First Click: HTC Vive ships, Hardcore Henry explodes, and more in the week ahead

April 4th, 2016

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Now that the Oculus Rift is (mostly) shipping it’s time for the HTC Vive to take center stage. Created in partnership with Valve, the $799 HTC Vive will begin shipping on Tuesday, April 5th. But unlike the $599 Oculus Rift, Vive owners will receive their hand-held motion controllers now (Rift’s controllers won’t be ready until later in the year) in addition to the Vive headset and laser tracking system to create what HTC calls a “room-scale” VR experience. Adi Robertson and the rest of The Verge's VR crew will have plenty to say about the Vive and how it stacks up against the Rift and PlayStation VR in the days ahead.

Tuesday’s also the day we’ll see the reveal of a new HP laptop that could be the world’s thinnest. The Wall Street Journal says that HP’s new premium laptop is meant to rival Apple in terms of "innovation." And soon we'll have more to say about the Amazon Echo Dot and Tap, the Razer Stealth laptop, and much more in our ongoing coverage of tech.

It’s also a busy week for entertainment. Wednesday will see the debut of Gallant’s forthcoming debut LP Ology before Hardcore Henry hits US theaters on Friday. The first-person action film is exactly what you’d expect when giving a GoPro camera to a Russian punk rocker. Hardcore Henry is the feature-length followup to "Bad Motherfucker" which may or may not turn out to be a good thing.

Friday also marks the release of M83’s new album Junk, a follow-up to 2011’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming; Melissa McCarthy's new film The Boss; and the Amazon Instant Video premiere of the second season of Catastrophe, the half-hour British comedy about a one-night-stand-turned-relationship.

But that’s all yet to come. First, let’s check in on the weekend that was.


  1. HP says its new ultra-thin laptop will out-innovate Apple

    Having made a habit of emulating (if not outright imitating) Apple's MacBook and MacBook Air lines in recent years, HP believes its latest laptops are going to propel it to a position of design...

  2. The Tesla Model 3 will have futuristic 'spaceship' steering controls, says Elon Musk

    The steering wheel setup in the Tesla Model 3 — seen above in a shot from the media event last week — is not the version that will be in the final car, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said tonight in a series...

  3. Watch the first teaser for the animated Batman: The Killing Joke film

    Ever since the project was announced at Comic-Con last year, we've been dying to see what the animated adaptation of Batman: The Killing Joke will look like. Well, the first teaser trailer for the...

  4. Sci-fi Sunday: the creeping fascism of American literature

    Every few years, a public figure proposes repression and violence in the name of patriotism, and we go back to the dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here. Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 book is currently being...

  5. Siri can now answer more of your baseball questions

    Opening Day is here, and baseball fans are getting some welcome Siri upgrades for the new season. Siri now has some more baseball smarts: it can answer questions about more detailed statistics,...

  6. Tesla got more than twice the Model 3 preorders it expected

    Tesla didn't expect preorder interest in the new Model 3 to be as high as it is, according to company CEO Elon Musk. The company has amassed 276,000 preorders in the first three days. In a number...

  7. Blue Origin just launched and landed its reusable rocket for the third time

    Private spaceflight company Blue Origin has successfully launched and landed its New Shepard rocket for the third time. On Saturday morning, CEO Jeff Bezos tweeted out that the rocket had a clean...

  8. The Blink Board is the lightest and cheapest electric skateboard yet

    Electric skateboards are an exciting new technology that is currently being hampered by cost. Few companies offer boards below the $1,000 mark, which is five to ten times as expensive as a...

  9. Ask Stoya: I'm ashamed of my webcam masturbation

    The internet and technology have totally changed sex and relationships, we know you — you adults, anyway, this column is not for children! — have questions about the world of sex. In order to...

  10. The Verge Review of Animals: the coywolf

    This column is part of a series where Verge staffers post highly subjective reviews of animals. Up until now, we’ve written about animals without telling you whether they suck or rule. We are now...

Hardcore Henry of the day

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