A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday awarded Spotify and the three major labels $322 million in a default judgment against Anna's Archive, but only $22.2 million of that figure came from copyright infringement. The remaining $300 million was awarded to Spotify alone under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions, a claim that doesn’t require the plaintiff to own the underlying works.

Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York entered the judgment after the anonymous operators of Anna's Archive failed to appear. The site had announced in December that it scraped 86 million files from Spotify and intended to distribute them via BitTorrent, prompting a January lawsuit from Spotify, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group.

The labels' direct copyright claim covered 148 identified works at the statutory maximum of $150,000 per work, totaling $22.2 million, split between Sony, UMG, and Atlantic, which is a small infringement case by major-label standards.

Spotify's award was calculated differently because the service doesn’t own the recordings on its platform, so it couldn’t bring a direct infringement claim. Instead, it argued that Anna’s Archive bypassed its technological protection measures, the authentication and anti-scraping systems that gate access to its audio files, in violation of DMCA §1201. Judge Rakoff applied the statutory maximum of $2,500 per circumvention to the 120,000 files Spotify's lawyers downloaded as evidence, producing the $300 million figure. Notably, these damages don’t depend on what Anna's Archive subsequently did with the files, but on the act of bypassing access controls.

This could set an interesting precedent, with any platform that gates content behind authentication now being able to argue that scraping constitutes circumvention under §1201, with statutory damages of up to $2,500 per file. Ownership of the underlying content isn’t required, nor is demonstrable harm or loss.

That may well have applications to AI training datasets. Anna’s Archive has previously called its data scrape a “preservation archive,” language that closely mirrors the justifications offered by AI labs for retaining scraped content. Nvidia is already defending itself in Nazemian v Nvidia against claims that it trained models on books sourced from Anna's Archive, with the plaintiffs' amended complaint citing internal correspondence in which the company's data strategy team allegedly negotiated for high-speed access to roughly 500TB of material.

That case is currently pleaded as direct infringement, and the Spotify ruling adds §1201 to the toolkit for any plaintiff whose source content sat behind authentication, which covers most of the commercial web AI labs have scraped.

It’s unlikely that Spotify will ever be able to collect from Anna’s Archive, given its anonymity and how it has previously relaunched on new domains following enforcement actions, but that’s beside the point; the judgment’s value is in the precedent it may well have set for the next defendant, who won’t be anonymous.

Spotify, the largest music streaming platform in the world with hundreds of millions of active users, and an extensive library of music has allegedly been hacked by Anna's Archive. The shadow library, who labels itself as archivists, has apparently scraped nearly the entirety of the platform, downloading roughly 300 TB of music that is now being distributed illegally via torrents.

Spotify has already acknowledged and responded to this attack, issuing the following statement to Android Authority:

"An investigation into unauthorized access identified that a third party scraped public metadata and used illicit tactics to circumvent DRM to access some of the platform’s audio files. We are actively investigating the incident."

That "some" in the above comment is key because the leaked collection consists of around 86 million files in particular, representing ~37% of all music available on the platform (but 99.9% of listens). Most of them are preserved in Spotify's original OGG Vorbis 160 kbps format, but if any song has a popularity rating of exactly 0, then they've been re-encoded to 75kpbs to save space.

With that, there's 256 million rows of metadata that accounts for 99.6% of all listens on Spotify and it has been complied into query-able SQL databases. The group has done a near-lossless JSON reconstruction of Spotify's API, including 186 million unique ISRCs. — identifiers for individual recordings worldwide; think of them as ISBNs for music. All the album info, artist info, cover art etc., is included.

The blog post released by Anna's Archive going over this leak is surprisingly informative, including a bunch of charts that break down how Spotify treats music in general. For instance, around 70% of all songs on the platform barely get any attention, while 0.1% of the tracks are the most popular of all time. Most songs are also singles, rather than part of an album, and 120 BPM is the most common tempo.

Anyhow, the reason for this large-scale hack, as described by Anna's Archive itself, is preservation of music. Since the group is notorious for open-sourcing books without consent, it's applying much of the same logic here, arguing that Spotify's collection is too overtly focused on popular artists and sound quality. There needs to be an "authoritative list of torrents aiming to represent all music ever produced."

The torrents are self-hosted, and the files are packaged using Anna’s Archive Containers (AAC), a custom format the group has used for years. The metadata has already been released while the rest of the data will follow a staggered release pattern in huge chunks, categorized by popularity. Therefore, the aftermath of this scrape will only truly show up down the line.

Listening to music on Spotify can certainly be a rewarding experience but it's the way we interact with our music in the real world that can make a difference. That's why we're excited about this cool Raspberry Pi Pico-powered project created by maker and developer Bas. Using our favorite microcontroller, he's created a barcode scanning system that recognizes the barcodes from your favorite CDs and uses the data to queue up the music automatically on Spotify.

As simple as this project idea sounds, it's actually quite involved and took a bit of engineering to pull off. First, as you might have guessed, you must scan a barcode from the CD you want to listen to. This barcode is parsed using MQTT to a home assistant. The Raspberry Pi has a script that checks for the album through a music database known as Discogs. Once the album has been identified, the song is queued up using the Spotify API and plays in Bas's living room.

The casing for the project was designed from scratch by Bas just for this project using Fusion 360. It was then 3D Printed but we're not sure exactly what 3D printer was used to print the final version we see in the blog post. However, we do have a list of the best 3D printers for 2024 if you want to see what's leading the market. To finish off the design, he included a couple of googly eyes. While much of this project is open source, the 3D printer files haven't been shared but Bas assures that you can contact him for a copy of the design files.

It doesn't take too much hardware to recreate this project and Bas was kind enough to share plenty of details about what went into its creation. You'll need a Raspberry Pi Pico W—the W version is necessary for the network connectivity. It's connected to a barcode scanning module which is used to read the CD barcodes.

Bas also shared the software he put together for the project. You can explore the source code over at his GitHub page. It includes both the code used to verify the album using barcode data as well as the code that runs on the Pico that directs the barcode using MQTT.

If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project in greater detail, you can check out the original blog post shared by Bas.

The Raspberry Pi is a great go-to tool for all sorts of enthusiasts. Whether you’re into retro gaming or just take network security very seriously, you don’t have to look hard to find a tool to take your hobby to the next level. Today we’ve got an awesome music player to share that was put together by a maker known as Damaniel2. Instead of pulling music from a streaming service like Spotify, this setup is designed to play music over Wi-Fi sourced from an NAS device.

At the moment, it’s streaming the content using a wireless connection which makes it possible to move from room to room. However, Damaniel2 has plans to adjust the setup to a wired connection for better performance.  Despite the wireless connection, Damaniel2 assures that the setup has been working just as intended.

The hardware is housed inside of a 3D-printed shell that Damaniel2 created from scratch just for the project using OpenSCAD. According to Damaniel2, this was their first time creating something in 3D to print and the design needs some more adjustments and a future iteration with a little extra height is necessary.

Inside you’ll find a Raspberry Pi 3B+ but you could get away with using another Pi like a Pi 4 or maybe even a Pi Zero. A HiFiBerry DAC 2 Pro was included to process the audio output while a 5-inch DSI touchscreen interface is used for user input. The HiFiBerry HAT provides audio ports on the back for connecting audio peripherals.

As far as software goes, it’s running Volumio OS. This is an application designed for those who want to stream their own media locally. There are two versions available—free and paid. The free version offers plenty of features to do what this project is capable of but the paid version has extra functions that might be worth paying for if you’re really into streaming music.

If you want to learn more about this Raspberry Pi project, check out the original thread shared to Reddit by Damaniel2 and consider following him for future updates or more cool creations.

Perhaps one day, anime will be real life thanks largely in part to projects like this one from maker and developer Jess Peter. Peter is using a Raspberry Pi to power a custom holographic anime virtual assistant named Maria that’s completely interactive and 100% adorable.

This holographic virtual assistant features an original 3D design with animations that help bring her to life. Peter implements AI for voice recognition and programmed text-to-speech so Maria can talk back and forth with the user to help complete verbal requests and initiate tasks. Maria is still a work in development so functions are limited but plans are in the works to add more in the future.

Peter has provided plenty of juicy details about she works and how to set her up on your own at home. According to the project website, Maria can provide weather predictions based on WeatherAPI, set custom timers (yelling “Beep! Beep! Beep! when they go off) and even play music using the Spotify API.

This project is running on a Raspberry Pi 4B connected to a USB microphone for audio input and a USB speaker for audio output. The Pi is housed inside of a 3D-printed case fitted with a conical acetate sheet to give the holographic effect. A small, 3.2-inch screen is used to project the image with a resolution of 800 x 400px.

Diving into the software side, Maria makes use a Python server that constantly listens for audio input. Keywords are detected using Webrtvt and Deepspeech and used to determine incoming commands. The text-to-speech functions are handled using C along with Google’s text-to-speech library. A shader is necessary to warp the character on the screen so she appears correctly on the acetate cone. You can read more about the project details on the official GitHub page.

We find this Raspberry Pi project to be thoroughly impressive and implore anyone looking to recreate it to check out the official website where Peter was kind enough to share all the details you need to bring Maria to your home.

We're two decades into the 21st century, a time where many of us were expecting to have flying cars or apartments on the moon. Instead, tech companies are still selling floppy disks and brand new PCs with an untenable 8GB of RAM. By all means, grab a 3.5-inch, 1.44 MB floppy disk if you still need one. But, for Woz’s sake, don’t get a PC with less than 16GB of memory, unless you plan to buy more RAM and install it yourself.

We’ve reached the point in computing history where you can’t competently run Windows and browse the Internet with less than 16GB on board. On my desktop PC running Windows 10, it takes just 8 Chrome tabs, Slack and Spotify running to cross the 8GB threshold. My regular use case of four dozen tabs takes me up to around 15GB, without running any games or productivity apps. Even with nothing but background services running, I’m using 5.5GB.

Even playing one game will take you past the 8GB limit many $1,000 gaming PCs have. Senior Editor Sarah Jacobsson Purewal shared a screenshot (see how to take screenshots in Windows) of her task manager where Elden Ring is eating 4.4GB of RAM and Steam is gobbling another 354MB. Once you exceed your computer’s physical RAM, the OS will compensate by swapping data in and out of your paging file, significantly harming performance.

Despite the fact that modern Windows PCs really need 16GB of RAM and the cost of adding more RAM is minimal, major PC vendors continue offering systems with a mere 8GB. And we’re not talking about kids’ Chromebooks or $199 cheapo laptops with Pentium CPUs! High-powered $900 gaming laptops and $1,300 ultrabooks also come with just 8GB. By the way, another 8GB of laptop RAM would cost you $25 on Amazon, so it must cost OEMs, who get to pay wholesale, a fraction of that to get this right. 

Imagine that your mouth is watering and you’re dying for a Big Mac dinner. You pull up to the McDonald’s Drive-through and see a sign that says “Big Mac, starting at $5.99.” So you order the burger, but, when you pull it out of the bag, you’re surprised to see that it only has one beef patty, one slice of pickle, no cheese, no Big Mac Sauce and no sesame seeds on the bun. You then find out that a “real” Big Mac with the taste you’d expect costs $9.99. McDonald’s wouldn’t sully its name by offering a sub-par experience that would make Grimace blush. Only PC OEMs would do such a thing. 

Dell currently sells a config of its flagship XPS 13 laptop with 8GB for a whopping $1,249, while Lenovo’s entry-level ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 10) is $1,319 with 8GB. These two laptops are meant to compete with the best Ultrabooks on the market, and they do when you buy configurations that come with a decent amount of memory. What’s worse in the case of Ultrabooks like these is that the RAM is soldered to the motherboard so there’s no way to upgrade. 

Many gaming laptops (including some of the best gaming laptops under $1,500) and desktops also come with just 8GB of RAM, but the good news there is that you can almost always upgrade the memory on your own, a cost you should build into your budget and plan to do right away. For example, Walmart has an MSI GF63 gaming laptop for $599. For that price, you have to settle for lesser specs like a GTX 1650, 256GB SSD and, yes, 8GB of RAM. But you can open it up and swap the RAM for 2 x 8GB DIMMs, which will make your wallet about $50 lighter, but consider that part of the price. (While you’re in there you should also install a roomier SSD, but that’s the subject of another story.)

We’d rather that companies like MSI just make 16GB the minimum standard and raise price as necessary, but as a consumer, you can make 16GB your minimum. Don’t even consider buying a computer with 8GB of RAM that can’t be upgraded. And, if you do see a great deal on an 8GB system, make sure you can also get the RAM and bring it up to 16GB. 

If you already have a PC with 4, 8 or even 16GB of memory, adding more RAM is one of the best sub-$100 upgrades you can make. Just check the service manual for your PC or motherboard or visit Crucial’s Advisor to find out the exact type of RAM you need.

When it comes to macro keyboards, Elgato’s Stream Decks usually come to mind. For many streamers, the highly-customizable input devices, complete with full-color screens under each key, are critical tools that allow them to perform complex actions in OBS  in just one step.

Loupedeck’s line of macro devices take the user well beyond streaming. Don’t get me wrong: Any macro keyboard, even a home-made Raspberry Pi one, can be used for other purposes than streaming — but how many have features integrated for video, photo, or even animation editing? Loupedeck’s consoles are built to work with Twitch, Adobe Suite, Ableton, Twitter, OBS, and music software such as Spotify right out of the box. 

I took a look at the three consoles in Loupedeck’s current lineup: the Loupedeck Live ($269), the Loupedeck+ ($279), and the Loupedeck CT ($549). Loupedeck also recently announced the upcoming Loupedeck S ($180), which is currently fully-funded on Indiegogo and is set to start shipping in the fall. Razer also recently announced its own branded version of the Loupedeck Live which is identical to the original but has Razer branding. 

Loupedeck Live

The Loupedeck Live ($269) is the smallest of Loupedeck’s current lineup and is geared toward streamers and content creators. It has 12 programmable touchscreen buttons, six tactile knobs, and eight tactile buttons (one of which is the dedicated home/back button). I don't know what it is about this black matte finish but dust LOVES it. Luckily there is a lock mode that turns off the touch screen and button functions so you can wipe off the console.

Just like the Loupedeck Live has a lock mode there is something called a Dynamic Mode where the buttons on the touchscreen will switch depending on the application running. I can have Photoshop and Premiere open at the same time, which is kind of overkill but sometimes necessary. My touchscreen buttons will change from photo editing to video editing just by clicking on Premiere. 

The Live has integrations with Twitch that can start a commercial break, welcome a new subscriber with a special sound effect, or simply stop and start your stream. Lined with three knobs on each side and eight round buttons at the bottom, the Live is suited to control volume, skip songs, and scrub through a video. 

It’s great for keyboard shortcuts in any program. For example, buttons can be created for copy and paste or activating full screen. The knobs on the side are called Rotating Dials. They have two functions, rotating infinitely with built-in notches and pressing in. This creates 12 functions out of these six knobs. The eight round buttons at the bottom are called the Workspace buttons, with the first one being the Home or Back button. These buttons help navigate between Workspaces or pages - which are a list of buttons that show on the face of the Loupedeck. There are two ways to move between pages; swiping or by pressing the round buttons to move on to the next page. 

This is the smallest of the Loupedeck consoles but still packs a lot of configuration power. With over 70 native programs supported in software, the  Live is great for any level of streamer, producer, programmer, or computer user — novice to intermediate. This is a piece of hardware that can grow with you if you’re just starting out. As an advanced streamer, I enjoy using the Loupedeck Live to try out new commands, engage viewers, and help streamline the process of streaming. It doesn’t take up too much room on your desk, measuring 5.9 inches wide by 4.3 inches deep, and 1.18 inches thick. It weighs about half a pound. 

The Loupedeck Live really helped me to get organized and categorize my movements and the processes I use to run one of my game streams. I can create one page, or a set of buttons,  for the beginning of my stream, swipe to the next page for the middle of my stream, and then go to a third page to wrap up my stream. And I can create duplicate buttons so I don’t have to switch back and forth between pages.

Once a live stream is over I can move on to post-stream activities, such as opening Adobe Premiere to start working on editing the footage. With the help of the Loupedeck Live’s Dynamic Mode, my pages or workspace change when I open up different applications. If I’d rather wind down instead of getting right to work, I can set up a page for that. I can create different profiles and call them things such as “Stream Junae Profile,” “Post-Stream Junae Profile,” or “Leisure Junae Profile.” And have everything I need within those profiles such as Spotify controls and buttons to launch my favorite games or open productivity apps such as Microsoft Word to write articles — it’s very intuitive.

Loupedeck CT

The $549 Loupedeck CT is made for creative professionals who do serious video or audio editing. The Loupedeck CT is the largest of the Loupedeck consoles (as opposed to the Loupedeck+, which is more of a deck than a console), measuring 6.2 inches wide by 5.9 inches deep and 1.18 inches thick. The Loupedeck CT has the same buttons and knobs as the Loupedeck Live, and adds a bottom section which features a large dial and 12 square tactile buttons.

The Loupedeck CT is bulkier than the Live, tipping the scales at 0.8 pounds, but I wouldn’t change a thing. The black matte finish attracts quite a bit of dust, but is also very easy to clean. The separation of the touchscreen buttons and tactile buttons so I don’t click a function I didn’t intend to use is a great design.

The dial is definitely an upgrade. Every button on the Loupedeck CT has some kind of feedback — haptic or tactile — except for the dial. Baby, when I tell you turning this dial is like spreading whipped butter on a piece of bread with sugar and cinnamon, believe it! It’s so smooth! The dial makes scrolling through web pages, scrubbing through editing timelines, selecting colors, and adjusting highlights and shadows a very smooth, enjoyable process.

The dial and buttons — like everything on Loupedeck’s consoles — are customizable. Adding these buttons relieves the need to create a shortcut function. The 12 buttons include inputs from a keypad, such as up/down, Fn, and Ctrl — no more pressing Ctrl +Z like a caveman! The buttons also include shortcuts such as Undo and Save.

Every button, knob, and dial on the Loupedeck CT is customizable and works fabulously in Dynamic Mode. Dynamic Mode allows you to switch seamlessly between programs and continue to use the Loupedeck CT without interrupting your workflow. For example, I can be using OBS and switch to Ableton, and the buttons and functions on the Loupedeck CT will change with me. If there are multiple people using the Loupedeck CT, you can create individual profiles for each person — or you can create profiles for different work and lifestyle modes.

Some macro keypads limit you to three pages of buttons, but the Loupedeck CT lets you create up to 10 pages of buttons (12 buttons per page). That’s over 100 button functions available on one profile.

It doesn’t matter how many (or few) buttons you have, the Loupedeck CT’s dial is definitely its stand-out feature. I use the dial in photo and video editing to get precise measurements that are easily overshot on a mouse, or that take too long on a keyboard. For example, if I want to turn up an effect to an exact number — such as turning the vignette to 62 — it’s difficult on a mouse, but I can use the dial to get there without having to make precise mouse movements.

The Loupedeck CT does everything the Loupedeck Live does — it’s easy to program it to work with streaming platforms such as OBS and Twitch, and to get it to play SFX for streaming without having to program them in StreamElements. I especially like that the Fn buttons can be placed on the keyboard, as this means less programming.

The Loupedeck CT lets me do all the things I need to do during a stream, and easily integrates with Twitch, Streamlabs, and OBS. But it’s in post-stream content editing where the Loupedeck CT’s jog dial really stands out. Because the Loupedeck CT is larger, heavier, and has a dial — which is potentially easier to damage — I wouldn’t feel comfortable traveling with this bulkier console. But if you can afford it the Loupedeck CT’s versatility makes it a powerful streaming companion.

Loupedeck+

If you want the feel of a professional editing deck like the ones they use in studios, get a Loupedeck+. With more than 40 buttons, knobs, and switches, the Loupedeck+ is largest in the series, measuring 17.8 inches wide, 8.2 inches deep, and 1.9 inches thick, and weighing about 1.5 pounds — it’s roughly the size of a typical PC keyboard.

Unlike the Loupedeck Live and Loupedeck CT consoles, the Loupedeck+ doesn’t have a screen. Instead, it’s got buttons on buttons on buttons, mixed with knobs, dials, and switches — this is an editing machine that editors and producers will love! The Loupedeck+ is advanced enough to do all of the intricate things you need to do in photo, video, and audio editing, and it’s simple enough for a beginner to use.

The press in functions on dials reset their values back to zero — useful if you’re trying to take something such as color saturation back to its default. The color switches make it easier to adjust the greens, blues, and reds for photo and video color correction. The dials make it easier to accurately control the levels of functions rather than trying to guess by looking at sliding bars.

Thanks to notches in each knob, values don’t increase too quickly. Although the buttons on the Loupedeck+ have printed labels such as Temperature, Tint, and Saturation, they’re still customizable — you can overwrite the default functions to perform whatever functions you like, though you’ll have to remember what you changed them to (or, I suppose, you could re-label them).

The Loupedeck+ has built-in level buttons that you can use for different levels of editing. For example, Level 1 could be the default settings button, Level 2 could be all color gradients, and Level 3 could be for adding extra effects. Again, each button is still completely customizable.

If you’re new to editing photos and videos, the Loupedeck+ might be overwhelming at first. I’m not new to editing, but I don’t think the Loupedeck+ is an ideal console for me because while I like to edit, I also like to stream and have shortcuts on my console that open up regular applications such as email. The Loupedeck+ is highly programmable, just like the other Loupedeck consoles, but it’s definitely designed for editing photos and videos. It’s the cheapest of the three Loupedeck consoles, but it’s still $249 — so you should only choose this console if you really like the layout (and don’t mind skipping a screen).

Which Loupedeck is the Best Choice for You?

If you do any streaming or want the deck for general productivity work, the Loupedeck Live and CT are for you. The Loupedeck+ is mainly for professional photo and video editors who will use its dials for the purposes they have printed on them.

The Loupedeck Live and the Loupedeck CT integrate with with Twitch, Adobe Suite, OBS, Spotify, and about 70 other programs, while the Loupedeck+ supports Lightroom Classic, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop with Camera Raw, After Effects, Audition, and Aurora HDR. They’re all highly customizable and can control volume and launch any shortcuts you want. If you want to create a shortcut that a program doesn't have, you can use the Loupedeck software to create a custom command.

The consoles also have the ability to save various profiles, either for different use cases or different users. The touch screen ability on the Loupedeck Live and CT allow you to swipe between screens or select actions, such as opening OBS. All models have Dynamic Mode, which means they can switch button functions and screens automatically as you move between different programs (e.g. OBS and Photoshop).

Another satisfying feature of the Loupedeck consoles is the haptic feedback you get as you touch the screen, rotate the buttons, or press in the buttons. The dial on the CT rotates smoothly, with no notches, no feedback, and no push in feature. The dial also has a mini LED screen so it’s unexpected to have multiple functions. Even the Control Dial on the Loupedeck+ has notches and pushes in creating another button function. On both the Loupedeck CT and Loupedeck+ the square buttons seem to contain blue switches.

For streamers and general productivity users, the Loupedeck Live is the best choice, while the Loupedeck CT is best for streamers who also do some video editing. The Loupedeck+ is for heavy video and photo editors.

I prefer the Loupedeck CT, as a content creator who streams and also dabbles in video editing. I’m mainly a writer, so I can setup profiles to streamline my writing process — the same goes for video editing. I’m an intermediate-level video editor, so the programmable Loupedeck shortcuts help a lot as I don’t yet have my video editing app’s menu and keyboard shortcuts memorized.

The Loupedeck consoles don’t cut my writing time in half, but they do cut down on how much time I spend digging through software menus, which is very nice. The Loupedeck+ is a different beast that’s somewhat above me — I don’t consistently edit photos or videos at that level, but it’s nice to know the options are there if I ever want to go deeper.

Being focused initially on PC gaming, Razer cannot ignore such phenomena as game streamers. So the company has gradually built up a lineup of controllers aimed at these live content creators. On Thursday, the company introduced its Razer Stream Controller, enabling streamers to control their programs remotely. Interestingly, to build its Stream Controller, Razer used to design software from Loupedeck.

Razer's Stream Controller is a small box with 12 programmable keys, screens that can activate a software function or a macro, and six tactile analog dials used to control audio or things like zoom in/zoom out. The device measures 151×101.5×30.2 mm, weighs 210 grams (216 grams with a detachable angle stand), and connects to a Windows or macOS-based PC using a USB cable.

The device was developed by Loupedeck (yet it carries Razer's logotype on its front) and runs its proprietary software (perhaps with some customizations for Razer). That software supports not only programs used by game streamers (e.g., OBS, Twitch, vMix, Ecamm Live, etc.), but a bunch of other applications used by content creators, including such programs as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Philips Hue Bridge, and Spotify. Furthermore, Loupedeck has over 70 profiles, plugins & icon packs for several other applications. The software automatically activates profiles for active applications, though it is possible to start a particular profile using numeric keys on the front of the device.

Razer's Stream Controller is the company's direct rival for Corsair's Elgato Stream Deck. However, Razer needs to offer a complete set of products aimed at game streamers, so it has to have a controller which allows software and hardware control of a PC in a bid not to make its clients use hardware from a rival.

Razer's Stream Controller works with Apple's macOS X 10.14 (later) and Microsoft's Windows 10 operating systems. Razer's Stream Controller costs $269.99 in the U.S., just like Loupedeck's Live controller, which has the same design and runs the same software.

While it’s possible to run your Raspberry Pi headless (without a monitor), half of the fun is using the tiny PC to drive a display for videos, games, and an endless array of visual possibilities. However, one of the best screen options has to be RGB matrices. Today we’ve got a fantastic matrix project put together by Allen from Allen’s Lab, who created an impressively comprehensive dashboard for his 64 x 32 matrix.

As of writing, this is the only project over at the Allen’s Lab YouTube channel. However, the channel description indicates plans to upload more projects in the future ranging from robotics and 3D printing to coding projects from scratch.

If future projects are as feature-packed as this one, we’re definitely in for a treat. This dashboard includes many tools, including basic things like displaying the time and weather and integration with external apps like Notion, a system used for tracking to-do lists, and Spotify.

A closer look at the hardware inside indicates a Raspberry Pi 3B+ is the primary controller, but there’s no reason you couldn’t use a Raspberry Pi 4 in its stead. You can drive a matrix using something smaller like a Pico, but you'll need something a little beefier to take advantage of Allen’s feature pack. The case is 3D-printed with PETG and designed with a solid panel covering the matrix thin enough for the LEDs to shine through. The case also has a swivel feature and a tilt switch that changes the screen orientation when activated.

Allen programmed the dashboard with Python in conjunction with Hzeller’s RGB matrix library found over at GitHub. Weather updates are pulled from Open Weather Map, while Pushbullet handles phone notifications. The dashboard app selection is through a rotary encoder that includes a GIF player, the Game of Life, and even a YouTube subscriber counter.

If you want to recreate this Raspberry Pi project yourself, check out the demo video shared on YouTube by Allen’s Lab, and be sure to visit the project’s official GitHub page.

With most media digitized nowadays, the experience of picking up a physical album and interacting with a stereo to change the music is quickly becoming a thing of the past. However, despite the user-friendly interface of most music streaming platforms, the Raspberry Pi community has stepped forward to recreate the old school process—albeit with a modern twist. This cassette player project from Reddit user Waymonster doesn’t just play cassettes; he’s fitted it with an NFC reader to select an album by reading custom NFC cards.

The project isn’t the first wireless-operated stereo we’ve covered. We recently shared this Sonos radio that relies on NFC cards to change albums. This RFID-controlled radio interacts with Spotify to queue up songs and playlists.

What sets this NFC stereo apart from others is Waymonster’s decision to house the project inside of an old cassette tape player. According to Waymonster, there was enough room inside the stereo to accommodate the Pi project without removing anything. The original hardware remains intact and can function like a cassette player if you remove the NFC sensor.

Waymonster is using a Raspberry Pi 3B+ to power this project, but there’s no reason you couldn’t use a more recent model like the Raspberry Pi 4. The Pi is fitted with a HiFiBerry DAC2 HD HAT and uses a Mifare RC522 module to read the NFC cards.

Instead of streaming music from an online platform, Waymonster uses Volumio to play media stored locally on a NAS. He used the Volumio GPIO Buttons plugin to interface with the physical buttons on the stereo. Each card corresponds with a custom playlist comprised of tracks belonging to the album printed on the card.

The best Raspberry Pi projects are the ones you can make at home, and thankfully there’s plenty of material online for anyone interested in creating a similar project themselves. For example, Waymonster printed custom artwork on blank NFC cards, but you can use anything with an NFC tag.

There are a few ways to approach the software side—Waymonster recommends looking through this NFC Music Box project over at GitHub to get started. For more details, check out the original project thread shared to Reddit.

If you’re looking for a fun way to control your favorite playlists on Spotify, you might want to check out Leo (also known as D00mfish over at Github) and his latest project. Using a Raspberry Pi, he’s built an RFID-controlled Spotify jukebox system.

The best Raspberry Pi projects are easy to use and this one is super intuitive. To operate the Pi-powered jukebox, users scan custom-printed cards with NFC chips inside. The RFID scanner reads the card, then sends a command to Spotify to start playing the corresponding song or playlist.

The hardware is housed in a custom 3D-printed shell. Inside you’ll find a Raspberry Pi Zero WH with a PN532 RFID reader/writer module. A rotary encoder is used to adjust volume, and two LED buttons control Skip and Shuffle options.

The code used in this project is primarily Python-driven. According to Leo, he’s using a library called LibNFC to communicate with the PN532 RFID reader. To get a closer look at the software side of this project, check out the project at GitHub.

A full tutorial has been uploaded to Instructables but has yet to go live. You can find a full PDF copy of this tutorial on the NFC Spotify Player GitHub page. Be sure to follow Leo for more updates and future Pi projects.

Microsoft just released the latest Windows Insider preview build, version 22000.160. Besides the usual assortment of bug and stability fixes (as well as the still enormous list of known issues, which you really shouldn't skip if you plan on giving it a test run), two key features make this build an important stepping stone in the path towards a public release. First, Microsoft is now officially releasing ISOs for Windows 11's Insider Previews - no need to jump through hoops to get a clean Windows 11 install anymore, even if we at Tom's Hardware made the process as seamless as possible in our article on how to download a Windows 11 ISO. Second is the addition of a new clock app with a focus sessions feature.

The ISO version available isn't the latest release, however - it's build 22000.132. However, nothing should prevent you from installing the available build and then forcing an update to the latest version through the Windows Update feature. To do so, go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Insider Program on your device. Set it to the Dev Channel. Go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update to check for the latest update, and update your device to the latest build available in the Dev Channel.

But the new clock app is the Focus, so to speak, of this release. The new and improved Clock app for Windows has been spruced up in line with Windows 11's design philosophy. The result? Besides looking - well, beautiful, your mileage may vary - the Clock app should now prove to be much more than a glorified digital watch thanks to its new Focus Sessions feature. Focus Sessions come as Microsoft's way to try and reduce overstimulation, enabling users to focus on the task at hand by allowing you to set custom Focus Session timers - essentially, a countdown clock until your next break, during which you should remain, well - focused. There are traces of gamification here: Microsoft allows users to set up daily Focus Session goals which keep count of the overall time they've spent in Focus Sessions, as well as a streak counter (how many days in a row users have achieved their Focus Session goals). This writer here could have a daily Focus Session goal of two 30-minute runs to write an article such as this one, for example.

Some of you may not be able to concentrate on a given task if you're listening to music; for those that do use music to enter "the zone", the updated Clock features Spotify integration, enabling you to choose just the right melody for whatever you need to get done. Finally, an integration with Microsoft's To-Do application enables users to create or conclude Focus Sessions for particular tasks that might require them. The To-Do integration is also seamless in that you'll have access to your entire To-Do list from inside the Clock app, meaning that you don't have to switch contexts to add a task, and then work on it via a Focus Session on the Clock.

Another step on the way towards Windows 11's full release, then. The road is long; and if you need some tips on how to customize Windows 11 your preferences, we've got you covered with articles on how to enable Dark Mode; how to Reset your Windows 11 installation; and others.

Things are getting a bit recursive around here. Epic Games today announced the addition of several PC apps, including the Itch.io game platform, to the Epic Games Store.

Itch.io is mostly known for indie titles, many of which are free or cost very little, but it also hosts “game jams” that encourage developers to create something based on the parameters set by the event’s organizers.

Bringing the platform to the Epic Games Store essentially means that a marketplace primarily focused on games will feature another marketplace primarily focused on games. Hopefully someone goes further down the rabbit hole at some point.

Itch.io isn’t the only program heading to the Epic Games Store. The marketplace has also expanded to include the iHeartRadio client, the Krita painting app, the Brave browser and the KenShape model generator as part of this push outside gaming.

Epic Games said that social platforms Houseparty (which it owns) and Discord will also be added to the Epic Games Store "in the future." These additions don’t appear to be included with the store’s public roadmap, but that might change.

The company also indicated that games and apps won’t necessarily be confined to their own silos by announcing that "Fortnite Crew Members will receive three free months of Spotify service" if they don’t yet have a Premium membership. Spotify is another Windows app that is already available on Epic.

For anyone who isn’t in the know: Fortnite Crew is a subscription that offers access to each season’s battle pass, additional V-Bucks and other benefits in exchange for $11.99 per month. Now those benefits appear to be expanding beyond Fortnite.

All of these additions make it clear that Epic Games didn’t just want to compete with the likes of Valve and GOG when it released the Epic Games Launcher. It’s actually creating its own app store that just happened to launch with a focus on games.

That might lend some additional context to the company’s dispute with Apple over app distribution on iOS and iPadOS devices.

For now, however, it seems that Epic Games isn’t content with offering an alternative game marketplace for Windows 10 users. It has a long way to go before apps become a core part of the Epic Games Store, but this is a sttart. 

Streaming online doesn't have to cost a fortune with DIY systems like StreamPi. Using a Raspberry Pi, you can create a custom stream deck experience totally catered to your streaming needs.

It's a cross-platform, open-source application designed to integrate with common platforms used by streamers, and it's triggered with touchscreen buttons. The StreamPi website lists Samuel Quinones and Debayan Sutradhar as its primary developers.

The app is currently designed to work with both Linux and Windows machines. Users can program custom functions that work with apps like OBS, Spotify, and recently new additions like Twitter, Command Line, and more. There are also plans in the works to expand support with additional programs like Discord. The Raspberry Pi runs StreamPi and accepts input from the user, which triggers events using any of the supported applications.

It also features themes for the interface that can be changed and customized with a little programming. You can also see the device in action — the team behind the project posted a demo of a Raspberry Pi 4-powered system on Twitter.  

To explore this project in-depth, visit the official GitHub for StreamPi. Check out our list of best Raspberry Pi projects for more useful creations from the maker community.

Building your own smart home is easier than ever with a Raspberry Pi. Even companies like MicroNova have recognized the potential of our favorite single-board computer (SBC) by using one inside its home sound system, called AmpliPi.

The crowdfunded AmpliPi box is capable of streaming from four separate sources. Users can interact with it using a web-based interface and output audio to a maximum of 36 stereo output zones.

The system is built on top of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 and can interface with the likes of Spotify, AirPlay and Pandora. Users can configure speaker zones and playlists using the AmpliPi REST API created by MicroNova.

MicroNova's web app lets users manage audio sources using a series of tabs. It includes settings to adjust groups and zones to make sure music plays in the intended room. 

Explore the AmpliPi GitHub for more in-depth information about how the system works.

If Raspberry Pi projects get you excited, check out our list of Best Raspberry Pi Projects for more fun creations from the maker community.

When maker Guy Dupont came into possession of a few classic iPods, he knew he had a potential Raspberry Pi project on his hands. This led to the development of sPot—a Raspberry Pi-powered Spotify streaming device housed inside of a 2004, 4th gen iPod.

The project uses elements from the iPod like the screen and original scroll wheel to operate the Spotify menu. It also comes with a slew of new features like Bluetooth support—necessary for integrating the device with modern systems and speakers.

Inside the 4th gen iPod is a Raspberry Pi Zero W which provides the wireless access necessary to stream using Spotify. The Pi is running the official Raspberry Pi OS to interface with the Spotify API.

The user interface was built using Python and designed to mimic the original iPod menu. This edition, however, has a few new features like real-time streaming through Spotify, rather than accessing list of locally stored files, and a custom search function. The unit is totally portable thanks to a 1000mAh battery which can be recharged using a micro USB port.

You can find a full video breaking down the project on Dupont’s official YouTube channel. Check out our list of Best Raspberry Pi Projects for more cool Pi projects from the maker community.

You can watch the episode in the YouTube embed above or directly on YouTube or Facebook or Periscope (via Tom's Hardware Twitter).

Weekly, you’ll find the Pi Cast by Tom’s Hardware streaming live on Tom’s Hardware’s channels on YouTube, FaceBook and Periscope and available afterwards on leading podcast platforms such as Spotify, Google and Apple.

With more than 30 million units sold and thriving communities of millions of makers, programmers and educators, the Raspberry Pi is one of the world’s most popular platforms. Now, the $35 computer that could and its ecosystem are the subjects of our new weekly show and podcast. Streaming live on Tuesdays at 2:30 pm ET (7:30 pm BST) and available afterwards as an audio podcast, the Pi Cast by Tom’s Hardware will cover everything that’s new and exciting in the world of Raspberry Pi. 

Each week on the Pi Cast, we’ll talk live with special guests who are involved in developing the Raspberry Pi, creating new products for it or pushing the envelope with truly unique and compelling projects. We’ll also take some time to share tips that will help you make the most of your Raspberry Pi and we’ll be taking live questions from the audience. 

Our first show launches on Tuesday, July 14th at 2:30 pm ET (7:30 PM BST) with Raspberry Pi Inventor and co-founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation Eben Upton joining us. Upton launched the original Raspberry Pi back in 2012 and, as CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading, continues to lead its development, recently unveiling the 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 and the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera. We’ll get a chance to ask him what’s next for Raspberry PI and get his take on the state of Pi in 2020. And, if you join us live, so will you.

Regular Hosts

Each week, our show will be hosted by Tom's Hardware's three biggest Pi fanatics: Avram Piltch, Les Pounder and Ash Puckett.

Avram Piltch

Tom’s Hardware’s Editor-in-Chief since 2018, Avram is obsessed with Raspberry Pi and always working on new projects with his eight-year-old son Isaac. In recent months, they’ve built robotic cars and retrogaming machines while learning how to program some games in Python.  

Ash Puckett

Ash is a self-employed tech writer and illustrator with a serious affinity for the Raspberry Pi, 3D printing, and retro gaming. She has over a decade of IT experience and has been featured in the official Raspberry Pi magazine MagPi. 

For Tom's Hardware, Ash manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting.  

Les Pounder

Tom’s Hardware’s Associate Editor, Les is a creative technologist and for seven years has created projects to educate and inspire minds both young and old. He has worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to write and deliver their teacher training programme "Picademy". 

Send us your Pi questions here!

Boomboxes are outdated, and even alarm clocks are facing heavy competition from smartphones. But this alarm clock, better known as the Ultimate Nixie Internet Alarm Clock (UNIAC), puts a modern tech twist on more classic technology. Recently shared online by a maker who goes by TheJBW, it's a Raspberry Pi-powered boombox and working alarm clock that can stream music over Wi-Fi from Spotify. Keeping things retro, Nixie tubes also display the current time. 

In an effort to give the music a visual component, the maker included two IN-13 VU meters that fluctuate to the track's left and right channels. According to TheJBW, UNIAC also uses a robot voice to announce information that can't be displayed on the Nixie tubes.

The UNIAC features a motherboard small enough to meet the form factor of a boombox. The main brain of the operation is a Raspberry Pi Zero. The Pi Zero provides wireless support, making it possible to stream music from Spotify using Mopidy, a Python-based media player.

The Raspberry Pi project also called for a few additional components, including an Adafruit Class D Amplifier board for sound and a Teensy 3.2 as a CPU for the Nixie display module.

You can follow TheJBW on Reddit for more project updates. There are a couple of changes already planned, including a new battery/power solution. You can find a full write-up with more project details on his website, EequalSpi.

With this Raspberry Pi project, you can bust out jams that everyone can enjoy. Raveberry is a music server designed for groups of people to share and vote on songs to build a real-time playlist. The songs with the most votes get bumped to the top.

Raveberry project hit Reddit earlier this week. Raveberry uses both YouTube and Spotify to source music for the playlist. Additionally, using the complimentary app Shareberry, you can add songs to the playlist from your phone. The dev behind Raveberry used a Raspberry Pi 4, but insists the server should be compatible with older editions of the Pi.

Pi groovers may already be familiar with Mopidy, an existing, Python-based Raspberry Pi music server. If Raveberry sounds a bit like Mopidy to you, that's because the project integrates Mopidy as its primary media player. However, Raveberry adds more features on top of Mopidy to create a more group-oriented application.

Raveberry has a graphical admin interface, Bluetooth support for wireless speakers, screen visualization using a tool called Cava and audio visualization to flash LEDs in sync with the music. It even functions as an optional hot spot. 

The biggest draw to the project is the voting mechanism. The idea was to create a way for groups of people to collaborate on the choice of music rather than a single person. 

Check out the full Raveberry Github page for a full breakdown of how the system works and how to get it yourself. Be sure to follow the Raveberry dev for more updates on this kickin' Pi project.

Imagine your favorite smartphone apps blown up in front of your eyes to the size of a wall in augmented reality (AR) form. Now add the ability to interact with that app, make the window appear smaller or larger, move it around or even open another app, also in massive AR form, beside it. That’s exactly what I experienced when I tried out the glasses and their new UI, and with Nreal Light’s bright display this could be the most consumer-friendly take on an MR system yet.

I got to demo the glasses at CES this week and the experience was very intuitive. Nebula, the glasses’ new 3D UI, takes any native Android app and translates it into AR that looks sharp, crisp and bright.

Connection to the glasses’ USB-C cable coming out of the left arm and downloading the free companion turns Android smartphones into a controller with 3-degrees of freedom with the screen serving as a trackpad. I could open multiple apps, like Netflix and Spotify, and rearrange them, even off outside my immediate field of view (FOV). This usually worked on first try, although occasionally it would lag. These kinks should be ironed out before their official consumer release, however. 

The Nebula UI uses 3D tracking, courtesy of two SLAM tracking cameras, which live on the outer edge of each lens.There’s also an RGB camera that allows users to share screenshots of what they’re seeing. Meanwhile, the smartphone turned into a controller with 3-degrees of freedom and a trackpad through the app. 

The glasses also have spatial sound speakers for offering 360-degree sound. When I played an AR zombie game and watched some YouTube with the glasses, audio was certainly loud and clear, and I even had to turn it down to properly hear the person next to me.  But I didn’t get to experience how well the surround sound works. 

Although MR glasses are an emerging tech, the learning curve with Nreal Light is very minimal. Within minutes I was easily able to navigate the Nebula UI and its apps, simply because the apps work and look just like they would on an Android phone. An Nreal rep told me that they may make special MR versions of popular apps later this year, but couldn’t get into specifics.

But unlike on my smartphone, apps viewed on Nreal Light looked massive. Nreal says it’s comparable to watching a 200-inch TV with a 52-degree field of view (FOV).

Watching a YouTube video on the glasses was a breeze, even in a partially sunlit room with white walls. We can attribute this to the image’s 1,000 nits brightness and 1080p resolution per eye. The AR image was sharp and strong enough that the white wall and its decorations weren’t visible through the video. Meanwhile, over on the right side I could have another app open, like a gallery that automatically pulls photos from your phone and turns them into a mesmerizing AR experience. It was like having an entire wall as my own private screen. 

Nreal Light can also be used for gaming, with the vendor already featuring 3 games, including Kingdom of Blades, which Nreal’s announcement described as “an MR slicing action game that has gamers slice through and defeat waves of enemies” and Arcade Fight, “an arcade-style side-scrolling fighter game.” I tried my hand at Zombie Bomber AR and used the smartphone’s screen to fling bombs, barrels and even some vegetables and AR zombies crawling and limping toward me. Zombie growls filled my ears, thanks to the speakers, and with the augmented undead being a life-like size, this simple game turned out to be a unique experience. 

A shopping app made with AR developer MESON showed life-size models sporting potential buys and let me twirl them around and see how much their clothing and accessories cost. However, the clothing and models looked like 3D models rather than real, so I think I’d still have to check out a store in person or even look at online photos with a human model before opening my wallet. 

Eventually, Nreal will gain eye tracking from 7invensun, so there’s even more potential for making your eyes says wow.

Unfortunately for iPhone users, Nreal Light is only compatible with Android smartphones, PCs or tablets; however, you can use iPads with screen mirroring. Nreal said it’s working on developing accessories to make it compatible with the iPhone, since iPhones don’t have a USB-C port for connection.

Speaking of connecting to your phone, this may not be as simple as you think. Nreal Light are the only MR glasses with foldable arms. Doing that took some creative engineering in order to avoid having a wire protruding out of the bend. At the hinge, the connecting wire’s structure uses a flexible component, allowing the glasses to hold and store like, well, regular glasses. 

Other considerations include the option of prescription lenses (this will cost extra), swappable, magnetic nosepads and your choice of red, blue, black or white specs. But although the Nreal Light’s looks a lot better than most MR glasses out there, between the reflective lenses and the black strip running on top you still won’t be wearing them on any dates. 

Hundreds of developers already have Nreal Light’s $1,199 developer kit. But regular consumers can pick it up for $499 in “early 2020.” 

Updated, 10/23/19, 5:05am PT: Microsoft released an update to Xbox Game Bar, which you can also use in Windows 10, with support for Achievements, a frame rate counter and other additions outlined in this post. (The features were previously limited to select users; now they appear to be available to anyone using the Windows 10 October 2018 Update or newer.) The Xbox Game Bar can be found in the Microsoft Store.

Original article, 9/23/19, 7:12am PT:

Microsoft still hasn't given up on the Xbox Game Bar. Windows Central reported Friday that an update to the utility introduced an Xbox Achievements overlay and frame rate counter. The update doesn't appear to be available to all Windows 10 users, however, so the features are probably still in testing.

It's been easy to dismiss the Game Bar since its debut as Windows 10 Game Bar. The utility was originally a limited capture tool used to record video or take screenshots while playing a game. Microsoft has steadily expanded the Game bar's usefulness over the last few years, though, with the hope of attracting more attention. The company also rebranded the utility to Xbox Game Bar in May as part of its efforts to unify its game platform and premier operating system.

In April, Microsoft updated the Xbox Game Bar with Spotify integration, chat support and basic photo editing tools. It also introduced a looking for group tool in May that was supposed to make it easier to find people to play a game with. That was a welcome addition--we said at the time that relying on official matchmaking often exposes players to "masses of trolls, throwers and terrible players." Tools like this can help avoid that.

Now the utility's received some oft-requested new features. Windows Central spotted a tweet from Mike Ybarra, the corporate vice president of Xbox Live, Xbox Game Pass and Mixer, highlighting the new features. Ybarra shared a screenshot that showed the Xbox Game Bar's new Achievements overlay, which can be used to "track your progress and see what you've unlocked" while playing a game, as well as a customizable frame rate counter.

Frame rate counters aren't particularly novel, and many games can show the current frame rate by default, but this update shows that Microsoft wants Xbox Game Bar to compete with a whole suite of add-ons. It's not hard to see what the company's going for: Why rely on separate tools for game capture, socializing and displaying frame rate data when Windows 10 ships with a utility that can serve all of those functions and then some?

There are plenty of reasons why people still won't give the Xbox Game Bar a chance after this update. It's hard to convince people to switch from tools that already work, and Xbox Game Bar is a jack of all trades but master of none, which means it can still pale in comparison to specialized tools. But at least now the Xbox Game Bar is more than a glorified capture tool that most people probably wouldn't even think about using while they're gaming.

Xbox Game Bar is available from the Microsoft Store. Once it's installed, it can be invoked in supported titles by pressing Win+G. Like we said at the top, the update doesn't currently work for all Windows 10 users, so don't be surprised if you can't turn on the Achievements overlay right now.

Microsoft announced yesterday that it's updating the Windows 10 Game bar, (which has the most annoying capitalization this side of the Mac mini) with Spotify integration, chat support and other features aimed at making it a PC gaming mainstay rather than an afterthought.

Spotify integration seems like a no-brainer. Many people listen to music while they play games--which explains why so many of our teammates in Overwatch can't hear call-outs--but that can sometimes require a bunch of Alt-Tabbing between windows. The upcoming version of the Game bar will make "play/pause/skip, changing current playback device and selecting playlists recommended for you by Spotify" available in a custom widget, Microsoft said in its announcement. 

Game bar will also incorporate a new Xbox Social widget that offers information about what someone's friends are playing and makes it easy to message them, connect in a voice chat, or watch their stream on Mixer, (which we're sure is every PC gamer's streaming platform of choice, right?). Microsoft said the Xbox Social widget in the Game bar will support cross-platform messaging between iOS, Android and other Windows 10 users.

Microsoft also decided to step up its meme game with new screenshot and video editing features in the Game bar. The utility currently makes it easy to capture what's happening in a game, but it doesn't make it easy to "take this a step further by turning your captured screenshots into memes," as Microsoft put it. The new version of the Game bar will offer basic editing tools, as well as a way to share these dank captures directly to Twitter.

There's no doubt some people will find the Game bar more appealing because of these features. But not everyone's going to want a huge overlay taking up a large portion of their display, especially if there are widgets they never use. So Microsoft decided to add another feature to enable custom overlays. The company said Game bar users will be able to rearrange, pin and hide widgets to get their overlay just how they like it.

A beta version of this Game bar update is currently available to members of the Xbox Insider Program. Accessing it is as easy as launching the Xbox Insider Hub downloaded from the Microsoft Store, hitting Insider Content, picking Windows Gaming and making sure you're enrolled in the beta's flight. (Microsoft said anyone on Windows 10 build #17763 or later should automatically be enrolled.) Then, you just have to invoke the Game bar.

Kaspersky announced this week that it has filed an anti-trust complaint against Apple with the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) over the Apple App Store by banning features from the Kaspersky Safe Kids parental control app. The cybersecurity company accused Apple of issuing the ban only after announcing its own parental control software for iOS users, Screen Time 

According to Kaspersky, it received a notice from Apple last year saying that the configuration profiles of the Kaspersky Safe Kids app were no longer meeting the requirements of App Store’s policies. However, Kaspersky said Apple never had a problem with its application before this.

The removal and general ban of configuration profiles meant the elimination of two key features of Kaspersky’s app, including app control and Safari browser blocking, Kaspersky said. According to the security firm, these features are essential. The first feature allows parents to block apps they don’t want their kids to run. The second one blocks all browsers on the device except for Kaspersky’s kid-safe browser.

Restrictions Following Launch of Apple Screen Time

Kaspersky said Apple blocked the features of its parental control app after launching its own version of a parental control application, Screen Time. Screen Time allows users to set application restrictions, such as when and for how long an app can be used throughout the day.

Kaspersky believes Apple's restrictions to the Safe Kids app following the launch of Screen Time constitutes an abuse of power worthy of an antitrust complaint in Russia. Apple controls the distribution channel for iOS applications and can leverage this power to enter various markets -- in this case, the parental control software market. Kaspersky’s argument is that by banning or crippling competitors, Apple will become a monopoly in this or other markets.

"From our point of view, Apple appears to be using its position as platform owner and supervisor of the sole channel for delivering apps to users of the platform to dictate terms and prevent other developers from operating on equal terms with it. As a result of the new rules, developers of parental control apps may lose some of their users and experience financial impact," Kaspersky said in its blog post, adding that it "repeatedly" tried to contact Apple but did not reach any "meaningful negotiations." 

Reining In On Monopolies

Kaspersky also filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in 2017, accusing it of leveraging monopoly power in the PC market and using questionable tactics to promote its own Windows antivirus software over third-party ones. Eventually, Kaspersky withdrew the complaint.

This month, Spotify filed its own antitrust complaint against Apple in the European Union over the high commission fee Apple charges music streaming service providers. Spotify’s argument is that Apple charges this fee while offering a similar service unimpeded by the samefee. 

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren this month proposed that large companies that become monopolies and own distribution channels should not be allowed to publish their own products on those platforms. The argument is that this incentivizes the platform owners to change the platform’s rules so that their own products are recommended above those of competitors.

The European Commission (EC) charged Google with something similar last year in the Android antitrust case, as well as the Google Shopping antitrust case in 2017. In both of those cases, the EC accused Google of using its leverage over the platform to promote its own products. And this week, the EU hit Google with a  €1.5 billion fine over online advertising practices. 

NEW YORK - The least expected announcement at Microsoft's event today was a pair of headphones. But the Surface team is coming for Bose and other luxury headphone makers with its new pair of cans. The headphones are $349, but release dates were not announced.

In my short time with the Surface Headphones, I found them to be immensely comfortable. The ear cushions felt soft and luxurious, and the 0.6-pound headset felt light on my head. Music streaming from Spotify on a nearby Surface Pro 6 was loud and clear through the 40mm speaker, though the bass could have been slightly more distinct (I look forward to trying the headset when not in an intensely crowded room). My only big issue with the design at first glance is that it only comes in platinum color, like the Surface Pro. I wish it came in the same new black color as the Surface Laptop 2 and Surface Pro 6.

Each cup has a dial; on the right you can adjust the volume, while the left side lets you change the noise cancellation level (up to 30dB for active noise-cancellation, up to 40dB for passive). The ear cups are touch sensitive, and you can use them to invoke Cortana.

Additionally, the headset uses four beam-forming microphones for calls (Microsoft says the Surface Headphones are designed for Skype), and for invoking Cortana, though that didn't work well in the loud press room.

Microsoft is claiming up to 15 hours of battery life on the Surface Headphones. It charges over USB Type-C and uses fast-charging to get an hour of music playback after just five minutes plugged in.

And while the Surface Headphones are designed for Windows 10, it also pairs via Bluetooth with iOS, Android and macOS devices. In the box, there's an attractive gray carrying case and an audio cable for when you want to listen over a wired connection.

Consumer Reports announced that it's developed a standard to help consumers know if a product respects their privacy and protects their data. The publication said it also plans to take this standard into account when it reviews products in the future. Given the company's influence, this move could persuade manufacturers to finally take seriously the security of their customers instead of treating it like an afterthought or simply ignoring it outright.

The announcement comes after many products have been revealed to be insecure. Internet-connected stuffed animals from CloudPets made it easy to collect email addresses, voice recordings, and other data from children and their families; Internet of Things (IoT) products were used to knock major websites like Twitter and Spotify offline; and several IoT cameras have sported vulnerabilities that could be exploited to snoop on unwitting consumers.

These problems have done little to convince manufacturers that privacy and security ought to be a primary concern for any internet-connected devices. Some companies have partnered up to share threat information and develop best practices for IoT products, and Senator Mark Warner has called on federal agencies to figure out how to defend against cyberattacks involving those devices, but another vulnerability is always waiting to be found.

Consumer Reports could help make a difference here. The magazine has been running since 1936. Here's what the company said about its decision to develop this standard in its announcement:

Standards and test protocols to evaluate products can be created by government agencies, but they don’t always have to be, especially if the government is not adequately addressing a problem in the marketplace. Consumer Reports has plenty of experience working with and advocating for stronger standards for all manner of products. We pushed hard for and provided scientific input on the development of dynamic rollover tests now used by the government to evaluate all cars, including SUVs. We also develop our own protocols when we believe existing standards are not going far enough to protect consumers. The safety protocol we developed for doing comparative crash-testing on child car seats was designed to reflect consumers' real-world experiences better than government tests, and it has spurred a lot of productive dialogue with manufacturers.We are now turning this type of focus to privacy. If Consumer Reports and other public-interest organizations create a reasonable standard and let people know which products do the best job of meeting it, consumer pressure and choices can change the marketplace. We’ve seen this repeatedly over our 80-year history.

Consumer Reports said the standard focuses on a few basic ideas:

1. Products should be built to be secure.
2. Products should preserve consumer privacy.
3. Products should protect the idea of ownership.
4. Companies should act ethically.

Those are just the broad strokes of the standard. Consumer Reports worked with Disconnect, Ranking Digital Rights, and the Cyber Independent Testing Lab on the standard. All of those organizations--two of them, Ranking Digital Rights and the Cyber Independent Testing Lab, are nonprofits--are devoted to helping consumers protect their privacy and security. The groups worked together over the course of several months to develop the new standard.

Work on the standard was funded by the Craig Newmark Foundation and Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, as well as the Ford Foundation. Consumer Reports released the standard in a public document while "inviting others to give us feedback, add their own ideas, and make the standard better." If the standard catches on, manufacturers could finally be held accountable for the influence they hold over many people's digital privacy and security.

Or, at least, it will be easier for publications like Consumer Reports to warn consumers when a product isn't safe to use. Many people have already shown that they aren't going to protect themselves--perhaps warnings from Consumer Reports and other influential outlets will help them stay safe even if they can't or won't follow security best practices.

Thanks to adoption from Google and Rackspace, IBM’s Power9 CPU could begin making a dent into the server chip market currently dominated by Intel. The partnership with Nvidia should also help IBM’s Power9 become popular in servers, as well as supercomputers.

Google, Rackspace To Use Power9-Based Servers

Google and Rackspace announced recently that they will be working on a new open architecture for data center servers that will be based on IBM’s upcoming Power9 CPU. Google joined the OpenPower Foundation in 2014, along with IBM, Nvidia and other companies looking to develop servers based on IBM’s OpenPower chips.

The new data center server specification is designed to fit into Facebook’s 48V open rack that Google has been helping design as part of the Open Compute Project, which is meant to standardize IT infrastructure.

Google has been a rather late entrant in a cloud computing market dominated by Amazon. However, it has lately scored some big contracts from companies such as Spotify and Apple. This should show other potential customers that Google now has a serious cloud computing business that’s likely only going to grow and mature.

Reducing Reliance On Intel

Right now, Intel dominates the server chip market almost completely, with 99 percent market share. When a company dominates any market to such a degree, that’s usually not a good sign for the customers, no matter how benevolent and reasonable said supplier has been in the past.

Google has recently shown some signs that it wants to diversify its chip suppliers. The company is now looking not just at the OpenPower architecture as a way to increase competition in the server chip market, but also at RISC-V, the new instruction set architecture that’s fully open source.

The two architectures likely won’t overlap too much for the time being, as RISC-V should become more of an ARM competitor in the medium term. Meanwhile, OpenPower is ready to become a serious competitor to Intel, starting with the Power9 CPU that’s due for release next year.

Nvidia Goes All-In With OpenPower

IBM, Nvidia and Wistron recently announced a new high-performance computing platform for servers based on IBM’s Power8 CPU and Nvidia’s latest Tesla P100, which is the company’s most powerful GPU yet.

Nvidia seems at least as committed to switching to a new CPU architecture as Google is, because Intel has been locking it out of various markets for years now. Intel did it first by bundling its GPUs with its CPUs in notebooks, making dedicated graphics cards less and less relevant in mainstream systems. Then Intel used the same strategy against Nvidia for supercomputers, where it started replacing Nvidia’s GPUs with its own Phi accelerators.

This is likely why we’ve seen Nvidia aggressively adopt ARM CPUs in its mobile chips, even making its own custom “Denver” core. The company is now partnering with IBM to combine OpenPower CPUs with its own GPUs so it doesn't have to worry about Intel anymore when selling its chips to customers.

Power9, The Game Changer

With Power9 right around the corner and with both Google and Rackspace promising to adopt it soon, Nvidia and IBM’s Power8-based chip likely won’t get too much traction this year. However, starting next year, we may see Power9-based chips make a dent into Intel’s market share in both the server and the supercomputer markets.

The Power9 CPU will be built on a 14nm FinFET process co-developed by IBM with Global Foundries. It will have on-chip accelerators and “extreme” optimization for analytics and “big data,” making it well suited for data centers and supercomputers. The Power9 CPU combined with Nvidia’s deep learning-optimized GPUs should also be well received by companies that are looking for fast AI training (such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.).

Back in November 2014, Nvidia and IBM had already landed a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to build two new supercomputers, one 100+ PFLOPS (5x more powerful than the one it replaced), and another called Summit that will have 150-300 PFLOPS and should be the most powerful supercomputer in the world when it launches.

Summit will displace China’s Tianhe-2 (34 PFLOPS), which uses Intel’s Xeon Phi processors, as the most powerful supercomputer in the world. Summit, which is supposed to come out in 2017, may even be more powerful than Intel's and Cray's 2018 Aurora supercomputer. Aurora was also contracted by the DOE and will have a performance of only 180 PFLOPS.

If IBM and its partners (mainly Google and Nvidia) can keep pushing the performance and adoption of OpenPower chips, then the OpenPower architecture may make a strong comeback in both the server and the supercomputer markets in the next few years, giving Intel a run for its money.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Last year, Google launched the "Google Play Music All Access" music streaming service, which was similar to Spotify. However, there wasn't any free version of it like you can get with Spotify, but Google has now announced a free tier as well for "curated" music playlists, enabled by the Songza acquisition from last year.

Google's ad-supported curated music service is essentially a "radio-like" service where you listen to music that was chosen for you. This may not be as good as being able to select your own songs to play, but the service is free as long as you are willing to listen to a few ads every few songs. Also, some users may like that there's still that serendipity factor that makes listening to music more interesting and engaging than knowing ahead of time exactly what song is going to play.

Google will still allow users to choose a "type" of music they like, such as music for driving, working out, having fun at work, unwinding and so on. Google is still trailing Spotify's service here, which allows users to choose any song they want, even with the free version of the service.

Google's ad-supported service also doesn't have live radio broadcasts like Apple Music, or DJs who can introduce users to new artists. Most people may not care about that, though, and may just want a more "lean back" experience. Songza was getting great reviews for this type of curated service before Google acquired it, so if Google can maintain that momentum, the new service might become quite compelling. It also doesn't cost anything to try it.

Google hopes that by getting hooked on the ad-supported music service, you'll eventually want to sign up for the $10 per month paid service, wherein you can choose your own songs from the 30 million available. You also won't have to listen to any ads, you can store the songs offline, and you'll be able to play YouTube video songs in the background.

Unfortunately, Google's new ad-supported music service is U.S.-only right now and probably will be for a while until the search giant gets the rights to stream this type of service in other countries. It didn't take Google too long to push Google Play Music All Access into most countries, so it's possible this won't take too long either, especially considering it's only a subset of the main service.

The free ad-supported service is now available on the web. Android and iOS apps will be rolling out this week, according to Google.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Apple announced iOS 9, Mac OS X El Capitan, WatchOS 2, Apple Music, and new developer tools today at its annual World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. Almost all of these were expected, and while there were plenty of new goodies in the operating system upgrades, Apple made the biggest deal about its new Music service, perhaps described best as a combination of iTunes and Spotify, with a few little human twists.

Apple drove the point home with appearances by Jimmy Iovine, an endorsement speech from Drake, and a live performance of a brand-new song from The Weekend. Interestingly, Apple also announced that Music, coming to iOS 8.4 later this month, would be available in Android in the Fall.  

Two of the more intriguing, but less flashy aspects of what Apple announced today, at least from a consumer standpoint, were developer focused: the migration of Metal to OS X and making Swift open source.

While Apple Music took over, there were some solid useability enhancements announced for OS X and iOS, and many of those changes continue to bring the Apple desktop/laptop and mobile ecosystems closer together in functionality and features, much as we're seeing Microsoft doing with Windows 10 on the desktop and mobile.

Both Microsoft and Apple continue to work hard to create compelling user experiences across devices, extended now to the wrist and into the home and health, with a push to insist we completely buy into their ecosystems.

iOS 9

Let's start with mobile. Apple announced iOS 9, which includes some enhancements to Siri, to search, and to some of the underlying technologies that impact the mobile device, including battery life, performance, and enhanced security. On the software side, Apple Pay gets some changes, as does the Notes app and Maps, and there's a new application called News.

One popular and expected feature of iOS involves multitasking. Double tapping the home button brings in a task switcher, where you can get an app preview, all on one screen, and move through them. If you're in an app, you can do a single finger swipe, which Apple calls Slide Over, and a second window appears and is fully interactive. You can swipe down from the top and showcase and bring in other apps. You can tap on the divider between windows, and it creates a split view (50-50 screen sharing), with both windows being fully active. All other gestures still work.

One demo brought up the Watch ESPN app, into a full video feed, and when launching email, that app resized and became picture in picture (PIP). The PIP could be moved and resized.

Apple said that it was providing the APIs to make all of this available to developers, and that the work to make use of it will be trivial for most developers.

The Slide Over feature and PIP work on iPad Air, Air 2, Mini 2, and Mini 3. The split view is only available on the iPad Air 2.

Siri, which Apple software VP Craig Federighi said, oddly, had "become quietly popular" with over one billion requests per week, had improved its word error rate down to 5 percent and was now 40 percent faster, though he didn't exactly say at what. Improvements include more specific requests, such as asking for photos by time and place; and more contextual awareness, like being able to ask Siri to remind you about "this," where Siri understands what "this" is (say, a web page, or an email).

Siri is also more aware of its surroundings and of your habits, and can become what Federighi said was a proactive assistant. Siri knows what you listen to when you run, or when you're in a car. Siri can automatically accept and schedule invitations, including reminders for those events, and she can take traffic into account. She can take a guess at who is calling you from an unknown number — although he didn't say how she was doing this, and clearly this isn't going to work for blocked numbers.

Search is also enhanced in iOS 9, making suggestions based on certain pieces of information it has, like who you might want to contact, or apps you tend to use at certain times of the day. 

Swipe to left to get to search, and you'll get suggestions of people you might want to contact based on upcoming meetings; of apps you tend to use this time of day; and one tap access to places nearby. Apple said that search has more information, but much of this is coming from Microsoft Bing, which is the power behind Apple's search functionality. What Apple has added is an API for search, so app developers can expose app content to Apple search, and so that the content is deeply linked within the application.

All of this intelligence, Apple promised, does not invade our privacy. Apple doesn't mine photos, searches are anonymous and not associated with your Apple ID, meta data remains on the device, and identification is randomized and not shared with third parties.

Federighi glossed over many of the underlying changes to iOS 9. He mentioned extended battery life, improved performance and enhanced security. For security, he mentioned two factor authentication, but didn't provide much context beyond that. iOS 9 will have a settings feature that switches the device to low power mode, saving an additional three hours of battery life, Federighi said; this is a feature common on many Android phones today.

Other enhancements continue to come from reduced overhead in core animation and graphics thanks to Metal, Apple's lower-level API for iOS, announced during last year's WWDC.

On the software side, Apple Pay is adding more bank and merchant support, and it will be a new feature of a new Square reader available this Fall. It will also be a part of a new feature coming from Pinterest, called Buyable Pins — which is really just as it sounds, assuming you know or care what Pinterest is, you social luddites! Apple Pay is also coming to the UK in July, with support from many banks and merchants, including the Underground (London subway).

Apple is also renaming its Passbook service, which stored reward and credit cards, along with other items such as airline or train tickets. It is now called Wallet, not to be confused with Google Wallet, which has now become, in part, Android Pay.  

How did I get down that rabbit hole?

More iOS changes include an enhanced Notes app, including the ability to do more formatting such as creating checklists, creating finger sketches, and adding items from other apps. Maps now includes a public transit option, with specificity on station information, including exact entrance and exit locations. This will be available in more than 300 cities around the world, and Siri will also make use of it, as will Apple Pay (the location cards will tell you if the destination takes Apple Pay).

Finally, iOS 9 on the iPad has a few QuickType keyboard enhancements, including shortcuts for the suggestion bar, tools to cut/copy/paste, and various formatting options. Best of all, put two fingers on the keyboard and it becomes a trackpad. Thank goodness!

OS X El Capitan

With iOS 8, Apple introduced Continuity, which was a way of keeping experiences alive across Apple devices. In the newest version of OS X, called El Capitan, there are several features that bring the user experience between mobile and desktop/laptop together more tightly.

For example, in the Mail app, you can swipe your messages to keep or delete, as you would on an iOS device.

Apple is also bringing Metal to OS X. Metal brings developers closer to the hardware, specifically to the GPU, allowing developers to accelerate graphics and gaming, alleviating some of the overhead of OpenGL and OpenCL. Apple claimed that it can enhance rendering performance up to 50 percent and CPU performance by as much as 40 percent, all the while helping with battery life.

Adobe, Apple reported, has seen an 8x improvement in rendering effects in After Effects, and vast improvements (10x) in Illustrator's drawing engine.

Epic Games was on hand to showcase Fortnite, a doomsday multiplayer game running entirely on Metal, which is now baked into the Unreal Engine. The demonstration showed off the complex render effects, the detailed lighting, shadows, and shading. In one demonstration, the game was able to change its time of day view on the fly, with visible smoothness.

Apple said that this is also being adopted by The Foundry and Autodesk, so we'll see some of these improvements come to the professional side as well.

There was the usual bevy of user experience enhancements. There's a gigantic cursor upon waking up the Mac, the ability to Pin sites in Safari, and — Tom's Hardware readers afflicted with badly behaving audio ads might like this — the ability to mute a tab that suddenly begins playing out loud (and to quickly identify which tab it is).  

The Spotlight Search feature is also enhanced to find what you need in more natural and contextual language. One example Federighi demonstrated was searching for "mail ignored from Phil [Schiller, Apple's marketing chief]." Or "documents I worked on last June."

Apple has attempted to make windows management easier, with a new mission control interface. You can work on two windows side-by-side in a split screen. You can click and hold the green expand button on a window and drag it, and snap it to another window. If you're working in Mail in full screen, you can click away on an email you're composing to see an incoming message, and you can open up tabs in the compose window. You can drag windows up to the spaces bar, and even drag a window into a desktop view with an app already buried in it, and create a split view.

This is the nitty gritty UI stuff that Apple gets obsessed with, and that its power users really love.

And, of course, it's all faster, Federighi said.

WatchOS

Let me preface this by saying I'm not yet a wearables convert. But Apple continues to move the Watch quickly into its ecosystem of devices, bringing its learnings from iOS into the fold. Apple CEO Tim Cook prefaced his Watch remarks by pointing out how the Apple app store began only seven years ago, but has surpassed 100 billion app downloads. "It has forever changed software distribution," he said, in one of those bits of hyperbole that, for me at least, actually rings true.

And so, Apple wants to wash/rinse/repeat for the Watch, and WatchOS 2 is a step in that direction because Apple's stated goal here is to bring native applications to the watch, rather than having them all tethered through an iPhone.

What follows is a mixture of items being exposed for developers and features Apple is adding in the new version of the OS. For example, Apple has made a big deal about Watch being a watch, with many clock face concepts, and now Watch users can make a clock face using a photo; use a photo album and it changes photos every time you raise your wrist. Apple has also created a 24-hour timelapse from around the world, and that timelapse will actually be time-relevant — that is, it will look like 7 pm somewhere when it's 7 pm.

In watch parlance, a complication is any detail beyond hours and minutes, and Apple is letting developers make their own complications. Apple showed some examples, like flight and gate information, home control system information, and scores from the MLB app.

Apple has also added what it called Time Travel to the watch, which is the ability to rotate the crown to go forward in time to pull up information for the future, like weather, or your calendar appointments.

There were many more features, including the ability to reply to email, to conduct Facetime audio calls, and to bring native fitness apps into the overall Watch activity center. Apple Pay and Wallet will also be included, as will the new transit capability in Maps. You'll also be able to access HomeKit devices.

Developers will have access to the microphone, audio playback, video playback, HealthKit, HomeKit, the accelerometer, the taptic engine, and the use of the digital crown for input control.

Apple Music

Apple Music, powered by Apple's $3 billion acquisition of Beats last year, was the least surprising surprise of all, given leaks of the service by Sony's CEO the evening before.  

Ironically, I saw both Jimmy Iovine and Trent Reznor on a recent visit to Apple. Perhaps my sleuthing skills are eluding me these days. Iovine discussed the disruption that the music industry went through back in 2003, before iTunes, and compared today's landscape to that time, pointing to all of the streaming services, video services, and social media sites. "Let's build a better ecosystem," Iovine said he told Apple.

Thus, Apple Music, a combination of a music catalog for streaming music from iTunes, a 24-hour global radio station called Beats1, and Connect, which is a platform for promising and unknown artists to showcase their goods. Iovine said that the music service isn't based solely on algorithms, clearly a knock on Spotify and Pandora, but is curated by leading music experts whom Apple has hand picked.

The streaming service is a combination of the songs you've purchased and playlists you've made, with new music recommendations, personalization based on your tastes (partly your own input, and partly based on what it sees you listening to), and recommended and thematic playlists, much like other services.

Iovene painted Beats1 as Trent Reznor's idea, and it is broadcast in New York, Los Angeles and London.

The price is consistent with competitive services (namely Spotify) at $9.99 per month. Apple offers a family plan, allowing up to six members at a total price of $14.99; for this, everyone gets their own account, library and recommendations, eliminating some of the confusion from doing this in iTunes. Apple is giving away the first three months for free. It will be in iOS 8.4 later this month, and on Android by the Fall.  

Apple's Iovine and Eddie Cue sprang many accolades on us: "great music without restrictions," and "just music that is great and feels great," and "only one master, music itself." The Connect service, populated today with music and lyric notes from the likes of Chris Cornell, Bastille, and Alabama Shakes, will test the limits of a lofty-sounding ideal.

Apple's advantage is that its music applications and services are so widely used. We'll see if its subscription model can be just as dominant.

And All That Other Stuff

This is a developer conference, after all, and there were a number of announcements around new tools and kits. Most significantly, Apple announced Swift 2. Swift is the development kit for iOS, Mac OS and WatchOS. Swift 2 will offer many new features, including faster compiling, better error handling, and, in an announcement that seemed to stun the developers in the crowd, Apple is making it open source.

Apple didn't have as much to say about HomeKit and HealthKit, but HealthKit does get a few added metrics such as hydration, UV exposure, and data related to reproductive health.

HomeKit includes enhancements for windows shades, motion sensors, third party security systems and carbon monoxide sensors. You can also access your HomeKit devices via iCloud.

We hope to hear more about HomeKit in the future.

Final Grades

That's quite a bit. No bright and shiny hardware, and a million tweaks under the hood. Two hours of everything but the kitchen sink. It's always easy to get caught up in the vortex of these events, no matter who is putting them on. Every executive presenting asks "Isn't this cool?" And promises "You're really going to love this."

Why shouldn't they? These are their projects, their life's work. All companies who put on conferences people the crowd with employees, who are prompted to applaud at each itty bitty reveal, and the keynote at WWDC 2015 was no exception. 

I'll give Apple a "B" for volume announcements and an "A" for showmanship. As for substance, it's an incomplete until we can see some of this in action.

Follow Fritz Nelson @fnelson. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Android Auto, Google's answer to Apple's CarPlay system, gives drivers the ability to use the mobile software as a GPS, answer calls, respond to messages, and even listen to music. Today, Google announced that users can install Android Auto in their vehicles, so long as their mobile device is running Android Lollipop 5.0.

However, there is a catch. Even if your car is one of the many brands that supports the feature, you will need to install a Pioneer screen unit to get it working. At the moment, only three models are available in the United States. The least expensive model will cost you $700, and the highest-end model is a staggering $1,400.

Those living in the UK also have three models available, while customers in Australia only have two. Pioneer will also bring devices for countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Mexico and India in the future. Google also mentioned that Pioneer isn't an exclusive partner, and that it will announce more partners later this year.

Android Auto claims to be made with safety in mind so that users won't be distracted while driving. It works by attaching your mobile device to the car via USB, and activating your phone's Bluetooth and Notifications to answer calls and receive notifications for messages, songs, and directions.

Although the interface is touch-based, you can issue most of the commands through voice by pressing the microphone icon at the top right of the screen. You can then issue voice commands to find a route to a location, respond to someone's text message, make a phone call, and bring up your favorite songs. Additionally, the platform also includes a few apps such as Spotify, Skype, and NPR One.

Google seems to be on the right track with Android Auto, not just by making it work with the latest version of Android, but also by the number of car manufacturers that support the feature. These include Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Mitsubishi and Nissan, just to name a few. We wouldn't mind seeing some of them throw in the cost of adding one of those Pioneer units for Android Auto, as the price is still a bit steep.

Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

The Financial Times reports that Apple is offering $3.2 billion USD to acquire Beats Electronics LLC, the audio company founded in 2006 by hip-hop producer Dr. Dre and Interscope-Geffen-A&M Records chairman Jimmy Iovine. Sources claim that the deal is expected to be announced as early as next week, but they also caution that there are still some issues to iron out, and the deal could possibly fall apart.

According to the report, a finalized deal means that Apple will acquire Beats’ just-launched Beats Audio streaming music service, and the company’s audio equipment arm, which includes branded headphones and other audio products. The Beats management team will also report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Apple already sells Beats audio products in its Apple stores.

Rumors of Apple jumping into the streaming subscription business have been around for years, but so far the company is only relying on the sales of its music sold through iTunes. Meanwhile competitors have sprouted up such as Spotify and even Google’s own All-Access on Google Play Music, showing that customers are willing to spend a monthly fee for an all-you-can-eat music buffet. The subscription service market raked in $1.1B in 2013, according to a recent report by the IFPI.

In September 2013, Apple launched iTunes Radio, an ad-supported service available to iTunes customers. Like Pandora, users can skip a limited numbers of tracks, create stations and purchase music from those stations in the iTunes Store. Apple also has an iTunes Match service, which for a monthly fee will match the customer’s non-ITunes library with high-quality audio files. These subscribers can get iTunes Radio without ads.

So far Apple has not launched an unlimited music subscription, which is why the deal with Beats Electronics seems more like a definite deal instead of unnamed sources blowing smoke. HTC originally purchased 50.1 percent of Beats back in August 2011, but sold half of that back to Beats in July 2012, and the other half in September 2013. Beats Audio was then launched in January 2014, a service that HTC originally wanted exclusively to rival other phone manufacturers.

If the talks is true and Apple acquires Beats Electronics, the company will have more control over the accessories it sells in the brick-and-mortar stores not to mention an already-established music subscription service. According to Apple executives, the Apple brand needs a revamp anyway.

Both Apple and Beats have declined to comment.

According to research firm Mintel, sales of MP3 players have dramatically decreased this year due to the emergence of smartphones.

Sales of MP3 players dropped by almost $177 million, or 22 percent, to $613 million this year when compared to figures from 2011. Mintel believes that sales will halve again by 2017. In its "worst case" scenario, it foresees that sales of MP3 players could decrease to $40 million within five years.

The popularity of smartphones, which performs the same functions and also offers the ability to make telephone calls, connect to the internet and access apps, in recent years (especially during 2012) has diminished the need for MP3 player functionality, which makes owning an iPod unnecessary.

By the autumn of 2010, around 275 million iPods had been sold globally. However, Samuel Gee, a technology analyst at Mintel, said that the decline in MP3 sales is "unlikely to reverse".

"It is impossible to talk about the current PMP market without extensive reference to smartphones. The devices have directly contributed to the sharp decline in the value of PMP sales."

He continued on to say that MP3 players are being "steadily outshone" by affordable new technologies including smartphones. Ian Fogg, a technology analyst at research company IHS, added that smartphones are becoming as popular as the iPod once was.

Apple recently confirmed that it had sold 5.3 million iPods globally within its most recent financial quarter, representing a decrease of 19 percent when compared to the same period in 2011.

"The convenience of a smartphone is greater than an MP3 player because it is always with someone. It also provides more choice of mobile music because someone can play back their own music – as they can on a MP3 player – but they can also access other music services like Last FM or Spotify. Therefore there is a greater choice of music available."

According to figures released in October, more than one billion smartphones have been purchased globally. Consulting firm Strategy Analytics said that increasing demand for smartphones is likely to increase that figure to over two billion within the next three years.

During the third quarter of 2012, smart-connected devices (PCs, smartphones and tablets) shipped 303.6 million units.

_{Contact Us for News Tips, Corrections and Feedback}

Despite the fact that it's still not available in the United States, the popularity of BBC's iPlayer is undeniable. Launched on Launched on December 25 four years ago, the catch-up service has been hugely successful. Now it seems the BBC is looking to expand upon the success of iPlayer and enter the music streaming business. 

According to the Daily Telegraph, the service will be called Playlister and will offer license fee payers access to hundreds of thousands of music recordings for free. That's right, similar to the gloriously free BBC iPlayer, those living in the UK with a valid TV license won't have to pay a penny more for this new service, either. 

Though the details are still be worked out, the BBC is said to be in talks with Spotify, Deezer and Apple’s iTunes in an effort to overcome the issue of rights deals with music companies. Tim Davie, the BBC’s director of Audio & Music, is said to be in charge of the project, which will apparently resemble Spotify and is scheduled for launch early next year.

_{Follow @JaneMcEntegart on Twitter.}                     

_{Contact Us for News Tips, Corrections and Feedback}           

Thursday Western Digital introduced a new model in its WD TV Live streaming media player lineup that features Wi-Fi connectivity. Now consumers can stream the latest hit movies, TV shows, music and online services from the likes of Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora and YouTube to an HDTV without having to be physically connected to a local network.

In addition to the new media player, WD also introduced an updated WD TV Live Hub, which provides 1 TB of HDD space for storing and streaming local personal content. However both models include a new intuitive user interface, access to the Dailymotion video service, and access to the recently-launched Spotify music service, allowing Premium Spotify subscribers to stream over 15 million songs in excellent sound quality (available in up to 320 kbps) to their home entertainment system.

"WD incorporates Spotify's popular features in the new service, including the ability to create and manage Spotify playlists, share songs to Spotify friends, and see and subscribe to friends' playlists via their Spotify profiles," WD said. "Users can also share tracks by sending songs directly to other Spotify users' inboxes. Spotify for WD TV Live and WD TV Live Hub delivers an exciting new way to enjoy and share music on the best sound system in your home."

Both the WD TV Live player and the WD TV Live Hub support a wide range of file formats, allowing users to stream personal content like photos, video and music from any connected USB drive, digital camcorder or camera, network drive, and any networked PC or Mac in the home. Both also support Full-HD 1080p video resolution, but only the WD TV Live player offers 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity -- the Hub still depends on an Ethernet connection. The Hub however is capable of multi-room streaming to any DNLA device on the network.

"WD is committed to providing our customers with a premium entertainment experience that includes seamless streaming of personal media and the best of the Internet directly to the highest quality screen and sound system in the home," said Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager for WD's Branded Products and Consumer Electronics groups. "By marrying advanced features of the new wireless WD TV Live with quality content from service providers, including a first of its kind service with Spotify, we are excited to deliver on that commitment."

The new WD TV Live player can be purchased at select retailers worldwide and online at wdstore.com for $99.99 USD. The Hub is $100 more, costing $199.99 USD.