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In the midst of last night's midterm elections coverage, ABC aired (at 9:02PM) a new Marvel special, 75 Years, From Pulp to Pop! As has been the case for weeks, Marvel has been sprinkling its TV content with sneak peeks of its upcoming film slate. Last night, we got a glimpse of Ant-Man starring Paul Rudd as the titular character (real character name Scott Lang) and Michael Douglas as his mentor Hank Pym.

The ten seconds of footage is all behind-the-scenes (hey look, film cameras!) but does provide a glimpse of Lang and Pym in a lab (presumably talking about cough medicine) and Paul Rudd gazing lovingly at the Ant-Man suit, which shrinks the wearer down for crime and crimefighting, etc. Ant-Man, with Peyton Reed (Yes Man), without...

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 Fresh from announcing record shipments in the last quarter of business, LG has revealed that it has struck a 10-year global patent agreement with Google. The company says that the arrangement covers all existing patents between the duo, as well as new ones filed over the next decade. Read More

 Spotify may be smarting from the removal of Taylor Swift’s music catalogue from its platform, and Taylor Swift may not care, since she is riding a sales blockbuster in the form of her new album 1989, but it turns out that in the bigger picture, Spotify’s streaming service continues to gain an edge over downloads, specifically via iTunes. Kobalt, a company that helps… Read More

*Beep beep* "Picard to bridge, get us out of here."

Like Dick Tracy's watch, Star Trek's communicator has long been a muse for real-world technology products. The Onyx, a new device from hardware startup OnBeep, might be the closest thing to what Captain Picard wore on his uniform in Star Trek: The Next Generation we've seen yet.

At a base level, the $99 Onyx is a personal communications device that operates within its own network. It pairs to a smartphone via Bluetooth and works whereever your smartphone has data service, whether that be on Wi-Fi or cellular networks. The roughly 2.5-inch round, hockey puck-like device clips to a bag or article of clothing, has a button in the middle for initiating communication, a volume rocker,...

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They grow up so quickly. Just this summer, Pushbullet learned how to let its users respond to SMS messages via EvolveSMS. Then a few months later, it extended this functionality to all texting apps. Now the service is ready to give its users more than the ability to reply to text messages, but the power to start conversations from their computers as well.

As long as you have the Pushbullet Android app and browser extension installed, you just need to click on the SMS tab to get started.

Latest Pushbullet Update Now Lets You Initiate Texts From Your Computer As Well As Respond was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Jarvis, Peggy and he

In January 2015, Agent Peggy Carter will return in her own TV show, Agent Carter, which will act as an eight-episode stop-gap between the two halves of the second season of Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. To whet your appetite, here are two and a half minutes of it, featuring a familiar face and a newcomer with a familiar name...

With Hayley Atwell returning as Peggy herself, Marvel’s Agent Carter will track the character as she deals with post-war America in 1946. Peacetime has not been the best time for Carter, marginalized by her colleagues and balancing administrative work with much more important, stealthy duties at the Strategic Scientific Reserve, helping to build what will eventually become S.H.I.E.L.D. We glimpsed something of her world in the short Carter adventure, also called Agent Carter, which accompanied Iron Man 3's Blu-ray.

Shea Whigham is set to play Roger Dooley, chief at the SSR and boss of agents Carter, Thompson (Chad Michael Murray) and Sousa (Enver Gjokaj). As seen in the clip above, the cast also includes James D’Arcy as the original human butler Jarvis and Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, AKA Tony’s dad and a key part of the SSR.

With no formal date announced, look out for exactly when in January Agent Carter will hit screens closer to the time.

Visa's new Paywave chip-and-PIN credit-cards have a $1M limit on foreign-currency transactions that can be verified "in-card," meaning that someone who gets close enough to your UK wallet can simply wave a phone at it and charge a megabuck to it without raising any realtime security alerts. Read the rest

Some video games become totally impossible to play when their developer shuts down their servers, so the Electronic Frontier Foundation wants everyone to have the right to tweak their games to get them running again. It's filed a petition with the Library of Congress and the US Copyright Office asking that modifying a game be considered fair use when it's done so that a game can be made playable again after a developer has "abandoned" it and stopped running servers needed to allow gameplay. That would allow gamers to continue playing games longer after their release and for archivists and researchers to work with games far in the future without worrying about running afoul of copyright laws.

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French designers Kitoko decorated a client’s 86sqft flat with an incredibly clever array of fold-out/fold-away furnishings and appliances, packing a genuinely improbable amount of stuff neatly into a tiny space. Read the rest

Even if you're not in London, you'll now have the chance to easily see some of the best performances of Shakespeare out there. Shakespeare's Globe has just launched an on-demand service offering filmed versions of over 50 productions, which are being made available to rent and buy. The Globe says that it's "the first theatre in the world to be able to offer this kind of on-demand platform," which it's calling the Globe Player. The videos are available worldwide, though some more recent productions may not be available in all areas if they're still screening in local movie theaters.

The films are available to rent from around £2.99 to £3.99 (about $4.79 to $6.39) and to buy from around £4.99 to £7.99 ($7.99 to $12.79). The productions...

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Staring at our screens and sitting all day long is killing us. Our necks crane forward, our shoulders hunch, and we put terrible stress on our lower body. Here's a quick way to get into proper posture.

In the video above for VentureBeat, CrossFit San Francisco Founder and author of Ready to Run Kelly Starrett demonstrates how to type and hold your smartphone:

Get into proper posture by extending your arms to the sides and then rotating your palms upward. This rolls your shoulders back and then you can bend your elbows to type at the keyboard or hold your phone up in front of your face.

When you're sitting, pull in your abs to about 20 percent of full strength. Sitting should be an active activity, apparently.

Since watching this video, I've been trying this every day, and it feels much better than slouching. No one wants to look like Quasimodo.

Posture perfect: How to text and work at a desk without destroying your body | VentureBeat

It's pretty unusual to see a fire sale for a brand new tablet, but that's exactly what HTC's doing with the Nexus 9 today. Yes, just one day after it launched. Starting right now, the company is selling a limited quantity of 16GB Nexus 9 tablets for $199 — half off the regular $399 price you'd pay at Google Play or Best Buy. Those will likely go pretty fast, but there's another, all-day deal running as well. Just order a Nexus 9 before midnight ET and you'll save $50 on either the 16GB or 32GB model.

Today's big sale is the kickoff to HTC's "Hot Deals" promotion, which will happen every Tuesday starting now and continuing on for the next 9 weeks. That effectively covers the entire holiday shopping season, but we don't know what HTC has...

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VLC is easily one of our favorite media players (and yours too). However, it's not just a one-trick pony. Under the surface, there's a wide range of features that you might not have known it could do.

Download YouTube Videos

We've discussed plenty of ways to download YouTube videos before. However, you have one option already installed on your computer. VLC lets you play and download YouTube videos right from its desktop interface. Here's how:

1. Find a video on YouTube—like this one—and copy the URL from the address bar.
2. In VLC, head to Media > Open Network Stream.
3. Paste the YouTube link in the box and click Play.
4. Under Tools, click Codec Information.
5. In the box that says Location, right-click the block of text and click Select All. Copy this text to your clipboard.
6. Go back to your browser and paste the link in the address bar. This will open the source file directly on YouTube's servers.
7. Right-click the video as it plays and select Save Video As.

You can also record clips from YouTube videos as they're streaming in VLC by pressing the red Record button in the player itself. This isn't as direct of a rip, but it's handy if you need to grab a particular clip out of a long video.

Record Your Desktop

Desktop recording software ranges from poor quality and free to incredibly powerful and expensive. VLC manages to strike a balance between both. In our tests, it wasn't powerful enough to, say, screen record a movie. However, for showing someone a problem you're having on a computer or providing quick instructions on how to perform a task, it's more than enough.

1. Under Media, click "Open Capture Device."
2. Click the "Capture Mode" dropdown and select "Desktop."
3. Modify the frame rate. 15 f/s will probably be good enough for desktop recording, though 30 may be required for more fast-paced movement.
4. Click the dropdown arrow next to "Play" and select "Convert."
5. In the "Profile" dropdown, choose MP4.
   1. At this step, you can click the tool icon to modify the settings of this profile. Here you can modify things like resolution or bitrate. We'll use the default settings for now, but you can come back here later if you need to tweak the final product.
6. In the Destination box, choose a location to place the finished file.
7. Click Start.

Once you click Start, VLC will stream a feed of your desktop into itself behind the scenes. Let it run while you record your workspace. When you're done, you can click the stop buton in the player controls to end recording.

Convert Video Files

VLC also has a pretty decent video converter built in. If you have a file that needs to be in a different format to upload or play somewhere, you may not need to download an entirely different application just to convert it. Here's how to convert between one file and another:

1. Under Media, click "Convert/Save."
2. Add the file you want to convert in the File Selection section.
3. Click "Convert/Save."
4. In the Settings section, choose the type of file you want to convert the file into under Profile.
5. Give the file a name and location under Destination.
6. Click Start.

The converted video file will be deposited in the target location. VLC certainly isn't a replacement for a more robust application like Handbrake. However, for simple jobs, it's probably the only video converter most people have on their machines.

Record Your Webcam

Your webcam may or may not have come with software to take pictures and record videos. However, chances are VLC has some advantages over both. Not only can you choose several different types of formats to record to, you can also tweak a number of fine grain settings if needed. This is helpful for making YouTube videos or recording video messages to send to friends or relatives. Here's how to record video from your webcam:

1. Under Media, click Open Capture Device.
2. In the "Capture mode" drop down, select DirectShow.
3. For "Video device name" choose your webcam.
4. For "Audio device name" choose your microphone.
5. Click "Advanced options."
   1. If you want to use the software that came with your device to control input settings, choose "Device properties."
   2. Otherwise, enter a value for "Video input frame rate." 30 is a good rule of thumb for smooth video, though you can use less if you're not concerned about quality.
   3. Click Okay.

At this point, you have two options. You can click Play to play live video through VLC and record segments as needed by pressing the red Record button. Alternatively, you can choose "Convert/Save" from the dropdown and select where you would like the recorded file to go. Both methods have their advantages. The former allows you to preview your video and take clips in short bursts. However, this method requires headphones, as it can create a feedback loop. It also may cause a more sluggish recording on slower computers.

Using the Convert/Save method avoids the feedback problem but it also doesn't provide you much information on what you're looking at or when you're done recording. You can stop the recording by pressing Stop in the player, but there's no indicator that you are still recording at the time.

Subscribe to Podcasts

You might not think of VLC as a podcast manager, but if you use it regularly, it's actually pretty handy. To add a podcast, you'll need the RSS feed of the show. As an example, we'll use Lifehacker alum Adam Dachis' Supercharged podcast here. The RSS link will probably look something like this:

http://feeds.5by5.tv/supercharged

Once you've found the RSS feed for the podcast you want to keep up with, follow these steps:

1. In VLC's sidebar, scroll down until you see Podcasts.
2. Hover your mouse over Podcasts and click the plus sign on the right.
3. Paste the RSS feed URL of the show you want to add.
4. Click OK.

Now, your podcast of choice will appear in the Podcasts sidebar section. Click on the name of a show and you'll see a list of available episodes. Double click on any one of them to start streaming.

Microsoft and Dropbox are teaming up today to more closely integrate Dropbox into Office. The surprise partnership will benefit Dropbox users who use Office across desktop, mobile, and the web as Microsoft’s productivity suite will soon become the standard way to edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files stored on Dropbox storage. Office for iPad will benefit the most, with an update coming in the following weeks that will allow Dropbox users to link their account directly to the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint iPad apps.

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Android: The Hype Machine is one of our favorite streaming services for great new music, and thanks to its new Android app, you can take all of those great tunes with you on the go and listen anytime.

The Android version of the Hype Machine app has been in beta for a long time now, but we've been testing it for a while and it works really well. It's not specifically data hungry, but you still get great audio quality, tons of music to choose from, and access to all of the features you'd get from the Hype Machine website. You can keep up with your friends, check out your favorite music blogs that feed into Hype Machine, browse specific genres if you're in the mood for something specific, see your playback history and songs you've favorited (and replay any of them at any time), or check out the Album Premiere area just to hear brand new music.

The best thing about the app is that it's as interactive as you want. You can just tap play on a playlist or category and let the music glow (like I do when I'm driving), or hop around scrolling through tracks, searching for artists or songs, and playing just what you want to hear. As always, the "What's New" and "Popular" sections are front and center so you can hear the best of the service without digging too deeply.

You'll want a Hype Machine account to keep track of your favorites and things (although the app will remember them even if you don't have an account), but that—unlike the app—is completely free. The app itself will set you back $4. If you're looking for a free option, try UberHype. We've mentioned it before, and it packs in many of the same features.

Hype Machine ($4) | Google Play

 A pair of Cambridge University students have taken the crowdfunding route to try to commercialize a smarter kind of pill box. They’re looking to raise £30,000 ($48,000) via Kickstarter to turn their Bluetooth connected Memo Box prototype, developed over the past two years, into a shipping product. Read More

When it comes to backing up your photo library and life's most precious memories, it's good to have multiple options. Amazon's now giving its Prime subscribers another one: the company has announced that effective immediately, Prime customers will receive unlimited cloud storage for their photo backups. Any images you've already uploaded will no longer count against your cloud storage limit. Before now, only Fire Phone owners have had the benefit of unlimited photo storage.

Amazon calls this latest membership perk Prime Photos, and describes it as a simple, secure destination for your entire photo library. Once they've been uploaded to the cloud, your shots can be viewed across iOS, Android, the web, and of course Amazon's own Fire...

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 In what must be one of the most high profile consequences of last year’s Snowden revelations, which detailed the extent of government dragnet digital surveillance programs, the new chief of U.K. spy agency GCHQ has made a public appeal to U.S. technology companies to co-operate in handing over user data to support its counter terror efforts. Read More

 Proving that the long arm of the law doesn’t soften over time, the final founder of legendary file-sharing site The Pirate Bay to evade the police has now been caught. Fredrik Neij, known also as ‘TiAmo’, was arrested by police in Thailand after attempting to enter the country from Laos, where he lives. Read More

In case you missed astronaut Chris Hadfield's extraterrestrial rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," the video is once again up on YouTube. The cover will enjoy a two year lifespan, thanks to a new agreement between him, David Bowie's publishers, and the Canadian Space Agency.

Bowie's back! Here's the story:  http://t.co/ZHIpmTabAA

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) November 3, 2014

Hadfield was quick to stress in his blog post that there was "no rancour" involved in the removal of the original video, which was shot in space and viewed more than 23 million times over the course of a year. David Bowie himself described the cover as "possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created." The astronaut explained that...

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Billy Ulmer traveled all over the country interviewing people about why they were drawn to designing, building and living in dwellings smaller than the average American greatroom. Meet Chris and Malissa Tack. Read the rest

 Spectrum has posted some amazing video of a “transparent” car created by Japanese researchers. The car uses projectors, cameras, and special mirrors to reflect what’s outside the car onto the surfaces inside. The resulting images allow you to see what’s going on all around the vehicle, even behind you and in blind spots. Created by Susumu Tachi and Masahiko Inami of… Read More

Sadly, Nokia is nearly no more. Microsoft is changing the name of its flagship Nokia Lumia phone to, simply, Microsoft Lumia. The company purchased Nokia's mobile phone division earlier this year and intends to drop the Nokia brand from its high-end Windows Phones entirely.

While the entry-level basic phones will still carry the moniker, we're a little bitter about having to say goodbye to Nokia phones as we know them. After all, for many of us, our first mobile device was a Nokia brick phone. Read on for the five things we'll miss about those wonderful, unbreakable gizmos.

1. They didn't bend like the iPhone 6

Nokias broke you, not the other way around.

2. In fact, they were so indestructible, Tom Riddle chose a Nokia as his next Horcrux

Beat Snake and destroy the Horcrux! (PS If you've never read Harry Potter, you have no idea what we're talking about. Just move on to the next slide.)

3. They had radtastic interchangeable faceplates

Changed that faceplate as often as my outfits.

4. They ran out of battery after days of use, not hours

What phone charger?

5. Last but not least, they came with SNAKE ...

... which you probably played for hours.

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When Dave Burke, head of Android engineering, addressed the Google I/O developer conference last summer, he called the new version of Android the biggest update to Google's mobile operating system ever. 

Now people get to see what the fuss is all about, as Google starts rolling out Lollipop today, at least for its own Nexus devices. 

The biggest change to come with Lollipop is what Google calls "material design," a flatter, streamlined look across desktop and mobile devices. The company recently released updated versions of its Google Play Music and Calendar apps to fit in with the Lollipop design, along with a new email application, Inbox. 

See also: What Developers Need To Know About Android L

According to the company, the new software arrives with several other apps from outside developers and companies that already support material design, including the Wall Street Journal, Tumblr and Buzzfeed. The company released the developer preview months ago to give developers time to get apps launch-ready.

"Today’s updates are just the beginning of delivering a modern design language for the next wave of devices in your life," the company wrote in a blog post.

Lollipop also boosts battery life, adds improved notifications, and a "personal locking" feature that lets your Android devices unlock another. 

Google's own reference devices—including the new Nexus 9 tablet and the upcoming Nexus 6 smartphone—will be the first to get the overhauled operating system. Others will roll out over time as the phone manufacturers and carriers allow. 

Lead image courtesy of Google