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Spotify has officially unveiled its new streaming payment policy for artists and labels, and the details are pretty much exactly what has been reported for weeks. In other words, smaller artists are getting something of a shaft here, as songs that don’t meet the minimum threshold of 1,000 streams per year will not be eligible for any payment whatsoever.

Spotify was already notorious for underpaying artists, but now many will get nothing at all, aside from the opportunity and privilege to exist on its servers. Spotify says this is to eliminate fraud, and indicates that the money that used to go to these smaller artists and alleged fraudsters will be redistributed to those above that 1,000 play per year threshold. 

Also, the company’s nixing many payments for so-called “noise” content, like recordings of rain falling on a rooftop and other items intended for relaxation and to provide white noise. The cuts won’t impact all noise recordings, just those under two minutes in length. Additionally, Spotify’s currently looking to adjust the royalty model for noise recordings, keeping the payouts lower than actual songs. However, the company hasn’t provided any concrete details.

Spotify’s crowing that these combined cuts will provide an additional $1 billion toward artists in the next five years, but hasn’t offered details as to how the funds would be redistributed, only saying that the streamer itself would “not make additional money under this model.”

It did note that 99.5 percent of all streams meet the above thresholds, but also stated that the remaining 0.5 percent account for just $40 million per year, which is much lower than the advertised $1 billion of new funds being pumped into the system for established artists, even if you account for $200 million over five years. Spotify also claims that songs with less than 1,000 annual streams generate an average of $3 per year, which isn’t a lot. If those numbers hold, this whole thing could be much ado about, well, $3. Still, there’s something of a precedent being set here.

Spotify says fraudulent content creators often try to “game the system” by posting a high volume of tracks, generating pennies for each that add up to real money over time. This is something the company refers to as artificial streaming, as there’s an AI component at play, so the 1,000 play threshold hopes to stop this activity dead in its tracks. Smaller artists are just collateral damage here.

As a matter of fact, artists with under 1,000 streams in the last 28 days cannot even participate in Spotify’s recently-launched marketing toolset that lets artists pay the streamer for placement on home feeds.

In a completely unrelated note, Spotify is shutting down in Uruguay after the country passed a bill that requires fair pay to artists, as reported by MixMag. The company made threats to shut down when the bill was first suggested back in July and now it has followed through. A spokesperson for Spotify actually wrote Uruguay’s Minister of Education, Pablo Da Silveira, to say that the country’s bill would force it to “pay twice” the amount of royalties to artists. It went on to say that complying with Uruguay’s fair pay law would make its business model “unfeasible.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-confirms-it-wont-offer-payouts-for-songs-with-fewer-than-1000-plays-181501465.html?src=rss 

Just a couple of months after its debut, you can already score a great deal on the Apple Watch Series 9 thanks to an Amazon Black Friday discount. The smartwatch has dropped to $329, which is $80 or 18 percent off the regular price of $399. The previous low we saw for the Apple Watch Series 9 was $349 earlier this month.

This price applies to the 41mm model and you can take your pick from a variety of case colors and sport bands. Several 45mm variants are on sale too. That size of the Apple Watch Series 9 is down to $360, which is $69 off the standard price of $429.

At these prices, the Apple Watch Series 9 becomes a more enticing option as a gift for a special someone in your life, or even just yourself. We think this is the best smartwatch you can buy overall (though obviously you’ll need to look at different options if you’re an Android user).

In our review, we gave the Apple Watch Series 9 a score of 92. There are some major upgrades this year, thanks to the introduction of a more powerful S9 system-in-package (SiP) processor.

One of the key new features is called Double Tap, which builds on Apple’s Assistive Touch accessibility tool. When Double Tap is enabled, you carry out a pinching action using the hand that’s wearing the watch to carry out the main function in an app. It’s a useful way to control certain aspects of your smartwatch without having to touch the screen. You can use Double Tap to, for instance, snooze an alarm, pause a song that’s playing or reply to a message.

Using the gesture to reply to a message will bring up the Siri-powered voice typing option. So it’s worth mentioning here that, thanks to the S9 SiP, the Apple Watch Series 9 can handle on-device Siri processing. That makes the voice assistant’s performance a bit snappier, as Apple doesn’t have to send your request to its servers for processing and back again. It also means that Siri can work offline.

Elsewhere, a second-gen ultra wideband chip powers a more precise Find My iPhone experience, as long as the phone you’re looking for also has that chip. For instance, when you’re looking for a misplaced iPhone 15 Pro, the Apple Watch Series 9 will show you how many feet away the device is, along with a directional indicator to guide you to it. Other upgrades in the latest Apple Watch include a brighter display. You’ll also be able to check out the revised UI that Apple brought in with watchOS 10.

Meanwhile, the second-gen Apple Watch SE (which scored 89 in our review last year) has fallen to an all-time-best price too. If you’re looking for a more budget-friendly way into the Apple Watch ecosystem, this could be the right option for you. Both sizes of the Apple Watch SE are $70 off, with 40mm versions coming in at $179 and 44mm variants starting at $209.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-series-9-falls-to-a-new-low-of-329-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-164517938.html?src=rss 

Amazon’s Echo Buds just got a spate of new features via a software update, though most of these tools are only available for the recently-released 2023 lineup of earbuds. First up, you can now tap the earbuds to start a recommended playlist, so you don’t need to fumble with your phone to launch a playlist or even speak out loud to ask Alexa for help. It’s all in the tap.

You can launch playlists via one triple tap or a single long press, which is adjusted via the settings in the associated Alexa app. It looks like this feature works with all of the major streaming platforms, as Amazon says it accesses “your preferred audio provider” to find the playlist. Just look for “Tap Controls” in the Echo Buds device settings to get started. 

There’s also a new audio personalization tool that lets you tailor the sound to better integrate with your physical environment and the content you’re consuming. For instance, you can tune the frequencies to accentuate the bass during a walk, to provide a fuller sound. The company lists other examples where this feature comes in handy, including watching movies on a laptop. This could actually be quite handy, as all sound sources are not created equal.

Again, head to the Echo Buds device settings via the Alexa app and look for the audio personalization options. You can even adjust each ear independently of one another, so your right ear can be louder or offer a different range of frequencies than the left ear. Amazon says the setup process here takes around four minutes. It’s also worth noting that this feature is available for both 2023’s model and 2021’s second-gen Echo Buds.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-latest-echo-buds-get-new-features-including-tap-to-start-playlists-170939952.html?src=rss 

The Sunbird messaging app for Android has flown the solar coop. The app has completely shut down following massive privacy concerns, as reported by 9to5Google. This comes after the app received increased scrutiny when it partnered with Nothing to act as the basis of the smartphone manufacturer’s Nothing Chats app. Nothing’s app was only available for less than one day before the aforementioned privacy concerns came to light and it was pulled.

The app’s gone from Google’s Play Store, though the parent company says this shutdown is temporary, according to an announcement posted on Reddit. Long story short? Sunbird was a niche product that didn’t quite work and the Nothing collaboration turned the spotlight to that fact. It promised full end-to-end encryption but many users could exploit vulnerabilities to access private user messages. 9to5Google, for instance, found over 630,000 files using this vulnerability. Call me crazy, but that doesn’t seem too secure.

The writing was on the wall for Sunbird to anyone paying attention, which wasn’t that many people until Nothing got involved. The company missed several deadlines for launch, all while making lofty promises regarding secure iMessage and Android chat interoperability. During the company’s first announcement presser back in 2022, Sunbird refused to take questions regarding the underlying technology of the app and related privacy concerns, closing the Zoom chat when things got too hot, as reported by ArsTechnica. This led reporters to suggest that Sunbird simply wasn’t a “serious company.”

There’s also the giant Apple-sized elephant in the room. The tech giant recently announced it would offer support for RCS text messaging in 2024, completely eliminating the need for workarounds like Sunbird in the first place. In other words, the green bubble-blue bubble divide is coming to an end.

Despite erasing itself from the Play Store, Sunbird’s official website makes no mention of the shutdown, still boasting about the app’s peerless end-to-end encryption. The company’s also yet to make a public statement on the matter.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sunbird-shuts-down-its-imessage-app-for-android-after-major-privacy-concerns-160713312.html?src=rss