Everything Is A Remix Part 4

If you haven’t see this series, you really must. Start with part 1

via ericmortensen

Inside Instagram: How Slowing Its Roll Put the Little Startup in the Fast Lane

Some of the security questions on the Georgia DMV website are kinda creepy.

Tom Bissell on L. A. Noire and the inherent limits of storytelling in sandbox games - Grantland

The characters in Event Horizon, a movie from 1997 and set in 2047 use what are basically iPads. They have touch interfaces and seem to be about the same size as the real thing. It wasn’t clear however, if they run Flash.

A pretty scary movie, I recommend it. 

The content of entire Italian Wikipedia has been taken down and replaced with the above manifesto in protest of a proposed law that would force “all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image.” Click through to read the official English translation.

The OS integration is neat and all, but Siri has been in the app store for years guys. 

UPDATE: The app has apparently been pulled from the store.

How Amazon Got Fire

Unsurprisingly, buying MP3s direct from them through bandcamp is probably the best way to go. 

“It might not have been the next day [after launching Muxtape], but maybe the next day after that - I got my first call from a lawyer. And it was classic, it was the general counsel of Universal Music Group… He said, ‘I just have one question for you. Where do I send the summons?”
- Muxtape creator Justin Ouellette on this week’s Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show

Remember when the RIAA was taking down amazing music websites left and right? Muxtape is perhaps the last great site of that era. This week on the Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show, Muxtape creator Justin Ouellette tells the story of the site’s rise and fall. 

Also, what the hell, let’s talk about Mass Effect at the end too. 

-jeffrubinjeffrubin

Real great podcast interview. Some interesting stuff about how Muxtape happen and what it meant for current music streaming services. Jeff’s a great interviewer in the Jesse Thorn style.

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus

Really well done primer on the Stuxnet virus, which was discovered a year ago attempting to blow up Iran’s nuclear power plants. The virus far and way the most complex and powerful piece of malware ever discovered, and can be considered the first example of a cyber weapon of mass destruction. The authors have never been found, but evidence points to the US and Israel governments.

For more info see this epic article.

Insiders sometimes point out that almost all of Apple’s big successes over the last decade have been things that Steve Jobs took a personal interest in because it was a product he really wanted for his own use- the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, etc. Products that were less successful were things Jobs really didn’t have much personal interest in- Ping, Apple TV, MobileMe.

Now that Amazon, Microsoft and Google have decent music locker/cloud storage products available and no one likes MobileMe very much, Apple has to release something new to stay competitive in this area. Everyone is saying the that’s what “iCloud” is going to be.

The thing is Apple has never been a company that rushes into things because it’s what everyone else is doing. They take their time with everything they do and release it when they’ve perfected it. Even though iCloud looks like it’s going to debut soon at WWDC I still wouldn’t be surprised that whatever they release won’t be a full “cloud package” but a stop gap measure while they perfect everything.

Steve Jobs lack of personal interest in cloud products make me nervous but I’m betting that when they get around to it, this is what it’s going to be:

• MobileMe will be simplified to a free, or very cheap Dropbox style file synching platform
• Streamable MP3s will be able to purchased from the iTunes store as an extra cost on top of the download cost.

Play Angry Birds for free right in your Chrome browser