F5 Live: Refreshing Technology (Audio)

This week, Microsoft is without its Gates, Pokemon is without its GO, and TVs are without 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.

In an announcement on Friday, Microsoft revealed one of the biggest changes in the history of the company. Bill Gates, the co-founder of the company, is leaving the board of directors. His place on the board, which he held for exactly 44 years to the day, was his last remaining official position with the company, after having stepped down as CEO in 2000, and chairman of the board in 2014.

As the COVID-19 coronavirus continues its global spread, the general wisdom is for limited public gatherings. This has come as a particular challenge for games like Pokemon GO, which are based around the idea of physical interaction. As more people are sequestering themselves at home rather than going out, Niantic has taken steps to temporarily alter the game in order for those who are staying inside to continue to play.

As the COVID-19 coronavirus continues its global spread, normal activities are being canceled. Of those activities, work and school are having the single largest impact on people's daily lives. Whether you are working from home or experiencing online education, your internet connection is going to be an important part of your day. Thankfully, as many private companies have done, internet service providers and wireless carriers are making adjustments to their policies to make life easier for their customers.

When it comes to streaming sticks and set-top boxes, it is a close battle between Google and Amazon. Chromecast and Fire TV devices share a large majority of the device market. However, when it comes to televisions themselves, the Fire TV market is incredibly small. It's certainly not because Amazon is uninterested in the market, as they do produce a TV operating system. It's also definitely not because customers don't want Fire TV built into their televisions, or they wouldn't continue buying over the top devices.

This week, some Philips Hue Bridges are going dark, online stores are banning products, and 5G is limiting television.

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.

Connected and smart home technology is one of the fastest-growing markets in consumer electronics. From connected LED bulbs and locks to thermostats and smoke detectors, the home is getting smarter. One of the biggest issues that smarthome owners face is the compatibility, or more often, the lack thereof, between products. But, if you stay within an ecosystem, there is another problem that pops up: quickly changing technology.

eSports is growing quickly in popularity, sometimes faster than the industry seems to be able to keep up. The industry has special circumstances that set it apart from more traditional sports. The primary issue is that eSports often requires access to external resources, such as matchmaking servers. Because of this, companies have to put rules into place to deal with the possibility of server failures to prevent gamers from using "connectivity issues" as an excuse to delay gameplay. Unfortunately, those rules can be bizarre and can anger professionals.

As the panic over COVID-19, commonly being referred to as the coronavirus, people have been looking for ways to exploit that fear and panic. Fortunately, online platforms of all stripes are actively dealing with the problem. Whether it is online stores, app stores, or even social networks, companies are working to prevent you from getting harmed.

In many markets, there is only a single internet service provider and, even if you have a choice, it's traditionally only a pair. Even then, many people lose options based on where they live. If you're in an apartment or a condo, it's not unusual for the complex to have an exclusivity deal with one service provider. It's also the case with malls, shopping centers, and business parks. One of the big promises of 5G technology has been its speed. A big benefit of the speed is the ability to break up the local monopolies that are the internet service providers.

This week, Clearview's customer list is exposed, DropMix's gaming style is upgraded, and Firefox's browsing is more protected.

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 company accidentally came out of stealth mode, Clearview AI has had continuing trouble. While law enforcement loves the ability to identify people with their phones, public perception and the reception by privacy advocates have been incredibly negative. To add insult to injury, the company has refused to discuss or disclose exactly who they have been working with.

Harmonix has long been a top name in music and rhythm games. With console titles like Rock Band, and tabletop titles like DropMix, they have continued to innovate in the space. This innovation has come during a time when most thought that the rhythm genre had returned to a small, niche market. But, with DropMix, the company proved that there was still a wider interest in music titles. But, with custom hardware needed and perishable components, the reach of the game was still limited. With the newest title Fuser, they may have found a happy medium.

The past few years have seen the transition of much of the internet from transferring data over HTTP to HTTPS. While the distinction seems small, the end behavior has been huge. ISP and internet relays can no longer see the data being transferred between you and the websites you visit, so long as they are using HTTPS. While the data itself is encrypted, the requests are not. That means that these same organizations have the ability to see the sites and pages you visit, if not the data, because the DNS lookups themselves are not encrypted. That is until now.

In 2017, PragerU filed suit against Google and YouTube over the company's content policies. The educational organization made the same claims that many content creators have made over the past few years - that YouTube's policies are inconsistent and applied more often against publishers that disagree with the company's political stance. While a private organization generally has the ability to determine what happens attached to its name, PragerU argued that YouTube's position in the industry made it more like a public space. Because of that position, the company's content policies are tantamount to censorship.

This week, Apple's changing its defaults, GeForce Now's losing its content, and Google's following kids again.

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.

For anyone who has used a computing device other than iPhone or iPad at any time in the past few decades, there is one commonality - the ability to determine default apps for common tasks. The behavior is such an important piece of computing that, when Microsoft began to build their web browser, Internet Explorer, into Windows 98SE and beyond, Europe was afraid they were going to eliminate the ability to change the default browser option. That wasn't the plan, but it didn't stop worry, anger, and an anti-trust case.

It was just two weeks ago that Nvidia finally took its long-awaited GeForce Now cloud gaming platform out of beta and certified it as ready for the market. When the platform launched, it was populated by games from nearly every major game publisher. In some cases, the platform had direct connections to developer platforms, such as Activision Blizzard's Battle.net and Ubisoft's Uplay.

If there is any company in the United States that understands the fallout from not completely complying with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), it's Google. In the past few months, the company was on the receiving end of a Federal Trade Commission fine, which ultimately changed the entire community policy for YouTube. However, this seems to have had little to no effect on the wider Google, as they are once again in trouble.

We have long predicted that consumer burnout would ultimately lead to consolidation among video streaming services. To subscribe to all of the services that are available would cost far above the already outrageous cost of cable television. This leads to consumers having to choose which content they are willing to skip, which is not what any of the streaming services want. No one wants to be the service that is the one being skipped, so inevitably, the smaller services would be integrated into the larger ones. This week, reports have surfaced that two of the smaller video services are under contract to join two of the larger media companies.

This week, Ring's sharing more information, ICANN's raising your website registration, and YouTube TV is canceling some subscriptions.

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 Amazon's purchase of connected home device company Ring, it has seemed that the brand cannot keep itself out of trouble. First was a series of data breaches, which included people having unwanted conversations with strangers who were connected to their indoor cameras. Then came a revelation that Ring gives access to video captured by cameras to law enforcement without a warrant, and without notifying the owner. The data is so readily available that Ring themselves might not even know when law enforcement is viewing your camera video.

In the last console generation, pricing had a huge impact on initial console sales. During their respective E3 press conferences that year, Microsoft and Sony announced their console launch prices, with the Xbox One premiering at $499 bundled with a Kinect, and the PlayStation 4 premiering at $399 with the PlayStation Eye and Move offered as an optional $100 add-on. But, Sony actually made a change to its business plans following response to Microsoft's announcement, which came first. Originally, the PlayStation 4 was going to be bundled with the Eye and Move for $499. That decision changed the entire generation.

If you are a .com domain owner, expect the price of your annual domain renewal to almost double over the next decade. This is thanks to the poor structure of the domain name registration process. To understand how domain names work, especially for .com, you'll need to know about a small collection of organizations that are involved. First is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit which is responsible for deciding which top-level domains exist, and who will administer each. Then we have the company Verisign, which is best known for security certificates but also administers all .com domain names. In addition, there is the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is part of the US Department of Commerce, which oversees the rules that govern .com.

Over the past few years, we've seen a growing discontentment with the policies of the unified application stores for mobile devices. Fortnite publisher Epic Games famously skipped Google Play for their game on Android. Netflix has led a similar campaign but aimed at subscriptions instead of app distribution. Because Apple requires any app offering a subscription to process through the App Store, Netflix does not allow users to subscribe from within the app. YouTube TV seems to be following their lead.

This week, AMD's coming to a PC near you, Clearview AI is spying on your face, and ViacomCBS wants to compete with itself.

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.

Over the past year or so, Intel seems to have forgotten that they are in the processor business, letting their biggest competitor, AMD, gain ground. While Intel has not released any processors on upgraded architecture or smaller silicon footprints, AMD has continued to innovate, recently releasing 7nm chips. This constant forward movement from AMD has had a positive impact on the company, bringing their desktop market share to 18.3 percent and mobile share to 162 percent for the fourth quarter.

Here's the pitch: A service that allows you to stream videogames to be able to be played on any device you own. This is what everyone had hoped for when Google launched Stadia, though it was not to be. Like other services that came before, the service was very limited. The biggest limitation is that you have to get the game from Google Stadia, whether you already own it or not. It also meant that if Google didn't support the game, you couldn't play it. However, GeForce Now has taken a different approach.

There's a small, secret startup that you might have heard of recently - Clearview AI. The company has produced what is possibly the most polarizing facial recognition product ever produced. The people it is made for, law enforcement, are in love, but the tech industry wants to hinder its growth and future potential.

If you read our site often, this will sound familiar to you. A major media company is working to bring a video streaming service to the market that will put a focus on their content. In the past year or so, we've been inundated with new streaming services like Disney+ and CBS All Access. There have also been entries from premium services like Showtime and HBO. We also know of future services like Peacock from NBC. That is in addition to existing services from the likes of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Comedy Central, FX, CNBC, MTV, and more.

This week, Apple's playing fast and loose with privacy, Fortnite is invading schools, and Google's hiding the favorites.

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.

For the past few years, Apple has constantly talked about their focus on privacy and security. However, their behavior has inconsistently lined up with that claim. Sure, they very publicly denied the FBI's request to decrypt an iPhone that could have contained information about the San Bernadino shooting. The company claimed that once a process for decrypting a device existed, it was a bottle that couldn't be recorked. They also pointed out that the device was encrypted because they made a mistake.

There is no doubt that eSports is quickly growing into an American classic. Platforms like Twitch and Mixer have made it easy for regular home players to watch the pros and learn how to play at a higher level. They have also made it easier for new players to be discovered. In the US, though, the most common recruiting tool for professional sports is through high school competition. Because of that, the announcement that Fortnite is officially recognized as a high school sport could bring that recruiting process to a popular eSports title. Competition will begin in Spring 2020, with infrastructure already in place.

Last year, Google made what seemed like a fairly simple change to its mobile search results: it added the favicon of the domain to some results. The favicon is the icon that you see on the left of a browser tab, and usually shows the site's branding (like the green icon you see on our website). It appeared that Google was trying to make a small visual change that could help better identify the website on the other side of the result.

When we talk about the streaming wars, we are usually talking about Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and the rest. However, the battle has been heating up over on the gaming side of things, with Twitch losing some ground to Mixer, Facebook, and YouTube. This week, an announcement from Activision brings that divide a little closer because of a new partnership with Google.

This week, we discuss our predictions for CES 2020, changes to the TPN live show, and memories of past CES broadcasts.

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.

Daniele is a student at Florida Polytechnic University who is studying Computer Science with a concentration in Cyber Security. In High School, she was introduced to the science and technology world through the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), a robotics foundation where students of varying ages can compete through tasks that their robots perform. With help from mentors she met through FIRST, she became interested in programming and developing. Today, Daniele is a special events host for F5 Live: Refreshing Technology and PLuGHiTz Live Special Events and a co-host for both The New Product Launchpad and FIRST Looks.

This week, Sony's changing the controller, Cox is paying for your piracy, and Sling is charging more for TV.

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 saw a couple of revelations about the state of messaging services. An announcement from Facebook reversed a previous policy, with the company now requiring that new users have a Facebook account to use the service's Messenger app. Previously, new users could get access to the Messenger service without the need to create a Facebook profile. For many, a Facebook profile comes along with significant privacy concerns, and the ability to use the Messenger service without a full profile was appealing. However, as the company begins to integrate the various messaging platforms, they seem to be looking for tighter control. This will not affect current users who signed up using a phone number, however.

Over the past 4 generations of PlayStation, Sony has not made a tremendous number of changes to the design of the controller. In fact, there is a popular meme that plays on this common knowledge, though the meme is really about Nintendo, the inverse of Sony. However, a new filing from the company might indicate what is potentially the largest usability upgrade to the controller design ever. While the front panel on the DUALSHOCK 4 controllers might be a big visual change, they turned out to be less of an everyday feature.

In 2018, a coalition of more than 50 companies filed suit against Cox Communication for not limiting the actions of its users on the internet. These companies included some heavy hitters, such as Sony, Universal, and Warner. The issue at hand surrounds piracy on the internet and the company's lack of response to the activity on its network. The music companies argued that Cox Communications was legally responsible for selectively preventing access to certain content on its network.

When Sling appeared at CES to first introduce the idea of a cable subscription delivered as a streaming service, it was an attractive alternative to traditional hardline cable subscriptions. You got your cable and local channels, you could choose a la carte options, and all of it was far less expensive than your regular cable options. However, in the years since that fateful CES, the cable and network landscape has changed significantly. Comcast has taken a tighter hold over the NBCUniversal ecosystem, AT&T owns the Time Warner and Turner networks, as well as DIRECTV and the competing streaming service HBO Now.

This week, Google's up for a Chat, Microsoft's making a tower, and Hulu's not bingeing on ads.

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 has been a long time coming, but support for the Rich Communications Service Universal Profile protocol, better known as RCS Chat, has finally arrived in the US. Chat is a more open version of Apple's iMessage, which brings a number of the features that we've come to expect from modern messaging systems that SMS and MMS have not been able to support. The most obvious features will involve status indication of a conversation: typing indicators and delivery/read receipts. It's an interesting paradox when you consider that the smartphone revolution made these features ubiquitous, the most ubiquitous messaging system has been without this feature.

Since the initial official reveal, small details about Microsoft's Project Scarlett have been the extent the information. That is until this week, where the company finally revealed information, including the name of the new console.

The internet can be a dangerous place with hacking, identity theft, malware, and more. However, in the vast array of dangers, owning a domain name is probably at the very bottom of the list. Or, that was the case until this week, when a domain listed for sale ended in a 14-year prison sentence. In 2017, an Iowa man, Rossi Lorathio Adams II, wanted to purchase a domain name that was for sale (doitforstate.com). This is a pretty common case, especially when the domain name is in high demand or involves a coveted keyword. The price was set at $20k, a high price (but far less than Pepsi paid for theirs).

The concept of binge-watching shows has become so common that the streaming networks, like Netflix and Hulu, have changed the way that shows are made and released to lean into the concept. A season of an original show on Netflix tends to have 8-10 episodes and are released at once, with the high profile shows releasing during a time when the next few days will be the most convenient to binge.