This week, Apple's driving mobile privacy, Nvidia's expanding GeForce Now, and what in the world happened with GameStop?
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.
A lot of attention has been put on Big Tech lately. In some cases, it seems the entire industry agrees, whether correctly or incorrectly. But, in other instances, the industry is entirely split. One of the best examples has been privacy. Some companies have taken a neutral stance, some have taken a public stance in favor of user privacy, and some have built their business around violating that privacy. In this week's battle over privacy, Apple has taken the pro-user stance while Facebook and Google have taken a stance against it.
Videogame streaming services have become the gaming industry's version of video streaming subscriptions. There are a lot of companies getting involved, and not everyone is having a good go of it. While Microsoft and Google's services have been met with mostly positive responses, other companies have not been quite as lucky. Every service has to go out of its way to separate itself from the pack. Microsoft has its Xbox game catalog and Xbox Game Pass to draw gamers in. Google has a strong ecosystem, and the ability to create bundles. Nvidia's GeForce Now service set itself apart by allowing you to play any PC game you already own through the service.
This week has been an absolutely fascinating one for the stock market, and everything that surrounds it. A stock that was significantly overpriced went through the roof instead of falling. A company called Robinhood, which bills itself as the democratization of investing, prevented people from investing. Reddit and Discord closed servers over racial discrimination. Google deleted thousands of app reviews. And, weirdest of all, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ted Cruz agreed on something. But, what exactly happened?
YouTube is currently testing a new feature inspired by Twitch - clips. This concept allows users to create small, sharable pieces of video from larger videos already available on the platform. Viewers will be able to hit a button and be presented with a sliding timeline editor. Users will be able to select up to 60 seconds, give the clip a name, and receive a unique URL to share wherever and however.