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Arizona Senator John McCain gave Apple CEO Tim Cook a customer satisfaction review at Tuesday's senate hearing on corporate tax reform. "What I really want to ask is why the hell I have to keep updating the apps on my iPhone all the time?" McCain said to Cook, who then responded, "Sir we're trying to make them better all the time." SEE ALSO: Tim Cook: Apple Doesn't Use 'Tax Gimmicks' Image via Allison Shelley/Getty Images Read more...More about Apple, John Mccain, Tim Cook, Apps Software, and Mobile

Darius Rucker, formerly of Hootie And The Blowfish, has found a hit in his version of the old Dylan song “Wagon Wheel”. But some aren’t impressed with his rendition, apparently, and one naysayer took to Twitter to call him out on his move to country in a pretty despicable way. User PQKullman wrote, “Leave country to the white folk,” to which Rucker replied, “WOW… is this 2013 or 1913? Ill take my grand ole Opry membership and leave your racism. Wow.” It’s unfortunate that Rucker had to be on the receiving end of such a negative country fan, but he appears to be taking it all in stride. He later tweeted: Gotta go to bed this has been hilarious tonight. If any hater thinks I care what u think. I don’t make music for u. So don’t listen. — Darius Rucker (@dariusrucker) May 20, 2013 When one of Rucker’s followers commented, “Bet he wouldn’t say that to Nelly’s face,” Rucker shot back, “?Wouldn’t say it to mine, either.” And he makes a good point; social media sites, while good places to connect with people, are also havens for those who know they can hide behind a screen name. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though cyber-bullies will be going away anytime soon.

Last year, I wrote about the history of online communication and how it has evolved all the way from online bulletin board systems to social media. But what does the future have in store for us in terms of communicating online? The latest iteration of online communication may indeed be social media, but it seems that the most popular avenue is still the old-fashioned internet forum. It remains today as an excellent way to structure a community on the web. While social media can be somewhat amorphous at times, forums provide order and a sense of home. I believe that forums will never die out, but forums will evolve and adapt to advancements in web technology. Please join me as I take a look at a few forum software systems that are so innovative that they’ll transform the concept of the forum forever. Moot Moot (Beta) is a very interesting project in my eyes because there’s a bit of tension in its design philosophy: it wants to take a step back into the past and recover the lost relevance of meaningful discussion (which they claim have died with social media) while incorporating features of the future (clean and responsive interface). But more importantly, Moot is entirely embeddable, meaning you don’t need to download a package and upload it to your own web host. Instead, all of the data and control is done through your Moot account and your forum theme; forum content are embedded directly into your site wherever you want it to go. It has been designed from the ground up for complete and easy integration. Other notable features that Moot is pushing: Both forums and comments. Moot is a full-fledged forum embed system AND a comment embed system. Unlike other forum systems where comments are just normal forum threads with their post data molded and displayed differently, Moot lets you embed unique comment threads onto pages using one line of HTML. Each comment thread is unique, dynamic, and separate from your forums. No content deletion. Moot is taking a hard stance: deleting posts and comments disrupts the natural progression of a discussion, resulting in an incomplete thread that’s harder to follow. Therefore, once content is older than 2.7 minutes, it cannot be deleted. Also, if a post or comment has received any replies or likes, it can’t be deleted. Complete control. Even though Moot is a third-party service that you have to embed onto your site, you will have full control over it. You can alter the design using CSS. You can also alter the behavior and extend Moot functionality using an API that will be released in the near future. Discourse The mentality spurring the Discourse team is the desire to “raise the standard of discussion on the web through better forum software.” Core to their actions is the belief that forums are an integral aspect of proper web communities, yet most forum designs are stuck in the 1990s. With Discourse, they want to make forum hosting easy, flexible, and appealing to the 21st Century. The Discourse interface takes a lot of inspiration from social media: just-in-time loading of content, flat and sleek aesthetics that are indicative of social media design, @replying to users, logging in with social media accounts, real-time stream updates, and more. But unlike Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and the others, Discourse remains faithful to big blocks of text for deeper, more meaningful conversation. Other notable features that Discourse is pushing: Notifications. One big problem with legacy forum systems is the lack of convenient notifications. Up until a few years ago, the best we ever got was clunky email notifications, then we had RSS subscriptions, but both of those had their limits. Discourse will regularly notify you on the site when someone mentions you, replies to you, quotes you, or anything else that involves you. Forked conversations. Instead of having a linear thread where users reply to multiple users in a single post (often using ugly blocks of quotes to establish context), Disco

17 New Best Responsive Frameworks

There have been a lot of incredible videos to come out of Monday’s massive tornado that hit the Moore, Oklahoma area. This fits the bill, but it comes with a twist. This guy filmed the tornado as it passed above his shelter. Crazy, right? I can’t even fault him for his vertical video – I mean, he’s filming a massive tornado. Only in the YouTube age, folks. [Charles Gafford via reddit]

Google gave a presentation about Google+ and Search at Google I/O last week. With Google’s “social layer” becoming a bigger part of search and the larger Google ecosystem, this is probably one marketers will want to check out. “In this session we’ll walk you through a series of techniques you can use to make your app and content shine on Google,” Google says in session description. “Using these techniques you can connect more directly with new and existing users on Google Search.”

Need writing inspiration? Here are 31 ideas for types of posts you can write

Apple's senate testimony on tax avoidance shows that tech companies are being held to a higher standard. They have only themselves to blame.

Fast and Furious 6: The Game is an iOS and Android game from Kabam. It is available now for free in the App Store, and coming soon to Google Play. It carries additional in-app purchases. Fast and Furious 6: The Game is based around the newest installment of the Fast and Furious film series. In the game, players travel around the city, meeting characters from the movie, and drag and drift their way through the ranks with the goal of becoming the city’s top racer. It’s a setting that looks to appeal to fans of the movie series, but the references are light enough to not push away players who aren’t familiar with source material. The game starts off by dropping players behind the wheel and walks them through the process of a drag race. Since the race is a straight shot from point A to B, there’s no steering wheel, gas pedal, or break system. Instead, each race starts with a countdown at the end of which, the player hits a “launch” button. During a drag race, the only controls are a lever to shift gears and a nitrous oxide boost. There are also drift races, which work identical to drag races, but about halfway through a race, the gear shift lever is replaced with a drift button, and players must hold it as they float along curves. Both race types are simple enough for most players to grasp, but the timing required to compete with high-level opponents may be a bit much for some players. Winning races and completing challenges earns credits. These credits act as one of the in-game currencies and they can be used to purchase nearly everything in the game. Players are given enough credits for a car at the start, and from there they can purchase more as they progress. There are currently about twenty cars available, and only three are available from the beginning. As players win races and advance to different areas of the city, more expensive cars become available. Fast and Furious 6: The Game isn’t going to draw in car aficionados with its relatively small array of vehicles, but fans of the movies may enjoy the style and speed of the lineup. Players can also use their in-game credits to purchase upgrades to their available cars. These upgrades improve how the car performs, but any purchase made with credits may take a few minutes to arrive. Players who don’t want to wait can receive their purchase automatically by using gold, the other form of in-game currency, and how Fast and Furious 6: The Game monetizes. Gold can purchase everything credits can, but can also buy design changes and save time. There are various instances where players need to wait due to an energy mechanic  which limits how long a user game session time. Whether they’ve purchased an upgrade or ran out of fuel, players can continue with the action by spending gold. A little bit of gold can be earned by playing the game but more can be purchased in the shop. Gold pricing ranges from $2.99 to $99.99, although any bundle cheaper than $19.99 won’t likely be enough for serious players. Fast and Furious 6: The Game is a fun experience. There aren’t many notable drag racing games on the market, so it still feels somewhat rare. Because it’s a licensed title, a lot of players are likely to pass on it before they try, but those who give it a shot are likely to find themselves entertained. It lacks a bit of staying power, partially because it uses a movie license, and partially due to a lack of multiplayer interaction. However, there’s still a fun experience that’s likely to draw in both racing fans and Fast and Furious fans. You can follow Fast and Furious 6: The Game’s progress on AppData, our tracking tool for mobile and social apps and developers.

On May 8, Jodi Arias was found guilty of murdering her former boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in 2008. Alexander was found in his shower with his throat slit, his head shot, nearly 30 stab wounds. Now, a jury is deciding whether Arias will receive the death penalty or life in prison. After being delayed for a bomb threat, the sentencing phase of Arias’ trial began last week. The jury has already heard emotional testimony from Alexander’s family, who stated that the murder had affected their health and brought on nightmares. Today, jurors heard from Arias herself. According to an Associated Press report, Arias testified on her own behalf Tuesday morning. Though just after she was found guilty Arias had stated she would prefer the death penalty, she pleaded with the jury today to spare her life and sentence her to life in prison. “My nieces are the closest I’ll ever come to motherhood, because I’m not going to have children of my own,” said Arias. “I’m not going to become a mother. Because of my own terrible choices, I’ve had to lay that dream to rest.”