Amazon wants to launch a music subscription service that would work the same way services from Apple, Spotify and many others work: $10 a month, for all the music you can stream, anywhere you want to stream it.
But Amazon is also working on a second service that would differ in two significant ways from industry rivals: It would cost half the price, and it would only work on Amazon’s Echo hardware.
Industry sources say Amazon would like to launch both services in September, but has yet to finalize deals with major music labels and publishers. One sticking point, sources say, is whether Amazon will sell the cheaper service for $4 or $5 a month.
I can’t imagine a music service that I could only use in one place. One of the things I love about Apple Music is that it is always with me: on my computer, on my iPhone, iPad, in my car, always available.
I like the idea of a cheaper service, that might move me, but only if I didn’t have to sacrifice portability.
Silicon Valley-based Gliimpse has built a personal health data platform that enables any American to collect, personalize, and share a picture of their health data.
And:
The acquisition happened earlier this year, but Apple has been characteristically quiet about it. The company has now confirmed the purchase, saying: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
As a consumer of healthcare, I leave behind a bread-crumb-trail of medical info wherever I’ve been seen. But, I’m unable to easily access or share my own data. Obamacare is one of several forcing functions federally mandating physicians and hospitals give us our data: meds, labs, allergies . . .you get the idea. However, there’s no single Electronic Health Record that all physicians use, sigh. Worse, there isn’t even a common file format across a 1000+ systems.
Enter Gliimpse: your personal health data, in the palm of your hands. Better than portals, we enable patients to collect their lifelong history, so they can share it with their care network – physicians, friends and family.
Jean-Louis Gassée, writing for Monday Note, takes on the Internet of Things: the good (industrial, smart cities) and the (mostly) bad (consumer electronics). A witty, insightful piece that manages to use the made-up-by-the-internet word persphinctery.
UPDATE: I asked Jean-Louis about the origins of the word, his comment:
Glad you like the latest Internet of … Monday Note – and the word I made up, a couple of years ago actually, used in previous Notes: persphinctery, perfunctory acts by a$$holes…
Google turned up this post on Steve Jobs’ death as the earliest usage. I love the word.
This advice has been taken too far and confused the word ‘mistake’ with ‘failure’. A mistake is touching the hot stove and burning your hand. A failure is setting yourself on fire and dying when you touched the stove. One of those two you learn from, the other kills you.
I thought this was a really good article. I enjoyed it.
Apple on Monday updated its beta of macOS Sierra. If you have a previous version of the beta installed, just check for updates and allow it to install.
After the unprecedented breach of hacking tools and exploits stolen from the US National Security Agency’s elite hacking unit, some privacy advocates see it as clear vindication of Apple in its fight with the FBI earlier this year.
Apple held all-hands meetings with retail employees this weekend to introduce major new changes, including new and renamed positions, a new credo, and new store layouts, according to multiple retail sources.
I’m glad to see Apple retail continuing to change as the company changes. For most people the stores are the first contact with Apple and they should reflect what the company is doing.
Apple Music Festival 10 returns to London in September for 10 exhilarating nights of live music. Residents of the UK can win tickets to the gigs. Apple Music members around the world can watch the performances for free. Ticket applications will be opening soon. Follow @AppleMusic on Twitter and Snapchat for up-to-the-minute information and join the #AMF10 conversation.
These festivals are truly special. I’ve attended a number of them in London over the years and loved each one. The Roundhouse is a classic music venue and shows off the best for Apple and the bands performing.
Pad and Quill has partnered with The Loop to offer you a chance to win a $700 Back to Work giveaway. One winner will receive a Luxury Briefcase, Leather Ipad pro case, Woodline case for the Iphone, and a Classic leather band for the Apple Watch.” Sign up for your chance to win!
Zakk is the reason I picked up the guitar again after a few years away from playing. He is an incredible guitarist—acoustic and electric— and having met him a number of times, he is a great person. I learned how to play almost every song he released, just so I could see how he did chord progressions and timing.
“Americans are fed up,” says Federal Communications Commission boss Tom Wheeler. “Robocalls are a scourge. It’s the number one complaint that we hear from consumers on a daily basis.”
To address those complaints, Apple, Alphabet (you know—the folks who own Google), AT&T, Comcast and other tech companies are joining an FCC task force charged with ending the scourge of automated pre-recorded telemarketing calls.
Whether they’ll succeed is another matter entirely.
When I lived in the States, I was appalled at the ridiculously huge number of robocalls I got on a regular basis. It’s getting just as bad here in Canada. I hope these companies can band together to find an effective solution to this problem.
Although mathematician Katherine Johnson was honored last year with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, few know just how integral she was to the U.S. space race.
Fortunately, many more soon will. Her story is being made into the movie “Hidden Figures,” which tells the tale of how Johnson and several other black women played a pivotal role in helping the U.S. send men into space and bring them back safely.
Johnson, who worked at NASA and its predecessor agency from 1953 until 1986, was responsible for calculating flight plans for astronauts from Alan Shepard and the Mercury Project through the Space Shuttle. In the process, she broke down all manner of barriers and stereotypes about the role black women in particular could play in math and science.
I’m looking forward to seeing this movie about these amazing women. The trailer looks good.
The greatest gimmick of all time might have been the creation of light beer—a swill that is widely derided by snobs like me, but nonetheless defines the modern beer industry.
These days, light beers make up seven of the 10 most popular brands of U.S. beer, with Bud Light far outpacing everyone else. It probably says a lot about light beer that the man widely considered the inventor of low-calorie swill was a biochemist.
I’m one of those beer snobs. I’ve never had a “Lite” beer that was worth the price.
We at Q Branch just released the final version of Vesper. It does one crucial thing: it allows you to export your notes and pictures. See the new Export section in the sidebar.
Sync will be turned off Aug. 30 at 8pm Pacific. We’ll destroy all the data, and neither we nor anyone else will be able to recover it.
The app will be removed from the App Store on Sep. 15. Until then, starting now, it’s free — since you can’t create new sync accounts, and it wouldn’t be fair to charge new users if they can’t sync.
The company, which is based in San Francisco, has in recent months held talks or made approaches to sell itself to companies including General Motors, Apple, Google, Amazon, Uber and Didi Chuxing, according to a dozen people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private.
While Tim Cook has said the company is looking to make major acquisitions, on the face of it, buying Lyft doesn’t seem to make sense, given their investment in Didi Chuxing. More than likely, any talent or technology they would get from a Lyft purchase is already available to them through Didi.
In the final two kilometres of the 50km race, Dunfee lost stride after Hirooki Arai of Japan bumped him during a collision and went on to cross the finish line third, in a time of three hours 41 minutes 24 seconds — 14 seconds ahead of Dunfee, who improved his Canadian record time to 3:41:38.
Athletics Canada appealed the result post-race, and Dunfee was awarded the bronze. But shortly thereafter, Japan successfully countered the appeal and had the decision reversed, to give Arai the bronze medal.
When I watched the race live, I was yelling at my TV, “He pushed him out of the way!” When I heard later Dunfee had been awarded the bronze, I cheered. Now that Dunfee has had his belatedly given Bronze taken away, I’m amazed. I honestly don’t think I would have reacted as magnanimously or with as much class as Dunfee has over this.
On August 2nd, Microsoft released the Anniversary Update for Windows 10 and when the bits arrived on computers around the globe, it brought with it new features and also broke webcams for millions of consumers. If your webcam has stopped functioning since the release of the Anniversary update, you are not alone but the good news is a fix is coming, hopefully in September.
“The need to place cameras on hanging truss over the field of play in venues with no catwalks or roof access led us to working with several companies to find a way hang a camera and then be able to pan, tilt, focus and transmit images in real-time,” said David Phillip, a photographer for The Associated Press who set up the AP’s robotic and remote cameras for the 2016 Olympics. “The process is on-going as we continue to work on improving the performance and design.”
There has been some outstanding images and video from the Olympics.
Pandora has the best music algorithm in the business—the choice of the next song is almost always spot on. The app is easy to use and the service always works. I’m a paying subscriber of Pandora and I can’t wait for the on-demand service to hit. I’ll definitely be subscribing to that.
International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum:
Today, in honor of the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum’s 50th anniversary and World Photo Day, IPHF announced its 2016 class of Photography Hall of Fame inductees. Eight photographers and photography industry visionaries who embody the spirit, artistry and innovation of modern photography have been selected for induction.
Steve Jobs was an American inventor and entrepreneur who cofounded Apple and led it to become the world’s most innovative company. Steve helped create products that revolutionized the creative world and became essential tools for designers, filmmakers, music producers and photographers. Passionate about photography both in his work and personal life, his most profound contribution to the artistic community and the world is the iPhone which, in less than a decade, has changed both the art of photography and the industry around it.
The Hall is also inducting documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, 20th century photographer Ernst Haas, Photoshop co-creators John and Thomas Knoll, photographer Annie Leibovitz, digital printing pioneer Graham Nash, and photographer Sebastião Salgado.
More than 30 major technology companies are joining the U.S. government to crack down on automated, prerecorded telephone calls that regulators have labeled a “scourge.”
Yes, please. I don’t know much about the technology with robocalls or how advanced it is. I’m just wondering if this is going to be a whack-a-mole situation.
iOS 10 beta 7 was released today. I haven’t seen any of the other operating system updates yet. If you have a previous beta version installed, just go to Settings > General > Software Update to download the new version.
