recommendations
Latest
Netflix for Android now lets you control movies from your wrist
Netflix has taken its sweet time bringing its Android app up-to-date, but at least it's bearing extra nice gifts for you and your inner circle. You can now privately endorse shows to Facebook friends without clogging their news feeds -- a feature that's already been available on the web and iOS for several months. Netflix did throw in a couple of exclusive Android extras, though: you'll be able to use your smartphone to thank a friend for a recommendation, see movie info and images, and even pause or play shows. But, the best part for nerdy film-lovers: you can now use an Android Wear smartwatch to do all that too, including remotely controlling shows (as shown above). Being the last to get an update sucks, but I'll gladly trade that for the double-takes when I launch House of Cards from my watch, Dick Tracy-style.
Netflix teams up with Facebook to make recommending movies faster
Man, [insert movie name here] on Netflix was awesome, wasn't it? Plenty of thoughtful action with just a smidge of the sappy stuff, and it didn't feel too ham-fisted either. As it turns out, Netflix doesn't just want you to recommend the film to your friends next time you see them -- the company teamed up with Facebook (again) so you can spread the good word just as soon as the show is over. The new sharing feature just went live today on just about nearly every platform that matters, including the Netflix site itself, iOS devices, PS3, Xbox, and a whole of host unspecified set-top boxes and smart TVs. Sorry Android fanatics, we're sure your time will come soon. In typical Netflix fashion, the process is pretty unobtrusive, too: once you've connected your Facebook and Netflix accounts, you'll able to choose exactly which friends your recommendation goes out to. If they opted to link their accounts in the same way, they'll get a notification the next time the log into Netflix; otherwise it gets routed to them in the form of a Facebook message. It's a shame Troll 2 isn't available anymore, because we'd probably go a little nuts recommending it to everyone.
WhoDoYou is a referral app with a lot of potential
WhoDoYou is a free app that uses public Facebook conversations to help you find local businesses. You can also see recommendations from your friends and groups on Facebook after logging in. The app aims to help eliminate the feeling of taking advice from strangers for local business recommendations. WhoDoYou is compatible with all iOS devices using iOS 7.0 or later. WhoDoYou has a very clean, pleasant looking layout that makes for a good user experience. Navigating the app is very easy and getting to the main feature is right on the forefront. When you open WhoDoYou, you see a search bar and a quick blurb about the app's goal. However, the search function is somewhat flawed. Take for instance, my search for a florist in Winter Park, Florida; the first result is for a photographer and after tapping on that result you realize why this is the first result. The public Facebook conversation that the app draws information from found the word florist in the request and someone answered that question with a photographer's name because the conversation was about needing help with all the details of a wedding. Continuing on with the florist search turned up another florist but this time they were located in Brooklyn, NY and not in Florida. The third result on the list actually did match the search terms very well and that information was useful. It was nice to see that once you tap on the result, the contact information for that local business is displayed along with reviews so you can easily get in touch with the company. WhoDoYou is an accompanying app for the WhoDoYou website, and it shows in a lot of ways. Looking at the website next to the app, it is really hard to tell them apart which is a nice feature. It creates a more seamless flow from using the website on your computer to using the app on the go. One difference is that when you open the menu and click on "About" in the app, a popup tells you the version number. However, on the website, when you go to "About," a really nice synopsis of how the app got started is shown. This type of information on the "About" tab in the app would be more beneficial to the user than the version number, which could easily be placed somewhere else. It is a little difficult to fully understand the purpose of the app without some kind of quick overview to introduce the user how it will benefit them. After browsing around the different tabs, a couple of tabs stood out to me as places where the designer could have put more information in to guide the user and help them appreciate all of the features that WhoDoYou offers. When you log into Facebook with the app, you can see conversations your friends are having about local businesses, which is a really cool feature that would go unnoticed if your friends haven't had any conversations. Recommendations from others are stored in "The Vault", but your vault could be a very sad and empty place. The vault that you see is a blank purple screen with a small header that says "My Vault 0 Results" on it. There is no indication as to the purpose of the vault, and unless you have friends talking about local businesses and recommendations for them, your vault will stay empty. Another tab that has a similar problem is the favorites tab. It shows a blank purple screen with a small header that says "Favorites" but this does not tell you much about the use of this tab or how to create favorites. The idea of using recommendations from friends on Facebook is exciting and with some refinement in the search function and a few design touch ups, there is a lot of potential for success with this app. WhoDoYou is free on the App Store and is good for people who would like recommendations from friends to help them find local businesses.
Rhapsody and Napster leave Echo Nest following Spotify's takeover
Echo Nest must have developed cooties after Spotify bought it. Just days after Rdio said it would stop using the song recommendation provider to avoid sharing data with a rival, Rhapsody has announced that it's ramping down its own Echo Nest deal (which also applies to Napster) within several months. The company doesn't characterize the split as a defensive move, though. Instead, it's a chance to stand out. Rhapsody says it has "never been completely satisfied" with leaning on others for music personalization -- independence theoretically lets the company improve its advice to listeners. Whether or not things pan out as planned, it's clear that Echo Nest has lost at least some sway over the streaming radio industry.
BBC revamps iPlayer with new web UI and greater focus on content discovery
The BBC teased us with stories of a new, improved iPlayer nearing the end of the last year, and today we're seeing the first part of that go live. Arriving today on the web and smart TVs, the "completely re-built" iPlayer has a simpler, image-focused UI that'll be consistent across all platforms when tablet and smartphone apps catch up in a few months. The desktop client is not set to change, if you were wondering, as it's primarily a download manager these days. You can switch between the various BBC channels using tabs near the top of the page, with quick access to categories and favorites on the same level. A revised category list should make it easier to find things to watch that suits your tastes, and suggestive search should help you find those shows you already know you like. Similarly, new themed "collections" will give offer eyeball food that revolves around the same topic. If you're still not sure what to watch, there's always the A-Z program and recently watched lists for inspiration. A new playback page doesn't need to reload when you move onto the next episode (or something else from the recommendations), and you can add programs to favorites straight from the player.
Feedback Loop: Strange games, desktop recommendations, iTunes alternatives and more!
Welcome to Feedback Loop, a weekly roundup of the most interesting discussions happening within the Engadget community. There's so much technology to talk about and so little time to enjoy it, but you have a lot of great ideas and opinions that need to be shared! Join us every Saturday as we highlight some of the most interesting discussions that happened during the past week. This week, we took a look through Steam's catalog and highlighted some of the strangest games we could find. We also asked for recommendations on reliable and cheap desktop computers, as well as discussed options for data recovery. Lastly, we kicked off the Engadget Game Club with Outlast on the PS4. Click past the break and read what fellow Engadget users like you have to say.
Pinterest now recommends pin-worthy things based on your interests
It hasn't been easy to browse Pinterest for pin-worthy things without the help of your friends -- not unless you've been willing to search entire categories, anyway. That hunt should be much easier now that the social network has rolled out its Interests tool on the web. The section recommends relevant items based on what you've pinned in the past. Look for tourist hotspots in a distant city, for example, and Interests will suggest places you might have missed. Pinterest's new advisor isn't yet available worldwide or on mobile devices, but it should reach every member in the near future.
Pandora now recommends radio stations to Android and iOS listeners
Pandora is built around personalizing radio to your tastes, but that's only so much help once you're tired of listening to a given station. Thankfully, the company's Android and iOS apps now recommend new stations. When you're creating a station or browsing your existing list, you'll see suggestions for additional artist channels based on both your history as well as thumbs-up ratings for individual songs. If you've ever been left scrounging for new music to stream, you'll want to grab Pandora's latest mobile app today.
Google Play Store update brings better social app recommendations to Android
Just when it appeared Google's recent run of Android updates had come to an end, a new version of the Play Store pops up with new features in tow. Android Police got its hands on the app, running it under a microscope to find new social and recommendation features that make finding and downloading the best apps less of a hassle. To that end, Google now warns you when an app you're about to download contains in-app purchases, also making it easier to review apps with a larger star selector and dedicated edit and delete buttons. Opting for improved social recommendations, a new activity feed combines your +1s and ratings and connects them to your Google+ profile, letting you peek at those made by your friends to find apps you might otherwise have missed. Google's already begun rolling out the Play Store update, but if you can't wait for it to come over-the-air, hit up the source below to get the jump on everyone else.
Your Facebook friends can now see your Amazon reviews, if you want them to
Amazon's connection with Facebook is about to go from "it's complicated" to "in a relationship." In a bid to make its listings more social, the online retail giant has begun contacting customers to notify them that it will soon start showing product reviews and "wishes" from their Facebook friends. If you're browsing Amazon's Chromecast listing, for example, the company will let you know if any of your Facebook connections have either reviewed the $35 streaming dongle or are not-so-secretly indicating for someone to buy it for them. It's not the first time the retailer has leant on Facebook's Social Graph: earlier this year it launched Birthday Gift to help you buy your Facebook friends something nice and let others contribute. Amazon's new feature lets you opt-in on its Social Settings page, and will only display your Wish List items if you decide. Just remember that before writing that glowing review of the latest Nickleback album.
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.
Foursquare's real-time recommendations now being pushed to iOS
This past summer, Foursquare announced a soft rollout of a new real-time recommendation feature for Android users. And now, it's headed to iOS. As part of a new software update, a "small batch" of users will begin to see the push notifications appear on their iPhones, suggesting places or items of interest, like a particularly nice cocktail at a specific bar or a favorite restaurant. The app's also been refreshed with a 'nearby' button that'll let users keep tabs on which friends are in their immediate vicinity, as well as their most recent check-ins. Don't despair if you're not one of the chosen few to experience the auto-recommendations, Foursquare plans to put that feature "in everyone's hands" soon.
Rdio rolling out custom recommendations based on what you play, who you follow
Rdio's been busy making deals, tweaking its player and adding functionality over the past few months, and now it's learning you what to listen to. The music streaming service is starting to drop hints about albums, stations and playlists -- making recommendations based on users' listening habits and who they've been following. These Echo Nest-powered suggestions are rolling out to browsers now, and the company's blog says iOS and Android will see the functionality soon. Now, if you start getting all kinds of admonishments for The Baha Men, you only have yourself to blame.
Twitter gets pushy with notifications for recommended tweets
Twitter is one of the best ways to keep abreast of breaking news, but getting caught up on anything meaningful that happened on a given day can take hours of scrolling. To combat this, the service is now rolling out a push notification-based recommendation system that builds on @MagicRecs, the account that sends tailored content-suggestions based on who you follow. A trip to the Android and iOS settings menu is all it takes to enable (or disable) a buzz when there are favorites and retweets the platform thinks you might dig. If you can't spend all day watching your timeline but still want to stay in the loop, this could be perfect middle ground. Now if you'll excuse us, we just got word that Emergency Puppy tweeted out a new picture.
Microsoft opts for Jinni engine to enhance Xbox Video recommendations
With more and more video content being consumed every day on things like the Apple TV, PS3 and Xbox 360, having an exceptional recommendations system is becoming an essential part of the viewing experience. Microsoft knows how important this is, and today it announced it's reached a multi-year deal with Tel-Aviv-based firm Jinni to enhance entertainment discovery on the Xbox platform. The newly minted agreement will see Jinni's own engine, dubbed Entertainment Genome, vastly improve Xbox recommendations by utilizing its "deep knowledge of every show and movie in the Xbox Video catalog." It's worth noting Jinni has plenty of experience in the insight field, having previously been pegged by Time Warner and Vudu to power their intelligent search efforts. For its part, Xbox General Manager, Dave Alles, says there's excitement to combine Jinni's taste-and-mood engine with Microsoft's Conversational Understanding, which he hopes can make "finding something to watch on Xbox as fun as watching it."
Foursquare's new push recommendations appear even when you don't check in
Sure, Foursquare is a nice option for recommendations from friends and those who have already explored your current locale. It appears, though, that the days of manually searching the app for nearby treasures will soon be a thing of the past. Today, Foursquare began a rollout to select Android users a "smarter" version of the service -- one that's proactive with its recommendations. That's right, folks, the app will ping you via push notification when you're near a friend's go-to sushi place or offer up cocktail suggestions based on the bar that you just cozied up to. Fret not, you can still check in like you're used to, but now Foursquare will offer up recommendations even if you don't. Battery drain shouldn't be a concern here as the company says a day's worth of advice should roughly translate to a 20-minute Angry Birds session. In the next few months, the feature will reach all Android users, with iOS to follow sometime after that. For now, if you're not one of the lucky thousand or so, you can peruse the backstory via the source link below.
Lime & Tonic brings its luxury recommendation service to the iPhone
There's no shortage of mobile concierge services, but even the wealthy may balk at paying steep fees (or buying exotic phones) solely for entertainment advice. Thankfully, Lime & Tonic has just brought its more accessible luxury recommendation engine to the iPhone. The mobile app automatically suggests up to two premium (and sometimes exclusive) activities per day based on far more refined criteria than a typical point-of-interest app. It can recommend only those posh restaurants that cook your steak rare, for example. More importantly, it's relatively cheap to try -- signing up is free and discounts are common. Lime & Tonic's service is currently limited to Amsterdam, Dubai, London, Melbourne, Prague, Rio de Janeiro and Sydney, although geography is likely no obstacle to the company's well-to-do customers. Besides, it could be the perfect showcase app for that future gold iPhone.
Weotta iOS local discovery app goes nationwide, Google Ventures approves
Finding things to do and places to go has never been easier thanks to services that neatly pull all the options together. Weotta hopes to be another weapon in your discovery app arsenal after expanding its coverage to the whole of the US, having initially been limited to 40 cities. As the company's CEO told Forbes, the free iOS app uses "phrase extraction and natural language processing" to source its local suggestions from the nooks and crannies of the internet. That same wizardry is used to steer its rating system, which is based on what's said about a venue or event rather than aggregating numerical scores. It'll learn your likes and dislikes, tailoring recommendations as it gets to know you better, but you can discover what's happening in the area for yourself using the search feature. Via Facebook Connect, the app will also tell you what's popular among your peers. While Weotta is only available for iOS, it's attracted funding from Google Ventures, which is a recommendation in itself that suggests you give it a whirl.
Study: Mobile gamers download five titles a month, mostly through word of mouth
A new study released by Applifier says that word of mouth is still the number one way mobile game players find the games they like. That doesn't necessarily mean in-person discussion about mobile games, however, though 36 percent of users did report that hearing from a friend or family member was a major source of games, and 25 percent of users said actually seeing a friend or family member play a game was one way they found out about their favorites. However, 43 percent of users say reading user reviews was the main way they found what they liked to play. Video is another big game pusher -- 70 percent of users polled by Applifier say that they watched online video about mobile games in the last week, and 45 percent of users said that watching the video had them downloading that same game right away. Most mobile game players, according to Applifier, download up to five mobile games a month, which is just a little more than one per week. Those games are played for about three hours per week, though obviously that's spread out across the entire week, so most likely little bits here and there rather than three hours at a time. And 20 percent of users, said Applifier, can be classified as "sharers," which means they are more likely to download more games, play more often and for longer and convert to paying users. All interesting stuff. For all of the infrastructure for app discovery built by Apple and others, odds are that you're still hearing about your favorite iOS downloads from the people that you know best anyway.
Square believes it can trump Foursquare in the local recommendations game
Square collects a lot of store info by virtue of its payment business, so you'd think it would be great at recommending where to shop. And you may soon be right, according to the company's Ajit Varma. While he doesn't have a schedule, he tells The Verge that Square will eventually customize its directory to suggest hot or newly opened stores based on our spending habits. Varma even believes that his company could beat Foursquare in the local recommendations field, and it's easy to see why when Square knows that we're willing to buy, not just that we've entered a given store. Of course, this is all contingent on both a ubiquitous Square presence and consumerist intentions. Foursquare is entirely willing to point us to both free landmarks as well as stores without Square readers, so it's doubtful that the two services will ever completely overlap.
