
Steam rolls out a big overhaul that leaves us quite impressed, the FTC goes after Butterfly Labs for scamming their customers, and Chris shares his personal story.
Plus the bugs biting iOS 8 users, 4k TV gets cheaper & much more!
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Steam Is Getting A Massive Overhaul
The revision—which Valve is calling the Steam Discovery Update and which goes live today—will implement a number of big changes including a revamped recommendations system, a queue in which you can swipe through new games based on what you’ve played and liked before, and a new program called Steam Curators that will allow anyone to take the role of tastemaker, recommending games to the public and accumulating followers based on their tastes.
We have made great efforts to increase the number of titles we can publish on Steam, which means more choices for customers,” Valve UI designer Alden Kroll said in a press release. “This update introduces multiple features and functionality to help customers explore Steam’s growing catalog and find the games they are most interested in playing.”
iOS 8 Users Report Slow Wi-Fi, Battery Drains | News & Opinion
“Wi-Fi problems on iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina display and iPhone 5S after upgrading to iOS 8,” an Apple user wrote in a Saturday post on the Apple forums. “I am thinking about going back to my iPad 2 with iOS 7.1.2 that is working perfectly until the Wi-Fi issues are resolved.”
Wi-Fi woes were not the only thing plaguing iOS 8 users. Others reported battery-drain issues. “My battery drains very fast (100 percent to zero in about 4 hours with minimal usage), started happening right after I upgraded to iOS 8. Issue started happening both on my iPhone 5S and on my iPad Air after iOS 8 upgrade,” one user wrote.
Feds say Bitcoin miner maker Butterfly Labs ran “systematic deception” | Ars Technica
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a civil lawsuit against Butterfly Labs (BFL), an embattled Kansas-based Bitcoin miner manufacturer. The FTC alleges that the company engaged in fraudulent and deceptive practices.
Federal authorities believe that the three named members of the company’s board of directors—Jody Drake (aka Darla Drake), Nasser Ghoseiri, and Sonny Vleisides—spent millions of corporate revenue on all kinds of things, including saunas and guns, while ignoring many customer orders that went unfulfilled or were significantly delayed.
“The FTC alleges that one corporate defendants and three individual defendants have taken in over $50 million by operating a scheme that required consumers to pre-pay for machines that would allow consumers to ‘mine’ for Bitcoins, a new virtual currency,” the complaint states. “Defendants either never delivered these machines or delivered them so late that they became obsolete.”
Vizio takes 4K mainstream with launch of $999.99 P-Series TV | The Verge
Vizio has just announced that the P-Series 4K LED HDTV line we first saw way back at CES is now available. And it starts at only $999.99 for the 50-inch model,
4K content is getting easier to come by, too; Netflix is still your primary source, but its catalog is growing (albeit slowly) and Amazon plans to offer 4K video later this year. Both of those apps can be streamed on the P-Series. The main takeaway is this: 4K TVs aren’t new, but Vizio is here now. And when a $999 4K TV has floor space at Walmart, that’s (hopefully) going to push companies to move even faster in getting 4K movies and TV shows out there.