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NPR comes to iTunes Radio
Today iTunes radio took an important step towards being able to replace terrestrial radio for many of its users with the addition of an NPR channel. The 24-hour channel will offer a free stream of NPR's award-winning content, including its live news segments alongside pre-recorded shows like All Things Considered and Morning Edition. You can find their programming now within iTunes Radio. NPR is promising that this is just the beginning of the services they'll be offering. Later this spring the organization will expand the iTunes Radio service to include streams from member stations around the country. NPR has been working to move towards expanding the reach of public radio with increased online streaming options. They are currently also working on a project called NPR Infinite Player, which will work like a public radio Pandora station. You can read more about that project here.
Daily Roundup: NSA spies on Huawei, Google Now for Chrome and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
iTunes Radio now streams the news, thanks to NPR
It's been nearly a year since Apple announced its plans to join Spotify, Rdio and Pandora as a music streaming service provider. However, while beats, melodies and harmony are great, some would say iTunes Radio's sonic buffet is lacking -- it has no news channels. No longer. NPR has joined the service as a 24-hour news streaming station, with broadcasts starting right now. Of course, folks have long been able to get their public radio fix via NPR's website, but now fanboys and girls can get it straight from Apple's service. For now, NPR is the first and only news channel on iTunes Radio, but we've a sneaking suspicion that exclusivity won't last for long.
NPR receiver gets closed-captioned radio emergency alerts for the hearing impaired
I'll be the first to admit that I had a little trouble wrapping my brain around this one, but I think I've got it now. Sure the appeal of closed-captioned radio for the hearing impaired is clear, but what wasn't immediately apparent was why, precisely, one would want a standalone box for such information if you could potentially get it just as easily through, say, the station's website. This first iteration (which is very much still in the proof-of-concept phase) is intended for emergency relief organizations like FEMA and NPR and its partners are currently testing it out in the Gulf states. The box uses a tablet as a display, getting emergency information through the radio spectrum, so you can use it when the power is out and your WiFi isn't working -- assuming you've still got juice in your tablet, which powers the box. At present, those emergency alerts are the only thing that are currently closed captioned, though NPR is aggressively looking at captioning most or all of its programming, so you could theoretically get the text narration through the box or through the public radio network's site. Future iterations of the receiver will also be a fair bit smaller, perhaps eventually being built into radios with displays, so hearing-impaired public radio fans can still get their Terry Gross fix. Nicole Lee contributed to this report.
Peripheral Vision 009: Jesse Thorn on using the internet to create something meaningful
"The fact that I'm an independent media businessman is because no one was interested in co-opting me," Jesse Thorn laughs. It's plenty easy to make light of with a decade's distance and a sunny office overlooking MacArthur Park and the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles. Maximum Fun's Westlake headquarters is reasonably quiet when we arrive, a half-dozen or so employees plugging away on the podcasting network's day-to-day operations, and prepping for its first-ever Atlantic Comedy and Music Cruise. In the past ten years, the Bullseye host has turned a humble college radio program into a bustling podcasting empire. "We started podcasting [Bullseye's predecessor] The Sound of Young America at the end of 2004," says the NPR host. "I thought if I could get 100 or 200 people to listen to this, it would be worth the extra 90 minutes for me to make it into a podcast." Thorn's secret to success is simple enough: do what you love. And doesn't hurt if you can't possibly do anything else. "It's about is creating something that means enough to you that you're willing to undergo some hardship to sustain it and to create something that means enough to your audience that they're willing to support it - even if it's in surprising ways," explains Thorn. "Even if it's backing a Kickstarter or buying a ticket to a cruise, rather than buying a newspaper. If you can bring those things together, this is a new world. When I got out of college, I didn't get an interview. It was horrible. I ended up working as my dad's secretary, and I'm a terrible secretary - and my dad is a terrible boss. Even if he wasn't my dad, he'd be a terrible boss." Subscribe to Peripheral Vision on iTunes
Peripheral Vision 008: Seth Lind on why radio won't die
"The death of radio has been foretold pretty much since its invention," Seth Lind explains. "Especially since the invention of television. Why would you listen to radio since the invention of television? One of the main answers to that is you can do other things while you're listening to radio. You can't watch the Colbert Report while driving." It's a question This American Life's director of operations gets more times than he cares to mention -- when will the internet finally put the last nail in radio's coffin? After all, Lind is the digital gatekeeper of one of public radio's most beloved shows, helping Ira Glass and co. explore new distribution platforms. Internet streaming has played a large role in the show's success in recent years -- as has the podcast, a perennial list topper over on iTunes. "Currently two-thirds listen on the radio and one-third listen elsewhere via the internet, whether that's podcast or streaming," says Lind. "Radio is pretty flat, but digital is growing, so I wouldn't be surprised if, in a couple of years, it's even. But I've honestly been surprised at how durable radio has been." This American Life's latest platform launches this week, an attempt to keep up with new listening habits that are emerging online, a sort of marriage of the always-on delivery method of radio, with the flexibility of digital. "Our 2013 This American Life product is a 24 hour stream of episodes," says Lind. "It basically will be a digital radio station that will play This American Life around the clock. What the 24 hour stream will do is take advantage of platforms like radio streaming apps like TuneIn and I Heart Radio -- and possibly the new iTunes Radio. It will find listeners who just want to turn on a channel and have the content come to them. This way you can pull up the app or go to a player and there will always be an episode playing. You won't be able to chose what it is. It will just be a story faucet."
Laura Bush: iPad drawing app inspired GWB's painting hobby
Today, the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is being dedicated on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. David Greene of NPR talked to former first lady Laura Bush about the library as well as her husband, former President George W. Bush, and his new iPad-inspired hobby. About three minutes into the conversation, Mrs. Bush talks about her husband's new pastime, drawing. His hobby was kicked off when he downloaded an app and started sketching on his iPad. He communicated with Mrs. Bush and their daughter Jenna by sending them self-drawn images of things at home while they were traveling. You can listen to the Morning Edition clip on NPR's website.
NPR's Planet Money goes behind the scenes with The Magazine
Jacob Goldstein of NPR's Planet Money took a look at the economics behind The Magazine, the iPad-only publication created by Marco Arment of Instapaper and edited by Jeopardy champion and Macworld/TidBITS contributor Glenn Fleishman. The Magazine launched late last year with essays from well-known, technology-focused writers such as Jason Snell, Lex Friedman and Harry Marks. The Magazine is published every two weeks and costs US$1.99 for a monthly subscription. Unlike most online ventures that struggle to get off the ground, The Magazine already has 25,000 subscribers and is pulling in a healthy profit. You can read more about the financials of The Magazine and the reasons why Arment started the venture on Planet Money's website.
Public Radio Player app redesigned in latest update
Some of my favorite radio programs are from National Public Radio here in the States, including Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Car Talk and A Prairie Home Companion. Fortunately, most of those shows are now available in podcast form, so that's primarily how I listen to them. And of course NPR stations broadcast terrestrially around the country, so if you want to listen to them the old-fashioned way, you can do that. But occasionally I need even more NPR. Sometimes I want to listen to classic stations in Boston or Chicago, or I just can't be bothered to scan around the dial and find my show. For those instances, the Public Radio Player app comes in very handy. It's just been updated with a brand-new design, and it allows you to tune in to more than 500 different NPR stations from around the US, wherever you happen to be. You can now also download your favorite shows (including some of those mentioned above), view news headlines from NPR, even follow stations on Twitter or donate directly to your favorite stations from within the app itself. It's a very impressive update to a really comprehensive app, and of course it's completely free. NPR consistently presents some of the best radio programming out there, and the new version of this app provides another great way to listen in.
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.
Radiolab releases Android, iOS app, invites you to join the sound collage
We're not going to go so far as stating conclusively that Radiolab is the best program on your dial right now, but it's certainly a prime contender for that title. The Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich-hosted WYNC show frames scientific topics in a fascinating and understandable manner accessible to even the most unscientifically minded among us. The program now joins the ranks of public radio shows that crossed over into the world of mobile apps, arriving on Android and iOS. For $2.99, you get access to every episode of the show, audio and video bonuses and news pertaining to the program. The app's also heavy of interstitial animations (as evidenced by the video below) and lets users submit audio recordings and end-credit readings for inclusion on the show.
Stitcher adds Smart Station to its redesigned iOS and Android apps, makes finding Radiolab even easier
Stitcher has redesigned its streaming radio app for iOS and Android, fitting it with a raft of new features to make finding new content easy. Smart Station offers personalized recommendations to let you hop between shows you'll enjoy, while album art will now display on your lock screen as you enjoy the latest Fresh Air. The company has also included a sleep timer to help you nod off and sharing has been redesigned to let you fling shows at your friends over Twitter. Both versions are available right now on each platform's respective app store, ready for the next time you need to be informed about the topics of the day.
Marketplace reporter visits Foxconn factory in China
Marketplace's China correspondent Rob Schmitz is known as the man who uncovered the falsehoods about Foxconn factory conditions being told by Mike Daisey in his play, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. As a follow-up to the report, Schmitz got an inside look at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. You can watch his teaser video and visit Marketplace's website for additional details about his visit.
Foxconn won't sue This American Life, Daisey
Late last week, radio show This American Life retracted an episode published in January that showcased Mike Daisey's performance of The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (our review). The show was removed when TAL discovered inaccuracies in Daisey's account, one of which suggested Daisey himself met with workers who were poisoned by n-hexane. A report from Reuters confirms Foxconn will not sue This American Life or Daisey, even though these bogus claims were hurtful to the company. Foxconn spokesperson Simon Hsing told Reuters, "Our corporate image has been totally ruined. The point is whatever media that cited the programme should not have reported it without confirming (with us)." He added, "We have no plans to take legal action... We hope nothing similar will happen again."
Whoopsie Daisey: This American Life episode on Foxconn's iPad factories 'partially fabricated,' retracted
Last month, we reviewed Mike Daisey's "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs", a monologue in which the storyteller opines on his trip to China and his time with workers in a Foxconn iPad plant. Daisey's story was the basis of an episode of PRI's "This American Life," and now the show has retracted that episode when additional fact-checking revealed that a number of Daisey's claims were fabricated. This American Life host Ira Glass was understandably upset, saying that "Daisey lied to me and to This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast. That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake." You can read the show's full transcript here. Daisey isn't as quite as repentant, claiming that his work was "not journalism" and therefore "operates under a different set of rules and expectations" from a journalistic endeavor like This American Life. This American Life noted two of the worst fabrications in Daisey's monologue -- first, where he claimed to have met a group of Foxconn employees who were poisoned by n-hexane in Shenzhen, China. Apple's factory audits have uncovered a similar occurrence, but it happened over a thousand miles away in Suzhou. The second, and much more egregious, fabrication was about one of the most dramatic sections of Daisey's work. In this section, Daisey talks about meeting a factory worker whose hand was mangled on an iPad production line, and showing the worker a finished product that he had allegedly never seen. The interpreter who accompanied Daisey told a fact checker that she never witnessed anything like that encounter. You can read Daisey's response to the retraction of the show here.
'This American Life' issues retraction episode over Foxconn report
This American Life is airing a new episode today titled "Retraction." The title and show are a direct response to the January 6th edition of the popular public radio program titled "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory," an adaptation of a one-man show that helped put Cupertino's involvement with Foxconn back in the public spotlight. "Regrettably," the show's producers write in the description of this week's episode, "we have discovered that one of our most popular episodes was partially fabricated." The hour-long show has been dedicated to clearing up some of the misconceptions, including an interview with Mike Daisey to discover "why he misled This American Life during the fact-checking process." For his part, Daisey responded on his personal blog, explaining, "What I do is not journalism." Daisey adds: My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge. It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity.An MP3 file of the episode will be made available for download on Sunday.
Daily iPad App: NPR Music is a treat for music fans
Everyone knows about NPR's quality podcasts, or at least they should. All Things Considered, Car Talk and Whose Line is it Anyway routinely top the charts on iTunes. But I'm also a fan of NPR's music. They do a great series of podcasts called All Songs Considered, and they often release great live performances, available as free downloads in iTunes. Now, NPR Music has released its own iPad app, and as you can see above, it's very snazzy. Most of the content in the app is simply what's available on the NPR Music website, but it's all been redesigned for a touch interface. And while you can play new music straight through the website, playing it in a browser isn't always as easy as through an iOS device. The iPad version also has a very excellent playlist and a live radio, so there are tons of great ways to listen to awesome new music, all completely free. There's a lot of other stuff in here too -- articles, reviews and other videos. But honestly, the music is enough: the app offers a great, curated experience of hours and hours of great free content and tunes. NPR's Music app is one of the best gifts I've gotten all year (paid for, of course, by our tax dollars). If you're a fan of new music, especially indie or alternative, definitely give it a download.
NPR Music iPad app puts Tiny Desk Concerts a few swipes away
Feel like peeping a live performance from The Decemberists during your coffee shop work session? You can do just that via the new NPR Music app for your iPad. Once you download the free software onto your Apple slate, you're a few screen taps away from live performances, advance album listens and live streaming radio content. The app also enables offline listening through its visual playlist feature. If you're a fan of The Shins, an exclusive in-app concert streams live on March 7th. Itching to snag the app for your tablet? Hit the iTunes source link below.
Hands-on with new NPR and SYNC Destinations via AppLink
Sadly Ford wouldn't let us rest our rumps in the sexy Evos concept, but we did get a chance to shout some commands at its updated SYNC system and play with a few of the new apps. A rep was kind enough to give us a quick demo of the updated SYNC Destinations app, as well as the newly compatible NPR and IHeartRadio apps for the iPhone. Then we were allowed to climb in the driver's seat of the mid-life crisis red 2013 Mustang GT. Last time we played with AppLink it was on a simple, monochrome screen, had just three apps available and things didn't go smoothly. In the year since, the lineup has grown significantly and now it's on a big, color touchscreen. But, more importantly, it worked pretty much flawlessly (only stumbling briefly over the word "Nevada"). In particular we really enjoyed the ability to pull up any NPR station we wanted -- we were getting a little home sick for WNYC. Head after the break to see it in action.
NPR delivers on-demand news for Ford SYNC AppLink (video)
When traditional FM waves aren't enough to quench your thirst for news, NPR's new Ford SYNC AppLink products might just become your favorite watering hole. Now, current event junkies of the proper vehicular persuasion can gain voice access to NPR's entire library of shows and live streams of each affiliate across the country. While these features have previously been available in the organization's apps for Android and iOS, the SYNC integration brings functionality such as the ability to hear the latest news simply by saying "hourly news" at the chime, along with other commands such as "stations" and "topics." An introductory video starring NPR's Audie Cornish and Scott Simon follows the break, along with the full PR.
