Story of the Year’s Page Avenue will be coming to vinyl via SRC Vinyl. Pre-orders go live tomorrow.
Story of the Year’s ‘Page Avenue’ Getting Limited Pressing
Smart TV Hack Embeds Attack Code Into Broadcast Signal—No Access Required
Dan Goodin, writing for Ars Technica:
The proof-of-concept exploit uses a low-cost transmitter to embed malicious commands into a rogue TV signal. That signal is then broadcast to nearby devices. It worked against two fully updated TV models made by Samsung. By exploiting two known security flaws in the Web browsers running in the background, the attack was able to gain highly privileged root access to the TVs. By revising the attack to target similar browser bugs found in other sets, the technique would likely work on a much wider range of TVs.
Fandango Interviews Christopher Nolan
Fandango sat down with director Christopher Nolan:
I think people who know the story of Dunkirk, in particular, may be surprised by the intensity of the experience. It’s a very suspenseful story and we really try to do justice to that. The pacing is relentless, and the story and action scenes are extraordinarily intense. I think the lean, stripped-down nature of that, and how fast it moves, and what it puts you through in this short space of time… I think it has a different rhythm that I’ve worked in before.
Twitter Ditches the Egg
Twitter is getting rid of the egg avatar. Harry McCracken, writing at Co.Design:
Starting today, however, the egg is history. Twitter is dumping the tarnished icon for a new default profile picture–a blobby silhouette of a person’s head and shoulders, intentionally designed to represent a human without being concrete about gender, race, or any other characteristic. Everyone who’s been an egg until now, whatever their rationale, will automatically switch over.
I’m super excited to have these weird Dot candy looking silhouettes call me names.
Mark Hoppus Talks With Maxim
Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 talked with Maxim:
Originally, we were going to go back in and touch up some of the songs we hadn’t finished. We originally were going to have three to five songs on the deluxe, then we got into the studio and thought we could write some more songs. We ended up writing a bunch more so there 11 total on it. They’re all songs we love, it’s really a double-album.
Sufjan Stevens Announces Live ‘Carrie & Lowell’ Album
Speaking of live albums, Sufjan Stevens will be releasing a live version of Carrie & Lowell on April 28th.
The live show was shot and produced by We Are Films, edited by Keith Bradshaw, and mixed by Casey Foubert. The video will be available on YouTube and Vimeo, and the audio will be available for purchase and/or streaming on all platforms (iTunes, Spotify, Tidal, and Bandcamp, etc.).
The Menzingers on Carson Daly
The Menzingers’ performance on Carson Daly is up on NBC’s website for your viewing pleasure.
The New Twitter @-Replies Suck
Sarah Jeong, writing for Motherboard:
Twitter has rolled out its new @-replies to me about three or four times now, ambushing me with its unspeakable badness on the iPhone app or web Twitter. Today it rolled out for everyone and it makes me want to throw all my devices at a wall.
Thank god for Tweetbot, because this is horrible.
U.S. Music Industry Sees First Double Digit Growth in Almost 20 Years
U.S. recorded music sales were up 11.4 percent in 2016. The industry brought in $7.65 billion in revenue, according to the RIAA, up from $6.87 million in 2015. Although the music business showed signs of a recovery at the half-year mark, the 2016 year-end results show more significant growth, led by streaming revenue.
Paid subscriptions are finally taking off in a real way.
The Hood Internet Release New Mixtape
The Hood Internet have released their 10th annual mixtape:
It’s now 2017 and here we are with The Mixtape Volume Ten, aaaand wait. What’s with the subtitle— Best of The Hood Internet— is this some sort of greatest hits album from, uh, a website that DJs? Really? Yes. It is exactly that. Much like the first mixtape was a best-of everything we’d made to that point, this ten-year retrospective is 50 of our best blends (blends! there’s another synonym for you) from the catalog that we’ve willed into existence over the last decade. Listen to it, enjoy it or hate it, and together let’s all mourn the ten-year anniversary of the death of mashups.
MLB.com Launch Personalized App Icons on iOS 10.3
Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:
The MLB.com At Bat and NHL iOS applications have been updated today to take advantage of one of the new, but still under-the-radar features available in the just-launched version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 10.3: personalized home screen icons. That’s right — you now can replace either of these apps’ default icon with one featuring your favorite team’s logo instead.
Clever.
Joss Whedon in Talks to Helm Batgirl Movie
Variety is reporting that Joss Whedon is in talks to write and direct a Batgirl movie:
Whedon is nearing a deal to write, direct, and produce an untitled Batgirl pic for Warner Bros. as part of its DC Extended Universe.
No other producers are currently attached. Toby Emmerich, president and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, is overseeing with Jon Berg and Geoff Johns. The new project originated in the past month.
Mark Hoppus Talks Encores and March Madness
Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 sat down with USA Today to talk about the band performing at the Final Four this year:
Even as a songwriter, and a member of Blink, we’ll play a song and I’ll think about what was going on in my life when we wrote the song, some of the earlier albums and earlier stuff was kind of like when you see pictures of yourself in junior high and you’re like ‘wow I wish hadn’t worn that.’ Looking back at some of the lyrics I wrote, they were pretty sophomoric. But even still, that’s where I was then.
Speaking of the Final Four, I’m pretty much in “anyone but UNC” mode now.
We’ve Got Some New Clouds
The world’s cloud authority has classified a dozen new types of clouds:
The existing classifications have been reviewed and all have been retained. Several new, formal cloud classifications have been introduced. These include one new species (volutus), five new supplementary features (asperitas, cauda, cavum, fluctus and murus), and one new accessory cloud (flumen). The species floccus has been formally recognized as being able to occur in association with stratocumulus. The separate section on Special Clouds has been removed, and the cloud and meteor types previously discussed within this section have been integrated into the cloud classification scheme as cataractagenitus, flammagenitus, homogenitus, silvagenitus, and homomutatus.
This is the first time this has happened in thirty years, and I learned today there’s a cloud authority.
The House Passes Resolution Letting ISPs Sell Your Data
The House has now passed the resolution that will allow ISPs to sell your browsing history without your permission:
As most had expected, the House of Representatives today voted 215 to 205 to kill privacy rules protecting US broadband subscribers. If you’re interested in a little thing called public accountability, you can find a breakdown of which Representatives voted for the measure here.
Ars Technica has a good break down on what this all means:
The rules issued by the FCC last year would have required home Internet and mobile broadband providers to get consumers’ opt-in consent before selling or sharing Web browsing history, app usage history, and other private information with advertisers and other companies. But lawmakers used their authority under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to pass a joint resolution ensuring that the rules “shall have no force or effect” and that the FCC cannot issue similar regulations in the future.
Now’s probably a good time to recommend looking into a VPN and making sure the websites you use are all using HTTPS (this one is). The two dead simple VPNs I’ve used in the past and heard good things about are Cloak and TunnelBear. I personally use Private Internet Access, but it’s a little more fiddly to set up and use.