Links for November 24, 2015
12 Weird, Excellent Twitter Bots Chosen by Twitter’s Best Bot-Makers
That combination of formal restriction and frictionlessness has led… to so many other creative and useful bots out there that don’t get the attention they deserve. So we spoke to some of our favorite bot-makers about their favorite Twitter bots — their own, and made by others in the #botALLY community — to surface some lesser-known projects worth following.
My 2.5 Star Trip to Amazon's Bizarre New Bookstore
Amazon Books—like the surrounding mall—feels like it’s predicated on anxiety. Its very existence may be meant as an answer to anxieties within the company about a persistent inability to overcome the question of ‘discovery’… the company remains dependent on consumers finding products they’re interested elsewhere and then buying them, presumably at a discount, from Amazon.com.
Hello Barbie Security: Part 1 - Teardown
Mattel assures users that they are “committed to safety and security” and that the doll “conforms to applicable government standards”.... As security researchers we thought it prudent to explore whether or not Mattel was able to achieve the level of privacy and security that they claim. If they did, then how? And if not, what implications are there for future devices? The first step was to disassemble the doll and identify the chips that might allow us to analyze the doll’s firmware.
Real Life Tron on an Apple IIgs
Instead of firing at another trail, it fired at the game border.... The missile impacted with the border, leaving a cycle-sized hole, and the computer promptly took the exit and left the main playing field. Puzzled, we watched as the cycle drove through the scoring display at the bottom of the screen. It easily avoided the score digits and then drove off the screen altogether. Shortly after, the system crashed.