Sprint Customers Get First Dibs

The fourth largest wireless carrier in the United States has befriended one of the biggest musical icons of the 21st century.  Jay-Z’s latest album “4:44” is scheduled to drop on June 30th.  Lucky for them, Sprint’s nearly 60 million customers will get an “exclusive” release due to an agreement between the wireless carrier and Jay-Z’s music streaming service, Tidal.  The partnership started when Sprint invested 200 million dollars in Tidal this past January.  To top it off, Sprint is giving customers a 6-month free trial of Jay-Z’s new streaming service.

Smart Phone Age Minimum

It’s no secret that technology is impacting the lives of our youngest generation dramatically.  Anesthesiologist and Denver resident Tim Farnum has certainly had enough of it.  Farnum is on the front lines of a proposal to legally establish the mandatory age for owning a smart phone to be 13 years old.  If the proposal passes, Colorado would be the first state in American history to place legal limitations on smart phone sales to preteens.

With Farnum’s proposal, selling a smart phone to someone under the age of 13 would result in a written warning.  If the offense is committed a second time, the consequence would be a 500 dollar fine.  After that, the price of the fine would double each time the offense is committed.  The proposal needs 300,000 voter signatures to appear on the 2018 ballot according to the Denver Post.

AI Robots Make Music

Techno music could be taking on a whole new meaning.  Scientists have officially created an Artificial Intelligence robot, named Shimon, capable of making music.  Via a database of famous artists from all sorts of genres, the robot use 4 arms and 8 sticks to write their compositions and bring them to life. The database consists of 5,000 songs with every genre from classical music to modern day pop.  For seven years, Shimon listened to music from humanity’s famous musicians while being allowed to improvise over pre-composed chord progressions.  The goal of the experiment is to, “explore whether robots could become musically creative and generate new music that we humans find beautiful, inspiring and strange.”

Would You Pay for Music?

The digital age of technology has allowed free music to be downloaded with the click of a button.  But eMusic is hoping to convince customers to start buying songs again.  CEO Tamir Koch is hoping to make people back on their products with a remodeled program.  The new music service is centered on a “music locker”, where downloaded music is sent to your personal library with unlimited storage.  After storage, music can be accessed on any device with the eMusic app.

Pandora Premium Adds AutoPlay

As of today, Pandora radio is implementing a new feature that allows users to listen to their music without interruption after their current playlist ends.  The feature takes users to a personalized radio station based on artists you’ve listened to in the past.  Pandora purchased AutoPlay from Rdio for $75 million in 2015.  The AutoPlay feature is now available to IOS and Adroid users and can be managed from the app’s settings.