How Disney World is keeping tabs on visitors with rubbery wristbands

Beginning last year, Disney World started issuing "MagicBands," rubberized RFID wristbands that can do everything from unlock your hotel room to act as a fast pass to get you slotted to skip the long lines on rides. It also tracks your every move and lets you buy things. With tens of thousands of visitors to the park every day, Disney is amassing a wealth of personal information on its customers. "MagicBands offer a kind of data tourism, an uncanny experience of a future in which we don't just tolerate surveillance but openly embrace it as fashion," Ian Bogost says in his article on the technology. Read the full piece, and see what the inside of a MagicBand looks like, on Medium.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1n8PZbP

Why chefs love to hate Yelp

Having your livelihood dependent on the goodwill of a group of anonymous strangers is enough to give anyone a complex. In this piece for San Francisco Magazine, a group of chefs explain their broken relationship to Yelp and the legions of reviewers who control whether their businesses live or die. While Yelp can help people find new restaurants (or can help a city track food poisoning), chefs obsess over reviews and many wish the service didn't exist at all. "If two or three days go by and business sucks, I'll go, ‘Shit, I got a bad review on Yelp.'" says Jeff Mason, the owner of a sandwich shop in San Francisco. The anonymous system, the lack of control on fake reviews, and the difficulty engaging with reviewer has put restaurateurs in...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1qO8zhu

Three maps that show Tesla's plan to blanket the world in superchargers

There are 121,446 gas stations in the United States (as of 2012). Together they employ nearly a million people and do almost $250 billion in annual sales. But they can all trace their origins back to one, in Missouri, built in 1905 with a gardening hose. What began as a side business for a handful of pharmacies became a massive industry because Henry Ford's Model T quickly became so popular that there was suddenly stable demand for everything from gas stations to mechanics.

Now, Elon Musk and...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1nOJQqo

San Francisco Airport testing beacon system for blind travelers

San Francisco Airport is testing out location-aware beacons to help visually-impaired people navigate around one of its newest terminals, a program it could roll out to the rest of the airport if successful. An early version of the system was shown off to press today for use on Apple iOS devices, though SFO also plans to make it available for Android users and eventually expand the system to serve up information for those who can see.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1AE152G

We are all Glassholes now

2013 was the year of the Glasshole — the year that technology made one of its most violent entries into our personal lives at bars, restaurants, workplaces, and homes. Public backlash stemmed from concerns about Glass’ clandestine camera, and about fears of being documented publicly without consent. But really, Glass isn’t much different from the cameras we already use. It’s just the most obvious manifestation of our obsession with documentation, the most logical scapegoat for a much larger...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1rMIUC8

USB drives are a security nightmare

Plugging in a USB drive could be one of the most dangerous things you do on your computer, according to new research reported by Wired's Andy Greenberg. A new species of malware, dubbed "BadUSB," can use the drives to take over computers completely, altering files or redirecting web traffic, and because the virus resides in the drive's firmware, it may be impossible to protect against without changing the way the drives work. "These problems can’t be patched," one researcher told Greenberg. "We’re exploiting the very way that USB is designed."

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1uLbzgp

The drone you should buy right now

The word drone has a lot of different meanings: military craft, research tool, delivery robot. But for the average civilian, drone means a high-tech toy. Maybe you’ve seen one flying at your local park or caught some viral video footage of a drone swooping through a fireworks display. Even people like Martha Stewart are suddenly penning love letters to their drones. If you’ve ever wondered whether it would be fun, easy, and affordable to own one yourself, we’re here to tell you it’s possible....

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1xFqNzE

T-Mobile tops 50 million subscribers, swings to a profit in latest earnings

T-Mobile's reinvention has been underway for a few years now, driven by the larger-than-life CEO John Legere and his Uncarrier program. While the company had succeeded in stealing customers from its rivals, namely Sprint, it seemed that strategy was also driving it to heavy losses. That changed this morning, when the company reported its second quarter earnings, and a profit of $391 million that surprised Wall Street analysts.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/UNNo07

Inside the 'Destiny' beta: why Bungie's next epic could be bigger than 'Halo'

I knew Destiny had its hooks on me when I needed to buy a new helmet.

The new space epic from Halo developer Bungie, Destiny just wrapped up an open beta before its upcoming September launch. It feels like Halo in a lot of ways, with action that's fast but tight, anchored by great weapons and challenging bosses. But Destiny is much more than just another sci-fi first-person shooter — it blends that irresistible action with an online, RPG-like structure similar to World of Warcraft. It's...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1qrGxU7

Cyborg conversion incomplete: my life with finger implants

If you open a beer next to me, I can levitate your bottle cap with the tip of my finger. I can’t carry hotel keycards in my right pocket, because I occasionally demagnetize them. You can find my website by rubbing your phone on the back of my hand. Depending on how you look at it, I have either some amazing party tricks or the most pointless psychic abilities of all time.

Push hard on my skin, and you’ll find that the source is two lumps of glass, metal, and plastic embedded in my right...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1uKlDpO

Internet.org app brings free access to Facebook and Google in developing countries

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet.org initiative launched last year with the goal of helping make the internet available to the entire world. Internet.org is taking a big step forward towards this by launching an Android app that provides free data access to services like Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, and more. The app will be available in Zambia initially, with plans to extend it to other developing markets over time. While Android users can simply download a standalone version, all of the services can also be accessed freely through internet.org on feature phones, or from within Facebook’s Android app. Internet.org has partnered with Airtel in Zambia to provide the free data access, and the initiative has been focusing on...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1rKq6TX

You can now Shazam from your Mac

While Shazam has long existed on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, it’s making the jump to the Mac today to bring song detection to the desktop. Shazam already has a fullscreen Windows 8 app, but its new Mac app is more of a traditional desktop app that sits quietly in the system tray. This subtly extends to one of its best features: automatic music detection in the background. If you allow Shazam for Mac to detect music automatically then it will do so while it’s open, particularly useful if you’re watching TV or listening to a radio in a coffee shop with your MacBook. If you leave Shazam for Mac silently detecting music in the background then it will trigger a notification each time a new track is identified. The idea of an app...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1odi16h

Previewing the East: N.Y. Islanders

via Red Wings Recent Headlines http://ift.tt/1qMkUCV

Wings Tab Hiller, Brewer As Assistants

With Mike Babcock’s track record of mentoring his assistant coaches to future success within the hockey community, it’s no surprise coaching vacancies on the Red Wings bench have become extremely coveted positions. DETROIT – And on Wednesday, ...



via Red Wings Recent Headlines http://ift.tt/1lXYiYu

A closer look at the Lytro Illum, the futuristic new light-field camera

Two years ago, Lytro's first camera showed us a world in which we never had to worry about getting the right photo anymore, where we could change focus and perspective well after we shot our photos in the first place. But that camera looked like a kaleidoscope: the square red camera was too odd, too awkward to really get down and dirty with. The Illum, Lytro's second model, is a $1,499 beast of a digital camera that is designed to completely reinvent the way we take and look at photos.

W...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1pqMqlv

US carriers have 'reaped hundreds of millions of dollars' from bogus charges

A new report published Wednesday claims US wireless carriers have raked in "hundreds of millions of dollars" from unsuspecting customers by "cramming" unauthorized charges onto their bills. The dubious practice often finds wireless subscribers paying for premium short message services (PSMS) they have no recollection of signing up for. Cramming has "caused consumers substantial harm" according to the US Senate Commerce Committee. But it's also proven lucrative for carriers: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have typically kept between 30 and 40 percent of each transaction. "Third-party billing on wireless phone bills has been a billion dollar industry that has yielded tremendous revenues for carriers," the report found.

"Many of the...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1nUjjsI

A leaked customer service call turns the spotlight on Comcast

In June 2014, a Comcast customer recorded a frustrating call with a customer service representative and posted it to the internet. The story touched a nerve. Comcast has notoriously poor customer service and little competition in most of its markets, so unhappy customers can't switch. At the same time, Comcast is preparing for an acquisition of Time Warner Cable, something critics say would worsen problems at both companies and reduce choice for consumers. The Verge interviewed more than 100 current and former employees as part of an investigative series about the cable giant.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1oM52gX

Lytro Illum review: this is the camera of the future

Ten minutes into using the Lytro Illum, I’m throwing out everything I’ve ever learned about photography. Taking great photos with this camera has a different set of rules, a different guiding principle. Forget the rule of thirds; shoot for depth. Frame from below, because it makes everything look more dramatic. And most of all, stop half-pressing the damn shutter and expecting something to happen. Focusing doesn’t matter anymore.

The Illum is Lytro’s second product, but its first real...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1s3gYfj

My favorite thing on Twitter is a stream of fire and crime

I was at a birthday party when I heard about the fire. I wanted to leave but my girlfriend was still dancing, so I went to wait outside in a cul-de-sac courtyard on the back side of the building. The courtyard was full of people smoking or just talking, sound bouncing off the concrete walls. It was almost 1AM. I didn't want to talk to anyone so I found a place to stand on the far side and started looking at my phone as a kind of substitute for being alone.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1n36QNp

This is my e-cig. There are many like it, but this one is mine

Every day, I take apart the pieces of my e-cig and clean them. I wipe each part down with tissue or Q-Tips. I examine its parts, naming their arcane names and checking for signs of wear and failure. I unscrew the metal from the metal, I fill it with a self-made mix of nicotine-infused liquid, I check the seals.

I reassemble, I tighten the bonds, I snap out the end of the barrel and look for leakage. I watch for changes in the color and consistency of the liquid, of the vapor created from it, I swap out the battery for a fresh one.

It’s a ritual that more than one person has said looks like cleaning a gun. It is not very different. A gun is an instrument for killing. An e-cig is an instrument for delivering a drug — but it is also an...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1qmyTur

Virgin Mobile's new plan offers more control at the expense of net neutrality

Virgin Mobile's new build-your-own smartphone plans may be seen as convenient by many consumers, but they also represent the most glaring net neutrality foul we've seen come from a US carrier. The Sprint-owned company likely suspects that most people won't care about the latter point. Starting next month, Virgin customers will be able to piece together a completely personalized plan — plans that could potentially turn social networks like Facebook and Twitter into line items on your monthly bill. Because with Virgin's new approach, you're no longer just paying for voice, texts, and a bucket of data. The Virgin Mobile Custom plans, launching exclusively at Walmart on August 9th, let you pay separate fees for things like unlimited social...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1AyzwrE

The 'Road House' graphic novel kicks you in the face with philosophy

I’ve always loved Road House. The 1989 Patrick Swayze vehicle is an awful, utterly awesome movie filled with clattering dialogue and razor-sharp roundhouse kicks. Babak Ganjei agrees with me. He's dedicated the past few months of his life to creating a graphic novel based on Swayze's fourth-greatest movie, titled Babak Ganjei's Roadhouse, and it’s astonishingly good.

Roadhouse was born from willful procrastination. "I'd just started renting a studio I couldn't afford with no real idea what I...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1pqdHVt

The HTC One E8 is a plastic phone in search of its metal soul

Plastic phones have a bad reputation and HTC is partly to blame. The company that defines itself as “a global leader in mobile innovation and design” has, for two years running, built the finest Android smartphone with an all-aluminum thing of beauty it calls the One. First the One M7 swept up the phone design awards in 2013, and now the more refined One M8 is repeating the feat. In an Android world dominated by frumpy-but-functional Samsung Galaxy phones, HTC’s One line stands out with its...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1s2Lsy1

Ads are the new face of virtual reality

"So, what’d you think?" said the man who had gotten me into the cockpit of a Pacific Rim Jaeger.

I grinned. "Great! But I was a little disappointed that I didn’t fall or get eaten."

He looked at me quizzically. "Having a Kaiju punch into the cockpit and grab your partner wasn’t enough?"

"Yeah, I mean, it was cool. But it didn’t actually eat me, you know? I was really hoping for it."

The Oculus Rift has put me through a lot. I’ve skydived, been beheaded, flown spacecraft, slid in gondolas past giant floating heads. I want to try everything. Until my development kit comes next month, and probably even after that, the best place to do so is at promotional events. The Oculus Rift hasn’t entirely replaced the specially built video rooms...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1oKKPI8

Square prepares for US move to chip-and-PIN cards with new reader

Traditional swipe-and-sign credit cards are slowly being phased out, and Square is adapting to the times with new support for EMV credit cards. Commonly known as chip-and-PIN cards in the UK and Ireland, these are compliant with the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) global standard and are reputedly harder to hack or replicate.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1qmabKz

Sony claims EA's Xbox One subscription service isn't 'good value'

Electronic Arts surprised gamers with a subscription service for Xbox One yesterday, but Sony is less than impressed with the offering. EA Access lets Xbox One owners play titles like FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, Peggle 2, and Battlefield 4 for just $4.99 a month, or $29.99 per year. Despite what seems like a good deal, with more games coming soon, Sony claims the program is not good value for PlayStation 4 owners. "We evaluated the EA Access subscription offering and decided that it does not bring the kind of value PlayStation customers have come to expect," a Sony spokesperson told Game Informer. "We don't think asking our fans to pay an additional $5 a month for this EA-specific program represents good value to the PlayStation gamer."

S...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1AxZSKg

How one journalist accidentally turned fiction into fact

The Daily Dot's EJ Dickson told a lie on the Internet, and it went on to be repeated by dozens of people and publications. The article opens with an explanation about how the writer and her best friend had embellished a Wikipedia entry about a well-known children's book character named Amelia Bedelia. "We were stoned out of our minds," she writes. The two had quietly added a remark about how Bedelia was inspired by a maid with a large hat collection. The Internet didn't question it. Dickson goes on to explore the hilarious results of her actions, and how easily such hoaxes can propagate in Wikipedia's fertile pages.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1qlt9B6

'Mario Kart 8' fails to stem growing Nintendo losses

Nintendo made an operating loss of ¥9.47 billion ($92.7 million) in its first quarter of 2014, with the launch of Mario Kart 8 sparking a bump in Wii U hardware sales that wasn't big enough to boost the company's financial performance. Wii U sales were 510,000 between April and June, a year-on-year jump of 219 percent, as Mario Kart 8 itself moved 2.82 million copies — over half of all Wii U titles for the quarter, and enough to make it the console's third best-selling game of all time. This means that over 80 percent of people who bought Mario Kart 8 were existing Wii U owners before this quarter, so it hasn't yet convinced many newcomers to pick up the console.

Revenue was ¥74.7 billion ($731 million), an 8.4 percent decrease on the...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1xxE1hU

Wings in Waiting: Mattias Backman

DETROIT – North America got a peak at another Swedish prospect last season, as defenseman Mattias Backman jumped across the pond to continue his successful development within the Red Wings’ organization. Backman, Detroit’s fifth-round pick in t...



via Red Wings Recent Headlines http://ift.tt/1qkcaip

Facebook to close up shop on its digital gift card service

If you want to buy your friend a gift card to go stuff themselves at Chilis, you're going to have to do it somewhere else than Facebook soon. The social network today said it's shuttering its gifts service, which let people buy gift cards in the form of digital codes. That was instead of simply leaving the equivalent of the high school yearbook "have a great summer" message scrawled out on people's walls on their special day of birth, and on other special occasions.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1tpCpJr

Here's where Tony Stark should live when he moves to San Francisco

With details emerging about the upcoming new Iron Man series at this year's Comic-Con, Marvel has confirmed what the rest of America already knows: San Francisco is where you go if you're looking to launch an app. In the upcoming comic Superior Iron Man #1, Tony Stark is leaving Stark Tower in Manhattan and moving 3,000 miles to San Francisco to build his Extremis mobile app. Stark is a very, very, very rich man, and a narcissist who could benefit from a locally sourced, organic glass of humility. He'll fit right in.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1tWTmIp

This worm's sperm invades and kills females of another species

When it comes to sex, animals have developed a plethora of tricks to avoid mixups with other species. They use sight, smell, and even feel to tell each other apart. But in certain cases, the similarities between species are just too strong, so internal processes, such as a female’s ability to detect sperm from another species and select those that belong to her own, have to pick up the slack. This is what tends to happen with Caenorhabditis worms, a type of roundworm. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work — sometimes the sperm cells are just too quick, and things can go terribly wrong.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1mZwYZq

EA is letting Xbox One owners pay $5 a month to play all its best games

Electronic Arts has announced a new subscription service that gives Xbox One owners access to some of its biggest games for a small monthly fee. Called EA Access, the service is launching to select users in beta today, with a starting price of $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year. The company says EA Access will "launch for everyone on Xbox One soon." Paying for the subscription will get you access to what EA calls its Vault, a collection of games you'll have unlimited access to as long as you're subscribed. During the beta, that will include a sampling of four titles — FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, Peggle 2, and Battlefield 4 — though the company says more games will be added "soon."

The service will also get you early access to some of EA's...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1poGABn

Can we talk about the awful side of Comic Con and Hall H for a second?

My colleague and really awesome guy Casey Newton does an excellent job of capturing what it's like to actually get into Hall H and see cool things, but can we talk about Hall H as an entity unto itself for a minute here?

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1qhaGW6

'Guardians of the Galaxy' review: Marvel hits interstellar space

Like Pixar before it, Marvel Studios has developed a brand that transcends any particular character or franchise. That red rectangle with the white letters has become a stamp of quality, a relative guarantee that the comic-book movie you’re about to see will be worth your time and money. But also like Pixar, Marvel now has to decide how best to extend and expand that brand. Make more sequels to the films we already enjoy? Or try to branch out and invest in new stories, which brings fresh...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1mZ81x9

This sleek electric bike features smart lights and a built-in lock

A team of designers in Seattle are building a bike that could be your new best option for navigating busy city streets. Called the Denny, the bike concept includes a number of clever features that make it a bit more useful than your average two-wheeler. Not only does it have a removable electric motor to give you a bit of a boost, as well as automatic gear shifting, but its detachable handlebar doubles as a lock, so you never have to worry about bringing one along.

The bike also includes a surprisingly robust lighting set-up: there are integrated turn signals and head and brake lights, as well as smart, reactive lights that turn on based on the lighting outside. "The Denny bike is about returning the rider (and ourselves) to those early...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1rXToQX

I went to Comic-Con and all I got was this lousy sense of ennui and a sneak preview of 'Penguins of Madagascar'

San Diego Comic-Con is an impossible place, because everything that’s terrible about it is basically mitigated by everything wonderful about it. The annual gathering brings together tens of thousands of geeks to celebrate their fandom as movie studios market upcoming blockbusters with exclusive trailers and clips. On one hand you spend incalculable amounts of time in line; on the other, you meet George R.R. Martin. There is nothing easy or relaxing about the biggest event in all of fandom;...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1rB7Qwl

Endure and survive: how Naughty Dog brought ‘The Last of Us’ to the PS4

Playing though Naughty Dog’s post-pandemic survival adventure The Last of Us is an intense, grueling, and highly rewarding experience — one that’s only heightened by the just-released remaster for the PlayStation 4. The Last of Us Remastered checks all the boxes you’d expect it to. The resolution has been increased to 1080p and the game now runs at 60 frames per second, with improved lighting and character models. There’s also a host of bonus material, including the Left Behind single-player...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1mYHDmY

Apple's MacBook Pros with Retina display now have faster processors and more memory

Apple's just updated its top of the line MacBook Pro with Retina display lineup with speedier chips, right in the middle of the back to school season. New today are three updated 13-inch models, and two 15-inch notebooks that have Intel's newest i5 and i7 Haswell processors. The entry-level 13-inch model now comes with a 2.6 Intel Core i5 chip and 8GB of memory instead of the 2.4GHz Core i5 chip, and 4GB of memory Apple was offering yesterday. Apple's also made a change on the entry-level 15-inch model, bumping the memory up to 16GB from 8GB and the processor from 2.0GHz to 2.2GHz.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1tm5KUT

Previewing the East: Florida

via Red Wings Recent Headlines http://ift.tt/X7CF2g

Stackable cells allow you to sleep on top of your friends at music festivals

There may be a much more comfortable and stylish way to stay the night next time you head to a big music festival. Two Belgian design firms have created an efficient new type of campsite that stacks tiny sleeping pods together like a honeycomb. The pods look like they should provide a bit more comfort and space than the average tent — they even have power and a king-size bed — but the overall structure shouldn't take up dramatically more room because it's building vertically, using a short stairwell to provide access the upper levels.

The campsite is cleverly called B-and-Bee, and it began testing at a festival this summer. Specifications for the units will be finalized this fall, and the design firms, Compaan and Labeur, hope to have...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1nTwdp6

FAA wants Southwest Airlines to pay $12 million penalty for sloppy maintenance

The FAA is seeking a $12 million fine against Southern Airlines after finding that the Dallas-based airline did a lackluster job overseeing repairs on Boeing 737 jetliners. Back in 2006, Southwest carried out "extreme makeover" alterations that were intended to "eliminate potential cracking of the aluminum skin on 44 jetliners," the FAA says.

But the contractor that handled the job, Aviation Technical Services, failed to follow proper procedures as mandated by the agency. Some of the problems — failing to properly place the airplanes on jacks during maintenance — weren't exactly catastrophic. But others could've led to real problems down the road.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1AqUxV7

Fears can be inherited through smell

When researchers look at trauma, they don’t just look at the lives of those who experience traumatic events. Often, they turn their attention to offspring, because numerous studies, some conducted on the children of Holocaust survivors, have shown that parents can pass symptoms of trauma onto their kids. This is called "intergenerational trauma," and although it’s been described in academic literature, researchers still don’t fully understand how it occurs. One idea is that symptoms like anxiety and depression can be passed down through changes in gene expression in sperm. But what of specific fears, like a fear of dentists? How do they make their way into the psyche?

According to a new study, published today in Proceedings of the...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/UGB1To

I unlocked my phone with a tattoo

Getting people to secure their smartphones is a tough job. They contain our entire digital lives, everything from confidential emails to sensitive bank information. That presents a bit of a problem if we lose our phones and they fall into the wrong hands. Protecting against this can be as simple as setting a basic lock code on the smartphone’s lockscreen, but studies show that a lot of smartphone users don’t bother. I’ll admit that I’m often one of those people — it’s just easier to live with...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1uA4rDu

The judges who approve phone surveillance are buying Verizon stock

As the world learns more about the NSA's global surveillance programs, the FISA court has come under new scrutiny as well. The court provides the legal authorization for much of the NSA's spying apparatus, including programs collecting phone records in bulk from phone companies like AT&T and Verizon. But a new report from Vice suggests the court may not be as neutral as it claims. The report singles out three judges who own significant quantities of Verizon stock, including a judge who signed off on the request to renew the metadata program.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1qaIGUf

The Trulia–Zillow merger could put the squeeze on real estate brokers

News broke this morning that the two biggest names in online real estate listings — Trulia and Zillow — have agreed to a merger. Zillow will acquire Trulia for $3.5 billion in cash and stock, combining companies that had been fierce competitors. For the average consumer, experts say little is likely to change in the short term. But for brokers, this may mean less leverage and higher prices when they want to list and advertise on these sites. Down the line, agents say, this could also lead to a battle that may keep certain properties off these giant listing aggregators and silo the information, harming consumers who want simple access to the best picture of what's available on the market.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1mVca57

Alleged test footage shows how amazing a 'Deadpool' movie would be

There's been talk of Hollywood making a movie out of the comic series Deadpool for a while now, and a couple years ago there was actually some forward progress. An animated clip of test footage was put together to show what the film would look like, and it appears that that footage has now leaked online. The quality may not be great, but the good news is that the eccentric antihero appears to transfer from page to screen quite well, keeping his sharp dialog and tendency to break the fourth wall intact. He also performs quite well in some smartly choreographed fight sequences.

The animation is believed to have been made in 2012 by VFX artist Tim Miller, who worked on Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim movie and was on board to direct Deadpool,...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1rvKMil

Lady Gaga guest stars in latest 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For' trailer

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For comes out in a little under a month, and by now we're well aware of how stylish and downright bloody it's meant to be. But things can always get bloodier. In this latest spot that first debuted at Comic-Con this weekend, directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller both make short appearances as men dying slowly in an alley. "This rotten town," Miller croaks. "It slows everybody it touches." After that, it's pure carnage as we see plenty of returning faces, new stars... and even Lady Gaga as a waitress. We'll see more when it hits theaters on August 22nd.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1mV9YL0

Google is helping James Frey build a multimedia sci-fi juggernaut

On October 7th, author James Frey will release a novel about the apocalypse. It will hold an elaborate code, directing readers towards a key hidden somewhere in the real world. That key will open a case containing $500,000 in gold.

This is the premise of Endgame: The Calling, which is not so much a book as a sweeping attempt at a story that will colonize all conceivable media. Fox is developing a movie concurrently, and Google's Niantic Labs, responsible for alternate-reality game Ingress, is making a new game based on the plot. A D&D dungeon master has been conscripted to maintain social media accounts for the characters, which he has done for the past year. Two more books are coming. And around it all is a scavenger hunt based on...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1zmttFc

Returning to 'Sin City': a chat with Frank Miller

Ever the controversial figure, Frank Miller is nevertheless one of the greats. As one of many notable comics creators who shot to prominence in the 1980s and ‘90s, Miller’s work on such characters as Batman and Daredevil helped define a generation of comic readers. But he’s seen his share of deserved criticism over the course of his career — graphic novels like Sin City and 300, while stylish and influential, have been derided for their treatment of women and people of color, and the more recent Holy Terror was shellacked by readers and comic writers alike for its unabashedly propagandistic attack on Islam.

Miller presses on, critics be damned. He’s a bit of a crank, after all, and will proudly call himself "a prick" in front of an...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1qa7A6h

A giant armadillo building is hiding in the middle of Paris

On a tree-lined boulevard in southeast Paris, an enormous creature is slowly coming to life. Nestled in a dense block of 19th-century buildings, the sloping glass structure looks like a metallic armadillo shell, but is in fact a new project from world-renowned architecture firm Renzo Piano Building Workshop. The building was commissioned by the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, a research organization dedicated to the history of cinema through the lens of Pathé — one of the world's oldest and...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1oAMxfn

NASA is testing a laser-powered drill to explore Jupiter's ice moon

While Mars gets all the press, a group of NASA scientists are laying the groundwork for a more exotic destination: the ice-covered moon of Europa, locked in orbit above Jupiter. The oceans beneath the ice are thought to be fertile grounds for alien life, so scientists are eager to explore it if they can figure out how. And since the first step is drilling through the ice, the group is testing out its laser-powered drill on the Matanuska glacier in Alaska to see how it holds up in the field.

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1pvTUkB

7 things the iWatch needs to do if Apple wants to win

We don't know much of anything about Apple's upcoming smartwatch, or even if such a thing exists. But as hype, rumors, and expectations reach the pre-release fever pitch we've come to associate with a new Apple product, it seems all but certain that Tim Cook will take the stage this fall to announce what Apple hopes is its next world-changing device.

It's a long time coming. "I think the wrist is interesting," Tim Cook said at the D Conference in 2011. "I'm wearing [a Nike Fuelband] on my...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1nQGy5g

Comcast Confessions: when every call is a sales call

When AOL executive and Comcast customer Ryan Block recently tried to cancel his internet service, he ended up in a near-yelling match with a customer service representative who spent 18 minutes trying to talk him out of it.

Rep: I’m just trying to figure out here what it is about Comcast service that you’re not liking. Block: This phone call is actually a really amazing representative example of why I don’t want to stay with Comcast. Can you please cancel our service? Rep: Okay, but...

Continue reading…

via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1lMBtGX