About a year ago DJI released a self-stabilising 4K Osmo camera that anyone could pick up and use.

This year the drone-maker is trying something else with the Osmo Mobile.

It looks like an elaborate selfie stick at first, though it isn't really since it doesn't actually extend to annoy everyone in your immediate vicinity.

You just hold it in your hands, and point it in whatever direction you want to be filming.

The combination of the hardware and DJI's software will ensure that the footage is smooth and shake-free.

There are lot of typical photography features included, like panoramas, time-lapses, long shots, and the like.

A cornucopia of audio tech spread across two desks

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, The Verge’s new tech product review hub that launched today, executive editor Dieter Bohn wanted to do more than provide a redesigned home for product reviews.

He wanted to reshape the way product reviews are conceptualized, and set to work with editorial director Helen Havlak and Verge senior editor Dan Seifert to get it done.

“We believe that tech isn’t separate from people’s day-to-day lives, and we want our reviews program to reflect that,” Bohn tells Fishbowl.

“Anybody can tell you which gadget has the most memory or the fastest processor.

But we have the experience and the depth to tell our audience why they should care about it and how to make the most of it.”

That includes demystifying the use of tech in addition to providing an assessment of it, and having those things live in the same space.

More of our writers and reporters are now regularly shooting their own photos to accompany their stories, and I hope even more will pick up their cameras and phones in 2018.

While the range of subjects and the shear volume of gadgets we photographed increased exponentially, we also created a number of new photographic formats during 2017: We photographed cars as gadgets for ScreenDrive; arranged items neatly for What’s in Your Bag; shot artists and their art for Technographica; and created isometric patterns with gadgets for Guidebook and our Back-to-School and Holiday Gift Guides.

As we have so many photographs to choose from, making a final selection has been incredibly hard and no doubt we have missed out many that should have been included.

Who says technology is getting cheaper every year?

This self-portrait is by far my favorite: the lighting, styling, expression and haircut lend this photo the look of a film still from George Lucas’s THX 1138 —James Bareham

Organized by the same group behind the Women’s March, A Day Without A Woman was held on International Women’s Day and encouraged women to abstain from work (if possible) and protest.

It’s now on a ‘companion phone,’ which is essentially a small, more portable smartphone that shares your existing number and is available only with a Verizon carrier contract.

The 5cm x 9.7 cm Android-based ‘handset’ features a 3.3.-inch LCD screen, a 12-megapixel rear camera, an 8-megapixel shooter on the front, and a low-end Snapdragon 435 chip paired with 3GB RAM and 32GB of storage.

As The Verge noted, the idea is for you to use the Palm as a ‘weekender phone’, one that fits more easily in your pocket when you’re out and about, while still staying connected to receive important alerts and calls.

I haven’t had a chance to live with the new Palm yet, so it isn’t fair to dismiss it entirely.

But I can safely say this has limited appeal, and will likely only attract a niche segment of smartphone users who are having trouble limiting the time they spend with their mobile devices.

It’s certainly not built for someone like me in India: We don’t do carrier plans for phones for the most part, and most folks have moved away from SMS to messaging services like WhatsApp (thanks to access to some of the cheapest data plans on the planet).

I just had my first hands-on experience with Fujifilm’s new mirrorless medium format camera, the GFX 50R, which has the innards of a large studio camera but is styled to look like a small, portable shooter.

My first impression is that it’s both.

By the enlarged standards of medium format cameras, the 50R can be described as slim and compact — it’s a full inch thinner than its GFX 50S sibling — and yet it’s still in a distinct and separate category from the cameras that typically adopt the rangefinder styling, such as Fujifilm’s own X-E3 or X-Pro2.

Fujifilm says it designed the 50R for more mobile purposes, meaning street, wedding, and documentary photography — and even though it’s still a large camera, the 50R might be up to those jobs.

And yet — this is the constant contradiction about the 50R — it feels lighter than its size would suggest.

So I suppose photos do justice to its weight more than its bulk.

Amazon launched a new delivery option for Prime members in the US today, just ahead of the holiday gift-giving season.

The invite-only program is curiously called Amazon Day, not to be mistaken for Amazon’s yearly Prime Day shopping event, as spotted by CNET.

Through Amazon Day, you can set the day of the week when you prefer all of your shipments to arrive.

So far, the program is only open to a small group of users by invite, although Amazon plans to add more users in the coming months.

You’ll be able to see if you were invited through the Amazon homepage and see the option in checkout.

Amazon told The Verge in a statement, “Amazon is always innovating and looking for new ways to surprise and delight our customers, and we’re excited to be testing a new service aimed at making the delivery experience more convenient for customers.”

When you’re stuck at home because of pandemics, bad weather, or just because you don’t feel like going out, there’s nothing more satisfying than cooking something really fantastic. Even if you’re not an experienced or enthusiastic cook, sometimes it’s really satisfying to create a new and tasty dish for you, your friends, and / or family.

We asked the staff of The Verge what kinds of equipment, gadgets, and tools they use to make their kitchen adventures better tasting, easier, or just more fun. Here are some of the answers we got.

Immersion blender

This is one of my favorite tools in the kitchen. It’s a hand-held blender that can be used to...

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If you’ve spent much time on Twitter, there’s a good chance you’ve been exposed to “local Twitter.” The phenomenon has existed for years, but recently, it’s been clearly branded, and as the term has become more widespread, the general concept is being ushered into larger, more mainstream awareness.

Local is tweeting about how much you love pizza and Target, fawning over dogs, or posting Drake lyrics, especially with the caption “mood.” Local is having to ask whether your Twitter feed is local.

Justin Belloli, a 17-year-old from California, says via DM that you’ve encountered local if you’ve ever surfed by a basic tweet that is inexplicably popular, like “rt or else.” “They basically take the leftover trends from other parts of twitter and use them until they’re too annoying to get retweets and likes,” he says.

im always hesitant when i make fun of local twitter because i know that one of them could reply “At Least We’re Happy ” and end me

— (@beyonddepth) June 25, 2018

Much like being basic, but online, “local Twitter” describes someone who loves decidedly, even painfully mainstream things.

Verizon will allow all of its Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL phones to immediately be used on different carriers, a spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge by email.

When the phone went on sale yesterday, buyers noticed that the Pixel 3 was locked to Verizon’s network until it was activated.

Once activated with a Verizon SIM, the device would be unlocked overnight for use with other carriers.

But now Verizon is lifting the lock fully and immediately — but maybe only temporarily.

“At launch, there was an update related to an automatic overnight unlock on Pixel 3s, which also showed up on phones sold in Best Buy stores,” the spokesperson said.

“We have temporarily removed it from Pixel 3 and are assessing where it will be implemented in the future.”

When you’ve been through tough times — and we all have — sometimes you just need a distraction or something that just makes you feel good to get you through it. We asked the staff of The Verge what they’ve treated themselves to in order to help make all the upheavals and lockdowns of the past year just a bit more bearable.

These are some of the things that made them smile over the past year. Hopefully, you’ve got something that made you smile as well.

World of Warcraft subscription

Nothing feels like an escape more than a world of Orcs, Mages, and Warriors. I’ve played World of Warcraft off and on throughout the years, but — faced with hours of Netflix, in-home workouts, and utter boredom during the pandemic — I decided it was time to...

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With one day to go until one of the most exciting smartphones of the summer becomes official, there’s not much that we don’t know about it.

And thanks to a new video that looks at OnePlus’s reasoning for designing the OnePlus 5, we now know why the handset looks like the iPhone 7 Plus but not the iPhone 8.

We also know that it’s going to be more expensive than last year’s OnePlus flagships.

Talking to The Verge about making the OnePlus 5, various execs explained that the company’s main goal this year is to make a great camera, one that can rival the camera experience on iPhone or top Samsung devices.

OnePlus apparently thought about equipping last year’s OnePlus 3 with a dual camera, but the endeavor was too expensive.

Or it was too expensive to inform the public why such a camera works.

OkCupid users can now pick their pronouns.

The company rolled out the new gender-expressive option yesterday, a feature that’ll allow users to choose between he / him, she / her, and they / them.

The options join the 22 gender and 13 sexual orientation choices already available to users.

The pronouns will show up as a menu when users who identify as any gender other than man or woman sign up for the service.

People who have a sexual orientation under the LGBTQ umbrella will also see the menu in their profiles, just not at sign up.

Product designer Rowan Rosenthal, who uses the they / them pronouns, created the feature during OkCupid’s hack week earlier this year.

A number of OnePlus 9 Pro owners say they’re getting persistent overheating warnings, often with use of the camera app. Android Police spotted the mounting number of reports, many of which are collected in a thread on OnePlus’ support forum and often mention use of the camera app in connection with the warnings. OnePlus tells The Verge this is a known issue and that a fix will be coming via software updates “over the next few weeks.”

Some 9 Pro owners reporting the problem say that the warning appears even with light use of the phone’s still photo or video recording capabilities, and in some cases the phone will prohibit any more photo taking until it cools back down. Others mention the problem arising around or soon after initial...

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As YouTube scrambles to tackle a network of child exploitation in the comments section of its platform, some creators have voiced concern about what will happen if their videos are demonetised amid advertiser pull-outs and crackdowns on content.

The Verge reported Friday that a tweet from the Team YouTube account sent creators further spiralling after the company announced a measure it was taking against “inappropriate comments.”

“Over the past few days, we’ve taken a number of actions to better protect the YouTube community from content that endangers minors,” the account tweeted.

“With regard to the actions that we’ve taken, even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads.”

Advertisers began pulling their ad spending from the site after YouTuber Matt Watson shared a video Sunday that highlighted the methods used by apparent paedophiles in video comments to exploit children, including sharing contact information, captioning videos in an inappropriate manner, and timestamping specific parts of the videos.

Faced with losing major ad clients such as Nestlé, Epic Games, and Hasbro, YouTube has taken extreme measures to ensure that ads don’t appear on content that could be a magnet for bad actors.

Point-and-shoot cameras, it should be uncontroversial to say, are an endangered gadget species.

Coming to a camera exhibition like Photokina, I still see a few scattered examples of them, but most companies are now focused on making beefier, vastly more powerful full-frame shooters.

One of the smaller contenders in the photography market, Ricoh’s most iconic product is the GR series of decidedly high-end point-and-shoot cameras — and at Photokina 2018, the company showed off its next generation in the form of the Ricoh GRIII, slated for release early next year.

The GR series stretches all the way back to 1996, I found out upon visiting Ricoh’s Photokina booth, when the Ricoh GR 1 film camera was introduced.

The current Ricoh GRII is one of the most beloved street photography cameras because, like the Google Pixel 2 that I keep praising, it consistently outperforms its size.

I compared the new GRIII against the GRII it’s about to replace, and the differences between them are subtle yet noticeable.