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A mod for Portal 2 on PC adds "time travel" options so that players may, in effect, use past versions of themselves to complete puzzles in the game.

"Thinking With Time Machine" is the name of the mod; like the original games, players can use it to get a third-person glimpse of Chell elsewhere on the map. The difference is, she's a past version of the player, loaded into the current instance through a tablet-style interactive controller.

It lets players stop and start "recording" her actions and then "play" themselves back, meaning Chell can go stand on a switch or even hand off a companion cube. See it in action in the video above.

Reaction to Sterling

It's about to get a bit more difficult to buy comic books from a mobile device. Comixology is replacing its iOS app today with a new version that removes the ability to purchase comics. The new app is solely a comic book reader, which means that you'll have to visit the company's website to purchase new comics. You can browse comics in the new app and download free comics directly, but paid comics can only be added to your wish list for later purchase online. As with the old app, previously purchased comics can be downloaded and synced directly from the app.

The change certainly isn't an improvement for iOS users, but it's clear why the change has been made: Apple's App Store policies demand that it receive a 30 percent cut of all in-app purchases and subscriptions. By forcing its users to make purchases on the Comixology website, the company doesn't have to give Apple a cut. Amazon — which just purchased Comixology earlier this month — has long played a similar game with its Kindle app for iOS, which is also missing a way to purchase new content.

The Android app has also been updated today, though the changes aren't quite as drastic. In-app purchases are now made through Comixology rather than Google Play, similarly allowing the company to avoid paying Google a cut of its sales. To make the transition to the updated apps a bit less painful for its current users, the company's giving out $5 gift cards when you update.

Cyrus Farivar

MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA—On Saturday, in the presence of area dignitaries, the local police department opened up a new substation in the neighborhood of Belle Haven, just a short block down the street from Facebook’s massive corporate headquarters. This is no ordinary police station. Its renovation, rent, and one officer’s salary have been substantially paid for by Facebook, to the tune of $600,000 over the next two years.

This wealthy Silicon Valley city of 32,000 people boasts a median household income of over $113,000. Kepler’s, a well-known independent bookstore, is one of the retail anchors of its downtown corridor. So far this year, the median home sales price in Menlo Park has been $1.5 million.

A major corporation funding a police department—particularly in a well-to-do city like Menlo Park—seems extremely rare in the United States, if unprecedented.

NewsBlur has a free and open API that all of the native mobile apps and website are built on. But the API is not just for official apps. Numerous third-party developers have built apps on the API and today I’m proud to announce a new native iOS app has launched with NewsBlur support.

Unread, by Jared Sinclair, is a unique RSS reader, with a focus on simplicity and cleanliness. Sinclair built Unread because he wanted to see a different kind of reading experience, one where he could focus more on reading well written stories than consuming lots of content. Unread app has a different feel than any other news reader I’ve seen and I think many of the choices made by Sinclair work in a quiet harmony.

In Sinclair’s own words:

Most RSS apps are patterned after email. Noisy parades of dots, dates, and tags trample over their screens. Their source lists look like overflowing inboxes instead of stately tables of contents. Toolbars bristling with options obscure the text. Putting it bluntly, using these apps feels like work.

NewsBlur’s native iOS app certainly does fit this description. And if you want an incredibly well-made alternative, look no further than Unread, available on the App Store.