The average person spends about $15 on streaming music all year

If you are paying $10 a month to stream your favorite music whenever you want, you aren’t alone, but you’re one of the few. According to the recently released Nielsen Music 360 2017 U.S. Report, the latest study from Nielsen Music, the average music consumer spends less than $15 on streaming music annually.

Nielsen Music’s study revealed people spend $156 annually on music, with streaming music accounting for only nine percent. That small percentage roughly equals $14. As low as that is, it’s actually an improvement. Last year, the average person spent $153 on music, with six percent — a little more than $9 — being allocated to streaming music.

The most glaring reason for why people are paying so little for streaming music is because there is so much free music to stream. Nielsen’s study found 45 percent of consumers prefer to stream music for free, compared to the 29 percent of consumers that have a music streaming subscription. Nearly half of those who said they do not have a music subscription said they didn’t because that option is too expensive. Nielsen conducted this survey in August with 3,000 consumers over the age of 13.

Spotify is one of the biggest entities keeping the average music spending price down. There are roughly 90 million people using Spotify for free each month, around the same number of people paying to use Apple Music, Tidal, and Spotify, combined. Pandora, one of the most popular sources for streaming music for free, launched an on-demand subscription service in March. The new service only attracted 390,000 subscribers in the first four months, a far cry from the millions that use its free radio service.

Pandora’s introduction of a subscription tier is part of a larger shift away from offering free tiers. Apple Music and Tidal both debuted in 2015 with free trials that are still offered but without a dedicated free option. Apple Music offers its Beats One radio service for free but is adamant that giving away free music on streaming services is bad. “I’ve put my money where my mouth is: Beats Music didn’t have a free tier. Apple Music doesn’t have a free tier,” Apple Music’s Jimmy Iovine said during an interview with Music Business Worldwide in May. “I think what’s going on [with free music] is wrong. I just do.”

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Leaked benchmarks for new Microsoft Windows 10 laptops show meager performance

Microsoft is set to unveil a new range of Windows 10 laptops built around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, based on an early benchmark test that’s been leaked on the internet, their performance may be somewhat underwhelming.

Microsoft and Qualcomm have both pledged that this processor will offer multiday battery life without any negative effect on performance, according to a report from MS Power User. The stats, however, paint a very different picture.

A comparison on Geekbench between a Qualcomm processor labeled the CLS and an Intel Core i3 gives the CLS a single-core score of 1,202, while the Core i3 blows it out of the water with a score of 3,692. When it comes to multicore results, the i3 dominates once again, outscoring the CLS 11,860 to 4,068.

The Snapdragon’s performance also disappoints when compared to Android devices that take advantage of the 835 processor, which tend to score around 2,200 by single-core metrics and about 7,700 for multicore.

It is possible that Microsoft simply needs to carry out some last-minute optimization work before the hardware is ready for release. These tests are dated November 1, and given that the laptops haven’t been officially unveiled just yet, there is time for this to take place.

There’s also a chance that these tests might not be utilizing the second run caching that the ARM emulator is capable of. This should make the hardware able to run apps much faster the second time that they are launched when compared to the first.

Of course, there’s also a much more troubling scenario – Windows 10 might just run significantly slower on ARM hardware as a result of the limitations enforced by the necessary emulation, and the overhead required for the operating system itself. If these tests are indicative of the performance we can expect from these laptops, it’s difficult to imagine how they could contribute much to the Windows ecosystem.

We won’t know for sure how well Windows 10 performs on the Snapdragon 835 processor until third-party benchmarkers get their hands on the hardware and are able to put it through its paces. Microsoft is set to lift the lid on the range of laptops soon.

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Somnox is a robotic pillow that lulls you to sleep by ‘breathing’

Thanks to the plethora of stories about sex robots in the news, you would be forgiven for misunderstanding us when we tell you that the key to a good night’s sleep may be going to bed with a robot. In fact, we’re referring to the Somnox sleep robot, a newly launched soft robotic pillow that is designed to be the perfect sleep companion to help you get some quality shut-eye.

The kidney-shaped huggable bot breathes steadily along with you, providing a physical sensation that, its creators claim, will subconsciously influence your own breathing rhythm. If that’s not enough, it can also offer up some soothing audio to help you relax.

“Our company was started in the robotics institute of the University of Technology Delft,” Julian Jagtenberg, one of the Netherlands-based founders of Somnox, told Digital Trends. “As four robotics engineers, we wanted to create a soft robot that could solve a personal issue: That of sleep deprivation.” Jagtenberg said the team started by looking at ways to solve the problem, but most of them seemed to involve medication — sometimes with addictive side effects. “This was the moment the Somnox sleep robot was born,” he said.

Having created the robot, the team has tested it on more than 85 subjects, who report that it has helped them. The sleep robot was found to be especially effective when it comes to helping people who have a tough time falling asleep as a result of stress or anxiety. More formal clinical trials are set to take place in 2018. The team also plans to incorporate artificial intelligence features into the robot so that it will be able to gather data and use this to predict when you may have trouble sleeping — and take steps to help.

If you would like to get hold of your very own Somnox robot, you can currently place a pre-order on Kickstarter. For a starter price of 449 euros ($530), you get a Somnox sleep robot, washable sleeve, a mobile app with over-the-air updates, and a charger. Shipping is set to take place in July.

While that is certainly a decent chunk of change to invest in a robotic pillow (although, to be fair, we never stopped to think what a reasonable price for one might be!), if this works as promised, it could be transformative. After all, you can’t put a price on a good night’s sleep!

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How to Cast Audio from your Daydream

Now that Daydream can cast to your TV it should have opened up a lot of fun to be had with friends. Unfortunately, audio is still not available on all games and isn’t even set as on by default which. When you cast your Daydream view to show people the awesome game you’ve been playing, or an amazing 360 video of Paul McCartney, of course, you want it to have audio!

For now, it seems that not all apps have audio capabilities, which is a bummer. However, even with those that do support audio, you’ll need to turn the feature on. Here’s how to do it!

Read more at VRHeads

Arena of Valor brings top-notch MOBA action to Android

From the company that now owns League of Legends comes a mobile MOBA that looks a lot like it.

Tencent isn’t a company that you may be too familiar with, but it’s a name is increasingly cropping up in the West. China’s largest internet company is a big deal and naturally has its fingers in many pies.

Though not currently (officially) available in North America, Arena of Valor is Tencent’s newest mobile hit. Despite over a million downloads in the Play Store I’d never heard of it until picking up a Razer Phone, on which it is preloaded.

It’s a mobile MOBA, it’s free to play and looks suspiciously like the most popular game on the planet: League of Legends. But that’s OK since Tencent owns that, too. It’s also a lot of fun.

A familiar formula

From the makers of League of Legends comes a game that looks… a lot like LOL.

There is nothing groundbreaking about this game in the MOBA space. The formula is extremely familiar, following the tried and true pattern of a symmetrical map separated into lanes, teams of up to 5 players, towers, jungle, monsters and a large crystal type thing in each base that you need to destroy in order to emerge with the W.

Competitively, Arena of Valor is played entirely online, so sadly you won’t be ranking up on a plane or anything as you need a solid connection. You are able to practice or play matches against bots, but as you’d expect this is an entirely online affair.

Arena of Valor has a bunch of different heroes to unlock and play as you progress, each with their own unique style and abilities, a selection of unlockable skins, as well as having a pretty stellar ranked game mode with seasons long enough for you to actually make a good rank without having to grind away at it for hours every day.

Easy to play, a challenge to master

Some good thought has gone into how you’re actually going to play Arena of Valor on a phone or tablet. The controls aren’t quite as touch-friendly as Vainglory, but they’re still very good. There’s no diving into menus or endless tiny icons on the screen, everything is perfectly placed for operation on a phone with a quick tap.

The left side of the screen is where you control your hero and spend gold to purchase upgrades throughout a battle. The right side is where you find your main ability, your talent, and your special abilities. The talent and specials all have a cooldown period, and the specials will get more powerful as you level up in the course of a battle. And at any point, if things get too much, you can recall to base and get a full heal.

Arena of Valor has a pretty comprehensive training scheme to teach you the mechanics of the game, and while leveling up and building out your Arcana to make you even better is a little confusing at first, it’s fairly simple to get a handle on what you need to do.

Smart players will ultimately succeed more than brutes.

In battle, a MOBA is a MOBA is a MOBA, basically. The standard map for 5v5 (and the one you’ll be playing most, especially if you’re playing ranked) is split into three lanes with some hefty patches of jungle between them. You can use in-game chat to communicate with your teammates, either with your own messages or pre-produced ones, or if you’re brave jump into some voice chat.

The trick to being successful is a good strategy — not chasing kills as you’ll sadly find some players only seem interested in. It’s perfectly possible to be 20 or more points behind and still get the win since one team fight late on can change everything. Smart players will ultimately succeed more than brutes. Naturally, if you can find four buddies to team up with, you’ll be at an immediate advantage over playing with total strangers.

But, it’s slick, it looks really nice and it’s really simple to get the hang of. Arena of Valor has some settings to tweak graphics depending on how powerful your device is and an in-game frame rate counter to keep an eye on performance. The default mode is 30FPS but if your phone can play it at a steady 60FPS, enable high-frame rate mode and enjoy yourself. The difference is astonishing.

Not the IAP mess you may expect

It’s easy to hear “free to play” and expect a mess of in-app purchases that will somehow tarnish the gameplay. Presumably. Tencent learned a lot from League of Legends, and while there are things you can spend real money on, it doesn’t feel like you have to. If you want that sexy new skin for your hero, you probably will, but in the two weeks I’ve been playing I’ve unlocked 10 heroes without spending a single penny on them.

You can spend a lot of money here, but you probably won’t feel like you have to. Which is good.

There are also great rewards for new players and for coming back and playing regularly, as well as hitting in-game achievements. Free gold, gems, heroes and such all await and they’re not difficult to get. If you keep your credibility at 100 (so no leaving games before the end or trash talking) you get 100 gold every single day for free.

I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but it’s fairly well-balanced so that folks who really don’t want to part with money can still have a good time. If you’re a serious player and you’re climbing through the global ranks, you’re probably the sort of player that will also throw in a few bucks from time to time.

I mean, League of Legends is free to play and it makes a ton of money every year. So there’s a model for it.

The bottom line

If you’re a fan of MOBAs or even just mobile gaming, in general, I’d encourage you to check out Arena of Valor. I’m not really a fan of the genre but I’ve been enjoying the daylights out of this over the past couple of weeks.

It feels like a proper game designed for proper competitive play, not some freemium mess pushed out by a developer only interested in making a quick buck. Arena of Valor already has a growing esports program with backing from ESL in Europe, and its popularity will surely continue to grow.

Right now, you can’t officially play it in North America and the launch there has been pushed back now until 2018. There are of course ways to play if you’re there, but you’ll not get the best experience yet. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

Download Arena of Valor from Google Play

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Today Weather: A beautiful weather app and a must-have for OLED displays

There are many weather apps on Android that all tell the weather but very few do it in a way that looks as good as Today Weather.

Today Weather is a great weather app that puts the information you need to know right in front of you in a clear and easy to understand way. What makes Today Weather stand out are the vibrant colors and, in particular, the black background that makes everything pop.

There is an easy to use slide-in menu to easily access the weather at your location and also various pre-set locations to get an idea, for example, of what the weather is like at your next vacation destination. There is also a 7-day forecast so you’ll be sure to not get caught out when planning your days out.

Today Weather provides many data sources: Accuweather.com, Weather.com, Weather Wunderground, Dark Sky.

The app looks great on the phone with AMOLED displays because of the black background and display on the device, but the app is just very well designed so would look great across the board.

The app looks great on the phone with AMOLED displays because of the black background and display on the device, but the app is just very well designed so would look great across the board.

Download Today Weather (free)

Deal: Save big at T-Mobile on the LG V30 and LG G6!

For a limited time, new and existing T-Mobile customers can get up to $500 back (via rebate) when buying two LG V30s or get a free LG G6 (via rebate) when buying an LG G6. This is a great way to get two new devices for use on T-Mobile without breaking the bank — plus you’ll get a free tablet to go along for the ride!

New and existing customers can take advantage of this deal by purchasing both phones on the Equipment Installment Plan and activating them on T-Mobile ONE Unlimited plans. The big money payback on this deal comes when you submit a rebate online. You’ll get up to $500 rebate on a prepaid MasterCard to help offset the cost of the new devices. Hit up the links below to start shopping!

LG V30 at T-Mobile

LG G6 at T-Mobile

There are taxes on any device you go with and you’ll have to pay that up front regardless of the plan or phone. If you cancel your wireless service, remaining device balances will become due. The LG G Pad X2 is free after 24 monthly bill credits. If you cancel wireless service prior to 24 months, the credits will stop and you will owe remaining balance. Rebate on the second device will take up to 8 weeks so be sure to fill out your rebate form as soon as you activate your new phone!

Motorola’s new Mod is a snap-on Polaroid photo printer

Motorola’s Mods have been wide-ranging attempts to trick out your smartphone with sizeable gadgets, from a 360-degree camera to a standalone speaker with Amazon Alexa. Their next one might be more appealing to casual Moto Z smartphone owners: A Polaroid-brand printer case for the Moto Z that pumps out photos.

The Polaroid Insta-Share Printer, as it’s called, looks like a little angular box snapped to the phone like a backpack. Crucially, it’s got a shutter button that, combined with the printer’s heft and shape, should make smartphone photography far less cumbersome. The mod uses Polaroid’s proprietary Zero-Ink Paper format to produce 2-inch by 3-inch photos you’ve saved locally or from Facebook, Instagram or Google Photos.

Motorola’s website and Verizon stores will start selling Polaroid’s Moto Mod this Friday, November 17th, where it retails for $200. Best Buy, B&H, Fry’s and NewEgg will have it starting December 13th.

Source: Motorola Blog

Amazon’s automated convenience stores edge closer to public debut

Last year, Amazon opened its first convenience store embedded with its “just walk out technology.” Located in Seattle, the Amazon Go store, which lets shoppers walk in, load up on the items they want and walk out without having to pay for the items in a checkout line, has been testing its technology with Amazon employees. Now, as Bloomberg reports, the company has worked through some of the hangups with the technology and is making moves towards opening its store and others to the public.

In March, the Wall Street Journal reported that while the Amazon Go store did well with a small amount of customers who were shopping fairly slowly, it couldn’t keep up when there were more than 20 shoppers in the store at once. The store uses cameras, sensors and deep learning algorithms to track shoppers as they move around, log which items they take and charge them once they leave. Those technical bugs pushed the public opening of the store from an initial projection of early 2017 to an undetermined future date. But now, at least some of the issues have been fixed. One source told Bloomberg that three Amazon employees, each dressed in Pikachu costumes, went into the store and shopped as a way to challenge the technology. But once they were finished, the store charged each of the shoppers’ Amazon accounts accurately.

Some problems are still being addressed. Shoppers wandering the store in groups and families with “grabby” kids still pose a challenge to the technology. But in the meantime, Amazon appears to be preparing for a public launch. The company is reportedly hiring construction managers and marketers for the Amazon Go team rather than just engineers and researchers. And earlier this year, it filed trademark registrations for Amazon Go slogans with the UK Intellectual Property Office and the European Commission.

While the next step is likely to be standalone Amazon Go stores, some think that the technology could be worked into Whole Foods following Amazon’s acquisition of the chain earlier this year.

Via: The Verge

Source: Bloomberg

Google Maps’ new look adapts to how you travel

Google Maps may be a cornerstone of navigation for many people, but its visual presentation can occasionally leave something to be desired. Why would you care about gas stations when you’re taking the subway? To that end, Google is giving Maps a fresh look that adapts to your travel methods and what you’re looking for. If you’re taking public transportation, it’ll highlight stops and route lines; if you’re exploring the area, it’ll focus more on points of interest. Each location type will have distinct colors and icons, too, so it should be easier to find a restaurant or movie theater if you’re new to the area.

Maps’ new coat of paint will arrive over the next few weeks in every Google app or service that uses the platform, ranging from obvious picks like Android Auto and Google Earth through to secondary uses like Google Assistant and standard searches. It’ll show up in other apps and websites “over time.” While this isn’t the same as changing features, this could still make a big difference — the context-sensitive visuals could make sure you take the right bus, or discover an eatery you would have otherwise missed.

Source: Google