First Click: Supercars, drones, a Kardashian-themed cat musical, and more in the week ahead

June 20th, 2016

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This week we’ll be coming down from the high of E3 and WWDC. There’s still lots to digest on the gaming front and you can expect a deeper dive into the macOS Sierra beta as well. We’ll also be checking in on the uneasy stalemate that’s developed between Apple and the FBI since the encryption battle stopped making headlines last month.

Our week kicks off with a look at the Kardashian-themed Cats parody Katdashians: The Musical. Why? Be-claws cats, mostly, and because it promises to answer all our burning questions like, “CAN KATYE WEST SAVE KIM WITH THE POWER OF FASHION?” with song.

Huawei’s also hosting an event in New York City on Monday. We’ve already learned that the company’s MateBook 2-in-1 Windows tablet will be arriving in the US soon for $699. Expect to hear details on that and more later on today.

We’re also expecting (or at least hoping) that the FAA will announce its long-awaited rules for commercial drone flights this week. Rules that will enable the business use of unmanned aviation systems (or UAS, as the FAA calls them) without a pilot’s license for airplanes. A move that will open up the skies for drones to be (legally) used for farm and property management, aerial photography, roof inspections, and other business purposes.

Then on Thursday we’ve got Logitech hosting a "holiday preview" event where we’ll get a first look at what the accessories company has coming from its Ultimate Ears speakers collection and more.

Thursday is also the kickoff to the four-day Goodwood Festival of Speed where the world’s supercar elite gather to celebrate the violent dance of exploding petrol. The featured event is the Hillclimb race where cars new and old race against the clock in close proximity to spectators. There’s also the guarantee of plenty of weirdness, in addition to the launch of a track-only Sprint variation of McLaren’s 570S supercar.

Deerhoof’s The Magic will be released on Friday, June 24th. Here’s how The Verge’s music savant Jamieson Cox described one of the first tracks off the new album:

"Plastic Thrills" is pure smash-and-burn fun, with Greg Saunier and Satomi Matsuzaki trading vocal takes over riffs that sound like they belong in a minor-league hockey arena.

High praise, indeed.

Friday will also see the premiere of The Neon Demon, from Drive director Nicholas Winding Refn. It stars Elle Fanning, Christina Hendricks, and Keanu Reeves in what Variety describes as "a baroquely kinky gross-out surrealist horror film set in the L.A. fashion world." Count us in.

But all this and more is yet come. First, let’s take a look back at the weekend that was.


  1. A new Game of Thrones power couple: it's gonna be forever or it's gonna go down in flames

    There's a new power couple plotting dominion over Westeros, and I have to say they are my absolute favorite even though they are 100 percent going to break up. [SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES AND A...

  2. Chinese supercomputer is the world's fastest — and without using US chips

    A Chinese supercomputer built using domestic chip technology has been declared the world's fastest. The news highlights China's recent advances in the creation of such systems, as well the...

  3. Facebook planned my birthday party, and I can't decide how to feel about it

    The text messages began arriving last month. "Facebook is starting to get a little Skynet on me," my friend Matt said. The text message included a screenshot of the birthdays feed from his...

  4. Don't tell me not to wear a NASA jumpsuit, I'll wear whatever I want

    Lately, it seems a certain type of reporter is clutching his pearls about the emergence of NASA jumpsuits as fashion items. In the case of Ars Technica's Eric Berger, this freak-out was...

  5. Here are the Hyperloop pods competing in Elon Musk's big race later this year

    Later this year, dozens of college teams from around the world will travel to Hawthorne, California to compete in a high-stakes contest to prove Elon Musk’s vision of super-fast, super-sustainable,...

  6. Apple reportedly not supporting the GOP convention over Trump

    Apple will reportedly not provide support or funding for the Republican National Convention due to Donald Trump's rhetoric. Sources tell Politico that, unlike Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, the...

  7. Have frogs ever been to space? Let me Google that for you

    This week, we noticed an interesting trend emerge here at Verge Science: we wrote a lot about frogs and a lot about space. Well, we wrote two stories about frogs, but that’s way above the frog...

  8. Watch the tense new teaser for HBO's Westworld

    The latest trailer for HBO's Westworld just aired on HBO, and it looks terrifying. Here, we see the eponymous Westworld, a futuristic theme park filled with human-like automatons. But it seems like...

  9. The startup trying to clean up Wall Street just became an official stock exchange

    This evening the Securities and Exchange Commission approved an application by a startup called IEX to become a full-fledged stock exchange. By approving IEX, the SEC was giving its stamp of...

  10. Blue Origin safely launches and lands the New Shepard rocket for a fourth time

    This morning, Blue Origin launched and landed its New Shepard rocket for the fourth time — and we got to watch the entire thing live. It was the first ever live broadcast of a Blue Origin test...

Thought of the day

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