Google shows how Project Loon could ride wind currents to keep balloons evenly spaced

Anyone looking to poke a hole in Project Loon — Google's ambitious project to use balloons to bring internet access to remote regions of the world — would likely point out that you can't keep a balloon in one spot. Google has an answer for that, of course. The Project Loon team says it could use wind currents at different levels of the stratosphere to control where balloons move and insure that the "flock" remains evenly spaced out. That, in turn, would made sure that people down below don't have to wait for one of the airborne antennas to pass overhead before loading the internet.

Dan Piponi of Project Loon explains the technique by showing off some (very cool) simulations in a video released this week to explain the issue. By...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/1/4680456/google-shows-how-project-loon-could-ride-wind-currents

The Verge Playlist: Better to burn out

You had it. You knew them before they got big. You saw them live, before they got soft. You were scene. You had a song for every occasion. You kept up. You would never be that person who only listened to music that was 20 years old. You missed a show. You missed every show. You got a cat. You had a kid. You traded newness for nostalgia. You accepted it. You turned up the car stereo, alone, remembering.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/31/4563748/the-verge-playlist-better-to-burn-out

President Obama announces intent to strike Syria, will seek approval by Congress

President Obama gave a hastily-scheduled address on Saturday to announce his intentions to launch a "limited" military strike on Syria. "I have decided the US should take military action against regime targets Obama said the Syrian government," Obama said, adding that he would seek Congressional authorization for such a strike before launching it. Obama said that the Syrian regime had committed the "worst chemical weapons attack of the 21st century." The US government has in recent days been making the case for an international military strike against the Syrian government, accusing the regime of launching the chemical attack on its own people, killing thousands of civilians as the country's nearly two-year-long civil conflict drags on.

...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/31/4679712/president-obama-announces-intent-to-strike-syria-will-seek-approval

The Classics: ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ and the raw thrill of unchecked speed

Every ride home from the video game store was a strange exercise in lust and this one was no different. I sat in the passenger seat and immersed myself in the sacred act of unwrapping and popping open the big black container shell, fondling the rounded cartridge in my hands as if the magic on the logic board inside could somehow be transdermally absorbed, internalizing the coarse alliteration of the box copy: Super Speed! Super Graphics! Super Attitude! It’s Super SONIC.

Like a jet engine warming up the choral two-toned SEGA brought my mind into gear but I still wasn’t prepared for what lay beyond the iconic finger-wagging title screen. Green Hill Zone, a platform landscape that should be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site,...

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The Weekender: infuriating interfaces, ethical eating, and power through positrons

Welcome to The Verge: Weekender edition. Every Saturday, we'll bring you some of the best and most important reads of the past seven days, from original reports, to in-depth features, to reviews and interviews. Think of it as a collection of some of our favorite pieces that you may have missed — or that you may just want to read again. You can follow along below, or keep up to date on Flipboard.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/31/4675370/the-weekender-droid-reviews-harnessing-antimatter-censorship-history

Beautiful collaborative artwork from illustrator and her 4-year-old daughter

What happens when a professional illustrator collaborates with a 4-year-old? When Mica Angela Hendricks pulled out her sketchbook in front of her daughter, she found out. "I’m all about kid’s crafts, but when it comes to my own art projects, I don’t like to share," says Hendricks on her blog. "Since she was engrossed in her own project, I thought I might be able to pull it off... I should've known better."

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Watch a pinhole camera turn empty apartments into living photographs

The camera obscura is one of the simplest ways to reproduce imagery in the world, but a pair of French photographers are using its basic principles to turn entire apartments into canvases. Traditionally, a camera obscura is created by taking a light-proof box and making a pinhole in it; hence the term "pinhole camera." Light enters the box through the hole, and recreates the image on the opposite wall, upside down. Romain Alary and Antoine Levi use the same technique, but with large physical spaces as their light-proof box instead — and then they film the result. It allows them to create dreamy, surreal montages where the physical textures of an apartment wall merge with the busy street outside in a kind of Inception-esque mash-up of...

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Casio's ready to battle Samsung, Sony, and anyone else looking for smartwatch supremacy

Casio CEO Kazuo Kashio is sending a clear message to Samsung, Apple, and any other company considering a move into smartwatches: "we're prepared." Speaking with the New York Times , Kashio notes that "suddenly, everyone's discovered the wrist," referencing the recent onslaught of smartwatches from Pebble, Sony, and others. "We've known for a long time it's prime real estate. We're prepared."

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/31/4678750/casio-ceo-prepared-to-fight-apple-sony-samsung-smartwatch

Banks eye credit penalties for companies wasting natural resources

The World Bank and 42 of the world's largest financial institutions are collaborating to create a system that will enable them to deny credit to corporations that abuse natural resources and harm the environment. The group includes 39 banks that took part in a working group at last year's UN Conference on Sustainable Development, according to The Daily Climate. At the UN event, the 39 wrote up what they call the Natural Capital Declaration — a document that defines natural capital as "Earth's natural assets (soil, air, water, flora and fauna), and the ecosystem services resulting from them, which make human life possible."

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/31/4677496/banks-natural-capital-declaration-un-environment-credit

NASA-backed SpiderFab robot aims to build 3D-printed spaceship parts in orbit

NASA has always built its spacecraft on Earth, but aerospace startup Tethers Unlimited is hoping to change that process by developing a system that combines 3D printing and robotic assembly to build spaceship parts in orbit. NASA is kicking in $500,000 in funding to the project, called SpiderFab, that will enable Tethers to begin testing and demonstrating manufacturing techniques. The money will bring the arachnid-looking concept one step closer to its goal of an in-space demo by 2020.

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Autopilot isn't enough: experts call for new pilot training standards to prevent crashes

For over a decade, aviation safety experts like the NTSB's Robert Sumwalt and NASA scientist Key Dismukes have warned that pilots should never drop their guard — that they not only need to monitor their instruments, but also their co-pilots to keep fatal errors from occurring at times when the plane is most vulnerable. In 2003, they achieved a major win: citing a 1994 NTSB study that claimed 84 percent of accidents might have been prevented if the crew caught errors and / or questioned their superiors, they convinced the FAA to offically change the on-duty titles of pilots so both individuals would always have active responsibility.

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New leaks reveal broad scope of US cyber offensive

Yesterday, The Washington Post revealed that US spy agencies proposed a $52 billion "black budget" for 2013. What would they do with all that cash? Among other things, they could spend $1 billion on cyberwarfare, with two-thirds of that funding hundreds of digital preemptive strikes to turn foreign networks into the computer equivalent of sleeper agents for the US. That's precisely what happened in 2011, according to The Washington Post's latest scoop, when US intelligence agencies carried out 231 offensive cyber-ops and used a program called GENIE to place "covert implants" into what the publication characterizes as "tens of thousands of machines every year."

Developing...

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Spec Sheet: Kyocera's Hydro Elite splashes down on Verizon

A lot of products come out each week — we don't highlight all of them, but all of them make it into The Verge Database. In Spec Sheet, a weekly series, we survey the latest product entries to keep track of the state of the art.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4677388/spec-sheet-kyocera-hydro-elite-waterproof-verizon-smartphone

Chimpanzees make art and win prizes in Humane Society contest

The Humane Society of the United States has just finished an art contest judging the artwork of chimpanzees. According to the organization's website, the Chimpanzee Art contest counted over 27,000 public votes to determine which lucky primate would emerge victorious. The winner was Brent, a 37-year-old that's lived at the Chimp Haven wildlife sanctuary since 2006. The facility will receive a $10,000 grant thanks to his art-world win.

The $5,000 second-place prize goes to the home of Cheetah, a former lab chimp that now resides at the Save the Chimps facility in Florida. The Center for Great Apes will receive a $2,500 grant thanks to the colorful third-place finish of Ripley — a former acting ape that eventually landed at the Center...

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Syria, Microsoft, and Apple trade-ins: 90 Seconds on The Verge

Tap-tap-tap. Hit enter. BLINK. BLINK. BLINK.



Check wiring. Voltage is correct. No cold solder joints. Sigh.



"I'm sorry, sir. We're going to have to take your droid in for repair."

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4677436/syria-microsoft-and-apple-trade-ins-90sotv

Here's the smartwatch WIMM made before Google bought it

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J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan teaming up for HBO 'Westworld' pilot

HBO is working on a television version of Westworld to be masterminded by Jonathan Nolan and J.J. Abrams. Variety reports that the network has committed to producing a pilot for the series, with Nolan directing and co-writing with Lisa Joy. Nolan is the brother of director Christopher Nolan, and has co-written films like The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and also serves as executive producer of the CBS series Person of Interest. Along with Joy and Nolan, the new Westworld project will be executive produced by Abrams, Jerry Weintraub, and Bryan Burk (Lost).

The 1973 film Westworld was written and directed by author Michael Crichton, and starred Yul Brynner as a renegade android in a futuristic theme park. The exact plot of the new version...

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Hear the haunting song that played from a toy pig as the Titanic sank

As the RMS Titanic sank into the freezing Atlantic Ocean in 1912, Edith Rosenbaum was among the lucky ones — she made an escape on a lifeboat filled with children. The children were frightened and needed comfort, something to take their attention away from the death they were witnessing as the colossal ship descended into the dark water. On that night, on that raft, Rosenbaum calmed her fellow survivors with a musical toy pig. Now, more than 100 years later, you can hear that same song from that same toy pig in The Telegraph video embedded below.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4676828/listen-music-that-played-toy-pig-as-titanic-sunk

Google reportedly acquired Android smartwatch maker WIMM Labs

Google is said to have silently acquired the smartwatch manufacturer WIMM Labs last summer as part of an effort to bolster its own plans for wearable devices, reports GigaOM . WIMM Labs released its first smartwatch back in 2011, the WIMM One, which ran Android and included a platform for developers to code apps for it. We said at the time that the product had great potential, and now it looks like that potential could come to pass under the guidance of a bigger company.

WIMM Labs' employees are believed to be working under Google's Android team, reports GigaOM. That would be a natural fit given WIMM Labs' history with the platform and immediate eye toward building an app store that's open to developers. Last summer, after about three...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4677066/google-acquires-android-smartwatch-manufacturer-wimm-labs

Peter Molyneux's 'Godus' is launching in beta on September 13th

You'll be able to get your hands on Peter Molyneux's crowdfunded god game Godus very soon. Today Molyneux's 22cans studio announced that the beta for Godus will be available to purchase on September 13th through Steam's early access program, with a price tag of $19.99. It will be available on both Windows and Mac, with no word on the planned mobile versions of the game. Godus was first announced last November, and managed to secure more than £500,000 (around $750,000) in funding through Kickstarter.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4675382/peter-molyneuxs-godus-is-launching-in-beta-on-september-13th

Amazon lifts EU restrictions barring merchants from setting lower prices elsewhere

Retailers in the European Union can now set higher prices on Amazon than they do elsewhere online. According to the UK's Office of Fair Trading, Amazon is doing away with a rule that barred all companies offering goods through its Marketplace service from advertising lower prices on other websites. The changes are said to go into effect today and come following a nearly yearlong investigation into whether the practice was anti-competitive, though no decision was ultimately reached. Germany's Federal Cartel Office was investigating the policy as well, reports the BBC. It plans to keep the investigation open until it can confirm that Amazon follows through with the changes, but the Office of Fair Trading says that it's inclined to just...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4676520/amazon-removes-eu-rule-requiring-lowest-price-parity-online

Phoenix's 'Entertainment' performed for a swirling drone in a single take

Swirling around the garden of the Palace of Versailles at dawn, a drone captured the band Phoenix performing their single "Entertainment" in one stunning take. The band's effortlessly poppy track comes off just as charming as the gardens do amid the sun's golden hour, with huge shadows being thrown out in front of them along the palace's empty grounds. GoPro's high-end Hero3 camera was used for filming, and while there's certainly some amount of shakiness to the footage, it fares well for having never stopped moving. Small RC crafts like the one ostensibly used here have been increasingly picked up by filmmakers and photographers looking to capture breathtaking views — and they can certainly make for one stylish music video.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4676190/phoenix-entertainment-drone-music-video-versailles

New faces of Android: the inside story of Google's management shuffle

One big loss at the world's most popular smartphone platform has been followed by another. Five months after Android founder Andy Rubin left his creation to work on unspecified other projects inside Google, head of Android product management Hugo Barra quit to take a job at upstart Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi. And while there are clear potential benefits for both parties in the move — having Barra as an ally inside the explosive Chinese market could prove hugely profitable to Google — he also leaves a void at Android.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4675746/new-faces-of-android-the-inside-story-of-googles-management-shuffle

US has 'high confidence' Syria carried out chemical attack that left 1,429 dead

At least 1,429 Syrians were killed in a chemical attack allegedly carried out by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, according to new US figures. 426 children are included in that tally. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered the grim news in a press conference today, saying that United States intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that Assad was responsible for the ruthless offensive targeted at opposition forces and civilians. Kerry emphasized that officials had "reviewed and re-reviewed" thousands of pieces of evidence in reaching the conclusion, mindful of the mistakes made by the intelligence community leading up to the Iraq war. "We will not repeat that moment," Kerry promised. "It matters here if nothing is done," he said. "It...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4676246/us-highly-confident-syria-carried-out-chemical-attack

The ACLU wages a long-shot legal battle against NSA surveillance

Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties moved forward with a lawsuit filed in June, asking a New York court to stop the NSA from gathering any information from its phone lines while it attempts to end the agency’s mass metadata collection. "Calling patterns can reveal when we are awake and asleep," wrote Princeton professor Edward Felten in a briefing. "Our religion, if a person regularly makes no calls on the Sabbath, or makes a large number of calls on Christmas Day; our work habits and our social aptitude; the number of friends we have; and even our civil and political affiliations." Felten and the ACLU are trying to revive a case that Amnesty International lost earlier this year, hoping that the evidence is stronger this...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4675934/the-aclu-wages-a-long-shot-legal-battle-against-nsa-surveillance

Makerbot Rex: you can now 3D print fossils through new database

It's a decidedly 21st-century technology, but now 3D printing is being harnessed to highlight mesmerizing relics from the ancient past. A new web database out of the UK is offering users anywhere in the world the opportunity to explore thousands of three-dimensional fossil models online — and even print some of them for hands-on study.

Unveiled earlier this week, the database is being billed as the world's first 3D fossil repository. It's a collaborative effort between several UK museums, and was spearheaded by curators and paleontologists at the British Geological Survey (BGS). The project's primary goal, according to BGS chief curator Dr. Michael Howe, is to share more fossils with the public than a museum showroom can allow. "A...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4671828/3d-print-your-own-fossils-new-online-database

New trailers: ‘Divergent,’ ‘We Are What We Are,’ and ‘Dallas Buyers Club’

Labor Day weekend effectively brings the summer movie season to a close, and while it’s a good opportunity to catch up on movies you may have missed, it’s also time to think about what’s ahead. Let’s take a look at some of the latest trailers to make the rounds.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4674772/new-trailers-divergent-we-are-what-we-are-dallas-buyers-club

Transparent gel speaker ushers in a future of 'soft machines'

How would you like a speaker system in your living room that was completely clear? Or, better yet, an active noise-canceling window that could muffle the neighboring bedroom? The technology is already here, and a team of materials scientists at Harvard is showing us what’s now possible with ionic conduction, or using ions to carry the current that powers this new generation of electronics. The principle is embodied in the team's clear, disc-shaped speaker (video below), details of whose design was published in the August 30th issue of Science .

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4675114/transparent-gel-speaker-ushers-in-a-future-of-soft-machines

HTC's Mini+ and Fetch are this year's strangest smartphone accessories

We're at an HTC event in London today taking a look a pair of the company's new smartphone accessories. First up is the Fetch, an NFC and Bluetooth tag that helps you keep track of your phone. To locate your phone, you can just press the button on the Fetch to make a paired phone ring. HTC says it has a maximum range of 15 meters (just under 50 feet), although that figure will likely be considerably reduced if you're indoors.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4675120/htc-mini-plus-fetch-nfc-bluetooth-accessory

Watch a ballerina pirouette on a pair of daggers

Javier Pérez's En Puntas is a striking visual performance that examines the links between disparate behaviors. It features French ballerina Amelie Segarra, who dances with knives attached to the traditional pointe shoes worn by ballerinas. In an empty theater, the ballerina jauntily pirouettes on a baby grand piano, her pointe moves accentuated by the daggers on her feet.

As Segerra stumbles, screams, and struggles to keep balance, Pérez spins the camera around her, evoking the memory of a child's music box. Pérez uses metaphor to "reveal the weaknesses that become the boundaries between seemingly irreconcilable concepts such s beauty and cruelty, fragility and violence, culture and nature, or life and death." Extracts from the...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4674854/javier-perez-en-punta-ballerina-pointe-daggers

Pressy adds a physical, programmable button to Android phones

Android phones nowadays are largely devoid of physical buttons — save for the typical duo of volume and power keys. But Pressy, a Kickstarter project that promises to bring a programmable physical button to nearly any Android device, is challenging the idea that consumers are happy doing everything on a touchscreen. With 45 days left to go, Pressy's creators, Nimrod Back and Boaz Mendel, have raised more than $92,000. Pressy surpassed its stated $40,000 goal in less than 24 hours. To put it simply, Pressy is taking off.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4673624/pressy-button-for-android-passes-kickstarter-goal

These are the 'Blade Runner' action figures that should have been

Mainstream movies are merchandised to death, but there's still countless titles from history that would result in great action figures if given the chance. Artist Scott Pettersen has addressed some of the need by taking things into his own hands, crafting a number of 12-inch figures based on Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Geek Magazine has an interview with the artist, where he explains that he's made custom figures based upon four different characters: Harrison Ford's lead detective Deckard, Sean Young's Rachael, and two Nexus 6 replicants.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4673206/these-custom-blade-runner-action-figures-are-the-coolest-thing-you-cant-buy

Leaked 'black budget', Google VP resigns, and Age of Ultron: 90 Seconds on The Verge

He's a mystery, a myth, an enigma. He flies through the night skies with ease. Swiftly, graciously. He brings justice and peace to the city streets. He fights the man. He is the man. Who is he? Who is the caped crusader? He is.... (internet connection lost)

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Scientists find a chasm longer than the Grand Canyon under Greenland's ice sheet

Deep beneath the surface of Greenland's ice sheet lies a chasm half a mile deep and longer than the Grand Canyon. According to a paper published in Science , radar data from NASA's IceBridge project — which measures changes in polar ice from aircraft — has revealed the existence of the hitherto-unknown canyon. Part of IceBridge's mission is to measure ice thickness, using frequencies that can bounce through ice to the bedrock beneath. When data from IceBridge and previous studies was put together, it revealed a canyon 460 miles long and 2,600 feet deep; by comparison, the Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, its deepest point 6,000 feet below the rim.

The newly discovered canyon is thought to have formed before ice covered Greenland, and...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4673328/scientists-find-new-canyon-under-greenland-ice

Curiosity captures eclipse from the surface of Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover has certainly been a prolific photographer since landing on the surface of Mars little over a year ago. But recently the rover took a rare look skywards to capture an eclipse of the Sun from the Red Planet using its telephoto camera. During the rover's long trip to the base of Mount Sharp, it took a short break to watch as the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, quickly passed overhead. The event's known as a ring — or annular — eclipse, with the edges of the Sun poking out from around the moon, and the shot above is a composite of three pictures taken three seconds apart. Phobos is just about 14 miles in diameter and it's only 3,700 miles from the surface, making it roughly 66 times closer than the Moon is to...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4673194/curiosity-captures-eclipse-from-the-surface-of-mars

Using the Elephant Man's skeleton to unlock medical mysteries

During Joseph Merrick's short life, he was a subject of both mockery and scientific befuddlement. Known as the "Elephant Man," Merrick's abnormal physical development led to work as a traveling curiosity and pokes and prods by puzzled doctors. Even after his death in 1890, Merrick's unusual legacy lived on: his life became the topic of several books, an award-winning play, and a David Lynch movie.

And now, more than a century after Merrick's death, scientists think that analyzing his remains might finally pin down what genetic ailment the Elephant Man actually suffered from. As the BBC reports, a team at King College London plan to carefully extract DNA from Merrick's skeleton in order to sequence his genome. From there, they hope to...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4673054/using-the-elephant-mans-skeleton-to-unlock-medical-mysteries

See how NIN brought its massive live production from conception to reality

When the "reinvented" Nine Inch Nails hit the road at the end of July, its first tour since 2009, it did so with a massive stage production that the group designed specifically for three weeks of festival shows — all of the rest of the NIN tour will feature an entirely different presentation. Vevo and NIN have just released a video documenting how the massive presentation came to be, including the music, video, lights, and the show's hallmark: a set of video displays that are moved continuously throughout the presentation by the band's crew. Vevo's documentary goes deep behind the technology and design required to bring such an ambitious show from conception to execution.

Nearly everyone involved in the production — from Trent...

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Allegations fly in mysterious Ouya crowdfunding scandal

All week, Ouya's "Free the Games" program has faced allegations of crowdfunding fraud — but today a Polygon report finds evidence that the project owners are just as mystified as everyone else. The program, which offers matching funds from Ouya to games that clear a $25,000 threshold on Kickstarter, came under fire when gamers noticed big-ticket donations from mysterious first-time backers, many of whom had used stock photos as their profile image. The suspicion is that developers (or their associates) could be inflating donation totals to get more matching funds from Ouya. But when Polygon caught up with one such developer, the team behind Elementary, My Dear Holmes, they seemed equally mystified. It leaves the question: if the...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672822/allegations-fly-in-mysterious-ouya-crowdfunding-scandal

What is Xiaomi? Here's the Chinese company that just stole one of Android's biggest stars

Yesterday, Google lost one of its top Android executives to a relatively unknown Chinese cellphone manufacturer. While the circumstances surrounding Hugo Barra’s departure are still murky and potentially dramatic, there’s no question about where he’s headed: he’s going to Xiaomi as vice president of Xiaomi global, which, according to The New York Times, some in China have dubbed the "Apple of the East."

But outside of China, Xiaomi is the furthest thing from a household name. The three-and-a-half-year-old company has 2,400 employees, annual revenues of about $2 billion, and only sells its wares in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. That limited market spread means Xiaomi isn’t even a blip on most American’s radar. Despite that,...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672668/what-is-xiaomi-china-smartphone-hugo-barra-android

How did things get so bad for BlackBerry? Here's the full story

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The Verge Reads: get your schedule for 'Ship Breaker,' our September Book Club pick

The people have spoken, and we're reading Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker for September's Book Club. If you weren't around for the poll, here's how I described it:

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672310/the-verge-reads-schedule-september-book-club-ship-breaker

Blood worms infest Oklahoma town's tap water

There's something in the water — and it isn't an ice cube. Residents of one small Oklahoma town are being ordered to sip exclusively bottled water, after tiny red blood worms started popping up in drinking glasses earlier this week.

The outbreak in Colcord, OK, has all but shut down the community, home to around 800 people. Schools are closed, convenience stores can't serve fountain sodas, and residents have been instructed not to cook or brush their teeth using tap water. Bathing, fortunately, is still deemed acceptable by local health authorities.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672524/blood-worms-infest-oklahoma-towns-water-supply

Facebook privacy update lets the social network analyze your profile picture

Facebook has just announced the latest round of proposed changes to its data use policy and statement of rights and responsibilities — two legal documents that explain how the company can use the data it collects from its users. As usual, there are a few things worth noting in the updated policies, including some new details on how Facebook will use your profile photos. According to the proposed policies, Facebook will be able to analyze your profile photo and use it to suggest "tags" of you in other photographs.

It's a change from the current implementation, in which Facebook's tagging suggestions only can use other photographs in which you're already tagged — now, it'll proactively be analyzing your profile picture to help make...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672410/facebook-privacy-update-lets-the-social-network-analyze-your-profile-picture

Glitch News ruins good photojournalism for the sake of art

Image noise is often valued as an artistic tool when it comes to film, but digital recording and playback devices are quite a bit harsher when they mess up, introducing pixelated images, incorrect colors, and sometimes simply destroying the picture altogether. Not everyone sees digital noise as a nuisance, however, and on the Tumblr blog Glitch News, hundreds of once crisp-and-clear news photographs have been warped into glitched-out, colorful visions that look like they've been through a nasty transmission error.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672210/glitched-news-warps-photos-glitched-out-art

Flickr just took over my iPhone camera

A funny thing happened this morning. Yahoo kicked out the latest update to its already pretty sweet Flickr for iPhone app and, in the process, ensnared me in its growing population of users. The most immediate new tweak in Flickr 2.20.1134 is the addition of live filters, allowing you to preview the post-processing effect before it's actually applied. This was a feature that Instagram used to have, and it's one that many of its users have missed since it was unceremoniously yanked away.

Flickr is now the go-to app for anyone looking for a big photography community to share to and a full suite of filter options. The stock filters provided in the new app are an improvement on the old set, but Yahoo hasn't stopped there and has added...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672202/flickr-just-took-over-my-iphone-camera

Here's how Skype-powered voice chat sounds on Xbox One

Microsoft has said that voice chat over Xbox One will sound noticeably superior to that of the Xbox 360, and today it's offering up audio samples to prove it. Xbox spokesperson Larry Hyrb (Major Nelson) has posted a side-by-side comparison to illustrate just how dramatic the difference is. And although each clip is only three seconds in length, the boost in quality is immediately apparent. As for how Microsoft pulled off the upgrade, it's a two-pronged approach. First, the Xbox One takes advantage of Skype's audio codec, which Hyrb says "has a proven track record of high-quality voice through billions of hours of use."

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672356/how-voice-chat-sounds-on-microsoft-xbox-one

Unprecedented 'black budget' leak reveals the scope of $52 billion US spy complex

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has leaked documents that map out a $52.6 billion budget for the NSA, CIA, and other security agencies in unprecedented detail. The Washington Post, which reviewed the documents, describes a detailed list of objectives, failures, technologies, recruiting, and other information; the apparently 178-page summary itself has not been published. An interactive chart of some of the data, however, accompanies the piece.

Developing...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672414/leaked-snowden-documents-reveal-details-of-surveillance-budget

The best photo apps for keeping your memories in the cloud

By Casey Newton and Ellis Hamburger

The internet was always supposed to give us a hassle-free way to store and manage our stuff — but in practice, even storing photos and videos has remained a massive headache. Just as services like Apple’s Photo Stream have popularized the power of cloud storage, they have also revealed its limitations. Huge RAW image sizes, duplicate photos, 1080p videos, and years of library database bloat were all good reasons to just leave the photos sitting on your hard drive — and pray the drive didn’t stop working before you backed it all up.

But as the price of storage has fallen, and broadband access has become more pervasive, more and more companies are competing to make the cloud the default place...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4560364/best-cloud-storage-photo-apps

James Spader will play the villianous robot Ultron in the next 'Avengers' film

The next Avengers film is going to benefit from the serious acting chops of James Spader. Marvel has just announced that Spader will assume the role of the titular villain Ultron in Joss Whedon's upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron. Spader has an excellent pedigree, with three Emmy wins for his TV work as well as a number of critically-acclaimed film roles, but the Avengers sequel will mark his first foray into the superhero / comic book world. How exactly he'll portray Ultron is still in question, given that the character is a giant, metal-clad robot. While Spader could certainly voice and act the part, a traditional take on Ultron would mean the audience never sees his face. Regardless of how Whedon ends up adapting Ultron to the big...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672030/james-spader-will-play-ultron-in-the-next-avengers-film

Director Uwe Boll wants Kickstarter to help make 'Postal 2' because no one else will

If critics had their way, you'd never see a sequel to Postal, Uwe Boll's widely-panned 2007 film inspired by the controversial video game. It seems the movie industry as a whole is also in opposition to such a project. But the one-of-a-kind filmmaker is undeterred. "You have to pay it because nobody else will pay it, so you have to give me money." That's the straightforward pitch Boll is delivering on Kickstarter in hopes of securing $500,000 to produce Postal 2, "a controversial comedy" that tackles today's most sensitive political issues.

"We take the biggest scandals of our democracy, like the happenings about Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and show that there is no difference between our democracy and the prison camps in Russia...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672036/uwe-boll-wants-kickstarter-to-help-make-postal-2-movie

Can the NSA review panel's 'new thinking' really change privacy policy?

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama officially announced the five men in charge of reviewing the secretive and powerful US intelligence apparatus: Richard A. Clarke, Michael Morell, Cass Sunstein, Geoffrey Stone, and Peter Swire. The group — which includes three former White House advisors and one former CIA deputy director — will be given the task of restoring public trust in a much-maligned program, using what Obama has called "new thinking for a new era." But how much new thinking can be done in a few months, and how motivated are the panelists to make real changes?

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4671922/can-the-nsa-review-panel-really-change-privacy-policy

The Vergecast is live today at 1:00PM PT / 4:00PM ET / 8:00PM GMT

In lieu of a nonsensical, bizarre Vergecast description, we're just going to play it straight this time. Just these words and a link to the time zones. Nope, we're not going to be weird — which, in this case, might be the weirdest description we've done. Is it? Think about it.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4672142/the-vergecast-july-29