Spotify’s Discover Weekly uses your habits to recommend new music

Spotify just added a load of new features with a recent update and now it’s looking to help you find new music. To do just that, a new tool called Discover Weekly builds a two-hour playlist of suggestions based on your listening habits and those of folks with similar preferences. What’s more, the collection of tunes — basically a mixtape — is refreshed every Monday so that you’re greeted with new material on the regular. In fact, my collection was updated early this morning. Spotify says the more you use it, the better it’ll get, adapting as your musical taste evolves. Soon, Discover Weekly with appear at the top of your saved playlists for easy access. And yes, you can save individual songs you like or share the whole lot with your pals. I’ve had access to the tool for a few days, and based on the first set of tracks Spotify selected, I’m cautiously optimistic. Meek Mill, Run the Jewels, Of Monsters and Men and Miguel are getting the bulk of my attention these days, so the tool built my first playlist of songs from Caribou, Modest Mouse, Action Bronson, Flying Lotus and more. Understandably, this group of initial picks is a bit of a mixed bag — similar to my tastes — but I’m looking forward to seeing how the feature changes during weeks when I lean more towards one genre. In this morning’s update, for example, I received mostly hip-hop picks as my listening last week centered around that genre during workouts. While Apple Music touts its human-curated playlists, Spotify is relying on its software here, and it seems to work just fine. You’ll be able to try it for yourself soon enough, as the curated playlist should appear across all of Spotify’s apps shortly. Filed under: Portable Audio/Video , Internet , Software Comments

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Spotify’s Discover Weekly uses your habits to recommend new music

Marshall Develops Smartphone Designed Like One of Their Amps

The most famous movie scene demonstrating a user-interface design has gotta be from This is Spinal Tap . Christopher Guest shows his Marshall amplifier off to Rob Reiner, pointing out that while other amps have volume knobs with tick-marks from 1 to 10, the volume knob on this one goes “up to 11.” Obviously that was just a gag, but now said amplifier manufacturer, Marshall, really is producing something no other amp manufacturer has: A smartphone. Yesterday the company announced they’re releasing the London , designed specifically for musicians and music lovers. What’s interesting is that they’ve carried over the physical design elements from their line of music equipment, with knurling along the edge of the smartphone and along the gold-colored scroll wheel and headphone plugs. The rear of the phone features the familiar alligator-like texture of their amps. A grid of holes above and below the screen announce the presence of two front-facing speakers. “Two” seems to be a theme here, as the phone is designed with two headphone jacks (each with independent volume control) and two microphones, for recording in stereo on the fly. Up top is a single gold button that they’re calling the “M-Button.” Press it once and no matter what else you’re doing with your phone, it instantly drops down the screen that controls your music. Inside the phone is an amped-up soundcard, which “gives the London a separate processor for music, allowing it to play at a higher resolution, ” the company writes. “Higher resolution means that even the best quality MP3 will sound phenomenally better when played with London. Additionally it lets you play uncompressed music such as FLAC format.” For storage, the phone takes removable Micro SD cards. And another thing that can be taken in and out of the phone is, surprisingly, the battery. The removable lithium-ion battery means you can carry a backup and not have to look around for a charger and plug if your phone dies in the middle of a session. At just under $600, the Android-based device is priced comparably to an iPhone and is currently up for pre-orders. The first units will begin shipping next month.

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Marshall Develops Smartphone Designed Like One of Their Amps

The iPhone 6S Leak Has More Than Meets the Eye

Ever since the iPhone 4, Apple’s followed a kind of tick-tock process of updating its money-making iPhone. Tick: Recreate hardware and looks from the ground up. Tock: Tweak, tweak, tweak. After last year’s iPhone 6, 2015 is a tock year. And while there are some things to be excited about, cosmetics is definitely not one of them. Read more…

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The iPhone 6S Leak Has More Than Meets the Eye

Restaurateur Loses Copyright Suit To BMI

Frosty P writes: BMI claims Amici III in Linden, New York didn’t have a license when it played four tunes in its eatery one night last year, including the beloved “Bennie and the Jets” and “Brown Sugar, ” winning $24, 000 earlier this year, and over $8, 200 in attorney’s fees. Giovanni Lavorato, who has been in business for 25 years, says the disc DJ brought into the eatery paid a fee to play tunes. “It’s ridiculous for me to pay somebody also, ” he said. “This is not a nightclub. This is not a disco joint . . . How many times do they want to get paid for the stupid music?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Restaurateur Loses Copyright Suit To BMI

Digital Music Couldn’t Exist Without the Fourier Transform

This is the Fourier Transform. You can thank it for providing the music you stream every day, squeezing down the images you see on the Internet into tiny little JPG files, and even powering your noise-canceling headphones. Here’s how it works. Read more…

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Digital Music Couldn’t Exist Without the Fourier Transform

Spotify Data Proves You’re Not As Cool As You Used To Be

If you’re over the age of thirty, you’re a musical dinosaur. You probably don’t understand the garbage those “damn kids” are listening to and you don’t want to. You’re not cool. When did this happen? Spotify may have just figured it out. Read more…

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Spotify Data Proves You’re Not As Cool As You Used To Be