´óÏó´«Ã½

Welcome to another week with the Outriders. On the current podcast you will find, tips on brushing up your written style, how to have fun with pixels and a 1-Bit Symphony.

For starters this week, online threat statistics show that the UK has risen to third place in the rankings for virus spreading. Simon Heron explains how the decline of Russian output and people who don't clean malware from their computers could be helping the UK toward the number one spot. Maybe it's time to Keep Britain digitally tidy?

Also this week, the AP style book 2010 edition is released and contains notes on social media and the web for writers and journalists who like to keep their writing clear. So, naturally we asked one of the Bureau Chief contributors for the to tell us his thoughts on important written decisions, such as how to spell the sound that Pac Man makes. (You may be interested to know that another Fake AP Style book contributor claims that this is the )

Chip tune and pixel fans rejoice. We're celebrating the low-fi and the simple life in graphics and music. is a student in Queensland, Australia who has created a great web documentary about the current resurgence in pixel art. He has very kindly allowed us to embed his video here - it's definitely worth taking the time to watch it through. He also makes some very cool Pixel design t-shirts if you are up for celebrating the square in a sartorial manner.

The chip-tune scene in the UK is hitting critical mass it seems with mainstream producers and musicians picking out old-school game sounds to decorate their music. Matthew C Applegate is the chip-tune artist known as , he explains the international wave and let us use a clip of one of his lovely songs on the podcast.

Last but not least, even if it is probably the tiniest thing this week. Tristan Perich is a musician and artist in New York. He has created a which plays from a single microchip embedded in a CD case. This extraordinary work will be available to buy from August.

Well, that's given me a lot to think about and listen to. If you want to comment on this week's edition, you're welcome to join us in various ways.

You can log in and leave a comment here, search for Outriders on Facebook and join our pre-production conversations there, or drop in anytime on , I bet you can guess what our screen name is there.

Thanks to everyone for all of your lovely messages about the relaunch too. It's been fun to remodel and I suspect it will continue to be fun as we continue!

Until next time!
- Jamillah