Rockstar has released the trailer of Grand Theft Auto VI, the next game in the blockbuster video game franchise a day earlier than expected. You can watch it here:

It's been a decade since Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto V. While fans have been more than able to keep themselves busy with GTA Online and a few re-releases, they've been waiting patiently (or impatiently) for more single-player action. The wait's now much shorter as Rockstar has revealed the first official look at the game's debut trailer.

As indicated by a recent teaser image and various rumors, GTA VI will be set in Vice City, Rockstar's take on Miami. Given the weapons and other tech on display, it seems to be a contemporary game, rather than one set in the '80s like 2002's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It also appears that, as rumored, the game will have a playable female character for the first time in the franchise.

A major leak last year saw 90 videos of a GTA VI test build emerge online. The clips indicated that the game would mark a return to Vice City and that there'd be two playable characters.

GTA VI will be released in 2025, 12 years after its predecessor, which is the second-best selling video game of all time.

This is a developing story and will be updated with more details.

Audio device leader Rode just acquired rival company Mackie, creating something of a pro audio and streaming powerhouse. Rode used to exclusively deal with pro-level audio devices, like condenser microphones, but has since turned its eye to the growing streaming market. To that end, products like Rode’s PSA1+ boom arm have become fixtures with popular live streamers.

Mackie has taken a similar route. The company made a name for itself during the home recording boom of the 1990s and early 2000s by offering affordable, yet highly functional, mixers, PA systems and related devices. Nowadays, the company has leaned into the streamer/creator space with consumer-grade streaming mixers and monitor controllers, though it still manufactures pro audio gear.

It’s no secret that the streaming space is more lucrative than pro audio. It’s just simple math, as there are more content creators than serious audio engineers. The acquisition puts this new Rode/Mackie behemoth in a great place to compete with companies like Corsair’s Elgato. The Elgato Stream Deck controller has been a massive success, quickly becoming a ubiquitous fixture for podcasters and live streamers alike.

Rode has already made its own inroads in the space, thanks to products like the Rodecaster Pro series of mixing consoles and the Streamer X audio interface. Mackie has similar products, like the M-Caster line of podcast-adjacent mixers. The combined force of both companies could put a major dent in Elgato’s armor and offer more competition to burgeoning rivals like Razer.

As for pro audio, Rode/Mackie aren’t giving up that space anytime soon. If anything, the merger makes them a bigger threat to companies like Shure and Tascam. Rode’s parent company, Freedman Group, says that the merged entity will service “up-and-coming content creators to professionals working in live production and everyone in-between.”

Target has Sony’s excellent WH-1000XM5 headphones on sale for their lowest price to date. Typically $400, you can grab the over-ear cans for an all-time low of $250. Given their supreme comfort, terrific audio and powerful active noise cancellation (ANC), this is a chance to delight the ears of a loved one (or yourself) this holiday season.

The fifth generation of Sony’s (awkwardly named) line of premium wireless headphones has an improved design, slimmer headband and a more modern look than the previous models. They feel better, too, as the redesign’s weight distribution makes them feel substantially lighter and more comfortable than their predecessor despite being only slightly lighter.

The M5 also has upgraded ANC from previous models, doing an even better job of tuning out your surroundings — especially handy for flights, public transportation or other busy environments. Sound quality is also improved, with the headphones’ new 30mm carbon drivers providing punchier bass and more clarity to allow subtle details to shine. The headphones offer an estimated 30-hour battery life, conceivably enough to cover flights from New York to London and back again.

The M5’s $250 price at Target isn’t only an all-time low — it’s about $80 below the headphones’ previous low. The deal is scheduled to expire on Thursday, December 7, so you may want to act quickly if this deal tickles your fancy.

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Meta will soon remove a feature that lets you chat with Facebook friends on Instagram. Starting mid-December, the company will disconnect the cross-platform integration, which it added in 2020. It didn’t provide a reason for doing so, but, as 9to5Google speculates, avoiding regulatory consequences in the EU sounds like a logical motive.

Announced in 2019, the optional cross-platform integration went live a year later, blurring the lines between two of the company’s most popular services. “Just like today you could talk to a Gmail account if you have a Yahoo account, these accounts will be able to talk to each other through the shared protocol that is Messenger,” Messenger VP Loredena Crisan said at the time.

Meta says once “mid-December 2023” rolls around, you’ll no longer be able to start new chats or calls with Facebook friends from Instagram. If you have any existing conversations with Facebook accounts on Instagram, they’ll become read-only. In addition, Facebook accounts will no longer be able to see your activity status or view read receipts. Finally, any existing chats with Facebook accounts won’t move to your inbox on either platform.

The EU designed its landmark Digital Markets Act, passed in 2022, as a deterrent against platform holders from gaining monopoly power (or something close to it). If a company passes a revenue threshold and the European Commission deems the platform overly dominant, it can dole out a maximum penalty of 10 percent of its total global turnover from the previous year. Given the enforcement “stick” this provides the governing body, perhaps Meta saw the writing on the wall and deemed the Instagram / Facebook cross-messaging feature not worth the risk.

Last week, a team of researchers published a paper showing that it was able to get ChatGPT to inadvertently reveal bits of data including people’s phone numbers, email addresses and dates of birth that it had been trained on by asking it to repeat words “forever”. Doing this now is a violation of ChatGPT’s terms of service, according to a report in 404 Media and Engadget’s own testing.

“This content may violate our content policy or terms of use”, ChatGPT responded to Engadget’s prompt to repeat the word “hello” forever. “If you believe this to be in error, please submit your feedback — your input will aid our research in this area.”

There’s no language in OpenAI’s content policy, however, that prohibits users from asking the service to repeat words forever, something that 404 Media notes. Under “Terms of Use”, OpenAI states that users may not “use any automated or programmatic method to extract data or output from the Services” — but simply prompting the ChatGPT to repeat word forever is not automation or programmatic. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from Engadget.

The chatbot’s behavior has pulled back the curtain on the training data that modern AI services are powered by. Critics have accused companies like OpenAI of using enormous amounts of data available on the internet to build proprietary products like ChatGPT without consent from people who own this data and without compensating them.

Verizon confirmed Monday it’s offering a previously rumored bundle of Netflix and Max streaming subscriptions. The pairing of the rival services is the first of its kind, giving the wireless carrier’s myPlan subscribers a 41 percent discount over buying the two ad-supported plans individually. The offer will be available starting on December 7.

The bundle will include the ad-supported Netflix and Max plans for $10 monthly. Those tiers typically cost $6.99 and $9.99 per month, respectively, so customers who grab the deal could save $80 annually compared to what they’d pay directly from the service’s websites. For Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery, it’s a chance to boost their subscribers and get more people hooked on exclusive series. Meanwhile, Verizon gets another incentive to lure customers from rival carriers.

Only Verizon’s myPlan customers are eligible for the $10 streaming bundle. The carrier offers myPlan in three tiers, starting at $75 monthly (single user) for Unlimited Welcome. The Unlimited Plus level pushes the one-line price to $90 monthly, while Unlimited Ultimate costs $100 monthly. All three tiers offer lower per-line prices the more users you have on your plan. You can check out Verizon’s myPlan website for the full breakdown.

Verizon has several other $10 streaming deals as myPlan add-ons. These include a Disney Bundle, which combines Disney+, Hulu with ads and ESPN+. It also offers an Apple One bundle, including Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and iCloud+. Variety notes that wireless carriers like Verizon typically pay a per-subscriber wholesale rate to the service providers, treating the costs as customer-acquisition overhead.

In addition to myPlan enrollment, the offer requires you to be 18 or older to enroll. After choosing the add-on, you’ll need to complete your account setup separately for each service.

Back in August, TikTok teamed up with Ticketmaster to allow artists to sell tickets to live events directly through the social media app. The service, however, was exclusive to the US, until now. TikTok just announced the partnership with Ticketmaster now extends to more than 20 countries throughout North America and Europe, in addition to Australia and the UK.

The tool only applies to artists officially certified by the platform, though TikTok says that amounts to more than 75,000 entertainers and event providers. The functionality is simple. The artist embeds a link to a relevant Ticketmaster event on a video. Users click a link on the bottom left of the screen and purchase a ticket, but we encourage would-be buyers to keep an eye on those hidden fees.

Music is the primary motivator here, but you can snag tickets for comedy shows and sporting events, among other types of entertainment. TikTok boasts that the program has already supported successful ticketing campaigns for artists like Shania Twain, Burna Boy, The Kooks and many more, going on to say that there has been more than 2.5 billion views of videos that utilize the in-app ticketing feature since launch.

The tool’s available now for those living in newly-eligible countries, like Sweden, Switzerland, Poland and around 17 more. TikTok hasn’t announced future availability for additional locations, but a spokesperson has stated that the company is “very excited to see how the partnership with Ticketmaster will develop over time.”

Snapchat made a similar move last year, partnering with Ticketmaster to match users with nearby live concerts. However, TikTok’s method is more streamlined and should allow for quicker access to tickets.

Toyota said Monday it plans to expand its European lineup of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to six models by 2026. The automaker revealed two new concepts for its upcoming EV fleet, including a “close-to-production” Urban SUV and a Sport Crossover scheduled for a 2025 European launch. Toyota, which Reuters notes is the world’s largest automaker by sales, currently sells only one fully electric model, the bZ4X. It aims for 100 percent carbon neutrality by 2035.

The company’s two newly revealed concepts will join the bZ4X and a Compact SUV it showcased last year. Toyota’s new Urban SUV concept is slated for a European launch in 2024. Its “authentic SUV design” draws inspiration from the company’s Yaris Cross, a top seller in its class. The Urban SUV concept will come in front-wheel and all-wheel-drive options and two battery tiers — a budget one and another with a longer range.

Meanwhile, Toyota had less to say about its Sport Crossover concept. We know it has a sloping fastback profile, which the company will use to position it as a sleeker alternative to traditional SUVs. The automaker expects that concept to enter production in 2025.

Toyota

Toyota plans to launch next-generation batteries in 2026 and beyond. The first will focus on performance, offering a conventional structure with double the range and a 20 percent cheaper price tag than the bZ4X.

A second battery will be a “good quality, low-cost” one designed to spur EV adoption. It will have a “new shape” with a bipolar structure, primarily using cheaper lithium iron phosphate (LFP). With this cell, Toyota aims for a 20 percent higher range and 40 percent lower cost than the bZ4X.

A third battery will be strictly high-performance, using high nickel cathode and bipolar technologies. “Even lower costs and a further extended driving range are expected” was all Toyota said about that battery’s range and pricing goals.

Finally, Toyota teased progress with its first solid-state batteries, which may still be three or four years away. “We have made a technological breakthrough that overcomes the long-standing challenge of solid state battery durability,” said Andrea Carlucci, vice president of Toyota Europe, in a press release. “A method for mass production is currently being developed and we are striving for commercialisation in 2027-2028 with production capacity of several tens of thousands of vehicles.” With its solid-state cells, the automaker’s goal is a charging time of 10 to 80 percent in only 10 minutes.

Strava, an app for tracking activities like hikes and runs, is now taking another step towards becoming a de facto social media app for fitness enthusiasts. Users can now send other Strava profiles messages in either direct one-on-one chats or in groups.

Strava users can engage with the platform to send exact routes or activities to others, making it possible to do things like coordinate community runs on the app. Previously, athletes on Strava had to go off-platform to discuss meetup events on the app on other platforms like WhatsApp or Facebook.

The chat settings feature can be managed so that a user can send or receive messages to and from mutuals or accounts already being followed. You can also elect to have no one be able to message you unless you initiate a chat. For group chats, creators can add or remove participants and grant members access to invite others or leave a conversation if they’d like. To further deepen the interactions, Strava is also including features like reacting to messages with gifs or likes.

Strava, which claims it has over 100 million users and 40 million activities (like 5K runs or bike riding events) uploaded per week, has been attempting to become more than just a tracking tool for runners and bikers. Messaging expands the app’s capacity for it to become a more engaging tool for like minded fitness-focused individuals to convene in real life. Creating a chat tool is in line with Strava’s other social media-adjacent offerings previously dropped, such as when it gave app users the option to curate feeds or create posts. Recently, Strava even integrated music streaming directly onto its platform and has made some of its premium-only features accessible to free users in an attempt to continue to grow its base and offerings.

As one of the few standalone gimbal cameras out there, DJI’s Osmo Pocket line has always been something of a niche product family. But it certainly had its fans, offering things like portability, fluid video and decent image quality. Now, three years after the Pocket 2, DJI has introduced the Osmo Pocket 3 with some big improvements. Those include a large 1-inch sensor that improves image quality significantly, especially in low light. Another key change is a bigger screen that flips sideways, plus advanced subject tracking. Other features include 4K 120p shooting, 10-bit D-LogM for improved dynamic range, quicker autofocus and more. 

With all those extra talents, the Pocket 3 could serve as a standalone vlogging camera – but it’s also considerably more expensive than its predecessor. To find out if it’s worth the extra money, I did some extensive testing to see what it could — and couldn’t — do.

DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3 is a portable camera that’s relatively simple to use, small enough to carry with you and easy to maneuver in tight spaces. It’s stabilized by a 3-axis gimbal to make shots smooth and fluid. It can pan, tilt and roll across a wide range of 303, 278 and 283 degrees, respectively.

At 5.5 inches long and 179 grams, it’s a bit heavier but nearly as compact as the Pocket 2 (117 grams and 4.9 inches long). It resembles its predecessor at first glance, but a closer look reveals some big changes.

The first thing that jumps out is the 16:9 2-inch screen that has nearly five times the area of the Pocket 2’s 1-inch display. Better still, it flips sideways and automatically rotates the camera to match, so you can shoot either in landscape or portrait modes with no need to dive into settings. However, note that going into vertical video mode doesn’t flip the camera like it does on DJI’s Mini 4 Pro drone. Rather, it just crops the video, reducing the resolution from 4K to 3K.

I wouldn’t call the menu system on the Pocket 3’s touchscreen intuitive, as it involves either swiping from the sides or touching icons to access functions. Without a lot of visual clues for guidance, you need to memorize all the functions.

The other noticeable feature is a larger camera head that houses a 1-inch 9.4MP sensor with a true 16mm diagonal size. That’s nearly three times that of the Pocket 2's 1/1.7-inch sensor. Knowing DJI, we might see the same sensor on upcoming products like the Mini drones and Osmo action cams.

The fixed 20mm equivalent lens has a relatively fast F/2.0 aperture. The wide focal length means it’s not ideal for portraits or product shots. It does have a two times digital zoom to double that, at a cost of some resolution.

There are now only two physical buttons, record and gimbal control. The microSD card is still on the left side, with USB-C port on the button as before. Should the position of the latter be inconvenient, the included handle moves it to the side.

Battery life is outstanding for such a small device, with 135 minutes available with the built-in 1,300mAh battery, rising to 240 minutes with the optional ($99) 950mAh battery handle. On top of that, the Pocket 3 can be recharged from 20 to 80 percent in just 16 minutes, so DJI is finally embracing fast charging on its devices – something that’d be nice to see with its drones, too.

Steve Dent for Engadget

What about the Mimo app? While its use was required previously for some functions on the Pocket 2, most things can now be done straight from the camera screen, apart from Glamor and a few other settings. It’s still handy for monitoring and controlling the camera remotely, of course.

The Pocket 3 is available by itself or in a Creator Combo that gives you a battery handle, mini tripod, 0.75x lens adapter and carry bag. You also get the DJI Mic 2 Transmitter that pairs automatically with the Pocket 3, giving you a high-quality wireless mic and providing an audio backup. DJI should be announcing the Mic 2 as a separate product in the near future. If you already own the original DJI Mic, the Osmo Pocket 3 is compatible with that model as well.

Performance

Above all, the Osmo Pocket 3 is a gimbal designed to provide smooth and stable video. Operation is very much point and shoot to keep the subject in frame, as the gimbal and autofocus do the rest. As before, it offers three modes: follow, tilt lock and FPV mode.

Follow aims the camera where you point it while locking off roll to keep the camera level. Tilt mode also locks the tilt function to keep the horizon level, while FPV keeps all three unlocked so that the camera tilts, pans and rolls as you move the camera.

It’s not just the larger sensor that helps the Pocket 3 create cinematic video. The optical stabilization allows for slower shutter speeds that create natural looking motion blur — something that’s impossible on action cameras, as electronic stabilization isn’t compatible with motion blur.

Steve Dent for Engadget

The gimbal generally does a good job of smoothing video, in scenarios ranging from cars, to running to rapid panning. Without electronic stabilization, Z-axis (up and down) motion is still present, so you’ll need to walk smoothly to avoid it.

The Pocket 3 and DJI Mic 2 is a practical combination, allowing you to vlog easily with smooth, high-quality video and excellent audio quality. It’s also discreet, as the Pocket 3 is small and the Mic 2 allows you to speak quietly, even in a crowd.

As with DJI’s original Mic, the Mic 2 offers consistent sound quality and levels while keeping outside noise to a minimum. It has decent range with the Pocket 3, though DJI has yet to specify that exactly (again, we’ll learn more when the standalone Mic 2 is released). Given the wide angle lens, you’ll probably never get too far from the Pocket 3 – but it worked fine for me with a camera mounted on a car and me inside, for example.

Like DJI’s drones, the Pocket 3 has ActiveTrack subject tracking. You enable that by double tapping a subject or selecting it from the Mimo app. From there, the head will tilt and pan to follow the subject and keep it in focus.

Steve Dent for Engadget

This function works automatically when selfie mode is activated either by touching the icon or triple-pressing the joystick. In this case, it goes into face-tracking mode and keeps your face centered screen no matter where you move the camera.

Another function called dynamic framing also tracks faces, but lets you change the framing at the touch of a button. DJI also introduced a new mode called spin shot that rotates the camera 90 or 180 degrees to create a stylized scene.

Video and image quality

The Pocket 3 can shoot 4K at up to 60 fps in normal mode, and now includes both a 10-bit D-LogM mode and HLG mode for HDR shooting. It has a 9.

DJI also added 4K 120p shooting via a special slow-mo mode. This is handy for high-speed scenarios, particularly when combined with camera moves. At launch, this mode didn’t support 10-bit and D-LogM/HLG modes, but via a recent firmware update, those modes now work at 4K 120p as well.

Another new function is low-light video mode, designed to improve performance in dim scenes. In this setting, it’s limited to 30 fps max and ISO is boosted up to 16,000, compared to 3,200 in regular video mode.

The Hyperlapse and time lapse settings work the same as on DJI drones, giving you a time lapse option that’s great for showing the quick passage of time. The other two modes are Panorama for wide shots and, of course, photos.

Image quality is outstanding for a device this tiny, with the large sensor beating any smartphone except for maybe Sony’s Xperia Pro-I. In normal mode, video is sharp and colors are vibrant. In photo mode, JPEGs look good straight out of the camera, but you can also shoot RAW for more flexibility in post.

As mentioned, the Osmo Pocket 3 isn’t ideal for things like portraits or product beauty shots due to the relatively wide-angle 20mm equivalent lens. Yes, you can do a digital zoom to double that, but resolution dips well below 4K when you do that, due to the relatively low 9.4-megapixel (MP) sensor resolution.

Such a field of view doesn’t tend to flatter subjects (you generally want about 35-100mm), and moving the camera close can even cause distortion. So if you produce content around those things, the Pocket 3 isn’t ideal as a standalone camera.

The D-LogM function boosts dynamic range significantly, particularly in high-contrast or on sunny days. It also helps with creative color correction and to match scenes with other cameras, particularly DJI’s own drones and action cams. It’s easier to adjust than most log modes, so I leave it on all the time.

The larger sensor also makes the Pocket 3 much better in low light than before. Normal video mode goes up to ISO 3200, while low light mode ramps that up to ISO 16,000, letting you film in very dim rooms. It also appears to crank up noise reduction at upper ISOs though, so expect some loss of detail.

Steve Dent for Engadget

While low-light capability is improved, the sensor resolution drops significantly from 64MP on the Pocket 2 to 9.4MP on the new model. That’s not bad per se, as we’ve seen low-resolution sensors on high-end cameras like the Sony A7S III. However, it means that any digital zooming for video results in a loss of resolution (4K is 8.4MP), and photos aren’t nearly as sharp on the Pocket 3.

Autofocus can be an issue with larger sensor cameras, but the Pocket 3’s phase detect AI system is generally reliable. That applies whether you’re shooting multiple subjects in FPV mode or using Active Track or Face Tracking.

Rolling shutter is really pretty minimal, with just a light amount of skew on fast moving subjects like trains. That’s aided considerably by the gimbal, of course, which eliminates any strong jolts that could cause jello-like video.

One big issue is focus breathing, though, as the frame changes substantially when you focus from a far to a near object. If possible, it would be good for DJI to add a breathing compensation feature as we’ve seen on Sony and other cameras.

Wrap-up

Steve Dent for Engadget

With improvements in image quality, tracking and other areas, DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3 is more versatile than ever. The image quality puts it in the category of high-end compact cameras and you get incredible optical stabilization equivalent to a handheld gimbal with none of the hassle.

It has no major flaws, except for the $520 price for the gimbal alone, or $699 in the aforementioned kit. For that, you could get Sony’s ZV-1F vlogging camera, or for $150 more, Sony’s ZV-10 mirrorless camera with a much larger sensor. Neither of those can do exactly what the Pocket 3 can do, but then again the Pocket 3 isn’t ideal for portraits, product shots and other types of content either.

The Pocket 2 was embraced mainly as a second camera for grabbing some stabilized shots. The Pocket 3 costs $170 more, though, so it’s not something you’d pick up on a whim. DJI is no doubt hoping folks will be willing to pay the extra money if they embrace it as a standalone vlogging camera. It can certainly serve that purpose, but only if your focus is on creating cinematic shots — and not on people or product-focused content creation.