It might be your music, but it's still not your cloud

Google Music

This week brought a painful reminder that for as awesome as the ol' World Wide Web may be, it's still a pretty sorry state of affairs when it comes to online music. As a quick recap, Google implemented a limit on the number of devices you can unauthorize from Google Music in a year. You can still have up to 10 activated at any given time, but you can only swap out four of them for new devices. Sounds simple enough, right? And for the vast majority of folks out there, being able to play your music anywhere (in supported nations, anyway) from 14 different devices -- from smartphones and tablets to desktops and laptops and Google TVs -- is overkill several times over. But for others of us, our 10 slots were full, and any attempt to unauthorize a device -- something we'd previously been able to as often as we pleased -- was met with an orange-and-white message:

"Sorry, you've unauthorised too many devices."

Google MusicFunny, I didn't feel like I'd unauthorized too many devices. (Also funny is that I've got the British spelling, where z's are traded for s's, but that was the least of my worries.) The problem I and many others had run into was that duplicate devices were taking up slots, and we now had no way of getting rid of them. for most folks, it was from flashing custom ROMs. For me, it was from my janky Logitech Revue, which requires a hard-reset every few weeks when it decides to forget some of the apps installed on it. (The latest victim to get sucked into the ether, ironically enough, was Google Play Music.) And so when the hammer came down, I was stuck with a Galaxy Nexus, the EVO 4G LTE, Nexus One, AT&T One X, international One X, a PC, a laptop and two instances of the Logitech Revue taking up precious device slots, with no way to get rid of any of them until 2013. Or, God forbid, until May 2013, if it doesn't go by calendar year.

(I'll be the first to say that that's hardly an embarrassing list of devices, though.)

Google's made me lazy, I think. I've gotten too used to having my music in the cloud. No longer do I have to worry about keeping my music synced from my desktop and laptop to my home NAS. So long as I'm not traveling, I use Google Music to listen to my music when tooling around town. When mowing the lawn. On the odd occasion that I exercise. 

I say "my music" because that's what I think of it as. My music. I've got the files somewhere and uploaded them to Google Music. It's my music.

Only, as soon as I decide to upload it to Google Music, it ceases to be mine. Well, it's still mine, but I've lent it to Google to share back to me. So it's no longer mine. It's subject to the rules and regulations of Google, which means it's subject to the wiles and whims of the music labels. Never mind that it's my music. I bought (most of) it. It's mine.

This week's deauth debacle is a reminder that while it might be my music, it's not my cloud. And while Google Music is the object of my ire, it's hardly alone here. Amazon Music's also subject to the record labels. Same for the streaming services. Even Apple has to go through negotiations with a bunch of old white men so that you can get your Bieber on over the air. 

This isn't a new issue. The good news is that Google's sorting things out on its end and in the meantime is letting us clean up our authorized devices. (A personal plea: Maybe some sort of exemption for those of us who test phones for a living?) But this week serves as a reminder that it's easy to become complacent, to accept the ease of streaming in exchange for sharing our files with a master whose best interests seldom are in line with our own. 

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/u4M6cwdu7SM/story01.htm

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Col. Littleton No. 1943 Navigator Briefcase Review

I am an old U.S. Air Force guy from back in the day…like my father, grand father and many uncles before me. I often think that I missed my time in history. I hate to say it, but I soooo would trade all of today’s tech/gadgets to be a P-51 or B-17 pilot. I grant [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/05/14/col-littleton-no-1943-navigator-briefcase-review/

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Paralyzed Woman Takes Sip of Joe Using Mind-Powered Robo Arm

Researchers have developed a robotic arm that has enabled a paralyzed woman to drink a cup of coffee -- by directly controlling it with her mind. The development has raised the question of whether this approach could perhaps restore some mobility to similarly affected people in the future.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/1f74e513/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C751460Bhtml/story01.htm

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Texting: the truth serum of the 21st century

Image

The University of Michigan and The New School for Social Research has found that if you want someone to tell you the truth, you should text them. Dispensing with the lie detector for job interviewees, academics found that people gave more honest and detailed answers via SMS than over the phone. The team believes it's due to the lack of time pressure and not having to produce a pleasing answer for your interrogator. If the findings continue to provide similar results, it looks like Steve Wilkos could be replaced with a smartphone.

Texting: the truth serum of the 21st century originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 15:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/0if2zP199rI/

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Corel VideoStudio X4 giveaway

corelvideostudiox4giveaway
This morning, Corel released VideoStudio X4. We've already published a quick overview and hands-on of the application, and now is the moment you've all been waiting for: We're giving away ten full licenses of this new version, each worth $99.99!

To enter our random draw, you just have to leave a comment. Full terms and conditions are after the break.

Continue reading Corel VideoStudio X4 giveaway

Corel VideoStudio X4 giveaway originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/22/corel-videostudio-x4-giveaway/

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Col. Littleton No. 1943 Navigator Briefcase Review

I am an old U.S. Air Force guy from back in the day…like my father, grand father and many uncles before me. I often think that I missed my time in history. I hate to say it, but I soooo would trade all of today’s tech/gadgets to be a P-51 or B-17 pilot. I grant [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/05/14/col-littleton-no-1943-navigator-briefcase-review/

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The Downsides to Apple?s iPad

When Apple’s iPad was launched, there were queues of people waiting to get their hands on one. The revolutionary tablet iPad was going to offer people a new device that was going to change their lives. However, a lot of people shrugged at the idea with clear indifference. Many people announced their disappointment at the fact the iPad could not deliver on it’s promises. The two opposing views show just how divided opinions are about the device. First we need [...]

Source: http://tabletbuzzblog.com/the-downsides-to-apples-ipad/

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Words With Friends for Android updated, promises "smoother game experience"

wordswithfriends
As several of you noted in the comments to our post asking for cross-platform iOS/Android games, Words With Friends for Android does not provide the smoothest gaming experience... and that's being rather charitable.

You might be happy to hear that a couple of days ago Zynga released an update which promises to solve many of the Android-specific issues, such as notifications not popping up.

Sadly, installing the update is not a smooth experience; you have to manually uninstall the previous version, and then go to the Android Market and install it. What's nice is that it doesn't lose your saved games - this screenshot shows a game I've started before the update and continued after updating.

How's the new update working out for you? Let us know in the comments!

Words With Friends for Android updated, promises "smoother game experience" originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/04/words-with-friends-for-android-updated-promises-smoother-game/

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Windows 8 welcome screen revealed, looks very Metro

windows 8 welcome screen
It's not really a secret the Microsoft had planned on bringing bits of Windows Phone 7's Metro UI to Windows 8, but we haven't seen a lot of really telling evidence. However, with the Windows 8 milestone 3 build now available to Microsoft Connect partners, it was really just a matter of time before we started to get a peek.

Thanks to Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott, we've now had a glimpse at what the Windows 8 welcome screen will look like. As you can see, the typography is very Metro indeed. Within Windows also mentions that the background image is customizable, and we're wondering if it might not pull from your current Windows 8 theme. This particular shot shows the CTRL + ALT + DELETE login option, but we imagine you'll still be able to log in by clicking your account picture tile as well.

Rivera and Thurrott also mention that the tablet version of the welcome screen will allow you to log in by swiping a pattern on the screen -- as you can on current Android devices.

Windows 8 welcome screen revealed, looks very Metro originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/windows-8-welcome-screen-revealed-looks-very-metro/

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Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only

Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive
When Amazon Appstore for Android launched last week, one of its primary features -- Test Drive -- was disabled just a few minutes after it opened. With no try-before-you-buy, no refund process, and 1-Click purchasing ready to strike at any moment, this caused some problems. Anyway, don't despair: Test Drive is now enabled.

Before you get your hopes up, Test Drive doesn't work with every app. The IMDb app works fine -- you can even watch movie trailers on it! -- but the Angry Birds games are sadly not enabled. Some games work surprisingly well, though, like Bubble Buster. There's very little latency, and the framerate is really rather good. The Test Drive experience is so true to life that you even get ads; how cool is that?

Continue reading Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only

Amazon Appstore for Android Test Drive hands on: surprisingly cool, but still US-only originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/28/amazon-appstore-for-android-test-drive-hands-on-surprisingly-co/

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