F5 Live: Refreshing Technology (Audio)

This week, the Metaverse is starting to unify, Netflix adds a Halo to its gaming plans, social media had to moderate hard, and Middle Earth is under attack.

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.

Before the topic du jour changed to generative AI, the popular topic in the tech world was the Metaverse. Just like with the AI world, when something becomes incredibly popular, every company wants to get involved because they think it's going to be the next big game changer. Unfortunately, a lot of time and effort are wasted in these pursuits, partially because everyone is trying to duplicate processes. The Metaverse Standards Forum is here to help companies prevent duplicated efforts, and to create a way for different systems to interact and cooperate with one another.

Since Netflix Games launched in 2021, the company has tried to put more focus on the offering. They have acquired the distribution rights to new games and expanded their offering. But it's been clear from the beginning that the brand wanted to have its own games, as well. This week, the company announced a move that will help them on that journey: the hiring of Joseph Staten as Creative Director.

We've talked many times about the issues with social media sites and moderation. Some platforms moderate content fiercely. Some allow nearly anything to go. And some try to find a place in the middle, where they don't focus on it, but do it when needed. And two of those platforms found themselves in the spotlight this week: Discord and Twitter.

Fan fiction can be a challenging space to work within. Technically, you could be violating the copyright of another creator, depending upon the licensing of the original work. Some rights holders don't care - in fact, they encourage fan fiction and extensions of their universe. The estate of JRR Tolkien has long allowed fan fiction in the Lord of the Rings universe, but its recent interactions with author Demetrious Polychron have led to a $250 million lawsuit.

This week, SwiftKey can search and chat, Xbox can use Ubisoft Plus, FTX found a lot of money, and HBO Max is losing the HBO.

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.

If you've never used SwiftKey, you should definitely give it a try. SwiftKey is a keyboard for iOS and Android that replaces the native keyboard. But, more importantly, it gives easy access to a number of features - some unique to the product. Microsoft, who acquired the product in 2016, disappointed many users (including myself) when they announced that October 5, 2022, would be the end of support on iOS. But, after reversing course, it has become yet another target of Microsoft's newest focus feature: Bing.

The past few years have been defined by a couple of trends, with one of the most prominent being subscriptions. It seems like every company wants to offer a subscription service, from media streaming services to regular shipments of razers, you can subscribe to anything. The gaming industry has begun to embrace the concept in earnest, with game subscription services becoming a norm. Ubisoft Plus has brought hundreds of games to PC, and now it is bringing those games to Xbox as well.

It's been nearly 6 months since the complete collapse of FTX, formerly one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. The company failed because the owner, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), had been essentially stealing money from the exchange in order to prop up his other project - Alameda. Since filing bankruptcy, the company's assets have been sold and the new owners have been looking for and sometimes finding some of the missing assets, which has created a positive environment within the company.

Since the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc., the future of HBO Max and Discovery+ seemed obvious. There was no way that the new Warner Bros. Discovery would maintain two competing platforms - they were always destined to become one. Now we know the name of the future service, its launch date, and some of the new content to expect.

This week, GM is traveling to the past, E3 is headed to the grave, the internet is becoming less safe, and Star Trek might be too available.

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 few years, a standard feature has been added to move vehicles - support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. These platforms allow you to connect your phone to the car and use a collection of apps on the vehicle's infotainment system. Both experiences are powered by the phone, meaning that the car manufacturers don't have control over the experience. Toyota fought the trend for years, and now GM seems to be going back in time, dropping support for both CarPlay and Android Auto in upcoming vehicles.

For years, we've predicted the eventual end of E3. The event was once the industry's biggest show, with live coverage from the show floor and major announcements made by every studio and console brand in the world. However, over the years mismanagement and changes in priorities have changed the value of participating in the event, for both media and exhibitors. As such, this week's announcement about the cancelation of E3 2023 was not a surprise to anyone paying attention. But, there could be more going on than just a single event cancelation.

Under the last 3 administrations, discussions about the safety of allowing Chinese-designed technology to be part of our daily lives have been fairly constant. Each administration has looked at and worked to prevent the use of different technologies within the government, but the trend has been the same - public and national security concerns. However, the latest attempt to deal with the potential harm of Chinese technology, known as the RESTRICT Act, has other issues that should stop it in its tracks.

This week, just ahead of First Contact Day, Paramount announced some of the future for the Star Trek universe. For many, the announcements came as welcomed news of new shows and renewals. For others, it felt a little like Paramount was milking the franchise in a way reminiscent of Disney and Star Wars/cite>. But, either way, there is a lot more Star Trek on the way.

This week, Chinese tech is in trouble again, GeForce Now is growing, online security is becoming important, and Reddit is defending users.

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 no secret that governments around the world have been weary of companies from China, especially technology companies. Fears over ties between Chinese companies and the Chinese Communist Party (the ruling party in the country) have led to investigations and sometimes outright bans on certain brands. Since the administration change in the US, it looked as if a new, softer approach towards China was on the horizon, but that stance has changed quickly as more companies in the US and abroad are being challenged.

When Nvidia GeForce Now first launched, the service essentially supported every game imaginable. However, the company failed to anticipate the response from the game publishers, who had contracts in place with other streaming services. And so, games began to disappear quickly, much to the disappointment of fans. Now, the brand has been working to return its catalog of games to something closer to how it launched.

One thing that we seem to be unable to avoid in the modern world is data security. Every time we turn around, another major company has been hit with a data breach, a malware attack, or even a DDoS attack. And every time, no one is held responsible, except for the consumer, who has to then do a lot of personal work to mitigate the results of the problem. Now, the US government is looking to hold the providers accountable instead of passing the responsibility on to you.

When it comes to intellectual property protection, companies can get incredibly protective. This seems to be even more so the case when it comes to media companies. It could be because their products can so easily be duplicated and shared online through services like BitTorrent, that they feel the need to go further than other industries. This week, we have a case of a film studio requesting user data from Reddit about an unrelated case involving an ISP.

This week, Apple's getting a little nervous, gamers are losing games, Bing wants to chat, and Paramount+ is getting a new name. 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.

Over the past few years, we've seen a growing resentment against Apple and Google and the way they run their mobile platform businesses. People want more control over the way they use their phones and tablets, and these companies do a lot to eliminate some of that capability. As a result, companies and governments around the world have begun to act against Apple and Google in an effort to give more freedom to consumers. This week, a Biden administration report takes the most direct action to protect consumers yet.

One of the big dangers of online gaming is that a game can be killed off on a whim, leaving gamers without any access to the games that they purchased and put time into. In the old days, you could purchase a game and play it potentially forever. In our office, we've got an Atari 2600 and dozens of games, all of which are fully functional and playable. However, today you can make a $60 purchase and within a year, the game's back-end is disabled and the game becomes worthless. As developers and publishers become bored with a game, they decide to abandon it entirely. This week, a surprisingly large number of games announced their end dates.

Last week on The Piltch Point, Avram Piltch discussed ChatGPT and the dangers of generative AI. While using AI to produce written content can be a questionable move, using AI to improve the way we understand the information on the internet is the logical place for the technology to exist. Microsoft has agreed with this sentiment, having invested several times in OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT. Now, we expect to see the fruits of those investments when Microsoft changes Bing search in the coming weeks.

Streaming media is a big business these days. Everyone has a streaming service, and some companies have more than one. As competition heats up in the space, we're beginning to see consolidation for companies that have more than one streaming platform. HBO Max and Discovery+ are about to become one service and Disney has said that Hulu and Disney+ will likely become a single offering. Now, Paramount has seemingly decided that it can no longer support more than one service and will merge them into a single offering.

This week, peripheral sales are on the decline, Xbox is back on the rise, Prenda Law is on the prowl, and Justin Roiland is on his way out.

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 the early days of the pandemic in 2020, a number of industries got hit really hard, but in a good way. Their products and services were so in demand that their inventory completely dried up and the supply chain collapsed. Companies like Logitech saw their webcams in such high demand because of lockdowns that no one could get them. In fact, Avram had to do a roundup of the best alternatives to the Logitech c920, including building your own with a Raspberry Pi. Now, the companies that saw the big sales bumps are seeing a hangover of epic proportions.

In 2022, the Xbox platform definitely suffered. The platform had a lack of exciting first-party titles as well as third-party exclusives. While the hardware started to be easier to get, including massive promotions at stores like Target, PlayStation 5 hardware can still be a challenge to get. This is likely because the excitement around the games coming to PS5 was a lot higher than for Xbox. However, this week Microsoft and Bethesda had a short developer presentation showing off five titles that show the company has refocused its energy on games.

The internet is filled with all sorts of trolls. From the people who comment on Twitter threads specifically to get you riled up to the patent trolls that buy up patents just to sue people, it seems like everyone is looking to annoy someone. However, there is one group that might have the title of King of Trolls, and that is Prenda Law. This company is infamous for its activities and, it would appear, they are back and looking to get themselves into the same trouble as before.

This week, a variety of organizations cut ties with Justin Roiland following the revelation that he was being charged with domestic abuse. The news potentially changes the direction of several projects, including the future of his most high-profile project Rick and Morty. However, studios have responded to the departure, but it is just the beginning of the story.

This week, Meta's team is shrinking, Valve's lineup could be growing, Elon Musk might be leaving, and AI art is here.

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 few years, the plan for Oculus has been confusing. Since the company was purchased by Facebook in 2014, nothing has seemed to go well for the brand. When Facebook became Meta last year, it was believed by some that the company now had a focus, but that does not appear to be so. John Carmack, the company's former CTO, has announced his resignation from Meta with some harsh words for the company.

One of the most surprising announcements of 2021 was that Valve wanted to get into the console business. Valve has explored the hardware and platform business in the past with incredibly disappointing results. The company's Steam Machines project failed. The company also launched the Steam Controller, which was loved by no one. However, the success of the Steam Deck has been so great that Valve is looking to expand its hardware offerings.

It's been a weird week for Twitter. Just days after Elon Musk appointed himself as the company's new CEO (following his purchase of the company, Twitter has made some pretty controversial decisions - and it doesn't look like things are going to calm down anytime soon. This week, Twitter announced that it would be banning all external social media links from its platform. This decision was quickly met with backlash, with many people arguing that it would make it harder for users to share content on Twitter. In a tweet posted earlier this week, Musk asked if he should step down as CEO. The results of the poll were overwhelmingly in favor of Musk stepping down. So, what's really going on at Twitter?

It seems like every day there is a new headline about AI-generated imagery. The technology is becoming more and more advanced, with some people believing that it could take over traditional art forms in the near future. However, as the technology grows, so does the controversy around it. Copyright and intellectual property violations are among the biggest concerns for professionals in the art world, who argue that AI-generated imagery isn't real art. So, what do we do? Should we be paying attention to this new form of art or should we let the professionals decide?

This week, Apple's in the crosshairs, Smash is canceling its tour, LastPass is sharing your secrets, and DC is keeping its own.

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.

Obviously, this week has been absolutely brimming with news from the new Twitter and Chief Twit Elon Musk. From employment problems to the release of the first batch of Twitter Files, it seems like Twitter is always in the news (though the Twitter Files topic seems to be missing from most tech sites as of this writing). However, the story that seems to keep on giving is Elon Musk's comments about Apple. Even though he and Tim Cook have settled their dispute, other tech companies are still coming out to agree with Musk's position.

This week has seen the Super Smash Bros. competitive eSports community fall into disarray. It was announced that the Smash World Tour 2022 championship and the entire 2023 event would be canceled effective immediately. This left players who were attending the 2022 event with expenses already paid out the money and without the ability to complete their season. However, the situation is a lot more complex than it seems from the outside.

LastPass hacked again, this time exposing customer information

DC is in the midst of a makeover. DC Studios has new leadership in James Gunn and Peter Safran, and they're planning on shaking things up for the brand. This is good news for DC fans - Gunn is known for his creativity and willingness to take risks, both of which are sorely needed in the DCU. While Gunn gets to work on his vision for the future of DC, it looks like everyone else wants a say in what that future should be.

This week, GeForce is getting hot, Blizzard is getting out of China, the internet is understandable, and Ticketmaster is falling apart.

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 next generation of GeForce RTX video cards is here, but unfortunately for users, the RTX 4090 is experiencing a serious issue: the power cables are melting. A lot of early speculation was made about the cause of the problem, but a reason appears to have been identified. And, as we have come to expect with any modern hardware issue, a class action lawsuit has been filed against the company.

The gaming industry in China is strange but potentially lucrative. However, over the past few years, the Chinese government has put into place rules that have made it difficult to release games from outside of the country, as well as to keep a game profitable. Now, Blizzard's relationship with NetEase, their in-country publishing partner, has come to an end, taking with it Blizzard games in China.

There are a lot of issues when trying to compare products, no matter which product category it is. Different companies will use differing terms for the same feature. Some industries enforce a unified naming convention to solve this problem. Other times, the government feels the need to step in to unify an industry. This week, the FCC announced a new marketing convention for internet service providers (ISPs) to make it easier for customers to cross-compare services.

Ticketmaster has had numerous issues over the years. Normally, the issues come about from system availability during high-profile ticket sales. However, none of them have brought the company to the point where they cancel all public sales of tickets for a particular event. This week, that changed when the company canceled the sales of all public tickets for the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour. This move angered consumers and the government alike.

This week, Amazon is losing its robotics, Stadia is returning purchases, FTX is running away with customer assets, and Netflix is getting ready to go live.

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 has not been a great one for employees in Big Tech. Twitter laid off half of its staff, Meta laid off 13% of its workforce (though a larger number of people than Twitter, which only had 7500 when Elon purchased the company). Now, Amazon has reportedly begun its own round of layoffs. Among these layoffs was the Robotics Team, which has been responsible for the company's robotic ambitions, according to Jamie Zhang, a former member of the team.

Google recently announced that Stadia was dead - or at least that they were finally going to stop artificially animating the corpse. As part of the announcement, the company also said that they would be refunding most user purchases, including game purchases and hardware. This week, Google has begun the process of refunding those fees - a process that will take months and cause headaches for Google and users.

This week, a major crypto crash happened, and the industry got to watch it in real-time. The US-based exchange FTX collapsed in spectacular fashion. With its collapse went billions of dollars in customer assets, an entire cryptocurrency, the security of the infrastructure, and some of the trust in the industry.

Netflix may have started out as a service to send DVDs to subscribers in the mail, but streaming those movies and TV shows is what really put the company on the map. Today, they are a household name, providing licensed content and even original series, such as the new Blockbuster series about its former rival. But, as subscriber growth wanes and competition increases, the company is always looking for ways to cut costs and increase subscription numbers. The newest idea is to wade into the murky waters of live-streamed sporting events.