Songza now a Google owned service, could bode well for Google Play Music
Songza has now become part of the Google. Songza is a music curating service that does its best to offer you up tunes that are right for you at any given moment. Many of you out there might have and love it already. The details of the deal were not announced, not that we saw anyways. Google and Songza both state that there won;t be any immediate changes with the service. Google did say that they will be exploring ways to integrate Songza into Google Play Music and look for potential opportunities within YouTube and other products.
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’re becoming part of Google. We can’t think of a better company to join in our quest to provide the perfect soundtrack for everything you do. No immediate changes to Songza are planned, other than making it faster, smarter, and even more fun to use.
Songza is apparently ‘walking on sunshine’ as well they should be. Anyone out there a huge fan of Songza What do you hope Google brings to Play Music?
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Google Following in Apple’s Footsteps With Songza Purchase
Just over a month after Apple announced plans to purchase Beats Electronics and the Beats Music service, Google has made its own music purchase, acquiring streaming music service Songza.
First launched in 2007 and revamped in 2011, Songza is a curation-based music service much like Beats Music. Songza offers a multitude of customized playlists created by music experts, which revolve around different moods and activities. For example, in its iPhone app, Songza provides playlists for “Working Out,” “Waking Up Happy,” “Feeling Confident,” and more.
Beats Music, meanwhile, boasts “in-house curators” that provide handpicked albums and playlists based on a user’s personal tastes. There’s also a feature called “The Sentence,” which offers playlists based on location, feeling, and genre. The two services are both similar in regards to their emphasis on human curation, which is becoming a must-have feature in the streaming music arena. Beats Music’s focus on curation was one of the driving factors behind Apple’s purchase of the service.
Beats Music app on the left, Songza app on the right
Apple has plans to keep Beats Music separate from its own iTunes and iTunes Radio offerings, and Google too has said that Songza will remain independent, though it has plans to integrate Songza features into Google Play Music and other Google services in the future. Both Songza and Beats Music are set to remain available on multiple platforms.
We aren’t planning any immediate changes to Songza, so it will continue to work like usual for existing users. Over the coming months, we’ll explore ways to bring what you love about Songza to Google Play Music. We’ll also look for opportunities to bring their great work to the music experience on YouTube and other Google products.
Like Beats Music, which had 250,000 subscribers in May three months after launching, Songza is relatively small at five million users compared to competitors like iTunes Radio, Pandora, and Spotify. The major differentiating factor between the two services is cost — Songza is free and ad-supported while Beats Music requires a monthly subscription.
The terms of the deal between Google and Songza were not disclosed, but some reports have suggested Google paid around $15 million for the service. Apple’s Beats deal is still awaiting regulatory approval and is expected to close next quarter.
This wooden portable arcade will convince you to drain your piggy bank
Here at Engadget HQ, we’re no strangers to Love Hultén’s design prowess. Having caught our eye a few years back with the R-Kaid-6 wooden console, the Swedish gadget maker is at it again — only this time a mobile arcade option is the project. With the R-Kaid-R, Hultén keeps with the natural materials and adds brass detail work, crafting an all-in-one option that takes on a form factor similar to that of a cigar box. The unit packs an 8-inch LCD display beside a built-in speaker, with the joystick and buttons for wrangling loaded titles down below. In order to get those games on board, R-Kaid-R has USB connectivity and an SD card slot for added storage. So exactly what can you play on this dapper device? System support includes Neo Geo, Atari 2800, Nintendo, Sega Genesis, PlayStation 1 and several others with a hand from a pre-installed OS for around eight hours of play. Those ready to commit €2,499 ($3,419) will benefit from the self-contained system’s solid wood housing for protection, with the option of tacking on a leather shoulder bag for transit. Unfortunately, each of the five color options won’t be available until September, but while you consider draining your savings account, have a closer look in the gallery down below.
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Love Hulten (1), (2)
IBM’s Watson supercomputer will help you cook in this new recipe app
Conventional recipe apps are all well and good if you’re not sure what to eat in the first place, but what if you’re looking to experiment? IBM thinks its Watson supercomputer can offer some advice, so it’s teaming up with the editors at Bon Appétit to test Chef Watson, an app that leans on the cognitive machine’s food-making skills to spice things up. Rather than make you choose from a small, predefined set of recipes, you set some criteria and let Watson do most of the hard work; it produces 100 meal suggestions based on both the ingredients you’ve allowed and the cooking styles you’d prefer.
The two companies are just starting to take sign-ups for the Chef Watson test run, and it will take “weeks and months” before the software is available to a wide number of foodies. Provided the app takes off, though, it promises to do more than give you fresh ideas for Wednesday night’s dinner. IBM believes that the software could help you become a better cook — you may discover tasty ingredient combos and preparation techniques that you would never have considered otherwise.
[Image credit: IBM, Flickr]
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile
Source: Smarter Planet Blog, Chef Watson Beta
Trio AXS 4G budget tablet does alright for $179 [Review]
Over the years we have seen and heard of some pretty horrible stories regarding what we call budget tablets. They are generally tablets that are made by lesser known names, with lesser known parts and distributed at tempting prices. Year ago these types of tablets lived up to their names and were clunky at best with limited abilities and generally no access to the Google Play Store. Now a days, there are a number of budget tablets floating around that actually do a pretty good job for the price point. We think Google has a lot to do with that since the older tablets tried to use OS versions that were meant for phones, long before the universal Android OS builds existed. Heck, even Honeycomb wasn’t that great, but did help. Now we have a myriad of lower cost tablets being released by the likes of Lenovo, HP, Acer and even Samsung. While those are names you all know, we have another one to add to the mix. This one comes from Trio, which is a subsidiary company of Apollo Brands. Apollo Brands also is the parent company for JLabs, Eclipse, Bear Grylls, Black Ops and Ignite.
Trio AXS 4G
What’s in the box
- Trio AXS 4G tablet
- Wall charger and micro USB cable
- T-Mobile SIM card
- Vudu Movie coupon (at least in our review unit)
Trio AXS 4G tablet
The tablet measures in at 220 x 135 x 10.3 mm and weighs 385g. The outside of the table looks like any other rectangular tablet out there. If has a set of sensors, LED notification light and a front facing camera at the top on the front. The front facing camera is a smaller .3MP camera that is just fine for video chats and things.
On the bottom you find a set of speakers and your typical micro USB charging port to charge up the 3500 mAh battery.
On the rear at the top you have a small removable door that covers up the SIM card and the micro SD card slot. To the left of the cover is the 5MP rear camera and to the right is a tiny reset hole.
Physical specs:
- 7.85-inch screen (1024 x 768)
- 16:6 aspect ratio/5 point multitouch Capacitive
- 1.2 GHz Quad-Core MediaTek 8389
- PowerVR SGX544 MP3
- 1 GB RAM
- 16GB internal storage
- Android 4.2.2
- Wi-Fi 802.11/b/g/n
- USB 2.0
- Bluetooth 4.0
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- 3500 mAH battery
- GPS
- FM Radio
There are a lot of interesting aspect to this little tablet. For instance, the outer casing is aluminum, not plastic, but the small removable door that covers the sim and sd card is plastic. The general UI is very much so stock Google with only a few minor tweaks. In the softkey area there are two extra buttons. The on the left which minimizes the software keys and the one on the right that takes a screenshot for you. You can still take screenshots with the volume down + power combo too.
You will also see a that small floating circle. This is a AssistiveTouch application that is preinstalled. You can long press it and move it around the screen anywhere you want. When you tap on it, it opens up a quick link spot for up to 4 apps and your usual softkey buttons that you see at the bottom, minus the screenshot button.
Apollo Brands partnered up with Walmart and T-Mobile on the Trio AXS 4G tablet to bring some special benefits along with it. On the T-Mobile side of things the tablet comes with a T-Mobile sim card that is ready for you to activate. Activation costs nothing and you gain 200MBs of data for free for the life time of the tablet. As you can also see, Walmart has a set of apps that preinstalled as well to help you shop, but at least Vudu is preinstalled Like I mentioned above, in my box I was given 5 free HDX movies to choose from out of a list. However, that special apparently ends September 30 2014. I didn’t waste any time taking advantage of it though.
What I like about the Trio AXS 4G tablet (the Pros)
- Google Play Certified
- It looks pretty good with the aluminum casing.
- It is responsive enough that even the small amounts of lag that sometimes happen aren’t all that bothersome.
- The home screen and UI are fairly stock Google with only minor changes to the softkey area.
- 200MBs of free T-Mobile 4G for life lets me be connected without tethering my phone for simple stuff.
- Apollo didn’t overly bloat the tablet with other apps, there are only like 11 or 12 apps that aren’t Google related, with only the Walmart ones being the most useless.
- Even though the screen resolution is lower, it has a descent viewing angle and is good enough for movie watching and casual gaming.
- Battery life on standby lasts an incredible amount of time. In one screenshot below you can see 5ds 18 hours with 25% life remain.
- 16Gb of internal storage
- Micro SD card slot for expandable storage.
What I don’t like about the Trio AXS 4G tablet (The Cons)
- The plastic cover for the SIM and SD slot seems out-of-place with it being white on a silver back. I have not had issues with it popping off though.
- The tablet sits on Android 4.2.2. Being a newer entry to the budget tablet line race I would have liked to see at least 4.3 at launch.
- The battery life isn’t stellar when in use. Spec’d for up to 2 hours video playback time streaming through Wi-Fi. That was about what I got streaming from the Toshiba Canvio AeroMobile. With between 4 and 5 hours of other use time on Wi-Fi like general browsing, Hangouts, Email and some Angry Birds Epic.
- I have yet to see the purpose of the apparent speaker at the top above the camera. It makes it look like a huge phone without a phone function. It could be the speaker for video calls, but I didn’t test that.
- The camera is SLOW to take photos and ends up blurred most of the time. The front facing camera snaps pictures much more quickly.
Overall thoughts
The Trio AXS 4G tablet isn’t something that a die-hard Android fan and user would buy. It is easily suited for first time tablet users who just need a bigger screen and something handy that connects to the internet. I can see one of these in the hands of teens due to its lower price point and free data. For $179 it isn’t terrible, but I’d be a little happier to see it for around $149. I am sure the price reflects the free data from T-Mobile and Walmart integration.
Do I use it?
Absolutely. Once I turned on developer options and made some toggles. It has been a great tablet to have on road trips. Hand it off to one of the kids paired with some Bluetooth headphones and we have a much nicer, and quieter, drive. It has also been a pretty nice little reader for Kindle books and late night movie watching while the wife is sleeping.
If you are interested in the Trio AXS 4G tablet then you will want to point your browser to Walmart.com.
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Samsung launches the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and Galaxy Tab S 10.5 in India
Following the announcement of Samsung Galaxy Tab S range in New York in June, the Korean firm launched its 8.4-inch and 10.5-inch tablets in India today. The 8.4-inch tablet is priced at Rs. 37,800 ($630) while the 10.5-inch variant is pegged at Rs. 44,800 ($746). Both the models will be available in the stores by second week of July but the pre-booking is open already.
The most striking feature of Samsung Galaxy Tab S is its brilliant display. The Galaxy Tab S series has a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with WQXGA (2560 x 1600 pixels) resolution. Another much-speculated feature of the phone is its fingerprint scanner which was first seen in Samsung Galaxy S5. Samsung Galaxy Tab S series also happens to bear the thinnest waistline ever seen in a Galaxy Tab so far with both the tablets being 6.6 mm thin. Both the tablets look quite similar except for the screen-size and pixel density difference. The 8.4-inch version gives around 359 PPI pixel density while the 10.5-inch version has 288 PPI pixel density.
As for the hardware specifications, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S tablets run on Exynos 5 Octa chipset (1.9GHz quad-core and 1.3GHz quad-core) and Mali-T628 MP6 GPU. Both the tablets have 3 GB RAM and 16 GB or 32 GB variants of internal storage which can be extended up to 128 GB using a microSD card slot. The tablets feature an 8 MP rear-facing primary camera and a 2.1 MP front-facing secondary camera and both of them can record 1080p videos. Apart from the screen-size, the tablets also differ in terms of battery life; with the 8.4-inch variant featuring a 4,900 mAh battery and the bigger tablet having a 7,900 mAh one.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S devices run on the latest version of Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) with custom Samsung UI (Samsung’s Magazine UI) on top of it. The tabs come preloaded with a bunch of fun and productive apps such as PaperGarden, Milk Audio and Samsung WatchON etc. The devices also feature SideSync 3.0 through which you can accept calls when your tablet is synced with a compatible Samsung Android smartphone.
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FTC says T-Mobile has let text message scams run wild (Update: T-Mobile responds)
Is your cell phone bill running a little high? You might be suffering from unauthorized third-party charges, a type of text messaging subscription scam that bills users for SMS-delivered celebrity gossip, horoscopes, quizzes and other content. Consumers can choose to sign up to these services manually, but are often duped into signing up to them through fraudulent and deceptive advertisements — causing charges in upwards of $9.99 to appear on their phone bill without their authorization. It’s a practice the Federal Trade Commission calls “cramming,” and it says T-Mobile as been allowing these scammers to charge its customers unchecked for far too long. Now the FTC is taking the carrier to court, demanding it issue refunds to the customers it failed to protect.
FTC Consumer Protection Director Jessica Rich says that the organization received “oodles of complaints” from FTC customers about obscure charges for “premium services” appearing on their T-Mobile bills. These often appear as seemingly legitimate “usage charges” on the bill summery, offering no indication that they originate from a third-party texting services. “What we’re alleging here is that T-Mobile failed to follow some basic tenants of consumer protection. They [T-Mobile] didn’t provide truthful information about the charges in part because they hid the charges on the bill and it was impossible for consumer to see what was being charged, and the did not receive consent for those charges.”
According to the FTC, T-Mobile had been taking a cut from these deceptive subscriptions too — as much as 35 to 40% — earning it hundreds of millions of dollars. “We know that much of that was unauthorized but in court we will determined just how much,” Rich explained. “Our remedy would be refunds to consumers, that would be our first priority to consumers. And it could be many millions of dollars.” The FTC is also fighting for a court order to permanently bar T-Mobile from participating in these mobile cramming scams. Check out the source links for the organization’s official announcement and legal filing.
Before you get carried away with these sensational headlines, let’s get all the facts out there! http://t.co/5SFIzCi080
– John Legere (@JohnLegere) July 1, 2014
Update: T-Mobile’s John Legere shot back with a quick response. “We have seen the complaint filed today by the FTC and find it to be unfounded and without merit,” the CEO’s statement reads. “In fact T-Mobile stopped billing for these Premium SMS services last year and launched a proactive program to provide full refunds for any customer that feels that they were charged for something they did not want.” Legere says he’s disappointed that the FTC chose to file a “sensationalized legal action,” and insists that the lawsuit is “not only factually and legally unfounded, but also misdirected.”
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, T-Mobile
Google snatches up streaming service Songza
Google has just purchased music streaming service Songza and, while the exact terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed, it reportedly involves what financial experts refer to as “a boat load of money.” Apple boosted its streaming music presence by picking up Beats. So it only makes sense that Google would have to fire back with an acquisition of its own. Like Beats, Songza relies pretty heavily on actual human curation to build playlists. The newest member of the Mountain View family uses contextual data about you to decide the best playlist for you at any given time. These lists are put together by DJs, musicians and music critics rather than some algorithm that looks at meta data like genre or BPM. These lists can get you pumped for a work out or just get you through a slow work day, but what they’re not is a Pandora style infinite radio station.
For now, the service will continue as normal, but expect to see it curated lists and powerful data stores brought to bear on Play Music and YouTube. See, Songza knows not just what people listen to, but when they listen to it, what the weather is like and where they are. Imagine this coming together with the rest of Google’s contextually-driven services. You could wake up one morning and Google Now will have already selected a playlist for you from All Access. Seeing as how it was a rainy Monday morning and you had along commute ahead of you, Google decided a set of tunes hand picked by Morrissey would perfectly match your mood.
The Piper smart hub monitors and manages your home for £119
“Connected home” gadgets are all about giving you greater awareness and control over what’s happening in your crib. Most “internet of things” products for the home at targeted to specific uses, such as remote surveillance or heating control. Piper is slightly different, in that it attempts to tie all types home automation and security together into the one control centre. The device initially launched on Kickstarter where it achieved its funding goal three times over. Now, almost a year later, it’s ready for a European retail release.
The Piper hub itself plays host to a 1080p camera with a fish-eye lens for home monitoring, and various sensors that keep track of motion, temperature, humidity and light. It also packs a microphone, a 105-decibel siren, and a loudspeaker through which you can broadcast your voice remotely over Piper’s companion mobile apps. With a focus on security and environmental observation, the main hub can be one of up to five per home. What makes Piper way more useful than the individual product alone, though, is that it communicates with all manner of other sensors and peripherals using the Z-Wave wireless standard.
These can be anything from other security-focused accessories, like door sensors and locks, to lighting, power and heating controllers. The brain itself connects to the internet via WiFi and all of its functions, including those of the Z-Wave devices, are controlled via Piper’s Android and iOS apps. Furthermore, you can view live footage and recorded clips from the camera, talk to any current visitors and view long-term records from any of the on-board or paired sensors, among other things. In addition to pushing notifications to your smartphone based on trigger criteria you’ve created, you can also set up scheduled events and more complicated rules like “turn living room lights on if motion is detected.”
The idea is that Piper is both a standalone device with various uses and a platform for you to realise all kinds of home automation and security scenarios. There are plenty of Z-Wave devices around to make them happen, and the hub itself will be available online from July 15th for £119 in the UK or 146 euros elsewhere per Piper (no subscription fees thereafter).
Filed under: Cameras, Household, Internet
Source: Piper online store
Showtime’s Anytime TV service starts streaming on your Xbox 360
If you’re hanging on to an Xbox 360, you now have an easy way to catch up on Nurse Jackie or Penny Dreadful without reaching for the DVR remote. Showtime Anytime has finally reached Microsoft’s previous-generation game console, letting you stream both live and on-demand shows so long as you already get Showtime through a conventional TV provider. It won’t please cord cutters any more than earlier Anytime releases because of that limitation, but it should be handy for a bedroom TV. And don’t fret, Xbox One owners — there’s an app coming for the newer system later this year, so you won’t be Showtime-free for much longer.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Showtime Press Express
AIVAnet 