clock menu more-arrow

First Click

The best drone, Watch Dogs 2, some big reviews, and more in the week ahead

by Thomas Ricker

Is this the year you’ll finally buy a drone? If you’re thinking about it then you’ll want to check out our picks later this week in our updated drone installment of This Is My Next.

New, 1 comment

Poll: Are Snapchat Spectacles the next big thing?

by Thomas Ricker

Yesterday the company formerly known as Snapchat started selling its new Spectacles. The $130 sunglasses with built-in camera will only be available from cartoonish vending machines.

New, 15 comments

Elon Musk imagines life after democracy

by Rich McCormick

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." That was what British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, when asked about the failings of the political model, and history has thus far borne him out. But Winston...

New, 17 comments

Hope

by Thomas Ricker

Psychologists say that anyone can find a reason to hope, even those who’ve suffered trauma, like, say, watching their candidate suffer defeat in a bitterly contested fight.

First Click: Every backpack should have side access

by Vlad Savov

Two ergonomic oddities persist in our world that make zero sense to me: perfectly circular over-ear headphones and backpacks that only load from the top down. The first should be self-explanatory, as our ears are D-shaped rather than circular, but...

New, 14 comments

Playstation 4 Pro, Google Daydream View, Surface Book, and more in the week ahead

by Thomas Ricker

It’s November which means we’re firmly into reviews season now that all the major product announcements have been made ahead of the holiday season.

New, 4 comments

Poll: Do you OK Google or Hey Siri in public?

by Thomas Ricker

Earlier this week I wrote about the embarrassment that often comes with being an early adopter. In 2016, this is probably best illustrated by the way we use voice assistants. While many of us are fine shouting "OK Google" or "Alexa" or "Hey Siri"...

New, 94 comments

Microsoft Teams leaves the office door open for Slack

by Tom Warren

Microsoft launched its new chat-based Teams app yesterday, and the immediate reaction from many is that Slack is doomed. Some of that was Slack's own fault. In an unusually arrogant move, Slack decided to take out a full-page newspaper ad in The...

New, 41 comments

When new tech is just too embarrassing to use

by Thomas Ricker

Early adopters, aka "nerds," are drawn to the latest cutting-edge gadgets, software, and services like a young Nilay Patel is to studded bracelets. But early adoption is rife with negative consequences, one of which is public embarrassment. I was...

New, 22 comments

Microsoft is delivering on its vision of the future

by Tom Warren

Every once in a while, Microsoft updates its vision for the future with an impressive look at a world beyond beige PCs on every desk. I’ve seen many over the years, and I study them obsessively for any hints at what the company might be planning...

New, 55 comments

The Verge redesign, MacBook Pro review, Google Home ships, and more in the week ahead

by Thomas Ricker

Boo! It's Halloween so why not tune in at 11AM ET to watch Peter Thiel, Facebook board member and the vindictive boogeyman behind the destruction of Gawker Media, discuss his support for Donald J. Trump at a National Press Club event. The...

New, 9 comments

Poll: MacBook Pro or Surface Studio PC?

by Thomas Ricker

Who wore it better, Apple or Microsoft? And by “it” I mean the future of computing as both companies faced off this week with opposing visions on how to use touch.

New, 82 comments

The iPhone is no longer a compromise in Japan

by Sam Byford

The iPhone 7 might not, on the face of it, be the most exciting upgrade ever — it’s the first time Apple’s used the same basic industrial design three years running, with a more dramatic overhaul set for next year’s model. But if you live in...

New, 11 comments

I hate being an early adopter

by Thomas Ricker

This week we celebrated the 15th anniversary of the iPod. I owned the original, receiving the $399 MP3 player as a gift from my very generous parents on Christmas day 2001, just two months after it went on sale. It only synced music over FireWire...

New, 12 comments

Ignore Black Mirror and let the internet reconnect you to the world

by James Vincent

Honestly, you never think when clicking a link: “I’m definitely going to spend the next half hour of my life watching a beautiful, wordless video of a man making a violin.” But this is the internet, and if it does nothing else good in this world,...

New, 3 comments

Apple says hello, Microsoft Surface all-in-one PC, and more in the week ahead

by Thomas Ricker

We’ve got two huge tech events this week starting with Microsoft on Wednesday, followed by Apple on Thursday. Microsoft’s Surface event in New York City is expected to yield new Surface hardware and details about the next Windows 10 software...

New, 7 comments

Poll: How much would you pay for the Nintendo Switch?

by Sam Byford

We now know a whole lot more about Nintendo’s upcoming console — it’s called the Switch, it’s a home-portable hybrid, it has weird modular controllers that can be used in three million different ways — but there are still a number of major...

New, 80 comments

The return of Nintendo

by Rich McCormick

Nintendo will finally reveal its new console — codenamed NX — at 10AM ET today. It's been a long and arduous wait for fans, who first caught wind of the company's Wii U successor in March last year, when late president Satoru Iwata mentioned that...

New, 18 comments

Where’s the Facebook fact checker America so desperately needs?

by Thomas Ricker

I have a Facebook friend, let’s call him Mike, who’s a rabid supporter of Donald Trump and God, in that order. You probably have someone similar in your own timeline expressing an equally dogged allegiance to Hillary Clinton. Last night Mike...

New, 30 comments

I miss Instagram's photo map

by Amar Toor

I updated my Instagram app on iOS a couple of weeks ago. I can’t remember why I did it, but I really wish I hadn’t. When I reopened the app, I realized that my photo map had disappeared. The feature used to be located just above my stream of...

Google Pixel reviews, Mars landing, mystery Tesla announcement, and more in the week ahead

by Thomas Ricker

This week we expect to see the first reviews for the “made by Google” Pixel and Pixel XL phones that begin shipping on Thursday. Pixel is well placed to fill the Android flagship void vacated by Samsung’s discontinued Galaxy Note 7. We’re looking...

New, 14 comments

Poll: Will you buy another Samsung phone?

by Thomas Ricker

Every year a company called Interbrand comes out with its Best Global Brands report. This year’s report came out on October 5th and ranked Samsung at 7th position, ahead of Amazon and Mercedes-Benz, and up 14 percent in “brand value” over last...

New, 112 comments

First Click: Photographs are memory triggers, not replacements

by Vlad Savov

We are living in historic times. Whether it's transoceanic flights, pocketable personal computers, or that little invention called the internet, our generation enjoys access to an unprecedented bounty of knowledge, experiences, and technological...

New, 8 comments

White is the new black for home electronics

by Thomas Ricker

Do you remember the Blown Away Guy? You probably weren’t around to see the original Maxell TV and print ads (lol, you’re old!) of the early '80s, but you might have seen the many parodies produced in the years since. Like this one seen on Family...

New, 28 comments

Amazon has taken over me and my home

by Tom Warren

I used to love supporting my local stores. I’d see signs in shop windows that encouraged customers to “support the local high-street” and punch the air feeling good that I was part of the rebellion against giant mega corporations ruining Britain’s...

New, 32 comments

Oculus Touch preorders, Samsung vs. Apple at the Supreme Court, and more in the week ahead

by Thomas Ricker

After a busier than usual month of news, the tech industry will be taking a relative breather this week. It begins with preorders for the Oculus Rift Touch controllers going live later today. The $199 bundle is scheduled to ship on December 6th...

New, 0 comments

Poll: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, or PlayStation VR?

by Thomas Ricker

This was the week we finally got a complete picture of what virtual reality looks like in 2016, the year VR is supposed to hit the mainstream.

New, 14 comments

Ok Google, why is iCloud storage so expensive?

by Thomas Ricker

I’m feeling like a chump after yesterday’s Google event. I currently pay Apple $2.99 each month in return for 200GB of iCloud storage — space mostly allocated to my iCloud Photos library. But my free space recently dropped to zero after upgrading...

New, 156 comments

Amazon Echo leaves the door open for Google Home

by James Vincent

Google is holding its big Pixel event today, and while most of the focus will be on the company’s new smartphones (comprehensively leaked though they may be), it’s Google Home — the company’s AI-powered Amazon Echo rival — that could be the most...

New, 15 comments

Google Pixel, Google Daydream, Oculus Rift, and more Google in the week ahead

by Thomas Ricker

This week is Google’s week with a little Oculus Rift thrown in for kicks. Let’s start with Palmer Luckey’s developer conference.

New, 6 comments

The hidden dangers of life on Mars

by Rich McCormick

There are a lot of obstacles blocking Elon Musk’s ambitious plans to colonize Mars. But let’s say we do get a hundred people to the Red Planet. Let’s say SpaceX develops a ship big and powerful enough to house a hundred humans for a months-long...

New, 4 comments

DJI helps China pivot from global copycat to tech innovator

by Thomas Ricker

Verge reporter Ben Popper describing the rise of DJI in his report from China yesterday:

New, 8 comments
More Stories