This week, Facebook's developed a little Twitch, WhatsApp has cost another $100 million and SiriusXM might want to open Pandora's box.
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.
Google is pretty excited to talk about Play Protect, their "new" system for detecting inappropriate behavior within Android apps. Google is using the technology in two places: on the Play servers and within the Play Store itself. On server, Protect should detect issues as an app is submitted by the developer and, if it fails, will reject the app from the store. On the device, regular or manual scans will look for issues within apps loaded either through the store or side-loaded, and should remove offending applications or alert you to issues.
Since before Amazon purchased it, Twitch has been in the crosshairs of a number of companies wanting to take down their monopoly. Google attacked with YouTube Gaming, but after almost 2 years, the product has not gained the traction that YouTube was hoping for.
When Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014, a number of countries had a lot of questions. One of the hardest groups on the merger was the European Union, who is always weary of large tech mergers. Based on the answers to the questions, the EU approved the merger.
Chances are, as smartphones were making their impact in the consumer marketplace, Pandora was the product that introduced you to the idea of music streaming. Their business model in the beginning was popular with music fans: unlimited free music with only occasional commercial breaks. The music worked similar to how a radio stations work, but on a much more personal level. If you dislike a song, you aren't forced to listen to it every hour.