Spotify's Free Mobile Offering Everything You Need to Know

Spotify on Wednesday expanded the free tier of its service to all devices, including smartphones and tablets.

In the past, free Spotify users could only access Spotify Radio on mobile devices and tablets, but like other radio services, this prevented them from listening to a specific artist or music in their own playlists. The new offering expands on-demand listening to free users on tablets, and allows smartphone users to listen to their own playlists or music from a specific artist in shuffle mode.

Spotify created the following chart, which shows the access options that users have:

When it comes to specifics on how everything works, it becomes a bit more complicated. Fortunately, Mashable spoke with Charlie Hellman, Spotify's vice president of product, who broke down the company's new mobile offering.

Can Free Users Listen to Any Song They Want on Mobile and Tablet?

You can listen to any song you want, and in any order, if you use Spotify on a tablet. On iOS, this means the iPad or iPad mini. On Android, Spotify is setting 7-inches in diagonal as the screen minimum for tablets. The app will determine which version of the experience you see in Android.

On the tablet, the play-on-demand feature works the same as it does on desktop. You will have ads every five to six songs, and you can't save playlists for offline listening. Spotify decided to treat the tablet as a desktop after observing how people use the product.

In a post-PC world, the tablet is increasingly becoming the main home computer for many consumers, including Spotify users; for that reason, the company chose to make the experience on-par with what you'd get on the desktop.

On smartphones, only Spotify Premium users have the option to listen to specific songs on-demand.

How Does Free Listening on Mobile Work?

Although Spotify doesn't offer free on-demand listening via mobile, it has substantially expanded the types of music you can listen to, and how you can listen to them.

You can now listen to music from any artist in "shuffle" mode; this means you can search for an artist, then instantly listen to a station that only features that particular artist. It's a big switch from typical online radio services, such as Pandora and iTunes Radio, which may let you create a station around an artist, but wind up having other artists in the mix, too.

What's more, you can listen to your own Spotify playlists in shuffle mode. Be aware, however, that there are a few rules about how they work.

What Are the Rules for Free Shuffle Mode?

Your playlists will need to meet several parameters to work in free shuffle mode. (Don't worry, Spotify will automatically fill out your playlist if it doesn't meet these requirements.)

They include:

• A playlist must have at least 20 songs
• A playlist must consist of at least three albums
• Even if you list the same track 20 times in a row, it still only counts as one

Spotify said the vast majority of playlists have more than 20 songs, and include many different artists. Although this means you can't listen exclusively to a shuffled mix of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, you can listen to Rolling Stone's playlist for its top 100 tracks of 2013.

Plus, as long as you add a few songs from other albums to your Random Access Memoriesplaylist, you'll be guaranteed to hear the whole album during your listening session.

How Is This Better Than Pandora, Songza or iTunes Radio?

The biggest change is that you can choose to only listen to a specific artist — something the other services don't offer. What's more, you can listen to playlists you create.

Songza is a playlist-oriented Internet radio product, but its licensing rules mean that users can't listen to playlists they create themselves.

This is also true for other streaming services that offer access to curated playlists. Usually, it's fine, especially when users are passively listening to tunes. Where it becomes problematic is if you've collected a bunch of tracks for an event, such as a holiday party. What's the point of having the ultimate holiday playlist if you can't even play it back on your own device?

Can Free Users Create Playlists on Mobile?

Yes. Free users can create their own playlists or add songs to existing playlists in the app; this means if you want to add a track from Spotify Discover to an existing playlist, you can do so without having to worry. You can also create new playlists with music or artists you come across.

How Do Ads Work on Mobile and Tablet?

Just as they do on the desktop and within Spotify Radio now. Interruptions and ads will come every five to six songs.

Should I Bother Paying for Spotify Premium?

This will totally depend on how you listen to music. If you mostly listen to playlists while on your phone, and avoid selecting albums and tracks, you may not feel the need to pay for Spotify Premium. What's more, if you use an iPad or Android tablet for most of your listening, you no longer need to pay to play any song you want.

Still, Spotify Premium continues to have advantages. On the smartphone side, the biggest advantage is that you don't have to deal with ads, and you can save music for offline listening; this is really useful when on an airplane or the subway. Spotify Premium users can also stream audio in higher quality, so if you're an audiophile (at least in the context of streaming music), you get higher fidelity sound.

Spotify told Mashable that getting rid of ads and offline playback are actually the two biggest reasons users upgrade to Spotify Premium. The goal of the new Spotify freemium offering is to encourage users to listen to as much music as possible.

"We've found that the more stuff we give users, the more users are willing to pay us," Hellman said. It's a good point. I know I have personally found that the value in subscription music services really shows itself the more I use it. Having more mobile listeners gives Spotify a chance to convert more of those listeners into Premium subscribers.

How Do I Get Started Using the Free Mobile Offering?

Make sure you are running the latest version of Spotify for iOS or Android, and the option is available now. For free users, browsing artists or accessing your playlists will show an option to "Shuffle Play."

On Android tablets and the iPad, you now have the ability to listen to any track you want at will.

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Dell Chromebook 11 Offers 10 Hours of Battery

Google has announced the launch of a new Chromebook device, aimed primarily at students — the Dell Chromebook 11.

Besides 10 hours of battery time, the Dell Chromebook 11 boasts an 8.4 second boot time, an Intel Celeron 2955U processor and a 16GB SSD for storage.

The resolution of the 11.6-inch screen is 1366x768 pixels, powered by Intel HD graphics. On the connectivity side, the device offers Wi-Fi, two USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth 4.0 and an HDMI port.

The Dell Chromebook 11 will be available in two versions: one with 4GB and another with 2GB of memory, but both will be priced under $300, Google claims. The more powerful of the two will become available in January 2014, while the 2GB version is coming sometime in Q1 2014.

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Gmail Will Never Ask You to Display Images Below

Gmail will no longer wait for your permission to "display images below."

Google rolled out improvements to how Gmail handles images on Thursday, specifically related to its automatic display of pictures within emails. From now on, you'll never see that pesky prompt again.

The message was initially aimed to protect Gmail users from unknown senders who may try to compromise the security of your computer or mobile device using images.

Now, all images are checked for viruses and malware ahead of time, so it doesn't matter whether the picture came from someone you know. Google is now serving images through its own secure proxy servers, instead of directly from external host servers.

Users who still want to give Google an OK before viewing an image can select the “Ask before displaying external images” under the general tab in settings.

The update is available on the desktop version of Gmail on Thursday and will come to mobile apps in early 2014.

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Hackers Compromise 2 Million Facebook, Twitter and Gmail Accounts

More than 2 million anecdotes have been compromised from popular sites such as Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn after malware apprehended login credentials from users worldwide, according to a new report.

According to world wide world wide web security firm Trustwave, hackers have stolen login usernames and passwords across diverse sites in the past month with the help of Pony malware, a bit different than a usual breach.

"Although these are accounts for online services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google, this is not the result of any flaw in those businesses networks," said Abby Ross, a spokesperson for Trustwave. "Individual users had the malware established on their machines and had their passwords stolen. Pony robs passwords that are retained on the infected users' computers Pony steals passwords that are retained on the infected users' computers as well as by apprehending them when they are utilised to log into world wide web services."

whereas the culprit behind the hack continues unidentified, Trustwave wrote on its blog that two targets were Russian-speaking communal networking sites (vk.com and odnoklassniki.ru), which could sign at the virus' source.

"The malware was configured so that the most of the credential data was sent to a server in the Netherlands," Ross said. "The server does not display from which nations the data came from so we cannot shatter down exactly how numerous users from each homeland were affected. although, we can affirm the attackers aimed at users worldwide encompassing in the U.S., Germany, Singapore, Thailand and others."

It's furthermore significant to note that the thieved credentials were not ever publicly posted online. Trustwave researchers were adept to get access to a command and command server utilised by the Pony botnet and recovered the passwords from there.

"We have come to out to the foremost service providers influenced and they are taking steps to announce their users or remediate the compromised accounts," Ross told Mashable.

Facebook accounted for about 57% of the compromised anecdotes, pursued by Yahoo (10%), Google (9%) and Twitter (3%).

A Facebook spokesperson notified Mashable the business has currently come to out to those with compromised anecdotes.

"While minutia of this case are not yet clear, it seems that people’s computers may have been assaulted by hackers utilising malware to scrape information directly from their world wide web browsers," a Facebook spokesperson notified Mashable. "As a precaution, we've initiated a password reset for persons whose passwords were exposed." "As a precaution, we've started a password reset for persons whose passwords were exposed."

Facebook supplemented that its users can protect themselves when using the location by activating login acceptances and login notifications in their security backgrounds.

"[These users] will be notified when anyone endeavours to access their account from an unrecognized browser and new logins will need a exclusive passcode developed on their mobile phone," the Facebook spokesperson said.

Yahoo furthermore said it implemented password resets on accounts to defend users.

"It’s expected that [user] schemes had out-of-date browsers or operating systems," a Yahoo spokesperson said.
We advocate our users to keep their schemes and submissions revised, frequently run anti-virus software and not establish programs from untrusted causes. We furthermore encourage our users to set up second sign-in verification so they're notified when somebody endeavours to log into their account from another device."

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Apple Employs iBeacon to Offer Personalized Shopping in Retail Stores

Apple will today launch a new, personalized shopping experience in its 254 U.S. retail stores, the affiliated Press accounts.

According to the report, apple fruit will use iBeacon technology, which pathways customers' action interior an Apple shop, to offer info such as alignment rank, cost comparison and more.


For example, if you walk by an iPhone table, you might get a note asking if you desire to improvement to a newer form, together with pricing info.

The expertise is opt-in and will require customers to establish the official Apple shop app on their iDevices.

The iBeacon technology values Bluetooth to pinpoint your position. The technology has been tested by Macy's in November; Apple furthermore foresees it could be used in other places such as museums and sports stadiums.

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Reactive Grip Wants Your Video Game Experience to Get Physical

A business called Tactical Haptics wants to give video games a sense of feel in a way that could put rumble packs to shame.

Founder and CEO William Provancher told Mashable that his business has built a virtual reality device called Reactive grab, a combination of programs and hardware that lets video game players use a focused manager to experience physical sensations different any thing before glimpsed in gaming. Reactive Grip does a twosome of things to create a more lifelike experience for virtual reality users, and he hopes the expertise will spark the next step in immersive gaming.


First comes the tactile constituent. Tactical Haptics allows users to choose up a virtual basketball and seem the divots in its skin, according to Provancher. The second component agreements with how your arm muscles answer to things you hold. If you signal an object, for demonstration, a real sword, overhead your head, the Reactive grab permits you to feel its heaviness and how the sword tilts one way or another, depending on the direction you sway it. Provancher states his business has developed a "physics motor" that incorporates that sinew repsonse into virtual reality environments.

"It's vitally creating a actually easy yet productive illusion that you have personal interaction with things," Provancher states. "What you know-how is a blend of what's called a shift component (what you seem in your muscles) and tactile (what you feel in the skin)."

Reactive grab does this by taking a digital representation of the sword you're retaining, measuring your hands and utilising that data to work out the physical force you would seem while waving it about.

The technology has obtained a number of positive reviews, but Tactical Haptics has laboured to alter those reconsiders into money on its Kickstarter crusade page. As of this composing, it has increased about $83,000, and has only seven more days to come to its $175,000 aim.

Provancher conceives that the novelty of improved virtual reality feedback is hard to express through videos and text, which is why, he accepts as true, Reactive grab hasn't been adept to appeal as much cash as he'd wanted. He also doesn't believe it assists that the expertise is only available for computer sport.

Integrating Reactive Grip with a gaming scheme is tough. For it to work, the scheme should be matching with with the virtual truth hardware and programs, otherwise the scheme won't be adept to supply user repsonse, rendering Reactive grab useless. Many sport are conceived for players utilising normal controllers, and even if new sport applied the repsonse, old sport wouldn't because the virtual truth constituents are not rearwards matching. There is no patch that allows video game players to know-how user repsonse with sport that weren't initially built for it. The blend of these effects, Provancher said, makes buyers less likely to purchase a gaming scheme that benefits his company's merchandise.

"It's a actually gigantic dispute to ever penetrate into any of these gaming fields," Provancher states.

Though he wants it occurs eventually, the CEO is checking out how Reactive grab could benefit other areas.

One such area could be minimally invasive surgery, which is well liked because it leaves only little blemishes. Surgeons make minute incisions and inject their devices into the body. Those devices have little cameras that drive video to monitors in the room that the surgeon benefits to navigate.

"The problem...is quite often you can't seem what's occurrence interior the person's body," Provancher says. "If you could sense that, you could feed that back to somebody's fingertips, the surgeon's fingertips."

But his heart still lies with the video game commerce.

"We may end up pivoting into another market and just endeavouring to convert ourselves into a money-making business with markets that are interested and prepared," Provancher says. "I despise to believe about it that way, because it kind of depresses me, because there's such promise there."

subsequent, he supplemented, "It will be one of the coolest things that 2,000 persons have tried."

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Google Patent Will Let Software Do Your Socializing

Google has filed a patent for a programs bot that would control your communal media occurrence.

The programs would first learn your voice by revising all of your communal newspapers accounts, then it would mechanically propose revisions and answers it can make for future mails. The aim is for the bot to discover how you tweet and Facebook so it can step-by-step organise that for you — effectively outsourcing how you digitally socialize.


Of course, you would first have to give Google consent to get access to your whole online presence, from communal to internet message and everything in between. This limitless get access to has some cyber privacy experts concerned. Nick Pickles, the controller of Big Brother Watch, an organization dedicated to defending privacy, warned against the possible hazards. Pickles notified the Daily posted letters:

“That sort of data is precious to both authorities and businesses, so I’m exceedingly worried about any technology that purports to offer convenience while in truth exposing more of our personal communications to prying eyes.”

Since the bot would vitally imitate your voice to seamlessly combines as you online, users would need to give it get get access to to to a wide array of accounts. They are, although, all opted-in, so it appears users would be given the option to choose and specify what Google's new software could investigate.

According to the patent:

There is no obligation for the client to set reminders or be proactive. The scheme automatically without client input analyzes data to which the client has access, and develops proposals for personalized reactions to notes. The proposal analyzer cooperates with the conclusion tree to learn the user's demeanour and mechanically adjust the proposed notes that are developed over time.

whereas Google filed the patent in 2011, there isn't yet any clues of a merchandise appearing from it.

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Microsoft and FBI Claim to Stamp Out Malware That Steals Ad Dollars

Microsoft is working with the FBI to stop malware responsible for contaminating more than 2 million computers as a part of an effort to steal dollars from online advocating businesses.

The company's digital misdeed unit said on Friday it has "successfully disturbed" rampant malware called the Sirefef botnet — furthermore known as ZeroAccess — which lately targeted seek outcomes on sites such as Google, Bing and Yahoo seek motors.

ZeroAccess malware affects apparatus running Windows by hijacking seek outcomes and downloading malicious malware up on contaminated schemes. It administered each of its almost two million infected computers to bang on as many as 48 publicity an hour, but even though it wasn't true human traffic, advertisers were paying charges for forgery bangs. Microsoft said the strike is approximated to cost online advertisers $2.7 million each month.

"Today’s activity is anticipated to considerably disturb the botnet’s procedure, expanding the cost and risk for cybercriminals to extend doing enterprise and stopping victims’ computers from committing fraudulent schemes," Microsoft said in a declaration.

In supplement to teaming up with the FBI, Microsoft is furthermore working with the agency's European equivalent European Cybercrime Centre (EC3).

The news comes just a couple of weeks after Microsoft revealed its new Cybercrime Center

In a press issue, Microsoft cited research by the University of California, San Diego that showed 1.9 million computers were infected with ZeroAccess in October, and more than 800,000 ZeroAccess-infected computers are hardworking on the Internet every day.

“If the hacker community has not yet taken observe, today’s disturbance of the ZeroAccess botnet is another demonstration of the power of public-private partnerships,” FBI boss aide Director Richard McFeely said in a declaration. “It illustrates our firm pledge to expand coordination with businesses like Microsoft and our foreign law enforcement partners — in this case, Europol — to closed down malicious cyberattacks and contain cybercriminals accountable for exploiting our citizens’ and businesses’ computers.”

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Game of Thrones Video Game to Launch in 2014

HBO is teaming up with Telltale Games to create a Game of Thrones-inspired video game due out in 2014.

Telltale Games is the studio behind The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us video games. The news was announced on Saturday during Spike TV's “Video Game Awards." There was a 25-second teaser trailer aired during the awards show, but it didn't reveal too much about what to expect from the game.

It's TRUE! We're working with @HBO to create an all-new episodic game series based on GAME OF THRONES in 2014! #VGX pic.twitter.com/d5GkhS2MOw

— Telltale Games (@telltalegames) December 8, 2013

"We'll be taking advantage of all the fiction to make something great," Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games, said during the announcement. "We're just really getting into it right now and thinking about characters — who has the most at stake, who has the biggest impact on the world."

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iOS-Friendly Toys for Kids

Your children love your iPad, but if they're expending too much time bound to the computer display, it might not be the kind of play that will advantage them the most.

As young kids use digital apparatus more and more, they overlook out on opportunities to work on fine engine abilities, spatial reasoning and other skills that need tactile play, rather than of the rather 2D know-how of tapping on a screen.
But just when you're thinking about taking that screen away from your media-saturated young kids, a new crop of playthings pops up that utilizes the iPad by taking it out of their hands, allowing them to perform other physical abilities as well as playing on your apparatus.

Here are 10 iOS-friendly playthings that permit your progeny to play on your iPad or iPhone without rotating them into mindless screen zombies. Some of them are so joy, you might address hanging up on them for yourself.

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