Spotify reaches 50 million paid subscribers, leaving Apple Music to play catch-up

Why it matters to you

This latest milestone shows Apple Music and other rivals still have some serious work to do to take the music streaming crown from Spotify.

Spotify is continuing to persuade music fans to hand over cold, hard cash in exchange for access to a massive library of tracks.

The streaming giant on Thursday revealed it now has 50 million paying subscribers, an increase of 10 million in five months.

Spotify announced the news in a short and sweet tweet thanking its growing army of paying subscribers for their loyalty.

Thank you to our 50 million subscribers. #Spotify50 pic.twitter.com/eXkOV71bwu

— Spotify (@Spotify) March 2, 2017

Continuing to build up its user base at a steady rate, Spotify took six months to grow from 30 million to 40 million users, and nine months to increase from 20 million to 30 million.

Time to achieve @Spotify paying subs

0 ~> 10M = 4 yrs
10 ~> 20M = 13 months
20 ~> 30M = 9 mnths
30 ~> 40M = 6 mnths
40 ~> 50M = 5 mnths

— Rich Greenfield (@RichBTIG) March 2, 2017

Although a few music streaming outfits have fallen by the wayside in the face of stiffening competition, there are still plenty of big-hitters battling it out in the cut-throat market. While Spotify still leads the pack, others, Apple among them, are continuing to make a play for users.

The Cupertino company’s Apple Music streaming service, which launched in June 2015, reached 20 million paying subscribers toward the end of last year. Spotify and Apple both charge users $10 a month for access to their enormous libraries of music. They also offer identical deals for students ($5 a month) and families ($15 a month). However, whereas Spotify offers a free tier with ads and several limitations, Apple Music has no free offering.

More: Spotify vs. Apple Music — which service is the streaming king?

With 100 million monthly active users overall, Spotify is continuing to work to convert non-paying users to its paid plan in order to boost revenue. Talk of an IPO also continues, though the latest is that the company may hold off till 2018 to give it more time to improve its balance sheet and alter its business model to boost revenue.

Spotify is testing a lossless Hi-Fi option as it hits 50 million paid subscribers

Spotify is about to launch the ‘ultimate music experience.’

Spotify announced back in September that it crossed 40 million paying customers, and it took the world’s largest streaming service just five and a half months to pick up an additional 10 million subscribers. In a tweet, Spotify revealed that it crossed 50 million paid subscribers. 2016 was a great year for streaming services in general, and Spotify is now looking to continue its momentum by testing a lossless tier with CD quality audio.

Several users on Reddit got a prompt to upgrade to the lossless audio tier, with the prices ranging from $5 a month to $10 over the cost of a regular $10 premium subscription. Those that tried to activate the offer got a message saying, “this is not available in your area.”

Based on the screenshot for the lossless tier, Spotify will offer CD quality audio, which will likely stream at 1411kbps. By contrast, the current premium plans top out at 320Kbps. It looks like Spotify is still figuring out the pricing and features for the lossless tier, as the screenshots detail different perks. One claims to offer all the premium features and CD quality audio for an additional $10 a month, while others also include discounts on limited-edition vinyls and access to exclusive pre-sale tickets for an added $5 a month over the premium plan.

By offering lossless audio, Spotify is setting its sights on Tidal, the Jay Z-owned music streaming service. Tidal’s focus on Hi-Fi audio and its repertoire of artist-owners and exclusive content deals allowed it to stand out in this segment, but the service has had difficulties in gaining subscribers. Sprint picked up a 33% stake in the service earlier this year, and the carrier said that it will offer “exclusive content” to its 45 million customers.

Spotify has a significantly better recommendation engine and a larger music catalog — not to mention an interface that’s actually usable, and by introducing a lossless option, the service will be looking to lure subscribers away from Tidal while maintaining a competitive advantage over Apple Music, which is limited to 256Kbps.

You can now sign up for beta versions of Gboard and Google Play Services

Get the latest Gboard and Google Play Services features before everyone else.

Google is now offering beta versions of Gboard and Google Play Services, allowing you to test out upcoming features before they’re available to all users. Doing so is relatively straightforward — you have to head to the signup page for Gboard and Google Play Services and hit the “Become a tester” button.

Doing so switches you to the beta channel, and you should see the corresponding change on the Play Store:

Should you decide that the beta channel isn’t for you, you can easily switch back to the stable release channel by selecting the “Leave the program” button on the beta page.

• Sign up for Gboard beta
• Sign up for Google Play Services beta

Here’s the new Nokia 3310 you really want, if you’ve got $3K to spare

As HMD Global was announcing a new, updated version of the Nokia 3310 at Mobile World Congress this week, luxury phone brand Gresso was also revealing its new feature phone.

Many even called the Meridian, with its gold buttons, a rival to the Nokia handset. However, the company wasn’t finished. It is realising an actual rival to the Nokia 3310, unsurprisingly called the Gresso 3310, and it will cost you at least $3,000 (£2,447).

It is shaped just like the original 3310, much like the €49 reissue, but has a grade 5 titanium shell and keypad.

• This is the new Nokia 3310
• Nokia 3310 vs Nokia 3310: What’s the difference 17 years on?
• Nokia through the years: 34 best and worst phones, in pictures
• Best retro phones we’d all like to see come back

The Gresso version also ups the ante with specifications, offering a 3-megapixel camera on the rear. Neither the original nor new Nokia versions offer that.

There is also 32GB of on-board storage, dual-SIM functionality and up to 75 hours of talktime on one battery charge.

The Gresso 3310 can withstand a drop of up to 32 feet.

Gresso

Only 3310 limited edition models will be made, hence each device’s $3K price ticket. It will be available in black or titanium grey.

“The headlines from Mobile World Congress have focused on the release of the new Nokia 3310. The question on everyone’s mind was if the new Nokia 3310 model would live up to the indestructible reputation of its 2000 predecessor,” said a Gresso spokesman.

“Crafted from grade 5 titanium, the Gresso 3310 is able to withstand a drop from 32 feet, making the world’s ‘unbreakable’ phone actually indestructible.”

For the first time, bitcoin is more valuable than gold

Today marked a weird but auspicious moment in human history. The value of a single bitcoin, the most mainstream of cryptocurrencies, surpassed the price of one ounce of gold. While that’s specifically due to a good trading day for the former and slightly bad one for the latter, resulting in a moment where a loosely-comparable unit of bitcoin value topped that of gold, both have been trending toward this point for awhile.

That’s because, as both CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) and Coinbase have tracked, the cryptocurrency has been slowly recovering from a low point at $200 per unit in mid-2015 up until today, when it hit $1,238.11. This topped gold’s value of $1,237.73 per ounce, according to Bloomberg Markets, which has hovered around that price point for a couple years. Those values have varied throughout the day, although bitcoin’s supremacy remains as of the time of publishing.

People aren’t necessarily ditching their gold to buy bitcoin — their prices don’t trade in correlation — but they’re both alternative assets, points out TechCrunch. Gold has traditionally been used as a more secure bet than volatile investments like real estate, so bitcoin’s rise in value is encouraging for cryptocurrency advocates who have been hoping it could supplant the “gold standard” of safer investing.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: CoinDesk

Amazon’s spring Pilot Season debuts five new shows on March 17th

Amazon is continuing its proud tradition letting you decide the fates of brand-new shows in a viewer-rated deathmatch. On March 17th, pilots for five potential series are dropping on Amazon Video and await your vote for which get made into full-fledged titles.

The two hourlong pilots feature plenty of familiar faces and names. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, written and directed by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, follows the titular housewife in 1958 as she sets out from her comfortable Manhattan home to make a name for herself in Greenwich Village’s comedy scene. House Of Cards’ Rachel Brosnahan takes the lead, BoardWalk Empire’s Michael Zegen plays her husband and Emmy Award-winning Tony Shalhoub accompanies as her father.

The other hourlong show, Oasis, is based on Michel Faber’s 2014 science fiction novel The Book of Strange New Things. A chaplain, played by Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden, travels to the distant planet Oasis to help establish a colony. Joining him is legendary Indian actor Anil Kapoor (Slumdog Millionaire) as the planet’s chief administrator, along with roles by Haley Joel Osment and Game Of Thrones’ Mark Addy. The pilot is written by Bridge of Spies’ Matt Charman and directed by Last King of Scotland’s Kevin Macdonald.

The three half-hour comedies include The Legend Of Master Legend, which follows Las Vegas-based street hero Master Legend’s struggle to balance his scrappy heroics while supporting his family, who are unimpressed with his cape-and-cowl antics. The pilot is executive produced and written by Transparent’s Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster.

Another, Budding Prospects, features three city boys heading into the Northern California boonies to grow weed at a grungy rural setup. This show, based on the T.C. Boyle novel of the same name, is directed by Ghost World and Bad Santa’s Terry Zwigoff.

Finally, The New V.I.P.’s is Amazon’s stab at getting an animated adult comedy in the lineup. In it, low-level employees get control of a major corporation after accidentally killing their boss. The show features the voices of Agent Carter’s Matt Braunger, Parks and Recreation’s Ben Schwarz and Gone Girl’s Missi Pyle.

Amazon Prime Video subscribers in the US, UK, Germany, Austria and Japan get access to all five pilots on March 17th. Vote for your favorite and they’ll follow gauntlet-survivors Transparent and The Man In The High Castle as full shows.

Via: Deadline

Source: Amazon Video

Cash me outside (review)

How “bow” a game based on a ridiculous and somewhat annoying meme? If you’re not sold on the idea, I don’t blame you. Gold Coast Apps has decided to “cash” in on the popularity of the popular “Cash me outside” quote from the girl that built her appearance on Dr. Phil into a mini-empire. Gold Coast is not afraid to quickly hop on other popular memes and pop culture references and build them into basic games. Previous entries also include ‘Damn Daniel’ and ‘Trump on the Run’.

Cashing in on simple gameplay

So how does Cash me outside play? Simple and straight forward–then paired with ridiculous sound effects from the overplayed meme. The premise is so basic it immediately brings feelings of Flappy Bird paired with Temple Run. You play as the unruly ‘Cash me outside’ girl, or some semblance of, within an ever-evolving quasi 2D/3D, blocky world.

Cash me outside is extremely simple in design and provides minutes of entertainment

Upon starting the game you’ll have instant access to the first level. The blocks appear in front of your character as she continually moves forward. Simply press the screen anywhere to cause her to jump between the gaps and land safely on the next floating platform. Miss a platform and poor little Danielle will fall to her unfortunate death. The game’s difficulty is high, and will cause most players to restart from the beginning over and over, in similar fashion to the infamous Flappy Bird.

As you move along in the game, Danielle will collect the cash that’s littered about the platforms. Collect enough cash, and you’ll be able to unlock new and uninspiring levels. The main, interesting point to the entire ‘Cash me outside’ game is that the levels occasionally and dynamically shift before you eyes, which is intriguing to watch, but also adds to the difficulty of the game.

Looks and sounds can be deceiving, but not here

Graphically, Cash me outside leaves a lot to be desired. We all know that great graphics don’t necessarily equate to a great game, but in this instance poor graphics are paired quite nicely with poor gameplay. Danielle herself is cartoony and looks as if she was drawn by a fifth-grader, and although the levels shift from time to time, the actual platforms are basic and blocky. It’s safe to assume this game is not licensed and I imagine that a license wouldn’t help in this instance.

Each time your character falls, you’ll hear the perfectly recreated “cash me outside” phrase from the Dr. Phil show that so many of us now know. Also after each failure, you will have about a 25% chance of being presented with a full-screen ad that will need to be dismissed in order to continue gameplay. Not surprisingly the entire experience feels like a quick cash-grab and will most likely be dismissed and forgotten by most players.

Cash-wrap

Cash me outside is ridiculous on so many levels. Is it funny and entertaining? Well maybe for some, but probably not for long for most players. I laughed the first time I tried the game, then quickly became annoyed by the repeating sound effects and repeating advertisements. This game, as it may be referred, is really what’s wrong with mobile entertainment in a multitude of ways.

13 year old Danielle in all her “cash me outside” glory is being fully exploited here

Simple, repetitive gameplay. Generic sound effects coupled with basic graphics would be given a pass if there was a little more to the game, but here they complement the poor gameplay perfectly–but not positively. It’s hard to recommend this game to anyone that doesn’t want just a quick laugh before this meme is all but forgotten within the upcoming weeks.

This cock ring connects to the world’s worst social network

The Moneyball-era Oakland A’s improved their on-field performance by using advanced statistics to build the best baseball team they could. In the bedroom, wearable devices like SexFit and Lovely bring a similar approach to less clothed athletics. These genital activity trackers record data points like calories burnt and thrusting force, but British Condoms’ i.Con is looking to take things one step further by collecting more nuanced data.

The sensor-laden ring isn’t a condom itself, but sits over the base of your preferred prophylactic. Put it on, “get it on,” and learn about metrics like the average velocity of thrusts, frequency of sessions, average skin temperature, and other details you probably don’t need to know about. After bedroom activity dies down, you can pair the ring’s data with the i.Con app via Bluetooth for further analysis.

British Condoms said the data collected is completely anonymous… if you want it to be. Because modesty is dead, users can use the app to share their stats with their friends or the world in what can only be described as a literal dick-measuring contest.

The i.Con is expected to go on sale at some point this year for £60, or about $73, and is available for pre-order now. British Condoms claims the i.Con isn’t noticeable while in use, although we suspect your partner would quickly become aware of an X-rated Fitbit wrapped around your package. Even if it is as sleek as they say, what benefit does knowing your thrust speed really have?

Via: Mashable

Source: British Condoms

Trump’s EPA proposal cuts funding for climate change, pollution programs

Ever since the election, we’ve been wondering what the new presidential administration has in store for environmental programs, and the proposed new EPA budget may provide answers. First, the Washington Post reported the proposal would cut EPA staff by one fifth in the first year and eliminate dozens of programs.

Then Reuters provided more detail, reporting from sources that the proposed 2018 budget represents a 25 percent cut in funding, while The Oregonian points to the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which has published even more specifics.

As the Trump administration seeks to fund increased spending on the military, money has to be cut from somewhere, and programs on the chopping block include things like the climate protection program focused on lowering emissions of greenhouse gases. Its budget would drop by 70 percent, from $95 million to $29 million. The $300 million budgeted towards fighting algae blooms, invasive species and other pollution in the Great Lakes would be cut to $10 million. Grants intended to help native tribes fight pollution would be cut by 30 percent to $45.8 million.

The Oregonian’s table clearly organizes what could be cut where for 42 programs mentioned in the proposal. At the same time this outline was provided to the EPA, its new head Scott Pruitt was telling US mayors that “the brownfields program, the Superfund program and the water infrastructure grants and state revolving funds are essential to protect.” Any cuts implemented would need to be approved by Congress, which Reuters notes could be difficult for programs like one dedicated to cutting diesel emissions.

According to the Post, EPA staffers were asked for a reaction to the proposed staffing cuts by the close of business Wednesday, while the U.S. Office of Management and Budget has a meeting scheduled for April 15th to discuss the workforce reduction.

Source: Washington Post, Reuters, The Oregonian, NACAA

Hard drives of the future could be made of DNA

Our data-driven society is churning out more information than traditional storage technology can handle, so scientists are looking for a solution in Nature’s hard drive: DNA. A pair of researchers at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center recently wrote a full computer operating system, an 1895 French film, an Amazon gift card and other files into DNA strands and retrieved them without errors, according to a study published in the latest edition of Science.

There are several advantages to using DNA. It’s a lot smaller than traditional media; a single gram can fit 215,000 times more data than a one terabyte hard drive, The Atlantic notes. It’s also incredibly durable. Scientists are using DNA thousands of years old to de-extinct wooly mammoths, for example. But, until now, they’ve only unlocked a fraction of its storage capacity. Study coauthors Yaniv Erlich and Dina Zielinski were able to fit the theoretical maximum amount of information per nucleotide using a new method inspired by how movies stream across the internet.

“We mapped the bits of the files to DNA nucleotides. Then, we synthesized these nucleotides and stored the molecules in a test-tube,” Erlich explained in an interview with ResearchGate. “To retrieve the information, we sequenced the molecules. This is the basic process. To pack the information, we devised a strategy—called DNA Fountain—that uses mathematical concepts from coding theory. It was this strategy that allowed us to achieve optimal packing, which was the most challenging aspect of the study.”

When an online streaming service like Netflix sends information, it uses fountain codes, which partition data into small packets. Even if a few packets are lost, Netflix can reconstruct the entire stream. DNA has a similar problem; scientists can only create and sequence it in small batches. This means that large amounts of data need to be broken down, and bits of them can be lost. Another downside to DNA? It breaks down after sequencing, which means the information is lost the more it’s read. Luckily, DNA is easy to replicate.

Although companies like Microsoft are currently looking into DNA as a storage option, Erlich estimates it’ll be more than a decade before it goes mainstream. “We are still in early days, but it also took magnetic media years of research and development before it became useful.”

Via: The Atlantic

Source: Science