Welcome to The Verge: Weekender edition. Every Saturday, we'll bring you some of the best and most important reads of the past seven days, from original reports, to in-depth features, to reviews and interviews. Think of it as a collection of some of our favorite pieces that you may have missed — or that you may just want to read again. You can follow along below, or keep up to date on Flipboard.
-
Feature
The war inside: fighting depression in Palestine
Around 36 percent of people in the West Bank will experience depression during their lifetime, but almost no one’s talking about it. A group of researchers hopes to help, however, and they’re starting with an initiative that'll kick off a sophisticated look into neuroscience.
-
Feature
Back to School 2013: The Verge buying guide
Summer’s over. School’s in. You don't have to be happy about that, but if you follow our guide you should have no trouble making the most of it.
-
Report
Cabernet in the cloud: the ancient art of winemaking gets a high-tech boost
Winemaking used to be all about instinct, but now some of the best growers around are turning to web-connected sensors to help their grapes turn out just right.
-
Review
TiVo Roamio Pro review: this is the ultimate cable box
Somehow, navigating channels, recording shows, and watching what you want on TV is still way harder than it ought to be. Now, there might be help: TiVo may have just built the best device out there for helping you to watch TV.
-
Report
'The Optimist': how Disney Imagineering is bringing alternate reality games to the mainstream
Alternate reality games wrap participants up in carefully crafted digital and physical worlds as a means of storytelling. They’ve been around for years, but now Disney is taking them seriously, it and wants to kick the entire medium up a notch.
-
Feature
Gut feelings: the future of psychiatry may be inside your stomach
It’s long been known that mental anxieties can lead to stomach problems, but now researchers are realizing that it might work the other way around too. It turns out, keeping your stomach microbes in order could be vital when it comes to mental health.
-
Interview
PS4 is a return to the spirit of the early PlayStation days, says the man who built it
What’s the PlayStation 4 going to be like? A lot of that comes down to what Mark Cerny decided on. We caught up with the architect behind Sony’s upcoming game console to ask about what we should expect from PS4 games, how the machine will hold up over its expected lifecycle, and what it was like seeing the system’s hardware for the first time.
-
Report
Burned out: tech money is harshing Burning Man's anti-capitalist vibe
Tech leaders seem to love Burning Man, but they could be cribbing the festival of self-reliance’s style. Everyone from Larry Page to Elon Musk has started showing up, but instead of getting into the spirit, they’re paying to attend on their own terms.
-
Review
Acer Aspire S7 review (2013)
The second revision of Acer’s Aspire S7 does wonders for the ultrabook. Its design is gorgeous, its battery life is great, and its display is beautiful. Come to think of it, is there anything not to like?
-
Report
The creators of 'The Walking Dead' try to strike gold again with a hardboiled fairy tale
Telltale Games broke out of obscurity with its video game adaptation of The Walking Dead. Now it’s trying to bring that same successful style — heavy on narrative and light on traditional gameplay — to yet another comic book, Fables, which finds classic fairy tales bleeding over into the real world.