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First Click: Ad-supported Moto G Plus, Amazon Prime Day, Ghostbusters and more in the week ahead

July 11th, 2016

This week we've partnered with the Toronto International Film Festival to curate a dozen or so VR experiences about empathy and storytelling. Our very own Adi Robertson and Ross Miller will even be moderating a few talks. It’s all happening from Friday to Sunday.

Tuesday is the second ever Amazon Prime Day. It's like Christmas in July, except with Jeff Bezos playing Santa and no need to interact with casually racist family members.

In tech we plan to take deeper dives on the subsidized Moto G Plus with lock screen ads, the Cat S60 thermal phone, and Samsung's Gear Fit2 — the latter not quite making it onto the site last week.

In gaming we’ll be taking a look at Song of the Deep and Fru, a game that might make you want to reconnect your Kinect.

In entertainment we’ll be looking at season 2 of Difficult People, Nonkeen’s new release, Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult in the sci-fi fantasy film Equals, and the Ghostbusters reboot which makes its world premiere on Friday.

But this is only a taste of what’s to come. First, let’s get caught up on the weekend that was.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said we'd try to have our pick for the best Bluetooth speaker this week. It's now planned for next week.

  1. Armed robbers used Pokémon Go to target victims in Missouri

    As popular as Pokémon Go has become, that it sends players out into the real world to find Pokémon is creating new, unexpected problems. The O'Fallon, Missouri Police Department reported on...

  2. How Uber secretly investigated its legal foes — and got caught

    When a young labor lawyer named Andrew Schmidt first filed suit against Uber in December of last year, he couldn’t have predicted it would make him a target. Schmidt’s suit was a legal longshot,...

  3. Google is making better apps for the iPhone than for Android

    Here’s a thing I didn’t really expect to write: I’m finding that I enjoy Google’s apps more on iOS than I do on Android. Or more specifically: I think that there’s more interesting innovation...

  4. Mr. Robot season premiere 'leaked' on social media by show's creators

    The new season of Mr. Robot isn't due to air on TV for another three days, but if you were quick, you might have been able to catch the first episode of the acclaimed show's second series tonight....

  5. Pokémon Go will eventually allow players to trade Pokémon

    Pokémon Go has taken iOS and Android by storm this weekend, jumping to the top of the App Store and Google Play Store in just a matter of days. However, game developer Niantic is nowhere near done...

  6. This is your next jam: Jay Z, Miguel, and more

    Welcome back to The Verge’s weekly musical roundup. I’m Jamieson, I’m still your host, and it’s always tough to write this column — to write about music at all, even — when the world is being...

  7. US officials claim pro-ISIS Twitter traffic fell 45 percent in two years

    Members of the Islamic State have proven themselves deft at using social media, but the Obama administration claims its attempt to push back against the propaganda is having an effect. Officials...

  8. Lucasfilm Games' forgotten 1986 online game is making a surprising return

    You may not have heard of Habitat. The video game, released in 1986, never made a huge splash, although the studio behind it — Lucasfilm Games, later known as LucasArts — would go on to create...

  9. Trilobites are the Legos of the Ordovician seas

    When I was a teenager, I spent my summers up on North Hero, one of the Vermont islands in Lake Champlain. The island chain sits on top of the Trenton Group, a formation of rocks that date back...

  10. How to be human: what do dreams about exes mean for my relationship?

    Leah Reich was one of the first internet advice columnists. Her column "Ask Leah" ran on IGN, where she gave advice to gamers for two and a half years. During the day, Leah is Slack’s user...

Sad Ronaldo of the day