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Apple Wants Music Labels to End Spotify’s Free Streaming for Personal Gain

Apple wants to convince music labels to end the free streaming tiers of major streaming services. The company plans to start with Spotify. Out of the 60 million people using Spotify, only 15 million use the premium, paid service.

Apple has been trying to use its power to end all free streaming services. This move would put the company in a prime position to grab the discarded free users when Apple’s streaming service becomes available in the near future. It is slated to roll out in June, according to Billboard, but that is not entirely set in stone.

Writer Jordan Weissmann for Slate Magazine says that “music labels still own a significant financial stake in Spotify, which makes it seem a tad, well, unlikely that they’d try to even the playing field at all for Apple.”

However, the news comes before the relaunch of Beats. The point of these backdoor plans is to lower the price of streaming services from the standard of $9.99 to $7.99 when Apple launches its own.

Over the years, Apple has lost revenue due to the popularity of the free streaming options out there. People are not interested in buying from iTunes when the same music is available for free elsewhere.

These backdoor negotiations have attracted the attention of the Department of Justice because of possible violations of anti-trust laws. Apple reportedly has had a history of strong-arming companies for its own interest during the Steve Jobs era. In the past, Apple wanted to raise e-book prices in an attempt to compete with Amazon.

We can only wait and see if any federal action will happen to Apple or if Spotify retaliates.

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5 Of The Biggest Problems That May Doom Jay-Z’s Tidal Streaming Service

31-tidal-press-conference.w1403.h933.2xThe Pitch

When Tidal was launched March 30, many of the music industry’s heavy-hitters were backing up Jay Z’s new business venture. Kanye West, Beyonce, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj, Usher and Madonna stood on a stage to present a streaming service that gives the money to the artists, where it belongs.

The problem is that all of these artists combined are worth well north of a billion dollars. If Jay Z wanted to make the case for the struggling artists, get the struggling artists out front and center stage. Make them the mouthpiece because it is difficult to sympathize with the extremely wealthy.  However, Beyonce and others could help promote the service later on, just not initially.

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Eggplants Are Officially Too Naughty for Instagram’s Emoji Search

As Instagram rolls out its new emoji hashtag search feature, the social media giant is still trying to keep its users minds out the gutter by disabling a search for the eggplant emoji.

And we ALL know why.

The powers of Black Twitter are mysterious ones. The digital community’s hearty blend of activism and comedy has never failed to capture the attention of many and redefine the parameters of communication forever — especially when it comes to the way we all view the once innocent eggplant.

A rather naughty trend of men posting pictures on Twitter and Instagram wearing the type of pants or boxers that flaunted their “eggplants” forever banished the purple fruit into the land of naughty, sexual innuendo.

For that reason, Instagram users won’t be allowed to search for the eggplant hashtag with Instagram’s new emoji search feature.

Of course, it’s likely that other emojis that are now popular for their sexual innuendo will still give users their share of naughty photos — like the peach, banana, corn cob, tongue-out smiley and water squirt emojis.

Even the peeping eyeballs emoji will likely start giving users some interesting results.

But out of all of these emojis, the eggplant was certainly the most commonly used for solely sexually explicit purposes so it’s no surprise it’s the only one being blocked from the search.

Some users have expressed confusion, however, over the fact that a lot of seemingly violent emojis haven’t been blocked such as the creepy chef’s knife along with the bomb, gun and bloody syringe.

In all fairness, these emojis haven’t been linked to a lot of violent posts in the past and aren’t often used in a way that directly references their use as weapons.

Yes, the language of emoji is just weird like that.

Eggplants are vulgar, and bombs usually have nothing to do with actual explosives.

Won’t be long before courts are bringing in emoji experts to decode social media messages for evidence.

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Tesla Becomes the Latest Major Player In the Race to Make Battery Operated Homes the New Norm

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk just announced that his company will be joining the great battery race that could eventually allow all homeowners to stop relying on public power lines.

On Thursday, Musk unveiled what he has deemed the “missing piece” in the revolution to create more battery-powered homes.

The new Tesla products are massive batteries that reportedly have enough power to support homes, businesses and even entire communities with the help of solar panels.

If the products are successful, it could truly mark an innovative leap forward in this particular realm of technology.

“Tesla batteries promise the ability to tap the sun’s energy, day or night,” the San Francisco Chronicle’s David R. Baker reports. “They could upend the way we produce and use electricity.”

It would ultimately mean fewer people would have to rely on utility companies, and the idea of widespread blackouts could finally become nothing more than a nightmare of the past.

“You don’t have to worry about being out of power if there’s an ice storm — you can actually go, if you want, completely off the grid,” Musk said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “People in a remote village or an island somewhere can take solar panels and the Powerwall and not have to worry about electricity lines.”

That’s the convenience of the new products, but Musk also pointed out the necessity of the batteries as well.

Widespread implementation of the products could drastically reduce the world’s carbon footprint and cut down on the use of fossil fuels.

“It’s the only path I know that can do this,” Musk told the crowd that gathered at his design studio in California. “It’s something we must do, and we can do, and we will do.”

At the gathering he focused on two different models of the battery — one that would be geared toward homes and another that would help bring power to companies.

The home battery, called the Powerwall, is currently priced at roughly $3,000 for the smallest model. Pricing for the business products wasn’t released.

It marks a huge milestone and an innovative move for the company that has been testing such products for years, but other giants have already taken up territory in the space.

Companies including Sungevity and SunEdison have similar product offerings, but it will be interesting to see how Tesla’s presence shakes up this relatively new market.

With electric cars and solar-powered homes on the rise, Enphase CEO Paul Nahi isn’t surprised to see the demand for such powerful batteries grow.

“There’s been tremendous pent-up demand for this,” Nahi said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “People understand the value.”

While the product has received a growth in demand, it isn’t an industry that’s easy to navigate with companies like A123 already being met with failure after taking its stab at the revolutionary batteries.

Only time will tell if Tesla is able to avoid making the same mistakes former high-profile failures in this market have made.

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5 of the Most Disappointing Moments of ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’

 

age of ultron

1. The Ratio of Comedy to Action (Pacing) 

One of the reasons why I’m such a Joss Whedon fan is because I appreciate how he can flawlessly incorporate humor, usually in the form of witty dialogue, with drama and action. And Age of Ultron is hilarious. You really can’t beat the humor in this one. I think it even surpassed its predecessor, which had many great moments on its own. However, some of the humorous moments caused the movie to lag and affected its overall pacing. Take, for example, Tony Stark’s soiree in the beginning of the movie, during which there was a lot of Avengers bro action, jokes and flirting (see No. 5). I loved seeing the Avengers’ chemistry as they casually socialized, but the scene felt drawn out, especially compared to some of the action scenes we see later with Ultron. And speaking of Ultron …

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These Fascinating Robot Hands Are Able to Do Real Human Tasks That Could Make Your Life Easier

A London-based company has launched a prototype “robo-chef” for the home.

Moley Robotics demonstrated its concept at this year’s Hannover Messe – the big trade fair for industrial technology held annually in Germany.
The cooking machine learns by capturing the movements of a human in the action of preparing a meal.
These movements are then turned into commands that drive a sophisticated pair of robot hands, which were developed by Shadow Robotics.
Shadow’s Managing Director Rich Walker told Jonathan Amos how his company developed the hands.

Source by: BBC News

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5 Things About The Advancement of Modern Technology That Terrifies People

 

Robots weld the bodyshell of a Toyota Camry Hybrid car on the assembly line at the Toyota plant in Melbourne

Robots Taking Our Jobs 

We see it every day in the grocery store. The convenient self-checkout lanes might make our trips to the store easier, but these machines take away jobs that people may want and need. Since the creation of the modern assembly line by Ransom Olds in 1901 and later perfected by Henry Ford in 1913, manufacturing large machines has become easier. Today, there are manufacturing robots that have replaced human hands. In the 1950s and ’60s, many people relied on these jobs and many lived comfortably from them. Now those jobs are scarce, and cities like Detroit are feeling the effects.

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EBay’s Small Bump in Diversity Marks a Long Road Ahead in Tech

When pressure was placed on tech giants to diversify overwhelmingly white, male staffs, eBay promised to step up to the plate. That was back in 2014.

A year later, eBay’s diversity report reveals an increase in diversity, but it’s the type of incredibly underwhelming change that could serve as a serious warning sign in the world of tech.

After making a strong commitment to improve diversity within its company, eBay only managed to bump the number of female employees and Black employees up by 1 percentage point.

Some publications insist this is a sign that increasing diversity in tech will be a much longer process than anyone could have imagined.

“The modest change underscores that, even with a strong commitment from top management, it will take some time to change the makeup of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech companies, which are largely white and male,” USA Today reports.

But is that really the end of the story?

EBay couldn’t do it so nobody can? We should all expect to see diversity increase at such a painfully slow pace?

While nobody is expecting a diversity fairy to have Black employees randomly popping up in the boardrooms of major tech giants, a 1-percentage point increase is beyond underwhelming — it’s disappointing and suspicious.

It begs the question if tech giants are truly doing all they can to really make a difference in the makeup of their companies or are they throwing out hefty donations to random causes in hopes that the lack of diversity in their staffs is a problem that will correct itself over time.

Either way, eBay is hoping to continue its push toward diversity even as it officially breaks into two different companies — eBay and its payment division of PayPal.

“As eBay and PayPal separate into two independent companies during 2015, both plan to provide data updates for 2016 to give each of them a full year to collect diversity data,” spokesperson Abby Smith told USA Today. “It’s important though that each company has a full year of data. We will give each company some time to chart its course, so the next time we’ll report (diversity) findings is for 2016.”

Other tech giants like Google, Twitter, Apple and Facebook also fell under harsh scrutiny after their own reports pulled back the curtain on their own struggles with diversity with their staffs.

It’s unclear so far if the other tech giants have seen substantial improvements on diversity with their staffs.