Tag: music streaming

Cryptojacking craze that drains your CPU now done by 2,500 sites

Enlarge / A music streaming site that participated in Coinhive crypto mining maxes out the visitor’s CPU. (credit: Malwarebytes ) A researcher has documented almost 2,500 sites that are actively running cryptocurrency mining code in the browsers of unsuspecting visitors, a finding that suggests the unethical and possibly illegal practice has only picked up steam since it came to light a few weeks ago. Willem de Groot, an independent security researcher who reported the findings Tuesday, told Ars that he believes all of the 2,496 sites he tracked are running out-of-date software with known security vulnerabilities that have been exploited to give attackers control. Attackers, he said, then used their access to add code that surreptitiously harnesses the CPUs and electricity of visitors to generate the digital currency known as Monero. About 80 percent of those sites, he added, also contain other types of malware that can steal visitors’ payment card details. “Apparently, cyberthieves are squeezing every penny out of their confiscated assets,” he said. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Cryptojacking craze that drains your CPU now done by 2,500 sites

Spotify is close to offering lossless-quality music

Tidal’s lossless-quality music streaming was its original selling point over big name rivals, but it might not have that advantage for much longer. Both The Verge sources and Reddit members have discovered that Spotify is prepping its own lossless offering, Spotify Hi-Fi. Much like with Tidal, paying $20 per month would give you audio befitting your premium headphones . There’s no word as to when Hi-Fi would arrive — Spotify isn’t commenting beyond acknowledging that it’s “always testing new products.” However, it certainly appears to be getting close. A higher-quality tier makes sense for Spotify in more than a few ways. On top of negating one of Tidal’s advantages, it’d give listeners a reason to choose Spotify over Apple Music and other rivals that (currently) make do with lossy tracks. Also, this could be important in Spotify’s continuing struggle to turn a profit . It’s safe to say that it doesn’t cost twice as much to deliver higher-bitrate music, so converting even a fraction of Spotify’s 40 million-plus Premium customers to lossless could prove to be very lucrative. Source: The Verge , Reddit (1) , (2)

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Spotify is close to offering lossless-quality music

BitTorrent reportedly fires its CEOs, gets out of the media game

BitTorrent has had a big interest in making it easy for creators to distribute and sell music and films, but it looks like that initiative might have just ground to a screeching halt. Variety is reporting that the company has fired its two CEOs, laid off an unknown number of staffers and is shutting down BitTorrent Now , its recently-launched ad-supported video and music streaming platform. If this is all true, it would mark a pretty dramatic change of pace for the company, which has sought to build an identify as a champion for an open internet. Not through piracy, for which the company is still closely linked thanks to the peer-to-peer sharing technology the company developed, but through more legit means. In addition to shuttering BitTorrent Now, the company has also reportedly closed a Los Angeles studio that served as the headquarters for the initiative. While BitTorrent Now was a bit of an update and rebrand, the company had been offering “bundles” of content from indie artists for years now. According to Variety , the company was bleeding money on the venture; one source said that spending was “out of control.” BitTorrent had also recently launched a live streaming platform, hired a news director and started its own news network. While today’s report didn’t have any details on what will happen with those initiatives, it’s not unreasonable to imagine they’re also in jeopardy. With both CEOs Robert Delamar and Jeremy Johnson out, CFO Dipak Joshi has apparently stepped in as interim CEO. All the turmoil reportedly started a few weeks ago, with layoffs kicking off in the second half of September. We’re reaching out to BitTorrent and will update this story with more details as we learn them. Source: Variety

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BitTorrent reportedly fires its CEOs, gets out of the media game

Pandora relaunches its mid-level $5 monthly subscription tier [Updated]

After nabbing the remnants of Rdio out of bankruptcy last year, rumors have swirled for months about Pandora Radio’s upcoming streaming subscription services. Last month, it seemed that all standing in the way was getting the appropriate licensing — which they got on Tuesday from over 30 major and independent labels . Today, they’re relaunching their mid-level $5-per-month subscription radio service as Pandora Plus with a few new features. Unfortunately, this won’t be their much-anticipated $10 monthly on-demand music streaming service, which will supposedly come later this year. Instead, Pandora Plus aims to ride a middleground, streaming automated radio playlists at a discount but offering a few new features than its previous version to make that less of a compromise. First, a predictive offline mode will automatically switch over to a user’s top station when their device loses signal, keeping the music flowing. The second lets users to replenish their limited supply of replays and skips by voluntarily watching video ads. Pandora Plus goes live today on desktop and will roll out to iOS and Android in the coming months, while it won’t expand to Australia and New Zealand until 2017. It’s still unclear when they’ll launch their full on-demand streaming option to compete with Spotify and the other music services. Updated 4:25 PM ET : Turns out that it didn’t actually go live this morning, as Pandora still needed a final licensing deal with Warner Music Group. Even after securing it earlier today, only one percent of its user base would have been able to see and access Plus today anyway, according to Recode. So the new service is supposedly live for folks lucky enough to fit within Pandora’s slow roll-out plan. Source: Pandora

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Pandora relaunches its mid-level $5 monthly subscription tier [Updated]

First look: Pandora 4.0, the new mobile frontier

Enlarge / Pandora 4.0: the new look Pandora Here comes Pandora 4.0, a big remake of the music service’s mobile listening environment. If you are a Pandora fan, get ready for expanded playlist, station-making, lyric-reading, personal profile, and social networking power on your smartphone. The new service creates a “unifying” experience across web and mobile devices, the company proclaims. It also represents about six or seven years of planning, thinking, and development for the outfit. Back in 2005, iPhone and Android mobile gadgets were gleams in the eye of Apple and Google. Pandora, however, was transforming radio and music distribution with its sophisticated “genome” powered song recommendation algorithm. Millions of users were clicking thumbs up or down to millions of tunes on, well, millions of Pandora channels. By 2007, Pandora was a huge hit. It was, however, mostly a desktop computer hit. “We started thinking about creating a mobile service in 2004,” Pandora CTO Tom Conrad told us in an interview. “We wanted to unify the Pandora experience.” That meant an experience that was easy from the start, that allowed users to individualize their environment and get more of what they wanted, and that was “ubiquitously available.” Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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First look: Pandora 4.0, the new mobile frontier