New Xbox 360 Wireless Controller to Feature Shape-Shifting D-Pad - 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.

Josh has come from the Brazilian wilds to bring yet another perspective on the gaming industry as well as today's up-and-coming technology. You may have seen him at GameStop over the past two years, or if you're a lover of Largo High School Productions, you have seen him up on stage doing his thing the last 4 years. On occasion, you can catch him on Xbox Live mowing down zombies in Left 4 Dead or making it rain on Madden 2010.

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

Last week there were rumors that Infineon, Europe's second largest mobile chip manufacturer, was in talks with technology giant Intel about possible merger possibilities. Recently, the deal was sealed for 1.4 billion USD which Intel will drop in cash the way only Intel can. The WLS, Wireless Solutions, unit of Infineon that Intel purchased will operate as a stand alone company. Peter Bauer, Infineon CEO, had this to say:

Major Nelson's blog was busy this week, as he announced that there will be a brand new version of the Xbox 360 Wireless controller. The slightly altered newest edition will showcase a transforming D-pad that can go from a "plus to a disc with the twist of the wrist." Not only that, but the controller will sport a matte silver body, concave analog sticks and gray A,B,X,Y buttons for that extra flavor.

Announcement: This week BioWare decided to give the fans of Knights of the Old Republic a little teaser about one of the franchise's most popular characters. Witty Reveal: Yes, you guessed it, HK-47 is going to play some sort of role in The Old Republic! A video was posted this Friday showcasing what looks like a "flashpoint" for people who decide to role a character alligned with the Empire.

Does anyone remember DN3D? I sure do, and that was a long time ago, back when the years started with 19 instead of 20. In the world of gaming and technology 14 years is the equivalent of forever (pun intended) to the nth power so is anyone still waiting for Duke Nukem Forever with high hopes? If so then do me a favor and watch the video after the break.

This week, Apple, in an attempt to keep their name in the news, announced their newest line of iPods and the response was not quite what they expected. Normally people get all excited and talk about how they have to have the new version. This time that does not seem the be the case. We'll start with the devices they didn't screw up.

Remember HP CEO Mark Hurd? We talked about his forced "resignation" a couple weeks ago after HP found out he was involved with a female contractor in more than just computer sales. (Guess that means they were having printer-talk?) We learned this week from the Wall Street Journal that Hurd is talking to Oracle, the world's largest enterprise software company. Hurd apparently knows Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison quite well and Ellison was one of the first to bash HP when they let Hurd go. The report says Ellison will remain CEO of Oracle, but the roles of Oracle's two co-presidents, Safra Catz and Charles Phillips, could be affected if Hurd were to come aboard. Oracle just recently purchased Sun Microsystems, so this puts them in direct competition with HP.

This week, Microsoft was in the news a lot, as another announcement came out of the Xbox 360 camp that we knew was coming for a long time. November 1st, 2010 marks the date where Xbox LIVE Gold subscription prices will be going up. This will affect users in Canada, Mexico, the UK and the US. The new prices for here in the States will be $9.99/month, $24.99/3 months and $59.99 for the year. Not all plans were affected, however, as the UK one-year package remains the same price.

This Tuesday Jon and I were sitting in our homes waiting in anticipation to finally get our hands on Final Fantasy XIV. The good people at Square Enix, however, had other plans in mind. They had decided that the game needed to undergo "emergency maintenance" and postponed open beta until the following day at 10PM ET. This came as no surprise to me as the majority of open betas end up getting pushed back for the same reason.

Portal is a game that all of us here at the show are extremely fond of and a game that we've dedicated hours upon hours to in order to perfect our portal throwing skills. After watching this video, it seems as though we will be learning the game all over again. The video features four levels showing only the BASICS of what's to come with Portal 2's newly added Co-op feature.

About a month ago Google waved Good-bye to Google Wave, but it hasn't actually gone anywhere, until now. They seem to have taken the Microsoft approach to product development here by emphasizing on developers, developers, developers, developers. Google is counting on future developer contributions to define a new generation of communication and collaboration tools partially by riding the wave from the clouds, into a box.

We here at The UpStream really enjoy a good lawsuit story as any of our regular readers will tell you. This one, however, is going to be a little different from normal. It's not a tech company suing for patent infringement or Microsoft patenting the Page Up key, this involved a cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals.

We have talked before about how Apple has security problems and aren't interested in fixing them. Our newest example of this is Apple's new social networking venture, Ping. Ping is a social network built into iTunes 10 that is designed to connect you with your favorite artists. According to Apple,