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Our live coverage of Microsoft's new Xbox event starts tomorrow at 9:30AM PT / 12:30PM ET!

2013-05-20T20:30:03Z

The next Xbox is nigh, and you've just discovered the very best place on the internet to watch the next generation of video games come to life. Tomorrow, May 21st, starting at 9:30AM PT, The Verge and Polygon will team up to bring you Microsoft's Xbox reveal live. Join our editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky and Polygon's Justin McElroy as we host live shows before and after the event, bringing you informative, insightful, and probably some rather irreverent discussion of whether the next Xbox lives up to the world's expectations.

If you hate video for some reason, we'll also be hosting the best liveblog in the business with pictures and text updates direct from the Microsoft stage, but otherwise keep it locked to this post, starting at...

'Star Wars Rebels' is Lucasfilm's first animated series under Disney, coming fall 2014

2013-05-20T19:10:26Z

It's not quite a full reveal, but Disney today announced the name of its first Star Wars-based animated series. It's called Star Wars Rebels, and the show's plot line will take place in a "whole new era" between Star Wars Episode III and Episode IV. A one-hour pilot is slated to air on the Disney Channel in fall 2014. Dave Filoni, the same man who announced the demise of The Clone Wars, is again serving as executive producer on the upcoming series.

Animation-wise, Rebel's visual style will take after the artwork of the late Ralph McQuarrie; McQuarrie was responsible for some of the earliest concept illustrations that convinced Twentieth Century Fox to invest in the original film trilogy. Filoni seems to have preserved most of his Clone...

Showing Hollywood the way: how 'Upstream Color' hit iTunes without leaving theaters

2013-05-20T18:00:04Z

Two weeks ago, Shane Carruth's Upstream Color pulled off an interesting trick. After about a month in theaters, it went online, streaming from the movie's website and plugging into the larger markets at iTunes and Amazon Instant Video. Here's the interesting part: it never left theaters. If I wanted to watch the movie right now, I could stream it onto my laptop here, or I could walk down to my local arthouse theater and see it on the big screen.

NextGuide Web replaces your DVR interface with your web browser

2013-05-20T16:00:05Z

As television channel counts have ballooned, there's more programming than ever out there — but the hardest part can actually be finding something decent to watch. NextGuide Web, launching today in a closed beta, tackles that problem directly from your web browser. If the name sounds familiar, it's because NextGuide also exists as an iPad app. The website offers much of the same functionality. On the most basic level it serves as a super-charged programming guide. Users can tell NextGuide who their cable or satellite provider is, and the site will then pull what what shows are available. However, it serves as a universal search not just for broadcast programming but for online sources as well: searching for Mad Men, for example, not...

Amazon kills 'Zombieland' series, picks 'Betas' and 'Alpha House' for original programming

2013-05-20T14:50:35Z

After leveraging its customers as a test audience, Amazon has begun choosing which of the 14 pilots it will produce as part of the company's first major foray into original programming. Viewer feedback and engagement have led to Alpha House (starring John Goodman) and Betas (centered around a Silicon Valley startup) being the final picks. The latter was easily our favorite among the potential candidates, though we found the field as a whole to be rather lacking. Amazon has said it aims to pick "somewhere between" zero and seven shows to produce for full-length seasons.

The company isn't revealing its entire list of greenlit projects just yet (nor which children-oriented shows will make the cut), but we know that Zombieland won't be...

Samsung beats Chromebook Pixel and Retina MacBook with new high-res laptop display

2013-05-20T11:26:03Z

Samsung is to unveil a new super-high resolution panel which could set the standard for notebook displays. This week, the company will launch a 13.3-inch QHD 3200 x 1800 panel with 276 pixels-per-inch (PPI), and offers greater pixel densities than Apple's Retina MacBook Pro 13 (227 PPI) and Google's Chromebook Pixel (239 PPI). Just last week, Sharp announced it would begin manufacturing its new high-pixel density IGZO LCD panels in 11.6-inch, 14-inch, and 15.6-inch variants. Samsung says the display will provide 30 percent greater power-savings than existing LCD displays but has yet to confirm if the panel will come to new ultrabooks. If it does, Toshiba's 13.3-inch Kirabook — with its impressive 2560 x 1440 display — could have some...

'Breaking Bad' creator Vince Gilligan is 'grateful as hell' for Netflix binge-watching

2013-05-20T07:05:23Z

Breaking Bad is on a brief hiatus in the middle of its fifth, final season, with shooting already wrapped on what may be the most anticipated eight episodes in recent television history. But for all the show's success, creator Vince Gilligan believes that things may have been very different if not for a shift in viewing habits enabled by the show's availability on Netflix. In a lengthy interview with Vulture, Gilligan says that much of Breaking Bad's momentum can be put down to "binge-watching" on the streaming service.

Google's potential Nexus Q successor revealed in FCC filing

2013-05-18T20:54:05Z

An update to the Google Music app broke compatibility with the ill-fated Nexus Q — but it appears Google may have a new media streamer waiting in the wings to replace it. A recent FCC filing provides some sparse details on a mysterious product referenced as the "H840 Device." Google is mentioned as the product's manufacturer, and it's described as a "fixed base station" with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. What's most intriguing, however, is the product's purpose: one of the documents states plainly that "The device functions as a media player." Douglas Adams fans are also likely to get a kick out of the device's model number, as well. It's listed as the H2G2-42, no doubt a sly wink towards The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The Nexus Q had...

Google TV: silent but not forgotten at I/O 2013

2013-05-17T23:10:54Z

It's easy to miss the Google TV booth here at I/O 2013, hidden in the corner of the third floor. That may not be an accident: there was apparently no room in the company's sprawling three-and-a-half-hour keynote to mention Google TV, either, just a short blog post hours later announcing that it now runs the latest version of Android. So in a sea of new products, services, and pitches to developers, we couldn't help but wonder: is TV dead? Google has killed plenty of products with many more fans than Google TV — will it go the way of Reader?

The latest Domino's Pizza marketing stunt: DVDs that smell like a pepperoni pie

2013-05-17T15:42:30Z

In the old days when you could still find a video rental store in most towns, ordering a pizza for the evening's movie was second nature for many families. Things have changed a bit in the Netflix era, but that combination still proves popular in many countries around the world. Brazil is among them, and to ensure that its customers continue to associate movie night with a warm pie, Domino's is taking a unique approach. It's joined up with 10 rental stores in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to distribute DVDs that smell like pizza after they've been played.

Using popular films like Argo, The Dark Knight Rises, and 007: Skyfall for the experiment, Dominos created custom disc labels utilizing thermal ink to pull off the trick. Out of the...