Author: Duncan Geere
Spotify confirms mobile ambitions, and outlines roadmap
PaidContent UK has a great interview with Daniel Ek, the CEO of the so-good-it-makes-us-weep music streaming service Spotify. It’s very wide-ranging, but the most interesting bits cover Spotify’s plans for the future.
Ek discusses whether Spotify is viable as ad-funded alone – saying: “We launched probably at the worst possible time in 70 years for advertising.” He points out, though, that the service has A-list brands involved and average listening times per user are “over an hour per user per day”.
The other option is funding the service by pushing the site’s premium offering. Although Ek acknowledges that the vast majority of users aren’t paying, he says: “Rest assured, we haven’t really started doing the kind of features that we think will really drive adoption of becoming a paid user.”
What might those features be? Ek discusses user-created radio stations, exclusive interviews and cross-platform interoperability. On that last note, he’s talking about mobile service – the area where Spotify could finally drop the axe on the iPod.
But, like Apple, he wants to do it right: “The success of Spotify is based on its simplicity – we won’t do another mobile thing where it works (only) so-so – we’re going to do it where it’s simple, easy and just works.” He also promises plenty of upgrades for the desktop client in the meantime.
There’s more discussion of Spotify’s plans for launching in the States and Ek’s take on the Pirate Bay court case in the interview – go check it out. Then come back here and let us know in the comments what features would make you pay for a Premium subscription.
YouTube blocks music videos in Britain
YouTube, the fantastically popular video streaming service owned by Google, is in the midst of payment renegotiations with the Performing Rights Society, an agency formerly known as the MCPS PRS Alliance that collects royalties for songwriters across both digital and traditional media.
That renegotiation isn’t going too well. Talks have completely broken down, and YouTube has vowed to block British viewers from watching all “Premium” (i.e. major label) music videos from next Monday.
It’ll be possible to get round the block with a proxy server, I suspect, but the vast majority of people will suddenly wonder why their favourite band’s videos have suddenly been removed from the service.
It’s almost certainly just a strongarmed negotiating tactic from Google, and for PRS’ part they’ve asked the site to reinstate the videos until an agreement can be reached. But at the same time, Google’s trying to use its clout to bring down rates that have caused the exit of Pandora from Britain, as well as the despair of many other streaming services.
YouTube claims that PRS are responsible, saying that they’re asking for “many, many factors” more money than their previous agreement. PRS, on the other hand, say Google is trying to drive down payments despite its traffic having grown further.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens here – whether PRS will balk and cave in to a hail of bad publicity that will arise next Monday. The organisation is notoriously tenacious, though, and the whole situation could devolve into a staring match. In that case, consumers will just vote with their feet and go elsewhere – to competitors like Vimeo and MySpace video.
(via Epicenter)
HTC Magic (a.k.a the "G2") lands in the UK in April
The HTC Magic, which is sort-of the G2 but not being called that, will be arriving on these shores in April. Nothing more accurate than “April”, I’m afraid. It’ll be exclusively on Vodafone, unlike the G1 which was locked to T-Mobile.
The new handset lacks the physical keyboard of its predecessor, but still packs the Android OS, trackball and 3.2-megapixel camera. It’s also got a 3.2″ touchscreen display, GPS, Bluetooth, HSDPA and 3G.
I’m disappointed that the keyboard’s been cut, if I’m honest, but the device retains the much-beloved “chin” of the G1. It’ll be the second Android mobile on the market, which actually surprised me a little when I just realized that fact. We’ve heard so much about the OS, but there’s still very few phones in the market running it.
(via ITProPortal)
New invention lets you control gadgets with face movements
Stick your finger in your ear. Now smile, or wink, or wrinkle your nose. Can you feel the inside of your ear move? That’s the idea behind a Japanese invention called the “Mimi Switch”.
The device looks like a pair of earbuds but instead of containing speakers, they contain tiny infrared sensors that measure the movements inside your ears that are generated by different facial expressions. Inventor Kazuhiro Taniguchi says:
“You will be able to turn on room lights or swing your washing machine into action with a quick twitch of your mouth. An iPod can start or stop music when the wearer sticks his tongue out, like in the famous Einstein picture. If he opens his eyes wide, the machine skips to the next tune. A wink with the right eye makes it go back.”
It could also monitor your mood – Taniguchi also suggests that someone who ‘isn’t smiling enough’ could be forced to listen to only happy music until they cheer the fuck up. Call me moody, but I can’t think of anything worse. There’s also health applications – one mounted on a hearing aid would be able to monitor a person’s breathing or how much they sneeze.
The device will apparently be available within “two to three years”. But that’s in Japan, which has technology that’s practically indistinguishable from magic. Expect it over here sometime next century then.
(via Physorg)
Norwegian Broadcasting Corp starts own bittorrent tracker
Norway’s state broadcaster, NRK, has launched its own bittorrent tracker, following a number of successful tests in 2008. A tracker, if you’re unaware, is the ‘matchmaking’ part of the bittorrent protocol, acting as a signpost to help people who want content find people who’ve got that content.
The tracker, which will operate exactly like the Pirate Bay does, except with legitimate content. NRK is funded by a license fee, much like the BBC, and so they have a mandate to reach as wide an audience as possible with the best possible quality. The DRM-free downloads provided by this service will achieve that wonderfully.
Best of all, the bittorrent protocol gains strength as more people download something. The busier the service is, the faster it is for everyone. So when there’s a million people trying to download the latest episode of the Norwegian equivalent of Eastenders, everyone gets it fast. As long as the government themselves seeds at least one copy of every file on the network, then everyone will be able to get whatever they want.
A win for consumers, a win for the broadcaster, and a win for Norway. I hope you’re taking notice, BBC. The iPlayer is good and all, but a bittorrent tracker would be even better.
(via NRKbeta)
Facebook updating homepage yet again
After the disastrous launch and eventual user acceptance of Facebook’s news feed and profile pages last year, you would have thought that the company wouldn’t mess with the site too much more for a while. But no – it doesn’t want users getting too comfortable, so next Wednesday there’ll be a new homepage.
It looks like Twitter. There’s no two ways about it. With the status box massive and front-and-centre, there’s a definite homage going on. The feed below is now real-time too, so you can see stories appear as they happen. That feature’s been around for a while but previously it wasn’t the default option.
But one feature that Facebook’s adding to the mix is filters. If you’ve got friend groups set up then you can choose to view the updates from just one group or another. That could definitely prove useful for power users, or those with very distinct friendship circles. You can also view feeds from your friends in specific Facebook groups that you’re a member of, which is quite nifty.
This is a definite improvement to the site, and should help it compete against the attention draw from Twitter, especially as Facebook’s biggest asset is that almost everyone you know is on it – something not true of its media-darling competitor.
It’s a bit of a blatant copy and should probably have been rolled into the previous update, but I suspect that many mainstream users will hardly notice the change and as a result, there won’t be the mass user revolts that have characterized previous changes to the world’s favourite social network.
(via Business Insider)
Ballmer: We could be working faster on Windows Mobile
At a conference in Microsoft’s hometown, Redmond, CEO Steve Ballmer admitted yesterday that the company could be working faster on Windows Mobile.
Responding to a question from an audience member who complained that his employees were bringing in iPhones and Android Phones that were tricky to support, and wanted Microsoft to up its game significantly so that he didn’t have to deal with that situation as much, Ballmer responded: “There’s opportunities for us to accelerate our execution in this area, and we’ve done a lot of work to really make sure we have a team that’s going to be able to accelerate.” Here’s the full Q&A:
Spotify gets hacked
Revolutionary digital music streaming service Spotify has revealed a serious security breach that affected its servers before December 19th last year. The company thought that it had managed to fix it before any damage was done, but last week Spotify found out that “a group” of some sort had managed to gain access to information necessary to guess passwords.
Although security breaches are par for the course at most internet startups, so far Spotify had managed to avoid them. It’s almost a rite of passage for new companies. The company is recommending that anyone who hasn’t changed their password since December 19th to change it immediately, and is emailing all its users to that effect.
Official Spotify Blog
Spinvox teams up with Skype
Spinvox, the voice-to-text service, has been quietly gaining plaudits for a number of years, and they’ve just announced a deal with VoIP service Skype whereby you can get your voicemails as texts.
You’ll be charged 17p per message, plus any SMS charge you’ve got, but depending on how much you’re charged to listen to voicemails and how annoying you find listening to them, you might think it’s worth it.
Space Phallus – the best 8-bit game you've never played
Space Phallus Trailer @ Yahoo! Video
Space Phallus. Just from the name you already know what to expect. It’s an 8-bit shoot-em-up game featuring many, many cocks. You control the disembodied head of a dog, and you’ve got to make your way through space while waves of evil space penises assault you.
It’s available as downloads for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and it weighs in at about 10MB (well, the Windows version does, anyway). Download. Unzip. Cocks. The arrows move your ship around, z shoots, x shoots missiles, and c activates ‘fire breath’.
The best thing? It’s not only completely ridiculous, it’s actually an incredibly fun game, too. Kudos to creator Charlie of Charlie’s Games.
Space Phallus (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
