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Apple confirms it bought podcast curation app Scout FM earlier this year
Apple has purchased Scout FM, an app that makes it easy to find podcasts tailored to your tastes.
Spotify Stations is the Pandora alternative we need
Spotify is testing a lot of things right now. In the last month alone, the company has revealed its long-rumored in-car device, curated podcast playlists and a standalone Stations app. Heck, those last two were announced in the same week. "We're always testing new products and features to create better listening experiences for our users," a Spotify spokesperson told me multiple times this week, and the company's busy spring certainly supports that. Unfortunately, most users will never get to participate, except in the case of Spotify's experimental Stations app.
SoundCloud adds stations to encourage music discovery
It's no secret that SoundCloud is aiming to roll out its audio streaming service this year, and the company is laying the groundwork with new features. With an update to both the Android and iOS apps, SoundCloud added a new stations feature to encourage music discovery. The continuous play tool will help you find songs that aren't available anywhere else by starting an endless mix from any track. And yes, it's a feature that the likes of Pandora, Spotify and Apple Music already offer.
Rdio adds new options to its list of curated stations
Rdio has been keen on serving up curated stations for your listening pleasure for some time now, but today the streaming service added even more options. Like the existing selections, the new stations are curated by record labels and a smattering of "cultural influencers." The latter variety includes stations from Hype Machine, the folks at Yelp NYC and more. In terms of label stations, you can expect to see curated audio from Arts & Crafts, Blue Note Records, DFA Records, Glassnote Records and more available through the app (depending on your location). These join the long list of current options from the likes of A.V. Club, Def Jam and Sub Pop. If you'd rather have a bit more choice than an "always on" broadcast affords, you might want to give Rdio's station list a look.
Rdio's iOS app now recommends music based on your listening habits
After making some notable improvements to its desktop music player, Rdio is starting to bring its mobile apps up to feature parity. Earlier today, the company rolled out custom recommendations to its iOS app, offering album, station and playlist suggestions based on what you've previously listened to and who you've been following. While Rdio has also made some visual tweaks to its Stations player in order to compete with rivals like Pandora and iTunes Radio, the app hasn't yet received a full iOS 7 upgrade to include Apple's new keyboard and make use of the new unified navigation and status bars. The company says the new features will come to its Android app "soon", at which point you'll have another reason to take advantage of its free mobile streaming.
Rdio redesigns its Stations feature, promises more customization
It's been less than a week since Spotify showed the world its new Browse feature, and now Rdio wants in on that action. The vowel-skipping music streaming service is revamping its Stations offering, starting with a player redesign, which includes voting on songs and station fine tuning and pivoting. Users can also create 10 types of different stations, starting with an artist, song or one of the service's 400 or so sub-genre selections. You FM, meanwhile, utilizes Facebook likes, Twitter follows, listening history and track votes to curate a customized listening experience. You can also build stations based on your friends' listening habit. The above offerings are available now on iOS, Android and in the browser.
EVE Evolved: Too early to judge Incarna
Amidst talk of EVE Online's upcoming nullsec revamp, the Council of Stellar Management voiced legitimate concerns that CCP may not be assigning enough development time to in-space EVE features. Last year, CCP Zulu revealed that of over 400 developers at CCP Games, 124 were assigned to EVE Online. Of those, a whopping 70 were assigned to develop EVE's new avatar-based Incarna feature, several others were assigned to core technologies going into Incarna, and only 22 were focused on developing in-space features. Last week I looked into the issue of EVE's development time being reduced over the years, but it has been pointed out to me that I largely dismissed the development time that went into Incarna as if it weren't development on EVE. This is a common line of thought among current veteran players, who typically don't care about Incarna and want time to be spent on in-space features instead. Incarna has eaten up a significant amount of development time for very little tangible benefit, but is it too early to judge the efficacy of this massive addition to EVE? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at what the future may hold for Incarna and how the work invested so far may not become valuable to players until certain features hit.
EVE Evolved: The EVE Online that could be
Each of us has a different idea of the perfect game, whether it's an existing game with a few tweaks or something completely new. Game designers work tirelessly to make their own vision of the perfect game a reality, but there's no telling what players will think of a feature until it's finished. In the process of transforming a feature from a gleam in the game designer's eye to a finished product, something is unfortunately often lost in translation. Limitations in the technology being used or the manpower available can render the ideal implementation infeasible. As players, we don't really see that full development process. That doesn't stop us from painting our perfect vision of an upcoming or potential feature and how awesome it could be. In the coming years, the EVE Online developers will be going through the process of making some of their most incredible visions a reality. Ideas like walking in stations and integrating the upcoming MMOFPS Dust 514 with EVE's planetary interaction feature will be put through a potentially brutal development process. We can only hope that as little as possible of those visions we've heard from EVE's developers gets lost in translation. In this speculative opinion piece, I look at a few areas in which EVE is sure to be expanded in the coming years and discuss what I'd consider to be the ideal way they could be implemented or handled.
Better Place tests its EV battery switching stations on Tokyo cabbies
Not long after establishing a prototype EV battery switching station in Japan, Better Place is now partnering with Nihon Kotsu, Tokyo's largest taxi operator, to put the thing through its paces, swapping out batteries for up to four electric hacks scheduled to run from the Roppongi Hills shopping and office complex beginning in January next year. In Tokyo, cabs account for only two percent of the traffic, yet they produce twenty-percent of its CO2 emissions -- a fact that further drives home the point that greening our public transportation is an important first step in cleaning up the environment. The study comes hot on the heels of other deals in the works for Israel, Europe, and the San Francisco. Albert Hockenberry would be impressed. [Via PhysOrg]
Video: Better Place's automated electric vehicle battery switch station is faster than Melvin Dummar
It's massive, costs $500,000, and is just a prototype; but you're looking at a possible solution for swapping out heavy car batteries from future electric vehicles. Kind of important if you're hoping to take your EV on a trip a bit further than the supermarket or city center without having to stop for a lengthy recharge. This switch station, unveiled in Japan by Better Place, can swap out a spent battery in less time than it takes to refuel the tank in that baby-killer of a car you hold so precious. These battery swap stations are just part of the enormous infrastructure required to support Better Place's subscription approach to electric vehicles -- infrastructure easily estimated to cost $250 million or so for countries like Israel or Denmark on up to the $1 Billion already pledged by San Francisco Bay Area mayors. Better Place admits that the swap technology is a work in progress but hopes to have 150,000 charging stations and about 100 battery swap stations deployed in Israel by 2011. Check the video after the break.
