According to Recode, Amazon is in talks with record labels regarding a potential music streaming service. The site says the company plans to bundle the service with its Prime delivery option, where it already offers free movies and TV shows.
Sources familiar with the negotiations say Amazon has been having serious discussions with labels for the past few months, but it's no where close to a deal. Apparently the e-commerce giant is asking for too much of a discount on licensing fees...
Good news for Rdio users this afternoon. The music streaming service has posted an update for its iOS client, bringing the app to version 2.5.7 and adding a few new features including Playlist Editing and the ability to read and write reviews in-app.
Users can now edit their playlists from any mobile device by adding, removing and rearranging songs, and editing playlist artwork. They can also now write reviews for those playlists, and albums, and read reviews written by other other Rdio users...
Apple has officially launched its streaming music service iTunes Radio in Australia this morning, making it the first non-U.S. country to gain access to the service since it was introduced last fall.
It was reported in October that Apple had plans to rollout iTunes Radio to the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand in early 2014, and this appears to be the first step of that International push...
Google's inexpensive HDMI dongle dubbed Chromecast offers great value for money. For just $35, users can stream Netflix, HBO GO, YouTube, Hulu Plus, Pandora, Google Play TV & Movies and more, from their favorite mobile apps and websites right to their big screen TV sets - much like AirPlaying through Apple's $99 media-streaming box, the Apple TV.
While Google's been adding new Chromecast content sources, the device's true potential remained largely untapped because Google would only open up Chromecast to select few developers.
But not anymore. As of today, the official Google Cast Software Development Kit (SDK) is available to developers wishing to enhance their iOS and Android apps and websites with Chromecast integration...
Apple has added a new channel to its $99 media-streaming box, the Apple TV. The Red Bull TV action sports channel should be now available on everyone's Home screen (if not, manually check for updates by going to Settings > General > Software Updates and choosing Update Software).
Red Bull TV is an action-packed sports channel by the famous Austrian energy drinks company, Red Bull GmbH. The new Apple TV channel offers free action sports content, coverage of live events and more...
Earlier this week, Beats launched its highly anticipated streaming music service dubbed Beats Music. The service is entering into a crowded marketplace, several years late, but it hopes to differentiate itself from the Rdios and Spotifys with custom in-house curation methods.
But the launch isn't going as smoothly as the company would've liked. It's had a hard time dealing with the influx of users, and has had to shut down signups in order to work out the kinks. The good news, though, is that it's doubling the length of its free trial to make up for it...
Users of the popular read-later application Pocket (formerly Read It Later) are saving more than two million videos each week and now you can enjoy all those clips on your big screen TV thanks to newly-implemented support for AirPlay background video streaming in Pocket 5.0.2.
Now available free in the App Store, Pocket 5.0.2 also fixes an issue with sharing links to Facebook and another one pertaining to the Pocket bookmarklet, which should now work correctly when installed in Google's Chrome browser...
As promised, Beats launched its highly anticipated 'Music' service this morning, bringing the headphone-maker into the highly competitive world of streaming audio. And with a library of around 20 million songs available for on-demand play, it's certainly built to take on the competition.
But Beats is taking a different approach to its subscription service. Unlike your Rdios and your Spotifys, it doesn't offer a free ad-supported model and the company is putting a lot of focus on its custom radio stations and playlists that it says were curated by some of the best DJs in the world...
With competition from services like Spotify and Apple's iTunes Radio increasing, and the Beats Music launch on the horizon, Pandora announced this week that it's rolling out a new feature to its mobile apps to help you discover music.
That feature is called 'Personalized Station Recommendations,' and it provides listeners with up to 6 suggested artist stations to listen to at a time. These suggestions are based on your listening habits and like/dislike thumb interactions...
Good news for Simpsons fans this morning. FX Networks CEO John Landgraf announced this week that the group is creating a standalone app for the popular Springfield family, which will allow users to stream all 24 seasons of the TV show to their devices.
Speaking at the Television Critics Association winter press tour yesterday, Landgraf offered up some details about the app. He says it'll feature tons of content including all 500+ episodes of The Simpsons, which will be available for online streaming at all times...
Spotify, the popular Swedish startup, has upped the ante in the music space when it said recently it would enable free streaming on smartphones and tablets.
Desktop users have been able to stream ad-supported music free of charge since Spotify's inception, but mobile streaming has always required a $9.99 Spotify Premium subscription. This ad-supported free desktop tier has now migrated to mobile.
Now available on the App Store, the new Spotify version 0.9.2 fixes many bugs and flips the switch on free mobile streaming for everyone (they've been rolling this out gradually), here are your caveats...
Google's hasn't enjoyed much success with VP8, a video codec it developed back in 2010 as a H.264 replacement for efficient video streaming. The Chrome browser supports VP8 codec out-of-the-box (so no plug-in required), but Google's plans for VP8 domination were shattered by literally non-existent support from major industry players.
As a result, VP8 has never gained hardware-acceleration because chip makers opted to stand firmly behind H.264, an industry-standard video codec Apple's devices support natively and on the silicon level.
At next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Internet giant will be showing off YouTube streaming in a 4K resolution of 3,840 pixels by 2,160 lines via its brand new royalty-free video codec, VP9.
This time around, Google has lined up an impressive list of industry players who will back the new format. Notably absent: a certain fruity company...