August 18, 2019 - Episode 535 - Show Notes

August 18, 2019 - Episode 535

Sunday Aug 18, 2019 (01:06:45)

Description

This week, Apple is fighting the EU, Ninja is fighting for his brand, and CBS and Viacom are trying to fight Disney.

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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Apple and Ireland to fight European Union control over taxes

In 2016, the European Union decided that Ireland had not charged Apple enough in taxes, and demanded that Ireland collect an additional 13 billion euro (or roughly $14.4 billion) in "back taxes." This would be far from the first time a company, especially a tech company, was accused of avoiding taxes. For example, Bernie Sanders believes that Amazon has skirted tax law in the United States. However, this might be the first time that the country in question believes that the company paid what they were supposed to.

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Twitch made a new page for Ninja, accidentally suggested porn

At the beginning of the month, popular Twitch streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins announced that he would be leaving his home of 8 years on Twitch to exclusively stream on Microsoft's Mixer platform. He was streaming the next day on Mixer, leaving his Twitch channel offline for the first time in a while. Ninja did a great job of keeping the transition smooth and professional, never saying anything bad about his former home because he had nothing negative to say. He had been happy on Twitch, but Microsoft made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

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Russian security firm Kaspersky made tracking users online easier

One of the hardest things to do online these days is protecting your privacy. Between tracking cookies, Facebook pixels, and the like, it can be difficult to keep websites from following you across the web. Incognito mode in your browser does an okay job of hiding your activity by preventing the cookies. Tools like PureVPN allow you to obfuscate your browsing history by adjusting your IP address, and even your global location, as you browse. Other tools, such as Tor, create an untraceable route to hide your activities. While there are certain ways to identify some users, these processes do a good job for most users.

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Viacom and CBS to join forces again in the latest media merger

Everyone in the United States knows Viacom, whether they recognize the name or not. Viacom owns networks like MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon. The company, or more specifically the brand name, has had a long and bizarre history with broadcast company CBS. Viacom started out as CBS Films and was the syndication wing of CBS. It became Viacom (short for Video & Audio Communications) in 1970 and became its own, independent corporation in 1971. In 1999, Viacom acquired CBS through parent company Westinghouse Electric Company, making Viacom the new parent. In 2006, Viacom became CBS Corporation, and a new company, called Viacom, was created, to offload business that CBS no longer wanted.

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