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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.
SiriusXM lets you customize music stations with Pandora
SiriusXM will finally let some subscribers create personalized music stations with Pandora, nearly six months after it acquired the streaming music company. The company today announced a slew of upgrades, including access to customized music stations powered by Pandora technology for All Access and Premier subscribers. Integrating Pandora tech into the SiriusXM app has been in the works for a while -- and now it's actually happening.
Spotify Stations radio app now works with CarPlay
Stations is Spotify's answer to Pandora, letting you tune in and listen to curated music without having to lift a finger. That convenience made it an immediate hit when it launched last month, but one important feature was missing for iOS users: CarPlay support. Spotify has quietly fixed that issue by (as spotted by a Reddit user),and now lets you control your music directly from your in-dash entertainment system.
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.
Pandora finally made a native desktop app
Pandora has finally rolled out a desktop app, so you don't have to be stuck using its web player on a browser anymore if you want to play music on your computer. It doesn't play podcasts yet, and it doesn't quite have all the features of the mobile application, but it does give you access to handy keyboard controls that lets you play, pause, replay, skip, shuffle and even rate songs. It also shows on-screen notifications that display the artist and the song that's playing, as well as the album the tune came from.
Waze integrates Pandora for seamless road trip tunes
Pandora users can now access their music through Waze, meaning you won't have to flip between the apps as you drive. From the Waze app, iOS and Android users can simply click the music icon in the top right corner and select Pandora. If you're in the Pandora app, you'll also see the next step of your Waze journey.
Alexa takes hands-free voice commands on Windows 10 PCs
Amazon's Alexa app for Windows 10 now behaves more like you'd expect it to -- that is, it behaves more like an Echo speaker. An update to the software has introduced the option to invoke Alexa solely through your voice, whether or not the app is in the foreground. As long as you're within earshot of the microphones, you won't have to sit right at your PC to turn on the lights or check the weather. Push-to-talk is still an option if you don't want to risk accidentally waking your voice assistant.
Pandora adds SiriusXM talk shows as podcasts
Many music streaming services are looking at podcasts as a way to keep listeners increasingly plugged in and listening -- Spotify's recent purchase of Gimlet Media being just the most recent example. Pandora has had podcasts for a while as well, and today the company is announcing an expansion that comes via its new owner, SiriusXM. As of now, almost two dozen SiriusXM shows across a variety of genres will also be available to Pandora subscribers as podcasts.
Pandora Now highlights trending music as a playlist and SiriusXM station
It's been several months since SiriusXM purchased Pandora for $3.5 billion, and now we're finally getting a glimpse of how the satellite radio company plans to use its new toy. SiriusXM and Pandora announced Pandora Now, a new feature that will highlight popular and trending music for listeners on both platforms. Available starting today, Pandora Now will have a dedicated channel on SiriusXM for subscribers. Pandora Premium members will get to listen to Pandora Now as an interactive station, complete with song skippings and thumbs up and down ratings, or as a curated playlist.
Pandora Modes gives you more listening options for music stations
Pandora is giving you more control over your listening experience. Starting today, the streaming service will offer a new feature called Pandora Modes. Designed to help you fine-tune the types of songs that come up on your favorite stations, Pandora Modes gives listeners the ability to pick between different styles of music discovery. It's available to both free and premium users.
Recommended Reading: Beto O'Rourke and Cult of the Dead Cow
Beto O'Rourke's secret membership in America's oldest hacking group Joseph Menn, Reuters Beto O'Rourke: Democratic presidential candidate and... member of a hacking group? Reuters reports the former Texas congressman once belonged to Cult of the Dead Cow, an influential group "jokingly named after an abandoned Texas slaughterhouse." While there's no evidence that O'Rourke really got his hands dirty with what we'd consider nefarious "hacking," he was a member, which might help explain some of the policies he could champion during a presidential run.
Music streaming services are fighting a big royalties increase
Spotify, Pandora, Google and Amazon are fighting back against royalty increases that could be as high as 44 percent. The four companies -- each with its own streaming service -- have issued appeals against the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision to give songwriters a major pay raise.
SiriusXM plans original podcasts, shows and more for Pandora
If you listen to Pandora regularly, you might notice new channels, shows, podcast and playlists popping up. Roughly one month after finalizing its $3.5 billion acquisition of Pandora, Sirius XM announced a first-ever, original content team for the platform. As Sirius explains, this is a move to generate music, sports and talk programs as a way of moving the service beyond just streaming music. It's also likely an attempt to take on the likes of Spotify, which recently made its own investment in podcasts.
Google Clock can now wake you up with YouTube Music and Pandora
Last year Google made the business of getting out of bed in the morning an altogether more pleasant affair when it introduced Spotify integration to the Google Clock app. The feature let Android users set a song or playlist as an alarm, rather than the usual odious beeping, and it was so well received that users were quick to ask when there would be similar support for other music services. That's finally arrived, and Google Clock 6.1 will now also let you pick music from Pandora and YouTube Music.
Pandora Stories merge music playlists with podcasts
Pandora has launched a new format called "Stories," which marries music tracks with podcasts in a single playlist. Musicians can take full advantage of the new feature by making a playlist of their songs and injecting voice tracks telling the history behind them, for instance. Artists, authors and other creatives who primarily want to use the format for storytelling can also use Pandora's catalog of fully-licensed songs to add context and to make things more entertaining in general.
SoundCloud lets artists distribute music to Spotify and Apple Music
SoundCloud is helping artists distribute uploaded music to other services, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Instagram, Pandora and even Napster. The Premier distribution tool will be available in open beta at no extra cost for eligible Pro and Pro Unlimited subscribers. SoundCloud won't take a cut of the earnings artists make from other platforms, and it pledged to streamline payments for them. Musicians will also keep all of the rights to their work.
SiriusXM app is getting Pandora channels later this year
SiriusXM's $3.5 billion acquisition of Pandora is set to close on Friday, and the satellite radio company is already laying out details on how it plans to make the most of its newest toy. In an earnings call with investors held Wednesday, Sirius CEO James Meyer said the company plans to launch Pandora channels within the SiriusXM app.
Pandora's new voice search feature knows what you want to hear
It's been almost two years since Pandora launched its on-demand music streaming service. In that time, the company has done a solid job of fixing some of the issues that cropped up at launch and even adding some features the competition hasn't got to yet (like downloading songs to an Apple Watch for offline playback). Today, Pandora's adding another feature that some of its competitors have: Voice Mode. But, as usual, Pandora believes that the amount of information it has on both the music in its catalog as well as its users will set its voice features apart.
Pandora iOS update adds offline playback for Apple Watch
Pandora just became more commute friendly for Apple Watch users. The music streaming service has updated its iOS app and added offline playback for the wearable, apparently due to popular demand. Unfortunately, not everyone will be able to access the new feature without the need for a phone, since it's exclusively available to paying customers. They'll have to be a Pandora Plus (for $5 a month) or Premium (for $10 a month) subscriber to be able enjoy offline content on the Watch. In addition, they'll have to upgrade to watchOS 5 to be able to install the update.
Pandora's podcast recommendations are no longer a test
Pandora is bringing its podcast recommendations to everyone following a beta launch last month. The Podcast Genome Project suggests shows and episodes you might like using a combination of curation and Pandora's algorithms.
