This week, Portal 2 goes on the block, Android goes under lock and Netflix is at the top.
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.
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!
Jon is a F5 Live co-host and UpStream contributor as well as the Chief Cash Officer of PLuGHiTz Corporation. We don't know how he wears so many hats so well or how he still finds time to feed his need for all things tech but some questions are best left unanswered. If you're up for a challenge go find him on Xbox Live @shinobiJon and if you figure him out...let us know.
Allante - also well known as Wolff - is the newest member and co-host for PLuGHiTz Live! Radio. A gifted artist, he is usually found drawing up a character or two or sketching up whatever comes to mind. Do not think that he is not a hardcore gamer because he is about as hardcore as it gets! His favorites range from fighting games to RPGs, adventure and even a racing game here and there. Fighting games are his forte and he relays this message for all who oppose: You mess with the Wolff and you get the fangs!
XB360 - Enigmatic Wolff
PSN - Tsukuyomi_Okami
To some PlayStation loyals, it seems like it was forever ago that the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services suffered massive hacking attacks, causing a complete shutdown of the system. For the weeks that followed, Sony was rebuilding, moving and restructuring their servers and security protocols to prevent this from happening in the future. Unfortunately, it happened at a time where big events were about to happen to the PSN, specifically a Black Ops Double XP night and the release of some key games, like SOCOM 4 and Brink.
Ever since CES 2011, we have been excited about the release of BlackBerry's Playbook, which should have won Best of CES, but we won't go there. We have speculated since the announcement that between the HP TouchPad and the PlayBook, the tablet market would be finally changed and made better with the addition of these smarter, better and actually useful devices.
In the past, we have discussed Android's overall security problems and Marketplace vulnerabilities, but this week we have encountered a new set of problems, thanks to the researchers at Ulm University.
There have been a couple Android tablets that have hit the market so far like the Galaxy Tab and the Xoom but none of them have really made an impact compared to the iPad. Motorola released sales figures for April of this year that suggested they shipped 250,000 Xoom units but in fact that number is much lower. Sanjay Jha, the CEO of Motorola Mobility, commented in an earnings call that part of the problem is that there aren't enough apps for Android. Of course, there is no way that could be the full story and Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang does a good job shedding some light on the real issues.
Portal 2, gaming company Valve's sequel to the popular first person puzzle game, takes place about 200 (unapproximately) years after the events of the first game. The first Portal game was compiled with two other games Team Fortress 2 and the Half-Life 2 franchise, on one disc. The story arcs of Half-Life and Portal are intertwined, and of course, continues on into Portal 2. Valve, being the clever geeses they are (that's right, I said geeses), their connections together are only hinted through lovely easter eggs throughout both games. Or you could just wiki the storyline... Your choice.
According to a Sandvine report, it turns out that Netflix has become the largest consumer of Internet bandwidth. Formerly the position was held by BitTorrent and the fact that this trend has ended indicates that legal, paid content is becoming the norm instead. How much bandwidth is used by Netflix?
The combination of RIAA being high off of it's recent and only victory over Lime Wire and representatives from the state of California being crazy could spell disaster for optical disc plants and beyond. There is legislation already passed by two state senate committees that permits state law enforcement agencies to seize disc printing equipment and pirated discs from optical disc plants without a court warrant. So basically because they feel like it.