Oculus Rift is the most popular VR platform among game developers
When it comes to choosing a games console the decision is typically made based on what your friends play and which console has the titles you like the most. With VR it’s a little different. No one is playing anything right now and there aren’t many titles around either. Instead, the wise future investor should look at which platform most developers are supporting. In this case, it’s Oculus Rift by a fair margin, but the word “supporting” here probably isn’t such a good word to use as “planning to support”.
A new report from the 2016 Game Developers Conference (GDC) shows that of all the virtual reality options around, developers are most willing to get behind Facebook’s Oculus Rift. The only problem is that support is one thing, activity is another. Despite being the most popular VR platform of all, less than one in five game devs is actually working on a game for the platform.
The GDC report surveyed 2,000 attendees at its annual conference and 77% of them had tried Rift. A further 46% had tired Google Cardboard and 36% Samsung Gear VR. Given Oculus Rift’s existence in various Developer Editions for years now, this spike in familiarity is understandable, as is Google’s ultra-affordable VR solution.
But for all that experience with VR, only 16% of the surveyed developers are actually working on a VR game at present. That figure is up from just 7% last year, but it’s still a long way from where the industry needs to be if the first major consumer VR headsets are going to arrive with a quality assortment of games available to play on them. Of the developers currently working on a VR game, Oculus Rift was more popular than both of its nearest competitors combined (the Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard, which were tied for second place).
Despite 75% of game devs agreeing that VR is here to stay, more than two-thirds of them are either not developing for VR right now or don’t plan to in the near future. Of course, once the first consumer-level VR headsets hit the market this year and developers get a better sense of their popularity, VR games with blossom, but until then it might be slim pickings when looking for something good to play.
As one GDC attendee commented: “I think the immediate future will be a bit rocky. There might be a lull in the interest in VR/AR, but once developers find out what experiences are best for this technology – and when technology improves and becomes more affordable and accessible – I believe it will be adopted on a much wider scale.”
OUR REACTIONS TO VR:
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For anyone expecting VR to burst onto the scene in a massive way this year, you might want to lower your expectations. Even if the hardware is ready now, it will take time to produce a quality canon of VR games across all platforms, especially for the less popular ones, just as it did with console games and Android. In a more positive part of the survey results, when asked how long they thought it would take for VR to be in 10% of households, two-fifths of developers think it will happen by 2020 and 86% said by 2030.
Have you tried VR yet? How long do you think it will take to go “mainstream”?
honor 5X review
There may have not been a lot of high-profile Android device releases at this year’s CES, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t anything for consumers to get excited about. In particular, the latest smartphone offering from honor joins the ever growing list of smartphones that fall in the “premium but affordable” category, and continues to push the boundaries for what is expected from a device with a sub-$200 price tag.
The great news here is that with the honor 5X seeing an official release in the US, users don’t have to worry about compatibility with US network carriers, or any costs that are otherwise associated with importing these devices. What else does the latest budget-friendly offering from honor bring to the table? We find out, in this comprehensive honor 5X review!
Design
As mentioned, the honor 5X blurs the lines when it comes to what we generally expect from a device at this price point, and that starts with its design and build quality, with the phone featuring a metal unibody construction. The brushed metal build allows for a premium look and feel that you will be hard-pressed to find with other budget-friendly smartphones, but it has to be mentioned that the metal does make the phone quite slippery. Unfortunately, the metal is not of the highest grade either, making the body prone to scratches, and something you will have to be cautious about when handling it.
While even the sides are made of metal, the top and bottom of the phone is made from plastic, but honor has done a great job of making that something that is not particularly noticeable just by looking at it. The power button and volume rocker are on the right side, and offer a good amount of tactile feedback. The buttons also feature a grippy, textured pattern that makes for a pleasant experience when using them. The headphone jack and the microUSB port are at up top and at the bottom respectively, with the latter flanked by two grills, even though only one of them houses the speaker.
The honor 5X weighs 158 grams and is 8.2 mm thick, and with its 5.5-inch display, the handling experience is very manageable. All said and done, it is certainly very impressive that honor has managed to bring something that is quickly becoming the high-end standard, a metal build, to a device that falls in the budget category, and goes above and beyond what its price point might suggest.
Display
The honor 5X comes with a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, resulting in a pixel density of 401 ppi. The display is actually quite impressive as well, and features vibrant colors that aren’t too over saturated, and with the whites being neither too warm, nor too cool. At this resolution, text is sharp and clear, and brightness is of no concern either, and allows for comfortable outdoor visibility.
However, of note is the fact that the backlight shines through in darker areas more so than what is seen with other LCD panels out there, and the black bezel around the display can also be a bit of an eyesore, especially if you opt for the white version of the device. That said, these are the only areas where the screen falls short, and the overall viewing experience on this display is otherwise really good.
Performance
Under the hood, the honor 5X comes with an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, clocked at 1.5 GHz, and backed by the Adreno 405 GPU and 2 GB of RAM. There is a 3 GB of RAM version of the device available as well though, for those looking to get a little more out of the multi-tasking capabilities of the device. This has been the processing package of choice for most smartphones that fall in this premium but affordable category, and while the performance understandably doesn’t match up to current generation flagships, it has usually been good for the most part.
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However, that isn’t entirely the case when it comes to the honor 5X, with things seeming a little more sluggish that what we’ve seen before. Animations will be choppy occasionally, and applications do take an extra second to open. There is also a bit of a delay when pressing keys on the keyboard, and the phone even freezes for a second or two while typing. You may also see app refreshes when switching between then via the Recent Apps screen, which is why spending a little extra to get the 3 GB RAM version may make sense for some users. Granted, the performance isn’t vastly different when compared to other smartphones powered by the Snapdragon 615, and these extra stutters can be attributed to the lack of polish of Huawei’s EMUI software package as well.
Hardware
16 GB is the only internal storage option available here, but you do get expandable storage via microSD card by up to 128 GB, to help alleviate any storage concerns. The device also comes with a standard suite of connectivity options, along with dual SIM capabilities, as well as 4G LTE compatibility on the AT&T and T-Mobile networks, which is something that cannot often be said about smartphones from Chinese OEMs, and is another big positive of the honor 5X.
Another useful addition in hardware that is not usually found with other similarly priced smartphones is a fingerprint scanner, placed on the back of the phone. The rear placement of the fingerprint reader definitely grows on you, and makes unlocking the device very easy, and without the need for any unnecessary hand gymnastics. The scanner also unlocks the device directly, without you having to press the power button first, and the reader is very fast and reliable. To see a fingerprint scanner on a budget-friendly device is an impressive fact by itself, and even more so when considering its high quality.
The scanner does more than just unlock the device as well, and offers some additional functionality in the form of gesture controls. Swiping up launches the Recent Apps screen, a tap takes you back to any previous screen, and a tap and hold functions as a home button. Swiping down opens the notification drop down, and you can even use the scanner to answer calls, silence alarms, and take photos. With it being fast and very reliable, and packed with a slew of useful gesture controls, it has to be said that the honor 5X features one of the best fingerprint scanner implementations in the market right now.
Despite the appearance of a dual speaker setup, only the grill at the bottom right houses a speaker, and with this placement, is very easy to cover up when watching videos or playing games in the landscape orientation. The sound quality of the speaker is not particularly good either, with audio sounding muffled and almost distorted, even at lower volumes.
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The honor 5X comes with a 3,000 mAh non-removable battery, and allows for surprisingly impressive battery life. Even on a day which involved a lot of gaming and taking pictures, the device managed close to 6 hours of screen-on time. You may not be getting any fast charging capabilities here, but with the battery life being as good as it is, its absence is not going to be felt either.
See also: Best cheap Android phones (January 2016)
Camera
The honor 5X comes with a 13 MP rear shooter, with a f/2.0 aperture, and a dual tone LED flash, along with a 5 MP front-facing unit. There is no optical image stabilization to be had however, and overall, the quality is actually more of the same when compared to other smartphones that fall in this price range.
In optimal conditions, such as outdoors, the camera performs to the best of its ability and shots do look nice. Without any post processing or sharpening going on, pictures tend to have a lot of softness to them, but despite the seeming lack of sharpness, the images are still clear. The color temperature seems to be more towards the warm side, and colors appear to lack that punch of vibrancy as well. Areas of photos will also be overexposed the majority of the time, but all said and done, you can certainly get some pleasant looking shots from this camera when in good lighting situations.
HDR is available to help brighten up the shadows, and it does a great job for the most part. Sometimes, HDR tends to create an entirely brighter image however, resulting in a poorer looking picture instead. As lighting conditions deteriorate, the camera will try to compensate for the lack of light by increasing the shutter speed, but with no OIS to be found, very steady hands will be required to avoid blurry photos.
The camera can also shoot video in 1080p, but the lack of OIS once again means that videos will be pretty shaky, and over exposing is an issue here as well. It also tries to correct the exposure very rapidly with harsh adjustments, that can be very distracting. Video recording does come with a few extra modes though, including slow motion capture, and object tracking, which lets you select a particular object to focus on, after which the camera will track and focus on that object only, no matter where you move.
The front-facing 5 MP camera also takes some decent shots, albeit with some extra noise. Indoor shots end up being less sharp and with a great amount of noise as well. The overall camera experience definitely has a lot of room for improvement, but is actually par for the course when compared to its similarly priced competition.
Software
On the software side of things, the honor 5X is running Huawei’s EMUI 3.1 out of the box, based on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. You won’t see a lot of Material Design elements in this user interface, and as is the case with most software packages from Chinese OEMs, there is no app drawer to be found, leaving users dependent on folders to stay organized.
The software package is of course, very different from stock Android, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The notification drop down is very well organized, and split into two parts, with one housing all the notifications, and a swipe left required to bring up the quick toggles. Not only does this allow for a lot more notifications to be shown at once, but there is a lot more information here as well, including the exact time for received notifications. Customizations are seen in the form of themes, transition animations, and home screen grid, and you also get some fun features like shake to re-align icons and auto-align.
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This particular software experience may not be for everybody, but if you do give it a chance, there are a lot of extra and fun features to be had. Huawei has also stated that the honor 5X will receive timely software updates, including an official OTA update for EMUI 4.0 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, as well as monthly security updates. In fact, the security updates for January are already available for the device, even before its release, and it does look like Huawei is going to stick to their word in this regard.
Specifications
| Honor 5X | |
|---|---|
| Display | 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 resolution, 401ppi TP & LCD full lamination |
| Operating system | Android 5.1 Lollipop Huawei EMUI 3.1 |
| Processor | Octa-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 |
| Memory | 2GB of RAM |
| Internal Storage | 16GB, expandable up to 128GB via microSD |
| Dual SIM | Yes |
| Cameras | 13MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, SmartImage 3.0 image processor, 28mm wide angle lens with flash 5MP front camera with f/2.4 aperture, 22mm wide angle |
| Mobile Connectivity | GSM 850, WCDMA Bands 1, 2, 4, 5, LTE Bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 17 |
| Connectivity | WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, 2.4QG Bluetooth 4.1 microUSB 2.0 GPS, AGPS, Glonass |
| Sensors | Fingerprint sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Digital compass |
| Battery | 3000mAh, non-removable |
| Dimensions | 151.3 x 76.3 x 8.15mm 158g |
| Colors | Dark Grey, Daybreak Silver, Sunset Gold |
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Pricing and final thoughts
The honor 5X is currently up for pre-order from Amazon and NewEgg, with the device set to be shipped on January 31. The device is priced at just $199.99, with the available color options including grey, silver, and gold.
So there you have it for this in-depth look at the honor 5X! Priced at just $200, the honor 5X is definitely a great buy, and is one of the only phone at this price point to offer both a premium metal build and a fingerprint scanner, aspects that are usually found with devices priced at more than double what the honor 5X costs. These two things alone make the phone a great bargain, but add to the mix a great display experience and a feature packed software package, and it is difficult to not recommend the honor 5X. Granted, the device isn’t flawless, with its mediocre camera and speaker, and somewhat sluggish performance, but its very affordable price tag more than makes up for any issues the phone may have.
Sony buys a chip maker to boost its Internet of Things
You probably don’t think of Sony as an an Internet of Things company (unless you count light bulb speakers), but it might change your mind soon. The Japanese tech giant just bought Altair Semiconductor, a chip maker focused on LTE hardware, to put always-available internet connections into more of its devices. It’s not saying much about what that future hardware will look like, but the $212 million deal should meld Sony’s existing sensor tech (such as camera sensors and navigation) with 4G data to create a “new breed” of gadgets. Don’t be shocked if many of Sony’s future electronics are always online, even when you’re nowhere near a WiFi hotspot.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Gregory Bull]
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Sony
Engadget giveaway: Win $600 worth of SCOTTeVEST tech wear!
If your New Year’s resolution was to get organized, this week’s giveaway could definitely help. SCOTTeVEST’s (SeV) clothing line keeps your gear at hand without needing a bag, using staggered pocket placement and weight management to keep you comfortable. There’s more than just vests, of course, with a variety of jackets, shirts, shorts, hats and accessories for both men and women. Touch pockets provide quick access to mobile screens and RFID-blocking zones will keep travel documents and wallets safe from airwave outlaws. There are even super-sized pockets for iPad fanatics — heck, Steve Wozniak is on the SCOTTeVEST advisory board. You can head over to the company’s website for a deep dive on all the products, but one lucky Engadget reader will be armed with a $600 gift certificate to load up on this tech-savvy swag. Just head on down to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning an SeV shopping spree.
- Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
- Contest is open to all residents of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
- Winners will be chosen randomly. One (1) winner will receive a $600 gift code for a SCOTTeVEST online shopping spree (and free shipping if you’re in the US). *The funds must be spent in one single online order.
- If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email or Facebook login. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
- This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Engadget and AOL are not held liable to honor warranties, exchanges or customer service.
- The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here.
- Entries can be submitted until Jan. 27th at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
Google’s Inbox app now has smarter search results
Google’s Inbox may take a bit of getting used to, especially if you’ve been using the plain vanilla Gmail interface for years, but once you dig in there’s a lot of powerful and useful features to find. (Some of them can get a little weird, though.) Today, Google is releasing some tweaks to make Inbox’s search feature more useful. For starters, when you look for something like a shipping tracking number, frequent flyer number, hotel reservation, bill or a number of other pieces of info that are buried somewhere in your email account, Inbox will surface it at the top of your search results.
It pops that info up in a card that looks quite similar to the information Inbox intelligently surfaces from your emails. The thinking goes that email users search their messages for specific info like this pretty frequently, so anything Google can do to surface that data quicker is a win. Along with the most pertinent bit of data that you’re searching for, Inbox will also feature a quick link directly to the email you’re looking for if you need to see it in its full context.
Below those quick results, Inbox will show a section of “top results,” with and the full chronological search results will be displayed below that. The Inbox team is confident that between the new “quick answers” and top search results, you won’t need to dig into the full search details very often, though there’s no word on exactly how it decides what emails to show in your top results.
If you’ve seen these features already, it’s because Google has done a bit of testing with them already — the company says that it made some notable improvements in its search ranking algorithms as they apply to email in the past few months. Now that they’ve completed the testing, these features are rolling out to all users, both in the Inbox app for Android and iOS as well as on the web.
LG admits G4 bootloop problem is a hardware fault, will repair affected devices
After several months of LG G4 owners complaining of a bootloop issue to no avail, we picked up the story and confronted LG. The official response has come through and it should make G4 owners happy: LG has acknowledged the LG G4 bootloop issue is a hardware defect and will repair affected devices.
According to the numerous posts on various social platforms and YouTube, the bootloop problem potentially affects all regional models and carrier-branded LG G4 units. After a prolonged investigation, LG has identified the source of the problem as a “loose contact between components” and vowed to repair it, with apologies to LG G4 owners that have been suffering from this problem with no resolution in sight.
Here’s the full statement LG made to Android Authority:
LG Electronics has been made aware of a booting issue with the LG G4 smartphone that has now been identified as resulting from a loose contact between components. Customers who are experiencing booting issues with their LG G4s should contact their local carrier from where the G4 was purchased or a nearby LG Service Center (www.lg.com/common) for repair under full warranty.
Customers who purchased their G4 devices from non-carrier retailers should contact an LG Service Center with the understanding that warranty conditions will differ. LG Electronics is committed to providing the highest standards of product quality and customer service and apologizes for the inconvenience caused to some of our customers who initially received incorrect diagnoses.
If you have a LG G4 with bootloop problems, you should now be able to get the troublesome connector repaired and get your phone back in working condition. LG confirmed that earlier attempts to fix the problem were misdiagnoses which led to the wrong parts being replaced. With the problem properly identified, it should be smooth sailing for repairs from here on in.
Uber is using smartphone data to alert it to bad drivers
Although Uber’s review system allows both riders and drivers to submit feedback on a recent journey, it can be hard for the company to know what really happened. Did a driver constantly break the speed limit or was a customer totally unfair with their feedback? Without evidence, it’s simply one person’s word against another’s. Uber has a plan to change that, though. Using gyroscopes and GPS chips built into driver and passenger smartphones, the company’s new scheme will log when a driver is (or isn’t) driving dangerously. Feedback will still be welcome, but the idea is to back up words and scores with cold hard data.
To ease tracking fears, Uber says it will only be able to “review” complaints after they’ve been submitted, not detect driver errors as they happen. If a rider leaves feedback saying that a driver took corners too fast, the company can use data collected from its apps to see if that was actually the case. “Mostly it’s about talking to both sides,” says Joe Sullivan, Uber’s Chief Security Officer. “But increasingly technology can help get to the truth.”
Uber’s trials aren’t all about (potentially) vilifying drivers, though. In an effort to protect freelancers from disruptive passengers, the ridesharing service has begun leaving kids’ toys in the back of vehicles. In Charlotte, for instance, riders may find a Bop It toy, which has proved “a great way to keep drunk riders entertained so they don’t distract their driver.” Customers in Seattle will also see drivers use color-coded lights to make their vehicles more visible at night.
Via: Guardian
Source: Uber
Sherlock Pikachu is the best Pikachu
Nintendo has just announced a new (Japan-only) title starring Pikachu as a world-famous detective. Named Famous Detective Pikachu: The Birth of a New Partnership (translated by our Japan-based editor), it’s described as a cinematic adventure game in which a “smug,” “wise-cracking” Pikachu will team up with a boy named Tim to solve a mystery. We already have a trailer, which very, very clearly takes influence from the BBC’s Sherlock.
A Pokétective game has long been on the cards. After a soft reveal three years ago, The Pokémon Company fell silent and the title missed its 2015 estimated release date. We’d almost forgotten about it, until Pikachu donned a deerstalker and saved the day. Famous Detective Pikachu: The Birth of a New Partnership is due out on February 3rd as a Nintendo 3DS download-only title costing 1,500 yen ($12.50). Anyone ordering it before the end of February will receive a 20 percent discount. There’s no word on an English-language version of the game, but we’ll always have this trailer. No one can take that away from us.
Source: Nintendo Japan
Japan and Trains: The Love Affair
Snowfall causing train delays is nothing new. In the UK, where I’m from, this happens with hilarious, infuriating regularity. But last week, the first snow of 2016 brought Tokyo’s central railway lines and Metro to a halt: hour-long delays between stations normally located minutes apart, packed platforms and a lot of complaints. That’s because Japan’s railway system typically works flawlessly, from the immaculately clean trains that service the distant southern isles of Japan to the experimental high-speed, floating maglev cars that might hit 372 miles per hour. If you love trains, you’ll love Japan. And I just love them.
Let’s start with that long-standing symbol of high-tech Japan: bullet trains or Shinkansen. Japan’s first high-speed railway opened in 1964 and cut journeys between Tokyo and Osaka by two hours, down to four, making it as fast as air travel. (In Japan, low-cost airlines have only recently started to expand too, and many are now cheaper than a bullet train ride.) Even so, since its inception 5.6 billion people have ridden on the Tokaido between Tokyo and Osaka. To date, there hasn’t been a single fatal accident involving passengers aboard a bullet train.
The nation’s bullet train safety record is impressive, but this is even more so: The average delay of a bullet train trip along the entire Tokaido line is just 54 seconds, including disruptions due to natural disasters. When local (read: slower) Japan Rail trains are delayed over five minutes you can request a “delay certificate” to show your confused boss when you appear for your salaryman duties a little bit late.
A whole lot of late notes were needed last Monday. Overnight snow battered some local Tokyo lines more than others. But, because it happens so very rarely, when Japan’s railways do experience hiccups, they usually makes the news, like when a computer control system problem affected 81,000 passengers back in 2011, for example. After the error, Japan Rail East issued a lengthy seven-page apology.
Tokyo’s Metro system is also very, very popular. The annual ridership is double that of New York’s subway, even though the latter runs on a 24-hour schedule. You can see where this is going: Rush hour is hell even without snow getting in the way. For what it’s worth, at least, Japanese conventions and social rules keep the metro quiet. Hardly anyone eats or drinks on it, and I’ve never observed anyone playing music out of their smartphone. Nearly everyone uses contactless cards (or chips built into their phones) at the ticket gates, so getting in and out is swift and smooth. While citizens’ own behavior certainly contributes to how pristine the cars look, that’s only half the story. Watch a cleaning team polish off a bullet train in seven minutes — and remember that the average delay aboard the Shinkansen is under a minute.
Japan’s like-clockwork train system might get half-explained away by the country’s culture, but there’s cold, hard efficiency at work too. As The Economist notes, the country’s seven major railway companies own the land around their respective lines and rent it out. They also own the infrastructure, including stations, the tracks and the trains themselves. That makes for a more efficient system compared to countries where these parts are separately owned and operated.
Meanwhile, subway drivers are rigorously trained in a simulator that has, alongside 3D digital reproductions of the routes, the same controls, vibrations and “sense of movement” as real trains. In the Tokyo Metro itself, drivers cover the same lines again and again — gaining a creepy degree of affinity for the manual speed controls. If it takes one minute and 45 seconds to get between two stations, that’s exactly how long the journey will take.
Japan’s impressive safety track record (eye roll all you want, Dana) and pristine carriages don’t touch on the curious place that trains hold in popular culture in Japan. Driving a train (or a truck) is apparently the fourth most-popular job among Japanese boys. Meanwhile, a cat is a ceremonial stationmaster at a distant Wakayama station. (RIP Tama, long live Nitama!) Back in urban hubs, there are station workers donning white gloves cramming more people into trains during rush hour, women-only cars to reduce groping incidents, an Evangelion-themed Shinkansen and even limited-run regional trains, like this one with a built-in foot bath:
Central Japan Rail continues to work and test its faster, next-generation maglev bullet train. Even without hitting its current top speed of 372 mph, next-gen lines will still cut commuting times to Tokyo in half. It’s scheduled to run in 2027, and tickets are likely to be even more expensive than the Shinkansen. Some experts suggest that it could be a very pricey mistake for the company, unless the railway tech gets picked up overseas.
Other countries are certainly interested in adding high-speed trains to ease congested roads, whether it’s maglev-powered or not. California’s high-speed rail project has already started, but Japan’s companies are looking to other possibly locations, including a lucrative line between New York City and Washington DC. The UK is working on HS2, its own (troubled) high-speed rail network; France has its TGV; and China is testing and selling its own high-speed trains. Other countries have and will overcome the technical challenges of high-speed, but I doubt they can they best the reliability and quirks of Japan’s train lines.
にゃんご！ニタマごちゃんすごいにゃんご！’「世界のニタマに」ですって！！ かっこい〜っ！にゃんご！ pic.twitter.com/jMKfi9lEYr
— 駅長たま (@ekichoTAMA) June 20, 2015
[Image credits: Getty Creative, Tokyo Metro, Discovery Channel, Kyodo]
Spotify video streaming rolls out to Android users
Video streaming has finally arrived to Spotify on Android devices, giving you more to do than just listen to audio. As earlier reports revealed, content is available from providers like NBC, Comedy Central and BBC, along with popular video podcasts. To access the new feature, go to “browse” and select “shows,” or check the “video” option in your library. You can then find content providers and follow shows or playlist “bundles” of video, just like you would with audio playlists. The company said that it’s aiming to suggest video content that’s in line with music that you’re already listening to.
The feature is supposed to arrive to iOS soon, but Spotify has no immediate plans to launch it on the desktop app. “Obviously our primary user is a music fan, and they are not necessarily leaning in and looking into the app,” VP Shiva Rajaraman told the WSJ. Most of the clips are relatively short, but unlike with the regular version of YouTube, for instance, they’re ad-free. Given that you can watch them without a subscription, it’s not yet clear how Spotify plans to monetize the videos, however. With 75 million users, they’ll no doubt boost the company’s bandwidth requirements significantly.
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