F5 Live: Refreshing Technology (Audio)

This week, Apple Vision Pro ships less, Garry's Mod cuts Nintendo content, the FCC revives Net Neutrality, and TikTok's time is almost up.

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.

When Apple announced its ambitious Vision Pro headset, reactions were mixed, to say the least. Apple envisioned people using the product similarly to an iPhone, wearing these dystopian isolation headsets all day Potential users, on the other hand, saw them as an occasional toy. Because of that disparity, it appears that Apple had ordered too many devices for the demand, and that is being corrected.

Garry's Mod, the popular game design workshop available through Steam, has begun removing content containing anything Nintendo-related. This comes following a takedown notice from Nintendo, as confirmed by the Garry's Mod team. The Steam Workshop contains user-made content spanning 2 decades, making this a long and arduous process.

Over the past 2 decades, the topic of Net Neutrality has come up a number of times. In the early 2000s, the US had a time-limited set of rules, known publicly as Net Neutrality. When those expired, early in the existence of PLUGHITZ Live, a long-running debate was reignited: should the internet be regulated and, if so, by whom? The FTC has claimed power, but that was short-lived. The FCC has claimed power, but that has been struck down twice. Now, the FCC has tried once again to claim authority over the Internet, and the chaos that brings has already begun.

In the past two weeks, the US House of Representatives and the US Senate passed a bill with a timer for TikTok, and President Biden signed it into law. This law sets a timer of 9 months for ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to sell the social network to a Western company or face an outright ban in the US. If it feels like you're living in a time warp, it's because you sort of are. We've been here before, but this time it looks as if the result will be different.

This week, Alexa Skills are in trouble, Pokémon Violet leads to jail, Broadband Labels are here, and Star Trek: Lower Decks is going.

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.

When Amazon first launched Alexa and the accompanying speakers, the company intended for the ecosystem to be the center of a user's digital home life - a similar goal to Steve Ballmer's pivot for the Xbox brand. However, despite the company's constant push into new hardware and new concepts, Alexa is still the system you use to turn on your lights and check the weather. As such, Amazon is scaling back its goals and dropping incentives for developers.

In the world of Pokémon, one of the most popular parts of the game is collecting the full Pokedex. However, anyone who has regularly played any of the games in the series knows that it can be a challenge. There are rare creatures that are hard to find. In some games, like Pokémon GO, some creatures are location-locked, meaning you have to go to another country or continent to find them. This creates a scenario for people to obtain these creatures through illicit means, and that could land you in prison, as it might for one Japanese man.

If you're anything like I am, you've had the same internet service provider (ISP) for years. Sure, I've upgraded plans in that time - 100 Mbps was the maximum you could get when I signed up - but the provider has always been the same. This has been, in large part, because it's a massive challenge to wade through the details of ISP plans when everyone uses marketing terms rather than industry terms to describe their services. At least with the same provider, you know what the words mean. Now Broadband Labels are here to make that comparison between services easier with consistent naming and descriptions - just like the panel on the side of your favorite cereal.

Over the past few years, Star Trek has seen a renaissance of sorts. This has been the first time since the late 1990s that there have been so many active projects within the Star Trek Universe. But, there has been a fear that, like any bubble, it would eventually pop. The past year has seen the end of several projects, and confusion over one, leading to fears that the burst might happen soon. This week, during Paramount's CinemaCon presentation, it was revealed that fan-favorite Star Trek: Lower Decks will end after its upcoming 5th season.

This week, Apple and Epic are at it again, Adult Swim is killing off some games, TikTok's clock is ticking, and NYT says it didn't hack ChatGPT.

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.

Apple hates Epic Games - there is no doubt about that. The company has created policies and procedures to target the popular game studio and publisher specifically. In fact, Apple's heavy-handed approach to their platforms and to Epic Games in particular has led states, countries, and even the EU, to look into their practices and craft new laws around them. In the past few weeks, some of the original actions that spurred the whole battle between titans came back up when Apple banned Epic's developer account for a day, but quickly reversed course.

The reality of the modern gaming industry is one of constant change with ups and downs. Many of those downs come about when a game, which many people poured their hearts and souls into while designing, developing, and playing, is shut down. Everyone in that chain is affected in some way - some more than others. This week, developers and players alike were left disappointed to discover that Adult Swim Games, under the leadership of Warner Bros. Discovery, was planning to delist 16 games from marketplaces in the coming weeks.

After a few years of silence, the US government once again has its sights set on TikTok and its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance. Following a security briefing, the US House of Representatives quickly submitted and passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. This bill, if passed in the Senate and signed by the President, would start a 60-day timer for ByteDance to divest its ownership in TikTok or face an outright ban in the country.

The lawsuit between The New York Times and ChatGPT maker OpenAI has heated up in the past few weeks. After NYT cited examples of ChatGPT spitting out exact text from NYT articles. This prompted OpenAI to claim that the publication had "hacked" the system in order to get it to do things it shouldn't do. The publication has responded by claiming that it did nothing wrong, only used publicly available capabilities, and exposed ChatGPT as a system of plagiarism.

This week, Wendy's wants dynamic prices, gaming studios lay off devs, Wikipedia doesn't trust AI, and Warner Bros. doesn't want Paramount.

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, a piece from Food & Wine brought to the internet's attention Wendy's future pricing plans. The company stated that they are investing $20 million to install new digital menu boards across the company. These boards would give the company the ability to dynamically change prices throughout the day. The move was immediately compared to the much-maligned Surge pricing from Uber, but the company claims that it has been misrepresented.

Following the massive layoffs at Microsoft and Activision, the industry has not slowed down. In fact, layoffs have sped up, rampaging the entire industry. Studios and publishers around the world have followed suit, laying off employees, closing studios, and canceling games.

Generative AI has caused a lot of trouble over the past year. Articles have been published with completely false information, headlines that are distasteful at best, and images that blatantly violate intellectual property. And, all of this while likely infringing on the copyright of content producers whose content is being used to train these systems without their knowledge or approval. But one publication - CNET - seems to keep popping up as a perpetrator of these issues, and Wikipedia has taken notice.

The past few months have been filled with rumors and speculation about the potential merger of two of the major corporate streaming and media giants: Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount. The merger, if it had come to fruition, would have created a major rival for top streaming company: Netflix. But, talks appear to have ended before any action was taken.

This week, Apple is maliciously complying, Microsoft is laying off eSports, Google is clearing the cache, and UMG is silencing TikTok.

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.

Following the completion of its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has laid off 1900 employees across its gaming division. This was mostly said to be a downsizing of duplicated positions following several acquisitions. However, one of the divisions that seems to have been completely wiped out is the former Activision Blizzard eSports team, which has caused various problems for the company's brands over the years.

For years, Google Search results have offered more than just a title, description, and link to the page. In addition, there has been a link under the result for the cached page. This link allowed you to view a website even if its server wasn't working correctly. Now, however, that option has been removed from Google Search results and the cache itself will soon be deprecated entirely.

When creating content, there are a couple of ways you can handle music. You can use no music, which many users do. You can create the music yourself, which is less common. You can license the music you use, which can be costly. Or, you can use the music licensed through the platform you're using. When it comes to the last, you give up all control and leave yourself open to future copyright violations if those terms change. That is what TikTok users discovered this week after Universal Music Group (UMG) ended its relationship with the video-sharing service.

This week, Android is opening up, E3 is closing down, CMG Local wants your privacy, and Mickey Mouse wants to be yours.

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.

Coming three years after Epic Games sued both Apple and Google over antitrust issues with their App Stores, a federal jury has found that Epic was right in regards to Google. The jury found that Google had illegally tied its services together and used its market position to bully mobile app developers and publishers into using those services at inflated prices.

For many years, we have said that E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, was on its last leg. The ESA, the organization that managed the event, has had issues understanding what the event is, who it is for, and why it had been a success. The pandemic hit the event hard, showing the industry that, without E3, there was nothing lost. Since the world began spinning again, the ESA has not figured out how to run another show. Now, they have announced that E3 is dead once and for all.

We've all had the experience of talking about a strange product or service with a friend or family member, and the next thing we know, we're getting bombarded with ads for that same product or service. This experience has led many to claim that their devices are listening to them and using private conversations to create targeted marketing campaigns. While most companies claim that this is science fiction nonsense, CMG Local Solutions, a part of the Cox Media Group, claims that it is doing exactly this. But, are they?

The original version of Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 by Walt Disney. In the decades since then, the character has changed a lot, from adding color to significant modernizations. However, the copyright on the original version of the character expires in 2024, moving Mickey Mouse into the public domain. But, that doesn't mean that all of Mickey Mouse will be public domain, and it doesn't mean that we'll see the character being used to market new and unrelated brands.

This week, Apple Card's future's in question, Netflix Games is adding Grand Theft Auto, Meta's in a privacy mess, and WB's proud of courageous cancelations.

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 Apple's 2000s renaissance, the company has seemingly tried to get into every industry it can. In addition to computers, the company's initial intention, Apple had gotten into music, cars, and even financial services. Some of the endeavors, such as music, have been huge successes. The iPod and iTunes introduced a new group of consumers to a long-existing product category of portable digital music. But others, like financial services, have been a disaster for the company and its partners. The Apple Card and its issues have caused a breakup between Apple and Goldman Sachs and left the future of the service in question.

Since Netflix first launched Netflix Games, the company has relied heavily on small games and in-house IP. This has included games with the backing of the Stranger Things and Love is Blind brands. Now, Netflix is leveling up its game offerings by bringing in one of the biggest gaming franchises in history: Grand Theft Auto.

It is no secret that children use Meta properties, despite Terms of Service rules and Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rules against it. The company has long stated that it responds quickly to reports of underaged users, but new data shows that is not true. And, to add insult to injury, the company has sued the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to allow them to monetize those underaged users.

Over the past year, studios and publishers have been canceling projects that are far along in their production. One of the most high-profile cancelations, however, was Batgirl because the movie was at the end of its filming and editing phase, with only VFX left. While there were suggestions that the movie was canceled for tax reasons, like many others this year, new details suggest that the film was never going to work and needed to be shelved.

This week, Fire OS might be dropping Android, Modern Warfare 3 is losing maps, Omegle is leaving the net, and SAG-AFTRA is getting back to work.

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 first launched its line of Fire hardware, they have used an altered version of Android, based on the Android Open Source Project, as their Fire OS. This decision allowed the company to get to market quickly and power a wide variety of devices. It also allowed for a robust ecosystem of apps, though not distributed through Google Play. Now, the company wants to move away from Android and into its own home-grown platform, which is codenamed Vega.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 just launched this week and Activision is already under fire for the game's performance. In particular, the company has had to pull several of the multiplayer maps because the functionality makes them completely useless.

This week, the controversial online chat service Omegle was shut down. The service has long been a location for inappropriate behavior, including exposing kids to adult content and grooming kids. The site's owners claim that the service is just not feasible, but the real reason may be an agreement as part of a lawsuit settlement.

After months of shutdown, Hollywood is about to get back to work. Following the settlement of the Writers' Strike several weeks ago, the SAG-AFTRA strike has also been resolved. This means that productions that have been halted by both Hollywood strikes are able to resume filming this week.

This week, Apple's sales drop, Blizzard's future is revealed, Sam Bankman-Fried's fate is sealed, and YouTube's Terms of Service is enforced.

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, two things happened in the Apple universe: the company announced a refresh for its Mac lineup, and sales numbers for its current Mac lineup were released. The latter certainly indicates that Apple needs the former to increase sales for the company's computers because the latter showed a collapse in sales equaling a roughly 34% decrease year-over-year from 2022 to 2023.

This year's BlizzCon, Blizzard's annual announcement fiesta, comes at an interesting time for the company. It is the first BlizzCon since the approved merger of Activision Blizzard with Microsoft Gaming, and likely the last where Microsoft has no influence on the direction of the company. The company announced what they see as the direction of their products over the short and long term, seeing a plan for Microsoft to benefit from.

A year ago, the crypto-exchange FTX collapsed. It took with it a lot of money, value, cryptocurrency, and trust in the industry. Since then, governments around the world have been investigating and prosecuting the executive leadership of the company over various versions of fraud. This week, former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted on all 7 counts in the US and now faces over a century behind bars.

Since nearly the day Google purchased YouTube, the company has been fighting against users who have ad blockers installed. They have tried various tactics over the years, such as messages and delays. But now, Google is taking its battle against ad blockers to a new level, blocking users from watching any content on YouTube entirely.

This week, Panos Panay leaves Microsoft for Amazon, SAG-AFTRA strikes against games, Amazon is sued by the FTC, and the WGA strike is over.

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.

A couple of weeks ago, shortly before Microsoft's announcement event for the next generation of Surface devices, Panos Panay announced his departure from the company. The timing was curious, as Panay created the Surface line and has overseen its growth. But, his future was not clear - until this year. Now we know that he is headed to Amazon to oversee devices and services at the company.

Starting on July 14, 2023, SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) voted to strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The strike has been ongoing and, along with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, has brought Hollywood to a complete standstill. Now, the WGA strike has ended, but SAG-AFTRA has decided to add the videogame industry to its list of industries with which they have complaints.

For years, Amazon has been accused of anti-competitive behavior. From price fixing to product duplication, nearly every aspect of the company's business practices has been investigated and scrutinized. Now, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Attornies General from 17 states have filed suit against Amazon claiming that the company uses "anticompetitive and unfair strategies" to drive up prices for both buyers and sellers on the platform and off of it.

On May 2, 2023, the Writers Guild of America began a strike against the big Hollywood studios. The strike essentially meant that most productions were shut down because, without writers, not much could be done. Some productions already had scripts written, which meant filming could continue until SAG-AFTRA also went on strike. This week, the WGA Strike came to an end, meaning that writers can get back to work. But, with the actors still on strike, does it matter at all?