The Black Keys hesitantly brings latest albums to Spotify

Jason Persse/Flickr

The Black Keys have caved and put two of its latest albums (2011’s El Camino and 2014’s Turn Blue) on Spotify. It wasn’t without any hesitation, though. As The Black Keys’s drummer Patrick Carney tweeted: “After five years of struggling with this we agreed to put the keys songs on Spotify. I’d rather people hear our music than not.” Carney, who has spoken out against the streaming service before, also tweeted: “No advance or money was exchanged. I’m still an advocate for artists to be paid fairly. I’m still apprehensive.”

In a 2014 interview with the Seattle Times, Carney has acknowledged that Spotify was the “way of the future” but he hopes artists were giving fair share of revenue. "My whole thing about music is: if somebody’s making money then the artist should be getting a fair cut of it," he said. "The owner of Spotify is worth something like 3 billion dollars… he’s richer than Paul McCartney and he’s 30 and he’s never written a song."

Source: Billboard

BlackBerry creates Innovation Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

BlackBerry just announced the QNX Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Centre (AVIC). Housed within the BlackBerry QNX facility in Ottawa, Ontario, the centre will accelerate the realization of connected and self-driving vehicles by developing production-ready software independently and in collaboration with partners in the private and public sector. 

As part of this initiative, BlackBerry QNX plans to recruit and hire local software engineers to work on ongoing and emerging engineering projects for connected and autonomous cars. The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario recently approved BlackBerry QNX to test autonomous vehicles on Ontario roads as part of a pilot program. One of the centre’s first projects will be supporting this pilot as well as BlackBerry QNX’s work with the University of Waterloo, PolySync, and Renesas Electronics to build an autonomous concept vehicle. 

Click to read more ...

Video: Apple AirPods unboxing and first impressions

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

For those who were quick enough to order Apple's anticipated AirPods, they began arriving today and were available in limited quantities at Apple Retail Stores. We received our order today and have just set up the AirPods to work with our main smartphone, the iPhone SE.

Out of the box, the AirPods are encased in their tiny charging case. This small, white case does look like a fancy case for dental floss, contact lenses or some other medical apparatus. There are hints of metal in the design of this case as well as a small recessed button. Apple does provide a lightning charger in the box.

Click to read more ...

Blade Runner 2049 trailer is out

Considered by many to be the perfect science fiction movie, the original Blade Runner seemed complete, with no need for a sequel or prequel to enhance the already moody and mysterious world of replicants and replicant hunters (blade runners). We now have a sequel to the 1982 Ridley Scott helmed classic which brings back an aged Deckard (Harrison Ford) and an all new Blade Runner played by Ryan Gosling. Along with Ford, Ridley Scott is back but merely as a producer, the new movie, which is slated for October 2017, is megged by Denis Villeneuve, (who also did Prisoners, Sicario, & Arrival). Not sure how I feel about this trailer, but if the right people are behind it, I'm hoping it will at least be half-as engaging as the original cyberpunk epic.