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We knew October would be busy. We had the invitations, the embargoes, and a stockpile of coffee and seltzer. But this past month turned out to be more insane and more exciting than almost any month in the past year.There was rarely a moment to rest, and it seems like the internet was always reacting to something, somewhere. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google responded with equal parts panic and determination to the onslaught of Apple’s hype machine. People around the world watched with reverence as Felix Baumgartner successfully completely a historic free-fall from the edge of space. Live, on the internet. Reddit’s insular community reacted when one of its most unsavory characters was outed by the media. Apple attempted to avoid a reaction by announcing a major executive shake up in the middle of a catastrophic hurricane. New York City reacted to hurricane Sandy, and the rest of the internet reacted to our reactions via social media. And then Disney bought Lucasfilm, and the internet almost exploded.
Beyond the massive, non-stop wave of news, The Verge also explored the culture of Philip K. Dick, got to know the cosplayers of New York Comic Con, broke down the K-Pop phenomenon, spoke with the Singularity's true believers, and got the inside scoop on what's next for Android — straight from Google.
In hindsight, it seems like all of this more or less happened at once, making the past 31 days one of the most intense and exciting months since The Verge began. And that’s fitting because tomorrow is our first birthday.
We're only scratching the surface here, so dig into the stories below to get the best of the month's news, features, reviews, and original reporting from The Verge.
29 updates and 11001 comments below.
Oct 30 9:01p
5:28p
When Hurricane Sandy drew near the East Coast, Twitter and Instagram came alive with pictures of the storm. One showed ominous clouds gathering over Midtown Manhattan. In another, soldiers guarded Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under a haze of rain. A third showed a massive wave crashing around the Statue of Liberty. They were stunning images, capturing the scale of the disaster as well as its human impact. There was just one problem: none of them were actually...
4:04p
Star Wars fans, you might want to sit down for this one — The Walt Disney Company just announced its plans to purchase Lucasfilm Ltd from George Lucas, with plans to release Star Wars: Episode 7 sometime during 2015. While there aren't any release dates yet for Episodes 8 and 9, those films will be coming as well — and the studio has even more beyond a new trilogy planned for the future.
The deal is a stock and cash transaction, with Lucas receiving about half of the $4.05 billion value...
Oct 29 9:12p
Scott Forstall — the departing Apple executive who'd become the public face of iOS in his role as head of mobile software — may have met his demise when he refused to put his name on the apology letter Apple released several weeks ago, a rare show of contrition from Cupertino when its revamped (and Google-free) Maps product fell short of expectations at the release of iOS 6. The New York Times and CNNMoney are both reporting the story this evening; we've heard similar from sources as...
2:10p
12:38p
By Dieter Bohn and Nilay Patel
The Nexus 4 is an impressive smartphone that ticks off every modern spec checkbox you could ask for, save one: LTE. Instead, the Nexus 4 will only come unlocked with HSPA+ radios. It is a disappointing omission, driven by both Google's complex philosophical desire to build open devices as well as the fairly simple economics of building a halo product for a small niche of early adopters.
For Google, Nexus is a flagship brand that represents the best of Android,...
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Oct 25 3:30p
Oct 24 10:00a
About 100 people had gathered for a generously-catered, open bar party in the West Village offices of Livestream, which was co-hosting a viewing of the third presidential debate with Tumblr. The night’s official theme was "Live-GIFing the 2012 Debates," and, despite the free flow of wine, the audience was initially discouraged by the dry debate's dearth of meme-able moments.
The startups had commissioned six digital artists to live-GIF the debate. They sat around a table in the middle of...
Oct 23 9:00p
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Oct 22 1:00p
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Oct 19 11:00a
Oct 18 4:45p
Color, a photo sharing app that launched in August of 2010, has the unpleasant distinction of having raised $41 million before it even launched, by far one of the largest sums bestowed on any software company prior to them acquiring a single customer. Its technology, a location based social network that automatically found and shared photos with relevant people nearby, was hyped by every tech blogger who had the good fortune of enjoying early access to the product. And of course, after...
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8:37a
Long-running publication Newsweek is shifting to an all-digital format, Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown and CEO Baba Shetty announced today on sister site The Daily Beast. Newsweek will end its US print run on December 31st, and future editions will be released under the moniker Newsweek Global, a subscription-based online magazine for tablets and browsers. Some content will also be released through The Daily Beast, which Brown and Shetty say has seen a 70 percent increase in traffic this year to...
Oct 17 5:13p
A White House-ordered probe has revealed no evidence that telecommunications company Huawei spied for the Chinese government, sources tell Reuters. According to two people apparently familiar with the review, there was nothing to indicate active spying, although one source says that "certain parts of government really wanted" such evidence. This contrasts sharply with a US Congressional report released last week, calling both Huawei and ZTE, another major Chinese tech company, a national...
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5:16a
Tuesday night's feisty presidential debate covered largely familiar ground, as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney traded jabs over hot-button issues such as immigration, tax plans, and foreign policy. The discourse became more pointed toward the end, however, when moderator Candy Crowley confronted both candidates about the outsourcing of tech manufacturing jobs.
"iPad, the Macs, the iPhones, they are all manufactured in China," Crowley said, citing low labor costs as a primary driver. "How do you...
Oct 16 3:01p
Thanks to its 40 million loosely moderated users, Reddit has achieved massive growth with a minimum of regulation. Its hands-off approach is strongly libertarian, giving users a platform to say almost anything while treating anonymity as sacrosanct. But after the publication of a Gawker article outing Violentacrez, one of Reddit’s most controversial users, moderators and admins are increasingly having to decide where to draw the line when the two conflict — and how to deal with criticism...
Oct 14 2:13p
Moments ago skydiver Felix Baumgartner successfully completed a jump from over 128,000 feet above the Earth, a feat which immediately broke numerous world records and etched his name into the history books. After a postponed launch and some last-minute concerns during ascent, Baumgartner left his capsule and stood on a step no larger than a skateboard. Then he jumped.
The accomplishment shatters a number of long-standing world records. Before today, Joseph Kittinger held the honor of highest...
Oct 12 9:32a
TEPCO, the utility in charge of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has admitted that it could have taken action to prevent last year's catastrophic triple meltdown. In a document laying out the groundwork for reform of its policies, TEPCO detailed the mis-management that led to the disaster. Aside from generalized statements pointing to a "lack of vigilance" in preparing for "low chance" events like tsunamis, the document contains some shocking admissions of guilt.
T...
Oct 11 11:30a
Oct 09 10:30a
Oct 08 10:17a
Two scientists whose stem-cell research was separated by over four decades have been announced as the winners of 2012's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Sir John B. Gurdon of Cambridge, UK discovered in 1962 that the "specialization" of cells is reversible — in his experiment, he replaced an immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog with a cell that had matured and developed into an intestinal cell. Despite this change, the frog egg cell matured into a normal tadpole, proving...
Oct 03 9:39a
The ragged edges produced in 3D printing rather suit this Yoda sample from the Afinia H-Series 3D Printer, which costs $1,500 and comes with tech support.
There were 76 exhibits in the 3D printing category at this year’s Maker Faire, and the two tents devoted to it were jammed. Attendees handled interlocking cubes, spherical lattices, bracelets, and brightly-colored figurines at every table, repeatedly asking, "This was 3D-printed?" even though the answer was always yes. "It’ll be a...
Oct 01 11:01a
Oct 31 10:20a
Chasing ghosts: the weird science of tracking the dead
by Lessley
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