It’s week two, ladies and gentlemen! We’ve survived week two of distance learning, and we’ve already had our first parent/teach pow-wow. It’s another Thursday, and here’s another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week, tech stocks face a sell-off after a long rally, Twitch allows users to host their own tournaments, and Fortnite’s maker and Apple square off in Epic battle! You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.
BIG TECH FACED HUGE SELL OFF THIS WEEK
Technology stocks faced another round of sell-offs as investor are seeking profits. US technology stocks have mostly rallied amid this year’s pandemic as many people were forced to stay home and shelter-in-place. This push online ordering and streaming to record levels with consumers finding solaces in electronics. This news comes amid the global economy facing an estimated 5% contraction this year with predictions that stock markets will be bumpy for the next several months.
TWITCH TO LETS USER SELF-ORGANIZE ESPORTS TOURNAMENTS
Yesterday, online gaming community, Twitch announced Versus, a new feature that lets Twitch users organize and host their own gaming tournaments. Versus is a set of tools that will allow collegiate esports teams, game developers, and others manage players, set leaderboards, and broadcast tournaments to the Internet. The featureset is comparable to Facebook’s Gaming Tournaments feature and is available in closed beta. You’ll have to waitlist yourself before it goes live.
EPIC BATTLE HEATS UP BETWEEN MAKER OF FORTNITE AND APPLE
I don’t know whether to yawn or cheer when I see two multi-billion companies fight over sums. Apple has countered the maker of Fortnite, Epic by saying its move to setup an alternate payment method outside of the App Store amounts to simple theft. Before being outright banned by Apple from the App Store, Epic had offered Fortnite to players at a $2 discounted from the App Store price of $9.99. Apple for its part says that Epic gets lots of value from being in the App Store including security checks for malware. Reportedly, Fortnite players using the Android edition of the software received third party copies that contained malware from a number of sources. We’ll keep following the story as it heats, or I’ll be flossing in the corner.
