Microsoft and Sony Finally Talking About Cross-Play - The UpStream

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.