The Verge - The Verge interviews

Geneticist Adam Rutherford: by ‘controlling living systems,’ synthetic biology will change the world

2013-06-18T14:19:34Z

As first books go, Dr. Adam Rutherford probably couldn’t have chosen a vaster topic: an investigation into both the origins of life itself, and the incredible potential of its man-made future. In Creation: How Science is Reinventing Itself, Rutherford offers a historical account of biology’s biggest breakthroughs, before introducing readers to what he perceives as the next one on that list: synthetic biology, loosely defined as the radical engineering of new or novel life forms.

Fortunately for readers, Rutherford is uniquely suited to write such a tome. A geneticist by training, Rutherford contributes regular science columns to The Guardian and recently ended an 11-year stint as an editor at Nature to host a new, weekly BBC show, I...

Dmitry Itskov wants to help you live forever by swapping your body for an android avatar

2013-06-12T15:45:05Z

If Dmitry Itskov has his way, the human lifespan will soon no longer depend on the limitations of the human body. Itskov, a Russian tycoon and former media mogul, is the founder of the 2045 Project — a venture that seeks to replace flesh-and-blood bodies with robotic avatars, each one uploaded with the contents of a human brain. The goal: to extend human lives by hundreds or thousands of years, if not indefinitely.

Itskov’s wild ambitions have already attracted the attention of scientists at Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley, among other institutions, but he sees the venture as much more than a scientific one. Itskov’s overarching idea is to create something of a global utopia, one in which people, freed from the shackles of their...

Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin on digital comics and the medium's 'second Golden Age'

2013-06-06T16:45:04Z

Brian K. Vaughan is a writer best known for his work on comic series like Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, and Saga, and he's also spent several seasons working on Lost. Currently he's devoting himself to the television adaptation of Stephen King's Under the Dome. Marcos Martin, meanwhile, is an artist who has drawn some of the biggest characters in the medium: everyone from Daredevil to Spider Man.

Recently the two decided to join together on an interesting project, The Private Eye, a digital-only, pay-what-you-want comic about a world without the internet. It's a strange vision of the future where citizens dress up like animals to protect their privacy and unlicensed journalists have become private detectives — and with our current...

Razer's outspoken CEO slams HP and Dell, says he 'loves Apple'

2013-06-01T17:30:02Z

The PC industry is in the midst of a dramatic decline. Desktop and laptop sales have been steadily falling for years, and PC makers are scrambling to figure out how to reshape their businesses in this so-called post-PC era. But Min-Liang Tan, the outspoken CEO of Razer, is arguing that the freefall doesn’t need to take place.

‘People want to be amazed’: the man behind the magic of ‘Now You See Me’

2013-05-31T14:17:02Z

David Kwong got his first taste of magic as a young boy in upstate New York. The trick was simple: the magician placed a red sponge ball into the boy’s hand, produced a second one, and then made it vanish. When Kwong opened his hand, there were two balls resting inside.

“I remember turning to my father and saying ‘How did this work?,’” he tells me over coffee in Los Angeles. “And he just gave me that patented sheepish grin and said ‘I have no idea.’”

“And that’s when I knew I had to learn magic.”

Sketching Instagram: co-founder Mike Krieger reveals the photo app's humble beginnings

2013-05-13T16:30:03Z

Mike Krieger is a co-founder of Instagram. Having built the first version of the app years ago, he has been called the “soul” of the company and leads its engineering team today. Before Instagram, Krieger was a user experience designer and engineer at Meebo, a browser-based instant messaging platform. Krieger took a few minutes to talk to The Verge about the roots of Instagram’s many filters, the principles of human-computer interaction, and some of Instagram users’ craziest behaviors. You can find him on Instagram and Twitter at @mikeyk.

How have things been going since you joined Facebook?

We push code to Instagram like 20 times per day. For us, if it’s ready, it goes out. The fact that Facebook [pushes code twice per day]...

The illusion of simplicity: photographer Peter Belanger on shooting for Apple

2013-05-08T15:00:04Z

You’ve almost certainly never heard of Peter Belanger, but you’ve definitely seen his photographs. In fact, you may even see his work every day, and it’s likely that you own some of his most famous subjects. Belanger is the man behind some of Apple’s most iconic product images, a San Francisco-based product photographer at the top of his field. Apple is but one of his clients — he’s done work for everyone from eBay and Nike to Pixar and Square — and we sat down with Peter to talk about his work, his background, and some very, very expensive gear.

How @breakingnews keeps news junkies current in a crisis

2013-05-02T18:30:05Z

Lots of people follow @breakingnews on Twitter — the account and the breakingnews.com website and mobile apps have become indispensable resources for news junkies who need to stay up-to-the-minute on the biggest news of the moment.

But few people know that Breaking News is actually owned by NBC, and operated as what general manager Cory Bergman calls an "internal startup." I spoke to Cory about how that works, how his team runs @breakingnews, and how the site managed to be both fast and accurate as the chaos of the Boston Marathon bombing story unfolded.