DescriptionThis week, Huawei is leaving networks, Half-Life is coming to VR, and Apple is temporarily skipping theaters.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 StoreThe US Government will not pay for new Chinese network hardwareThere has been a lot of questions over the validity of Chinese hardware existing in the West, led by the United States. The worry comes from the close relationship between some of the big tech companies and the Communist government that controls China. This concern has covered everything from $200 phones and laptops to million-dollar cellular network hardware. While the future of the relationship between US and Chinese companies is still in question for consumer goods, the Federal Communications Commission has decided on network hardware.read full articlePiltch Point with Avram PiltchPowered by PureVPNExtra LifePowered by RazerHalf-Life and virtual reality get a boost from new Valve gameIt has been over 12 years since the latest entry in the Half-Life franchise was released. It was Half-Life 2 Episode 2, released in October 2007, part of the Orange Box, which also included the undisputed game of the year, Portal. In the subsequent decade, players have hoped that Valve would release the third chapter in that story, Episode 3, but to no avail. In its absence, the existence of Half-Life 3 has become the constant joke of the Internet.read full articleNews From the TubesPowered by RiffTraxUS government looking for international support against encryptionThe government has long had a complicated relationship with data security. On the one hand, Congress held hearings with top-level executives of Facebook, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, over the handling of user data, spurred on by the Cambridge Analytica issues. On the other, the Justice Department has campaigned against encryption, wanting a "backdoor" into encrypted data. The tech world has continued to fight against the idea of an easily broken encryption system because that undermines the entire concept of encryption.read full article* DRM Not IncludedPowered by Amazon PrimeApple hits another snag with original content, cancels film premiereWhile the release of Disney+ has seen its share of difficulties, including missing features and system availability, it's been the release of Apple TV+ that has been the real disaster. Disney has almost a century worth of content to fall back onto, but Apple is just getting started with content, and that content has been its downfall thus far.read full articleClosingPowered by Tech Podcast Network