The BBC is working on a child-friendly version of its iPlayer service

The BBC has announced that it’s working on a dedicated, child-friendly version of its tremendously popular iPlayer app for both Android and iOS. The service will house a collection of CBBC and CBeebies shows, which will be instantly accessible via an extremely simple tabbed user interface, thereby giving children the ability to find and watch their favorite programmes effortlessly.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any further details regarding the application for now, but we understand the BBC hopes this service will have the power to compete with the likes of Netflix and YouTube’s kids streaming offerings. However, we’ll have to wait and see if this is the case.

Source: BBC

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The BBC is making an iPlayer app just for kids

When the BBC announced a new children’s service called iPlay, many people were quick to call it an “iPlayer for kids.” That description isn’t entirely inaccurate, as it will include some of the broadcaster’s child-friendly programming — but that’s on top of educational and creativity tools, as well as content produced by other “trusted organisations.” It’s an important point of differentiation, because the BBC announced today that it’s also working on a dedicated children’s version of iPlayer. Details are scarce, but the BBC says it’ll be a standalone app that makes it easier for little ones to find their favourite CBBC and CBeebies shows, as well as discover news ones “in a safe environment designed just for them.” The move is hardly surprising — Netflix and YouTube have already released child-friendly versions of their video streaming services, and Sky plans to do the same early next year. iPlayer is incredibly popular in the UK, and essentially free too — whenever the littles ones are starting to get restless, this could be an indispensable app for parents.

[Image Credit: Getty Images/Johner RF]

Source: BBC

Food delivery apps face lawsuits over employee benefits

The fight over employee benefits when it comes to app-based on-demand services continues. The Chicago Tribune reports that food delivery companies GrubHub, DoorDash and Caviar were all hit with separate lawsuits in San Francisco this week. The suits allege that each failed to offer employee benefits after treating them like full-time workers. In other words, the companies misclassified employees as contractors. If that sounds familiar it’s because Uber facing a similar lawsuit in San Francisco over its drivers. In fact, the same attorney that represents plaintiffs in proceedings with Uber and Lyft is working with the delivery drivers in these three new cases. Like Uber, the suits against GrubHub and DoorDash are class actions while the demand arbitration request with Caviar is on behalf of a single driver. Based on the filings, GrubHub allegedly treated its workers as employees but failing to offer proper benefits like reimbursements for gas, parking and phone data. It also allegedly failed to meet wage requirements and offer overtime pay.

[Image credit: Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

Via: Eater

Source: Chicago Tribune

Food delivery apps face lawsuits over employee benefits

The fight over employee benefits when it comes to app-based on-demand services continues. The Chicago Tribune reports that food delivery companies GrubHub, DoorDash and Caviar were all hit with separate lawsuits in San Francisco this week. The suits allege that each failed to offer employee benefits after treating them like full-time workers. In other words, the companies misclassified employees as contractors. If that sounds familiar it’s because Uber facing a similar lawsuit in San Francisco over its drivers. In fact, the same attorney that represents plaintiffs in proceedings with Uber and Lyft is working with the delivery drivers in these three new cases. Like Uber, the suits against GrubHub and DoorDash are class actions while the demand arbitration request with Caviar is on behalf of a single driver. Based on the filings, GrubHub allegedly treated its workers as employees but failing to offer proper benefits like reimbursements for gas, parking and phone data. It also allegedly failed to meet wage requirements and offer overtime pay.

[Image credit: Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

Via: Eater

Source: Chicago Tribune

Nusiki: A new music social network that needs more optimization (app review)

Nusiki is a new music social network, with functionality similar to Facebook and Twitter. We’ve seen this before with the likes of Last.fm and MySpace that have been around for years.

In this review, let’s find out if Nusiki’s features are enough to make you consider switching.

Setup

Because it’s a social network, the app requires you to create an account in order to use it after you download and install it from Google Play.

This is quite simple, however. You have three options: signing up with Facebook, Twitter, or an email address.

Features

You will be met with a Facebook-like feed after you sign in. As such, each post can be liked, commented on, or shared.

Listen to the music within posts by tapping on the song’s title or image caption.

To control playback, use the player at the bottom. Swipe up from the player to maximize it. This will reveal the YouTube video if available, the seek time, as well as the like, comment, and share controls.

At the top of this feed is a shuffle mode. This allows you to switch between reverse chronological and random order.

Swipe from the left to reveal a sidebar or press the icon at the top left. From here, you are able to view notifications, respond to private messages, change account settings, invite friends, and give feedback. There’s also an explore option which brings up a feed of music of users you have not followed.

Your account follows specific users by default. To change who you’re following, swipe from the left to reveal the sidebar and tap on your profile information in order to go to your profile. Click “Following” under your username and unselect users using the icons on the right.

Tap the search button at the top right to look for music, users, and hashtags.

Nusiki shows promise as a social network stream for music, but partly due to the fact that it is new, Nusiki needs some improvements.

The app requires more optimization because the interface commonly hangs, especially when bringing it to the foreground or sending it to the background. Music will often lag, skip back a second or so, or pause itself.

There also is an inconsistency with the music player where you can either swipe up on or tap the panel to maximize it, but you can only tap on the panel to minimize it.

You cannot listen to songs you find through the search menu. Therefore, the service isn’t the best for previewing what songs sound like. Also, you can’t perform a search on the feed itself.

I found one fault with the setup, and that was the lack of Google account integration. I believe adding this makes sense since it is present in many other apps like it, and hopefully, it will be added in the future.

While I prefer darker themes, Nusiki should consider adding a lighter one for those who prefer them and for situations where there is a lot of direct sunlight.

What We Liked

• Potentially endless music
• Social interaction
• The ability to shuffle music
• You don’t need to follow users in order to listen to songs
• Private messaging
• Option to make profile private

Room for Improvement

• Only posted songs can be listened to
• App interface lags after startup
• Transitions from foreground and background cause playback to lag, to go back slightly, and/or to stop
• Playback lags after transitions in between songs
• Inconsistency with swiping the music player
• Inability to search through feed
• Setup should include Google account integration
• Needs to provide a lighter theme

Even networks such as Facebook and Twitter that are not primarily focused on music are competing with the service. They have tens to hundreds of millions of users more whom many share artists and songs with others.

The exposure they provide currently exceeds Nusiki’s specialty because, ultimately, people will not move to another network unless they know their family, friends, and associates are going to use it.

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