenAI, following his sudden firing on Friday. That was preceded by an outpouring of support for Altman from OpenAI employees, many of whom shared hearts on social media. 

In a bit of a surprising development, though, talks between the parties broke down and OpenAI subsequently said that Altman (and co-founder Greg Brockman) would not return, according to reports. Instead, Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear was appointed as the new CEO. 

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