July 17, 2022 - Episode 626

F5 Live: Refreshing Technology (Video)

Description

This week, PlayStation Stars are "definitely not" NFTs, Celsius is almost certainly a Ponzi scheme, and Microsoft might just try to buy Netflix.

Participants

Scott Ertz

Host

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 Piltch

Host

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.

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Windows is reportedly returning to a 3-year development cycle

When Windows 10 was announced, it was said to be the last version of Windows. The suggestion was that Windows 10 would be similar to macOS X - a single marketing version that would instead be separated by its minor version numbers. Rather than a 3-year development cycle with a new major version released in that window, the operating system would move to a biannual minor release cycle. However, with Windows 11, Microsoft seemed to change course, leaving us with questions about the future of the company's release plans.

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Extra Life

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Sony is "definitely not" releasing PlayStation NFTs as rewards

This week, Sony Interactive Entertainment, the division behind the PlayStation, announced a new feature to the platform: PlayStation Stars. The new feature aims to take on the Microsoft Points system, though this one appears to be limited to the PlayStation ecosystem. Gamers will be rewarded with Stars for specific tasks which can be exchanged for rewards. While this sounds much like similar loyalty programs, Sony made a significant mistake: referring to "digital collectibles."

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News From the Tubes

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Celsius, cryptocurrency lender, files for bankruptcy, locks funds

This week, another major player in the cryptocurrency space, Celsius, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The move comes after the company froze customers' accounts, leaving their funds in a black hole outside of their control. The company's additional business units, including Celsius Mining, also filed for bankruptcy despite recent discussions to take the division public.

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Microsoft chosen as the global advertising partner for Netflix

For a few years, there have been rumors of Netflix exploring advertising on the platform. The details of the implementation were never detailed, but the experiment was the rumor. This year, the company confirmed that not only had they been exploring the concept, but they also planned to bring about a new subscription tier that was ad-supported. One of the big questions, however, was where would the ads be coming from? Now we have an answer: Microsoft.

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