Apple Music Becomes First Streaming Service to Include Underground DJ Remixes and Mashups

Apple has announced a new partnership with Dubset Media Holdings to stream thousands of remixed songs and DJ mixes, both based on original recordings, that were previously unavailable due to copyright issues. Apple Music will be the first streaming music service to provide access to these previously unlicensed tracks, according to Billboard.

Dubset will use a technology called MixBank to analyze a remix or DJ mix file, identify existing recordings within the file, pay the necessary rights holders, and distribute the mix through Apple Music and other streaming services. The process can take about 15 minutes for a 60-minute recording.

But licensing remixes and DJ mixes, both based on original recordings, is incredibly complex. A single mix could have upward of 600 different rights holders. According to CEO Stephen White, a typical mix has 25 to 30 songs that require payments to 25 to 30 record labels and anywhere from two to ten publishers for each track. […]

MixBank matches the recordings used in the remix or DJ mix against a database of three-audio snippets from Gracenote, where White was CEO prior to joining Dubset. He says fingerprinting is a “brute force” tool that can provide MixBand with up to 100 possible matches for each three-second match.

The rise in popularity of the EDM genre has resulted in an increasing number of user-generated remixes, mash-ups, and DJ mixes of popular songs, and this partnership will help bring those underground tracks to Apple Music and potentially “all 400 distributors worldwide” in the future, said White.

Dubset will retain a percentage of revenue for providing in-house licensing and pay the DJ or remixer a share of that amount. The service “allows everyone to make money on this content for the first time,” according to White. The digital distributor has agreements with over 14,000 labels and publishers.

In related news, Beats 1 recently announced that popular EDM artist deadmau5 will host his own show this Friday at 3:00 p.m. Pacific.

Tags: Apple Music, Dubset
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Stay up to date with all the action from ICC World T20 with Google

The ICC World Twenty20 is in full swing, which means that productivity is going to take a serious hit in countries where the gentleman’s game is actively followed. Google is now rolling out new features to ensure that all the latest scores, news, and highlights from the tournament are readily accessible.

As always, you can just search on Google using queries like “cricket score” or “T20 score” to get real-time scores on any live matches, as well as the match schedule for the tournament. You can access detailed stats as well as all the player-related information with ease.

You can also use Google Now to can track your team’s progress throughout the tournament, with Google serving reminders for upcoming matches, real-time scores, and all the latest news.

In addition to the aforementioned services, Google is rolling out new features that allow you to stay connected to the game. When you search for a cricketer, you’ll see additional information, such as match photos, social media posts, or any videos directly in the search results.

Also, if you search for a cricket-related query during a live match, you’ll be able to see real-time commentary from other cricketers. The panels will go live in time for today’s New Zealand vs. India match, and will be available for a total of twelve games in the tournament.

Which team are you guys rooting for?

Source: Google

Amazon’s Fire HD 6 tablet is yours for just £69 today

Amazon has discounted the price of the online retailer’s Fire HD 6 tablet to just £69.99 in the UK. For today only, you’ll fork out less for the Android-powered 6-inch mobile platform that offers a snappy processor for all your movies, books, games and more.

The usual listing price of the HD 6 tablet is £99, making this quite the deal. Powering the experience is a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 6-inch HD display, front-facing camera for video calling, 8/16GB of internal storage, a choice of colors, and up to eight hours of battery life.

See at Amazon

Samsung: Gear VR is just the beginning, future virtual reality headsets planned

Samsung has told Pocket-lint that it will continue its investment in and commitment to virtual reality as it believes that it become “the future of how we engage in media”. And that will include new headsets.

During launch day for the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge smartphones, we met with Conor Pierce, the company’s vice president of IT and mobile in the UK, at the Galaxy Studio pop-up experience and demo centre in the heart of London’s Westfield shopping centre.

Around us, members of the public were enjoying looking at the two new phones, but also experiencing Gear VR demonstrations in a number of different zones. The centrepiece was a 4D ride that used motion and the headsets to simulate a rollercoaster to great effect. It served as the perfect backdrop for a conversation about the future of the Gear VR headset.

READ: Samsung Gear VR Consumer Edition review: The stepping-stone to Oculus proper

Pocket-lint

Samsung VP Conor Pierce spoke to us at the Galaxy Studio in London’s Westfield shopping centre

We asked Pierce if Samsung was pleased about the reaction to it so far and planned to follow up the consumer model.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Having Mark Zuckerberg stand up [at Mobile World Congress] and say that the future platform is VR and that one of the best experiences is via a Samsung Gear VR was great.

“And we have the enviable position of having a competitive advantage. We have a window so let’s make the most of it.

“I’m sure one day the competition will catch up, but I know we’ll be in a really strong position because we have support from Facebook and Oculus. And we know that a driver will be when people can create their own content, which is where the Gear 360 camera comes in.

“When that comes in Q2 you’ll see a huge uptake for Gear VR.”

READ: Samsung Entrim 4D VR uses nerve signals to make you feel you’re really flying

Pocket-lint

Pierce himself believes that, if played right, virtual reality will be a massive technology sector this year and beyond.

“When you really experience VR, you can’t help but want it. Like mobile phones and smartphones, when you get used to it, it becomes an everyday part of your life,” he said.

“I genuinely believe that Gear VR will become the future of how we engage with media. Whether that’s entertainment, whether it’s games, whether it’s education, or whether it’s business.

“It’s completely immersive and you’re showing a completely different view of the world. That’s going to be fun.”

READ: Best Samsung Gear VR Oculus apps 2016

We’re getting closer to real invisibility cloaks

We’ve been inching closer to real-life invisibility cloaks for a bit now, but going full on Harry Potter in the Hogwarts library is probably still a ways off. The latest advancement in metamaterial-based vanishing tech from Iowa State University guards whatever it’s placed on from cameras, according to a paper published in Nature. The naked eye? Not so much. And even those cameras can’t hide it from a human viewing a video feed, only other machines or perhaps radar.

The researchers achieved this by embedding split ring resonators filled with galinstan into silicone sheets. Stretching those sheets is a form of tuning of sorts, and allowed the scientists to suppress certain radar waves up to about 75 percent. This type of tech could be used in a stealth fighter jet for example, as everything RF notes.

On the other side of the metamaterials coin, the University of California at Berkeley has developed a type of invisibility tech that reflects light to keep objects hidden. This method uses gold nanoantennas to “reroute reflected light waves” so that the thing it covers was invisible when the material was turned on by switching the gold’s polarization — watch it in action just below.

For now it’s just working on a microscopic scale, measuring “barely” 80 nanometers thick and only large enough to cover a few biological cells, according to the school. But hey, it’s a start, right?

Via: PSFK

Source: Nature, Berkeley Lab

Video game downloads now help the UK measure inflation

Helped by the rise of console and PC marketplaces, game downloads are now popular enough that the UK is using them to help calculate inflation rates. Office of National Statistics (ONS) announced today that it’s added digital game sales and computer software, like Microsoft Office, to its “basket of goods” — a list of products and services that helps it measure what consumers are spending their money on.

The UK’s basket of goods is now pretty well stocked with online services. Video and music streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Video and Spotify have been added over the past couple of years, as have computer game subscription services like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live.

But as the list evolves, things also have to go. This time around, CD-ROMs and rewriteable DVDs have been removed, which the ONS says “reflects the change in the computer market away from physical media and towards downloadable files.” In 2014, the UK body dropped DVD recorders and replaced them with digital TV recorders (DVRs), purging satellite navigation (Sat Nav) devices a year later.

So when you decide to spend big during the next big Steam sale, just think: you’ll be helping the government understand how the economy is performing, which can affect UK interest rates, pensions and even the cost of a train ticket.

Source: ONS Basket of Goods

Researchers create a system to predict ‘Dota’ match winners

Right now, the professional eSports scene is spearheaded by MOBAs like Dota 2 and League of Legends. Each match is a complex affair pitting two teams in a combat-fuelled land grab, punctuated by crucial paths and defensive towers. Even for the most experienced players and commentators, known as casters, it can be difficult to keep up and dissect what’s happening. To help, three researchers from Denmark, Germany and Sweden have developed a new way of breaking down and analysing Dota games, leading to accurate predictions about how a match will unfold.

The approach revolves around a new way of defining “encounters,” or moments that are likely to affect the momentum of the game. When a hero moves within range to deal some damage to an opponent, a “combat link” is generated. A similar “support link” is created when a hero specialising in status effects or healing comes into contact with their team mates. Finally, a more intricate “encounter component” is produced when multiple heroes are chained to one another through a perceived “path” of combat and support links. When a mixture of component conditions are met, the system flags that an encounter has occurred during the match.

For each encounter, the team defined a custom set of ingoing and outgoing metrics. At the start, these include the number of heroes involved in the conflict, their roles within the team and the number of experience points and gold they have in their possession. During the skirmish, each hero’s contribution is then analysed based on the number of “outlinks” and “inlinks” they produce — or the number or times they are in a position to deliver damage or support-style buffs to a team mate. The final outcome is then judged based on the kills, XP and gold that each player accrued.

The three researchers applied their encounter system to 412 Dota matches and, after some analysis, were able to pull out some patterns. These were based on the incoming and outgoing situation of each battle, as well as what happened within them. Using these, the team was then able to make predictions about who would win the overall match. During one type of analysis, a team’s experience gain was found to be the least effective indicator, followed by gold gain and kill difference. Combining all of these together, unsurprisingly, provided more accurate results, and the team’s predictions would improve as more encounters were observed.

It’s early days, but the hope is that such a model could be used by casters to better understand each match and explain what’s happening to the millions of fans watching at home. If the system could be used in real-time, for instance, it might be able to flag situations that are known to produce game-altering moments. These could be based on the types of heroes involved and their position on the map, but also where they are in regards to the overall flow of the match. Furthermore, the team hopes it’ll be useful for professional Dota 2 players who want to analyse their performances, as well as the game’s creators for future rebalancing.

“The opportunity to be able to analyse games in depth and evaluate tactics is interesting to analysts and game developers, but also to the players themselves”, said Tobias Mahlmann, one of the three lead researchers.

Via: TechRadar

Source: Lund University

‘Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine’ VR experiment revealed

Last week we got an inadvertent early peek at a new Star Wars VR experience from Industrial Light & Magic, and now the full trailer has been revealed. RoadtoVR has the Trials on Tatooine trailer in its full glory, and it’s even better in motion than the stills could reveal. You no longer have to take our word for it, this HTC Vive-linked “experiment” is way better than the Jakku Spy app that came out for Google Cardboard last year.

Unfortunately there’s still not much available in the way of details, but it’s possible ILMxLab will have more to say this week during the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. What is new however, is a nearly three minute video encouraging prospective employees to “join the force,” showing off even more of the VR projects ILM has in the works. Check out both videos embedded below, and if we spend some time in virtual reality with R2-D2 and company we’ll let you know how it turns out.

Source: RoadtoVR, ILMVisualFX (YouTube)

Razer reveals its latest 14-inch Blade gaming laptop at GDC

At GDC on Tuesday, Razer announced that it is releasing the fifth generation of its popular Blade gaming laptop. The new edition will reportedly offer significant performance improvements over its predecessor from 2014 including an Intel Core i7 running 16GB of DDR4, a GeForce™ GTX 970M GPU powered by 6GB of VRAM, 802.11 AC wireless connectivity and a PCIe SSD. Razer managed to cram all that hardware — not to mention a 3200×1800 QHD+ display and Chroma backlit keyboard — into a CNC-milled aluminum case that’s less than 3/4 of an inch thick and weighs just 4.25 pounds.

And with the release of the its marquee Blade Stealth, Razer is dropping the price on the Blade from $2400 to an even $2000 for the 256GB capacity (it’ll be $2200 if you want the 512GB drive upgrade). What’s more, the Blade will be compatible with the new Razer Core as well, though you won’t get the $100 discount offered with the Stealth. You can pre-order the Blade from Razer’s website starting today. They’ll begin shipping in April.

Twitch launches food channel with ‘The French Chef’ marathon

Twitch is known as the place to watch and broadcast live video games, be it competitive eSports like Dota, a humorous “Let’s Play” or a bizarre Pokemon experiment. But to grow, the company is now looking beyond the interactive button-mashing medium. Today it’s launching a full-time food channel, which will broadcast a variety of cooking shows 24 hours a day, seven days per week. To mark the occasion it’s launching with an all-episode marathon of The French Chef, a cooking show that was created and hosted by Julia Child. It was one of the first culinary programmes in America, running between 1963 and 1973 on NET and PBS.

The move builds on the success of Bob Ross and The Joy of Painting, a classic TV show that was first shown on Twitch last October. It was hugely popular and sparked a weekly slot on the site, which has now morphed into two showings each Monday. The company will be hoping for a similar reaction to The French Chef, in order to launch its new cooking channel and the other shows that will inevitably follow. Twitch is staying tight-lipped about these, but has pointed to streamers such as DomesticDan and Lulaboo that already use the platform for food-related broadcasts.

The new channel will change Twitch’s image and also serve as a warning shot to other video sites, particularly YouTube. It also shows an awareness of how people, especially youngsters, are slowly changing their TV viewing habits. Instead of spending hours with cable, they’re choosing smaller channels and producers based on sites like YouTube. If Twitch can become the go-to platform for these personalities, only in a live setting, it’ll act as another broadside for traditional TV channels and providers.