Новости за 23.10.2017

The Walking Dead is back, kicking off its eighth season with a bloodier, more political story arc that will likely track the comic’s “All Out War” saga. For us here at The Verge — forever critics of big bad guy Negan and his man-baby antics — it’s an opportunity to examine just how effective the show can be in creating a complex villain. As played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Negan has always been violent, but otherwise, he’s stubbornly remained a comic book thug, never entirely becoming the nuanced character the show so sorely needs. Читать дальше...

Hot on the heels of Sprint’s iPhone X deal, Verizon has unveiled its own discounts for the iPhone X. The carrier is offering up to $300 toward the new phone, assuming you meet a fairly specific set of conditions.

Netflix’s Stranger Things is a science fiction horror series that blends the nostalgic feel of ‘80s synth with the Stephen King-style horror of movies from Carrie to Stand By Me. It doesn’t seem prone to musical stylings, but YouTuber Brian David Gilbert has married the two with surprising skill.

Anyone can download and read Stephen Hawking’s 1966 doctoral thesis “Properties of expanding universes” now that the scientist has given permission for it to be open access.

When MegaBots’ Gui Cavalcanti describes the fight between his company’s giant robot and a Japanese counterpart as a “strange event,” it’s both accurate and a bit of an understatement. The bout in question, broadcast last week, was the culmination of a Kickstarter campaign, YouTube series, and more than two years of hype. But the fight was more BattleBots than Transformers: the two robots stood still and took slow swings at one other while commentators did their best to inject some drama into the situation. Читать дальше...

Amazon’s first Kindle e-reader was released 10 years ago this year, and while the actual anniversary isn’t for another month (the first device was released on November 19th) Amazon is marking the occasion by discounting several of its current Kindle devices by $30.

It looks like Google is having an even harder time keeping the Pixel in stock than it expected. Some people who ordered a white Pixel 2 and received an estimated ship date of late October are receiving emails saying their order has been delayed by up to a month. Multiple people who received the emails have posted about their frustration on Reddit, as was first picked up by Android Police.

Preorders for Apple’s iPhone X start this Friday at 3AM ET, and we’re starting to see the first carrier deals for the upcoming smartphone. First up is Sprint, which will be offering a deal through its Sprint Flex leasing for $22.22 per month for 18 months with a trade in of an older device.

When The Force Awakens hit theaters in 2015, many moviegoers came away from the film disappointed by one character: Captain Phasma. The imposing stormtrooper captain was hyped as a formidable force on the battlefield, but ultimately ended up aiding the Resistance when threatened by one of her former soldiers, Finn.

Spectacles were one of last winter’s hottest gifts, but apparently demand for them quickly died off and left Snap in a bad position. The Information reports that Snap expected demand for Spectacles to continue after the holidays and ordered “hundreds of thousands” of additional units. But after it opened sales to a wider audience, that didn’t happen, and those units are now reported to be sitting around in warehouses, unsold.

Nicotine in electronic cigarettes may be responsible for turning teens into regular smokers and vapers.

Martenero has been selling American-made customizable mechanical watches for under a $1,000 a few years now, and it’s back with a new design at its cheapest price yet.

Microsoft is extending its Xbox One X Enhanced program to existing Xbox 360 games. IGN reports that four Xbox 360 games will include enhancements specifically for the new Xbox One X console when it launches on November 7th. Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Fallout 3, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will all include tweaks that push the on-screen pixels to nine times more. Some games also have 10-bit color depth instead of 8-bit, and even HDR support.

Starting next year, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will begin installing electronic fare readers at hundreds of subway stations and bus stops across New York City, kicking off a laborious, multi-year effort to replace the iconic MetroCard with a more modern, high-tech way to use mass transit.

Influential games forum NeoGAF is in disarray after a woman accused owner Tyler Malka of sexual misconduct in 2015. In a Facebook post that’s preserved here, the woman — identified by Kotaku as a film director who has worked with Malka — said that he followed her naked into a shower against her wishes while the two were in New Orleans on a road trip. While she initially didn’t name Malka, she followed up with a comment reading “Google Evilore,” which is his NeoGAF handle. Kotaku reports that since then... Читать дальше...

When Super Turrican launched on the SNES in 1993, it was hailed for its intense side-scrolling action. But the game that launched wasn’t the complete version — in order to make the experience fit on a SNES cartridge, the developers at Factor 5 had to trim the game. But 24 years later the full vision of the game is finally being released with Super Turrican: Director’s Cut.

Lending startup Affirm, founded by PayPal and Yelp co-founder Max Levchin, is out to destroy the credit card, or at the very least make a noticeable dent in its utter ubiquity. The company, which began in 2012 by offering simple and transparent loans for web purchases, is today launching a mobile app to the public that acts as a virtual credit card, so it can be used as a line of credit with no strings attached for pretty much any online purchase. The app is available now for iOS and Android.

The nine-episode second season of Netflix’s Stranger Things will begin streaming on October 27th. It’s been more than a year since the kids from Hawkins first faced the otherworldly monsters from The Upside Down. The show was a huge success, and this new season faces enormous expectations from fans.

The USS Discovery will continue to explore the galaxy. CBS announced this morning that it has renewed the latest iteration of the Star Trek franchise for a second season.

HTC is rumored to announce the U11 Plus, an updated successor to the U11 at an event in November, but an early leak from TENAA (China's version of the FCC) has given us an early look at the new smartphone, as spotted by Droid Life.

A new digital tool tracking how autonomous vehicles are being deployed and tested across the world went online today, and it’s an interesting — and honest — snapshot of where we are right now with this new technology. The Global Atlas of Autonomous Vehicles in Cities, a joint effort between Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute, shows which city governments are testing AVs, and more importantly, it shows how few cities are preparing for the onslaught of self-driving cars that is expected in the next decade. Читать дальше...

Customs and Border Protection has an employment crisis. After a massive growth in ranks through the 2000s, the agency has been steadily losing Border Patrol staff since 2011, even as President Trump demands more. The problems are manifold, including low pay for jobs in remote areas. To widen the applicant pool, some lawmakers are now trying to do away with a prominent hurdle: polygraph exams. But documents show the polygraph interview has been catching an array of disturbing crimes at Customs... Читать дальше...

It feels like no-one cares about the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Last week it was reported that Apple’s latest iPhones are actually being outsold by their predecessors, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. I can’t vouch for the veracity of that analysis, but it wouldn’t really surprise me if it were true. People that buy iPhones in September are early adopters. Early adopters are likely to wait for the iPhone X. The iPhone 8 isn’t a transformative upgrade over the 7, and the 7 now costs $100 less than it did before. Читать дальше...

These $1,500 headphones from France feel and sound divine

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Microsoft revealed at E3 earlier this year that the Xbox One will be backwards compatible with some original Xbox games. It appears the feature is ready to launch, as original Xbox games are now appearing in Microsoft’s “games on demand” section of the Xbox marketplace. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neowave: The King of Fighters, Prince of Persia, Red Faction 2, BloodRayne 2, and Dead to Rights are all available in the store, priced from $9.99 or more.