Streaming is boosting the music industry worldwide

The music industry has struggled to adapt to the digital world over the past couple of decades, but it might just be hitting its stride again. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has published its annual Global Music Report for 2016, and it notes that music revenue increased 5.9 percent — that may not sound like much, but it’s the best since the IFPI started its tracking in 1997. And not surprisingly, streaming music played a large role. On-demand listening revenue shot up a whopping 60.4 percent, more than making up for steep drops in downloads (down 20.5 percent) and physical copies (down 7.6 percent). As is often the case, though, the industry is quick to blame ‘rogue’ internet elements for limiting the growth that could take place.

The IFPI singles out YouTube and similar services for contributing to a “value gap” where artists aren’t paid as well as they are on dedicated music portals. Supposedly, they use their lack of liability for uploaded material as a “shield” that lets them avoid licensing music on “fair terms.” This would be fixed by using liability laws “correctly and consistently” to force them to pay for music at the same rates as other services.

Naturally, the organization was also quick to blame search engines for not doing enough to remove pirate sites from search results. IFPI and other groups spotted 19.2 million sites with alleged pirate material, and sent 339 million takedown requests to Google alone.

Even with the gripes, the figures suggest that the music business might finally have a stable digital foundation to work from.. at least, so long as drops in downloads aren’t too severe. The stats also suggest that artists may hamper themselves if they choose the wrong streaming exclusives. Beyoncé’s Lemonade topped the download and physical album sales chart, for example, but the decision to stream exclusively on Tidal meant that she was a no-show in the streaming single charts. Drake, meanwhile, limited his exclusive to a short-term Apple Music deal and reaped the benefits: he was the IFPI’s top artist, led the streaming charts and still placed third in the download/physical rankings. In short, it’s still in the best interests of big-name musicians to make their work available wherever possible.

Via: Variety

Source: IFPI (PDF)

‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ ends the trilogy on May 24th, 2019

Modern Star Wars movies have had a bad habit of slipping into December, but that isn’t stopping Disney and Lucasfilm from wanting the space epic to become a summer blockbuster once again. The two have announced that Star Wars: Episode IX will debut on May 24th, 2019 — just three and a half years after The Force Awakens first hit theaters. You might not want to base your schedule around that date knowing the history of previous delays, but it might come as a relief if you’re tired of freezing in lineups for midnight showings.

As for details? There still aren’t many. Right now, the only concrete facts are the director (Jurassic World’s Colin Trevorrow) and that, despite rumors, the late Carrie Fisher won’t make an appearance. The one certainty: given that Episode IX is the final movie in the current trilogy, it’ll have to tie up whatever loose ends are left after The Last Jedi.

Source: Star Wars

Watson could be the key to smarter manufacturing robots

Some reports predict that robots will replace 5 million jobs in the next couple of years. Bill Gates thinks we need a “robot tax” to compensate for those losses. A new partnership announced today between Swiss automation firm ABB and IBM’s Watson initiative could hasten that future while it seeks to improve efficiency in on the manufacturing floor.

Swiss company ABB makes a ton of things, including electric vehicle power, industrial automation systems and manufacturing robots. It’s biggest sales, though, come from software that enables communication between machinery and centralized control centers. It’s looking to further this growth (and boost its sales) via this new partnership with Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence technology.

Imagine an automotive assembly line, full of robots that build cars without any human intervention. Someone has to monitor and inspect the machinery for defects, ensuring their safe and efficient operation. ABB’s technology can gather real-time images and then get Watson to analyze them for potential problems, something a human previously needed to do.

While calling it the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” might be overstating things, the connection of world-class AI to ABB’s installed base of 70 million connected devices could truly help industrial manufacturing be much more efficient. Replacing human beings, however, may be the true cost of doing business this way.

Via: Reuters

Source: ABB

Samsung’s emoji chat app helps people with language disorders

It seems like emoji has become a language of its own, but each symbol is really a stand-in for a wide array of thoughts and emotions. This shorthand can be useful for someone who struggles to digest written words — like those with aphasia, a language disorder that impedes people’s ability to read, talk and write. To help this group, Samsung developed Wemogee, a chat app that translates written phrases into emoji bursts to enable fluid conversation.

For neurotypical users, the app changes words into a series of emojis: “How are you?” becomes a smiley face, an “okay” hand gesture and a question mark. Those with aphasia go the other way, selecting groups of emoji symbols that convey the statement they’re trying to make, which gets translated into words. While Weemogee is obviously intended for typical digital chatting, it’s also helpful for in-person conversations: Passing a device back and forth might be cumbersome, but unlocking communication for those who struggle with words and diction is worth the inconvenience.

Samsung worked with professors and neursurgeons from the University of Milan to refine the emoji selection and translation, narrowing the choices down to 140 key phrases. The app is available now on Google Play, with iOS and Samsung Galaxy App versions coming soon.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Wemogee

Spotify took its sweet time getting Behind the Lyrics on Android

Over a year ago, Spotify rolled out a slick new Behind the Lyrics integration on iOS that connected the song you were currently listening to with annotated lyrics from Genius. Like a cross between VH1’s Pop Up Video and a karaoke machine, Behind the Lyrics draws on Genius’s extensive database of music trivia to give you a bit of the track’s backstory. Unfortunately, it took Spotify a solid 18 months to bring those features to everyone on Android.

According to an announcement from Spotify, Behind the Lyrics has “just landed” on Android. If you, devoted Android user, feel like you’ve been left out of the music trivia party, Spotify suggests the best way to check out the feature is to jump into their curated Behind the Lyrics: Hip Hop and Today’s Top Hits playlists, which include artists’ notes, fun facts and other lyrical excerpts. They’re also doing a promo around the release of R&B star Khalid’s latest album American Teen.

“You listen to a record, and you interpret it your own way,” the 19-year-old Khalid said. “But with this, you can see what the artist felt. ‘You know what? Maybe it doesn’t mean what I thought. Maybe it means this.’ But at the same time, music is universal. Music can mean anything you want.”

A Doritos bag is all you need to play the ‘Guardians 2’ soundtrack

Doritos is teaming up with Marvel Studios to promote Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in an unusual way. They’ve created a custom-designed, limited edition series of Doritos bags with a built-in, rechargeable cassette deck-inspired player that plays the movie’s full soundtrack.

The 14-song album features ’60s and ’70s pop and rock songs from artists like Fleetwood Mac, George Harrison, Cheap Trick and David Hasselhoff. Yes, the Hoff. He’s recorded an original song for the movie alongside a band call The Sneepers (the band’s name is an obscure Marvel reference), and it’s full of glorious disco cheese. Take a listen.

This isn’t the first time chip maker Frito-Lay has used technology in its efforts to sell more snacks. During this year’s Superbowl, it came out with a limited-edition Tostitos “Party Bag” equipped with a sensor that can detect alcohol on your breath. It also had an NFC chip that would hail you an Uber when you tapped your phone to it.

The Guardians bags will be available to buy on April 28th via Amazon while supplies last. There’s no word yet on how much they will cost, but can you really put a price on the magnificent trifecta of nacho cheese, nostalgia and David Hasselhoff?

Source: Billboard

Nastier version of IoT botnet could brick your smart toaster

Two new versions of a nasty botnet called BrickerBot were spotted in the wild by researcher Pascal Geenens, who reported the latest attack for security firm Radware. Permanent denial-of-service botnets like these can infect poorly-protected IoT devices like smart toasters and web-enabled vibrators to bring down various connected web servers. These new BrickerBot iterations use scripts with even more commands and almost four times as many actual attacks as previous iterations to completely overwhelm their targets.

The IoT devices used in this most recent denial-of-service attach are the same type as those targeted by Mirai, the botnet software that shut down most of the web last year. BrickerBot seems to target IP cameras and DVRs, essentially bricking the devices. That means any any IoT device with factory default credentials could be targeted.

Of course, the makers of iOT devices need to get serious about security, but there are things you can do to protect yourself from this type of attack. Radware recommends several fixes, with the obvious “change the default password” at the top of the list.

Via: ArsTechnica

Source: Radware

YouTube Kids brings cartoons and bright colors to your smart TV

YouTube Kids’ mobile app is fine if your young ones are content to watch videos on a tablet, but what if you just want to plunk them down on the couch to watch on the big screen? You can after today. YouTube is trotting out a version of the Kids app for many LG, Samsung and Sony smart TVs (more details below) in all 26 countries where the child-ready viewer is available. The interface isn’t exactly a radical departure, but that’s the point, isn’t it? Ideally, this lets little tykes watch videos with minimal help from their parents.

How easy it is to load the app depends on your manufacturer. LG is making YouTube Kids available on all 2015 and newer webOS TVs through its content store, and you can check it out on a 2013 or newer Samsung sets as long as you have access to Samsung’s app store. Things get trickier on Sony TVs, though: it’s only compatible with 2016 and newer models after a firmware update, and the Android TV version is “coming soon.” While YouTube is covering a broad range of hardware, you can’t quite assume that your TV is good to go.

Source: YouTube Official Blog

‘Heroes of the Storm’ adds everyone’s favorite ‘Overwatch’ hero

Last month, Blizzard announced it would revamp its MOBA game, Heroes of the Storm, in a huge patch released in April. Its 2.0 update, which is live in North America, promised to upgrade its player progression system and added random-reward loot boxes, a staple of the free-to-play model. But the studio had a few other surprises to drop today, including adding a new hero to the nexus, Overwatch’s teen mecha-piloting pop star, D.Va.

D.Va will be the fifth character from Blizzard’s hero shooter to make the jump to Heroes of the Storm, after Tracer, Zarya, Lucio and the just-announced Genji. The 2.0 update also adds the Overwatch location Hanamura as a Heroes map, which adds a few new gameplay mechanics to the mix. Now the MOBA’s players can live the agony of being the only one pushing the payload.

As we’ve known since they announced it a month ago, the 2.0 update’s switch to a loot box system brings a slew of new expression options, like emojis, banners and sprays. Detractors lamented that these would clog loot box drops and make it even harder to get more desirable rewards like new characters and skins. Like its sister game Hearthstone — and many other free-to-play games — Heroes has its own in-game currency and rewards to stem that sting. Plus, they’ve introduced another Nexus Challenge play-to-earn reward series that will run over the next four weeks, so queue into games on Heroes with a friend to get bonus goodies for it and Overwatch.

Finally, Blizzard recently introduced a new charity challenge for its Heroes streamers: Tryhard — For Good! Fans can cheer their favorite top players while they climb the ladder of Hero League. The higher they go, the more Blizzard will donate to the Make A Wish Foundation and JA Worldwide.

Source: Blizzard (Twitter)

Sling tries to lure customers with an AirTV bundle

Sling has realized that it also needs a dirt-cheap hardware offering to help hook wary users into cutting the cord. That’s why it’s heavily discounting the AirTV Player, which lets you access local channels and Netflix, from a single, Roku-esque box. Normally, the device would set you back $130, including three months of Sling service, but can be yours for $50, depending on your subscription fee.

If your base rate is $20 a month, then you just need to pre-pay for three months to be eligible for the discount. Similarly, if you spend $15 a month, then you’ll need to pay for an extra month to take part in the offer. And yes, if you spend less than $15 a month, the company will ask for six months’ worth of prepayment before the box can be yours.

Sling is also making a play for the cord cutter dime by offering what it considers is the only “A La Carte TV” package worth a damn. Unfortunately, it appears as if the company’s big claims don’t extend to the packages themselves, since you can’t actually choose your channels a la carte.

The service confirmed to Engadget that nothing about its pricing or structure is changing and that the “A La Carte TV” label is more a reference to how Sling has been set up from the beginning. In other words, the ability to have a core package and then pick and choose from a range of add-on channels and genres. Sling Orange remains $20/month and Sling Blue is still $25/month with whatever additional channels and bundles you want to tack on to that fee.

The cardinal sin of TV, at least according to Sling CEO Roger Lynch, is that you can’t simply pay for what you use. If you watch one channel in a family of 10, then you can bet your bottom dollar you’ll be shelling out for all of them. Lynch believes that it’s a crucial mistake that even brand new TV companies are making when trying to snag that cord-cutter cash. After all, most insist on selling you a skinny bundle of channels, many of which are the same crap you resented paying for as part of a cable subscription. No matter how Sling sells it, you’ll still have to wait to select your ideal lineup of channels from scratch.

Billy Steele contributed to this report.

Source: Sling (1), (2)