Episode 430 - Show Notes

Episode 430

Sunday Jan 31, 2016 (01:30:31)

Description

This week, Facebook might launch a video service, Circuit City comes back from the dead and EA decides to Play, but not with E3.

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.

Nicholas DiMeo

Host

With over ten years of audio engineering experience, Nick's addition to PLuGHiTz Corporation is best served when he is behind the mixing board every Sunday night to produce the audio side of F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Piltch Point and PLuGHiTz Live Night Cap. While mixing live every week, his previous radio show hosting experience gives him the ability to co-host as well, giving each show a unique flare with his slightly off-center, yet still realistic take on all things tech. An integral part of the show, you can find Nick always enveloped in coming up with new (and sometimes crazy) ideas and content for the show and you can always expect the most direct opinion on the stories that he feels need to be shared with the world. During the few hours where Nick isn't sleeping or working on ways to improve the company, he spends his free time going to hockey and football games and playing the latest titles on Xbox 360. Email him for his gamertag and add him today for a fun escape from the normal monotony and annoyance that the Xbox LIVE gaming community can sometimes be!

Avram Piltch

Segment 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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Circuit City Relaunches Online in June, in Physical Form by End of Year

Since the creation of our publication, we've not written about Circuit City. Trust me, I went back and searched, and the only time we do is in an article about Best Buy. For some of you, you may not even know what a Circuit City is. This is because the electronics big-box store went out of business in March 2009, after failing to remain competitive against Best Buy's aggressive marketing strategies. The company's physical assets were liquidated, all stores were closed and the branding, domain and all trademarks were then sold to Systemax, an IT supplier that also owns all of Tiger Direct's assets. In October, Systemax sold the Circuit City package to Shmoel, which recently changed its name to Circuit City Corp. And now the company is looking to relaunch the brand.

Piltch Point with Avram Piltch

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Extra Life

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Highlighting the Industry's Disinterest, EA Exits E3 2016

Over the past 5 years, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, has been losing steam in the industry. Activision, Nintendo and others have taken turns skipping the event and, instead, make their announcements off-site. Activision rented a church for their press conference one year, while Nintendo has opted for online-only press events and in-store hands-on demos the past few years.

News From the Tubes

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Chrome to Label Unencrypted Sites as Problematic

Most Internet traffic today is unencrypted. This is because security certificates are not free and can be expensive. They can be $70 per year, which makes them a little out of range for smaller sites. It is also not an essential part of a site that only provides information and never collects it. For example, looking at the sites I have open right now, Electronic Arts, VentureBeat, PC World and SlashGear all run in standard HTTP.

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Facebook Considering Dedicated Video Service

Over the past year or so, Facebook's commitment to video has increased hugely, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. For example, the company decided to auto-play videos in your newsfeed as you scroll past them. It does make sense that motion will attract people's eyes, but for many the move was annoying. They have also enhanced their video player to suggest related videos and, in some cases, auto play the next video in line.

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