This week, Boxee gets shipped off to Samsung, Microsoft gets a little more social and E3 loses even more relevancy.
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.
The lesser known of the popular Internet-streaming devices, startup media company Boxee, has been acquired by Samsung for $30 million. If you are unfamiliar, think Roku but with a lot less of a push from media providers to get content on their platform. A quick glance at Boxee's website led us to this statement:
Even after diving into details of the Xbox One at E3, Microsoft has remained committed to the Xbox 360 with new games and a new console. It's obvious that Microsoft still sees value in the eight year old console and will continue to support it even after the launch of the One this holiday season. To continue their committment, the Xbox team also announced that they have stopped putting the $10,000 price tag on developers to update their 360 titles. The only problem is they forgot to tell, well, anyone.
It's been two years since Microsoft accidentally introduced So.cl, their take on social interaction with a twist. When I played around with it, I never really got hooked but could definitely see its uses. Share documents, songs, video clips and more, all in a playlist format that you can bring your friends in on. It kind of felt like GoToMeeting, minus the whole professional vibe that would stray college-aged customers from using it. If you aren't familiar with Socl, I think Microsoft could describe it best.
A lot of people have defended that fact that I have continuously called out E3 on their lack of organization and relevancy in the gaming space with each growing year. Say what you will, but the facts do not lie. The convention grows more frustrating each year to attend and big names are stepping out and delivering press events on their own, to bigger media attention and coverage. Last year on our show, I even said that eventually we'd see gaming become part of the Consumer Electronics Association's (CEA) annual event, the International Consumer Electronic Show (CES). Well, either Shapiro heard me talking about it or I am less "out there" than everyone is saying, because the framework for a gaming showcase at CES is taking place starting next year.