What happens when Microsoft’s Xbox Live tries politics? It gets a little confusing, and reveals a few things about the Xbox demographic.
This week on the GeekWire radio show and podcast, we start our news segment by discussing what happened this week when the Redmond company’s game division streamed the first presidential debate along with an interactive polling feature to let viewers weigh in on the issues and candidates.
Then we discuss Starbucks’ plan to add a tipping feature to its mobile apps, addressing a longstanding complaint from baristas. On a related note, our resident cheapskate John Cook also wants to know whether it’s appropriate to tip baristas when you get coffee through the drive-through. (We’re already getting good feedback on this from listeners via email.)
From there, we provide an update on a couple of our past guests, the student entrepreneurs responsible for the JoeyBra, who have become embroiled in a patent dispute with a British man who says he came up with the idea first. (Ah, the wonders of the modern-day patent system.)
We’re joined in the studio by Liz Pearce, the new CEO of LiquidPlanner, the Bellevue-based project management software company. We talk about topics including the company’s strategy and direction, her new leadership role, HTML5 vs. native apps, and how she juggles her job with her other role as a parent of two kids. (John and I are always looking for tips for ourselves on this topic.)
Our App of the Week is Skitch, the image annotation app from Evernote, which just expanded to the iPhone.
Name that Tech Tune: Chance to win GeekWire Meetup tickets.
Listen to the full show at the top of this post or directly via this MP3 file.
