This week, Samsung won't pay the royalties, Twitch attracts some heat after its changes and Facebook surprisingly supports your privacy.
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.
It is a sad time when best friends needs to face off in legal battles, but when it comes to royalty payments, Microsoft doesn't play around. The software giant is suing Samsung after the South Korean hardware manufacturer did not pay its royalties in full last fall.
When Google purchased Twitch we all knew we were in for some changes. Twitch proves our point this week by announcing a number of policy changes. As you would expect, most of these changes do not make Twitch users happy.
Last year New York City Law enforcement asked Facebook to turn over information about 381 accounts. The information included photos, messages and personal information. The targets of the request range from "high schoolers to grandparents, from all over New York and across the United States."
It would appear that CBS is joining the Internet-first production concept, joining the ranks of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. The difference is, CBS does not own a distribution platform like these companies, but will, instead, take advantage of their already strong presence to distribute their content.