DescriptionThis week, Apple's lowering their price, Microsoft's raising their benefits, and Google's shrinking their offerings.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 StoreApple makes HomePod cheaper, but it is still way too expensiveSince Apple first announced the HomePod, the company's rt speaker, they have struggled to gain any traction. Even the most hardcore Apple fans have skipped this device entirely. Apple has decided that the reason customers have not purchased the HomePod is because of its price and, this week, have lowered the retail price from $450 to $300: a 15% discount.read full articlePiltch Point with Avram PiltchPowered by Newegg.comExtra LifePowered by RazerGame Pass Ultimate service could be the best Xbox service yetMicrosoft is making a big play for the Xbox brand in 2019, on the console, Windows 10, and on mobile. We've seen the company constantly upgrade the capabilities of the Xbox Game Bar in Windows 10, with new features being added this week. They've expanded the reach of Xbox Live off of their platforms. We've even seen more details of the Project xCloud streaming service.read full articleNews From the TubesPowered by RiffTraxIs Google's brand image one of innovation or failed experiments?We are just a few days into the second quarter of 2019, and so far the list of high profile Google products and services that have been killed off has reached epidemic levels. On January 11, Chromecast Audio was retired. On January 15, YouTube annotations were all deleted and will no longer show on videos. February 8 saw the abandonment of Louisville by the Google Fiber internet service. February 13 saw the removal of IoT from Android Things, which is what the platform was for. March 12 reportedly saw a staffing cut for Google's laptop and tablet division. March 13 saw the end of unpopular chat service Allo. March 14 saw the closure of the Spotlight Stories VR studio. March 30 saw the goo.gl URL shortener signup process close. March 31 saw the end of IFTTT support for Gmail. If that list wasn't enough for you, this week we had 2 more product closures.read full article* DRM Not IncludedPowered by Amazon PrimeHow is DirecTV Now Doing? According to a lawsuit, not great.For an investor to make educated decisions on whether or not to support a company, they need accurate information about that company. To that end, in the United States, companies are legally prohibited from misleading or lying to investors or potential investors. The past few months have seen representatives of companies making false statements and being punished for it. The most publicized incident has been Elon Musk's false tweets about taking Tesla private. His punishment was swift. This week, another big name is being accused of lying to investors: AT&T.read full articleClosingPowered b