1. Kanguva first reviews: Suriya ‘shed his blood and sweat’ but the movie ‘is tiring’, say fans  Hindustan Times
2. Kanguva movie review: Suriya-starrer has great ideas, but sub-par execution spoils it  India Today
3. Kanguva Movie Review: An earnest Suriya gives his all for a Siva film that doesn’t give him enough  The Indian Express
4. Kanguva X reviews: 'Hard to save a script like that,' say netizens on Suriya's colossal pan-India outing  Business Today
5. Kanguva: Here's how much Suriya, Bobby Deol and Disha Patani got paid for Siva's directorial  TOI Etimes

1. LG launches three new XBOOM Series speakers in India: Check price, details  Business Standard
2. LG launches three XBOOM series speakers: Price, features and more  The Times of India
3. LG launches XBOOM speaker series, headlined by the 1000W XL9T: Price and features  The Indian Express
4. LG XBOOM XL9T, XO2T and GO XG2T portable Bluetooth speakers launched in India  FoneArena
5. LG unveils XBOOM series speakers in India, from rugged to stylish; see price and features  Business Today

1. iPhone SE 4 is expected to launch in March 2025, according to the latest report  India TV News
2. iPhone SE 4 leaks: 7 big upgrades  India Today
3. iPhone SE 4 launching in 2025: Refreshed design, powerful specs—minus the premium price  Mint
4. Apple iPhone SE 4 to launch next year, likely to become the cheapest iPhone to support Apple Intelligence...  Moneycontrol
5. iPhone SE 4 Camera Production to Begin Soon Ahead of Anticipated Debut in March 2025: Report  Gadgets 360

1. Gold price today: MCX gold rate falls below ₹74,000 per 10 grams; silver price drops by ₹1,100 | Stock Market News  Mint
2. Gold prices fall for 4th straight day, silver remains steady; check the latest prices in your city  Upstox
3. Gold Price Today: Yellow metal prices continue their fall, tumble by Rs 2,000/10g this week  The Economic Times
4. Today Gold Rate 14-11-2024: Check latest prices in your city  Hindustan Times
5. Gold off Rs 4,775 per 10 gm from all-time highs; trade at Rs 75,000/10 gm  Zee Business

1. Swiggy shares in red a day after making an impressive debut with 7% gains  Moneycontrol
2. Zomato CEO congratulates Swiggy on IPO debut: Couldn't have asked for ...  The Times of India
3. Swiggy share price above 25% from issue price, hits ₹1 lakh crore market cap. Do you own?  Mint
4. Swiggy tops expectations with best major listing in a decade  The Economic Times
5. `You And I In This Beautiful World`: Zomato`s Tweet On Swiggy`s Stock Market Listing Is Winning Hearts Onli...  Zee News

1. Sri Lanka parliamentary elections 2024: What’s at stake?  Al Jazeera English
2. Sri Lanka to hold key parliamentary vote on November 14  The Hindu
3. Snap Sri Lankan election poses test for new leader  BBC.com
4. Sri Lanka Heads For Snap Elections Today, Results Likely On Friday  NDTV
5. Sri Lanka's newly-elected parliament to convene next week  Deccan Herald

1. U.S. Republicans complete power takeover with House majority  The Hindu
2. After Senate Win, Republicans Retain House Majority; Trump Secures Clear Path To Enact His Policies  The Times of India
3. Republicans claim US House, achieving ‘trifecta’ of election victories  Al Jazeera English
4. Trump has full control of government - but he won't always get his way  BBC.com

1. Vivek Ramaswamy reacts to viral video of his high school graduation speech: ‘I was against…’  Hindustan Times
2. Vivek Ramaswamy's High School Graduation Speech Goes Viral Ahead Of 'DOGE' Appointment With Elon Musk  NDTV
3. Donald Trump's inner circle feeling ‘iced out’ due to his close bond with Elon Musk; here's how Melania feels  Hindustan Times
4. Will Elon Musk be able to cut $2 trillion from US government spending?  BBC.com
5. DOGE days are coming for the US under Trump's two Musketeers  The Times of India

1. Chennai rains today: IMD warns of heavy rainfall in Tamil Nadu districts, will there be a school holiday? | Today News  Mint
2. Tamil Nadu Weather Alert: 12 Dist Today, 21 Dists Tomorrow To Get Heavy Rains  Oneindia
3. Tamil Nadu Rains: IMD predicts heavy rains in Chennai and other districts, will schools close? Full foreca  The Economic Times
4. Tamil Nadu: Heavy rain lashes delta districts, schools closed  The Times of India
5. Govt. has started acquisition of private land for flood mitigation projects in the city: Udhayanidhi  The Hindu

1. Wayanad, where Priyanka Gandhi made election debut, sees lowest-ever voter turnout  Hindustan Times
2. Wayanad Bypoll, Where Priyanka Gandhi Made Poll Debut, Records Its Lowest-Ever Voter Turnout  Times Now
3. Assembly bypolls: Voting held in 31 seats across 10 states in big INDIA vs BJP contest  India Today
4. Rahul Gandhi Takes Kerala's Longest Zipline In Landslide-Hit Wayanad  NDTV
5. 64.98% cast votes in Malappuram in Wayanad bypoll  The Hindu

Throughout her decades-long career, Goldberg has become one of the few entertainers to achieve EGOT status

Ex-CNN host shared that rather than choosing between Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, he wrote in an alternative candidate on his ballot

Actor, who played Joey Gladstone on the hit ABC sitcom, said he is currently undergoing rounds of chemotherapy

The series has transcended expectations in a huge way

A neighborhood watch group in a Christian Beirut neighborhood is on the lookout for militant operatives, which could make the area a target for Israeli airstrikes.

The USS Edsall was overpowered by a Japanese fleet in the Indian Ocean but fought valiantly to the end, the U.S. Navy said. It was found in deep waters south of Australia's Christmas Island.

With wars raging around the world and high tariffs looming, Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes says Trump's agenda may be chaotic — but she remains optimistic about possible good elements.

President Biden plans to tell China's Xi Jinping that communication channels between the two governments need to remain open — no matter who is in the White House.

North Korea and Russia each ratified a mutual defense treaty within days of each other. The pact means the countries will defend one another if attacked. And some say it may mean more involvement by North Korea in the war between Russia and Ukraine. We hear about the ramifications from our correspondent in Seoul.

The mystery mollusc has been identified

Israeli archeologists use models based on their find to spin flax into yarn, indicating these pebbles were used as a version of a spinning wheel.

Rivian is teaming up with Volkswagen in a $5.8 billion joint venture for EV innovation on its R2 model, which the company says will eventually be manufactured in Georgia.

The Swanson School of Engineering will develop an improved HVDC converter with the Department of Energy's funds.

Mobile phone bills accounted for 5.36% of the $3.35 trillion Americans spend on household bills in a year.

The training company is in discussions with a major computer manufacturing company to bring 10,000 employees onto the platform.

One of the country’s most prominent buyers of industrial outdoor storage properties has purchased a number of distribution center sites owned and operated by a national fiber optic network company, including a site in the St. Louis region.

A Durham company progressing toward its first utility-scale clean power plant says the Trump agenda actually fits its business model.

Electronic Arts has incorporated the Professional Women's Hockey League into its NHL 25 video game with six teams represented in "play now," "online versus," "shootout" and "season" modes, plus a championship Walter Cup.

CBC Sports' daily newsletter previews the premier event in international women's team tennis, where Canada is looking to repeat its surprising victory last year.

For Canadian men's soccer goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, it's all about winning the small contest in front of you, and accumulate enough of those wins in succession, and greatness will follow.

In addition to the skyrocketing prices of hotel rooms, inflated Uber rates and hysteria around her presence, Taylor Swift hugely affects the sports ecosystem around her. Whether or not skeptics want to admit it, her connection to sport creates a cultural impact that can not be denied.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could go out for a run without fear of being harmed? Technology has a way of making us both safer and at greater risk while out and about, but a new tool from Strava might help with the former. Strava has announced Night Heatmaps, a feature that shows which areas have more activity — or "heat" — between sunset and sunrise. Yes, Heatmaps is the feature that accidentally revealed the location of US military bases. 

The update is a welcome one with sunset getting very early in some areas of the world, while night seems to last late into the morning. It also comes alongside a new Weekly Heatmap, which shows heat levels in an area over the last seven days. Again, this can help you know which paths will have the most people, but at all times of the day. While this added awareness is great for knowing where to go, some people might also purposely choose to avoid the busiest times, for fear of unwanted attention (there's no winning here). 

In either case, the Night and Weekly Heatmaps are only available on subscriber accounts (a membership will cost you $12 monthly or $80 annually). It's also worth noting that Heatmaps pull solely from public activities on Strava, so you're not getting the full story of how many people go where. 

Night and Weekly Heatmaps join the Global Heatmaps (also subscriber exclusive) and your Personal Heatmap. You can access any of them through the Map tab and filter the Heatmap by activity type. 

Hydrow, a company that makes smart rowing machines, just announced the Core, a new model that eschews monthly subscription fees. The Hydrow Core Rower features the “same award-winning design” as the original Pro Rower, which we said was positioning itself to be “the Peloton of smart rowing machines.”

Obviously, the hook here is that the Core is a one-and-done purchase with no recurring subscription costs. It still comes with an attached display, which lets users “row through stunning destinations.” All told, this machine offers access to 30 self-paced rows through these exotic locales.

The Core Rower supports unlimited users, which is nice, but there is one major caveat. There’s no subscription, so there’s no access to instructor-led workouts, badges, milestones and other premium features. However, customers can add a membership later for all of that stuff. Hydrow charges $44 per month for a subscription. It could be useful to try it out for a month to see if all of those additional bells and whistles are worth it.

The Hydrow Core Rower is available right now and costs $1,995. This is the exact same price as the flagship Pro Rower. The company also recently released a trimmed down version called the Hydrow Wave. This one is smaller and cheaper, clocking in at around $1,700.

Amazon is marking down a slew of its products for Black Friday and that includes its streaming devices. Currently, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is down to $33 from $60 — a 45 percent discount that brings it to a new all-time low price. This device is Amazon's most powerful streaming stick, supporting a 4K Ultra HD display, with an enhanced Alexa Voice Remote and Wi-Fi 6E support. You can, of course, use it to access Amazon Prime Video, along with Netflix, Disney+ and all your favorite streamers. 

While the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is a good option for streaming, we also use it for something a bit different: playing retro games. Our senior reporter Jeff Dunn bought one to play games from the PS1, Game Boy, Genesis, old arcade games and more. He finds it works much better than having to lug around any bigger devices. However, using your Fire TV Stick 4K Max to play old games requires a bit of setup so, if you're interested in trying it, may I direct you to Dunn's helpful guide here. 

Amazon's Fire TV Cube is also discounted as part of a larger sale on Fire TV devices for Black Friday. Right now, you can pick up the streaming device for 29 percent off, dropping to $100 from $140. The Cube is your pick if you want access to ethernet and hands-free use with Alexa. It's more powerful than the 4K Max, but, for the price difference, it's a tough call if it's worth it. 

Check out all of the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals here.

Select YouTube creators can now produce their own remixes of existing songs. YouTube has announced a new feature for its AI-powered Dream Track tool that allows individuals to "restyle" a song and create a 30-second tune to use in a Short. 

Creators in the experiment group for this feature can choose from eligible songs and then give an explanation to AI about how they want to remix it. These changes could focus on giving the song a different genre or mood — whatever twist they're imagining. From there a new song gets produced "that reimagines the music while maintaining the essence of the original song’s vocals and lyrics," YouTube's announcement states. "These restyled soundtracks will have clear attribution to the original song through the Short itself and the Shorts audio pivot page, and will also clearly indicate that the track was restyled with AI."

YouTube rolled out Dream Track in November 2023, powered by Google DeepMind's Lyria model. It allowed a select group of US creators to make songs using the AI-generated voices of participating artists. The feature included a deal with Universal Music Group and partnerships with a slew of musicians, including John Legend, Charli XCX and Troye Sivan. It has expanded its availability to all US creators in the year since. 

This is Lightfoot, a solar scooter conceived by San Francisco-based R&D outfit Otherlab that, it claims, will be available to buy in the US from January. The most eye-catching feature are the two side panels covered in solar cells that will hopefully keep you from needing a charger. In the gap between the two, however, is a fairly capacious cargo compartment with almost 1.6 cubic feet of space. That should be more than enough to haul your gear to and from work, or to pick up some groceries when you’re out and about. The padded seat and footplates, too, are designed to carry the rider and an additional passenger when required, too. 

Specs-wise, there’s a pair of 750W brushless DC motors with a top speed of 20 miles per hour, generating 90Nm of peak torque, which should hopefully be enough to scale the hills around SF (and wherever you are). They’re wired up to a 1.1kWh battery that the company promises will deliver a range of 37 miles on a single charge. The two 120W panels on either side will trickle charge the battery when on the road or parked up outdoors. Otherlab claims this idle solar charging will add three miles of charge per hour, or 18 miles if you leave it for a whole day.

Aside from the solar hardware, Otherlab claims that you — or a qualified technician — will be able to keep this running without any outside assistance. It said most of the components are off-the-shelf motorcycle parts and that they can be repaired or replaced just as easily. There’s also a one-year whole-bike and two-year mechanical guarantee, as well as a no-question buy back policy. We’ll reserve judgment on every facet of this until we’re able to test it for ourselves, but we’re looking forward to doing so just to see what this thing feels like to ride.

Pre-orders for the Lightfoot are opening today for $4,995, with Otherlab pledging to make the first deliveries in January 2025.

The Federal Trade Commission will get a chance to argue its case for Meta’s breakup in court. On Wednesday, US District Judge James Boasberg allowed the FTC’s lawsuit against the social media giant to move forward (PDF link). The FTC first sued Meta in 2020 in an attempt to force the company, then known as Facebook, to divest itself of Instagram and WhatsApp. Alongside dozens of attorneys general, the agency alleged Meta acquired the platforms in 2012 and 2014 to stifle growing competition in the social media market.

This past April, Meta asked Judge Boasberg to dismiss the case. In addition to noting that the FTC had previously approved both acquisitions, Meta argued that the agency had failed to show that the company held monopoly power in the social networking services market, and that, in buying Instagram and WhatsApp, it had harmed consumers. Additionally, the company claimed that it had invested billions of dollars in both platforms and made them better as a result, to the benefit of social media users everywhere.

While he did not entirely dismiss the lawsuit, Boasberg did force the FTC to narrow its case, dismissing an allegation that Facebook had provided preferential access to developers who agreed not to compete with it.

“We are confident that the evidence at trial will show that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have been good for competition and consumers. More than 10 years after the FTC reviewed and cleared these deals, and despite the overwhelming evidence that our services compete with YouTube, TikTok, X, Apple’s iMessage, and many others, the Commission is wrongly continuing to assert that no deal is ever truly final, and businesses can be punished for innovating,” a Meta spokesperson told Engadget. “We will review the opinion when it’s filed.”

Judge Boasberg will meet with the two sides on November 25 to schedule the trial. The FTC lawsuit, it should be noted, was filed under the previous Trump administration, though whether it moves forward and in what form will depend on who President-elect Trump appoints to lead the agency.

Amazon Haul will be the ecommerce titan's new discount storefront designed to compete against Temu and Shein, CNBC reports. This new corner of Bezos's empire is mobile-only and promises items at “crazy low prices.”

Unlike Amazon Prime’s fast speeds, Amazon promises its Haul orders orders will arrive in less than two weeks. Previously, CNBC mentioned in a previous report that Amazon was exploring a storefront where goods would be sold to US customers directly from China, though now it seems the company itself is doing the importing and acting as an intermediary.

Speed isn't the only alteration to the typical Amazon arrangement customers will have to get used to. It seems, regardless of if they subscribe to Prime or not, buyers will have to purchase $25 of goods per order with Haul to get free shipping. For lesser orders, the shipping fee will be $3.99. Amazon also won't accept Haul returns if the value of the items is $3 or under.

If customers take to Haul, the new storefront could put Amazon in a favorable position in a seemingly crowded market. Both the US and EU have set their regulatory sights on Temu.

Amazon has released a new trailer for Secret Level, the upcoming Prime Video show that tells stories set in the worlds of beloved, popular or even upcoming games (and also Concord). Given that it’s an anthology series, there’s unlikely to be an overarching plot, so there’s not much to grok here from a narrative perspective. And the sooner there's a mortarium on trailers being soundtracked to that overused M83 song, the better.

However, the visuals sure do look pretty. The quality of the animation is genuinely impressive. At least in some cases, the art style apes that of the game the episode is based on. That’s particularly true for what we see of the Sifu episode, but Secret Level is not, for instance, retaining Spelunky's aesthetic.

Other episodes are based on the likes of Armored Core, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, Pac-Man, The Outer Worlds 2, Unreal Tournament and Warhammer 40,000, along with "various" PlayStation Studios games. One of those is Concord, which Sony unceremoniously killed for good after its disastrous debut.

Some major mainstream stars have lent their voices and even likenesses to the series, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kevin Hart, Keanu Reeves (who appears in the Armored Core episode), Ariana Greenblatt and Gabriel Luna. Video game stalwarts, including The Last of Us stars Merle Dandridge and Laura Bailey, are involved too.

Secret Level — which is from the creative team behind Netflix's Love, Death and Robots — will debut on December 10. More episodes will be released over the following week.

Everything old is new again. Turntable Labs just launched Hangout, a social music platform that’s eerily similar to that champion of 2010s internet, Turntable.fm. The app is available as a web client or via an app for Android and iOS. It allows users to play virtual DJ, with over 100 million songs to choose from.

It not only functions like the old-school Turntable.fm. It even looks the same. There’s a stage, record players and cartoon avatars that sort of look like characters from South Park. I started my own room just to check things out and am pleasantly surprised at the sheer number of songs here that I actually like.

This is because those 100 million songs have been secured through partnerships with Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. The catalog also pulls from Merlin, which represents a vast array of indie labels and rights holders.

The company likens the experience to “gathering around a jukebox or listening to albums with friends.” It seems that way to me, as someone I don’t know just jumped in my room and started playing their own stuff. To that end, folks take turns playing DJ. There looks to be room for five people at the same time to play a game of round robin with their favorite songs.

The robust catalog is one major difference from Turntable.fm. The platform didn’t have agreements in place with labels, instead relying on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and a partnership with ASCAP. This forced a number of rules on users as to how many people could be in a room at once and how many songs could be played each hour. It looks like those rules are now dunzo.

Turntable.fm originally went dark all the way back in 2013, before showing signs of renewed life in 2021. This could be a fun retro throwback to an age when we actually got our music recommendations from people, and not algorithms.

AMD has confirmed it’s laying off roughly four percent of its global workforce, according to reports by TechCrunch and others. It’s not entirely clear how many people will be impacted by this move, or which divisions the laid off employees will be pulled from.

We can, however, do some math. The company had around 26,000 employees last year, according to an annual filing by AMD. Four percent of 26,000 comes out to just over 1,000 people. That’s a lot.

So that leads us to why. You already know the answer. It’s a bunch of corporate gobbledygook. “As a part of aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of targeted steps,” an AMD spokesperson told CRN.

Don’t worry. The company also said it’s “committed to treating impacted employees with respect and helping them through this transition.” Engadget reached out to AMD for more information as to what that respect and help will look like. We’ll update this story if we find out anything.

This news comes after a fairly mixed Q3 earnings report. The company grew revenue and profit, but the gaming division saw a massive year-over-year decline of 69 percent, according to Wccftech. The company has also struggled to compete with NVIDIA in the world of AI chips.

Experts still predict that AMD will make nearly $33 billion in 2025, thanks to forthcoming next-gen GPUs. This isn’t enough for investors, however, as it’s “just” an increase of around $7 billion when compared to 2024. The company’s stock is down around four percent this year, and dropped further today. Capitalism demands massive and endless growth.

Rival (and occasional bestie) Intel has faced similar headwinds. The company announced over 15,000 layoffs earlier this year.

Threads could start getting ads much sooner than Meta has let on. The company is now planning to bring ads to its newest app “early next year” with the first ads arriving in January of 2025, according to a new report in The Information.

That suggests Meta is looking to start making money on the rapidly growing service far sooner than Meta executives have previously suggested. In August, when the app reached 200 million users, Mark Zuckerberg said Threads could become the company’s next billion-user service. He said making money off the app would be a "multi-year" effort. 

“All these new products, we ship them, and then there's a multi-year time horizon between scaling them and then scaling them into not just consumer experiences but very large businesses,” Zuckerberg said. In the company’s most recent earnings call, Meta CFO Susan Li said the company doesn’t “expect Threads to be a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue at this time.”

According to The Information, Meta is planning a slow rollout for ads on Threads. The company will start with “a small number” of advertisers in January. It’s unclear how quickly the effort may expand. "Since our priority is to build consumer value first and foremost, there are no ads or monetization features currently on Threads," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. 

Meta’s reported plans highlight just how quickly the service has grown in recent months. Threads has 275 million monthly users and is seeing more than 1 million new sign-ups a day, according to Zuckerberg. That makes it by far the largest of the X alternatives that have sprung up over the last couple years.

Bluesky, another popular Twitter-like service, has also seen significant growth recently, adding a million new users in the last week, the company said Tuesday. It is still much smaller than Threads with 15 million users. Like Threads, it also currently has no advertising and the company has said it plans to experiment with subscription-based features.

Update November 13, 2024, 2 PM ET: Added a statement from a Meta spokesperson. 

Google is conducting a “test” that will omit results from EU-based news publishers. The company says the time-limited trial will only affect a small portion of users in nine EU countries and will help “assess how results from EU news publishers impact the search experience for our users and traffic to publishers.” But given the fragile state of the news media — and the company’s history of threatening to pull its services in the face of news-related regulations — it’s tempting to view it as the equivalent of a mob boss conducting a “little test” to see how the corner laundromat fares without its protection.

Google describes the experiment (via The Verge) as a “small, time-limited test” to omit EU results from search, Google News and the personalized Discover feed. It will only affect one percent of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. Those users will still see results from other websites, including non-EU news publications.

The company says news results will reappear as usual once the test concludes. (It didn’t list a specific timeframe.) Google stresses that the experiment won’t impact the publisher payments it makes under the European Copyright Directive (EUCD), under which the company has inked deals with over 4,000 EU publishers.

Google does have a history of using the potential withdrawal of its visibility as a negotiating stick in similar situations. In some cases, the tactic has helped it draw concessions.

Last year, Google pulled its news links from Canada in response to Bill C-18 (the Online News Act), which required tech companies to negotiate compensation with online publishers for linked content. After months of negotiations, Google said Canada had addressed its concerns and given it a path to an exemption. Canada said it granted one to Google last month, with the company agreeing to pay $100 million annually to news organizations.

In April of this year, Google briefly removed links to California news outlets in response to the proposed California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), which would require Google to pay news publishers in exchange for continuing to link to their websites. Although the bill’s fate is still up in the air, Google struck a deal with state lawmakers this summer, committing tens of millions of dollars to a fund supporting local news.

In 2021, the company threatened to remove its entire search engine from Australia in response to a then-proposed law requiring tech companies to share royalties with news publishers. The nation’s then-Prime Minister stood firm. “Let me be clear. Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia,” Scott Morrison said. After the bill was passed and enacted, Google struck deals with Australian media companies to license content.

Google says it hopes the data analysis tools it provides publishers will help them use the EU test to “understand traffic patterns.”

Blizzard pulled off a rare surprise today by shadow launching remasters of the original Warcraft and its sequel to commemorate the franchise’s 30th anniversary. These updates of the hit RTS games are available right now and look to merge retro goodness with some modern sensibilities.

The remasters feature “brand new, hand-drawn visuals that capture the original art style from each game.” Players will be able to swap between the original graphics and the remastered versions in real time. If the trailer is anything to go by, the games look purdy. The simple animations match the vibe of the two games nicely.

The original Warcraft is getting some serious quality-of-life changes to make the game more appealing to modern audiences. The update includes 16:9 resolution support and modern control options. For instance, players can now right-click to move units instead of having to rely on hotkeys.

Both remasters have also received "various UI and UX improvements such as tooltips and health bars, mission select screens, and increased unit selection." The original games placed strict limitations on how many units could be selected at once, so that last one is a nice improvement.

Warcraft 2 will even be available for multiplayer sessions. Franchise manager Brad Chan said during today’s 30th anniversary livestream that “all legacy custom maps will still be fully compatible and playable.” These remasters are available right now. Warcraft 1 is $10 and Warcraft 2 is $15.

Today’s 30th anniversary stream also dropped all kinds of other nuggets beyond the remasters. Warcraft 3: Reforged got a major update today that fixes many long-standing issues. Blizzard also announced that the affiliated mobile title Warcraft Arclight Rumble will be playable on PC starting on December 10, albeit as a beta.

The developer is relaunching WoW: Classic, complete with “all-new, fresh realms.” WoW: Classic 20th Anniversary Edition will be available on November 21 and will include PvE and PvP servers, in addition to Hardcore realms.

WoW Classic is even getting a new (old) expansion. Mists of Pandora Classic will be available next year. Check the trailer above for proof.

Black Friday deals are already popping up around the web, and that includes some Apple devices. You can pick up a four-pack of Apple AirTags for just $70, which brings the price per tag down to $17.50. That's a record-low price for the four pack and just about the cheapest we've seen on the price per unit.

Apple AirTags easily made our list of the best Bluetooth trackers, particularly for regular iPhone users. We love the vast finding network, which really helps when you misplace a tag. Just think of all of those AirTags, iPhones and other Apple devices out there helping to create this network.

Apple AirTags also offer the ability to tap into the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless protocol. This creates a sort of game out of finding lost items, as long as the object is within 25 feet of the phone. The screen will display directional arrows and a distance meter so you can zero in on the lost item without having to ring the AirTag.

There are some caveats. These trackers only really work with iPhones, so Android users should buy something else. Also, the ringer only goes for seven seconds at a time, which isn’t always enough time to track something down. Finally, there’s no attachment point for connecting to a keychain or a related item. However, there are plenty of good AirTag accessories to solve that problem.

Check out all of the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals here.

A startup called Wonder is now the new owner of Grubhub. The food delivery app announced its acceptance of the deal on its website earlier today.

Wonder acquired Grubhub from the Dutch food company Just Eat Takeaway for $650 million. Pending regulatory approval, the deal will close early next year. Wonder also announced it has raised an additional $250 million in venture capital funding “to further its mission and growth.”

Chicago software engineers Matt Maloney and Mike Evens founded Grubhub in 2004 as an online restaurant ordering service and an alternative to those paper menus that showed up on doorsteps and in junk mailings. The company merged with the automated food ordering and delivery company Seamless in 2013. Just Eat Takeaway bought Grubhub in 2020 for $7.3 billion at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The numbers for restaurant delivery apps started to drop once the pandemic became part of history and people started going out again. Legal troubles started in 2021 when Chicago took Grubhub and some of its competitors to court for alleged unfair business practices and fees. Companies like DoorDash eventually settled but Grubhub’s legal battle with Chicago is still raging in court, according to the Chicago Business Journal.

The District of Columbia won a similar lawsuit against Grubhub in 2021 that ended with a $3.5 million settlement. The following year, Grubhub announced it would lay off 15 percent of its corporate staff.

Wonder is a new fooddelivery company started by Marc Lore, a former Walmart executive who owns two professional basketball teams. Lowe previously founded Diapers.com and Jet.com. The New York Times published a profile on Lore and his newest venture Wonder, which he said “could be the Amazon of food and beverage.”

Wonder’s original focus was to get “its own restaurants up and running” and create a delivery service that offers “cheaper, quicker build-outs.” Maybe that’s because third-party food delivery services like Grubhub, DoorDash and Uber have seen their prices jump in the last couple of years, according to CNBC.

Just in New York City, food delivery prices increased by 58 percent in just under a year, according to Bloomberg. A new law that went into effect at the end of last year raised the minimum wage for New York delivery drivers to $17.96 an hour. The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection reported that food delivery workers saw their wages increase by 64 percent and their tips decreased by 60 percent in just eight months.

Spotify is aiming to give YouTube some competition with its new partner program for video creators and content that goes viral. The music and podcast app announced a new “Partner Program” that monetizes audio and video beyond income from advertising starting on January 2, 2025.

The new monetization program pays Spotify creators in two ways. Creators can earn a share of ad revenue from their content on all platforms through its Partner Program. They can also earn money through monthly podcast subscriptions that “allow listeners to support creators directly in return for exclusive bonus content and perks.”

Both tiers also come with eligibility requirements. The Spotify Partner Program requires participants to host and upload their content through its Spotify for Creators platform, have streamed 10,000 hours and at least 2,000 unique views in a 30-day period and published at least 12 episodes. Subscriptions will be open to content creators who have at least two published episodes and at least 100 unique Spotify listeners in a 60-day period. The new programs will be available for subscribers in the US, UK, Canada and Australia next January.

Spotify has taken other steps to make its video and music content more accessible and mainstream. The music and video streamer integrated with TikTok and Instagram so users can post tracks on the social media sites.

NHL 25 is slated to get a sizable content update at the end of the year. EA announced that the six teams of the Professional Women's Hockey League will be added to the game in an update this December. The Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost, Montréal Victoire, New York Sirens, Ottawa Charge and Toronto Sceptres will be available to choose in the game's Play Now, Online Versus, Shootout and Season modes.

This EA sports franchise has been putting more women's leagues and female players into the spotlight in recent installments. Women's teams first appeared in NHL 22 back in 2022, and last year NHL 23 showcased Olympic gold medalist Sarah Nurse of Team Canada on its cover alongside Trevor Zegras of the Anaheim Ducks.

In addition to the December update with the PWHL partnership, NHL 25 is adding an NHL Arcade mode this Friday. In early 2025, the game will also see new content tied to the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off event.

Bluesky may still be the underdog in the race for alternatives to X, but the once Twitter-affiliated service is gaining momentum. The app just passed the 15 million user mark after adding more than a million new users over the last week, the company said in an update.

While Bluesky is still considerably smaller than Threads, which with 275 million users is its biggest rival, there are signs that Threads users have been increasingly curious about the upstart. “Bluesky” has been a trending topic on Threads in recent days and an in-app search suggestion shows there are more than 19,000 posts about “Bluesky.” Bluesky itself has also made a push to win over Threads users in recent weeks by posting regularly on the Meta-owned service.

That effort seems to be working. A month ago, Engadget noted, the service had just under 9 million users. Its mobile app also has the top spot in Apple’s App Store, followed by Threads and ChatGPT. Its recent success also seems to be driven, at least in part, by frustration with Elon Musk and X following the US presidential election.

A recent report from web analytics company SimilarWeb found that “more than 115,000 US web visitors deactivated their accounts,” on November 7, “more than on any previous day of Elon Musk’s tenure.” The report also noted that “web traffic and daily active users for Bluesky increased dramatically in the week before the election, and then again after election day,” with Bluesky at points seeing more web traffic than Threads. (Threads’ mobile usage, however, is still “far ahead” of Bluesky.)

“In the US, Bluesky got more web visits than Threads in the immediate aftermath of the election,” the report notes. “For context, it’s important to note that both services are app centric, even though they support a web user interface.”

On its part, Bluesky seems intent on distinguishing itself from its larger, billionaire-controlled rivals. The company, which began as an internal project at Twitter before it spun off into an independent entity, has experimented with novel features like custom feeds, user-created moderation services and “starter packs” for new users.

“You're probably used to being trapped in a single algorithm controlled by a small group of people, that's no longer the case,” Bluesky’s COO Rose Wang shared in a video aimed at new users Tuesday. “On Bluesky, there are about 50,000 different feeds … these feeds provide a cozy corner for you to meet people with similar interests. And you can actually make friends again, because you're no longer tied to a dominant algorithm that promotes either the most polarizing posts and or the biggest brands, and that's the mandate of Bluesky.”

GOG is launching an effort to help make older video games playable on modern hardware. The GOG Preservation Program will label the classic titles that the platform has taken steps to adapt in order to make them compatible with contemporary computer systems, controllers and screen resolutions, all while adhering to its DRM-free policy. The move could bring new life to games of decades past, just as GOG did two years ago with a refresh of the 1999 title Wheel of Time. So far, 92 games have received the preservation treatment.

"Our guarantee is that they work and they will keep working," the company says in the video announcing the initiative.

Preservation has been a hot topic as more games go digital only. Not only are some platforms eliminating disk drives by default, but ownership over your library is more ephemeral than it seems. After all, most game purchases are just a license, and licenses can be revoked (as The Crew players know all too well).