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The Verge's Version History podcast examines the LeapPad, an interactive electronic 'smart book' from LeapFrog that became one of the best-selling children's toys for several years. Hosts David Pierce, Andru Marino, and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy discuss the device's appeal, its cost, and why LeapFrog struggled to produce a lasting successor as tablets like the iPad reshaped the market.
A developer has released a browser-based project that renders art history as a walkable 3D museum, pulling artist and artwork data from Wikipedia. The project, shared on Hacker News, lets users navigate gallery walls and a 'star map' view to browse works by multiple artists in one virtual space.
Apple CEO John Ternus and Executive Chairman Tim Cook each published social media posts on X marking the 15th anniversary of Steve Jobs' death. Ternus credited Jobs with instilling attention to detail that still guides Apple's work, while Cook described Jobs as someone who changed the world and his own life forever.
The Video Game History Foundation announced its digital archive now holds more than 5000 out-of-print magazines, up from the 1500-plus it launched with roughly a year and a half ago. The collection spans 1981 to 2026, totals nearly 600,000 pages, and was built with scans from community archiving groups, industry alumni, and individual contributors.
The Verge's Version History podcast dedicates an episode to the Cr-48, Google's unbranded 2010 test device that preceded the first commercial Chromebooks. Hosts David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and Marques Brownlee discuss the device's plain design and its role in introducing Google's browser-based computing concept, as part of a season examining classic school technology.
John Wilson's first feature film, titled The History of Concrete, largely sidesteps the subject in its title. Instead it follows tangents like a man who preserves tattooed skin from corpses and a New York official who explains how pools are cleaned of waste, rarely lingering on concrete itself.
A website has launched that lets users compare old maps with present-day locations by layering historical cartography over current satellite and street views. Users can scroll through different time periods to see how a specific location has changed over decades or centuries.
Scientists had previously estimated that Mars's north polar ice cap contained roughly 25% dust mixed in with water ice. New research revises that figure sharply downward, indicating the ice is much purer than earlier models suggested.
A visit to the Shimano Bicycle Museum in Japan's Kansai region finds a modern glass-and-steel building housing an extensive, bilingual collection of bicycles spanning from early hobby horses to modern machines. The museum emphasizes the broader history of cycling and bicycle technology rather than Shimano's own corporate story, with exhibits including Freddy Maertens' steel Flandria bike displayed without barriers for close viewing.
Soldiers conducting a routine search in South Korea discovered a metal object they initially suspected was a landmine, which experts later identified as an antique firearm estimated to be around 600 years old. Researchers say the find could push back the known timeline of firearm use in Korea by roughly a century, though the exact dating remains disputed among specialists.
Google's Gboard keyboard includes native features like translation, clipboard history, quick text-case switching, and a personal dictionary that replicate functions previously requiring separate downloaded apps such as Google Translate. A writer at Android Authority describes replacing four apps entirely by using these built-in Gboard tools instead, accessible through the keyboard's toolbar menu.
A 162-page White House report released in July criticized the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, citing exhibits like 'The Electric Dr. Franklin,' which speculated Benjamin Franklin may have used enslaved people in electrical experiments. The report argued the museum has shifted from historical education toward what it called 'extreme political activism.' The Franklin exhibit closed in 2025 but remains viewable online.