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Welcome to The Verge: Weekender edition. Every Saturday, we'll bring you some of the best and most important reads of the past seven days, from original reports, to in-depth features, to reviews and interviews. Think of it as a collection of some of our favorite pieces that you may have missed — or that you may just want to read again. You can follow along below, or keep up to date on Flipboard.
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Feature
Curses! The birth of the bleep and modern American censorship
If the US grants the right to free speech, then why are there bleeps all over the TV and radio? Here's the history of where the bleep came from, why it's allowed, and what it's meant for art at large.
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Detours
Meat Lovers: AgLocal thinks it can take ethical farms mainstream
Restaurateurs looking to shop locally for their meat are usually stuck with the few nearby farms they've come across — and that may not be enough food. Now AgLocal is looking to fill the gap by connecting responsible farmers with chefs looking to go green.
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Report
The decline of serial killers and rise of the sharing economy
People are putting their faith into strangers to get their chores done, take them across town, and even given them a place to crash for the night. So how'd we get here from being terrified to give hitchhikers a lift?
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Review
Motorola Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx review
The Moto X may not be the fastest phone around, but it's one of our favorite devices out there. So when it comes to Motorola's powerful line of Droids, the phone manufacturer could just have something great up its sleeve, right? Unfortunately, far from it.
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Report
The antimatter factory: inside the project that could power fusion and annihilation lasers
Antimatter may be able to revolutionize technology, but first, scientists need to figure out how to harness it — and keeping hold of explosive particles like positrons isn't easy.
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Report
Steve Ballmer's 13 years as Microsoft CEO leaves a mixed legacy with little vision
Now that Steve Ballmer's set to step down as CEO of Microsoft, we're taking a look back at what he's done. Ballmer may have led Microsoft to flourishing revenues, but his leadership could take a major toll in the long run.
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Feature
Dark Patterns: inside the interfaces designed to trick you
Apps and websites are set up to be easy to use… usually. Some services have figured out how to profit off of confusion, and we've rounded up some of the devious ways they make it work.
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Gallery
Incredible paintings of sci-fi suburbia will make you wish you were Swedish
Simon Stålenhag's stunning paintings depict simple lives in an unsettling new landscape: one in which towering, sci-fi structures pepper the countryside, but life just goes on as usual.
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Report
What is Xiaomi? Here's the Chinese company that just stole one of Android's biggest stars
One of Google's top Android executives just left the company to go to Xiaomi, a young smartphone manufacturer in China. Here's why it may be worth paying attention to the company — especially now that it has some big Google talent in stock.
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Feature
The best photo apps for keeping your memories in the cloud
There are a lot of services out there for getting your photos off your camera and hard drive and into the cloud where you won't have to worry about backing them up. So which one's best? We went through 10 popular services to find out.
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