IT General

SAVE $60: The DJI Mini 3 drone is on sale at Amazon for $359, down from the normal price of $419. That's a 14% discount.

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If you're in the market for a drone but haven't been ready to commit, you might want to ditch those cold feet and go for it. Come December, who knows what'll happen to drone sales in the U.S., and so to avoid any disappointment, it's best to get one soon. Thankfully, Amazon has a DJI model in stock today and it's even on sale.

As of Aug. 4, the DJI Mini 3 drone is on sale at Amazon for $359, marked down from the standard price of $419. That works out to a savings of $60 from a 14% discount.

The DJI Mini 3 means business when it comes to being small, weighing under 249 grams or about half a pound. The compact size and weight mean this is a great option for taking on adventures, out on creator projects, or packing along on a camping trip. Of course, the foldable design only further lends itself to the portability.

SEE ALSO: The DJI Power 2000 portable power station means business, and it’s great for DJI drone owners

In terms of performance, DJI upgraded the battery life on the Mini 3 drone so you'll be able to get 38 minutes of standard intelligent flight battery or 51 minutes of intelligent flight battery plus. The gimbal design means you can capture true vertical footage while shooting in 4K HDR. All-in-all, the DJI Mini 3 features and functionality are awesome for beginners or advanced drone operators who want something super portable.

Keep in mind this sale is offered from a third-party seller. Mashable typically discourages buying from third-party sellers on Amazon, but given recent stock issues with DJI drones, this might be an option. The seller has a 76 percent positive rating over the last year, and most unhappy reviews are related to slow shipping.

Before it goes out of stock, snag the DJI Mini 3 from Amazon while saving $60. Since there's no telling what tomorrow holds in terms of tariffs or security regulations, it's best too snag the DJI today and rest assured those issues won't bother your holiday shopping list.

While nothing can beat the big screen and surround sound experience that comes with going to the movies, there's no denying that it's a costly experience nowadays. That's why it makes sense to maximize your Netflix subscription by watching as much as possible.

Some people argue against 4K monitors, but I personally think that if your hardware can run it, it's kind of unnecessary, but why not? If you've been in the market for one lately, this Alienware monitor is a great choice, and it recently went from ultra-expensive to somewhat decently priced. It's still expensive, but it's at a way better price now.

Until recently, the Internet Archive has been my go-to wayback machine for accessing websites, documents, and files that are no longer available on their original sites. But lately, I've discovered some other sites that let you dig up old stuff in totally new ways. These are some of the best Internet Archive alternatives out there.

Over the weekend, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI released Grok Imagine, a new generative AI tool for generating images and videos. Grok Imagine is available now to paid xAI subscribers in the Grok iOS and Android apps.

Musk has been hyping up the project on X, sharing photos and videos from Grok users. This includes some mildly NSFW content, which the Grok app labels as "Spicy."

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AI video is an exciting — and frankly terrifying — new frontier for the AI industry. To proponents, this technology gives artists a new medium for creativity and could reduce the costs of animation and filmmaking. To critics, AI video poses serious risks for sexual deepfakes and misinformation.

Putting aside that debate for the moment, I wanted to see how well Grok Imagine compares to xAI's biggest rivals. As I've written previously, Google's Veo 3 AI video model currently leads with field with surprisingly lifelike video. Then there's Sora, from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. Additionally, the popular AI image generator Midjourney recently introduced its own generative AI video tool.

So, how does Grok Imagine compare to its competitors? To be blunt, I'm not impressed.

Yes, Grok Imagine is brand new, and Musk recently said on X that it "should get better every day." However, as of this writing, it seems to lag far behind its rivals.

Let me show my work.

Comparing Grok Imagine AI video to the competition

Mashable recently wrote about a viral AI video trend — security camera footage of animals jumping on trampolines and engaging in similar antics. So, I used a simple prompt to test Grok Imagine, Veo 3, Sora, and Midjourney: "Security camera footage of rabbits jumping on a trampoline at night." Simple enough, right?

First, I should note that there's a big difference between Veo 3 and Grok Imagine. Google's Veo 3 model can generate videos based on a text prompt. Simply describe the video you want, and Veo 3 will do the rest. However, tools like Midjourney and Grok Imagine only offer text-to-image generation. After generating or uploading an image, users can then animate it, transforming it into a short video clip. In this sense, Grok Imagine is already on the back foot compared to OpenAI and Google.

With those caveats, let's dive into the results, which I've also shared on X.

I put my test prompt into Grok, and it returned these disappointing images.

Credit: Screenshot courtesy of Grok / Timothy Beck Werth Credit: Screenshot courtesy of Grok / Timothy Beck Werth

I selected the least bad of these images and created this short video:

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It's...fine? Kind of mid, or meh, as the kids say.

But it also suffers in comparison to other AI video tools.

As the video shows, Google Veo 3 and Sora did much better with the same prompt:

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Finally, Midjourney, which animates images similar to xAI, was able to produce better images and videos, though it took two attempts. The image and video it produced have the grainy look of surveillance footage.

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Audio is also a major disadvantage with Grok Imagine. While Veo 3 can produce sound effects and coherent dialogue in sync with the video, the audio I've found on Grok Imagine videos is limited to rough sound effects and gibberish.

Musk compared Grok Imagine to a modern-day Vine app, writing on X, "Grok Imagine is optimized for most fun and shareable content."

And in my initial tests, Grok Imagine seems optimized for creating two types of images and videos: memes and anime. If you want to animate memes — or create sexually suggestive videos of anime girls — then Grok Imagine will do the trick, I guess. But beyond that, I can't say I'm impressed.

There is one area where Grok Imagine does shine, and that's in terms of speed. So far, I've found it produces both images and videos significantly faster than its rivals.

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Mashable reached out to xAI, and we'll update this story if we receive a response.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, filed a lawsuit in April against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis' copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Microsoft Clipchamp, Feedback Hub, and Maps are just a few of the many apps that come preinstalled on Windows 11. Since these apps are rarely used, wouldn’t it be better if Windows 11 didn’t include them? Fortunately, it’s possible to install Windows 11 without any bloatware so you can enjoy a clean experience from the moment you set up your system.

Unraid, the popular operating system for self-hosted servers and NAS boxes, just released Unraid OS 7.2 as a public beta. It has support for more file systems, an updated web interface, and much more.π

If you bought a Nintendo Switch 2 console, you've probably noticed how the console can get a bit toasty if you use it outside during the summer. It's not just you, though—Nintendo Switch 2 consoles are overheating left and right.

I used to feel trapped by Spotify Premium. I thought that if I quit, I'd have to choose between listening to insufferable ads and shelling out hundreds every month for downloads and physical media. When I finally did quit Spotify, I learned you can actually listen to quite a bit of ad-free music without breaking the bank.

ChatGPT is getting a health upgrade, this time for users themselves.

In a new blog post ahead of the company's reported GPT-5 announcement, OpenAI unveiled it would be refreshing its generative AI chatbot with new features designed to foster healthier, more stable relationships between user and bot. Users who have spent prolonged periods of time in a single conversation, for example, will now be prompted to log off with a gentle nudge. The company is also doubling down on fixes to the bot's sycophancy problem, and building out its models to recognize mental and emotional distress.

SEE ALSO: An Illinois bill banning AI therapy has been signed into law

ChatGPT will respond differently to more "high stakes" personal questions, the company explains, guiding users through careful decision-making, weighing pros and cons, and responding to feedback rather than providing answers to potentially life-changing queries. This mirror's OpenAI's recently announced Study Mode for ChatGPT, which scraps the AI assistant's direct, lengthy responses in favor of guided Socratic lessons intended to encourage greater critical thinking.

"We don’t always get it right. Earlier this year, an update made the model too agreeable, sometimes saying what sounded nice instead of what was actually helpful. We rolled it back, changed how we use feedback, and are improving how we measure real-world usefulness over the long term, not just whether you liked the answer in the moment," OpenAI wrote in the announcement. "We also know that AI can feel more responsive and personal than prior technologies, especially for vulnerable individuals experiencing mental or emotional distress."

Broadly, OpenAI has been updating its models in response to claims that its generative AI products, specifically ChatGPT, are exacerbating unhealthy social relationships and worsening mental illnesses, especially among teenagers. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that many users were forming delusional relationships with the AI assistant, worsening existing psychiatric disorders, including paranoia and derealization. Lawmakers, in response, have shifted their focus to more intensely regulate chatbot use, as well as their advertisement as emotional partners or replacements for therapy.

OpenAI has recognized this criticism, acknowledging that its previous 4o model "fell short" in addressing concerning behavior from users. The company hopes that these new features and system prompts may step up to do the work its previous versions failed at.

"Our goal isn’t to hold your attention, but to help you use it well," the company writes. "We hold ourselves to one test: if someone we love turned to ChatGPT for support, would we feel reassured? Getting to an unequivocal 'yes' is our work."

Were you tricked by the video of a bunch of bunnies jumping on a trampoline on TikTok? Well, nearly 230 million people were — and plenty of those viewers had no idea that it was actually AI. In response, the creator who brought us the Punxsutawney Phil musical, Oliver Richman (or @olivesongs11), wrote and recorded a 30-second song about the AI video, also for TikTok. He wrote the song on day 576 of an ongoing project, where he writes a new song each day.

"That project has changed my life in so many ways," Richman told Mashable, adding that it brought him "back to the joy of creating." He scrolled across the viral video of the bunnies jumping on the trampoline and said he was "certainly fooled" and "thought they were real."

"So when I learned that they weren't, I was like, 'Oh, I think this is today's song."

The unknowing bunny song on TikTok now has over 3.8 million views, 600,000 likes, and hundreds of comments like, "Bo Burnham! At The Disco" and "Wait until you see the bear on a trampoline. Spoiler: also AI."

The song goes like this:

There were bunnies that were jumping on a trampoline

And I just learned that they weren't real

If a bot can inhabit

An unknowing rabbit

It might manufacture the way you make me feel

How do I know that the sky's really sunny?

Sometimes it feels like your love is as real as

An unknowing bunny

The video has inspired covers and renditions, stop-motion videos, reactions, and a variety of other really cool human-made art. As one creator wrote on a TikTok video using the sound, "The fact that this song written about AI is going viral is incredibly healing. Especially because us as artists and songwriters are being threatened of our livelihoods due to the use of AI. And AI could never create something this unique with this much feeling."

Richman said the response to his video has been "the most surreal thing ever."

"Every piece of art that I've seen, I like get emotional," he said. "It certainly made me feel connected to the beauty of the messiness of being a human. And the imperfections that AI tends to delete or perfect — seeing all of this human art has just been a very emotional and cool experience."

As Mashable's Tim Marcin recently wrote about the influx of faux surveillance footage of animals, it "seems to be a new genre of AI slop." But give the internet slop, and creators might make porridge (is that a saying?).

In the face of all the AI slop we see online, creators like Richman are staying positive. "Art is so cool. Human art is so cool, and that really excites me."

Updated on Aug. 4 at 3:00 p.m. ET — This story has been updated to include an interview with creator Oliver Richman. Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.

Plug-in hybrid SUVs are still flying under the radar, but that won’t last much longer. As automakers rethink their rush to go fully electric, PHEVs are stepping in as the smart, flexible middle ground.

A few weeks ago, my Windows 11 PC started lagging badly. Upon checking, I found that OneDrive had occupied a huge amount of storage on my PC. Luckily, I made all my OneDrive files cloud-only, and here’s how you can do that, too.

Macs older than this century should not be used by anyone as a daily driver, but many are pieces of computing history that a lot of people want to keep alive and, occasionally, play around with. Someone managed to backport Universal Control, a very modern Mac feature, to the Macintosh Classic, released 35 years ago. Well, kind of.

Verizon customers reportedly got double bad news this week: the phone carrier is raising fees and removing loyalty discounts.

According to users on the Verizon subreddit, several customers reported receiving an email from Verizon informing them their account discounts are ending. "We are writing to let you know that a discount on your account will soon end," the email said, according a redditor. "This discount will be removed no sooner than September 1, 2025." Several other redditors chimed in on the thread, saying they had a received the same email about losing loyalty perks offered to longstanding customers. Mashable has reached out to Verizon for comment and will update this story with a response.

Reddit

A few days earlier, Verizon confirmed to Tom's Guide that the company is increasing fees for activations, phone lines, and tablet plans by Sept. 1.

SEE ALSO: The fastest mobile services have been ranked, and there’s a clear winner

Verizon customers are understandably unhappy about the changes. Some commented that they might change phone carriers to T-Mobile or AT&T as a result. "They just keep finding ways to crap on loyal customers," commented one redditor, underscoring the general sentiment of the thread that loyal customers are being penalized for their loyalty.

According to Tom's Guide, Verizon is reportedly trying to persuade customers on older plans to switch to its newer myPlan subscription. "We want to ensure you get the best value and experience from Verizon and encourage you to check out our myPlan options for the plan that works best for you," the email to customers reportedly said.

Cutting loyalty discounts and upping fees is a bold way to do that, since it seems to be alienating customers even more.

MAME has just dropped its 0.279 update, bringing many improvements to some classic arcade games. This latest release focuses heavily on graphical fidelity and accuracy of many older game consoles, so they'll feel like the originals.

The intimidating world of overlanding is enough to deter anyone from getting into this lifestyle. Social media has showcased countless behemoth-like rigs with lifted aftermarket suspension, tricked-out caps, and rooftop tents that offer better outfitting than your average inner-city apartment. It does have the ability to turn you away, to stop you from trying, but it doesn't need to be that way. You don't need to spend a fortune to start enjoying the overlanding lifestyle. All you need is a car with a bit of ground clearance, packing space, some roof load capacity, and you can be set on your way to unlock that inner weekend warrior.

Over the weekend, xAI released an updated version of the Grok iOS app with a new tool called Grok Imagine, which lets users quickly create AI images and videos. On X, excited Grok users are eagerly sharing their creations, and xAI founder Elon Musk is retweeting user posts.

Grok Imagine is available now to Heavy and Premium+ subscribers on the Grok iOS app, and to Heavy users on the Android app.

Grok Imagine features generative AI with text-to-image capabilities as well as the ability to turn images into short video clips with sound. In this way, it's similar to the new Midjourney AI video tool. Rival AI companies have AI tools that allow users to generate original videos based solely on text prompts, such as Veo 3 from Google and Sora from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

Musk praised Grok Imagine on X, calling it a "meme motherlode." He also teased the NSFW capabilities of the model and said Grok Imagine "should get better almost every day."

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Earlier this month, xAI released Grok 4, the company's latest and most intelligent model to date. In our previous testing, Grok lagged behind other popular AI image generators, particularly when it comes to preventing deepfakes.

How to try Grok Imagine

While Grok Imagine initially launched solely within the Grok iOS app, the DogeDesigner X account, which Musk often retweets, reported that it's now available on Android as of Monday for SuperGrok Heavy users.

Mashable tested Grok Imagine using the iOS app, and found it easy to start creating images and videos there.

After opening the Grok app, users should see two tabs at the top of the screen: "Ask" and "Imagine."

Tap on either the "Imagine" tab or the "Create Image" button and you will enter Grok Imagine.

Left: The Grok iOS app. Credit: xAI Right: Features AI-generated images. Credit: xAI

How to create images with Grok Imagine:

1. Type in a text-to-image prompt, upload an image, or use the voice mode by tapping "Speak"

2. Grok will generate the image and some variations.

3. Keep scrolling to automatically generate additional images

4. Share or download the images

How to create videos with Grok Imagine:

1. Tap on an image and select "Make video"

2. Choose from the options: Custom, Spicy, Fun, Normal

3. Your video will automatically generate and appear on the app

How to turn images into video with Grok Imagine

1. At the bottom of the app, tap the photo icon with a plus sign

2. Upload an image from your phone

3. Your video will automatically generate and appear on the app

Mashable is still in the process of testing Grok Imagine for ourselves, but the initial results seem to be... fine. As with other Grok tools, Grok Imagine seems to be lacking in safeguards that are commonplace in the AI industry. We've reached out to xAI for comment.

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Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

I love looking at set designs when I’m watching a TV show. It’s one of the things that initially sucked me into Mad Men—all those amazing Mid Century Modern spaces. If you’ve also wished you could live in your favorite TV show, a website called ReRun-ify might be your new obsession. It’s a tool that takes any mundane room and gives it a TV-inspired makeover without you having to lift a finger.

Pro wrestling — especially WWE — has always thrived on shocking swerves to keep fans tuning in week after week. It's part Dragon Ball Z, part soap opera, and all spectacle. But based on the backlash erupting across social media, it seems there’s one swerve that isn’t sitting right with fans: the surprise return of Brock Lesnar.

Known to casual fans as the Beast Incarnate, Lesnar has spent the past year as persona non grata in the internet wrestling community. In Jan. 2024, just weeks before the Royal Rumble, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit alleging that then-CEO Vince McMahon coerced her into a sexual relationship and trafficked her to another executive and an "unnamed WWE wrestler." That wrestler was later identified as Lesnar. The lawsuit alleges McMahon offered sexual favors from Grant to Lesnar as a bargaining chip in ongoing contract negotiations.

In response, WWE quickly removed Lesnar from the Royal Rumble and scrapped plans for his WrestleMania XL match. He was also removed from the WWE 2K24 special edition cover and edited out of TV intro packages — effectively erased from the spotlight. It should be noted that at the time of this writing, although Lesnar was named 44 times in the suit, he is not a defendant in the case, nor has he been charged with any crime.

But now, it seems WWE is ready to move past the controversy — even if fans aren’t. At WWE's SummerSlam night two event, in what was billed as John Cena’s final SummerSlam match before retirement, Lesnar made a surprise return to confront him. While the pop from the crowd in attendance was thunderous, both fans and wrestlers online voiced frustration.

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Brock Lesnar’s return to WWE programming follows a string of controversial decisions by the company over the past week. The biggest of which was WWE abruptly announcing that press conferences with independent media would no longer take place. The timing raised eyebrows, as the announcement came shortly after top WWE executive Paul “Triple H” Levesque appeared at the White House alongside President Trump for the signing of a new executive order to expand the Presidential Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition.

Per Wrestling Observer Radio, journalist Dave Meltzer notes that WWE canceled the press conferences to avoid having to answer questions about Lesnar.

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