F5 Live: Refreshing Technology (Audio)

This week, the EU is reducing the bloat, Google is expanding the games, and Nikola is trying to hide their fraud.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

Bloatware is not a new topic of discussion. Computers have come with unwanted software from the manufacturer for decades, and it has always been annoying. For the most part, this software on computers has been easily uninstalled (with the exception of Norton trials). When it comes to mobile devices, however, the behavior can be very different. So much of the software that comes pre-installed on a phone or tablet is stuck there forever, whether you like it or not. That could be changing, care of the European Union.

It's been just over a year since Google began testing Google Play Pass, a subscription service for gaming on mobile devices. Apple quickly announced Apple Arcade, a near copy of the service. However, like many of the new and exciting Google services, it was region locked to a small number of countries. Since coming out of preview, the list has not grown much, until now.

In 2020, the number of ransomware attacks has grown significantly. In addition to computers and mobile phones, we've begun to see internet-connected devices come under attack, including things as innocuous as coffee makers. All governments have always warned that paying these ransoms are dangerous for multiple reasons, from a likelihood that you won't get back what's been taken to the fact that you're paying criminals and encouraging it to happen again. In the United States, the guidance is changing, and it could become a crime to aide this criminal behavior.

If you've missed the news about alternate fuel vehicle brand Nikola, it's been quite a wild ride. The company has been exposed for being a Theranos-level fraud in all aspects. The design of their flagship truck was stolen from the 2010 concept by designer Adriano Mudri, who is now the head designer for the Croatian automaker Rimac. This is following a lawsuit against Tesla, claiming the company stole the design from them. Then, a partnership was announced with GM to produce the vehicle. Within short order, it was revealed that the sizzle video that was everywhere, showing the truck in operation was also a fraud.

This week, Amazon's flying in your home, Microsoft's expanding its catalog, and Spotify's adding video to its audio.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

It's that time of year where tech companies are making their announcements for the next generation of their products - just in time for holiday shopping. While these announcements may look different this year from past events thanks to the lockdown, most of the products are what we expect - incremental updates to existing prodicts. Amazon decided to take a different approach from the likes of Apple and announced some legitimately new prodicts, or big new features to existing lines.

One of the largest and best-known game studios, Bethesda, just became a part of the Xbox Game Studios after the purchase of parent company ZeniMax Media by Microsoft for $7.5 billion. This purchase brings some heavy hitter AAA franchises under the Microsoft umbrella, including Fallout, Elder Scrolls, DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein.

This week, pre-orders for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S opened up, and things did not go well for the company. Similarly to the PlayStation 5 pre-orders, websites crashed as people tried to get their pre-orders in. A lot of traffic online, like with the PS5, came from a pre-order bot designed originally to snipe sneakers. This bot is the backbone of a subscription service that allows people, for a monthly fee, to snag pre-orders without being bound by unit count restrictions and other rules.

Apple revitalized the idea of app stores with the release of the iPhone, but Google revitalized the almost dead idea of browser extensions with Chrome. The company made the ability to add custom capabilities to the browser the next frontier in web technologies. Developers released features, both public and private, expanding upon the abilities of the browser. The most common extensions have been ad blockers, but the range is huge. You can get Amazon price comparisons, spelling corrections, and even content automation.

There's no denying that in the past few years, podcasts have grown in popularity. When we got started, there was a small number of shows and a small audience for them. But, today, everyone knows the word and the number of shows has grown to an unbelievable point. The lockdown has had an interesting effect on the market, with some listenership down and some significantly up.

This week, Android's firing the nannies, Google's enhancing their fiber, and comics are coming to DC Universe.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

One of the common complaints against Google Play is the store's willingness to allow apps with malicious intent to be listed for sale. While some apps steal data directly, such as a solitaire game accessing and uploading your contact list, others are even more covert in their theft. One class of apps, called stalkerware, has been a consistent pain in the neck of Android users. These apps have operated in the daylight, right under Google's nose, but not any longer, as Google has officially banned these apps - mostly.

New product launches are often fraught with problems, from limited supplies to system failures. In the early days of iPhone launches, it was common for people to be turned away because there was no product available for customers. It got worse when 3rd party retailers got involved in the process. This week's launch of information about, and subsequent preorders for, the PlayStation 5 harken back to those days of complete sales chaos.

Over the past few years, Google has made Google Fiber an afterthought. They paused rollouts while purchasing Webpass, suggesting a possible switch in technologies. Since then, little has been done with the brand, with even the Webpass acquisition seemingly languishing. However, that seems to be changing, as the company has announced some major enhancements to the existing service.

Last month, it was revealed that DC Universe was moving its content off of the service and onto HBO Max. The company promised that DC Universe would still exist, but the lack of original content did not bode well for the future of the service as a streaming platform. This week, DC Comics confirmed that DC Universe would no longer be a streaming service, but that it would live on in the form of a comic subscription service.

This week, time is ticking for TikTok, Apple is trying to support game streaming, and Amazon is literally under fire.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

Since the original executive order was issued, the deadline for TikTok's sale or closure has been a little confusing. The executive order set a September 15, 2020 deadline for a US company to purchase the US operations or face a complete ban within the country. Later, a second order was issued, giving a deadline in November. However, comments from President Trump this week suggest that the original deadline of this Tuesday will stand.

While Apple may still be fighting against Epic's challenge to the App Store policies, it appears that the company is trying to make nice with the other group of companies who dislike the policies: streaming game brands. Previously, streaming services like Xbox Game Streaming (Project xCloud) and Facebook Gaming were not allowed on Apple's mobile devices because the content could not be individually moderated by Apple. However, since Microsoft and Facebook called them out publicly, Apple seems to have worked to make it possible.

This week has not been a good one for Amazon. Since the beginning of the lockdown, price gouging has been a huge problem with online marketplaces. However, Amazon has worked to prevent third-party sellers from using the site to take advantage of shoppers. They have removed over a million listings and 10,000 sellers from the platform for price gouging. But, it turns out that Amazon's first-party prices are also out of control.

Based on the response to previous Disney live-action remakes, there was going to be a lot of trouble with Mulan, but what actually happened had nothing to do with the actual content. Instead, controversy arose when the ending credits rolled and the company openly thanked the Publicity Department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Committee. If you are unfamiliar with this segment of the Chinese government, you would not be alone. They are responsible for the propaganda against the Uyghur Muslims, which has been used to force over 1 million into re-education camps. Those camps are where scenes from the movie were filmed.

This week, Android is closing up the camera, Epic is closing in on Apple, and DC is showing off for its fans.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

One of the big reasons why Android has seen huge market success over the past decade has been its open nature. Being based on Linux and offering an open-source version of the operating system was only the beginning. The company has allowed third-party app stores, such as the Galaxy Store and Amazon AppStore. Other companies have even gone so far as to built alternate versions of the OS itself, most notably the Fire OS from Amazon. However, over the years, the company has pulled back some of the openness of the platform. Android 11 will close up another open aspect of the OS.

Since Epic filed suit against Apple last week over the removal of Fortnite from the App Store, the battle has heated up for beyond what we expected in a single week. As it turns out, Epic's CEO, Tim Sweeney, tried to discuss the company's goals with Apple ahead of the move. He sent an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an attempt to explain why opening the platform would be good for everyone. In his email he said,

In August 1995, Microsoft entered the web browser space with Internet Explorer. At the time, it was based on the same browser technology everyone was using - Spyglass. After the browser took off, the company put more resources than 6 team members behind it and made it an integral part of the Windows operating system. While that move brought on the famous antitrust investigations across the globe, it also led to Internet Explorer owning the web for years.

DC Comics might be in a difficult position, with a large portion of its staff being laid off, but that hasn't stopped the company from making waves at its DC FanDome virtual event. From changes to the business to first looks at new films and games, DC seems to still be excited about its own future.

This week, there's an Uber problem in California, an Epic problem for Apple and Google, and a confusing problem for Netflix and Hulu.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

In September of 2019, California passed a law requiring changes to the operations of gig economy companies, specifically Uber and Lyft. The ultimate goal of the law was to force these companies to treat their contractors as employees. The end result would be a change in the entire way these companies work and the way that their contractors work. Despite the major change in the companies' business models, Uber and Lyft made changes in an attempt to come into compliance with Assembly Bill 5.

Over the past few weeks, a storm has been brewing over the way the two mobile app stores treat their developers and their platforms. The biggest offender has been Apple, whose App Store is a closed ecosystem with a set of very strict rules that are expensive for app publishers. They have even barred Google Stadia and Xbox Game Streaming from their platform entirely. Among those rules is that if you offer anything for purchase in the app that is usable in that app, you must process your payment through Apple's system, which includes a 30% fee to use the system. Google has a similar rule, but it only applies if you distribute Google Play and use any Google Play Services.

In decades past, the browser wars were a major part of the technology world. Everyone and their mother was making a web browser, and everyone wanted to be in charge. What a lot of the developers learned was that offering a software product that was a lot of work to make for free was not a great way to generate revenue. Today, the browser wars are mostly settled, with Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla being the last major players. While Google and Microsoft use the revenue from other divisions to keep their browsers aloft, Mozilla has little else going on. This week, that business model bit them and their employees.

Some of the regional laws governing media transmission are bizarre and made even more so in the ever-changing landscape of modern media. As appointment television slowly fades into a second-tier position and internet content takes over, cities with some of these strange laws are looking to implement those laws against the internet. And that is exactly what is happening in a town in Texas.

This week, we're feeling the presidential ban hammer, upset by the Apple walled garden, and jealous of the Quibi free tier.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

Last week, President Trump told a group of reporters that he was looking to ban TikTok in the coming days. The ban is over national security issues after it was revealed the company was copying data from users without letting users know. This comes after months of companies and governments around the world banning the app in various forms. Many companies have banned the app from corporate phones. The US and others banned its use on government phones and, in some cases, banning employees and the military from using it entirely.

One of the emerging videogame industries is game streaming. While OnLive may have been ahead of its time, Sony has PlayStation Now, Google has Stadia, and Microsoft has Project xCloud, which will soon be released publicly as Game Pass Game Streaming. While Microsoft has been running a limited test of xCloud on iOS through TestFlight, it turns out it is a feature that will never be because of Apple.

In the crowded field of social media, one brand we did not expect to be talking about in 2020 is Google+. The service ran from 2012 until 2019 when Google shut it down following poor consumer reception and, acting as the final nail in the coffin, was a revealed data breach. Because of that breach, a small number of affected users came together to file a class-action suit against Google, a move that was almost inevitable. While the case has gone on for the past year, a settlement has finally been reached.

Quibi is far from the darling of the streaming video industry. In fact, the company was confusing even before its launch. The professionally-produced short-form content concept didn't make a lot of sense to most of the industry, but T-Mobile saw the potential. While there were a lot of initial signups, the company struggled to convert trials to paid memberships. It could be that people weren't interested in paying $5 per month to watch maybe one or two interesting shows (Reno 911!, anyone?).

This week, TikTok is starting to sink, Xbox Live is going free, and Patreon is paying for its policies.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

In just one week, TikTok's future has changed incredibly challenging to nearly impossible. Last week, the company was struggling to regain trust. This week, they are simply trying to survive through the weekend. This change for the company comes as the White House has taken direct aim at TikTok and parent company ByteDance. On Friday, President Trump told reporters on Air Force One that they were drafting an Executive Order to ban TikTok within the US.

As the release of the Xbox Series X creeps closer, Microsoft has been releasing more information about the console and its accompanying games. Of course, like all Microsoft hardware, one of the most important game franchises will be Halo. For the Xbox Series X, the first title will be Halo Infinite, which was shown off during the Games Showcase a few weeks ago. With people seeking more information about the games from the showcase, online stores have created game listings for this title. However, one such listing might have accidentally confirmed a rumor we have been following for a few weeks.

Another week, another piece of the Twitter hack details are revealed. Last week, the company revealed that internal employee tools were used to access the affected accounts and that, for some, DMs were also accessed. The questions remained: who did this, and how did they gain access to the tools set they used?

Last year, Patreon kicked comedian Owen Benjamin off the platform because they didn't enjoy his comedy. The company claimed that his comedy violated their terms involving "hate speech." In response to the termination of his account, Benjamin encouraged his fans to sue Patreon for violating the contract between the site and its users, which promises that content, which is paid for, will be available for those who paid.

This week, AT&T's asking for more sales, Xbox is giving more value, and TikTok really wants more trust.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, AT&T created concern with its customer base when an email was sent out informing users that their phone would not work following an upcoming network upgrade. The solution to their problem was simply to purchase a new phone. Easy, right? Obviously not. The price of a phone can be incredibly high, especially if you're purchasing more feature-rich devices. Plus, the process of changing devices can be a challenge, either because of the transition of data or because of our general comfort level with what we already know.

With the world in a state of change, some companies have found ways to address the new issues. Microsoft has found two fronts on which to focus to make life easier for those who are now finding themselves at home nearly constantly. On one side, Microsoft Teams has addressed a large percentage of business communication issues. It combines the best of Slack and Zoom into a single product in a service that is part of the Microsoft 365 subscription that most companies already have. However, the entertainment division has also addressed an aspect of lockdown life with Xbox.

As time passes, we're learning more about Twitter's major hack last week. The newest revelation is that not only did the hackers gain access to the system to be able to post their Bitcoin scam posts on high profile accounts, but they also got access to private data. 36 of the profiles that were compromised also gave up access to the users' direct messages (DMs).

While teenagers flock to the service, Western cultures are beginning to look closely at TikTok. The reason is due to some of the moves the company has made over its existence. The Federal Trade Commission fined the company over child privacy violations dating back to the days of Musical.ly. Recently, it was revealed that the platform was scraping iPhone clipboards for an unknown reason. The company claimed it was an accident, but that wasn't a good enough explanation.

This week, The FCC's got your back, Twitter's giving away access, and Peacock's got some confusing problems.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

While everyone agrees on how annoying robocalls, especially scam calls, really are, it has long seemed that there was nothing that could be done about it. However, over the last couple of years, the FCC has figured out that this scourge is within their purview and decided to try to alleviate it. The problem has been that enforcing these new rules has been difficult. The biggest fine ever levied against a medical scam ring is likely to never be collected. So, the FCC is giving more control to the carriers.

While the rest of the world seems to be melting down, 2020 is going to be a big year for the major gaming brands. Both PlayStation and Xbox will be launching new hardware in the coming months, and Microsoft is already preparing for that transition to the new generation of console. They also announced some of how Project xCloud will work once it comes out of beta and releases to the public.

Twitter's public perception has been dropping rapidly over the past few months, with many users abandoning the platform for alternatives. But, their public perception took its biggest hit this week when a collection of high profile accounts tweeted nearly identical Bitcoin scam posts. The affected accounts included Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and more. In total, 130 accounts were affected, of which 45 were fully hijacked. The hack generated at least $120k for the hackers.

This week, the much anticipated Peacock streaming service finally launched to a mostly positive reception. While some have complained about the number of ads, anyone who has used the NBC-branded streaming website or app knows it's still less than on that platform. However, the amount of on-demand content available for free is staggering: from modern favorites like 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, to classic shows like The Carol Burnett Show and Murder She Wrote, there's a lot to watch.