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Canoo wants to sell the world's first subscription-only EV
You can get subscriptions for your music, TV and games, so why not for your vehicle as well? A company called Canoo wants to become the "Netflix of cars" by offering the world's first subscription-only electric vehicle, and today it has revealed its futuristic van-like EV.
AppleCare+ for the iPhone and Watch is available as a monthly subscription
Yesterday, Apple made one change that wasn't announced at its iPhone event. The company will offer its AppleCare+ extended warranty as monthly subscription service, at least for the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The new option will allow customers to pay monthly until they decide to cancel or until Apple can no longer service their device.
You can try Ubisoft's Uplay+ gaming subscription for free today
Ubisoft announced it was getting on the gaming subscription bandwagon at E3 in June, and now the launch date for the service is finally here. From today, Windows PC users can subscribe to Uplay+ to play a wide variety of Ubisoft's popular titles.
Microsoft will turn an Xbox Live sub into Game Pass Ultimate for $1
Microsoft has been pushing its Xbox Game Pass service recently, adding new features and confirming it will be expanding to PC. Bargain hunters have been in the know about a special offer for the service since it was announced at E3, but now, the company has begun promoting what it calls a "lifehack" that allows gamers to upgrade to an Ultimate subscription for just $1.
AMC accidentally exposed data on 1.6 million subscribers
A security researcher discovered that AMC Networks had inadvertently exposed more than 1.6 million records of subscribers to the company's two premium streaming video platforms, Sundance Now and Shudder. The publicly accessible database included the names and email addresses of subscribers as well as details about their subscription plans. It included more than 3,000 invoices processed by Stripe that listed the last four digits of a user's credit card.
Audi adds a $995 monthly tier to its subscription service
Last year, Audi launched a test run of Audi Select, a monthly subscription service that gives drivers access to their choice of vehicles from the company's lineup. Today, the German carmaker announced a new, cheaper tier of the service called Core Collection. For $995 per month, subscribers will be able to drive around their choice of Audi A4 and S3 sedans, the Q5 SUV or the TT Coupe. As with the original Audi Select program, Core Collection will only be available at select dealerships in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the time being.
Streaming now accounts for almost half of global music revenue
Streaming has driven the US music industry for a few years. Last fall, streaming was responsible for up to 75 percent of the country's total music industry revenue. The 2019 IFPI Global Music Report, released today, shows the global scale of that trend. Streaming revenue grew by 34 percent in 2018 and accounted for 47 percent of total music revenue worldwide.
Alamo Season Pass will offer unlimited movies for $20 per month
Alamo Drafthouse is getting ready to officially launch its subscription service. After several months of beta testing, CEO Tim League told Business Insider the company is going to make its Alamo Season Pass available to the public before the end of the year. The service will let subscribers view an unlimited number of movies at Alamo Drafthouse theaters across the country starting at $20 per month. Engadget has reached out to Alamo Drafthouse to confirm the details of the plan and will update this story if we hear back.
Luminary Media is launching a star-studded paid podcast network
Luminary Media wants to find out just how much people will pay for podcasts. The company has rounded up more than 40 big-name creators with the intention of launching a subscription-based podcast network. The service -- which is set to launch in June, according to the New York Times -- will offer a Hulu-style model. Listeners will be able to stream nonexclusive content for free or pay $8 per month for an ad-free experience with access to shows only available through Luminary.
Rdio begins paying artists $10 for every user they attract
Streaming music services have a bad reputation when it comes to paying their artists, who only earn a few cents each play. Rdio is trying to remedy that (and grow its subscriber base) by paying songsters $10 for every user they personally attract that stays around longer than a month. Brendan Benson, Scissor Sisters and Snoop Dogg Lion have already signed up, but it's not just for big names, any musician with an Rdio account can join -- tempting us to upload our Lady Gaga covers played on the Sousaphone in the quest for some of those rockstar riches.
Kazaa reborn as iPhone, iPad music service
Several years back, Kazaa shed its roots as a file-sharing service with questionable content and is now a legitimate music subscription service. To expand its offerings, the subscription service recently introduced both an iPhone and an iPad client. Similar to Rdio and Spotify, Kazaa lets you listen to music on the fly on your iOS device. The app lets you search for artists, create playlists and sync your music for offline listening. Kazaa for iOS is available for free, while the service has a $10 monthly fee.
Vestel, Exent bring Android games to TVs, with 'all-you-can-eat' subscription service
Just last week Vestel was busy showing of its BitTorrent Certified Television, and now the company's teaming up with Exent to deliver Android games to your boob tube -- and it's doing so by playing off your love of a bottomless buffet. Described as "the world's first all-you-can-eat Android TV game subscription service," GameTanium allows users of Vestel's Smart Box set-top box to access a suite of TV-optimized games in the comfort of their living rooms, using their Android phones as controllers. What's more, the service lets them switch between their PC, cellphone, tablet or TV without ever losing their place in a game. The service will be debuted at this week's IBC, but if this announcement has left you hungry for more, there's always the Golden Corral. Full PR awaits you and your belly after the break.
Google announces One Pass payment system for online content (video)
Thinking of wading into the fast paced world of publishing in the digital age, yet balking at the thirty percent cut Apple is taking for its in-app subscription model? Fret not, would-be Hearsts and Murdochs: Google One Pass is here. The PR-speak promises "an open and flexible platform" for "publishers, journalism and access to quality content." Sure, but what is it, exactly? A user authentication, payment processing, and administration system for folks who want to sell content on the web. Google only takes ten percent off the top, and you even get access to customer consumer data -- something Apple is unwilling to do. Intrigued? Check out the video after the break. Update: Also worth noting is that One Pass works across multiple sites, and it offers payments within mobile apps as well. [Thanks, John]
iTunes shocker! Apple announces App Store subscriptions
Hot on the heels of the Daily, the oft-rumored Apple subscription service is finally spreading out to the rest of the app store. Love it or lump it, anything currently available in the company's online marketplace, including magazines, newspapers, video, and music, can now be offered on the subscription model. "All we require," said Steve Jobs in the press release, "is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app." (This sounds familiar.) Publishers are also restricted from linking out of the app to locations that allow the user to circumvent the in-app purchase (and publishers can't offer better deals outside of the app store). The rationale here? Apple gets thirty percent off the top off in-app purchases -- enough of a cut, we're guessing, to prompt some bigger publishers to skip the platform altogether (outside purchases, of course, are exempt from this fee). PR after the break.
Apple in talks to launch iTunes subscription music service?
Rumors of an iTunes subscription service are nothing new, but it's not every day they pop up in Reuters and the New York Post and CNET all at once, so here we go again. The Reuters and NYP reports claim Apple's Eddy Cue has been meeting with record execs to pitch a new $10-$15 monthly service that would offer unlimited access to music -- the pricing would be tiered depending on the amount of music consumed and how long you'd get access to it. That goes hand in hand with the CNET piece, which says Apple's trying to keep Spotify from getting US deals in place by telling the labels they'll never make any money from the service -- not the most chivalrous of moves, but no one ever said the music business was a friendly place. Of course, we've been hearing versions of these rumors for ages now and we're sure there are always talks ongoing, so this could all be nothing, but we'd bet Apple's trying to work something out ahead of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 launch and renewed Zune marketing push. We'll see, we'll see.
Google music service might offer subscriptions as well as digital downloads
We know that Google's been thinking about launching a music service, and now the crazy kids at Billboard are reporting details of a proposal that the search giant's been circulating among the major labels. Apparently the company is pursuing a sort of hybrid digital download store / cloud-based locker service, with the store offering individual tracks or albums, while the "locker" would scan the user's hard drive for music files and, upon finding tracks that Google is licensed to offer, allow the user access to them on the cloud (presumably you won't be actually uploading your MP3s to the service, just streaming their content once it's determined you have a copy of your own). And since you can't offer any service without a little "social networking" on the side these days, Google would like to give users the opportunity to send each other tracks, which they could listen to once -- and then either purchase or preview (um, review) in thirty second snippets, similar to Lala. There's no word yet on which -- if any -- labels are willing to take the bait, but we'll let you know as soon as we hear anything else. Promise.
Switched On: ZuneForSure
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. The moon has only four major phases, but as the Zune -- that satellite around Microsoft's gravitational pull -- enters a familiar fifth phase, what some consider a pale reflection of the iPod has made few waves despite inspiring its share of romantics. Zune began as a new salvo against the iPod as Microsoft grew frustrated in its attempts to make inroads versus Apple's soaring digital media device with its abysmally named and convoluted PlaysForSure rights management scheme. PlaysForSure had actually achieved some level of acceptance on digital music players and even handsets, but as Steve Ballmer has explained, devices that sell in the tens of millions of units per year -- as opposed to hundreds of millions like PCs and handsets (Kin notwithstanding) -- can be a good opportunity for vertical integration of hardware and software. And so was born Zune, welcoming us to the social with its chunky profile, brown color option, "double shot" facade and the quirky and later abandoned WiFi-based song-squirting sharing feature. Its next major iteration introduced the "squircle" -- a rounded square clickable trackpad that surpassed the click wheel just as Apple was gearing up for the game-changing iPod touch: strike two.
Google setting up music store later this year, looking for search and Android synergy
Remember that chart that pointed out the differences between Google, Apple and Microsoft? Well, it's looking increasingly like Google is intent on filling any and all gaps in its portfolio. Those good old unnamed sources have been talking, originally to CNET last week and to the Wall Street Journal today, and disclosing Google's supposed intent to introduce its very own music store. This would initially encompass a web store where you can stream or download tracks, with a search tie-in that'll get your money into Google's pocket in the fastest possible way. Subsequent plans are said to include Android integration in 2011 -- something that Google rather nonchalantly demoed at its I/O conference last month. Of course, none of this is as yet confirmed, but it looks like Apple and Google will be competing across yet another front -- hold on tight.
Circuit City, Napster team up for subscription-based music service
Following Best Buy's move to team up with SanDisk and Real for an online music service, Circuit City has now conjured up a deal of its own as it works with Napster to provide yet another subscription-based solution. The simply-titled Circuit City + Napster seemingly won't deviate from what Napster's current service already offers, but the partnership does tease "access to exclusive songs and new releases on a weekly basis" when it launches on April 29th. In what appears to be little more than a marketing effort to get the $14.95 per month service into more retail space, the low-key offering will give new customers their first month gratis, five free song downloads (you know, the ones you "keep"), and the ability to purchase individual song downloads at 99-cents apiece. Furthermore, prepaid download cards can be snapped up in bundles of 15, 25, or 60 tracks, and we can only assume the playback restrictions from the current Napster service will carry over into this.[Via Yahoo]
MusicGremlin MG-1000 review roundup
We've been following start-up Music Gremlin for some time now, from its ambitious beginnings as a software company through its transition to a reference device designer and finally into a self-branding manufacturer, so we were more than a little disappointed to learn that lukewarm reviews of the recently-launched MG-1000 DAP indicate that it contains no small number of bugs and frustrating restrictions. Like the prototype Zing player that we recently spotted (but unlike the similarly-equipped SoniqCast devices), the MG-1000 offers direct-to-device downloads along with device-to-device file transfers thanks to built-in WiFi, but these features are limited to customers who also pay $15-a-month for the proprietary Music Gremlin service, on top of the $300 they already shelled out for the unit itself. Some of the problems reviewers have mentioned -- such as an intermittent WiFi connection, cumbersome search process, and lack of automatic power down or FM presets -- can be addressed by the company in future firmware releases, but other issues -- like the small 8GB hard drive, relatively weak battery life, and inability to share any tracks besides subscription downloads with anyone but fellow subscribers -- are either hardware-based or can't be resolved due the conditions that music studios include in their licensing agreements. Unfortunately, unless you really, truly need to ability to download music when you're away from your computer, the drawbacks to this device when compared to a similarly-priced, video-playing 30GB iPod don't seem to outweigh the limited benefits you'll derive from its wireless capabilities.Read- The Wall Street Journal's Walter MossbergRead- CnetRead- Laptop Magazine
