Amazon Music Unlimited now available in the UK from £8 a month
After months of rumours and teasing, Amazon finally launched its own unlimited music streaming service in October. Access was initially reserved access for US customers, but today the retailer is expanding to the UK. Music Unlimited — Amazon’s answer to Spotify and Apple Music — offers over 40 million tracks and starts at £7.99 per month or £79 per year if you’re a Prime member (£9.99 for everyone else) and comes with an discounted “For Echo” plan that costs £3.99 each month.
Just like its rivals, Amazon’s music service provides access to thousands of curated playlists and personalised radio stations via the company’s mobile apps but also its Echo speaker. The company has tightly integrated Music Unlimited with its intelligent hardware, allowing you to find a track by simply saying a few words from the song. Alexa can also create playlists on any artist, play tracks based on a specific day, date or month, and find music that will suit your mood.
To activate a free 30-day trial, you can either visit the Amazon UK website or just say “Alexa, start my Amazon Music Unlimited free trial.” While Apple, Spotify and Google are more established on the streaming scene, Amazon has a distinct advantage over its rivals with its Echo hardware. The cheap Echo-exclusive plan could lure lots of new users to the platform, allowing the company to upsell its services in the future.
Via: Amazon UK Media Centre
Source: Amazon Music Unlimited
Amazon Music Unlimited Rolls Out Across Germany, Austria, and the U.K.
Amazon’s streaming music service has gone live in the U.K. and will roll out to Germany and Austria later today, according to TechCrunch.
Amazon Music Unlimited launched in the U.S. last month to compete with the likes of Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play Music, which just got a revamp. Amazon Prime members in the U.K. will pay £7.99 per month or £79 per year, while non-Prime members can subscribe to the service for £9.99 per month. A Family Plan for up to six members “coming soon” costs £14.99 per month or £149 per year.
Additionally, owners of Amazon’s Echo smart speakers have the option of using the service on only those devices for a discounted price of £3.99 per month.
“If you want a sense of the future of voice-controlled music, go ahead and ask Alexa for a free Amazon Music Unlimited trial, and play around on your Echo,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, in a statement. If you don’t know the name of a song but know a few lyrics, if you want to hear songs from a specific decade, or even if you’re looking for music to match your mood, just ask. Our U.S. customers love Amazon Music Unlimited on Echo, and we think our UK customers will too.”
Amazon said it was “thrilled” with customer reaction to the launch of the service in the U.S., but did not divulge subscription numbers. Amazon Music Unlimited is distinct from the company’s Prime-only music library, which offers access to two million songs, whereas the former service offers access to 40 million songs from all the major labels.
Prices in the U.S. start at $7.99 per month for Prime members and $9.99 per month for non-members, which puts it in the same price bracket as Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play Music, and Tidal’s standard price plans.
Tags: Amazon, Amazon Music Unlimited, Amazon Prime
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Samsung is buying audio maker Harman for $8 billion
Samsung is making an aggressive push into the connected car space.
Samsung has announced that it is acquiring car audio maker Harman for $8 billion. The brand is best known for its consumer audio products sold under the Harman Kardon label, but Samsung is more interested in the Harman’s automotive sales, which accounted for 65% of the company’s overall revenue.
Harman’s connected car solutions — including audio, embedded infotainment, telematics, connected safety and security systems — are estimated to be installed in over 30 million vehicles globally.
From Samsung Electronics vice-chairman and CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon:
HARMAN perfectly complements Samsung in terms of technologies, products and solutions, and joining forces is a natural extension of the automotive strategy we have been pursuing for some time.
As a Tier 1 automotive supplier with deep customer relationships, strong brands, leading technology and a recognized portfolio of best-in-class products, HARMAN immediately establishes a strong foundation for Samsung to grow our automotive platform.
Samsung says that its expertise in “mobility, semiconductors, user experience, displays” and global distribution channels combined with Harman’s “long-term relationships” with leading car makers will allow the combined business to “create significant growth opportunities.”
In addition to the automotive segment, Samsung will tap into Harman’s advances in the IoT space in rolling out the “next generation of cloud-based consumer and enterprise experiences, as well as end-to-end services for the automotive market through the convergence of design, data and devices.”
Samsung is also looking to leverage Harman’s audio brands — which include JBL, Harman Kardon, Mark Levinson, AKG, Lexicon, Infinity, and Revel — to “deliver enhanced customer benefits and elevate user experiences across Samsung’s complete portfolio of consumer and professional products and systems.”
With the mobile segment getting saturated, manufacturers are looking to the connected car industry to drive future growth. Following the acquisition, Harman will operate as a standalone Samsung subsidiary, with current CEO Dinesh Paliwal set to remain at the helm. The deal will close by mid-2017.
Who’s ready for Harman-tuned audio in the Galaxy S8?
The Huawei P10 could be one incredibly powerful smartphone if leaked specs are real
Huawei has been slowly eating away at the smartphone majors in recent years, releasing phones that consistently perform better and better with some interesting features. This year’s P9 arrived with dual-Leica cameras on the back and the company’s own Kirin 955 octa-core processor which gave us high hopes for it. Unfortunately it couldn’t quite match the major rivals when reviewed but it’s still a highly capable device.
- Huawei P9 review: The flagship and the folly
But if some leaked specs on GFXBench are to be believed, 2017’s Huawei P10 could pack some serious muscle to bully its way to the top of the back. The leaked specs refer to a phone with the model number LON-L29, which considering the P9 had the model number LON-L19, suggests it is indeed the P10 they’re referring to.
The P10 is expected to come with a 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 Quad HD display, a bump up in resolution from the full HD screen of the P9 and a new 2.3GHz octa-core Kirin 960 processor with 6GB RAM as standard. The P9 had ‘just’ 3GB RAM, so doubling up for the P10 could go some way to helping the longevity issues we had with the P9.
There’s expected to be 256GB of internal storage, which should be more than enough for even the most serious smartphone users and a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera. One things the leaked specs don’t mention is if the P10 will retain the dual-camera setup of its predecessor, but it should get an 8MP front-facing camera and Android 7.0 Nougat out-the-box with Huawei’s EMUI skin over the top.
- Best smartphones 2016: The best phones available to buy
There’s no word on when the Huawei P10 will be released, although it’s likely it will follow the same release cycle as the P9, meaning it should be revealed in April for an early summer launch.
New evidence to suggest iPhone 8 will come with curved bezel-less screen
The iPhone turns 10 in 2017 and to celebrate the milestone, Apple is expected to give its smartphones a radical redesign. While the insides will likely get the same incremental upgrades we’ve seen throughout the years, it’s the outside where things are expected to change.
- Apple iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus: What’s the story so far?
There’s been talks of curved screens, OLED technology and bezel-less designs for a while, but now there’s more evidence to suggest these things will actually happen. Barclays analysts Blayne Curtis and Christopher Hemmelgarn have recently taken a trip to Asia, spoken to supply chain sources and shared their findings with Business Insider.
Curtis and Hemmelgarn said in their notes that the “iPhone 8 design didn’t sound 100 percent locked down, but we believe the move is to a bezel-less design with screen sizes getting larger and curved edges in the original envelope.” The original envelope being the current size of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. “The iPhone 8 moves to 5-inch (from 4.7in) and the Plus moves to 5.8in (5.5in)”.
The report also says that only the Plus model will feature the OLED screen, a rumour that we’ve heard a few times before, although the screens are expected to be supplied by LG and Samsung and not Sharp. Sharp’s CEO has previously all but confirmed the iPhone will feature an OLED display, but it’s now thought Sharp will supply screens for the iPhones from 2018 as it still needs to get its factories up and running.
The Apple iPhone 8 should be unveiled at the beginning of September 2017, and with rumours alluding to its design already appearing, we’re expecting plenty more between now and next year.
Best Black Friday UK TV deals: 4K, HDR, OLED TVs and more
Black Friday falls on 25 November this year and as ever it will offer the best chance of the year to snap up a TV bargain before Christmas.
We’ve scoured the web to find the absolute best deals on a range of TVs, from 4K to OLED, HDR to full HD. There’s already some great deals out there before Black Friday begins, and we’ll be updating them throughout Amazon’s two week period, the full Black Friday weekend and up to Cyber Monday.
Amazon Black Friday TV deals
Amazon’s Black Friday deals have started today, 14 November, meaning there’s two full weeks of deals to be had. TV deals today include:
- Sony KD49XD8088 4K HDR TV for £630 – get this deal here
- LG 50LF652V full HD TV for £499 – get this deal here
- LG 70UF772V 4K TV for £2475 – get this deal here
Currys Black Friday TV deals
Currys already has a landing page specially reserved for its Black Friday deals and it’s already promising £200 off LG and Samsung TVs. It doesn’t say what models will be included, but the two companies rarely put a foot wrong when it comes to the big-screen.
For now, Currys already has some cracking deals on a range of top-performing sets, including one of the best TVs we’ve seen all year, albeit one of the most expensive, the LG OLEDG6.
- LG OLED55C6V 4K HDR OLED TV for £1999 – get this deal here
- LG OLED55G6V 4K HDR OLED TV for £5000 – get this deal here
- Samsung UE55KS7000 4K HDR TV for £999 – get this deal here
John Lewis Black Friday TV deals
John Lewis hasn’t mentioned Black Friday on its site just yet, but we expect the retailer will join in on the low-price deals. John Lewis already runs a price promise campaign and usually offers a 5 year guarantee with most TVs, making it one of the best places to buy a TV on the high street.
Here’s some of the best deals we’ve found in the run up to Black Friday:
- Panasonic TX-50DX700 4K HDR TV for £689 – get this deal here
- Panasonic TX-40DS500 Full HD TV for £369 – get this deal here
- Samsung UE49K5500 Full HD TV for £449 – get this deal here
Argos Black Friday TV deals
Argos is another high-street retailer that gets involved with Black Friday. Like John Lewis, Argos hasn’t posted a sign-up page for its Black Friday deals yet, but that hasn’t stopped it slashing prices on a number of sets already. Here are some of the best we’ve found:
- Philips 49PUS6401 4K TV for £449 – get this deal here
- Samsung UE55K6300 Full HD TV for £649 – get this deal here
- LG 55UH650V 4K TV for £699 – get this deal here
Las Vegas streetlights are powered by your footsteps
Las Vegas is famous for its lights, bright sunny days and copious pedestrian traffic. That no doubt made it the perfect place for clean tech startup EnGoPlanet to test new LED streetlights powered by both photovoltaic panels and kinetic footstep pads. Married with a battery, the setup not only lights up the Boulder Plaza in downtown Vegas, but also powers security cameras (yep), WiFi hotspots and portable charging stations.
The system uses a curvy photovoltaic panel “crest” to charge a battery that powers the energy-efficient LED streetlights at night (the company doesn’t specify the size of the panel). It’s also equipped with charging stations and WiFi hotspots. To charge the batteries at night or when the sun is behind clouds, there are the footstep-powered kinetic pads installed in pedestrian walkways. Those are connected to three micro-generators that put out 4 to 8 watts per footstep, depending on the pressure.
The units are completely standalone and not grid connected, according to an earlier press release. City workers can monitor the installation to check power and battery levels, and change the color of the LED lights for special events. It even has sensors that can do environmental and air quality monitoring and “smart analytics,” which we image is some kind of foot traffic monitoring that can be used by city statisticians or advertisers.
EnGoPlanet CEO Petar Mirovic tells the Las Vegas Review Journal that the Vegas installation is just a start, and he hopes to see larger projects on the Strip or in cities like New York. “We think this can be a good substitution or alternative to traditional streetlights,” he says. The company points out that streetlights generate 100 million metric tons of CO2 per year, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly 10 billion metric tons produced worldwide. However, we’re going to need to reduce anywhere we can, and urgently, before the planet becomes a hot mess.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: EnGoPlanet
Google Play Music gets prettier and more intelligent
It’s long overdue but Google Play Music is getting a makeover. The search giant confirmed today that it is in the process of updating its Android, iOS and Web offerings with bright new UI that relies on machine learning to deliver what’s relevant to you. Its AI-like algorithms will identify where you are and what you’re doing, also factoring in things like the weather, to serve up playlists and track recommendations that you didn’t know you wanted but capture your mood at the time.
“When you opt in, we’ll deliver personalized music based on where you are and why you are listening — relaxing at home, powering through at work, commuting, flying, exploring new cities, heading out on the town, and everything in between,” Google says in a blog post. “Your workout music is front and center as you walk into the gym, a sunset soundtrack appears just as the sky goes pink, and tunes for focusing turn up at the library.”
Every time you refresh the new home screen, it will offer various playlists that have relevance to your past listening habits. Listen to new releases on Friday? Then it’ll serve them up. The same goes for upbeat tunes just as you leave work or a collection of tracks from that new artist you’ve just discovered but haven’t had time to catch up on. Google Play Music has also been given a useful feature that determines when you’re without connectivity and automatically delivers an offline playlist based on what you’ve recently listened to.
Play Music is another example of Google using machine learning to improve its services. For a number of years, the company has steadily improved its algorithms to identify, index and caption photos and more recently purge your Gmail inbox of spam. With Spotify pushing personalized playlists via its ‘Just For You’ weekly playlist (as well as Discover Weekly) and Apple highlighting its ‘For You’ section, Google is treading a similar path but can call upon years of experience to deliver a streaming service that it says is “smarter, easier to use, and much more assistive.”
The new features will roll out gradually this week in the 62 countries in which Play Music is available.
Source: Google Blog
Revamped Google Play Music Streams Content Based on User Location, Activity, and Time of Day
Google today announced an overhaul of its Google Play Music streaming platform, with new contextually aware, opt-in music recommendation features that promise a more personal music listening experience.
Building on its stated aim of helping users find the right music for any moment, Google says the fresh take on its streaming service is “smarter, easier to use, and much more assistive”, thanks in large part to deeper integration with machine learning technology that allows it to offer content based on user location, time of day, current activity, and music preferences.
To provide even richer music recommendations based on Google’s understanding of your world, we’ve plugged into the contextual tools that power Google products. When you opt in, we’ll deliver personalized music based on where you are and why you are listening — relaxing at home, powering through at work, commuting, flying, exploring new cities, heading out on the town, and everything in between. Your workout music is front and center as you walk into the gym, a sunset soundtrack appears just as the sky goes pink, and tunes for focusing turn up at the library.
Central to the overhaul is a redesigned home screen that Google likens to “the ultimate personal DJ”, which learns what you like to listen to and when you like to listen to it, presenting content accordingly. Examples include suggesting a users’ workout playlist when they arrive at the gym, offering music for unwinding after a day at the office, and recommending additional songs from new artists the user has previously expressed an interest in.
In addition to the new opt-in personalization features, the overhauled service also includes a new regularly updated offline playlist based on what users listened to recently, enabling subscribers to listen to their favorite music even if they lose their connection.
Powered by the company’s machine learning systems and teams of human curators, Google promises the experience will “keep evolving” and improve the more it’s used, whether that’s through the company’s recently launched Google Home smart speaker, on Chromecast devices such as the new 4K Chromecast Ultra, or its Google Pixel smartphones, which were unveiled last month.
The price of Google Play Music remains $9.99 per month and the company says it’s rolling out the revamped service globally this week across on iOS, Android, and the web.
Tags: Google, Google Play Music
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One laptop can take down major internet servers
You don’t need a massive botnet to launch overwhelming denial of service attacks — in some cases, a personal PC and so-so broadband are all that’s required. Researchers at TDC Security Operations Center have revealed a new attack technique, BlackNurse, that can take down large servers using just one computer (in this case, a laptop) and at least 15Mbps of bandwidth. Instead of bombarding a server with traffic, you send specially formed Internet Control Message Protocol packets that overwhelm the processors on server firewalls from Cisco, Palo Alto Networks and others. The firewalls end up dropping so much data that they effectively knock servers out of commission, even if they have tons of network capacity.
The good news? There are ways to fight against BlackNurse. TDC recommends setting up software filters to prevent this kind of flooding. Also, this is mainly a concern with firewall makers that allow ICMP packets from outside. Palo Alto, for instance, notes that its firewalls drop those kinds of requests by default — unless you change the settings and don’t follow its guidelines for anti-flood protection, you’re safe. Cisco doesn’t see a major issue, either.
The danger is that not every firewall is guaranteed to follow similar rules, and that some businesses may have reasons to tweak their settings to let ICMP data in. Even if the threat isn’t high, the discovery is a reminder that denial of service attacks can take many shapes. In the right circumstances, one person at home could be just as dangerous as a dedicated cyberattack group.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: TDC SOC (PDF)
AIVAnet 