ESRB Gives Parents Peace Of Mind With Mobile App - 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.

Under normal circumstances, I'd be inclined to make fun of, downplay or otherwise have MetroPCS look foolish. With no contract, prepaid carriers, most of the time you get a service that is lackluster at best, relies on outdated technology and devices and gets placed last on the queue for connectivity to the towers, in which they do not own, only borrow when needed from the major carriers.

It seems like only yesterday that P2P user Jammie Thomas-Rasset was monetarily attacked by the RIAA and a court ruling ordered her to pay $222,000. Then, after an appeal, another judge ruled she should pay $1.92 million and then after another appeal, $1.5 million. After the second verdict, the judge did say that all of those numbers are absolutely ridiculous and then decided that $54,000 is the maximum he could allow.

Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have planted multimedia Trojan horses in our living rooms in the form of videogame consoles. Until recently, these devices have been mainly used for gaming, but the winds are changing in video's favor.

The first generation of the iPad has been credited for launching the tablet market and is expected to sell 13 million units by the end of 2010, which is difficult to believe since I have only ever seen 1 out in the wild. I have even gone into various trendy places where this device would be likely to appear. The other ones were tethered to a Best Buy display. However, current part manufacturers for the iPad have been suggesting that a new version will be in the works and on shelves around April 2011.

Windows Phone 7 might be the new kid on the block, but some pretty big partners have already gotten on-board to produce exclusive applications for the platform. Most notably is the new series of Paramount movie apps. Since WinPho7 is entirely Silverlight based, it gives Paramount a perfect platform to produce video applications.

I guess they just couldn't wait for CES 2011. LG this week announced the Optimus 2X, the world's first phone powered by a dual-core processor. What proc is powering this new powerhouse? The Nvidia Tegra 2, of course, running at 1GHz (times two, of course).

The Entertainment Software Rating Board, ESRB, stepped up their game by entering the mobile world last December with an iPhone app that allowed the user to search for games by title only. And this year they have added a major feature which will allow users, or in most cases, concerned parents, to take a picture of the box art and get detailed information on the game.

Cloud: the final frontier. Well, probably not. However, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has big plans for Chrome OS as we noted last week. Their goals to increase ad revenue through a simple web based OS that will effectively move your everyday computing tasks completely to "the cloud," making the user more likely to search for things, is one goal. But the most notable is Google offering MSI for Chrome enterprise deployment. To clarify, a MSI is simply an installation engine that manages the maintenance and removal of software as well.

Oh man, I may have to jump up and down and rejoice if all of this turns out to me true. Break out the party streamers, the pinata, the lemonade, party hats and of course, the rumor alert siren as I have stumbled across an image that would make any NFL fan who doesn't have DirecTV lose their mind! DirecTV sent out a marketing research survey asking customers if they'd prefer to watch their NFL Sunday Ticket over the Internet instead of satellite.