December 9, 2018 - Episode 515 - Show Notes

December 9, 2018 - Episode 515

Sunday Dec 9, 2018 (01:04:02)

Description

This week, China's phones are looking for a home, Valve has found a new competitor, and the internet is having a change of heart.

Participants

Scott Ertz

Host

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 Piltch

Host

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.

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Chinese smartphone companies mired in surging new global concern

Over the past few years, fears over Chinese smartphones manufacturers has grown. In the US, under the previous administration, Congress banned the import of any Huawei phones, later downgraded from an outright ban to a governmental ban. Under the current administration, bans were renewed and expanded to include ZTE, and then reduced once again. Following the US lead, Japan has reportedly banned governmental use of both manufacturers' handsets.

Piltch Point with Avram Piltch

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Extra Life

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A wild Steam challenger appeared: Epic Games Store

Just a few years ago, if you wanted to purchase a videogame on PC, you almost certainly were going to do it through Valve's Steam Store. Steam was the undisputed king of the gaming world. Today, that scenario is no longer a reality. Between the Microsoft Store, Discord Store, EA Origin, and more, Valve has never seen so much competition.

News From the Tubes

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Facebook bans all positive reference to sex in surprise change

Facebook has updated its Community Standards to address sexual content, and that changes are surprising. In fact, the general feeling that comes out of the change is that you cannot make any positive references to anything vaguely sexual, but you can make reference to most negative aspects of sexuality. For example, you can post about sexual exploitation, but cannot mention in a message that you are "looking for a good time tonight."

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Tumblr makes stunning policy change: deleting all NSFW content

Blogging platform Tumblr has always had a complicated relationship with adult content. Despite always officially supporting it, they have closed accounts for years for doing things that were not against the platform's terms of service. In particular, gay adult blogs have had a harder time with being closed for not violating policy. On the other hand, the platform has also had a problem with illegal content being posted to the site, often without any repercussions.

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