DescriptionThis week, Asus customers are under attack, Google customers are under surveillance, and Apple customers are under pressure to subscribe.ParticipantsScott ErtzHostScott 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 DDR community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bar 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 judging engineering notebooks at competitions. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors.Avram PiltchHostAvram'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.OpeningPowered by TeknoAXENifty GiftiesPowered by Microsoft StoreAsus update tool hacked, allowed access to millions of computersComputer manufacturers and users are definitely getting more sophisticated. Manufacturers, as well as Microsoft and Apple themselves, continue to produce more sophisticated tools to prevent hackers from gaining access to your computer. Users are getting smarter about which sites and emails they interact with, preventing attacks. With a more sophisticated computer user must come a more sophisticated hacker, and we have definitely seen a growth in that area. This week, Asus was the target of an incredibly advanced attack, putting computer owners at risk.read full articlePiltch Point with Avram PiltchPowered by Newegg.comExtra LifePowered by RazerAfter years of partnership, Valve is ready to build its own VR headsetValve, the gaming company behind the Steam game distribution platform and popular games like Portal, has been involved in the virtual reality market for the past few years. The SteamVR platform has been as popular for VR games as Steam has been for PC gaming. But, they have relied on a partnership with HTC to produce the HTC Vive hardware as the primary VR headset for SteamVR. That is about to change, however, as Valve is ready to enter the hardware space once again.read full articleNews From the TubesPowered by RiffTraxGoogle's questioned in policy of scanning and reporting contentIt is no secret that online privacy is quickly dissolving. Some of this has been care of the general nature of companies like Facebook, whose platforms are based around you giving someone else your personal information for public consumption. More recently, however, some of the big tech companies have been getting involved with the government to not only invade your privacy but to violate the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution.read full article* DRM Not IncludedPowered by Amazon PrimeApple announces TV+ and News+ services for video and magazinesThis week, the long-awaited Apple video streaming service was finally unveiled. Adding to that, the company also showed off a second subscription service for newspapers and magazines. The New York Times had already given us a small taste of what that might be when they warned publishers to avoid it.read full articleClosingPowered by Tech Podcast Network