This week, online bargains lead to bricked phones, hackers might have exposed themselves to the FBI and TIDAL finally finds a way to attract real new customers.
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.
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.
Any time security is involved, there are certain sacrifices that must be made. For example, to prevent people from stealing your money at the ATM, you have both an identification card and a PIN that must be presented. It's not a massive inconvenience, but it does add a little annoyance to the process. The same can be said for mobile devices - if you want a truly secure phone, like a Blackphone, you are going to have to pay for it.
Since Facebook's $2 billion purchase of Oculus in 2014, the move has been questioned. What was Facebook's interest in getting into the VR market? Did they do their due diligence in researching the company? Would they be able to make anything out of Oculus or would they blunder the company's hype and lead?
When a data breach happens, the data that is collected does not just disappear. Often times, it is collected and sold to the highest bidder. Sometimes, that bidder can make the information publicly available, usually for a fee. One of the sites that collects and disseminates this information is LeakedSource, which makes the information searchable with a recurring membership. The site, and others like it, claim that they make the information available so that people can search to see what information is available about themselves.
Since Jay-Z bought TIDAL, and likely before, the company has had no end of issues. In fact, the purchase itself may have been an indication of issues, as the subscriber numbers that were reported and led to the purchase were incredibly inflated. Since then, artists have come and gone, as have customers. Last year, rumors suggested Apple was interested, which the company immediately denied. Why would they want another failing music service, anyway?