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The Weekender: eccentric explorers, connected clothing, and a transformed town

The Weekender: eccentric explorers, connected clothing, and a transformed town

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The best of the week gone by

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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.

  • Report

    Frozen poop chisels and roast tarantulas on a stick: my night at the Explorer's Club

    Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, James Cameron, and Jeff Bezos have all made appearances at the Explorer's Club, an exclusive group of adventurers and scientists interested in the strange, wild, and weird. We spent an evening with the group to hear some of its unlikely tales and to find out how its century-old interests are being updated for the modern explorer.

  • Report

    The internet is fucked

    The internet and our ability to get it delivered to our homes and phones is in bad shape. There's been virtually no competition between internet providers for years, and now the situation is only starting to get worse. Here's how the state of the cable and wireless industry got so bad, and just what we need to do to fix it.

  • Report

    Welcome to Googletown

    Google's been slowly buying up property across Mountain View, California, and it may not be long before the town at large is feeling its touch. Here's how Google has been reshaping the city — and how some in the city have been fighting back.

  • Review

    Play it again: 'Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy' review

    Professor Layton titles have been charming gamers with their gorgeous artwork and brilliant puzzles for years now without making very many changes. So what's it take to make the sixth game in the DS series stay just as fun and addictive?

  • Report

    How will Sochi handle its Olympic hangover?

    Russia poured a record amount of money into Sochi to prepare it for the Winter Olympics. But now that the games have come and gone, what's next? Like past Olympic hosts, Russia hopes to put the infrastructure to use for attracting tourists — but it's not clear if many people will actually show up.

  • Report

    Vape life: welcome to the weird world of e-cig evangelists

    E-cigarettes currently exist in an unregulated Wild West, but that many not last for much longer. Last weekend, we joined a group of enthusiasts as they gathered in New York to discuss the state of the e-cig industry big and small — and just what's likely to happen to it next.

  • Report

    The art incubator: kickstarting the business of design

    The New Museum in New York is hoping to spur the next wave of innovative art, technology, and design through a non-profit incubator that it's opening up right in the city. Will its unconventional approach to creation and curation be able to help artists make their next great works?

  • Report

    Make it work: what should fashion look like in the age of connected devices?

    Tech companies have been working to make wearables fashionable, and likewise, the fashion industry has been working to make their most stylish looks include a flair of tech as well. We went out to the Wearable Tech Fashion Show in New York to speak with designers and see the latest creations at the intersection of the two industries.

  • Review

    'Strider' review: Amazon's new game studio brings a classic violently back to life

    Game studio Double Helix has remade Strider, an action-packed platformed that began on the arcade and NES, for today's consoles in a sleek, modern style. Here's what it's like to slash through enemies in its cyberpunk future — and just what this company might be doing now that it's under Amazon.

  • Report

    EVE, offline: how do you archive a universe?

    The Museum of Modern Art has been adding video games to its collection for several years now, but no game yet has be so hard to preserve as EVE Online and its living, massively-multiplayer world. We spoke with the people behind the preservation effort to find out how they hope to record the vibrance of EVE before it goes offline.