RoadTrip auto-creates ‘mixtape’ playlists based on your route

It’s easy enough coming up with playlists for road trips — just bring a phone with your whole music collection and hit shuffle. But if you want to spice things up a bit, there’s this new web app called Roadtrip Mixtape that ties up the music playing on your phone or tablet with the place you’re visiting. Let’s say you’re driving from New York to San Francisco: simply type those places in, and the app will tap into Spotify data to show lists of musicians who hailed from each place you’re passing through. The app even plays 30-second samples of each musician’s songs (in our case, Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj were first in line), but you need to access Spotify itself to hear full songs and albums. Just take note that since the service bases its recommendations on location data, the results are a mishmash of artists from various genres. Sadly, it doesn’t have a phone app version for download, so you may want to bookmark the website if you love listening to soothing tunes one moment and death metal the next.

[Image credit: Chris Gramly/Getty]

Filed under: Misc

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Via: A.V. Club

Source: Roadtrip Mixtape

Engadget Daily: Amazon’s ultimate weapon, T-Mobile Test Drive and more!

Today, we take a deeper look at Amazon Firefly, learn about T-Mobile Test Drive, review the ASUS Padfone X and investigate the biggest third-party games from this year’s E3 event. Read on for Engadget’s news highlights from the last 24 hours.

The Fire phone is Amazon’s ultimate hardware weapon

Yesterday, Amazon announced its first-ever handset: the Fire phone. Sure, it’s got six cameras and a 3D interface, but what’s most intriguing is a new feature called Firefly. Read on as Chris Velazco breaks down the importance of Amazon’s new smartphone and its visual search engine.

ASUS Padfone X review: A phone to replace your tablet? Not quite.

Two devices in one: that’s the idea behind the ASUS Padfone X. Unfortunately, the most attractive aspect of this interesting duo is the $200 price tag. Between the capable, 5-inch handset and chintzy tablet shell, you’ll get a less-than-seamless experience.

T-Mobile Test Drive lets you borrow an iPhone 5s for a week

What’s T-Mobile up to next? Well, thanks to the company’s latest endeavor called Test Drive, you can borrow an iPhone 5s for a whole seven days. Oh, and it starts this Sunday.

These are the biggest third-party games at E3 2014

This year at E3, the focus was on games, more games and yep, lots of games. Read on for our complete list of the biggest third-party games from the event, including The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Destiny and Alien: Isolation.

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US House of Representatives pass amendment to cut NSA’s ‘backdoor search’ funding

Following a push from Representatives Justin Amash and Thomas Massie, the House of Representatives has passed an amendment to stop at least some of the surveillance programs at the National Security Agency. On Monday, Amash said the bill was a chance to stop the security agency’s “unconstitutional spying on Americans.” The backdoor searches that the amendment would stop includes emails, browsing and chat history, which can currently be parsed and searched without a warrant. The amendment would curb this in two ways: it would stop the search of government databases for information on US citizens while also stopping both the NSA and CIA from requiring ‘backdoors’ into online services and products. It’s not a done deal just yet: now that it’s passed the House, it needs to go through the senate before it becomes a reality.

Massie amendment to stop unconstitutional #NSA backdoor searches passes 293-123-1.

– Justin Amash (@repjustinamash) June 20, 2014

Filed under: Internet

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Disney Research uses trippy camerawork to tell a tale of immortality

Disney Research has done an awful lot of neat stuff in the past, but it hasn’t really approached Walt’s bread and butter before: video. Instead of going with animation, though, the team is using some pretty slick camera tricks to tell a live-action story about unconditional love and a mother attaining immortality through her son. We thought the premise was kinda weird, too — you aren’t alone. Stitch Kingdom initially spotted the short, dubbed Lucid Dreams of Gabriel, and the teaser features techniques like novel computational shutters, high dynamic range tone-mapping and a scene with a few different frame-rates happening all within the same shot. By applying these effects in post, the filmmakers, with help from ETH Zurich, were able to achieve results that otherwise couldn’t be produced with conventional camera equipment. Fitting, considering the title references conscious dreams, eh? The full version of the short is due out sometime in August, but you can watch the teaser for yourself just after the break.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Via: Stich Kingdom

Source: Disney Research Hub (YouTube)

Honeywell’s Lyric thermostat is a worthy Nest competitor (hands-on)

Last week Honeywell announced the Lyric, its answer to the Nest learning thermostat. Today, we got a chance to see the WiFi-connected smart device in person. Retailing for $279 starting in August, the Lyric stands out for its geofencing feature, which uses smartphone location info to know whether you’re home — and to tweak the settings accordingly. When you’re away, energy-saving mode is activated, and when you get within seven miles of your house, your preferred temperature will kick in. Honeywell thinks (well, hopes) you’ll choose its product over the Nest for this reason, citing both the convenience factor and the energy savings.

Looks-wise, at least, the Lyric is a bit more sophisticated than the Nest, with an all-white design that’s sleek and understated. The thermostat packs a proximity sensor to recognize when you’re nearby, and we saw the screen dim when we stepped away from it as promised. We like the halo of light that flashes orange (heat), blue (air) or green (away mode) to indicate the thermostat’s current setting, too. Honeywell’s also touting the Fine Tune feature, which factors in humidity levels, along with both indoor and outdoor temperatures, when adjusting your home’s climate. We couldn’t exactly test that feature out in our short hands-on time at a trade show, but in theory the feature would lower the temperature a few extra degrees to compensate for humidity.

On either side of the main display are buttons, one for viewing a weather forecast for the day and the other for telling the device that you’re leaving home. Once you’ve pressed the “away from home” button, you’ll have the opportunity to specify how long you’ll be gone so the Lyric can adjust settings accordingly. Naturally, you can change the current temperature and specify settings for recurrent events — such as bedtime at 11:30 — via the Lyric app (on Android and iOS) as well.

While we wouldn’t say the Lyric is necessarily better than the Nest — it really depends on your habits, as well as your aesthetic preferences — the thermostat is a strong contender. That said, $279 is a lot to spend on a thermostat, especially when the well-established competition costs $30 less. In any case, Honeywell’s thermostat is just the first product in its new smart-home lineup; when we asked about the Lyric name, a rep told us the idea was “keeping life in tune,” implying that the company has a few other smartphone-controlled products on the way.

Jon Turi contributed to this report.

Filed under: Household

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