listening
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Microsoft contractors listen to some Skype calls and Cortana commands
Microsoft is the latest company charged with listening to its users calls and voice commands. A report by Vice found that contractors are listening to bits of conversations collected through Skype's translation service. Some contractors are also listening to voice commands spoken to Cortana.
Spotify might let users build and listen to playlists together
Spotify appears to be working on a "Social Listening" feature that will let multiple users control a playlist from separate devices. They'll also be able to listen to the same songs in real-time. The company hasn't announced the added capability yet, but researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted a prototype and shared images on Twitter -- where she's previously leaked other updates. The group DJ feature could work like Dubtrack.fm and the former Turntable.fm. It will likely allow users to listen to the same songs while they're apart or collaborate on a playlist when they're together.
Spotify Premium redesign borrows one of Pandora's best features
Spotify's been busy announcing a bunch of new features this week, including an app for Google's Wear OS and better direct uploads for artists -- and it's made some changes to Spotify Premium, too. Starting today, subscribers can enjoy streamlined navigation, personalized search and a feature called Endless Artist Radio.
Spanish soccer league app spied on fans to catch pirate broadcasts
Is your phone listening to you? After all, there has to be a reason why so many apps ask to access your device's microphone. App makers and websites have long dismissed creepily relevant adverts as merely "targeted advertising", but now one app has revealed the unnerving potential of this permission. Spanish soccer league app, La Liga, has admitted to spying on users, and in doing so it's turning sports fans into unknowing snitches.
Capo for Mac gets a feature update, makes learning music even easier
A couple years ago I took an in-depth look at Capo, the music-learning app designed to reverse engineer music on your Mac, making music easier to hear, and therefore easier to learn to play. Capo has seen a major update since then to 3.0, bringing some big new features and enhancing the best of the previous version. Better still, it's cheaper, too, at US$29.99 on the Mac App Store. Since I covered most of what Capo has to offer in my previous review (which you can read here), I'm going to jump straight into Capo's new and enhanced features. Capo has enhanced its spectrogram feature (analyzing the audio in a track) to automatically detect chords that are played in a song. Furthermore, the chords are placed in chord boxes that show you how to play the them, with easy-to-read chord descriptions, and where the changes are in the song. You can also try different variations of chords from the box, just double-click a chord box to see a variety of different inversions. Chord detection isn't flawless. I noticed that more subtle chords were often not detected, and chords were sometimes not placed coherently in the song. For example, at the start of a bar. This is all down to the spectrogram's analysis of the music. The detection accuracy will vary from song to song as some songs will be easier for the software to analyze than others. However, Capo is all about giving you a starting point to learn a song. The point is not to simply show you what to play, but to encourage you to actively listen to what is being played. And it does that very well. Chords can easily be added, where the software has missed them, as well as moved around to a more accurate position. If you can't figure out a chord that Capo has missed, you can select that area of the song and ask Capo to specifically detect it. Results will vary, but it's certainly worth a go. Beat detection automatically detects the time signature and beats-per-minute of a song, and there's a metronome that can be turned on and off, with options for emphasis on the down beat, too. It works really well, though if there's an ethereal-sounding guitar drone at the start (or something similar), before the actual drums kick in, this can throw the metronome's click placement. Capo also has a tab feature, where you can highlight areas of the spectrogram and Capo will transpose those areas into guitar tab. It's a clever idea, but requires a fair amount of work to do. And once more, your mileage will vary on the analysis of the audio through Capo's spectrogram. One of the great features of Capo is its region looping. In version 3, multiple regions can now be named and snapped to the beat. Looping a region in time and with the click is easier than ever, making practicing a specific part of a song over and over really easy. Of course, Capo's still got its ability to slow down or speed up a song without the pitch being affected, but you can also change the pitch if you desire. Really, Capo's mission is to give you as much listening control as possible over a song, enabling you to hear the music, so that you can develop and enhance your own listening skills to become a better musician. If you're a beginner or intermediate musician, a music teacher or just someone that wants to learn to play the guitar, Capo is a good-looking, easy-to-use app that will give you a solid platform in learning to listen to and play music. I still feel Capo hasn't quite found the sweet spot for its pricing, but at $20 cheaper than the previous version, Capo is priced better than ever as a tool to invest in to enhance your musical abilities.
Pandora will remove 40-hour mobile listening limit next month
There's nothing quite like a 180, and that's what Pandora plans to pull as next month rolls in. The outfit's 40-hour mobile listening limit, which was established back in February, will be history in September. The move was announced today by CFO Mike Herring, as he stated the following: "When we introduced the 40 hour mobile listening limit, we were confident that our scale -- over 7 percent of total radio listening and Pandora's number one ranking in most major markets -- would allow us to take this action without impacting our key monetization initiatives in driving the disruption of the radio advertising market and driving our mobile advertising leadership. As our results have shown, the continued strong growth in our advertising revenue allowed us to cover the increased royalty costs with dollars left over to invest back into the business. With these tools in hand, and insight into how they work, we are resetting our levers in September. Notably, Pandora plans to eliminate the blanket 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening effective September 1st. In the 6 months since we first implemented the free mobile listening limitation, we have gained critical insights into our user population that has given us greater control of our business. Because of these insights Pandora has implemented both other surgical levers to control content cost and new features that will allow for greater product usage." It's not clear why the the reversal is being made -- be it uproar from loyal users or something else entirely -- but those who found themselves perturbed by such a notion will have plenty to celebrate in just a few days.
Flipboard for Android gains audio, lets us tune into SoundCloud from our Samsung
Flipboard on iOS has had audio for some time, giving users the chance to go all high-brow as they listen to NPR while browsing the news on their iPad. It's Android's turn to adopt that cultured stance: an update to Flipboard on its newer platform includes the full, listen-in-the-background Audio category channel selection, whether it's thoughtful public radio snippets or spotlights on podcasts and artists. SoundCloud mavens get the biggest fill, both through a direct link to their account as well as a list of specialized channels. Anyone who can already use Flipboard for Android just needs to hit Google Play to add the new audio dimension; Kindle Fire and Nook owners should see a fully tailored experience in a matter of days.
Spotify marks its first anniversary in the US with 13 billion listens, a whole lot of sharing goin' on
They grow up so fast, don't they? Spotify's US launch was just over a year ago, and the streaming music outlet wants us to know just how big its baby is getting. Americans listened to more than 13 billion tracks on the service in the first 365 days, and they shared more than twice as many -- 27,834,742, to be exact. Not surprisingly, just over half of that socializing went through Facebook, as you can see in the company's sugar-coated chart. Spotify is likewise flaunting 2,700 years' worth of time spent skulking around its app platform. Don't feel any pangs of regret if you forgot to buy something for Spotify's birthday, by the way: the company isn't holding any grudges and says you'll "love" what it has gift-wrapped for year two. We're hoping that involves more free radio stations and fewer holdout musicians.
Etymotic Music•Pro 9-15 earplugs bring high-end hush to audiences, lets us enjoy speed metal safely
Premium electronic earplugs usually find their homes with musicians eager to preserve their hearing at all costs; anyone within the crowd has more often been left to either use cruder plugs or cover their ears. Etymotic wants to bridge that difference with the Music•Pro 9-15. The combination of ER-9 and ER-15 earplugs matches its namesake not just through the choice of components, but through active noise cancellation that removes 9 to 15 decibels from the sound only when the rock gets too raucous: listeners can hear fellow concert-goers and even boost their volume without skewing the sound of the band. Pricing plays its own part in reaching out to the crowd, too. As high as the new Music•Pro set's $399 price might be compared to a typical pair of ear blockers, it's low enough that a dedicated fan of virtual Tupac can afford to go to the concert protected rather than voluntarily take on some hearing damage.
Asius' ADEL earbud balloon promises to take some pressure off your poor eardrums
Listener fatigue: it's a condition that affects just about everyone who owns a pair of earbuds and one that myriad manufacturers have tried to mitigate with various configurations. According to researchers at Asius Technologies, though, the discomfort you experience after extended periods of earphone listening isn't caused by faulty design or excessively high volumes, but by "acoustic reflex." Every time you blast music through earbuds, your ear muscles strain to reduce sound waves by about 50 decibels, encouraging many audiophiles to crank up the volume to even higher, eardrum-rattling levels. To counteract this, Asius has developed something known as the Ambrose Diaphonic Ear Lens (ADEL) -- an inflatable polymer balloon that attaches to the ends of earbuds. According to Asius' Samuel Gido, the inflated ADEL effectively acts as a "second eardrum," absorbing sound and redirecting it away from the ear's most sensitive regions. No word yet on when ADEL may be available for commercial use, but head past the break for a video explanation of the technology, along with the full presser.
Apple, others in talks to improve quality of music downloads
CNN reports that Apple is in touch with record labels to try and improve the quality of the downloadable music it sells on iTunes and elsewhere. Currently, the MP3s sold on iTunes are formatted as 16-bit files, but under the new proposal, they'd be upgraded to 24-bit files, which means the files would have more audio data included, and thus be able to play out at a higher resolution. As Chris Foresman at Ars argues, however, it may not matter. While higher quality is always nice to have (and there's no reason Apple shouldn't have it, unless the audio needs to be compressed further for streaming or other memory concerns), most people won't hear the full resolution anyway. You can have the highest quality audio files you want, but when you're playing them through a set of cheap speakers (or even the MacBook's default built-in speakers), you're not going to hear all of the highs and lows that you should. Still, it will be nice to have the higher resolution, and it'll give Apple and iTunes yet another selling point if the agreement can be made (not to mention sell a lot of higher-quality audio speakers and other products as well). So, I expect we'll see it happen before long. Remember way back in 2007 when Apple raised the encoding rate to 256 Kb/s? [via Electronista]
The Daily Grind: Should devs prioritize player requests?
A couple of recent threads on Funcom's Age of Conan forums got us to thinking about MMO development priorities and how (or if) they're affected by playerbase desires. Leaving aside the more outlandish requests from the eternally dissatisfied vocal minority that lurks in the shadows of o-boards everywhere, most games feature an intelligent community filled with suggestions that would, on paper at least, expand the game and its playerbase. For whatever reason, though, it's rare that even the smallest requests are acknowledged, let alone implemented. Lacking development experience ourselves, we can only guess that this is because of time constraints, budget constraints, or visions of a game that leave little room for branching out. Ultimately, we're left to wonder if some MMOs wouldn't be better served by heeding a few of the wishes of their more reasonable players. As one poster succinctly stated: We asked for PvP and got Bori. We asked for a Priest of Mitra/Herald of Xotli revamp and got a Ranger/Guardian revamp. We didn't ask for horse racing or graphical engine upgrades (the former was recently implemented in AoC while the latter is currently Funcom's top development priority). For today's Daily Grind, we'd like to know your take on the situation in general. Should MMO devs prioritize customer requests? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What's in your ears while you play?
When it's time to sit down and play an MMO, very few of us do so in total silence. Even neglecting the occasional burst of profanity at the game, there's usually a wide selection of game audio to be heard, ranging from environmental noises like rustling leaves to simple and evocative music that stays with you even if you leave the game behind. But for all the care put into it, the in-game music can eventually get boring to many players. Maybe you still have the game soundtrack turned on, and you occasionally just stop and listen to one of your favorite melodies. Perhaps you've moved on to listening to a favorite playlist on iTunes or Pandora while you play, or you might turn off the sound altogether to focus on the business of voice chat. There's even a chance you've decided to be charmingly meta and listen to another game's soundtrack altogether. What are you listening to while you play your favorite game? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Belkin releases FM transmitter with iPhone app for finding clear stations
Belkin has announced the release of their latest FM transmitter for the iPhone and iPod touch, the TuneCast Auto Live. You know these things -- they plug into your iPhone or iPod touch's dock connector, and then send a local FM signal out to your car's radio, enabling wireless transmission of your music or podcasts. I've got a Belkin transmitter already (the TuneCast Auto -- more on that in a second), but I'm interested in this new one, because it can be used with a free iPhone app [iTunes link] that will actually use your iPhone's GPS information to find a good station for you right away. That seems helpful -- my current issue with my Belkin is that here in Los Angeles, where the radio stations are almost as thick as the fast food joints, I can't seem to find a solid station to keep it on that's clear enough to actually listen to. If you're in a busy urban area, there's so many signals flying around that these transmitters are more or less useless. I don't know if the GPS app would help me (seems like I'd have to keep changing the car's station while I move even if I could find a clear signal here in the city), but if you're in the market for an FM transmitter and are in a place with a little more room on the radio dial, the $79.99 TuneCast is as good a choice as any. As for me, I'll probably go for an aux hookup straight into my dash the next time I have some car audio upgrade money.
WoW Insider Show Episode 121: So long and thanks for all the Fah-jords
Our podcast reached the end of part one last weekend, as both Turpster and I announced that we'd be leaving the show. But we didn't let it become a sad affair -- Matthew Rossi and Chase Christian both joined us for some Warcraft discussion (including when it's ok to votekick someone, and lots of Battered Hilt discussion), and we finally were able to have one of our favorite guys stop by: Scott Johnson from The Instance podcast. It was a great show, and as usual, you can tune in at all of the links below. Thanks again for everything -- even though Turpster and I are moving on, the podcast will continue, so be sure to come back and see what they brew up for you. But it's been a heck of a ride these past two-plus years, and we've had measurable metric tons of laughs and fun together. Thanks so much for listening and chatting with us and all the emails and excitement. Enjoy the show, and don't forget to grab your sword and fight the Horde. Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page: <cke:object width="290" height="24" type="" application="" x-shockwave="" -flash"="" data="http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ab/audio_player.swf"> <cke:param value="http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ab/audio_player.swf" name="movie"></cke:param> <cke:param value="soundFile=http://podcasts.aolcdn.com/wow/podcasts/12-21-09-wow-E121.mp3" name="FlashVars"></cke:param> <cke:param value="high" name="quality"></cke:param> <cke:param value="false" name="menu"></cke:param> <cke:param value="transparent" name="wmode"></cke:param></cke:object>
Bowers & Wilkins first ever P5 headphones follow the iPod money trail
When you've got the brand cachet of a Bowers & Wilkins, the decision to launch your first-ever headphone will be met head-on with plenty of pre-defined market expectations. But with products spread wide across diverse audio tastes and prices, well, pretty much anything goes. So it's probably no surprise then to find B&W prostrating itself to the dollar with its P5 Mobile Hi-Fi Headphone. These Made for iPod noise-isolating cans with speech and device control are meant for use far beyond your carefully constructed "critical listening" audio nest at home. You can, however, swap out the iPod cable for the B&W supplied gold-plated cable by popping off the magnetically attached ear pad. Mind you, the P5 does not offer electronic noise cancelation, instead, the listener is isolated through a combination of the P5's closed-back design and sealed leather ear pads. They also bring the promise of "unfatiguing performance" thanks to B&W developed ultra-linear neodynium magnets and Mylar diaphragms. Naturally, we'll reserve judgment until these babies ship sometime in January. %Gallery-77847% Show full PR text Bowers & Wilkins headphones hit the streets Concert for one Unfatiguing natural sound gets you closer to the music. Noise isolating design for use on the move. Metal an sealed-leather construction maximizes comfort, for life-long listening. Made for iPod®, weith cables supplied for speech and device control. Bowers & Wilkins is proud to announce its first ever headphone. Designed for use on the move, the P5 Mobile Hi-Fi Headphone allows people to have Bowers & Wilkins sound quality wherever they are. Some 45 years of audio experience has gone into the P5; close to five-decades of research into what true sound is. The ultimate aim of all Bowers & Wilkins products is to bring the listener as close as possible to the sound intended by the recording engineers. That is as true of the world-renowned 800 Series speakers used in the likes of Abbey Road Studio, as it is for the best sounding premium iPod® speaker available, Zeppelin. And now it's true for Mobile Hi-Fi Headphones. Recognizing that many mobile headphones can be tiring when listened to over extended periods, Bowers & Wilkins' engineers at the world-famous Stenying Research Establishment have worked tirelessly to produce a headphone with a natural, unfatiguing performance. The use of specially developed ultra-linear neodymium magnets and highly optimized Mylar diaphragms provide the best possible sound quality. As always, countless hours of critical listening and tuning have played a major part in the P5's natural and engaging performance. This pristine sound performance is married to design and construction techniques aimed at isolating as much noise as possible, for consumers that do not require full electronic noise cancellation. This isolation is achieved through a combination of the closed-back design featuring a rigid metal faceplate, and the sealed-leather ear pads. These materials not only remove a lot of external noise, providing an enveloping listening experience without completely removing the user's sense of place, they also offer an extremely comfortable user experience. The leather-clad headband has been designed for extreme comfort where it interfaces with the side of the head, while the softest available sheep's leather from New Zealand has been used for the ear pads. Recognizing the dominance of Apple's iPod and iPhone® in the portable media market, the P5 comes supplied with a Made For iPod approved cable, which allows for speech and device control. It also comes supplied with a high-quality, standard audio cable with gold-plated plugs. Switching between the two is facilitated by the magnetically attached ear pads, which simply pop off allowing access to the cable. Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin and Zeppelin Mini provide the best possible sound from an iPod at home, and now the P5 lets you take that great performance with you wherever you go. Bowers & Wilkins P5 is available from January 2010 To find your nearest Bowers & Wilkins stockist visit www.bowers-wilkins.com.
The Bookmark App: Audiobooks finally done right
The Bookmark app [iTunes Link] has solved a number of problems I've always suffered while listening to audiobooks on an iPhone. It isn't pefect yet, but what is currently in the app store is the best implementation of digital audiobook listening I've found. It's earned a place on my home page and that alone is quite a recommendation. I'll get to a play-by-play in a bit, but first a bit of context is in order. I have always been a fan of audiobooks. Long before the inception of the iPod, I was a constant Books on Tape customer. I'd choose a book and in a few days, receive a sizable box filled with anywhere from two to over forty cassette tapes. It was worth it to me to go through all the hassle of keeping the tapes in order and carrying a stack of them with me to play on a portable cassette player when I wasn't listening in my car. When the iPod came out, I found Audible.com and life became much easier. I always carried at least a dozen books with me on my iPod Classic. The books usually downloaded in one or two big files making a book easy to manage. A few years later, Audible.com started embedding chapter markers in their books so jumping to a particular chapter was a snap, but I always had a problem with the iPod losing my place in a book. It could have been due to syncing, or being knocked around, but it was constant and always annoying. When I bought my iPhone, I found the way the iPod module handled audiobooks had changed. Instead of downloading a few big files, what wound up in the library was a separate file for each chapter. So, for example, Fool by Christopher Moore, which my iPod Classic saw as one file with twenty-six chapters, appeared to be twenty-six files on the iPhone. That would have been fine, except for the fact that the iPhone was no better than my iPod Classic in losing my place seemingly at random. Worse, I never knew which file I was on when my place got lost. Read on to see how Bookmark has solved this dilemma for me.
AudioBoo lets you broadcast audio directly from the iPhone
Back when we looked at Radar, a photosharing site with an accompanying iPhone app, I mentioned that while Twitter had monopolized the "text exporting" function from your iPhone, there would be a slew of companies to try and grab the rest of the media you want to broadcast. Radar, I said, wanted to be the photo app. And AudioBoo, it appears, wants to be the audio app (we've yet to see a strong video contender pop up with the 3GS, though YouTube is certainly serving for now).I've been using AudioBoo (iTunes link) for a few weeks now, and I have to say, it definitely does what it says on the box: after a short signup session and the installation of the app to your iPhone, you can record and upload (and almost more interesting, listen back to others') audio quickly and easily. You hit record, can talk for a while (i haven't hit a limit yet, though three minutes is what I originally heard, and that tends to be about right for these little mini-podcasts), then hit stop and upload, add a picture, title, and tags, and a few minutes later, your audio is right there on the web for everyone to hear. I've used it on my EDGE phone and my friend's 3G, and I have to say the experience is better on the 3G -- the upload speeds are much better (I generally have to wait on my iPhone until I get on Wi-Fi to upload the audio), and to my ears, the audio sounds better. Here's a recording I made at a Cubs game on my 1G with a few friends, and a recording my friend made on his 3G at a restaurant. Edge works, obviously, but the 3G seems to work better.
Test your hearing with Audiometry for the iPhone
I was just listening to the great Sound Opinions music podcast the other day, and they had a woman on who was campaigning against hearing damage. In fact, she actually called out iPod headphones (as I was listening to the show on my iPhone) as one of today's leading causes of hearing damage -- too many people are listening to music through those headphones way too loud.Unfortunately, the iPhone can't fix your ears (yet), but it can help you figure out if there's a problem: Audiometry is a 99 cent app that will test your hearing for you through a range of frequencies, and let you know whether your ears are blown out or whether you've still got some good vibrations left. The app plays a tone at each frequency, asks you whether or not you heard it (though you've got to be honest -- there were a few times I could hear the tone stopping and starting but not the tone itself), and then gives you a results list on how you did.Future versions of the app will include a dB test (for loudness rather than just frequency), and the ability to save and share tests with others. It's hardly a substitute for going to a real ear doctor (if you have serious issues, you should definitely do that), but considering all the damage your iPhone may have done to your ears, the least it could do is help you figure out how much. While you're at it, review this article from Apple on setting the maximum volume limit on an iPod.[via textually.org]
Pandora 2.0 for iPhone
Pandora's app was one of the iPhone's best of 2008 on iTunes, and while I've only recently started using it, I have to agree: even over EDGE, it's a great way to get some music you've never heard on the iPhone. And they aren't sitting on their laurels, either -- they've just updated the app to version 2.0, and it's better than ever.New in this version is the ability to access a progress bar for the songs you're listening to, and the option to create new stations from songs or artists right there in the app itself. It's definitely worth a look [iTunes link], and you can't beat the price of admission (still completely free).I've followed Pandora from the beginning, and they've constantly updated both their website and their features since they first released -- it's all developed into a really impressive set of functionality for listening to and finding new music. They have suffered some rumors of shutdowns, but hopefully those rumors are just that. Between the remarkable set of functions on their website and this iPhone app, they're becoming more and more invaluable for serious music listeners.
