First Click: Android, ants, and a look at the week ahead

October 5th, 2015

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It’s shaping up to be another big week at The Verge. This is the week that Android Marshmallow starts rolling out to Google Nexus phones and tablets, and Tuesday we're expecting Microsoft to launch a new Surface Pro and a couple of high-end Lumia smartphones.

On Wednesday Google (with Twitter in support) is expected to unveil its own take on Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News.

Wednesday also marks the start of the Code/Mobile conference where our friends at re/code will interview the industry leaders who are transforming business in an increasingly mobile world. This year’s lineup includes the CEOs and other top executives from companies like Apple, BlackBerry, Facebook, Google, Fitbit, Jawbone, Intel, BMW, Nissan, Twitter, and Aol.

And Friday is the premiere of Danny Boyle’s and Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs biopic, starring Michael Fassbender as the iconic CEO who died four years ago today.

But that’s all to come. First, let’s take a look back at the weekend that was.


  1. Laurene Powell Jobs tried to block Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs movie: WSJ

    Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender in the title role, uses material from Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs and centers around three pivotal product launches in Apple's history. "[Powell Jobs] refused to discuss anything in Aaron's script that bothered her despite my repeated entreaties," producer Scott Rudin tells the WSJ. She "continued to say how much she disliked the book, and that any movie based on the book could not possibly be accurate", according to the producer.

  2. The best movies and TV to prepare for Halloween — even if you hate horror

    Every year, to celebrate my favorite holiday in my favorite month, I take the October calendar and assign a Halloween-friendly movie or television show to every day. My wife and I do our best to stick closely to the schedule, without letting it control our free time. If we miss something, we’ll catch it next year. This October, I decided to share the calendar.

  3. The Verge Review of Animals: ants

    Elon Musk says he’s afraid of super-intelligent artificial intelligence from the future, but it’s already here, and it has already taken over the planet. Yes, I’m talking about ants.

  4. Tech journalism time capsule: the wonderful world of 1996 computing

    I write a decent amount about old technology for The Verge, which means wading through reams of newspaper scans, early web pages, and magazine back issues. It also means finding buried articles full of references to controversies I’ve never heard of, products I’ve forgotten about, and once-revolutionary ideas that are now either commonplace or discredited.

  5. Altering how sperm develop could lead to a reversible male birth control

    It may be possible to create male birth control by altering how sperm develop, according to new research published this week in Science. Researchers blocked a protein that plays a role in sperm production — and that was enough to render male mice temporarily infertile. Since drugs that alter this protein are already on the market, development of male birth control could happen swiftly if the method works in people too.

  6. This bizarre Panoz DeltaWing car could be on the road someday

    The DeltaWing project — a weird, narrow race car designed for minimum weight and drag — has a pretty tumultuous (if brief) history, passing between sponsors and powertrains, never winning a race since its 2012 debut. It's so weird, in fact, that you'd never dream of something like it making the jump to street-legal road car... but here we are.

  7. Spike Lee ruined my favorite NBA 2K16 game mode

    I’ve spent hundreds of hours lifting nobodies to NBA stardom over the last half-decade. Tiny point guards who can jump like Spud Webb and bomb threes like Steph Curry; prototypical shooting guards, chiseled from marble and feted with endorsements; paint-bound monoliths who back their way into MVPs and championships; I’ve made them all, played them from the ends of benches to fake billboards around the world. The NBA 2K series’ create-a-player mode — it’s been called MyPlayer and MyCareer at various points in the series — is one of my favorite things about sports video games.

  8. Google's 'Don't be evil' creed disappears as company morphs into Alphabet

    For Google, with a new parent company comes a new code of conduct, and there's a pretty noticeable change. The search company's famous creed — "don't be evil" — is absent from Alphabet's new code of conduct.

  9. The Windows logo according to Apple

    If you've been scouring Apple's support pages lately, you might have come across this rather curious representation of Microsoft's Windows OS. Sitting alongside Apple's official logos for iOS 8, OS X Yosemite, and iCloud, we find a very literal and very square representation of a window, decorated with a complementary window sill.

  10. How to be human: how can I get help for PTSD?

    I know you feel alone. Hell, I know in many ways you are alone. And maybe, by nature or by circumstance, you're kind of a loner. You know what? It's okay to be a loner, but being a loner doesn't mean doing everything on your own. Be an advanced loner: find resources to lean on so you can get stronger in a way that isn't your brain trying to carry this unnecessary weight. You aren't alone. One person is out here cheering her goddamn lungs out. If you take nothing else from this letter, take that, and lean on it.

Jobs of the day

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