Wii Would Like To Kirby - The UpStream

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!

Jon is a F5 Live co-host and UpStream contributor as well as the Chief Cash Officer of PLuGHiTz Corporation. We don't know how he wears so many hats so well or how he still finds time to feed his need for all things tech but some questions are best left unanswered. If you're up for a challenge go find him on Xbox Live @shinobiJon and if you figure him out...let us know.

Good news everyone, Nintendo has a game coming out for the Wii that is part of an awesome series not related to Mario Bros. or Zelda! After many years only making appearances in games like Super Smash Bros. and pretty much skipping an entire console Kirby is back on Nintendo's roster with a new title of his own. So far, there is no title for the game but it is still being developed by HAL Laboratory and based on the game footage released Kirby seems to be back to his old self, kicking ass Kirby style with black hole-like sucking, sword powers that would make Link turn green with envy, and just general badassery. The game play appears to be closer to the SNES games which should make it feel like a true sequel.

Spam is usually a pain in the butt, whether it come in your mailbox, your email or as a text message. On some very rare occasions it can be a blessing. And, in one very odd situation, spam saved hundreds of lives.

You know, having your entire company's mobile device fleet operate on the webOS platform and following the HP-Palm merger from the beginning has made us pay close attention to what's been going on with our favorite mobile operating system. Not only did we bring you news last year that we should be seeing an HP-Palm webOS Tablet sometime in the near future but we also presented you news that HP-Palm wanted more webOS devices as well. Well now snooping through the HP website led me to the webOS Central, which contains webOS 10x training videos for stores carrying those products. A problem that has plagued Palm from the beginning was differentiating themselves and presenting it in a way that the average consumer can understand. Luckily, the HP merger has done a lot of good for the Palm brand and this training site certainly is one of the benefits.

With the Verizon Wireless iPhone launch only a few days away, it is a very busy time for the Verizon execs. They have announced plans to entice AT&T subscribers over to their network as well as details about the iPhone data package.

Intel's just been doing everything right lately. It seems that when they said they were going to spend $8 billion to open new manufacturing plants that would create over 1,000 jobs that something in their brain set them off on a helping spree. More recently, Intel pledged to help the NFL analyze quarterback concussions with real-time data and even teamed up with rival company AMD to rid the world of the pesky blue analog input known as VGA. Well, let the good karma roll, because this week Intel said that it is going to invest $100 million through the next five years in US university research.

Sony Computer Entertainment recently announced their PlayStation Portable 2 and gave us some neat hardware specs to drool over. This device is basically a PS3 for your hands and if that excites you, here is a list of what we can expect to see by the end of 2011.

One of Google's biggest problems has been the relevancy of their search results. Apparently, someone at Google HQ decided that the best way to solve that problem was to start censoring the results available in Autocomplete and Instant. The first target of their wrath? The word "torrent."

Take a look at the progression of popular social media sites from Friendster to Facebook, and you will find that despite the thousands and thousands of competitors out there, a select few will compete for the top spot. If you remember Friendster then you will probably remember MySpace taking them down and later Facebook devouring them along with all the others. In fact Facebook beat MySpace down so badly they changed their logo and were forced to revert to their only remaining strength, social media. Today, they are the 2nd most visited website in the world behind Google and boast over 500 million users. So why will Facebook fail with so much going for it?

Facebook always seems to find a way to put itself into the news. This time, with their not-so-beloved Facebook Credits currency system. In the past, we have talked about companies like Zynga that were trying to be coerced to solely use Facebook Credits. It now appears that the idea will actually hold water. Amidst a time where Facebook is looking to prove itself to investors and analysts that it is a commercially viable and money-making creature, the company has made it a mandatory policy beginning July 1, 2011 that all games use Facebook Credits as the only way to include real money purchases into games. Developers will still be able to use their in-game currencies but only as an exchange, i.e. Facebook Credits for Farmville Coins.

NBC's hit sitcom, The Office is going to be getting a big shakeup later this season when Steve Carell, Michael Scott, leaves the show. To ensure the transition is as erratic as possible, Anchorman co-star Will Ferrell will be joining the cast for a total of 4 episodes. He will be playing a branch manager who is as clueless as Michael himself.

Hulu has tried to stick to their guns as long as it possibly could, with creators of the service doing everything in their power to get users to support the free-with-ads business model they have been running with. Unfortunately, the bigger guns behind the content Hulu provides is threatening to back out and pull shows and movies unless Hulu can find a way to monetize the users that come to the site, and fast. We have heard rumors of Hulu considering restructuring their business model and moving towards an Internet-based television provider that users would subscribe to, similar to the way they would for satellite or cable TV. With providers like Disney and News Corp threatening to pull their free broadcasting, Hulu better do something quickly, especially when these companies are able to make money with services such as Netflix, Apple and Microsoft.