Major record labels are determined to see massive UK retailer HMV survive its current, admittedly dire financial predicament. The company last week hired an accountancy firm to assess the best way of selling off its assets — which include 239 physical stores. But powerful players in the music...
As B&M; retailers fall, Amazon and Apple take even more control
We all know the feeling. You're sleepless in the sad hours of the night or stumbling around early on a hazy weekend morning in need of something to read, and that pile of unread books just isn't cutting it. Why not take a break from the fire hose...
It seems like fodder for a science fiction movie, but George Church is dead serious: he needs a surrogate mother for a Neanderthal baby. Church, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, says he's close to cloning a Neanderthal baby — the first in more than 30,000 years. Speaking to Der Spiegel, Church said that once such cloning technology has matured, all he would need is an "adventurous...
It can be easy to criticize US lawmakers for failing to grasp the nuances of internet legislation, but when it comes to Twitter, at least, Congress seems to be on top of its game. According to the social network, all 100 US Senators are now active users on Twitter, as are 90 percent (398) of all members of the House of Representatives. This represents a significant jump from 2011, when active Twitter users comprised just 44 percent of the Senate and 38 percent of the House. As of now, 29 states have their full delegation on the microblogging platform — including both senators and representatives — with adoption rates falling no lower than 70 percent within a single state (see the map, embedded below).
Announced just a few days before President Barack Obama's inauguration on Monday, these statistics also coincide with Michelle...
Congressional tweeting sees huge jump from 2011
CES is not a games show, as Sony CEO Kaz Hirai pointed out to us in our interview with him last week. That's his reason for the dearth of PlayStation news at CES this year — the PS3 and Vita were hardly even mentioned at Sony's press conference. And of course, Microsoft didn't come at all, so we weren't treated to any Xbox hype at the annual Steve Ballmer keynote (which was replaced with a m...
Consumer electronics can play games, too
On January 14th Gas Powered Games launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new action role playing game called Wildman — and just a few days later the studio was hit with "substantial" layoffs. In what's described as "the wackiest video update you're ever going to see," Gas Powered's founder Chris Taylor explained the reasoning behind the layoffs and their timing. "If I ran this team through...
By now it's widely known that Lance Armstrong finally admitted to doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that will air tonight and tomorrow. Armstrong's confession is notable in part because no athlete has fought charges of doping as hard as he has, from public denials to libel suits as well as informal intimidation of teammates, rivals, co-conspirators, and outsiders. But although the two-part interview, spanning two and a half hours, is advertised as having no restrictions, it's unlikely that Winfrey and Armstrong will spend much time explaining the science and technology behind sports...
Intel has worked on Stephen Hawking's speech technology for over a decade; the scientist, stricken by motor neuron disease, currently selects letters one by one by twitching his cheek in time to a continually scrolling cursor. But with his condition deteriorating, Hawking can only achieve about a word a minute this way, and recently contacted Intel co-founder Gordon Moore to see if the company would be able to assist.
"We've built a new, character-driven interface in modern terms that includes a better word predictor."
Speaking to Scientific American, CTO Justin Rattner said that Intel thinks it indeed can do better. Hawking can make...
When the late Steve Jobs acquired a new company, he didn't mess around. That's according to Aubrey Johnson, a former lead designer on the Bill Nguyen-led app Color, who has detailed how Jobs ended up acquiring another Nguyen enterprise, music streaming service Lala, back in 2009. Despite some struggles, Lala had a huge selling point: for most songs, it ranked at the top of Google's search results. This lead to interest from both Nokia and...
"I'm going to give you a number, Bill, and if you like it, let's do it." Steve Jobs
Yesterday's decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to ground all US-based Boeing 787s — the crown jewel in Boeing's commercial aviation product portfolio — is unquestionably an alarming one: it halts the most advanced airliner ever designed from carrying passengers until Boeing can...
Last summer designer Andrew Kim's vision for "The Next Microsoft" got a lot of traction online — including on The Verge — for its aggressively minimal rebranding of the company across platforms. The next month Microsoft unveiled its actual new logo, but that doesn't mean it didn't take note...
When I reviewed the X1 Carbon, Lenovo's flagship ThinkPad laptop, I found few faults. It's an eye-catching computer that combines everything good about ThinkPads – great keyboard, sturdy design, solid performance — with a fit and finish I...
HBO has confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks will reunite to produce a third miniseries set during World War II. The pair, who previously collaborated on the acclaimed Band of Brothers and The Pacific, will reportedly use Donald L. Miller's M...
In what's becoming an annual tradition, YouTube has partnered with the Sundance Film Festival to offer a small selection of short films through its Screening Room channel. This year you'll be able to watch a dozen short movies that will be making their debuts at Sundance; they've been selected...
Today, Electronic Arts announced that it is currently developing SimCityEDU, an online educational game based on the latest reboot of the company's popular SimCity franchise. Created in a partnership with GlassLabs, SimCityEDU is intended to be a learning tool for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and the game's curriculum will conform with US Common Core Standards. According to EA, teachers will...
“I think most people feel that if you can find a way to beat the casino, more power to you,” says Arnold Synder, his eyes, those telltale features, hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses. “This place set up the rules, they provide the...
French telecom Orange says that it reached a "balance of forces" with Google, successfully requiring it to pay to send traffic over Orange's network. Earlier this week, CEO Stephane Richard told BFM Business TV that Google compensated it for the massive amount of traffic it sent over the network...
Today, Kim Dotcom launched his new file storage service Mega on the one-year anniversary of Megaupload's takedown. The cloud storage service is...
Aaron Swartz died a week ago. A public memorial service in New York City will be held later today. You may have read much about Swartz's life in the interim, including his work at a young age on...
Nilay "lost" his voice at CES. Or maybe he just found a new, deeper, some may even say sexier voice — a voice that could lead to a long and successful career as a critically acclaimed voice-over...
Senator and Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) has written to Attorney General Eric Holder about the case against activist Aaron Swartz, suggesting that the Department of Justice was attempting to...
Opera is reportedly preparing a new browser to help it compete on tablets — and it's turning to the WebKit rendering engine to do it. Pocket-lint has posted video of what it says was an internal...
Last December a report from the Open Technology Institute accused internet service providers of using the threat of network congestion to justify...
Welcome to The Verge: Weekender edition. Each week, we'll bring you important articles from the previous weeks' original reports, features and reviews on The Verge. Think of it as a collection of a few of our favorite pieces from the week gone by, which you may have missed, or which you might want to read again.
Instagram's controversy-ridden new terms of service (TOS) and privacy policy go into effect today, but without the language that set off a frenzy of hysteria among users and the media last month. Originally, Instagram planned to include a new advertising section that would have actually benefited...
