Taylor Swift Defends Pulling Her Music From Spotify

Taylor Swift Defends Pulling Her Music From Spotify

Taylor Swift is defending her decision to break up with the popular streaming music service Spotify and as of now, it doesn't look like the two will get back together. Like, ever.

The 24-year-old country-turned-pop star and songwriter's move came soon after she released her anticipated new album, 1989, which has sold more than 1.2 million copies in its first week, and three months after she declared in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that, in her opinion, "music should not be free." The record was also leaked early, which angered many fans.

"If I had streamed the new album, it's impossible to try to speculate what would have happened," Swift told Yahoo! Music in an interview posted on Thursday. "But all I can say is that music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment. And I'm not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music. And I just don't agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free."

Spotify offers both paid subscription and free, ad-incorporated services, and has been criticized itself over how much it compensates artists and others involved in the music creation process. According to its website, music rights holders are paid an average of 0.6 cents to 0.84 cents per stream, which can total thousands of dollars for popular artists and songs but often just pennies for lesser-known acts.

"A lot of people were suggesting to me that I try putting new music on Spotify with "Shake It Off," and so I was open-minded about it," she told Yahoo! Music. "I thought, 'I will try this; I'll see how it feels.' It didn't feel right to me. I felt like I was saying to my fans, 'If you create music someday, if you create a painting someday, someone can just walk into a museum, take it off the wall, rip off a corner off it, and it's theirs now and they don't have to pay for it.' I didn't like the perception that it was putting forth. And so I decided to change the way I was doing things."

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John Lasseter To Direct ‘Toy Story 4′ For 2017 Bow

John Lasseter To Direct ‘Toy Story 4′ For 2017 Bow

The Deadline Team

Deadline 

John Lasseter will direct Toy Story 4 and it will be out in June 2017, Disney boss Bob Iger just said in its earnings call with analysts. This is a bit of a shocker as the principals behind the three Disney/Pixar hits have often said there were no plans for a fourth pic in the franchise after Toy Story 3 came out in 2010 and grossed $1.063B worldwide, making it the top-grossing animated film of all time until Frozen overtook it earlier this year.
Lasseter, now chief creative office of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, directed the first two pics before turning over the threequel to Lee Unkrich.

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Microsoft makes Office free to rival mobile platforms

Microsoft makes Office free to rival mobile platforms

Relaxnews 

Image Credit: AFP 
Microsoft announced Thursday it was making its Office software suite available for free to users of rival mobile operating systems from Apple and Google.
Users of Apple iPads and other devices and those with Android tablets will be able to use the apps to store documents without a subscription, Microsoft said.
The software includes the popular document software Word as well as the Excel spreadsheet program. Microsoft earlier this year released the Office app for iPad, but users needed to pay an annual license fee for cloud-based Office 365.
"Today, we're taking the next major step to bring Office to everyone, on every device," Microsoft vice president John Case said in a statement.
"So, starting today, people can create and edit Office content on iPhones, iPads, and soon, Android tablets using Office apps without an Office 365 subscription."
Case noted that subscribers will "benefit from the full Office experience across devices with advanced editing and collaboration capabilities," and other advantages including cloud storage and integration with Dropbox.
Microsoft said its Office for iPad application had been downloaded 40 million times, and that a new version was being released this week.
Microsoft has some one billion customers around the world who use Office in some form. The cloud-based Office 365 will still require a subscription for use on a standard PC.
Office for iPad and Office for iPhone apps are available in 29 languages and 136 countries, Microsoft said. It will be offering a preview version of Office for Android for users of some devices.
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Amazon launches a speaker you can talk to

Amazon launches a speaker you can talk to

Reuters

Do you want to talk to your speaker? Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has launched "Amazon Echo", a speaker you leave on all day and give it voice directions, like Siri on an Apple Inc (AAPL.O) iPhone.
As well as taking commands such as "play music by Bruno Mars" or "add gelato to my shopping list", Amazon said the device accesses the internet to answer questions such as "when is Thanksgiving?" and "what is the weather forecast?"
Amazon said the speaker, which runs on Amazon Web Services, continually learns a user's speech patterns and preferences.
Users start the speaker up saying the wake up word, "Alexa".
They can then feed Amazon Echo commands or questions or, if they want, wirelessly stream music web services such as Spotify, iTunes and Pandora via their mobiles.
Amazon Echo is priced at $199, or $99 for members for the online retail giant's Amazon Prime loyalty scheme. It is available on an invitation-only basis in coming weeks.
Amazon has had an unusually busy year, developing a mobile phone, video productions and grocery deliveries.
Last month, the company forecast sales for the crucial holiday quarter that disappointed Wall Street and investors who are eager to see Amazon curtail its ambitions and start delivering sustainable profits.
(Reporting by Soham Chatterjee in Bangalore; Editing by Rodney Joyce)

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'Smart' living gets real as connectivity rates rise

'Smart' living gets real as connectivity rates rise

AFP 

From robots that chop up your vegetables to detectors that measure how long you sleep, such "smart" appliances are becoming more and more a part of daily life, according to industry players.
Developers at the Dublin Web Summit, one of Europe's biggest technology conferences, said interlinkage between people, their homes and their devices were opening up new frontiers.
The developers of Everycook, a cooking device that takes in raw material and independently processes it to a finished meal, hope their product will transform healthy-eating.
"You go to our app, pick a recipe, get the ingredients, follow the instructions and Everycook does the rest," founder Maximilian Tornow told AFP.

Boston-based Chris Cicchitelli, founder and CEO of CastleOS, said his system would revolutionise geriatric care, allowing older people to remain out of nursing homes for longer.
"Using motion detectors and sensors connected to a smartphone, you'll know how active a person is, even how long they have spent in bed.

"You will know if they have fallen and if they do fall, the system can take action based on that, call 911 automatically, even say where in the house the fall took place."
With 22,000 attendees, the Web Summit brings together some of the world's top companies with start-up ideas for a series of lectures and networking events.

One of the focus areas at the Web Summit was on how people, objects and devices can become connected in what the tech industry is calling the "Internet of Things".
"We're trying to connect 99 percent of things, not only physical things such as street lights but people and even animals to transform lives and improve businesses," Wei Zou, technical marketing engineer with Cisco, told AFP.

'Less chaotic' traffic
Cisco estimates there will be 50 billion Internet-connect "things" in the world by 2020.
The US company's chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior said one benefit could be the end of traffic congestion when driverless cars become available on demand.

"These cars will also be connected to each other and to traffic lights, meaning the flow of traffic will be far more organised and less chaotic. That's the dream for the cities at least," she said.
On a larger scale, Cisco hopes the growth in connectivity will improve medical care by developing systems for hospitals, such as allowing paramedics to feed patient information back automatically while an ambulance is in transit, so hospitals can be prepared.

It also hopes to reduce the demand for resources by allowing patients to connect with doctors remotely.
"Some people with medical conditions do not need to go to the hospital, they can use digital media to provide the doctors with diagnostics remotely and automatically," Zou said.
One project demonstrated at the summit was "CitySense" in Dublin which monitors pollution through sensors fitted on courier bikes.

"The Internet of things places the citizen at the heart of all technologies," said Willie Donnelly, director of the Telecommunication Software and Systems Group (TSSG), a research centre taking part in the initiative.

While tech is big business mainly based in the developed world, a number of tech companies taking part outlined ambitions to revolutionise daily life in the developing world.
A US start-up said it hoped its kinetic energy-generating shoe insole could transform and increase the use of smartphones in areas of the world where there is no access to electricity.
"In the developing world, 1.2 billion people don't have access to electricity but have mobile technology -- that's a huge problem," Matt Stanton of Solepower told AFP.

"They use it increasingly for daily critical tasks, healthcare, banking, education. It's truly integrated into their lives but the power is not widely available to power the devices," he said.

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Taylor Swift Posts Cutest Throwback Picture

Taylor Swift Posts Cutest Throwback Picture

Taylor Swift, 24, is on top of the world with her latest album, 1989, selling over 1.2 million copies in just one week! That’s seriously impressive! On Nov. 6, the “Shake It Off” singer posted a throwback picture of her younger self on Instagram to remind everyone how long it’s been since an album sold that many copies. 

Once news broke that her new album, 1989, had sold 1.2 million copies in it’s first week, Taylor shared this photo with a very interesting caption:

“The last time an album sold as many copies as 1989 did first week, it was 2002, I was 12, and going through my ‘braids phase’. #nofilternecessary.”

The 2002 chart-topping album Taylor is referring to is Eminem‘s “The Eminem Show” which sold 1.322 million in its second chart week, according to Billboard. As proven from Taylor’s adorable picture, that was over a decade ago, and no artist has managed to accomplish that much success until now.

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Ashley Tisdale New Extensions!

Ashley Tisdale New Extensions!

She can't make up her mind! Just weeks after debuting her blue hair, Ashley Tisdale is already showing off a brand new look. Long hair is definitely in style this season and it looks like Ashley agrees! The High School Musical star shared photos of her new honey blonde hair extensions on Instagram and we think she looks better than ever.

Take a look:

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Nick Jonas Opens Up About His Solo Artist Transformation

GETTY IMAGES

Nick Jonas' solo career is back up and running, and he's loving all of the attention his brand new solo tracks are getting! So far Nick has released the songs Chains, Jealous and Teacher, and fans are having a hard time deciding which song is their ultimate favorite!

Nick spoke with Official Charts about the transformation he went through to get back into being a solo artist that was taken seriously. Here's what the former Jonas Brothers member revealed:

“I had a pretty clear vision actually. I took the mentality that nothing is off limits. I wanted to be completely open and transparent stepping into a new phase and with the idea that I’m starting over as a brand new artist. A lot of it has been intentional and some it has been out of my control. Basically, I’m just riding the wave and enjoying this new phase!"

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Selena Gomez Opens Up About Fighting With Kendall Jenner Rumors

Selena Gomez has finally opened up about the rumors that she's fighting with Kendall Jenner, and the truth is less dramatic than it seems! "The Heart Wants What It Wants" singer insists that theynever had a feud.

"We were never not friends," she said on On Air With Ryan Seacrest.

Although we knew they weren't currently fighting after she was spotted at the model's birthday party, we thought their friendship was causing trouble ever since her mass unfollowing on Instagram. But she insists she only unfollowed the Jenner sister because she wanted to make her account strictly for her fans.

"I didn't realize it would start so much stuff," she said.

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One Direction Taking a Break or no?

One Direction has fended off split rumors pretty much forever, but the band confirmed that they will probably go on a break before their next original album. While speaking with In:Demand, the guys said that they don't have any official plans to go on hiatus, but are looking forward to spending a lot more time on their next album — so it might be released later than normal.

“We haven’t really got any sort of break in mind at the moment," Zayn Malik said. “We just want to get [Four] out and see what they [the fans] think of it.”

“We potentially might take a little more time on this record," Louis Tomlinson added. "That’s why they might think we’re going on a break, but we just want to take a little bit more time, that’s all."

Since their next album is supposed to be a greatest hits record, it seems like the rumors that 1D is signing on for two more albums is pretty likely. After going on tour after tour, we think they deserve an extended vacation at some point — just as long as they don't disappear for good.

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Amazon's Free Photo Storage Offer: Nice, But Late And Not Too Compelling

Amazon's Free Photo Storage Offer: Nice, But Late And Not Too Compelling

ReadWrite

Amazon's attempt to make itself into the poor man’s Google continues with its latest online offer: unlimited photo storage for Prime members.
The company’s Prime service costs $99 per year, and offers a variety of "free" but circumscribed perks, including:

• Free two-day shipping on many (though not all) items
• Free video streaming (though only from a limited movie and TV-show selection)
• A streaming music service offering "over a million songs" (Spotify, by contrast, offers "more than 20 million")
• Free access to a limited selection of Kindle e-books (500,000 titles)

To that, you can now add Amazon Prime Photos, which basically offers the same free, unlimited photo storage that only users of Amazon's not-so-popular Fire Phone. It's rolling the service into its free Amazon Cloud Drive, which usually offers only 5GB of storage in its basic tier, plus additional free storage for Kindle books and, now, photos.
The new service is just the latest way in which Amazon is turning its massively successful cloud service—widely used by enterprises and developers and one of the fastest growing software businesses ever—into a consumer-facing product.


But Amazon's attempt to turn itself into an online "ecosystem" hasn't gone terribly well. The Fire Phone cost the company a $170 million write down, and its Fire TV streaming box got a lukewarm reception. Its Amazon Fire TV streaming stick launched a little too late, as gadgets like Chromecast and Roku dominate the market.

A Little Late To The Photo Shoot
Considering the abundance of storage offers out there, no one who isn't already using Amazon Cloud Drive seems likely to jump ship and dump their private photos into Amazon just because it's free.
Google, for instance, offers unlimited standard-size photo storage (photos larger than 2048x2048 pixels will count against Drive storage), and will automatically upload photos from Android phones. Facebook has unlimited photo storage, and Flickr provides 1TB of storage for free. Additionally, cloud service providers like iCloud, OneDrive and Dropbox continue to slash prices and give users more cloud storage data for less money.
Amazon's service does have one appealing, though minor, advantage: It will store full-resolution images for free. That might be enticing for photographers that want to store photos in the cloud without first downscaling them to lower resolutions.
Amazon Prime Photo is available on iOS and Android, as well as Fire tablets and the Fire Phone. Photos can be accessed from any device, including PlayStation consoles and LG and Samsung smart TVs.

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Sharp's night vision camera records color even in total darkness

Sharp's night vision camera records color even in total darkness

Jon Fingas

Engadget 

Say goodbye to the days of monochrome night vision footage, folks. Sharp recently unveiled an infrared security camera that captures color 720p video, even in absolute darkness. The trick is an imaging sensor that uses near-infrared for illumination; unlike virtually every other competitor, this camera doesn't have to resort to conventional lights (and thus give itself away) to get a vivid picture. The device will likely be limited to corporate and government customers when it goes on sale in late November, but it could have a big impact on your safety. Building managers will soon have an easier time identifying intruders, not just spotting them -- while the technology might not stop a break-in, it should increase the chances of catching thieves before they strike again.

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