April Fools Pranks 2011 - 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.

Allante - also well known as Wolff - is the newest member and co-host for PLuGHiTz Live! Radio. A gifted artist, he is usually found drawing up a character or two or sketching up whatever comes to mind. Do not think that he is not a hardcore gamer because he is about as hardcore as it gets! His favorites range from fighting games to RPGs, adventure and even a racing game here and there. Fighting games are his forte and he relays this message for all who oppose: You mess with the Wolff and you get the fangs!

XB360 - Enigmatic Wolff

PSN - Tsukuyomi_Okami

Hey, all you Internet people out there. Remember when a judge decided that Facebook friends weren't really your friends? Well the judge never said anything about a Facebook girlfriend not being real! Because of that, company Cloud Girlfriend looks to deliver a girlfriend right to your Facebook page with ease. No social abilities, physical attractiveness or common decency required. Sounds like somebody we know.

Netflix has been trying to stay in the news a lot recently. The company pretty much does anything and everything right. Netflix also dominates the Internet video streaming market in a time where other companies like Amazon and Zediva are trying to stream some video of their own. Because of the competition, Netflix keeps looking for more companies to strike deals with, like CBS. This week, they are working on bringing Miramax and Paramount to their ever-expanding library and service.

You've seen The Matrix, right? Of course you have. Remember laughing at the silly concept of turning people into batteries? Well, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology didn't feel the same way when seeing the film. They, in fact, decided to give our future robot overlords a head start and develop the technology for them.

Specialty media retailers have been hit hard by the growing popularity of digital media. All you need to do is take a look at Blockbuster and there is no dispute about it. They also make a great case study for what not to do with a brick and mortar niche media retailer that is expanding into the digital distribution business. GameStop seams to have realized this and has begun taking action to prevent an impending game over scenario.

We all know how much fun lawsuits can be and Apple is certainly the company who likes them the best, so let's see what they have been up to this week. Two of Apple's current legal projects have taken major steps this week. We first spoke of the battle between Apple and Nokia nearly 18 months ago and Nick and Kyria have kept us up to date 5 more times since then:

Only 6 long years after the debut of the worlds best game console the day has come where Microsoft was forced to address the storage capacity of DVDs. Compared to Blu-ray discs, which can hold upward of 50GBs, the DVD's 7.95GB limit was quickly running short as Xbox 360 games were confined to 6.8GB. The other gig was partitioned off and reserved for anti-piracy purposes until a new version of Halo: Reach that uses the extra capacity surfaced. The details of what the extra capacity is being used for is uncertain but Xbox 360 scene hacker commodore4ever broke the news to the world in a tweet,

Google has always been known for starting their projects as open (and in beta) to attract as many people away from the competition as possible. They do this until the product or service gains enough popularity to finally pull the open plug and put the item on a closed circuit. This happened recently with Chrome and their removal of the accepted and soon-to-be standard H.264 support. This week, Google has decided to close up the shop to the public with their Android operating system, citing reasons like fragmentation and confusion on the market. Companies will now have to have their design changes to the OS approved by Google before they will be able to receive Google's latest updates and nod.

The Nintendo 3DS hit shelves in the US last week and Allante was able to report on the event from both the retail and analyst side of things. It was very exciting to have one of the devices on our set last week and some of the features are worth spending the money for. So much so, in fact, that day-one sales were record-breaking for Nintendo.

I knew this day would come when some data would surface suggesting that the PS3 has a larger worldwide market share than the Xbox 360 and IDG Strategy Analytics is suggesting just that. The Wii still sits on top with 75.5 million active units worldwide with the PS3 at 43.4 million followed by the Xbox 360's 42.9 million units worldwide at the end of 2010. So who is responsible for this crime against the gaming community? Everyone but the U.S. of course! While the Xbox 360 leads the US, as it should everywhere in the world, the PS3 enjoyed a million unit advantage over the Xbox 360 with 14.7 million to 13.7 million in 2010 and is also ahead in Asia. Strategy Analytics' Digital Consumer Practice analyst Jia Wu said,

It's that time of year again where the Internet giants pull some of the best jokes out there. This year was no different from past years, with Google leading the way with "product announcements" and "feature enhancements." Here is a list of some of the best pranks of the year.

DVD has been around for ages compared to Blu-ray which made its debut in May 2006. We also can't forget the new format on the block, 3D, that is still in the infant stages of development, even if we might want to. For several years we have seen DVD sales decline and Blu-ray sales double in some instances. The same can be said for 3D TVs which are expected to be in 15 million homes by the end of 2012.