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The Weekender: low-cost laptops, gaming greatness, and collegiate career concerns

The Weekender: low-cost laptops, gaming greatness, and collegiate career concerns

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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

    Dark Arts

    The cyberpunk future that science fiction sold us on hasn't come to pass: instead, a much sleeker, cleaner, and subtler world of technology has formed our present. But on Tumblr, artists and curators are beginning to create a new future — one that looks more like the incredible tech we see today.

  • Report

    Oral history: the sexual misadventures of the dental dam

    The dental dam has been around for almost 20 years at a minimum, and yet it's practically nowhere to be found: not in bedrooms, drug stores, or sex shops. But despite its failure to ascend to popularity, the dam is far from dead.

  • Report

    The world's biggest troll is back on trial

    The notorious hacker weev is back on trial to appeal an earlier decision that put him in prison for over three years. The case could have big implications for how computer crime prosecutions are handled, so we headed to the court house this week to see it begin to unfold.

  • Review

    Google vs. Microsoft: a cheap laptop showdown

    Chromebooks are putting pressure on low-cost Windows laptops in a serious way, and that's all too evident when looking at Toshiba's two new sub-$400 laptops. One runs Windows 8, has a touchscreen, and works well online, and the other is a sleek and simple Chrome OS machine. So which is better?

  • Interview

    The story of Motorola's smartwatch from the man who designed it

    Google dropped a big surprise announcement this week: it's building a version of Android perfect for smartwatches. Motorola is already working on a gorgeous smartwtach to run it, and we spoke with the designer behind it to find out how he's bringing Android from a device in your pocket up to your wrist.

  • Report

    Meet gaming's punk rock label

    Creating a publishing company for indie games might sound antithetical to the whole idea of indie, but Devolver Digital is turning publishing into something less structured and a lot more helpful. It's already working with some of the hottest indie developers out there, and it's building a serious reputation for its quick and violent games.

  • Report

    Inside the GitHub scandal: is sexism part of the Valley's DNA?

    Julie Ann Horvath brought big changes to GitHub through the launch of a women-in-tech lecture series, but those changes weren't necessarily felt by her. She left GitHub last week alleging gender harassment, and now everyone's talking about how Silicon Valley can do better.

  • Report

    Is ITT Tech screwing over students?

    ITT Tech's promises might sound too good to be a true, and a new US watchdog bureau seems to agree. It's filed charges against the for-profit college for misleading applicants, but whether those charges will lead to actual changes is far from guaranteed.

  • Review

    Lenovo ThinkPad 8 review

    Lenovo's ThinkPad 8 is a Windows tablet that looks a whole lot like an iPad mini. But it's far more than just a tablet: the ThinkPad 8 can run full desktop apps and effectively be turned into a desktop too with the right accessories. But just because the ThinkPad 8 can do it all doesn't mean it can do it well.

  • Report

    Japan used to rule video games, so what happened?

    Last decade, building a game for consoles became easier and easier for Western developers as consoles become a lot more like traditional PCs. Now Japan's traditional gaming tastes are out of favor, but a burgeoning indie scene may be able to start bringing back its gaming fame.

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