music – Page 12 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Shazam’s song recognition just got a lot faster

Shazam is doubling down on what it does best with its latest update: Recognizing songs when your memory (or pop cultural knowhow) fails you. And, for the first time, the app now highlights a search feature on its main page, which lets you dig for more information about songs and artists. The goal, naturally, is to convince you to stay within Shazam rather than hopping over to the web for music research. In my brief testing, the new Shazam app recognized songs from television and radio in a few seconds — at times it even found a result in under a second. It feels significantly faster than previous versions of the app, which sometimes took over five seconds to lock onto a song. That’s not a huge difference, but given that Shazam has been around for years (it was one of the first killer apps back when the iPhone’s App Store launched in 2008), it needs to keep improving to keep up with competitors like Soundhound. Via: TechCrunch Source: Shazam

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Shazam’s song recognition just got a lot faster

5Gbps broadband is coming to Britain, for £399 per month

Words like “superfast” and “ultrafast” are thrown around all the time to describe home broadband in the UK. Of course, what we really want to know are the cold, hard numbers. Download and upload speeds, man. That’s why Gigaclear has us chomping at the bit with its latest announcement — 5Gbps broadband , which it’s trialling right now with a small batch of UK customers. If you’ve never heard of Gigaclear before, we don’t blame you. The company was founded in 2010 and only operates in 36 rural communities, spread across five English counties. You can check your postcode here , but the chances of you falling under its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network are pretty slim. Even if you own one of the 10, 000 homes with Gigaclear access, you’ll have to pay some serious cash for the new speeds. The company will be charging £399 per month for homeowners and £1, 500 for businesses when the trial expands to all Gigaclear customers next year. Got a Scrooge McDuck pile of cash in your basement? Otherwise, this is all just a pipe dream. Source: Gigaclear

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5Gbps broadband is coming to Britain, for £399 per month

Pop-up sensor would give robot surgeons a sense of touch

Robotic surgery is no longer the stuff of science fiction. However, these robots can’t really feel their way around — the need for super-small mechanisms rules out existing approaches to touch. That’s where Harvard researchers might come to save the day. They’ve developed a pop-up sensor whose four layers collapse to a tiny footprint (just a tenth of an inch) when necessary, but expand into a 3D sensor thanks to a built-in spring. The design is extremely sensitive, too, with a light intensity sensor that can detected mere millinewtons of force. Source: Harvard University , IEEE Sensors Journal

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Pop-up sensor would give robot surgeons a sense of touch

Netgear’s Nest Cam competitor has seven days of cloud video recording

These days, connected cameras like the Nest Cam (previously known as the Dropcam) aren’t exactly special. There are a slew of competitors out there, like Logitech’s Circle and Samsung’s SmartCam , so the only way to stand out is by offering something others don’t. And that’s precisely what Netgear is doing its latest connected camera, the Arlo Q, by giving you seven days of cloud video recording for free. Logitech offers 24 hours of free cloud recording, in comparison. And Nest, whose original camera pioneered this whole category, still doesn’t have any video recording without a subscription. Beyond that, the Arlo Q delivers what you’d expect: 1080p video recording and two-way audio that’s accessible through a mobile app. It’ll be available in the US come December for $220, and it’ll eventually head to Australia, Canada and Europe.

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Netgear’s Nest Cam competitor has seven days of cloud video recording

A startup is growing faux shrimp meat in the lab using algae

Someday, you might be able to throw a lab-grown meat party with not only burgers , but also tempura on the menu. A startup called New Wave Foods is developing artificial shrimp meat in the laboratory, urged by environmental destruction and the other troubles brought about by commercial fishing. According to Motherboard , the team is currently testing different ways of extracting proteins from algae that the crustaceans eat, mixing and mashing them together with protein gels to create the meat. So far, they’ve already nailed the taste, but mimicking the seafood’s texture is proving to a bit more difficult. Source: Motherboard , New Wave Foods

Cyberpunk PC classic ‘System Shock’ is getting a proper remake

While System Shock might have only just received a facelift when it launched on GOG.com earlier this year, an entire remake of the legendary PC game is now in the works — and perhaps even System Shock 3 . And if you’ve never heard of System Shock ? You should have: both the creators of BioShock and Deus Ex were involved in the game, which is a 1994 classic in its own right. Night Dive, the same company that was tasked with this year’s digital renovation, will handle the remake. It’s picked up full rights to the franchise. Via: PC World Source: Fast.Co

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Cyberpunk PC classic ‘System Shock’ is getting a proper remake

Facebook brings 360-degree videos to iOS as content creation ramps up

360-degree videos made their way into Facebook’s News Feed back in September, but it was only available for web and Android users. Now, however, iOS users can join in on the fun as well thanks to a new Facebook update that is being rolled out today. There’s also good news for Gear VR owners: you’ll now be able to play back those videos from News Feed without ever taking your headset off, making it that much easier to delve into new immersive experiences. At the same time, plenty of publishers have jumped on the 360 video bandwagon — ABC News, BuzzFeed, FrontLine, Nickelodeon and many more will be publishing new 360-degree clips onto Facebook starting today. Source: Facebook

Castro, the Simplest iOS Podcast Manager, Adds iOS 9 Features and Goes Free

iOS: Castro is one our favorite podcast managers on iOS because it’s easy to use, has a few clever management options, and works great for people who only listen to a few podcasts. Today, the apps gone free while adding in a bunch of new iOS 9 features. Read more…

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Castro, the Simplest iOS Podcast Manager, Adds iOS 9 Features and Goes Free

T-Mobile’s ‘Binge On’ lets you stream video, leave your data untouched

T-Mobile CEO John Legere is on a bit of a tear over in Los Angeles right now — after doubling the amount of mobile data T-Mo customers will get as part of the carrier’s Simple Choice Amped plans, he confirmed the existence of a Music Freedom -like feature for video services. Long story short, T-Mobile customers will be able to watch video at “DVD quality or better” (480p and above) from 24 streaming services without eating into their high-speed data buckets. And the price? As usual, it’ll cost you a whopping zero additional dollars starting on Sunday for people who switch to the company’s new Simple Choice Amped plans. Source: T-Mobile

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T-Mobile’s ‘Binge On’ lets you stream video, leave your data untouched

Pandify Creates Spotify Playlists From Your Pandora Likes

Pandora’s great at finding new music, and Spotify’s great at managing your music collection. Wouldn’t it be great if you could use them together? Pandify can help. Read more…

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Pandify Creates Spotify Playlists From Your Pandora Likes