The Verge - All Posts

'The Pirate Cinema' monitors popular torrents to create a video wall of piracy

2013-05-20T08:58:12Z

The Pirate Cinema is a cinematic collage or sorts. Its creators took torrent database The Pirate Bay's Top 100 video files and monitored each, creating small, fragmented clips based on traffic (torrents are transfered block-by-block in a somewhat random order). The resulting installation, which runs through to May 29th in Montreal's Eastern Bloc gallery, is a mash of sights and sounds, revealing the extent of global file sharing. Head over to We Make Money Not Art for an interview with co-creator Nicolas Maigret.

Chinese hackers renew cyberattacks on US targets after brief lull

2013-05-20T08:50:05Z

After a relative lull in activity, it looks as though the Chinese hacking group uncovered in a February security report has resumed its attacks on US targets. According to new information that security firm Mandiant submitted to The New York Times, attacks against identical, but unspecified, targets have been gradually increasing over the past two months, now sitting at 60 to 70 percent of their previous strength. Obama administration officials say that the issue will continue to be revisited until it can convince the Chinese leadership that "there is a real cost to this kind of activity."

In recent months, President Obama’s national security advisor Tom Donilon has talked tough about Chinese cyberattacks on US businesses and infrastructure targets, saying that "the international community cannot afford to tolerate such activity from any country." The resumption of attacks is expected to figure heavily in Donilon’s upcoming visit to China, notes The Times.

Following months of reports of Chinese cyberattacks against infrastructure targets and media companies like The New York Times and The Washington Post, a February report from Mandiant pinned their origin to a People’s Liberation Army base in Shanghai. Chinese authorities promptly dismissed the charges, and while the two countries have formed working groups to collaborate on cybersecurity issues, the Pentagon released its own report earlier this month attributing a string of 2012 attacks to the Chinese government. At the same time, many see the US’s stance toward the hacks as hypocritical given its own involvement in the Stuxnet attack against Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, and China has repeatedly claimed that the US is performing the same kinds of attacks it criticizes others of.

Galaxy S III software leak reveals potential S4-class upgrades

2013-05-20T08:25:42Z

Samsung appears to be making good on its promise to port Galaxy S4 features to the Galaxy S III. A test Android 4.2.2 update, discovered by SamMobile, includes the lockscreen effects and widgets, enhanced screen modes, updated settings, and new S Voice control features found in Samsung's new flagship. Samsung previously said it would include updates that were "not dependent on hardware," ruling out gestures like Air View and the smart TV remote app.

The Android update is currently undergoing internal testing and is available as an unofficial pre-release ROM, suggesting that the company could add or remove features before an official rollout — which is reportedly slated for June. Given the unofficial nature of the ROM, we don't recommend that you install it at this time.

Space guns, boreholes, and biodomes: the lost dreams of 20th century science

2013-05-20T07:47:11Z

The 20th century, in particular the latter half, played host to some of the most ambitious scientific projects in history. Atlas Obscura's feature Ruins Of Super Science takes a look at some forgotten gems, many of which are in a state of disrepair. There's the Kola Superdeep Borehole, a Russian project to drill as far into the earth as possible, which reached a stunning 7.5 miles deep; the Project HARP Space Gun, which as the name suggests was a joint US-Canadian project that aimed to fire a payload into space (it never succeeded); and Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower and Laboratory in Long Island, NY, the birthplace of many of Tesla's experiments, and the subject of a successful campaign last year to turn the lab into a Tesla museum. There are a total of ten projects in the feature — it's a must-read for anyone interested in the limits of human endeavor.

'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.

"I am grateful as hell for binge-watching. I am grateful that AMC and Sony took a gamble on us in the first place to put us on the air. But I'm just as grateful for an entirely different company that I have no stake in whatsoever: Netflix. I don't think you'd be sitting here interviewing me if it weren't for Netflix. In its third season, Breaking Bad got this amazing nitrous-oxide boost of energy and general public awareness because of Netflix."

Gilligan goes on to explain that services like Netflix make it easier for viewers to watch every episode of a show. Before, fans would profess to love his previous work on The X-Files without having managed to keep up in full; the writer notes that "it's a different world now."

The full interview contains hints about the show's ending, details of a possible spinoff series for sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman, and Gilligan's reaction to hearing that Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev tweeted “Breaking Bad taught me how to dispose of a corpse.”

Google Hangouts upgrade removes ability to host Google Voice calls on your computer

2013-05-20T03:05:42Z

Google new Hangouts messaging service is quite impressive — it takes Google's old and neglected Talk service and upgrades it with always-on communication, support for images, video calling, and much more. But for all of the improved service that Hangouts offers, if you upgrade the Google Talk service within Gmail to Hangouts (by selecting the "Try the new Hangouts" option in Talk's menu), you lose some significant features — namely the ability to set your availability status and, more importantly, the ability to place or receive Google Voice calls from within Gmail. Essentially, the new Hangouts removes the option to host a Google Voice call on your computer, something that many users find convenient and necessary in their day to day workflow.

Users in Google's support forums first reported the feature's disappearance last week, and The Verge has confirmed that it is not possible to place or receive calls in Gmail once you have upgraded Talk to Hangouts. The only option for users is to initiate a call from the Google Voice web app, which will ring one of their connected phones before routing the call to the other party.

Google added this feature to Gmail back in 2010, and for many Google Voice users, it's been an indispensable tool for placing outgoing calls from their computer. It didn't hurt that Google has offered completely free calls from Gmail to phone numbers within the US since the feature launched, either.

Users might want to hold off on upgrading to Hangouts

Fortunately, all is not lost, as Google has made it possible to revert back to the old Google Talk service in Gmail if you have already upgraded to Hangouts. This does restore the ability to host Google Voice calls on your computer without having to route the call to another phone before it connects. It's also worth noting that although advanced Hangouts features don't work with the XMPP standards, users who upgrade to Hangouts still do have limited support to use other traditional GTalk apps like Trilian and Adium — basically Google Talk and Hangouts still talk to each other, albeit in a limited fashion.

Since Google has unified its various messaging platforms and shifted around some of the teams that run them, it has promised to add some of Google Voice's features (along with SMS support) to Hangouts in the future. We don't yet know if this specific feature will be making the cut, but we're holding out hope that it does. For now, the best option for those that use Google Talk to place calls from their computers is to hold off on upgrading to Hangouts — and pray that the option doesn't disappear completely in the future.

We have reached out to Google for comment on the matter and will update this post if we hear back.

Inside the private push for consumer space travel

2013-05-20T01:31:32Z

Since the 1960s and PanAm's ill-fated Moon Flights Club, commercial passenger flights to space have been a tantalizing dream, one that's expected to finally come to fruition within the next year. For its cover story this week, New York Magazine takes an in-depth look at the industry, including interviews with Buzz Aldrin, Richard Branson, and several others. In it, Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides discusses Branson's plans to bring his entire family, including his 88-year-old mother to space with him, which will likely happen "by the end of the year," says Branson. Aldrin also discusses his criticism of fellow Apollo generation astronauts eager for the US to return to the moon while staunchly supporting plans to establish a permanent settlement on Mars, saying it will be “one of the biggest things humans have ever achieved.”

Nook Simple Touch e-readers reportedly adding web browser and email client next week

2013-05-20T00:25:45Z

Barnes & Noble’s E Ink e-readers are getting an update next month that will add a web browser and email client, reports TechCrunch. Citing an unnamed source, it writes that the Nook Simple Touch and Simple Touch with GlowLight will start receiving the updates on June 1st.

The Nook Simple Touch shipped with a limited, hidden web browser when it was first released in 2011, but Barnes & Noble removed the function in a software update a few months later. The ability to check news headlines and do some light email work should give the $79 Nook platform some extra value, although slow-refreshing E Ink doesn’t really provide the best browsing experience. The low-priced Nooks aren’t the only ones to be getting extra attention from home base — earlier this month, the company’s Nook HD and HD+ Android tablets got access to apps in the Google Play store.

British explorer Daniel Hughes makes first video call from Everest's peak

2013-05-19T22:37:06Z

The first live video call from a smartphone at the peak of Mount Everest has been made by British explorer Daniel Hughes, as part of his effort to raise money for the Comic Relief charity. The call, made with an HTC One, is not the first mobile call made from Everest's heights — but it's the first video call to be made using a smartphone. Speaking to the BBC, Hughes said that "as you can see, this is the world's first live video call, never been done before, from the rooftop of the world." To complete the call, Hughes used Inmarsat's Broadband Global Area Network service, which has previously assisted other climbers in making phone calls from the mountain's dramatic face. Despite the impressive effort, the stunt has so far raised just over £40,673 — leaving Hughes with yet another steep climb to his goal of raising £1,000,000 (about $1,537,099) for Comic Relief.

Woozers I'm absolutely shattered. Can't even begin to describe what how tough that was. Now in a ice clad tent #dreamingofheat
— Everestmillion (@everestmillion) May 19, 2013

Why Laurene Powell Jobs broke her silence to support immigration reform

2013-05-19T20:33:57Z

Laurene Powell Jobs' first interview after the death of her husband Steve Jobs was an interview on NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams, where she pledged her support for the DREAM act and immigration reform. Now, an in-depth profile in the Wall Street Journal explains why this particular issue caused Powell Jobs to break her silence and step out into the public eye. It seems that it all began in 1995, when she started tutoring low-income students, only to find that those who were in the US illegally were unable to secure financial aid to go to college. "Year after year we saw potential wasted," she tells the WSJ. For the full story, be sure to check out the profile at the source link below.