Feature

The Verge, Year One: our big stories, August 2012 through November 2012

By Laura June 11.28.2012

This month marks the one year anniversary of The Verge. In online publishing, you tend to spend most of your time moving forward, and we’re no different. For the entire month of November, however, we’ll be taking a look at some of our favorite work from the past year, to celebrate, just a bit. One of the areas we’re most proud of is in our long form features. We knew from the earliest planning days of The Verge that we wanted to invest the time, money, blood, sweat, and love that is required to publish longform content on the web. We’ve stretched ourselves to think differently about the kind of articles which can and should appear here, and we’ve worked hard to make sure that the photography, text, graphics, layout, and (of course) our videos all work together to bring you an experience that is truly unique on the web. May, June and July were busy months for us.

These are some of our favorite feature stories from the first year that The Verge was alive. Enjoy.

Check out Part One here, Part Two here and Part Three here.

High and low: what RIM's failure is doing to the people of Waterloo

Jesse Hicks August 1, 2012

What does it mean to the citizens of Waterloo to have RIM fail?

Cyborg America: inside the strange new world of basement body hackers

Ben Popper August 8, 2012

A new kind of hacking

'Avatar' who? 4DX movies will shake you, spray you, and fog you into never coming back

Trent Wolbe August 15, 2012

Trent Wolbe introduces America to the 4D movie experience

What is a nerd?

Adi Robertson August 17, 2012

What does it all mean?

Def Con XX: twenty years of hacker evolution

Jesse Hicks August 17, 2012

Jesse Hicks hits Las Vegas for a hacker convention

Neal Stephenson Interview

Noah Davis August 21, 2012

Noah Davis talks with the author of Snow Crash

Beyond lies the wub: a history of dubstep

Joseph Flatley August 28, 2012

The strange trip of the wobble bass

Noir to near-future: 'Looper' director Rian Johnson talks sci-fi, Twitter, and the fate of film

Bryan Bishop August 30, 2012

Bryan Bishop interviews the director of one of the year's breakout film hits

64 to 30: Commodore's game-changing computer enters its fourth decade

Joshua Kopstein August 31, 2012

The long history of an iconic computer

Close to the edge: a week on the fringes of the RNC

Joseph Flatley September 5, 2012

We sent Joe to Tampa, to see what he could dig up at the RNC

Real steel: the broken robot necks and baby steps of RoboCup 2012

Paul Miller September 7, 2012

Face-planting towards the goal, the world's best soccer robots battle it out in Mexico City

Everything's amazing, nothing's perfect: exploring the limits of consumer technology

Benjamin Jackson September 10, 2012

Why can't we have the internet everywhere?

Mars is the new moon: why space explorers will never be the same

Trent Wolbe September 11, 2012

Living in a post-NASA world

I want my DNC: three days of hashtags and pseudo-events

Matt Stroud September 11, 2012

Watching the DNC media "event"

The iPhone 5 forecast: a predictable 73 degrees and sunny

Dieter Bohn September 13, 2012

Is the iPhone getting a little... boring?

Everyone shoots first: reality in the age of Instagram

Maria Bustillos September 18, 2012

What happens to tragic events when we live them in real-time on the internet?

The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Appreciating Carly Rae Jepsen For Dummies Maybe

Trent Wolbe September 19, 2012

How to learn to love the girl who brought us "Call Me Maybe"

Do you believe in Magic… the Gathering?

Noah Davis September 20, 2012

For three days, the world's best 'Magic' players battle it out in Seattle, and we sent Noah to check it out.

More human than human: how Philip K. Dick can change your life

Jesse Hicks October 1, 2012

'Dickheads' gather in San Francisco to celebrate the sci-fi visionary

Terrorism as art: Mark Pauline's dangerous machines

Jesse Hicks October 9, 2012

Robots, rebellion, and the post-apocalyptic performance art of Survival Research Labs

Why can't you vote online?

T.C. Sottek October 11, 2012

Making internet voting secure is a big challenge, but American elections have bigger demons

Behind the mask: being yourself as someone else at New York Comic Con

Verge Staff October 17, 2012

Thousands of people spent their weekend in costume; we asked a few of them to step out of character

K-Pop takes America: how South Korea's music machine is conquering the world

Joseph Flatley October 18, 2012

The internet brought K-Pop to the US, but can it go mainstream?

Making a game, traveling the world: the story of 'Incredipede'

Andrew Webster October 22, 2012

Real-life adventure leads to an adventurous game

Rapture of the nerds: will the Singularity turn us into gods or end the human race?

Ben Popper October 22, 2012

A gathering of experts on artificial intelligence becomes a search for deeper meaning

'Why won't you die?!' The art of the jump scare

Bryan Bishop October 31, 2012

From 'Psycho' to 'Paranormal Activity,' the magic and craft behind the classic horror technique

Chasing ghosts: the weird science of tracking the dead

Lessley Anderson October 31, 2012

Real live ghost hunters

Of mic3 and men: deadmau5 and the rise of trancepop

Trent Wolbe November 7, 2012

Investigating the rise to fame of Joel Zimmerman

Losing it at the movies with Film Crit Hulk

Thomas Houston November 8, 2012

The big green guy on commenters, the pain of 48fps, and the modern comic book movie

Into the vault: the operation to rescue Manhattan's drowned internet

Dante D'Orazio November 17, 2012

Hurricane Sandy's storm surge flooded Verizon's downtown office, rendering miles of copper wiring useless