F5 Live: Refreshing Technology (Audio)

This week, Microsoft is looking to the future, World of Warcraft is going back to the past and podcasts are finally safe.

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.

Ever since Microsoft's surprise announcement of HoloLens, analysts have struggled to understand Microsoft's plans for the device. Microsoft diehards, however, have recognized the device as a technology demo platform. This is an approach that Intel has taken for years, and Microsoft adopted the concept far more recently.

Few games enjoy the success of World of Warcraft, and even fewer enjoy the longevity. The game was released in 2004 and, in the past 13 years, has changed quite a lot. Between upgrades and expansions, the game has gotten much bigger, expanding its footprint, level caps and more. But, for those who have played the game from the beginning, there is a longing for the simpler days of the game.

In the early days of personal computers, and especially the early days of the internet, the process for receiving a software patent was unbelievably easy. If you could string together 8 words that sounded tech-related, you could probably get a patent on the idea. Many of the ideas were so vague they could cover nearly any technology, and the owners of some of those patents have tried to take advantage of a bad system.

The past few weeks have been fascinatingly telling in the worlds of entertainment and technology. Starting with the revelation that Harvey Weinstein had been harassing, assaulting and/or raping women in Hollywood, the voice of victims has been heard. In the weeks since the original articles, other victims have felt strength to come forward about their own harassment, assault and rape instances.

This week, Microsoft is moving on from Kinect, Twitter is revealing political spending and Viacom is accepting the internet.

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.

At E3 2009, Microsoft introduced the world to Project Natal, a motion tracking controller headed to the Xbox 360. Soon after its launch, the Kinect (Project Natal's production name) became a massive success. Within 4 months, the company had sold 10 million units. Over the next 7 years, Microsoft would go on to sell 35 million units across Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC.

The public perception has changed greatly over the past 8 years over social media's involvement in elections. In 2008, the public praised social media for being responsible for Obama's presidency. This year, people have expressed outrage at social media for being responsible for Trump's presidency. So, what has changed in such a small period of time?

While Comcast (NBC Universal), Disney (ABC), FOX and Turner jointly own Hulu, and CBS has CBS All Access, exclusive home to the new Star Trek: Discovery, Viacom has had a different relationship with streaming media. They were launch partners for several of the cord-cutting services, such as Sling and PlayStation Vue, they quickly removed their content. In addition, finding their content online can be murky.

This week, Apple's preventing their own sales, Microsoft is preventing cheating and you need to protect your Wi-Fi.

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 3 generations of handsets, Apple has had a 2-model strategy: a standard and larger screen variant of the same hardware. Other than the screen size, the only other major difference between the two models is the quality of the camera. Both models have come out at the same time, with the same general availability, meaning that neither truly cannibalized sales of the other.

Since the introduction of Windows 10, and the merging of Windows and the Xbox One platform, Microsoft has been working to bring developers to the Universal Windows Platform. Software written for UWP are potentially capable of running on Windows 10, Windows 10 mobile, Windows 10 IoT Core, Xbox One and HoloLens.

Shortly after we published our show last week, researchers revealed information about a fundamental flaw in the WPA2 security protocol. This technology is almost certainly the technology that you use to protect your Wi-Fi at home and at work. The vulnerability allows an attacker to decrypt data sent from your device to your router without needing to know your WPA2 security key. Researcher Mathy Vanhoef wrote about the topic,

One thing that has always been an annoyance for many music fans is a lack of a great way to discover new artists. Some companies have tried, but either the service never launches or never gains traction. With support from a top-tier brand, however, perhaps music lovers can learn about new, talented artists.

This week, Microsoft downsizes its offerings, Ziff Davis increases its gaming footprint and Disney enhances your movie library.

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, Google tries again with hardware, Xbox tries to make streaming easier and FOX tries to appeal to a new generation of media consumers.

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, your assistants are working together, your childhood is becoming relevant again and your personal data could be for sale 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.

While there are a lot of markets in the technology sector where the big companies battle, few are as crowded or as competitive as the battle over digital assistants. Cortana, Siri, Alexa and the aptly named Google Assistant all have their places, with secondary services like Samsung's Bixby looking for a space to play. Cortana rules the computer, Alexa rules the smart speaker, Siri rules mobile and Google Assistant is gaining ground in Android.

The last 12 months have been littered with retro gaming products. Nintendo released the NES Classic Edition and announced the upcoming Super NES Classic Edition. Sega, with partner AtGames, released the Classic and Flashback Genesis hardware. Even Atari has throwback hardware available.

If 2016 went down as the year of celebrity deaths, 2017 is going to go down as the year of exposed data. This week, another company exposed customer data to the public - Instagram. The data included users' email addresses and phone numbers, and was exposed because of a flaw in the API, or application programming interface, which is how the Instagram applications receive data.

There is little doubt that Roku is a leader in the streaming platform space. They offer their own hardware, which adds smart capabilities to standard, or older, televisions. In addition, many television manufacturers build Roku technology directly into their sets. At CES 2017, we saw both TCL and Hitachi introduce Roku-powered televisions. It seems, if you want a good experience with native streaming, Roku is the way to go.

This week, HTC is shopping around, Sony is talking to Microsoft and VidAngel cannot steal from anyone.

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.

The smartphone market has changed a lot in the past decade. Where once there was a thriving marketplace of ideas and platforms, today we have but 2 with commercial viability: iOS and Android. As the shift from diversity and choice to more sterile uniformity has been accepted, it has claimed some of the pioneers of the industry. For example, BlackBerry has abandoned its purposefully secure platform in favor of the security lacking Android. But other manufacturers have made self-sacrifices in the name of Android which have ultimately cost them dearly.

One of the biggest annoyances in all of gaming is the inability to play the same game with a friend on another platform. Take, for example, the smash hit Minecraft, a game that is available almost everywhere - Windows, macOS, Linux, Windows Mobile, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch, just to name a few. Of course, with a game like this, where everything is user generated, the ability to share that content is essential. For the most part, this is possible.

Facebook has found itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to content shared on its network. Facebook wants to keep users on their platform, but content producers want a better way to generate revenue. Facebook Instant Articles was an idea that was launched to encourage users to remain on their platform, but to still get the news and information that they are looking for. The biggest problem that publishers have seen is that, while Instant Articles generate views, they do not generate revenue.

In the Unites States, copyright law is very clear - the creator owns the content and any alterations and redistributions without permission are not legal. It's nearly that black-and-white. There are exceptions, for content like parody or review, which fall under fair use. One thing you cannot do is edit someone else's content to your own liking and resell the content. That is, however, exactly the business model of VidAngel. The company bills itself as a service that allows you to filter out unwanted content from films. For example, you can remove the iconic gold bikini scene from Star Wars, to prevent children from seeing a swimsuit.

This week, Apple gives us something not to worry about, Blizzard gives us something not to remember and Facebook gives us something not to hate.

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 introduction of Touch ID, there have been some potential legal issues for owners. When the feature was first introduced, Marcia Hofmann of Wired Magazine pointed out Touch ID could override the 5th Amendment. Police are allowed to make someone perform a simple task, such as walking a straight line during a traffic incident, but they cannot compel you to share information without a warrant. Her prediction was that, eventually a court would rule that placing your finger on the device would not be protected the way that sharing your password is protected.

11 months ago, Blizzard made an unexpected announcement: the retirement of Battle.net, in favor of a focus on the Blizzard brand itself. The company's Battle.net Launcher was renamed to Blizzard Launcher, the location where the branding was definitely most visible. The company's reasoning for the transition was explained,

Over the past few months, a bizarre new trend has started on Facebook - videos that are just still images. The trend is so prevalent that just a week or so ago, my own father asked me why it was happening, and if it made any sense. I have put a lot of thought into the trend, but have been unable to figure it out myself. It's possible that it has to do with analytics for page managers, it's possible that it has to do with auto-play on mobile, or maybe even guaranteeing that different platforms don't resize the image. The most likely cause, however, is Facebook's own algorithm, which often promotes videos over images in news feeds.

It would appear that HBO's security procedures need to be reassessed. In the past few weeks, several different incidents have ended with unaired episodes of HBO shows being leaked to the public ahead of their official release. A group of hackers recently demanded money from the network to prevent the release of data that had been stolen from their servers, including scripts for Game of Thrones episodes, emails from executives and more.

This week, Microsoft gets a bum rap, Nintendo gets a new lawsuit and Netflix gets a new competitor.

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 is no secret that Consumer Reports' integrity has been in question for years. In my personal experience working in electronics retail, the publication gave high marks to some of our most returned or defective merchandise, and often gave low marks to many consumer favorites. It often appeared as if the reviews were based more on a relationship with the manufacturer than actual product successes. In fact, Consumer Affairs has the publication listed with a 1/5 star rating, for various issues, including value of reviews.

Patent law in the US is a mess, and it hasn't gotten better over the years. In fact, a few years ago, a patent reform bill made it worse, rather than better. A few months ago, the Supreme Court adjusted how suits are filed, but that was just a minor alteration. The real problem comes from the idea that, if an idea is truly unique, a company should be able to compete in the marketplace without the government's interference. As it works today, patent law is a system for government sanctioned monopoly.

Snap Inc., the company that produces Snapchat, has not been public very long, but it has had a difficult journey thus far. Their second quarterly report was released this week, and the results did not make anyone happy. The company has fallen victim to some of the same issues as other struggling social platforms, and has overcome others.

This week, Fruitfly was found in an Apple, profit has returned to Nintendo and users aren't interested in Twitter.

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 many, many years, there has been an insidious misconception about Macs that has managed to outlive its own safety. If you survey Mac users, you will find that many of them believe that Macs are impervious to malware and viruses. In the past, there was a little truth to the myth - not that it was impossible, just that no developers cared enough about the nonexistent market. Outside of schools, no one really had a Mac, so writing malicious software had no value.

Over the last few years, Nintendo has seen continual profit issues. The Nintendo 3DS produces mixed, but mostly positive results, but from day one, the Wii U was a sales disaster. In fact, over the 5 years the device was active, the company sold 13.5 million units. That works out to only about 225,000 units per month.

Over the last year or so, Twitter's troubles have gotten worse. Leading up to quarterly losses, the company shut down services and laid people off, and even went so far as to try to find a buyer. Since then, the company has doubled down on offerings like live video, and redesigned the platform to make it faster.