Apple’s annual Music Festival comes to an end after 10 years

The Apple Music Festival has met its end. Apple told Music Business Worldwide that it won’t be doing its annual London concert series anymore. What first started out as the iTunes Festival, it was the company’s way of trying to get more people to buy album on its service. Streaming music services or any streaming service was still in its infancy when Apple started doing this. And they’ve had some of the biggest stars perform throughout the years including the likes of Adele, Pharrell Williams, The Weeknd, One Direction, Lady Gaga, Oasis, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, etc.

But it looks like the advent of music streaming services, Apple is rethinking its strategy in the music space. They need people to keep subscribing to its Apple Music service and while a yearly festival might attract attention, it’s not enough to sustain listeners. Lately, the company has started to support individual shows like those of Haim, DJ Khaled, and Arcade Fire. They even sponsored Drake’s 32-date Summer Sixteen Tour in 2016. Apple has also gotten into episodic streaming video with Carpool Karaoke to keep listeners and viewers coming back.

Q&A with Dyson's Paul Dawson on the new Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Link

The Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Link builds upon our previous models by adding a third functionality – air purification. The machine captures gases and traps allergens and pollutants in the air in our patented 360° HEPA Filter - Paul Dawson

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Dyson is world-famous for innovation in engineering and product design. At the core of the company are a lot of smart people aiming to solve very hard problems. The company is already the leading name in vacuum technologies and products, it has recently made an impact in household robotics with the Dyson 360 Eye and now it has taken its popular Dyson Hot + Cool line of fans/heaters and added a class-leading air purifier that filters impurities and allergens in the air while it provide the heating and cooling function.

We spoke to Dyson's Paul Dawson, whis is Global Product Development Director, Environmental Control to find out more about the importance of air purification and how the Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Link reduces indoor pollutants.

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This is what the Surface Mini tablet could’ve looked like before Microsoft cancelled it

There was supposed to be a 7.5-inch Surface Mini tablet coming out back in 2014 but Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop scrapped the idea weeks before it was supposed to launch alongside the Surface Pro 3 that May. But even with the tablet being scrapped, Evan Blass showed us what the Surface Mini could’ve looked like if Microsoft decided to launch it. The image shows the tablet wrapped in a red rubber case with a kick stand.

Specs-wise, the Surface Mini was supposed to have a 7.5-inch screen with a 1,440 x 1,080 display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 32GB internal storage, and 1GB of RAM. It was supposed to come in black, red, and blue models. It was designed to run Windows RT and support the Surface Pen. It was being marketed as a notebook replacement of sorts. But as The Verge points out, it might have been best Microsoft cancelled the production of the tablet as they didn’t have much success with Windows RT tablets.

Amazon Alexa adds kid-friendly skills, lets your child play with SpongeBob and Elmo

We haven’t really seen kid-related skills because of strict child privacy protection laws but Amazon has found a way to comply with the laws and encourage a new set of users to keep using its smart assistant and home speakers. The new Alexa skills rolling out in the US first will let kids play a SpongeBob game and an Elmo-related skill are debuting alongside a new Verified Parental Consent feature, where parents will need to approve use of the features via the Alexa companion app the first time the “kid skill” is enabled. Parents or guardians will need to enter a one-time password via SMS or phone or verify by credit card. It’s a one-time approval process. This new feature is sure to entice more companies itching to reach out to a younger demographic. And making it easier for children to access this tech will make them more reliant on them in the future

The new skills include a SpongeBob SquarePants game where kids need to take and relay increasingly difficult food orders to the staff that include the likes of SpongeBob, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs. For the Sesame Street’s skill, you get to play hide-and-seek with Elmo using audio clues to find out where he’s hiding. You can also practice the alphabet. On top of that, Amazon is launching its own Storytime skills that can read bedtime stories to kids from ages 5 to 12. The collection features stories read by Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant and Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Source: TechCrunch