This week, Nintendo battles GameStop on the 3DS, PayPal might make Bitcoin stable and Microsoft goes low-end to grow more.
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!
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.
Microsoft's innovative Windows Phone 8 has been in the market for a while now, and while results haven't been exponentially overwhelming, there has been steady growth in the market share category. So far, flagship devices from Nokia, as well as great smartphones from HTC and Samsung have proven well worth it for those who have spent the $200+ on the handset, however, Microsoft is looking to further take some share from Apple by getting their operating system into as many hands as possible. How? By offering a less expensive option.
Here's something GameStop isn't going to appreciate, and no, it isn't another exec robbing them of millions. Instead, another company has decided that it has had enough of GameStop taking billions of dollars from console manufacturers and game development studios. Nintendo has rolled out a new way to get a hold of refurbished hardware and you won't have to go to the used games store to do it. Now you can buy Nintendo-certified refurbished 3DS and DSi XL devices directly from Nintendo via their new "Authentic Nintendo Refurbished Products" website and program.
Bitcoin has had a strange, seedy and difficult start, with hundreds of thousands of dollars easily stolen from digital wallets in several different thefts. Add to that the relative inability to transfer Bitcoins into real good and services, it has not really been a safe or lucrative place to be.
It is Internet pilot season and we are seeing a lot of new series trying to get off the ground. A few weeks ago Amazon launched 14 pilots for you to choose from, but this is not the only way to decide what types of series are made. Crowd-funding has become a popular way for series concepts to be tested out - if you have an idea, you can test it out and get funded.