AT&T has introduced a new "Mobility Administrative Fee" to its postpaid contracts. The $0.61 monthly fee ($7.32 per year) is being categorized "below the line" alongside tax and fees as an administrative surcharge. The fee came into effect on May 1st, and applies to all consumer contracts as well...
It all adds up
Don't let the goofy name fool you: Blip Blup is a clever and challenging puzzle game with a slick minimalist look and feel. In each level you're presented with a screen of grey squares, and the goal is to fill them with color. All this requires is...
Over the last two months, ride-sharing service Lyft says it has gone from giving 14,000 rides a week, to more than 40,000 rides a week. The burst in popularity is the reason Andreesen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capital firms, is betting big time on the startup, said Scott Weiss, an investing partner at the firm. And the massive infusion of cash — $60 million...
Windows 8, as we all know very well at this point, was designed for touchscreens. Multitasking, the Charms bar, and Snap View (read: split screen) are all quite easy to use with touch gestures — and aren't that bad with a laptop's touchpad — but those who use a traditional mouse have been somewhat left behind. Microsoft is trying to change that today with two mice that are designed to make Windows 8 navigation a bit easier. Microsoft's solution? Place the Windows key directly on the mouse.
It's somehow slightly disturbing when you first see it — we're so used to the Windows key being resigned to sitting quietly between the control and alt keys. Nevertheless, it has a prominent spot on both of Microsoft's new mice, the Sculpt Comfort Mouse and the Sculpt Mobile Mouse, which are being announced today. In some ways it isn't so...
Does a Windows key belong on a mouse?
NASA has been on a roll with Google+ lately, hosting several video Hangouts with astronauts live from outer space. But tomorrow, things will be coming back down to Earth for a change, and The Verge will be in attendance. Join us here Thursday starting just before 3 PM Eastern for a special Google+ Hangout with recently returned space station Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space...
Space oddity, indeed
Harrowing. Teary. Chronologies. Happily. Tucking. Compromises. Hungrily. Toeing. Communiqués. Heating. Trained. Crystals.
Not long ago, Chris Mok worked in the advertising department for Macy’s in San Francisco, booking models for the department store’s catalogs. Then, in 2009, he was laid off along with 1,400 people as part of a reorganization. For a while Mok helped his wife with her floral business, and after the company used TaskRabbit to help them deliver leis, he applied to become a contractor with them. Users post errands they need done, along with how much they're willing to pay; Mok bids for the right to do them, with TaskRabbit taking a cut of the sale. Now he works as a TaskRabbit full time,...
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo took the stage in Manhattan this morning to talk with a crowd of the biggest advertisers and brands from Madison Avenue. He brought up a slide of a recent tweet, featuring a picture of race cars spinning out of control. "Usually when there is a crash at the Daytona 500 the ratings go down," Costolo said. "The race stops, the caution flags come out, and people change the channel. But this time Brad Keselowski, one of the drivers, snapped an image of the fire from his car following close behind, and tweeted it out. Not sure why he had his phone in the car, but the point is, the ratings shot up. This is inside-out,...
An airplane powered entirely by 11,000 solar cells covering its gigantic wings just completed the furthest continuous flight of a vehicle of its type in history early this morning local time, traveling 957 miles from Phoenix, Arizona, to Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas. The airplane, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA, made the trip as part of its ongoing flight across the continental US, which organizers say is designed to show off the practical applications...
Renewable fuels hit the runway
I attended the first Bitcoin World Conference and Expo, held in a second-floor meeting room in a midtown Manhattan hotel, on a Saturday in August 2011. The virtual currency was powering an alternative economy worth around $81 million USD. Roughly 75 attendees, mostly long-haired programmers and...
The Very Large Telescope is about to turn 15, and to celebrate the European Southern Observatory has released a spectacular image of a radiant pink gas cloud. Naturally the shot you see above — showcasing just one nursery (IC 2944, according to Phys.org) where stars are born in spectacular...
The HTC First, an Android smartphone collaboration between HTC and Facebook, will not be coming to the UK — at least for now. Originally scheduled for a summer release via EE and Orange, Facebook confirmed to The Verge that it is "going to limit...
Nvidia's GeForce Experience software is starting to do quite a few things. It cleverly optimizes your game settings. It fetches new graphics drivers. It even streams games from your gaming rig to Nvidia's new Shield handheld. And this week, alongside the launch of the GeForce...
Whatever era you call it, post-PC or simply PC plus, the Mac vs. PC war has ignited once again today. In a fresh Windows 8 ad, Microsoft is directly attacking Apple's iPad on price, an approach it took during the early Vista days with low-priced laptops. It's also doing it in a way that parodies...
Researchers have identified a cell that aids limb regrowth in Salamanders. Macrophages are a type of repairing cell that devour dead cells and pathogens, and trigger other immune cells to respond to pathogens. In humans, they're also important to muscle repair, which led Dr. James Godwin, of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University, to research whether the macrophages found inside...
AMD boasted that its Z-60 Hondo chip would bring Call of Duty to thin tablets, and its boasts were for naught, but it looks like the company's latest processor core is going to see a lot of use in the next generation of cheap laptops. Today, AMD...
A beautiful green lacewing, a snail-eating snake, and a glow-in-the-dark cockroach. These are just three of scientists' choices for a new top ten list of newly discovered animals, plants, and microbes from 2012. Now in it's sixth year, the list is put together by an international committee of...
A Google engineer has once again disclosed a Windows flaw. In a Full Disclosure posting to the SecLists mailing list, Tavis Ormandy — an...
HTC has sold "around five million" of its flagship smartphone, the One, since launch. The impressive figure will abate fears that HTC is dead in the water (the company is struggling internally) but...
Amazon has opened pre-orders for its Kindle Fire tablets in over 170 countries and expanded its Android Appstore in nearly 200 regions . It's the biggest device rollout the company has embarked on...
If you own a smartphone, you've more likely than not used Shazam. The app, which identifies songs by "listening" to their audio fingerprint, was one of the earliest and best ways to wow friends in...
E Ink has demonstrated Spectra, a new type of display that adds a third color to the company's grayscale electronic paper found in e-readers such as the Kindle. The current Spectra screens feature...
At a press event in Tokyo today, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey announced the long-awaited Japanese debut of Square, the smartphone credit card...
A patent troll threatening legal action against small businesses over their use of basic office products like scanners has become the subject of a "groundbreaking" lawsuit of its own. On Wednesday, Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell became the first state attorney general to file a suit against a so-called patent troll, alleging MPHJ Technology had "engaged in unfair and deceptive acts"...
Lenovo's PC business has seen positive growth yet again, with quarterly shipments of its computers up 0.4 percent year-over-year. The growth comes despite what Lenovo cites as an 14.2 percent decrease of the industry as a whole over the same period. The Chinese manufacturer also reported 10...
