How to improve your YouTube Music recommendations

YouTube Music is a new-ish music service with a not-so-new history to draw on.

Even if you’ve never used the YouTube Music app or shiny new desktop site before, chances are your profile is already chock-full of recommendations. YouTube Music shares a library and a history with the main YouTube app, and so that means that every video that’s been searched for or watched with your account is being used to calculate what music you’d like to listen to.

Unfortunately, not everything in our YouTube history is something we want affecting our recommendations or Your Mixtape — especially those Disney songs your niece demanded to sing along to while you were babysitting, or that viral video that you’ve been sent too many times to count. Here’s how to clear out the clutter and improve your YouTube Music offerings.

Build a library, don’t wait for one to appear

Yes, Google has said that Play Music will eventually migrate to YouTube Music, but if you’re waiting for your library to magically appear, you’re going to be waiting a while. A long while. Instead, start adding albums, artists, and playlists to your library. The contents of your library will tell YouTube what you like and help start shaping your recommendations beyond your years of mixed-use YouTube history.

Is recreating your library in a new service a complete pain? Yes, it is. Do you need to recreate the whole thing? Absolutely not. I’ve only added 96 albums to my library, and I’ve got about two dozen playlists, half of which were saved from YouTube Music’s recommendations and from YouTube search results for albums that aren’t properly listed yet.

Regularly rate recommendations

Rate songs whether you’re listening on your phone or on Google Home.

While you’re listening to any radio station, don’t just skip past songs you don’t like; thumb them down so they leave and don’t come back to any of your future radio stations. If you’re listening with the screen off or using Google Home to play some music, you can say “OK Google, I don’t like this song.” It takes more time, but it will help start purging songs you’re not a fan of. You can also thumb songs up or down after the listening session in your YouTube Music history on YouTube Music’s site. The YouTube Music app’s History page only gives the option to like a song, not to thumb it down.

If you keep getting recommendations from an artist you hate, thumbs them down every time, then go give YouTube Music feedback that you’d like a “Block artist/album” feature to keep other songs by them from popping up.

If songs you like pop up in your recommendations, thumb them up and add them to your library. It will ensure you get more music like that and less like the songs you thumb down.

Purge your YouTube histories

YouTube Music and YouTube share search history and watch history, so cleaning up one helps you clean up both. Since not all YouTube history appears in YouTube Music, but all YouTube Music appears in YouTube, you should absolutely go to YouTube at least once and do a deep clean.

You can either go to YouTube history on desktop and got through your history category-by-category, or you can go through them on the YouTube app for Android, where you’ll need to go a few different places. These instructions can also help you delete your entire YouTube history, should you wish to start over with a clean slate.

How to pause, clean, and clear your YouTube history

Note: Deleting your watch and search history will drastically alter your YouTube Music recommendations, as they will only have your library, your rated songs, and your liked artists to go off of until you build your history back up.

Know when to pause your history

To keep yourself from having to go purge your histories time and time again, if you know you’re about to listen to music that you don’t want impacting your YouTube Music recommendations, you should pause your history, then un-pause it when you’re done. For instance, if you’re about to let your kids pick the music for the car ride to the lake, or you’re going to use YouTube Music to provide the music at a party and know your partner’s old college cohort is going to request dusty, old country songs every 20 minutes, that would be an excellent time to hit pause.

Here’s how:

Tap your avatar icon in the top right corner of YouTube Music’s Home or Library tabs.

Tap Settings.

Tap Location & privacy.

Tap Pause watch history and/or Pause search history.

Just make sure that at the end of the event, come back to the same screen to unpause it so that your history doesn’t stay frozen in time.

Listen to more music

The more history you have with YouTube Music, the more it will learn about you, your tastes, and your habits. Not to mention, the more music you listen to, the more likely you are to find music you forgot you liked, or albums that you didn’t realize had been released, or remixes that blow the original out of the water.

So listen to YouTube Music and let it get to know you!

Combo an Amazon Echo Dot with TP-Link’s smart plug for just $51 today

Buy more, save more.

As part of its Gold Box deals of the day, Amazon has an Echo Dot and TP-Link Smart Plug combo for just $50.98, a savings of $39 from their regular pricing. These items normally sell for around $50 and $40 respectively, but both are currently on sale for a bit less. Even compared to the discounted pricing, this bundle still saves you an additional $9 off and makes for easily the best Echo Dot combo we’ve seen lately.

The Echo Dot can be used to control the smart plug, and so much more. You can use it to set reminders, do simple conversions, play music, and even make calls. TP-Link’s smart plug can be controlled from anywhere in the world using the free iOS and Android apps, and you can even set a schedule for the times you are away and want it to appear like you’re still home.

If you’ve been wanting to give the whole smart home thing a shot, this is definitely a great way to get started. Keep in mind that this pricing ends when the day does, so you won’t want to wait too long before getting your order in.

See at Amazon

These are the Xiaomi phones that will be updated to MIUI 10

Xiaomi will roll out the MIUI 10 update to over 25 devices.

Xiaomi announced MIUI 10 alongside the Mi 8 at the end of May, and during the Remi Y2 unveil in India the manufacturer detailed the global version of the ROM.

A key addition in MIUI 10 is Xiaomi’s AI camera tweaks, which facilitate portrait mode on devices with a single imaging sensor. The ROM also includes display gestures as standard, a redesigned multitasking pane, new system sounds, and much more.

Xiaomi rolled out the MIUI 9 update to over 40 devices, and the MIUI 10 update will be making its way to over 25 phones over the course of the year. The update is slated to hit newer devices like the Redmi Note 5 Pro, Mi Mix 2, Redmi 5/5A, and the Mi Max 2, as well as older phones — the Redmi Note 4, Redmi Note 3, and even the Mi 3.

Here’s the full list of Xiaomi devices that will be updated to MIUI 10:

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 5
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A/5A Prime
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4/4X
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
• Xiaomi Redmi Y1/Y1 Lite
• Xiaomi Redmi Y2
• Xiaomi Redmi 5
• Xiaomi Redmi 5A
• Xiaomi Redmi 4
• Xiaomi Redmi 4A
• Xiaomi Redmi 3S
• Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
• Xiaomi Mi 6
• Xiaomi Mi 5s/5s Plus
• Xiaomi Mi 5
• Xiaomi Mi 4
• Xiaomi Mi 3
• Xiaomi Mi Max 2
• Xiaomi Mi Max
• Xiaomi Mi Note 3
• Xiaomi Mi Note 2

MIUI 10 beta is slated to kick off sometime in mid-June, and the stable build will be arriving in September, making it a longer-than-usual wait for the stable channel to make its way to devices. I’ll delve into what MIUI 10 has to offer once the beta builds start rolling out, so stay tuned for more from Xiaomi’s latest ROM.

Hands on with Redmi Y2: Xiaomi’s selfie-focused budget smartphone

The Xiaomi juggernaut in the budget and mid-range segment in India continues to roll with the company setting new benchmarks in terms of value for money devices as well as sales figures with each offering, really.

In November last year, Xiaomi introduced a new ‘Y’ series as part of its Redmi range of devices with a focus on front-camera setup. The company had ignored the selfie segment before this and saw the likes of Vivo and Oppo capture the mindshare in that category.

So, here we are seven months later with the Redmi Y2 and these are my initial impressions of the Redmi Y2 after a few days of usage.

While the last time, Xiaomi offered two variants of the device – Redmi Y1 and Redmi Y1 Lite – the company is now going for a single device, with two memory variants… one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage and another one with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.

Design

The Redmi Y2 sports a plain vanilla, but functional, design. It’s an all plastic build, brushed with a metallic finish. There’s nothing we’ve not seen before, but it is built nicely and the rounded back cover allows the device to sit comfortably on the palm of your hand. Compared to its predecessor, at 170 grams, the Redmi Y2 is a tad heavy but it’s not a showstopper. The design is reminiscent of the Redmi Note 5 Pro, apart from the discreet antenna lines on this one.

The smartphone features a 5.99-inch HD+ (1440 x 720) display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. The taller display allows more screen real estate while retaining the dimensions of the Redmi Y1 which had a 5.5-inch display.

In my limited time with the device, the display seemed quite bright under direct sunlight. The colors are a tad muted, but the HD resolution is good enough for a smartphone in this price segment.

Hardware

The Redmi Y2 is powered by Xiaomi’s trusted Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC, a chipset that Xiaomi doesn’t let go despite several newer variants – it’s like they picked a bundle of them at Qualcomm’s yard sale.

Jokes apart, the Snapdragon 625 is a reliable processor that combines high performance with exceptional battery efficiency. The chip is manufactured with the 14nm FinFET process, with a top speed of 2.0GHz, and it’s got a good enough punch for a reliable Android experience.

The Redmi Y2 packs in 3080mAh battery which should be good enough for an entire day, even for power users, especially because the Snapdragon 625 is a pretty efficient chipset. The choice of microUSB over USB Type-C is disappointing though.

Camera

Like its predecessor, the Redmi Y2 sports a 16MP front camera with f/2.0 aperture powered by artificial intelligence (yes, why not!). The company claims that the front camera uses ‘Super Pixel’, a process that refers to the combination of four pixels into one single large 2.0μm pixel. This reduces photo noise, captures more light, and enhances photo quality when shot in low light.

For a budget smartphone, it does take quite good selfies for the usual social media purposes. The LED selfie light helps in dark conditions, but I preferred photos without the light awkwardly washing away the photos.

Xiaomi puts in AI smarts to offer portrait selfies and digital makeovers with its AI Beautify 4.0 technology that simulates makeup. Too much vanity, really. But you’d be buying this phone only if you’re into the trend, so yeah, make yourself look better.

Redmi Y2 also features Face Unlock to conveniently unlock the phone using your facial details.

At the back, there’s a dual camera setup with a 12MP primary sensor with 1.25μm pixel size and a 5MP secondary sensor. The pixel size helps with low-light photography by capturing more light. The dual camera employs AI for separating the foreground and background accurately for those bokeh shots. It’s the same setup as the Redmi Note 5 Pro, and it would be interesting to take it for a whirl in different conditions to see how it fares.

Software

The Redmi Y2 runs MIUI 9.5, the company’s proprietary UI layer, over Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box.

At the launch, the company announced that the device will also get the MIUI 10 upgrade. The beta of MIUI 10 will start rolling out in mid-June while the stable version would arrive in September.

Redmi Y2 offers the option of choosing full-screen gestures to ditch the on-screen buttons, which frankly is the more intuitive option to interface with your smartphone. Big props to Xiaomi for offering the same.

Summary

The lower spec’d variant of the Redmi Y2, the one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, is priced at 9,999 rupees ($148) while the 4GB + 64GB variant is priced at ₹12,999 ($193).

At first glance, the Redmi Y2 looks like a capable phone even though the pricing makes it compete with its own Redmi siblings. The Redmi Y2 is quite basic, apart from the camera shenanigans, but sometimes that is just good enough for a budget smartphone. We’ll find out more in our detailed review.

With artificial bone marrow, scientists aim to decode blood disease

Bone marrow is like the offensive line of the immune system — it’s an essential part of the team but doesn’t always gets the recognition. By pumping out hundreds of billions of blood cells every day, bone marrow helps us fend off disease and is essential to a healthy human body.

To better understand how marrow fortifies us against disease — and to potentially help develop better therapies for diseases like leukemia — researchers have sought to develop artificial bone marrow that functions like the real thing. The problem is, living blood cells reside and multiply in a special environment, called the hematopoietic niche, which scientists have so far failed to replicate.

But now, researchers from the University of Basel and ETH Zurich have engineered an artificial bone marrow that mimics the natural kinds, offering a key to better understand how blood forms and how blood diseases can be treated.

“This 3D engineered tissue is established and maintained in a bioreactor system,” Ivan Martin, a professor of biomedicine at the University of Basel who worked on the project, told Digital Trends. “It partially recapitulates the structure, composition, and organization of the native bone marrow microenvironment … but also its main function, which is the replication and differentiation in more mature cells.”

Martin and his colleagues used a ceramic bonelike scaffold, which they combined with living cells in a bioreactor, mixing the synthetic and organic components together.

Within that artificial system, cells are able to multiply over the course of several days — not as long as natural bone marrow, but degrees better than previous synthetic models. Rather than immediate medical applications, the researchers hope their technique leads to more sophisticated, tailor-made marrow models, which can assist in drug screening.

“More than a direct medical demand, the fields of hematology and tissue engineering lacked a model close enough to sustain reasonable comparison with the in vivo human bone marrow microenvironment,” Matin said. “Indeed, research has limited possibilities to access information from human specimens and the human hematopoietic niche has remained rather inaccessible to experimental manipulation and optical observation.”

Moving forward, Martin and his team hope to use this system to study blood disorders, particularly the conditions within which these conditions first arise.

A paper detailing their research was published this week in the journal Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.

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3D-printed mini-submarine can move in water without a motor

A motorless mini-submarine has been created by researchers from ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology. The 3D-printed vessel moves using a new propulsion concept designed for swimming robots, enabling it to paddle without engine power.

By responding to temperature changes in water, the robot moves its paddles back and forth, gently — albeit briefly and awkwardly — propelling itself forward.

“Imitating the motion of rowing boats, frogs or water striders, the swimming robot propels itself forward by driving its oars back,” Kristina Shea, an ETH Zurich professor of engineering design who led the project, told Digital Trends.

Rather than relying on an electric motor that connects to a power source, the robot’s oars are activated using a similar mechanism used in snap-on bracelets. This activation is triggered by a “shape memory polymer” strips, which act like muscles.

“A shape memory polymer is a type of plastic that becomes compliant when heated,” Shea explained. “In the heated condition, it can be ‘programmed’ from its permanent shape to a secondary shape. This secondary shape becomes stable when the shape memory polymer is cooled down, yet it does not lose its ‘memory’ of its permanent shape. When it is reheated, it recovers its permanent shape.”

In recovering its permanent shape, force is transferred to an internal mechanism, causing the oars to snap back and drive the robot forward. The shape memory polymer is designed to expand in water, so when the water is heated, they serve as something like muscles for the machine.

The machine is still very primitive, capable of performing just a single paddle stroke and small tasks like dropping a coin. But by demonstrating that this propulsion method is feasible, the researchers hope to develop more complex techniques.

“The main takeaway from our work is that we have developed a new and promising means of propulsion that is fully 3D printed, tune-able, and works without an external power source,” Shea said in a statement.

Among these possible applications, Shea and her team envision similar systems providing low-cost power sources for ocean exploration. In addition to responses to changes in water temperature, these future versions may be sensitive to things like acidity and salinity.

A paper detailing the study was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Apple Expands Indoor Maps Availability at Airports and Malls

Apple Maps has gained indoor maps for an additional four international airports and one shopping mall around the world.

The recently enabled airports include Charlotte Douglas International in North Carolina, Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International and Québec City Jean Lesage International in Canada, and Taoyuan International in Taiwan.

When searching for those airports, Apple Maps users can tap “look inside” or simply zoom in to view terminals, boarding gates, security checkpoints, airline check-in desks, baggage claim carousels, information kiosks, restrooms, stores, restaurants, parking garages, and even escalators, elevators, and stairs.

An indoor map is also now available at the Trinity Leeds shopping center in England, according to Apple’s iOS feature availability page.

Indoor maps at shopping malls make it easier to find the exact location of stores, restaurants, restrooms, escalators, elevators, and stairs on each floor. The feature enables users to filter stores by categories, such as clothes, shoes, accessories, beauty, food, and drinks, with detailed place cards for each.

When the feature launched with iOS 11, indoor maps were only available in a handful of airports and shopping malls around the world, but Apple has been steadily adding locations over the past year.

The list includes airports and shopping malls in select cities across North America and Europe, including Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, London, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington, DC. The full list can be viewed here.

Tag: Apple Maps
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LinkedIn will tell you exactly how long your new job’s commute will be

When it comes to finding a new job, it’s not just the work-life balance, the compensation, or the people that ultimately have to take into consideration. It’s the location, too. Now, LinkedIn is not only helping you build your resume and your professional network but is also serving as your mapping service. The company’s latest feature lets you see the location and commute time to certain employers, which may just help you decide whether or not you want to be its next employee.

The feature, aptly named “Your Commute,” has now been made globally available on the mobile version of the site, and provides location data for all businesses where LinkedIn already boasts location information, according to TechCrunch. Soon, the feature will also be available on desktop. As senior product manager Dan Li told TechCrunch, moving forward, Your Commute will be a factor when LinkedIn recommends jobs that you may want to check out.

“When members save their location preferences in Career Interests, we’re able to provide more relevant job recommendations that fit exactly what they’re looking for in their next role,” Li said. “We’re thinking through additional ways members can use location information to improve their job searches in the near future.”

The location services of LinkedIn are being supported by Bing Maps, which comes as no surprise given that both Bing and LinkedIn now live under the overarching Microsoft umbrella. The professional networking service, of course, was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $2.6 billion.

“Our members have indicated that the location of a job — and the commute time associated with it — is a big factor in their decision-making process when considering new roles,” Li added. “We know commute times are getting longer across the board according to recent research from Gallup.” While you may not be able to avoid this trend, at least you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into ahead of time with the new feature.

According to LinkedIn’s own survey data, around 85 percent of workers would take a lower salary if it meant a shorter commute. As LinkedIn puts it, “The Your Commute feature is a quick and easy way for members to access insight into their potential commute directly within the job posting on LinkedIn and empower them to make more informed career decisions.”

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Robot-controlled table lets you manipulate liquid rocket fuel with your face

We love ferrofluid, the crazy ink-like rocket fuel that moves around seemingly of its accord, like the Venom suit from Spider-Man in its liquid form. We also love robots, especially when they are put to particularly innovative use. And we love awesome A.I. tech demos of things like face tracking.

You could say, then, that we’re the ideal target audience for an amazing new art installation developed by Zurich-based designers Maria Smigieska and Pierre Cutellic. Called “Proteus,” it’s a wall-mounted robot table that uses real-time face tracking to manipulate a ferrofluid display. Check out the video up top to see it in action.

The work is currently on display at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria, as part of a “Creative Robotics” exhibition. It is composed of a KUKA KR3 robot mounted to the wall, with a custom magnetic end effector that manipulates the ferrofluid. This ferrofluid is arranged in a 92 dish grid containing alcohol and the liquid rocket fuel. Using FaceOSC face tracking software, the robot magnetic effector can be manipulated to create all kinds of beautiful patterns in response to how viewers move their face.

“The piece is a hybrid analogue and digital, interactive display,” Smigieska told Digital Trends. “Analogue because it works with matter, which in our case is ferrofluid; digital because its pattern is modulated by magnetic fields and robotic interface. Similarly to any display, it is based on a grid, but instead of simple color intensity, each pixel contains a much richer pattern dependant on user interaction — namely real-time face tracking data, as well as the behavior of neighboring ferropixels.”

What is the point of it? According to Smigieska, the ferrofluid’s constant switching in form is a reference to the stories of Greek god Proteus, which gave the project its name. Really, though, it’s just a beautiful art installation that merges the worlds of tech and artistry to create something stunning.

In some ways, it reminds us of this beautiful table creation by artist Bruce Shapiro, which also borrowed its inspiration from Greek mythology and uses a tiny two-motor robot and magnet to create constantly shifting patterns in sand. In both cases, we don’t know exactly why we want one –just that we really, really do!

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Google prepares an always-connected Chromebook to take on Microsoft

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

More Chromebooks could be coming in the future with a built-in LTE modem for always-on connectivity. The latest code in Chrome OS reveals that Google may be looking at adding eSIM, or electronic SIM, support to the operating system. Google may even leverage its Project Fi service to provide cellular data to Chromebooks in the future, 9to5 Google suggested.

A code commit with the Hermes codename was spotted by XDA Developers. “Hermes is the codename for the project of implementing eSIM support for Chrome OS,” the commit read. “Hermes will be responsible for delivering messages between devices with eSIM chips and carrier servers through profile downloads as well as service discovery for new carriers.”

Like a traditional SIM card in a smartphone or tablet, an electronic SIM connects the device to a cellular network. Unlike a traditional SIM, eSIM isn’t a physical card that can be  removed. Instead, eSIM are digital cards that are embedded and built into the hardware. Apple uses an eSIM, for example, on its Apple Watch to save space on the compact wearable as a physical SIM card isn’t needed, and Google is also no stranger to the technology. The standard is currently supported on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones. With an eSIM, customers can also easily change wireless service providers without having to replace a physical SIM card.

Adding eSIM support to Chrome OS makes sense given that the lines between Chromebooks and Android tablets are now blurring. In the past, tablets with cellular data connectivity were popular given that they can quickly access the internet and apps can update in the background when away from a Wi-Fi network. And with a 360-degree hinge in a convertible form factor, support for Android apps, and the addition of digital inking capabilities with a stylus, many modern Chromebooks, including Google’s Pixelbook, can be used as an alternative to Android tablets.

With always-on connectivity, future Chromebooks with eSIM support would be more competitive against Always-Connected PCs from Microsoft. The Always-Connected PC platform runs Windows 10 on ARM-based processors made by Qualcomm. In addition to low power consumption, Microsoft had touted the always-on LTE connectivity as a benefit for road warriors who need to stay productive while away from an office with Wi-Fi.

Google’s Project Fi service currently switches between T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular networks depending on various factors, like network speed and reception. The benefit of Project Fi on Google’s Pixel phones is that you get free roaming when traveling internationally. It’s unclear if a data-only Chromebook plan will also benefit from roaming at no extra cost.

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