Technology
These two friends created a simple tool to transfer playlists between Apple Music and Spotify, and it works great
Last yr, I had the misfortune of losing all my playlists after I moved from Apple Music to Spotify. For me, playlists are necessary. They’re snapshots of a certain period in your life; possibly your summer of 2016 had a soundtrack. But traditionally, streaming music services don’t make it easy to take your playlists with you to other platforms.
You can imagine how joyful I used to be to see that Apple Music has created latest playlist uploader through the Data Transfer Initiative (DTI), a group founded by Apple, Google, and Meta to create data transfer tools. The Digital Markets in Europe Act requires these designated “gatekeepers” to fund data transfer tools as a part of a broader solution to Big Tech’s strategy of blocking users from their platforms.
Finally! There was only one big problem. The tools don’t work with the world’s hottest music service, Spotify, which apparently didn’t catch the wave of knowledge transfer (or possibly the regulator doesn’t tell them to). The DTI tool only transfers data between Apple Music and YouTube Music, making it much less useful for most individuals.
DTI Executive Director Chris Riley can be fed up with Big Tech’s blocking policies. He’s trying to get more firms to join the negotiations and make their services more portable.
“Over the last decade, we’ve kind of blended into this world, just feeling trapped,” Riley told TechCrunch. “I don’t think enough people know that this is something they need to know.”
With DTI limitations in mind, Riley suggested I move my playlists from Apple Music to Spotify using Soundfree third-party tool. Instead of working directly with streaming services, Soundiiz builds portability tools through existing APIs and acts as a translator between services. Within minutes, I used to be able to connect my accounts, transfer my playlists, and start listening to my old Apple Music playlists on Spotify. It was amazing and easy.
Soundiiz allows you to transfer playlists between Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, SoundCloud, and 20 other streaming services I’ve never heard of. There’s a simple user interface for connecting streaming services and choosing the playlists you would like to transfer, including ones another person has created.
The story behind Soundiiz may explain why it works so well and cheaply. It was created in 2013 by two friends from France, Thomas Magnano and Benoit Herbreteau, who loved listening to music while coding together. In the evenings, they decided to create a music search interface with input from everywhere in the web. In the method, they created a useful tool.
They never created a music search interface, however the playlist uploader became Soundiiz.
“I had to manipulate the API and test the fit between services. And while I was doing that, I was creating playlists and moving them between services, just for me internally,” Magnano told TechCrunch. “I presented this feature to a colleague of mine and we thought, ‘Oh, this is useful to me; maybe it’s useful to someone else.’”
In 2015, Soundiiz got its big break when it partnered with Tidal, the music service founded by Jay-Z. The music platform was trying to make it easier for people to leave Spotify and join Tidal with all the identical playlists, and Soundiiz helped with that. But Magnano says they made sure Tidal also let people export playlists, not only import them — something they require from every music service API they work with.
Then a lot more people began using the service, and the founders made Soundiiz their full-time job, but they kept their values. The two founders make a living from Soundiiz, but they tell TechCrunch they’re “not looking to get rich.” Magnano says Soundiiz has never sought outside investment to keep prices low, and the founders retain control over their project.
There are limitations to the free Soundiiz though – a number of the longer playlists might be shortened (limited to 200 songs). You even have to transfer playlists one after the other, and every one takes about a minute, so transferring a dozen or so playlists can take a while. Soundiiz offers a premium plan ($4.50 monthly, which you’ll cancel after transferring) to get around these limitations.
The two founders are still the one employees of Soundiiz, regardless that the corporate has grown: Soundiiz has helped hundreds of thousands of individuals move over 220 million playlists over the past 10 years. According to Magnano, they’ve never spent a dime on marketing, but he says they’ve never had to.
“If you were to Google ‘how to transfer Deezer to Spotify’ in 2012, there was no answer,” Magnano said. “So Soundiiz became the first result in Google search when we launched, and we’ve been doing great in SEO ever since.”
Magnano says Spotify likely has more to lose than to gain by creating a playlist uploader like Apple and Google, and he doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon. However, he says that every one of those streaming services are aware of what Soundiiz is doing and are okay with it — some even promote it of their FAQs. That said, it’s unlikely that any of them would promote playlist uploaders like Soundiiz greater than this.
Technology
Google Maps will display AI-powered review summaries in India
Google is adding latest AI-powered features to Maps in India, including AI-powered summaries, the power to go looking for attractions, and weather alerts.
The Maps app will analyze reviews and display place summaries, he added. The company announced this on Thursday at Google’s annual India event.
Additionally, users will find a way to go looking Maps for items and attractions, corresponding to asking for “unique picnic spots” or “themed birthday cakes,” to search out cake vendors.
When people ask such questions, Google Maps will display images first, which will prioritize photos uploaded by businesses and users, the corporate says.
Google uses image recognition to associate labels or descriptions of places with such queries.
The company also said that while navigating, users will see latest weather alerts for areas with poor visibility because of fog and flooded roads.
The suite of latest features will be rolled out to users in India later this month. AI-powered review summaries debuted on Maps in the US in February. Google competitor Yelp also displays business summaries on its revamped feed in the USA
In July, Google added quite a few India-specific features to Google Maps, including higher navigation directions, higher navigation on overpasses and narrow roads, electric vehicle charging stations, and community-generated lists to find places in chosen cities.
Technology
Judge blocks new California artificial intelligence law over Kamala Harris deepfake
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked considered one of California’s new artificial intelligence laws, lower than two weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it. Shortly after AB 2839 was signed into law, Newsom suggested it is likely to be something we would get used to force Elon Musk to take down Vice President Kamala Harris’s fake AI that he reposted (invoking a little web battle between them). But a California judge just ruled that the state cannot force people to remove fraudulent elections — not less than not yet.
AB 2839 targets distributors of faux AI content on social media, especially if their post resembles a politician and the sender knows it’s fake and will confuse voters. The law is exclusive in that it doesn’t goal the platforms where AI deepfakes appear, but relatively those that spread them. AB 2839 empowers California judges to order posters depicting AI deepfakes to be removed or face fines.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the unique poster of this AI deepfake – an X user named Christopher Kohls – filed a lawsuit to dam the new California law as unconstitutional only a day after it was signed into law. Kohls’ lawyer wrote in: criticism that Kamala Harris’s hoax is satire that must be protected by the First Amendment.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge John Mendez sided with Kohls. Mendez ordered a preliminary injunction to dam the California attorney general from enforcing the new law against Kohls or anyone else, aside from the audio messages covered by AB 2839.
Read for yourself what Judge Mendez said his decision: :
“”
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In essence, he ruled that the law was just too broad as written and will end in serious overreach by state authorities about what’s and will not be permitted.
Since it is a preliminary injunction, we’ll should wait and see if this California law is definitely blocked permanently, but either way it’s unlikely to have a significant impact on next month’s elections. AB 2839 is considered one of 18 new artificial intelligence bills that Newsom signed into law last month.
Nevertheless, it is a major victory for Elon Musk’s camp of free speech posters on X. In the times after Newsom signed AB 2839, Musk and his usual allies released AI deepfakes series who tested California’s new law.
Technology
Roy Clay Sr., the “godfather of Silicon Valley”, dies at the age of 95
Good job, Mr. Clay
(*95*)
Roy Clay Sr., a profound leader in the technology industry whose influence reigned in Silicon Valley for 50 yearsdied at the age of 95, . Clay’s family confirmed that he died on September 29 at his home in Oakland, California after coping with worsening health problems.
Clay was awarded on BLACK ENTERPRISESthe first TechConnext summit in 2015
Known as a key part of the rise of laptop computer and technology giant Hewlett-Packard, Clay has been called the “Godfather of Silicon Valley” for his role in breaking down racial barriers in a predominantly white industry.
He he was the first African The American founded the technology company ROD-L Electronics in 1977. He used his talents to recruit a range of engineers, including math and science graduates from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Accredited technology leaders like Ken Coleman describe Clay as one of many forgotten, hidden figures in the tech world and say his contributions ought to be celebrated at all costs.
“He should go down in history as one of the leading figures who put Silicon Valley on the map,” Coleman said in TO BE interview.
“He was a technical genius and an incredibly kind and generous man – a shining example of both a professional businessman and a committed citizen and neighbor.”
Since the letters and documents of other distinguished Silicon Valley leaders are historically archived, Clay made sure his story was told in his own words in his 2022 memoir: “Unstoppable: The Extraordinary Story of the Silicon Valley Godfather” with the help of his sons and biographer M. H. Jackson. Clay’s journey into the tech industry began by doing school work by candlelight while growing up in Missouri until his father learned the right way to install electricity in the house.
Clay’s mother instilled in him the importance of education at an early age, which resulted in Clay being one of the first black Americans to graduate from an all-white school in a former slave state. The technology pioneer earned a level in mathematics from the University of St. Louis, because of which he got an interview for an engineer position at McDonnell Aircraft Manufacturing in St. Louis.
However, Clay was refused because the company had no work for “professional Negroes.”
This experience didn’t discourage Clay from pursuing his profession in technology. Clay moved to California to take a job at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and work on radiation-tracking software that might allow him to map the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. He celebrated this achievement in his book.
“I used to be not that poor little black kid from an isolated Midwestern town. I used to be breaking barriers in a brand new field of technology and making groundbreaking achievements,” he wrote.
“If only the boys at the pool house could see me now.”
Clay made further progress outside the world of technology. , pioneer he was a community leadermaking history as the first African American to serve on the Palo Alto City Council and later becoming vice mayor. He was also an avid golfer and have become the first black member of one of the oldest athletic clubs in the country, the Olympic Club. The technology guru also had the future title of club president.
His son, Chris, also a SAP executive, says his dad was determined to beat the odds and proudly calls him “Dad.”
“Even though early in his career he was rejected from a job solely because of his race, he was determined to succeed, guided primarily by the advice of his mother, who advised him early in life to never let racism be the reason for failure.” Chris said.
“By combining his education with a strong work ethic, true concern for people and an unstoppable spirit, he was able to blaze a trail for himself and others. He was successful wherever he worked, breaking down barriers and opening doors for others.”
(*95*)
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