Yep, Apple Will Shut Down Beats Music App And Roll It Into iTunes

Yep, Apple Will Shut Down Beats Music App And Roll It Into iTunes

Josh Constine

TechCrunch 

Last month I reported that Apple would shut down Beats Music and likely add streaming music to iTunes. Apple denied, specifically, that Beats Music would be shut down.

Shortly thereafter, ‘unnamed sources familiar with the matter’ conveniently surfaced to engage in a battle of semantics about whether Apple might modify Beats Music over time, including its brand.
As we noted at the time, that was another way of saying Beats Music would get rolled into iTunes. And that’s just what the Wall Street Journal, (I’m sure they just forgot to cite us) is reporting today. “Apple is rebuilding Beats Music and plans to relaunch it next year as part of iTunes, according to a person familiar with the matter.”

Yep.

As I reported before the Beats acquisition became official, iTunes executives wanted to acquire Beats Music because they knew that music download sales were plummeting, and it needed a way to gracefully transition into streaming. And lo and behold, the WSJ writes “Digital music sales at Apple Inc. ’s iTunes store have fallen 13% to 14% world-wide since the start of the year, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring the fragility of the music industry’s nascent recovery.”


With download sales cratering and streaming coming up quick, Apple needed to get serious about streaming before Spotify, Google Music, and Deezer got a bigger lead.

 So rather than pour investment into Beats Music, which only had 250,000 people signed up for paid subscriptions as of May, it will roll streaming into iTunes, which has 800 million users and 400 million credit cards on file.

Apple doesn’t have to make money on music. It’s just a loss leader for or way to entice sales of its high-margin iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs. That, combined with its industry clout, means when it relaunches iTunes with streaming, it may be able to negotiate a much cheaper subscription rate, such as $5 a month rather than the $10 Spotify charges.

A cheap price, a massive built-in user base, and Apple hardware as a vector for distribution could make an iTunes streaming service tough to compete with.

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First Look At 3D Camera App 3DAround

First Look At 3D Camera App 3DAround

Josh Constine

TechCrunch

What if you could shoot those cool 360-degree, swivel-around photos you see on ecommerce sites or in The Matrix with just your smartphone? Then you’d be using the 3DAround camera app that launches next month from Dacuda, which gave TechCrunch an early peek. Simply hit record, revolve your camera phone or tablet around an object, and 3DAround stitches together all the photos into a 3D image the viewer can spin at will.



Dacuda is famous for its PocketScan app that lets you wave your camera over a document to get a digital image of it without a bulky scanner. Now Dacuda’s 25-person team and 5 years of experience are combining to make your phone a 3D scanner that always gets the perfect angle…because it gets every angle. For starters, it’s going to add some 360-spice to a ubiquitous but often boring type of photography: food porn.

“It’s a really good time for this kind of tech because Apple just opened up the camera APIs” Dacuda founder and CTO Dr. Alexander Ilic tells me. “We need pretty low-level access to controlling exposure time, focus, and more.” That’s just what Apple allowed with iOS 8.

Illic says the inspiration for the app came from watching food blogger friends take dozens of photos of plates of grub from different angles and struggle to decide which was best. He thought “Why can’t you just go around the whole thing, so you don’t have to worry about the perfect shot with a single angle.” Originally he figured that would require a camera with expensive 3D sensors, but in fact, newer iPhones are capable if given the right software. That’s where Dacuda comes in.

Spun out of top Swiss engineering school ETH Zurich by students from the university and MIT, Dacuda’s expertise is in image stitching. It’s backed by Wellington Partners, Swiss bank Schwyzer Kantonalbank, and Austrian entrepreneur Hans-Peter Metzler.


The 3DAround app extracts depth and structure information from a success of rapid-fire photos to create the 360-degree views. You’ll be able to interactively view the swivel-able photo through the 3DAround app or WebGL-equipped browsers like Chrome, and share some version of the images to Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterst

The app will launch for free next month on iOS 8 devices for the iPhone 5 on up. While some phones like the HTC EVO now have stereoscopic double cameras that can take slightly “3D” photos, 3DAround looks like the real deal. We’ll have hands-on coverage once the app launches, so check back to see us spinning around some delicious food.

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Taylor Swift's '1989' Album Leaks & Her Fans Are Not Happy!

Taylor Swift's '1989' Album Leaks & Her Fans Are Not Happy!

Taylor‘s new album 1989 leaked online that day and her fans are not happy about it at all. Her fans are encouraging people to not listen to the leak and instead wait to purchase the album when it gets released on Monday.

It is being predicted that Taylor‘s album will sell between 800-900k during its first week of sales, which will make it the highest selling album released in 2014 after just one week.

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Did Taylor Swift Make Nashville Furious by Leaving Country Music?

When Taylor Swift announced her full-on transition to pop music with her upcoming album 1989, we didn't even think about the fact that she was leaving country music. (We were just too excited.) But how does Nashville feel about her decision? In a new interview with Billboard, the "Shake It Off" singer says that she actually hasn't experienced that much backlash from the country music industry.

"They know that they're the ones who brought me to the party and they know I am very well aware of that. But I honestly haven't experienced anyone really being upset," she said.

"I think that me being honest and unapologetic about it helps people understand that I'm not trying to fool them."

We've always appreciated how honest Taylor is about her music and her life. You can't get mad at her for that! Even though her style is changing, it just feels like a natural evolution – and she still gives props to the people who helped her out at the start of her career.

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Selena Gomez Quotes BFF Taylor Swift in Her We Day Speech!

Selena Gomez Quotes BFF Taylor Swift in Her We Day Speech!

Selena Gomez  is smart, talented, classy and always inspiring her fans, which is why we knew she’d be an amazing speaker at the We Day event in Vancouver. We Day events, held by Free The Children, encourage kids and teens to take charge and be the change we want to see in the world and to make our homes and societies safer, healthier and better places. When we heard Sel was speaking, we knew she was perfect for the job, but she went above and beyond all of our expectations.

In the speech , Selena talks about not letting the haters get to you and reminds us all that we’re not defined by what other people think and say about us, we’re only defined by yourselves. If people have something mean to say, Sel says to forgive them, and then just shake it off like her BFF Taylor Swift.

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Zendaya’s Hilarious Message to Everyone Who Mispronounces Her Name

Zendaya’s Hilarious Message to Everyone Who Mispronounces Her Name

Instagram

Zendaya always had trouble with people pronouncing her name wrong, but instead of getting upset Z’s been laughing it off – and using it to inspire some seriously awesome Halloween decorations.

Earlier today, Zendaya posted this spooky pic to her Instagram, and we can’t help but laugh every time we look at it. “In honor of Halloween and everyone saying my name wrong, (I’m ZenDAYa) but my nieces made the ZenDIEa,” Z captioned the pic.

ZenDIEa is hilarious, and probably the most blinged out skeleton we’ve ever seen. We wish we had some ZenDIEa Halloween decorations for our office – she’s awesome!

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Google plans to make a component store for its modular phone

Google plans to make a component store for its modular phone

Edgar Alvarez

Engadget

Project Ara is surely one of the most exciting things Google is working on right now -- at least from the ones we're aware of. Better yet, given how young it is, chances are it will only keep getting better and more interesting. While speaking at a Purdue University event, Google's Paul Eremenko, director of Project Ara, recently revealed that the company will be taking a cue from the Play store to create a similar shopping experience for its modular smartphone. What this means, essentially, is you'd be able to buy or sell different components from a single hub, just as is the case now with apps, music, books and more on Google Play -- and it would also include reviews and recommendations. Eremenko didn't mention any details related to the status of Project Ara, but you can check out the full talk after the break.
Source: YouTube (Purdue Convocations)

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'Super Smash Bros. for Wii U' adds an eight-player mode for double the madness

'Super Smash Bros. for Wii U' adds an eight-player mode for double the madness

Timothy J. Seppala

Engadget

Think you know everything there is to about Super Smash Bros for Wii U? Think again: during today's Smash-centric Nintendo Direct event, the gaming giant announced an eight-player mode for absolutely bananas action. How will you even keep track of all that madness on the Wii U? We're willing to find out. There are sure to be some more announcements coming out of the broadcast, and we've embedded the live player just after the break.
Source: Nintendo

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LG's next phone will be the first with one of its own CPUs inside

LG's next phone will be the first with one of its own CPUs inside

Richard Lawler

Engadget 

LG has been trying to catch up to competition like Apple and Samsung with its phones for years, and its next step on that path is to build one with its own CPU inside. The G3 Screen phone that it's releasing this week in Korea will have an eight-core "NUCLUN" (pronounced NOO-klun) processor, based off of an ARM big.LITTLE design similar to Samsung's octacore Exynos chips. NUCLUN has for 1.5GHz cores for the tough tasks, and for 1.2GHz cores for easier stuff that save on battery life. The G3 Screen is a 5.9-inch phone with a 10808p screen and support for the new, faster LTE-A networks that download at up to 225Mbps.
Source: LG Newsroom

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Honda's pedestrian-detecting technology is coming to cars this year

Honda's pedestrian-detecting technology is coming to cars this year

Mariella Moon

Engadget 

Loyal Honda fans, crisis averted. You don't have to switch to Subaru, Volvo or Ford if you want their anti-collision technology, now that the Japanese automaker has officially announced its own. The company has just launched a new and enhanced driver-assistive system called "Sensing," which, true to its name, can sense vehicles and pedestrians that might be blocking your way. Using a radar hidden in the front grille coupled with a camera on the windshield, the system can detect whether you're in danger of colliding with another vehicle or a person crossing the street. It then gives you both audio and visual warnings if so, gently applies the break if you still haven't after a while, and then brakes hard in your stead if you're thisclose to running somebody over or smashing against another car.

Other than that, the system can also make sure you're driving in the middle of the lane, as well as recognize traffic signs and show them on the infotainment display. Honda's Sensing technology will launch alongside the newest Legend luxury sedan (known in the US as the Acura) before the year ends, though the company promises to load it onto more models in the future.
Source: Honda

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Amazon Fire Phone Flops

Amazon Fire Phone Flops

Greg Kumparak

TechCrunch

Given that Amazon was tanking the price of the Fire Phone down to 99 cents two months after launch (leading to many a “Fire sale!” joke), this probably won’t come as much of a surprise: the Fire Phone isn’t a success.
On the Amazon earnings call today, Amazon noted that the company was taking a $170 million dollar writedown “primarily related” to overcommitting to the Fire Phone. They ordered too much inventory, and made promises to their suppliers that they couldn’t keep.
So, just how many Fire Phones is Amazon still sitting on? Any guesses? $5 million? $20 million?
The final count on Fire Phone inventory left at the end of Q3: $83 million.
Eighty. Three. Million. Dollars.
Who would’ve guessed a phone that existed pretty much solely to sell you stuff from Amazon while relying heavily on a silly gimmick wouldn’t sell well?

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Lenovo’s Latest Hybrid Laptop Is Just as Bendy, But Packs a Super-Efficient Chip

Lenovo’s Latest Hybrid Laptop Is Just as Bendy, But Packs a Super-Efficient Chip

Tim Moynihan

Wired

How interesting is Lenovo’s super-bendy Yoga 3 Pro laptop? Interesting enough to inspire a trilogy of really awkward Ashton Kutcher poses . But if you look beyond those photos and its versatile hinge, the new Windows 8.1 convertible laptop will back up its pliable hardware with state-of-the-art components.

The Yoga 3 Pro is one of the first laptops to offer Intel’s next-generation “Broadwell” CPU—it has a dual-core Intel Core M-70 system on a chip—which is designed to deliver Core i5-like performance with much lower power consumption. And because Broadwell is built to run without a fan, the 13.3-inch Yoga 3 Pro is also dead-silent and superslim.

It’s about the thickness of a USB 3.0 port, and the new convertible laptop has two of them. The Yoga 3 Pro also has a built-in SD card reader, an HDMI-out port, and stereo JBL speakers. This machine is just half an inch thick and weighs 2.63 pounds—thinner and lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Air.
It doesn’t get quite as much juice, though. According to Lenovo, the new laptop grants up to 9 hours of battery life per charge of its battery. That’s a solid two- to three-hour improvement over its predecessor, the Core i5-powered Yoga 2 Pro. Like its predecessor, the Yoga 3 Pro has a sharp 13.3-inch IPS display with QHD+ resolution (3200 x 1800). It’s a touchscreen, which will prove useful when that screen is flipped all the way back in tablet mode.

Compared to previous models, the new Yoga convertible also has a metallic “watchband-inspired” hinge that lets you position the screen sturdily across a 360-degree range. The hinge secures the screen nicely, but the exposed aluminum-and-steel gears mean that you’ll want to make sure your ponytail is clear of the Yoga 3.

At $1,300 for the lowest-end configuration, it’s on the pricier side, but that higher cost of entry gets you a 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM standard. The highest-end setup, which bulks the storage up to a 512GB solid-state drive, will go for $1,700. The Yoga 3 Pro will be available in silver, gold, and orange and ship by the end of October. It’s available for preorder on Lenovo’s website and Best Buy now. 

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