The Verge - All Posts

$19 million might produce the first ever image of a black hole

2013-12-18T00:39:59-05:00

Astrophysicists think there's a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It's supposed to be four million times more massive than our Sun, but despite its stupendous size, we've never been able to see it. That might soon change. The European Research Council has given 14 million euros ($19.3 million) to the creators of BlackHoleCam, a project that will use radio telescopes and supercomputers to try to prove the existence of what Luciano Rezzolla, a principal investigator for BlackHoleCam, calls "one of the most cherished astrophysical objects."

BlackHoleCam's name is slightly misleading. It won't be able to image the black hole itself, instead using the event horizon that it expects to see to confirm the hole's...

Walt Mossberg's final Wall Street Journal column looks back on two decades of tech

2013-12-18T03:11:23+00:00

After 22 years of insightful and important commentary on consumer technology, Walt Mossberg has written his final column for The Wall Street Journal and its All Things D tech blog. In it, Mossberg picks out the twelve most influential products from his time as the newspaper's tech reviewer, identifying each one as something that changed the course of digital history. Included among his dozen are Windows 95, the Palm Pilot, Google's search engine, and the iPhone.

The products chosen weren't necessarily big sellers — his first choice on his chronological list, the Newton MessagePad, was an "outright flop" — but Mossberg believes each of his selections improved ease of use and added value for the average consumer. His tastes and...

NASA to fix ISS coolant system with Christmas spacewalks

2013-12-17T20:33:26-05:00

Last week, one of the International Space Station's two coolant loops shut down, forcing the six astronauts on board to turn off all nonessential equipment. Now NASA has ordered a series of three spacewalks to repair the broken line. Two American astronauts — Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins — will be leaving the confines of the ISS on Saturday, Monday, and Christmas Day, to replace a malfunctioning valve.

The timing of the spacewalks means that the scheduled launch of Orbital Sciences' Cygnus mission has been delayed until January 13th at the earliest. Cygnus — a cargo ship carrying supplies to the ISS — was set for this week, the ship using its Antares rocket to blast off from Virginia before docking with the space...

'Privacy' is Dictionary.com's word of the year

2013-12-17T20:03:01-05:00

Last month The Oxford University Press dubbed "selfie" the word of 2013, and now Dictionary.com is going in a completely different direction for its choice. The popular online dictionary picked "privacy" as for its coveted "word of the year" honors, a decision it says was fueled by myriad news stories that focused on privacy. That list includes the NSA leaks; changes to TSA body scanners that once showed nudie bits; Google Glass and the Google's changes to its wide-reaching privacy policy; and most recently, a coalition of tech companies urging the US government to reform its surveillance techniques.

LG announces Chromebase, a Chrome OS all-in-one computer

2013-12-17T19:29:40-05:00

Google's Chrome OS is typically found in inexpensive Chromebook laptops, and occasionally a Chromebox desktop as well. At next month's Consumer Electronics Show, however, LG will put it into a desktop computer monitor. The company has just announced the Chromebase, a 21.5-inch all-in-one computer that runs the minimal OS, with an unnamed Intel Celeron processor, 2GB of memory, and 16GB of solid state storage housed underneath the monitor's 1080p IPS display.

While the computer comes with its own keyboard, mouse, speakers, webcam, USB ports and networking, it sounds like it can also still act as a monitor for another PC, thanks to an HDMI input around back. Theoretically, you could use Chrome OS as a quick-booting operating system for...

New writer hired to continue 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' book series

2013-12-17T19:20:01-05:00

The Swedish publisher of the popular book trilogy The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has reportedly hired another author to write a sequel to the series penned by Stieg Larsson, who died in 2004.

Norstedts announced it signed David Lagercrantz to write the new series which will feature the characters of journalist Mikael Blomqvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander. Lagercrantz was the ghostwriter of I am Zlatan Ibrahimović, the autobiography of the Swedish football player. Eva Gedin, head of publishing at Norstedts, told Variety that the new series would not take anything from the original other than the characters — the storyline will continue where the third book in the trilogy left off, but with a completely new plot. The new books will...

Healthcare.gov, Beyoncé, and 'The Sandman': 90 Seconds on The Verge

2013-12-17T19:00:01-05:00

Hello. It appears you're trying to enroll in our healthcare program. Would you like some help? Perhaps I can direct you to a specialist for that headache you are getting after staring at error screens on our website. No? You're all set? Well if you need anything, just ask for Clippy. Why am I a paperclip and not something medical related? I don't know. People loved me on Office, but I don't think it's translating well to this site.

Facebook helped apprehend sexual predator

2013-12-18T10:53:12+11:00

Federal agents in South Carolina were able to track down and apprehend a sexual predator earlier this year with the help of Facebook, reports South Carolina news outlet The State. Investigators were able to link child pornography found on a hard drive confiscated in Boston to photos on Facebook showing a child "very similar in appearance" originating in the Myrtle Beach area, allowing them to track down the accused.

According to The State, Facebook's involvement came to light last week after a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations filed for a search warrant for the suspect's email. The social company reportedly cooperated in the investigation by helping connect the photos to the right account holder and then to Joseph...

Shapeways and KeyMe partner to 3D print and ship your house keys

2013-12-17T18:35:02-05:00

If you've ever been that person locked out of your house or apartment, you might have another option that'll get your door open. KeyMe, a small lock-and-key startup, is partnering with the 3D printing company Shapeways to let customers 3D print their keys from the KeyMe iOS app and have them delivered almost immediately. Using a digital copy of the key stored in KeyMe's cloud, customers can order keys online and have them delivered. You can get everything from a plastic key for $10, a ridiculous solid gold key for $4,000, and various keys in between. In New York, KeyMe is also offering an emergency lockout key delivery service at physical key cutting kiosks in 7-Eleven and Bed Bath & Beyond stores.

This partnership could be both...

NSA's top defender wants Supreme Court to rule on metadata collection

2013-12-17T18:18:13-05:00

Even some NSA proponents want to see its phone-record collection program tried in the Supreme Court. In a statement today, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) — a consistently strong supporter of the NSA's programs — said that she would welcome a Supreme Court review of the agency's collection of phone metadata so that there can be a definitive opinion on its legality. Naturally, Feinstein argues that it'll be found legal, but she'd still like that belief to be held up. "I believe it is crucial to settling the issue once and for all," Feinstein says.