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Microsoft rolls out a personalized news feed called Start
The service replaces Microsoft News, and it'll be available on Windows, the web and mobile.
Mercedes' new touchscreen controls eliminate 27 physical buttons
Mercedes' second-gen MBUX system will replace 27 physical buttons with touchscreen, voice, gesture and gaze controls.
Amazon Prime Video finally offers user profiles worldwide
Amazon Prime Video is finally adding user profiles to accounts worldwide.
Sonarworks brings its SoundID audio customization to Mac and Windows
With a mobile app, you create a personalized sound profile that fits your preferences based on a selection of audio clips. Once you’ve made your picks, SoundID creates a custom profile that’s unique to you — right down the pattern of icons inside the app. Today, Sonarworks revealed SoundID Listen on desktop, so the customization is actually useful for the first time.
NBA and Microsoft plan personalized, AI-powered game streaming
Microsoft and the NBA are teaming up to deliver personalized game broadcasts that use machine learning and AI to learn fans’ preferences. To start, they’ll broadcast live and on-demand games via Microsoft Azure and add personalized real-time stats overlays.
YouTube’s personalized music playlists are available to all users
YouTube Music's new personalized playlists are now available to users worldwide. Today, YouTube introduced its Discover Mix, New Release Mix and Your Mix. The playlists will curate your favorite songs, new releases and unheard tracks by your favorite artists, plus others you might like.
Google Podcasts gets a much-needed personalized recommendations tab
The Google Podcasts app just got a recommendations tab. The new feature will suggest individual episodes, rather than full shows. That could make it easier to discover content if you don't know where to start, and it may help track people you like across different shows. As an added perk, you won't need to subscribe to the show to listen to the episode.
YouTube Music listeners are getting three personalized playlists this month
YouTube Music's big plan to take on Spotify appears to be essentially copying Spotify's personalized playlists. YouTube is preparing to launch three new playlists: Discover Mix, New Release Mix and Your Mix. The platform's Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan discussed the playlists today at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019, and they sound remarkably similar to Spotify's offerings.
Pandora's Voice Mode is your personal music assistant
Pandora is rolling out Voice Mode to all users today. While you may have used Pandora voice controls on smart products like Amazon Alexa or Google Home, the new feature takes voice commands to the next level. It's meant to be more like a personal assistant for music, and it promises to deliver music selections tailored to each individual user.
YouTube lets you hide channels from your recommendations
No matter how advanced algorithms get, none will understand your YouTube viewing preferences better than you. With that in mind, YouTube is adding a few new features that will give users more control over which videos appear in their homepage and Up Next suggestions. The changes will roll out beginning today on Android and iOS, and they'll arrive on desktop soon.
Samsung's customizable refrigerator comes in nine colors and eight sizes
Samsung wants to capitalize on consumers who value personal tastes and experiences, and they plan to do so with refrigerators. Yesterday, Samsung revealed Project PRISM, or what it's calling a "new era of customized home appliances." The first product in its lineup is BESPOKE, a refrigerator for which users can choose the material, color and size, as well as other features.
Spotify's Pandora-style Stations app arrives in the US
Spotify's Pandora-esque Stations app has arrived in the US after it previously emerged in Australia. It's officially an "experiment" for now, though you can grab it from the App Store or Google Play.
Spotify experiments with curated podcast playlists
Beginning today, a handful of Spotify users will see curated podcast playlists in their accounts. According to The Verge, the playlists are an experiment to help Spotify understand how it can help users discover new shows. The hand-picked lists will be broken into five categories: comedy, true crime, "geek culture," motivation and mindfulness. The Verge reports the playlists will include a mix of Spotify originals and third-party shows.
Tidal adds Spotify-like personalized 'My Mix' playlists
Tidal is getting into the personalized playlist game. The music streaming service is now offering its users personalized "My Mix" playlists that take into account their listening history as well as input from Tidal's human-curated playlists. Subscribers can have up to six 50-song My Mix playlists, which will be separated by artists and genres and updated frequently. Tidal says some of the most active listeners will receive updates daily and the service will improve the more users listen.
Pandora's customized new music playlist 'The Drop' arrives today
If you ask Spotify users why they're loyal to the music service, chances are many of them will cite personalized new music playlists like Discover Weekly and New Release Radar. Today, Pandora is releasing a similar playlist for its Premium on-demand users: it's called "The Drop," and it's a custom playlist that features newly-released tracks selected based on a user's listening history over time. Pandora says the playlist will automatically show up in Premium users' libraries with around a dozen songs to start with, but it'll be continuously updated over time as new songs are released.
iHeartRadio adds Spotify-like personalized playlists
iHeartRadio announced today that it's adding a new playlist for users to stream -- a weekly updated selection of tunes based on what you listen to. Your Weekly Mixtape will be refreshed every Monday and will include 30 to 75 songs chosen for you based on the stations and artists you listen to and the tracks you give a thumbs up. It sounds an awful lot like Spotify's Discover Weekly, even down to the day it's released. But iHeartRadio's chief product officer, Chris Williams, told CNET that there is a difference between the two.
Facebook's Avatars sure look a lot like Snapchat's Bitmoji
Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that visual communication is replacing text, hence the arrival of Facbook Reactions in 2016, and GIF comments last year. Next on the agenda appears to be Facebook Avatars, which will let you build a personalized, illustrated version of yourself to use as a sticker in comments and Messenger.
Snapchat lets you create personalized Lenses for parties
If you post to Snapchat without a dancing hotdog or puppy face, did you even Snapchat? The platform already offers a baffling range of filters and AR novelties to play with, and now it's getting even more. From today, users will be able to create their very own personalized face lenses for events and celebrations, and have access to a whole bunch of new caption styles.
Google's personalized Feed is now available worldwide
Having spent many years honing its algorithms, Google has become the dominant search provider across the world. It'll almost always deliver what you're looking for, but in recent years the company has experimented with ways to bring content to you, rather than expect you to go out and find it. Google's biggest realization of this is the Feed, a personalized stream of mobile cards that are relevant to your interests. When Google added a ton of new features back in July, they were only available to US users, but from today, they're available to all.
Panasonic wants to bombard you with 'Minority Report' style in-store ads
There's a scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise, on the run, hides in a department store. Unfortunately, the billboards that line the walls read his eye print and begin screaming his name at every turn. We may have seen that sequence as a nightmare of consumerism gone wrong, but Panasonic's clearly been taking notes. The company has teamed up with Photon Interactive (nope, us neither) to personalize the digital signage that you find in stores. The idea is that a person would walk into a shop and a Panasonic display would offer up personalized adverts, tailored offers and other ways to part us from our money. There's no word on how close we are to seeing these systems in reality, but the pair told TechCrunch that they're working with a few "early partners" to test this out. Let's just hope that the duo don't get hold of your browsing history or else everyone else in Sears is going to know what you Google for at night.
