Pandora Previews Apple Music and Spotify Competitor ‘Premium’
Pandora previewed its long-awaited Apple Music and Spotify competitor today at a special event with select publications. The new service is called Pandora Premium, and will launch in early 2017 with a likely price of $9.99 per month, reports Engadget.
The new app offers on-demand access to a large music library and looks a lot like Rdio. In November, Pandora announced that it had acquired “key assets” and employees from Rdio. Like other services, Pandora Premium will also allow users to save music offline and experience ad-free listening, reports The Verge.
Pandora CEO Tim Westergen thinks the company has created the “first truly premium music service.” For Pandora, a premium music service means a personal music service, and the company hopes to leverage its trove of listening data and the Music Genome Project to offer each customer a personalized music service.
For instance, Pandora Premium features personalized search, which means each user will get different music results based on their listening history rather than overall popularity. The browse and new release sections of the app will also be personalized based on user taste. Smart playlists will allow users to easily add new songs with a touch of a button, and in some cases Pandora will automatically add songs for you.
The app will also change color based on the album artwork of the song you’re currently listening to, and every song you like will be added to a giant playlist made up of every song you’ve ever liked on Pandora. When a user has reached the end of a playlist or album, Pandora Premium will offer a radio station based on the finished playlist or album to keep the music going.
Overall, Engadget notes that the new service marries Rdio’s interface and features with Pandora’s extensive music knowledge. Pandora says the service will begin rolling out in the first quarter of 2017, but won’t commit to whether the service will cost $9.99 like similar music streaming services.
Pandora Premium gives Pandora three music offerings at different price points: the basic, ad-supported radio streaming service, the $4.99 per month Pandora Plus, an ad-free streaming service, and the on-demand newly announced Pandora Premium.
Tags: Pandora, Pandora Premium
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GoPro Hero5 Black review – CNET
The Good The GoPro Hero5 Black is a true flagship camera with all the shooting options from its predecessor plus raw and wide dynamic range photo capture and linear field of view video, a touchscreen, a waterproof body, GPS, electronic image stabilization, stereo audio, voice control, the option for auto cloud uploads, and the best photo and video quality in a GoPro,
The Bad Battery life, especially with GPS, Wi-Fi and EIS on, is predictably short and the camera is not compatible with older batteries. Auto upload feature only works with GoPro’s $5/month Plus service. Linear field of view and electronic image stabilization not available at all resolutions and frame rates.
The Bottom Line Combining everything great about the Hero4 cameras and then some, the GoPro Hero5 Black is a no-compromise capture device for the ordinary and extraordinary.
With the Hero5 Black, GoPro is selling more than a camera. It’s a solution for shooting, editing and sharing video nearly anywhere. Whether that’s done at the beach, on a mountain or in your backyard is up to you.
It’s been more than two years since GoPro launched the Hero4 cameras and in that time, unsurprisingly, competitors caught up or surpassed them on features as well as price. Even the company’s top-of-the-line Hero4 Black was missing an important feature — a touchscreen — that made it less attractive than the less expensive step-down Hero4 Silver.
The Hero5 Black corrects this, giving you everything you’d find in the Hero4 Black (including the best possible video and photo quality) plus a touchscreen and a whole host of new features for $399 in the US, £350 in the UK or AU$549 in Australia.
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The Hero5 Black’s touchscreen is bright and responsive.
Joshua Goldman/CNET
The new camera also does away with one of the things I liked least about them: the polycarbonate housing. The Hero5 is dustproof and waterproof to 10 meters (33 feet). You don’t have to think twice about a little snow, mud, sand, rain or surf. There’s no more muffled audio from being sealed up and the lens cover is easily replaced if it gets dinged. For those times when you do need more protection, there is a housing case good to depths of 196 ft (60 m).
GoPro also ditched the three-button setup on prior models. Press the record button on top to power up and start recording, then press it again to stop recording and turn it off. There’s also a small shooting mode button on the side that acts as a power button as well.
Don’t have your hands free to work the camera? The Hero5 can be controlled with your voice. It works really well in general and I found myself using it when I didn’t even have to.
Here is the list of voice commands
There are no voice commands for turning on and off wireless or the built-in GPS, which could save battery life if included. Also, in noisy environments like biking around New York City, it worked sporadically. The GoPro Remo waterproof voice-activated remote fixes this, making it possible to ride through the city with the camera mounted on my helmet and control the camera hands-free.
All of the shooting options from the Hero4 Black are carried over, including video capture at up to 4K resolution at 30 frames per second as well as 1080p at 120fps. New options include 12-megapixel photos in raw format for more editing control, and there’s also a wide dynamic range mode. GoPro also added a linear-view setting that corrects distortion in its wide-angle photos and videos as well as electronic image stabilization (EIS). Neither the EIS or linear field of view are available in 4K and can’t be used with frame rates higher than 60fps.
Wind noise gets addressed with the Hero5, too. GoPro used three mics on the Black and the camera will automatically switch between them to deliver the best possible stereo audio. You even have control over whether you care more about wind reduction or stereo audio.
Use Alexa to ask Martian’s watches all your burning questions
Have one of Martian’s voice-powered smartwatches? Cool, because now mVoice models and certain Guess timepieces will work with Amazon’s Alexa technology. “We’re excited to work with Martian Watches to bring Alexa to mVoice timepieces so customers can easily perform everyday tasks — like controlling their smart home with ecobee, requesting a ride with Lyft or checking the daily news — using just their voice,” Amazon’s director of voice services Aaron Brown said in a statement. Just think, now you can use Alexa on your watch (or via the mVoice app), to order another voice-controlled watch, just by asking. The future is a wild place, y’all.
Source: Martian
Apple’s Best of the App Store in 2016:’ Prisma’ and ‘Clash Royale’ Win Top Honors
Apple today published its annual Best of 2016 charts for the App Store, iTunes Store, and iBooks Store, naming photo editing app “Prisma” as the iPhone App of the Year and “Clash Royale” as the iPhone game of the year.
Released in June of 2016, Prisma is designed to turn photographs into works of art using a range of different filters. Prisma garnered a lot of interest in 2016 and continually introduced new art filters.
Clash Royale, named Apple’s best game, first came out in March of 2016. A card based game, Clash Royale encourages players to collect dozens of cards from the Clash of Clans universe and duel other players.
Apple also chose top apps and games for the iPad, Apple TV, and Apple Watch, with all of the top picks listed below:
iPhone App of the Year: Prisma
iPhone Game of the Year: Clash Royale
iPad App of the Year: Sketchbook Motion
iPad Game of the Year: Severed
Apple TV App of the Year: Twitter
Apple TV Game of the Year: Riptide GP: Renegade
Apple Watch App of the Year: MySwimPro – Personal Swim Trainer
Apple Watch Game of the Year: Field Day
Mac App Store App of the Year: Bear
Mac App Store Game of the Year: Life is Strange
Apple has named face-shifting app “MSQRD” as the runner up for best iPhone app, and swipe-based game “Reigns” as the runner up for best iPhone game, both of which are showcased alongside the winners in the main banner in the App Store.
Two new App Store sections, “10 Best Apps of the Year” and “10 Best Games of the Year” further break down the best apps chosen by Apple’s editors, highlighting apps like Quartz, Vogue, Hyper, Plants vs. Zombies, Rodeo Stampede, and more. There are separate sections for both iPhone and iPad apps and games, each with different picks.
There are also a selection of apps in categories that include games playable on one hand, card-based games, celebrity games, video making apps, tap-based games, productivity apps, shopping apps, indie games, coding apps, and more.
In the Mac App Store, Apple has also published a full list of its picks for best Mac apps, with selections that include Spark, Polarr Photo Editor, Mini Metro, Doo, XCOM 2, Darkest Dungeon, Day One, Layers of Fear, and OmniGraffle 7.
Finally, Apple has announced the top apps based on overall App Store charts throughout the year, with Snapchat winning Top Free iPhone App and Heads Up! winning Top Paid iPhone App. For the iPad, YouTube was the top free app and Minecraft: Pocket Edition was the top paid app, while Netflix was the top free Apple TV app and Earthlapse TV was the top paid Apple TV app.
All of Apple’s best app picks can be found in the App Store, with similar lists available naming the best music, TV shows, movies, and books in the iTunes and iBooks Stores.
Tag: App Store
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Apple Music Tops 20 Million Subscribers, Eddy Cue Says Exclusives Will Continue
Apple today announced that Apple Music has surpassed 20 million subscribers, reports Billboard. The service crosses the mark as it turns a year and a half old. Apple Music had 15 million subscribers on its one-year anniversary in June aand notched 17 million subscribers a couple months later in September.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, tells Billboard that 60% of Apple Music subscribers have not bought content from the iTunes Music Store in the last year. While a portion of that 60% are dormant users, Cue says “the vast majority are new customers.” Additionally, 50% of Apple Music subscribers live outside of the U.S.
Cue also says that artists exclusive to Apple Music have hit milestones like the Billboard top 10 chart.
“It’s been quite a year,” says Cue. “We were thrilled to see that we could take [artists’] passions and drive them all the way to No. 1. Chance the Rapper, who we put on Apple Music exclusively, hit the top 10 on the Billboard charts [based on streams alone], and I can’t recall that being done before.”
In August, Universal Music Group banned exclusive music streaming after the debut of Frank Ocean’s “Blonde” on Apple Music. Cue says that exclusive music will continue on the service “where appropriate.” He says that exclusive launches work “well for everybody involved,” including the label, artists and Apple. Cue notes that there’s no across-the-board policy for exclusive launches, just that sometimes “it makes sense” to launch exclusively.
While Apple has traditionally aligned itself with rock acts like U2, Cue says the company has long wanted to give hip hop more exposure. The company has felt that hip hop was underrepresented in both iTunes and streaming charts, which is why the company has focused on hip hop acts more recently.
Apple’s biggest competition in the streaming music space remains Spotify, which had 40 million subscribers in September, but the service continues to struggle as it attempts to become profitable. In August, it was reported the service was punishing artists who offered Apple Music exclusives. Spotify denied the claim.
Tags: Spotify, Apple Music
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Apple Names Best Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and Books of 2016
Apple today published its top 2016 content picks for the iTunes Store and the App Store, choosing the best apps, music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and books of the year.
“One Dance” from Drake was named Apple’s Top Song of 2016, while Drake’s “Views” Album was named the Top Album of the Year. Other top songs, which are available via an Apple Music playlist, include Rihanna’s “Work,” Flo Rida’s “My House,” The Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me Down,” Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” and Calvin Harris’ “This is What You Came For.”
Apple’s full Top Songs playlist includes a total of 100 songs, while a separate Top Album list includes albums from Rihanna, Adele, Frank Ocean, Justin Bieber, Chris Stapleton, twenty one pilots, Ariana Grande, G-Eazy, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, and more.
As for movies, Apple’s editorial staff made the following picks:
– Best Blockbuster: Deadpool
– Best Comedy: Sausage Party
– Best Hollywood Romance: La La Land
– Best Animated Movie: Kubo & the Two Strings
– Best Documentary: Weiner
– Best Feel-Good Movie: Sing Street
– Breakout Star of the Year: American Honey
– Best New Filmmaker: Moonlight
Top selling movies included Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Deadpool, Zootopia, The Martian, and Captain America: Civil War, while top selling Indie movies included Spotlight, The Hateful Eight, Room, Brooklyn, and Eye in the Sky.
Apple’s chose the following TV shows as the best of the year:
– This Year’s Obsession: American Crime Story: People v. O.J. Simpson
– Late Night Rule-Breaker: Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Vol. 3
– Best New Comedy: Atlanta, Season 1
– Most Original Kids Show: Steven Universe
– Extravaganza of the Year: RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars, Season 2
– Most Consistently Great: The Americans, Season 4
– Best New Drama: This Is Us, Season 1
Top selling television shows included Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Downton Abbey, The Americans, and Big Bang Theory.
Apple’s choice for novel of the year is Michael Chabon’s Moonglow, with additional picks as follows:
– Novel of the Year: Moonglow – Michael Chabon
– Nonfiction of the Year: Evicted – Matthew Desmond
– YA Novel of the Year: If I Was Your Girl – Meredith Russo
– Debut of the Year: Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
– Mystery: Charcoal Joe – Walter Mosley
– Thriller: Behind Closed Doors – B.A. Paris
– Popular Fiction: Sweetbitter – Stephanie Danker
– Literary Fiction: What Is Not Your Is Not Yours – Helen Oyeyemi
– Fantasy: The Fate of the Tearling – Erika Johansen
– Kids: Raymie Nightingale – Kate DiCamillo
– Cookbook: Everything I Want to Eat – Jessica Koslow
– Graphic Novel: March: Book Three – John Lewis
Best selling fiction books included “The Girl on the Train,” “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” “Me Before You,” and “After You,” while best selling non-fiction books included “When Breath Becomes Air,” “Killing the Rising Sun,” “The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo,” “Alexander Hamilton,” and “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Apple’s last set of top picks includes its choices for best podcasts:
– Revisionist History
– How I Built This
– In the Dark
– Jocko Podcast
– Anna Faris is Unqualified
– NPR Politics
– My Favorite Murder
– 2 Dope Queens Accused
– FiveThirtyEight Elections Heavyweight
– Pardon My Take
Top overall podcasts based on most downloads were Fresh Air, Stuff You Should Know, Serial, This American Life, and The Joe Rogan Experience.
Apple’s picks for top apps, which include Prisma and Clash Royale, can be found in a separate App Store article.
Tags: iBooks, iTunes Store, Apple Music
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Philip Morris submits a tobacco vaporizer for FDA approval
Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, submitted an application to the FDA on Tuesday seeking approval for its new tobacco vaporizer. The iQOS device, as it’s currently called, works on the same principle as the Pax, wherein the ground plant matter is gently heated until the active ingredients are vaporized, rather than burned with an open flame. Philip Morris claims that the vapor has 90 percent fewer harmful chemicals than normal cigarette smoke.
Rather than use a propylene glycol solution, the iQOS relies on replaceable real tobacco leaf cartridges which are shaped like conventional cigarettes. These “heat sticks” plug into the plastic heating element to produce a 500 degree F vapor and last around a dozen puffs.
If approved, the iQOS could profoundly shake up the US vaporizer market, which is currently dominated by modular, e-liquid-based vapes. The iQOS’ ease of use, low cost (heat stick packs cost around $6 on average), and brand familiarity are a potent marketing combination. The iQOS is already being sold in a number of foreign markets, including Japan where it has already captured nearly 2.4 percent of the market there.
Source: Reuters
Nearly half of Flickr’s photo uploads come from smartphones
It’s no secret that Flickr is popular with phone-toting photographers, but it’s now reaching a tipping point. The Yahoo-owned image service has posted its year in review, and it notes that 48 percent of photo uploads now come from smartphones. That’s a big jump over the 39 percent from 2015 — it’s now clear that you’re in the minority if you uploaded shots from a dedicated camera. The numbers for conventional cams aren’t exactly pretty.
The DSLR crowd was the hardest hit, as its representation tumbled from 31 percent in 2015 to 21 percent this year. Point-and-shoot use was down, too, to 21 percent from 25. About the only dedicated camera category left untouched was mirrorless, although its 3 percent is nothing to crow about.
When it comes to whose devices are at the top, it’s a familiar story. Of all photos with camera data attached, 47 percent were uploaded from Apple hardware — 8 out of the top 10 devices were iPhones. Canon was a distant second at 24 percent, and it accounted for the two other devices in the top ranks (the EOS 5D Mark II and Mark III). Nikon was third at 18 percent, leaving everyone else to fight for just 11 percent of the pie.
Flickr doesn’t usually elaborate on these stats, although you can point to a few factors behind the mobile shift. For one, smartphone image quality is quickly reducing the pressure to use dedicated cameras. DSLRs and mirrorless cams still take better photos overall, but a well-made smartphone shooter is frequently good enough for pleasing street shots and flower macros. The convenience of posting from your phone (especially with improving cellular data speeds) is hard to top even when a camera has WiFi, too. As for Apple’s dominance of the charts? Some of it comes through the Flickr integration that iOS has had for years, but it’s also helped by the iPhone’s popularity in the US and reputation for good (though not always best) photo quality.
Source: Flickr Blog
Instagram will let you turn off comments on posts – here’s how
A few months after giving everyone the ability to moderate their comments, Instagram has announced it’ll let users completely turn off comments.
The Facebook-owned app is trying to cut down on abuse and trolling. It wants to make Instagram “a safe place for self-expression”, and as part of that mission, it is rolling out an update that will introduce the ability for users to turn off comments on specific posts. It’s also adding the ability to like others’ comments and remove followers from private accounts.
Here’s everything you need to know.
- Instagram now lets you pinch to zoom
How can you turn off comments on Instagram?
You can turn off commenting to prevent people from commenting on an individual post. Doing so hides all the comments that are currently on your post, and people will no longer see the option to comment below your post. If you re-enable commenting, all previous comments will be restored and people will be able to comment again. To turn disable or enable commenting for a post:
- Tap the three-dot button above your post
- Select Turn Off Commenting or Turn On Commenting
To turn off commenting for a post before you share it, tape Turn Off Commenting (under Advanced Settings) on the screen where you add a caption or location to your post.
How can you remove followers from private accounts?
If you have a private account, you must approve each follower. In the past, when you approved a follower, you had to block him or her to remove them. Going forward, if your account is private, you can remove followers by going to your list of followers and tapping the “…” menu next to any person’s name. The person who you remove will not be notified.
When will these new tools be available?
Instagram said it will launch the ability to turn off comments and remove followers over the “coming weeks”. Same thing goes for the ability to like comments on individual posts.
Amazon hopes to open 2,000 Amazon Go stores and drive-thrus
Amazon has big plans for Amazon Go.
Amazon unveiled its cashier-less grocery store in Seattle on Monday, without any word as to whether it planned to open more locations. However, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Amazon hopes to one day open 2,000 grocery and convenience stores across the US. These stores might even have multiple formats, allowing it to better rival Target and Walmart.
The first Amazon Go is a 1,800-square-foot grocery store without lines or checkout counters, and it’s located in the company’s hometown. The store relies on self-driving-like technology, including artificial intelligence and sensors, to track what customers take off the shelves, and then it charges their Amazon accounts. Future Amazon Go stores may be available in three other varieties.
Amazon is reportedly considering the convenience store model the most, while the other store formats include a smaller drive-thru retail shop and a massive, Ikea-style discount chain that involves up to 40,000-square-foot stores. Apparently the drive-thru prototype is just weeks away from being available, as two stores are under construction in Seattle.
Customers will simply pick up their packages at the drive-thru. They can order in-store via touchscreen displays or online, but then they’d go to the drive-thru to pick up their packages later.
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