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The Weekender: constructing cameras, creating cars, and conserving California's water

The Weekender: constructing cameras, creating cars, and conserving California's water

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The best of the week gone by

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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.

  • Editorial

    The wrong words: how the FCC lost net neutrality and could kill the internet

    It wouldn't have taken much to change the fate of net neutrality: just slightly different legal wording, way back in 2002. Now the FCC and the internet are in a mess of trouble, and making things right won't be easy.

  • Report

    The car of the future is in Detroit and the desert

    The auto industry has been making a splash at CES with showcases of the connected car, but that doesn't mean it's leaving the traditional autoshow behind. Just one week later, the industry headed out for NAIAS in Detroit, and there was still plenty left to see.

  • Review

    Lomography Konstruktor review: the $35 camera you build yourself

    Lomography's Konstruktor brings new meaning to the term manual camera. In a world of autofocus, metering, and smart modes, building a basic camera yourself and shooting straight to film could be the best way to get a grasp on a new hobby.

  • Feature

    Status Symbols: Nintendo Power Glove

    The Power Glove was a peek at the future that promised far, far more than it could ever pull off. Here's what it was like to yearn for — and finally use — the legendary peripheral in the summer of 1990.

  • Report

    PreCheck unchecked: why the TSA is putting more people in the fast lane

    The TSA's PreCheck program was originally designed to get paying passengers through airport security quicker than usual, but it's turning into a new type of screening process for everyone. Trouble is, no one's really sure how the TSA choses who gets the special treatment or if it's even all that secure.

  • Review

    Hapifork review: eat slower to eat better

    The Hapifork wants to help you eat healthier and lose weight, not by tracking what you eat, but by tracking how you're eating. Can a smart fork fit into your new dinner plans, or is there still too much about dining left for it to learn?

  • Report

    Inside California's $25 billion plot to save its water supply

    Much of California's agricultural and drinking water is at risk of drying up, but a bold — and expensive — new plan might be able to save it. The plan would use massive tunnels to divert the water toward safety, but doing so could endanger small farms in favor of big agriculture.

  • Report

    Poisoned: why West Virginia's water crisis is everyone's problem

    Over 300,000 West Virginians found themselves without a drinkable water supply last week when 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol seeped into a nearby river. Here's how the chemical got there, and how the company behind it managed to slip beneath regulators' eyes.

  • Review

    Oppo N1 review: CyanogenMod goes legit

    CyanogenMod has raised tens of millions of dollars to turn itself from a hacker ROM into a mainstream version of Android. The Oppo N1 is its first big break — a good-looking phone with the OS preinstalled. Does this smart new take on Android add enough to make the N1 stand out?

  • Report

    Street legal: how 'Gran Turismo' helped Toyota design its new concept car

    Toyota's new FT-1 concept car looks like the mechanical incarnation of speed, and much of that is thanks to bringing Gran Turismo maker Polyphony Digital along for the ride. We went behind the scenes with Toyota's design team to see how the new car came to be.