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The Weekender: building backpacks, being 'Blue,' and betting on BlackBerry

The Weekender: building backpacks, being 'Blue,' and betting on BlackBerry

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The best of the week gone by

By Jacob Kastrenakes, a deputy editor who oversees tech and news coverage. Since joining The Verge in 2012, he’s published 5,000+ stories and is the founding editor of the creators desk.

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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.

  • Feature

    Second Life's strange second life

    Second Life rose to fame for its all-too-simple concept: letting users live a second life, even if it’s a mundane one. As the game celebrates its 10th birthday this week, we check in with some of the world’s longtime inhabitants to see what it’s meant for their first life.

  • Detours

    The joy of mind-controlled flamethrowers

    A mind-controlled flamethrower is just one of the wild devices being cooked up at i3 Detroit, a workspace that supports a community of local DIYers. So what else can a bunch of makers build with plenty of tools and limitless creativity?

  • Report

    Blood ivory: poachers use poison to slaughter elephants in Africa

    Elephant poachers have picked up some dangerous new tricks. Earlier this week it was revealed that 87 elephants have been poisoned by cyanide in one park alone — and incidents of poaching only seem to be growing worse.

  • Review

    A camera for your cameraphone: Sony Cyber-shot QX10 and QX100 review

    Sony’s latest cameras are odd ones, to say the least. The QX10 and QX100 don’t have screens or even all that many controls — instead they wirelessly hook up to a smartphone. Could these be the best “smartphone cameras” ever made?

  • Feature

    Listen up: Here's a story about Eiffel 65's 'Blue'

    Love it or loathe it, Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” has a cemented place in history. But a decade and a half later, what’s made it meaningful enough to spur a comeback?

  • Gallery
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    Report

    At Maker Faire New York, the DIY movement pushes into the mainstream

    DIY is in. We visited the New York Maker Faire to see how entrepreneurs and hobbyist tinkerers are pushing creation over consumption.

  • Feature

    Jeff Bezos wants to delight you

    Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is one of the most exciting businessmen around. Last month he bought The Washington Post, and this week he’s launching a new line of tablets. It may seem overly ambitious, but when laid out by Bezos himself, the business plans sound all-too-simple.

  • Report

    Biting controversy: forensic dentistry battles to prove it's not 'junk science'

    Matching a bite mark to a set of teeth has placed a lot of people behind bars — but more than a few of them were later found to be innocent. Now experts are struggling to decide whether there's any reliable science behind the practice in the first place.

  • Report

    Can Prem Watsa, Canada's billionaire king of lost causes, save BlackBerry?

    Prem Watsa has taken big and successful bets on turning companies around, and his latest play is on BlackBerry. But with how far BlackBerry has fallen, the billionaire investor is likely to be fighting his toughest battle yet.

  • Feature

    A backpack to remember: can Evernote become a lifestyle company?

    Evernote’s known best for making digital scrapbooking tools that help users remember anything and everything. But the company has a new venture now, physical goods, and it thinks that they can help make people even smarter.

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