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The Weekender: predictive policing, weird websites, and robotic revisions

The Weekender: predictive policing, weird websites, and robotic revisions

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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.

  • Report

    The minority report: Chicago's new police computer predicts crimes, but is it racist?

    Chicago's police department is using computer algorithms to determine the most dangerous people in its city — or at least, the people with the potential to be among the most dangerous. It appears to be a well-intentioned effort to clean up crime, but some are concerned that it's singling out certain groups.

  • Feature

    This machine kills trolls

    Wikipedia's robots and cyborgs work round the clock to clean up vandalism and keep out trolls. It's a daunting task, and one that the site has gotten better at over the years. Now, it just has to figure out how to keep out the bad actors while still welcoming the good ones.

  • Review

    Nokia Lumia Icon review

    The Lumia Icon is the latest Windows Phone to head to Verizon. It has all the specs of a winner, but can it really be the icon that Microsoft and Nokia both want it to be?

  • Report

    Beautiful disasters: NewHive is making the web weird again

    NewHive makes it easy to create websites that are brilliantly and bizarrely gaudy, recalling our old obsession with GIF-filled GeoCities pages and cluttered MySpace profiles. Digital artists have begun using the service to create new works, but NewHive hopes to make it easy enough for anyone to start creating weird webpages of their own.

  • Review

    'House of Cards' Season 2 review: 'It was butchery, not strategy, that won the war'

    The first season of House of Cards legitimized Netflix's bold move into original content. Now it's back for a second round: is this season even more addictive, or just more of the same?

  • Report

    'Mt. Gox, where is our money?'

    One of the top Bitcoin exchanges paused withdrawals earlier this month after discovering a bug that could lead to thefts. But with withdrawals still paused, its customers haven't been able to get to their money, and some have begun staking out the exchange's offices to find out if they even really have it.

  • Report

    Pesticides are everywhere, and more dangerous than you realize

    Pyrethroids, a group of common bug killers, have long been thought of a safe alternative to older, hazardous chemicals. But recent research suggests that pyrethroids may not be as safe as we think — and it could be a long time before we find out more.

  • Review

    Loop Wallet review: mobile payments are finally everywhere you want to be

    There are plenty of ways to check out at a store from your phone, just not many that are very good. Loop hopes to finally let you leave your wallet behind with a small accessory that can send card data to most readers out there. It works surprisingly well, but is it good enough to finally kill your plastic credit cards?

  • Interview

    Seeing secrets: Trevor Paglen on photographing the NSA’s headquarters

    Artist Trevor Paglen recently rented out helicopters to go photograph some of the United States' top intelligence headquarters — the NSA's included. We caught up with him to chat about the idea behind the project, how he made office parks look interesting, and what a photograph of a building can really tell us.

  • Review

    Samsung Galaxy Note Pro review

    Can Samsung make a tablet that's perfect for the business world? The Galaxy Note Pro is an ambitious first try that changes a lot about Android in the quest for productivity, but all its power may not be enough to replace the laptop just yet.