This week, Android is a little less sweet, Apple is a little less expensive, and Libra is a little less confident.
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.
One of the most popular and long-standing traditions in the Android ecosystem is the naming convention. While Android versions have numbers, like most software, they have also famously had development names that are taken from the names of desserts. Some have been generic, like Android 9 Pie, while others have been named in partnership with dessert brands, like Android 8 Oreo. Trying to guess what the name of the next version is going to be is one of the best parts of the development cycle. Unfortunately, that is all coming to an end right now.
It's been a few months since Apple announced its new subscription gaming service, Apple Arcade, at WWDC 2019. The service will come with a collection of games, including all in-app purchases and no advertisements. The service will launch this Fall and has been much anticipated for its Xbox Game Pass style take on mobile gaming. However, some apprehension has remained, as Apple never announced pricing for the new service. However, according to a new report this week, the price of the service will be $4.99 per month.
The announcement from Facebook earlier this year that they were working on launching a cryptocurrency called Libra immediately drew scrutiny, from other companies and governments the world over. It seems that Facebook, their subsidiary Calibra, and the other members of the Libra Association hadn't considered the possibility that there could be concerns over the platform before the announcement. Now, because of the backlash, the Financial Times reports that members of the Association are getting cold feet.
Since AT&T purchased DirecTV, they have continued to have one problem after another. The DoJ has reconsidered their position on the purchase, while investors have called the company out. The investor lawsuit surrounds the accuracy of the number of people leaving the company's streaming service. Investors claim that far more customers have jumped ship than AT&T have claimed.