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Graphicly, the digital comics platform that at one time looked like it was going to be ComiXology’s biggest competitor, announced last week that it was shutting down, and members of its staff had been acquired by print-on-demand service Blurb.

You wouldn’t be alone if you believed that Graphicly shut down in 2012, when the company switched from being a digital comics platform to an ebook distributor. Now that it has officially closed its doors. the company has reportedly left quite a few comics creators in the lurch in regards to payment for works they published through Graphicly.

Over at The Beat, writer Steve Morris talked to several creators who said they’ve yet to see any money from comics they published on Graphicly, though at least one, writer Mike Garley (Dead Roots), did say he appreciated the exposure his books got through the platform. Garley also said he doubts any creators will ever see any money from Graphicly now that it has shut down.

Another creator, Marc Ellerby, co-founder of Great Beast Comics, said, “In general, there was zero contact from the company.”

In another piece, Heidi MacDonald dug up court documents from a wrongful termination suit that indicate the company’s financial woes have been going on for some time.

What MacDonald didn’t find was any evidence that Graphicly ever filed for bankruptcy, which would mean that the company’s debts to comic creators would still be on the table. Bankruptcy proceedings could potentially eliminate or reduce that debt, but for now, a creator could presumably sue for money they’re owed.

None of the creators who have spoken up seem to be inclined in that direction, however.

There’s also the question of just how Blurb will use the talents of the Graphicly staffers it acquired, including founder Micah Baldwin. There has been some speculation that Blurb may be attempting to start a digital comics platform of its own, though reports have been clear that Blurb’s acquisition was of talent only. No intellectual property–that means the Graphicly platform–was part of the deal.

Much as romanticism once gave way to realism, and modernism thereby to postmodernism, all of these previous movements have at last given way to a new era of literature: fan fiction wherein young women write graphic wish-fulfillment stories about having sex with famous men. The latest to join E.L. James and her Twilight take-off Fifty Shades Of Grey is Anna Todd, the 25-year-old author behind After—a story of one young woman’s erotic awakening at the hands of Harry Styles, “The Erotic Awakening One” of British boy band One Direction.

According to Publishers Weekly (via Zap2It), Simon & Schuster has just handed Todd a “mid-six figure deal” for the worldwide rights to her serialized novel, which she began typing out on Wattpad a year ago, to the sticky delight of those who read it more than 800 million times. Earlier this year, Todd also signed a deal with talent ...

The iPhone's lockscreen has been hallowed ground for the types of information that can be displayed, though with iOS 8, Apple seems to be loosening up. The new software, which became available as a beta for developers yesterday, will show you the icon for apps — either installed, or not — that will work nearby, reports MacRumors. In screenshots of the early software build, that includes places like Starbucks, Apple stores, Costco retail locations, and even train stations. The new icon appears on the bottom left hand corner of the lockscreen, across from where Apple's kept the shortcut to the camera app.

The feature, which was not mentioned by Apple in its two-hour keynote yesterday, joins other location-aware capabilities in iOS, like iBeacon. On newer devices with Bluetooth LE, iBeacon will pop up with special notifications when you're nearby a transmitter. Major League ballparks, some retailers, and Apple have been installing them to transmit alerts and other information without going through Wi-Fi or carrier networks. Long before that, Apple tapped location information as part of Passbook, the company's virtual wallet for loyalty and membership cards, tickets, and boarding passes.

(Small3y/Reddit)

Austin startup TrackingPoint is best known for its precision-guided firearms, expensive weaponry purportedly capable of turning anyone into a veritable marksman. In this minute-long concept video, the company shows how wearable technology can be used in conjunction with its products to further augment a person's shooting abilities. The testosterone-laced montage features a stern-faced, bearded man firing shots from unlikely angles while a narrator extols the system's benefits. Most notably, the technology the company is working on is supposed to allow "for accurate shots around corners, unsupported positions, behind the back, to the side, and around barricades."

Apple is about to change the font in its desktop operating system for the first time, dropping the familiar Lucida Grande in favor of the Helvetica Neue that debuted on the iPhone and iPad last year. Font designer Tobias Frere-Jones isn't so sure about the change, however, because Helvetica Neue fonts become difficult to read at small sizes. "I had really hoped it would be the other way around, with the iPhone taking a lesson from the desktop, and adopt Lucida Grande," Frere-Jones tells Fast Co Design. "Despite its grand reputation, Helvetica can’t do everything."

Aurich Lawson

AT&T recently named 100 municipalities in 21 metropolitan areas where it might bring its fiber-to-the-home network, without actually saying how many customers would get the GigaPower service, which offers up to 1Gbps download speeds. AT&T said the expansion "is not expected to impact AT&T’s capital investment plans for 2014," further muddying the picture.

That fiber announcement came a few weeks before AT&T announced a deal to buy satellite provider DirecTV for $48.5 billion. Yet it seems the two are intertwined: AT&T told the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday that it needs approval of the DirecTV merger in order to bring fiber to 2 million locations.

"The economics of this transaction will allow the combined company to upgrade 2 million additional locations to high speed broadband with GigaPower FTTP (fiber to the premise) and expand our high speed broadband footprint to an additional 13 million locations where AT&T will be able to offer a pay TV and high speed broadband bundle," AT&T said in an SEC filing.

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In the early morning hours of September 13, 2008, a woman notified the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) that she had been raped and that her purse, containing her mobile phone, had been stolen. Within 24 hours, the Florida capital’s police had contacted Verizon and obtained real-time ping information, which gave the police a “general area” where they might find the phone and thus, hopefully, the perpetrator of the crime. But that general area still covered plenty of ground—where exactly was the phone?

To answer that question, the cops deployed a secretive device called a stingray, which operates as a fake cell phone tower used to track targeted phones. Though law enforcement typically fights attempts to learn how stingrays work or how often they are used, a court victory by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has just unsealed Tallahassee police testimony of exactly how the 2008 cell phone hunt happened.

This newly released transcript (PDF) provides what is likely the first-ever verbatim account of how stingrays are used in actual police operations. And it shows that stingrays are so accurate, they can pinpoint the very room in which a phone is located.

Sprint is nearing an agreement to purchase T-Mobile for $40 per share, multiple outlets are reporting. The deal has been rumored for months, with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son pledging to launch a price war with larger competitors AT&T and Verizon Wireless if the deal is approved by US regulators. SoftBank completed its acquisition of Sprint for $21.6 billion last summer. Son has subsequently begun to rally Americans against the relatively dismal internet service they get for the prices they pay.

Bloomberg reports that Sprint's offer is roughly half stock and half cash, and would leave Deutsche Telekom with about 15 percent of T-Mobile. Deutsche Telekom, which currently owns a majority stake in T-Mobile US, has reportedly been in active discussions with SoftBank over who would run the combined company. T-Mobile's outspoken CEO John Legere, according to one source. Over the past two years, Legere has breathed new life into the fourth-place carrier with his "Uncarrier" movement.

Developing ...

Oculus VR's hiring spree continues, as today the company announced that it has hired former Valve business guru Jason Holtman. Holtman most recently worked at Microsoft — though his tenure was short lived — but is best known for his work at Valve, where he served as director of business development, helping turn Steam into the massive platform that it is today. It sounds like his role at Oculus will be similar, with the company stating that Holtman will spearhead "the business development and partnership side of the Oculus platform."

That will include working with Oculus' recently formed publishing arm to help bring more developers to the budding VR platform. "I'm looking forward to helping shape the transformative experiences that inspire the next generation of developers," says Holtman. His hiring is just one of many that Oculus has made in the wake of being acquired by Facebook, and he's among several former Valve employees to join the VR firm. In March, Oculus hired Michael Abrash, Valve's chief scientist, to work on the technology side of the business.

Pretty soon, you may be plugging new headphones into the iPhone's Lightning port. Apple is reportedly expanding its Made for iPhone program with new terms that allow manufacturers to make headphones that link with iOS devices via the small connector— first introduced with the iPhone 5 in 2012. 9to5Mac claims that Apple will add support for Lightning headphones in an upcoming iOS firmware update. The company has a history of doing away with dated components (i.e. the 30-pin dock connector), but eliminating the headphone jack would be a drastic step even for Cupertino. It'd be another way for Apple to achieve consumer lock-in, but aside from that, it's hard to come up with obvious or practical benefits to such a change.

The headphone jack is still around because it works

9to5Mac suggests that the new specifications could allow your iPhone to power accessories that ordinarily require a built-in battery, like noise-cancelling headphones or even small, portable speakers. But this would cut into your phone or iPad's longevity, so why bother? Barring some sort of passthrough charging technique, it's an odd path for Apple or third-party OEMs to pursue. There's also the promise of a superior audio experience; Lightning headphones would support lossless audio at up to 48 kHz, according to 9to5Mac. But if Apple wants to implement high-fidelity playback, it could easily do so by adding the necessary iPhone hardware and iOS software optimizations. It's not by any means a task that justifies killing the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. The prospect of a lossless iTunes store may excite music fans with a trained ear, however.

Can the Lightning port change the way you listen to music?

Lightning headphones would certainly be smarter than your average earbuds since they could theoretically exchange far more data with iOS devices, but here again the question is about payoff. Headphones can already control music playback and handle voice calls with physical controls. What else is left? There's also the matter of design. Apple is seemingly obsessed with making its hardware thinner, but a 3.5-millimeter port is barely taller than the Lightning connection itself. After all, as Ars Technica points out, it fits without issue inside the current, ultra-slim iPod touch. Perhaps Apple is working to make its future iPhones tougher and get rid of another port vulnerable to water, but Samsung and Sony have shown this isn't necessary with their own water-resistant phone designs. 9to5Mac seems fairly confident there will come a day when you unwrap a pair of Beats with a built-in Lightning cable. If that actually pans out, we assume Apple will be ready to answer the question of why, but right now it's difficult to imagine.