Well, look at that: Spotify launches video

The world's largest subscription music service retools itself for broader appeal with new types of entertainment like videos and podcasts, as it prepares to fend off an expected rival from Apple.

NEW YORK -- Spotify is changing its tune -- from "listen up" to "look here."

In a move to appeal more broadly to consumers, the Sweden-based music service showed off new features Wednesday including video, podcasts and specialized experiences for people like runners.

During the event, Rochelle King, Spotify's vice president of design and user experience, demoed a carousel of playlists that will be tailored to particular members on a new "Now" start page, including video clips from Vice News, Viacom's Comedy Central and Nerdist News. Spotify's main catalog of songs will be interspersed with these clips as well as podcast spoken-word tracks.

"There were a lot of times when people wanted to use Spotify but had to leave it to come back for five minutes or 10 minutes of entertainment," Chief Executive Daniel Ek said in an interview. "View this step as how we expand music to more places in your life."

Adding video and other types of content could encourage people to spend more time using Spotify and, in the process, generate more advertising revenue. That could help the company keep a tier that's free for you. But it also means that Spotify's format -- a monthly subscription that gives members unlimited access to songs -- will become more complicated for mainstream consumers to understand.

The move also repositions Spotify before Apple launches its own subscription service based on Beats Music, part of its $3 billion purchase last year of headphone maker Beats. Apple is expected to relaunch the subscription service next month at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.

Spotify is the biggest service of its kind by listeners, but its rapid growth has been matched by ballooning losses -- 162 million euros last year, or more than $180 million. Part of the reason is most of its users remain on its free, ad-supported tier rather than subscribing for $10 a month, which generates more revenue per user. Digital video could make the ad-supported free service more profitable. Prized by advertisers for how it commands viewers' attention, digital video saw ad spending more than double on mobile devices and jump 38 percent on desktop computers in the US last year, according to researcher eMarketer.

Spotify already has video ads. By including videos people theoretically want to watch, the company can better ensure that people are actually watching the commercials, rather then simply hearing them as the service plays in the background.

However, making Spotify a source for more diverse entertainment risks confusing consumers unfamiliar with the new model of charging a monthly $10 subscription for all the music they want to hear. Spotify identifies its core users as tech savvy early adopters and people who are dogged music fans -- but that leaves a wide swath of mainstream consumers untapped. Will those potential new customers be confused about what they're being asked to pay for if Spotify has comedy clips from Comedy Central shows and news segments from Vice News?

Ek said the new features work toward Spotify's goal of offering a more personalized experience. "Maybe you won't watch the comedy clip, but we will learn that, and we will take it away from you if it's in the way for you," he said.

Apple's entrance into subscription music, which it resisted for years, has the potential to both harm and help rivals like Spotify. Apple will become an intimidating direct competitor, with a globally recognized brand and an established relationship with music buyers worldwide through its years as the primary purveyor of digital downloads through iTunes. Yet one of the most difficult challenges for upstarts like Spotify has been educating mainstream consumers about what a subscription music service is; Apple launching such a product will go a long way toward informing the masses about this model.

Also on Wednesday, Spotify unveiled other new features, including one designed to find soundtracks for people out on a run, based on their gait, as determined by motion sensors in their smartphone.

The new Now experience will begin rolling out Wednesday to iPhone users in the US, UK, Germany and Sweden, with more markets and platforms to follow in the near future. Spotify Running will start rolling out to iPhone users globally Wednesday.

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Nintendo says Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros. DLC will come this year to keep fans engaged

Nintendo did something strange last year … it made a profit. And to keep doing that going forward, it is planning more postrelease downloadable content.

The Mario company made most of its money last year thanks to the 3DS handheld system and a few major Wii U console releases like Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8. For the rest of 2015, the company doesn’t really have any huge releases like that left — especially now that it has delayed The Legend of Zelda Wii U to some indeterminate time in the future. So to keep fans excited, it sounds like it is going to keep supporting its biggest hits from last year with even more downloadable add-on content.

This comes from Nintendo’s annual financial report, which it released earlier this morning. In the section where the publisher talked about its future earnings, it explained that DLC factors into its strategy in a big way.

“Specifically, by sequentially introducing additional download content for blockbuster titles such as Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U, we aim to keep these titles played more actively,” reads the Nintendo report.

We’ve sorta known that Nintendo would start introducing new characters and other kinds of content for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS. Earlier this year, the company introduced a way for fans to suggest and vote on the new characters they want to see added to the roster. The publisher now seems like it is confirming that will come at some point throughout its fiscal 2016.

But this announcement suggest that Nintendo has even more DLC in the works for Mario Kart 8. This comes after the company released two expansions that, combined, added six new characters and 16 new tracks. The second expansion just launched last month, which falls into Nintendo’s fiscal 2016. But the wording of the company’s outlook suggests this is an initiative it plans to continue moving into the future.

We’ve reached out to the company for more on this, and we’ll update with any new information.

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Nintendo: Sorry About the Amiibo Mess

Nintendo today apologized for the shortage of amiibo figurines, and promised to be more communicative with customers about when new ones are on their way.

Nintendo's amiibo arrived last year, but the company had trouble keeping up with demand. In February, it blamed a U.S. port strike, but some versions were in short supply due to retailer exclusivity.

"We understand how frustrating it can be at times if consumers are unable to find certain figures, and we apologize for that," Nintendo said in a Facebook post. "We're trying to meet the demands of our fans and consumers by increasing the amount of amiibo we manufacture and ship to retail. We may continue to see consumer demand outpace supply levels for certain characters at times, but we will do our best to prevent that from happening."

Amiibo is Nintendo's line of Skylanders and Disney Infinity-like miniature toys. Your amiibo stores game data, so when you touch your amiibo to a Wii U GamePad, character data is downloaded into the game you're playing, or you can send data to the figurine.

Character options include Mario, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Fox, and Yoshi. Going forward, "some figures will be easier to find than others," Nintendo said today. "We are constantly looking for the opportunity to reissue amiibo and are already making plans to bring back some currently out-of-stock amiibo figures."

Also on tap is Animal Crossing amiibo cards, which will arrive by year's end.

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New Minecraft skin finally offers girl option

When Pauline Stanley's 6-year-old daughter, Isabell, started playing Minecraft, she was excited to join her fellow first-grade players, who'd become obsessed with adventuring around the game's vast digital universe and building with Lego-like blocks.

But there was one problem: In the boundlessly creative world of one of the most popular video games, the only character she could play was Steve, a bulky man with short, dark hair and a 5 o'clock shadow. If she wanted to discover and build as a girl, she needed to pay extra.

"Only having boys is telling everybody this is a boy game only," said Isabell, who knew girls in her class who had quit playing the game. "It just doesn't seem fair."

It's a shortcoming that has long plagued the Minecraft franchise, which Microsoft bought last year for US$2.5 billion after it sold more than 50 million copies and become a massively popular children's game and in-class teaching tool.

But the makers of the "sandbox" game first released in 2009 now say they will let gamers play with a more feminine character, named Alex, free of charge.

"Everyone loves Steve - he's probably the most famous Minecrafter in the world, and he has excellent stubble," Owen Hill, the chief word officer for Mojang, a Swedish game studio that created Minecraft, wrote in a blog post Monday morning. "But jolly old Steve doesn't really represent the diversity of our playerbase."

Starting Wednesday, Minecraft players on Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox consoles will be able to select Alex, a seemingly female character with thinner arms, pinker lips, and a swoop of hair around her neck. An update for the game's Pocket Edition, played on cellphones and iPads, is planned for this summer.

Alex first appeared on Minecraft versions on the PC and Mac, although her use was randomly assigned and she could not be selected in-game. In console and mobile versions, players had no female option but eight "skins" of Steve, including Prisoner Steve, Tuxedo Steve and Athlete Steve.

For all of Minecraft's blocky veneer, the "sandbox" game is incredibly intricate, allowing players to build tools, homes and nearly anything else their imaginations allow. Isabell, for instance, was tickled to learn that the flowers she had placed on her bedside table would keep dying until she installed a window to give direct light.

But because of that intricacy, the game's choices on gender had baffled fans, parents and teachers of the game, who were increasingly viewing it as the hallmark of a generation's creative pursuit. In March, the game won the 2015 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for "Most Addicting Game."

Fans of the game created detailed guides for how to play it as a girl, although they often involved paying money or changing the game's code through methods that proved too complicated for children or teachers with many versions of the game.

Nearly all of the characters, like villagers, are male, with the exception of the villainous witch. And for a long time it appeared that Mojang wasn't interested in adding female characters.

Minecraft's new playable Alex skin alongside the classic Steve character.

Mojang's founder, Marcus "Notch" Persson, said in 2012, "I've tried making a girl model in Minecraft, but the results have been extremely sexist" He added: "Blocky things are more masculine." In a blog post later that year, he said he had designed Minecraft to "be a game where gender isn't a gameplay element."

"The blocky shape (of Steve) gives it a bit of a traditional masculine look, but adding a separate female mesh would just make it worse by having one specific model for female Human Beings and male ones," he wrote. "That would force players to make a decisions about gender in a game where gender doesn't even exist."

Girls and women are an increasing presence in video gaming, playing more on everything from mobile apps to larger living-room consoles. The number of female gamers who said they played Sony and Microsoft's gaming consoles, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, grew 70 per cent between 2011 and 2014, to more than 30 million, data from market researcher Newzoo shows.

But a large gap still remains in who makes the games, and how the women choose to play. About 48 per cent of the nation's 190 million gamers are girls or women, although 4 in 5 game developers are men, International Game Developers Association research shows. About 70 per cent of female gamers said they cloaked themselves online as male characters to dodge sexual harassment, according to research cited by Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor and the author of Hate Crimes in Cyberspace.

For Isabell, the Minecraft change will help her identify a bit with the creator on-screen while she does her favorite thing: building houses. She has a lot of them in different worlds, and her favorite is made of gold and diamonds.

"It's not perfect, but it's way better than before," she said. Next, she'd like to be able to change the way the character's clothes look. She suggests a rainbow dress.

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Young Minecraft players invited to design the perfect park

The State Government of Adelaide, Australia, has asked young Minecraft players to design their perfect park in-game.

Young Minecraft master builders may see their skills translated into meatspace with a new initiative from the State Government of Adelaide, Australia.

The competition, for school children in grades four to seven across Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills area, asks participants to design their "perfect national park", using Minecraft as a design medium. And, although the prize is clearly defined -- a full day's excursion to Belair National Park -- there's a chance some of the ideas presented in the entries could find their way into the real world.

"The State Government has set aside AU$8.9 million for park projects, so some of the ideas your class create might end up being used," the competition page reads.

The list of suggested features -- which need to be translatable into the real world, and compatible with the natural environment, so a Cat Park would be out of the question -- includes hiking trails, picnic areas, scenic lookouts, campgrounds, playgrounds and natural play spaces, public restrooms, rock-climbing locations and geocaches.

The idea behind the competition is to use Minecraft -- the voxel-based "virtual Lego" game that is a runaway hit with younger players -- to engage children with national parks.

"Were looking for new ways to get people to talk to us. "We've got an online survey for the adults, but for the kids, we thought we'd have a go at doing something a bit innovative," environment department consultation officer Georgia Gowing told In Daily.

"We want to know what children want from national parks. Do they want more mountain bike trails? Do they want rock-climbing walls? Do they want natural play areas? It's a really good thing to get kids using [video games] as a positive. They do this stuff on a screen and then they get out into a real national park."

Minecraft already has carved out a pretty solid place in the classroom, with the Mojang-backed MinecraftEdu project seeing educators use it as a teaching tool.

Entries to the competition -- which close on June 12 -- must be made on unmodded versions of the game -- to keep it fair -- and must consist of five screenshots and a flythrough video lasting no longer than three minutes. They will be judged on useability, sustainability, design, year level, fun factor and amazingness.

The winning project will be announced on July 13. We'd better not see any creepers in the bushes, though.

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Philips Fidelio L2 (Black) review: A hidden gem of a headphone

The Philips Fidelio L2, which costs around $250 online (£162 UK, AU$360), doesn't get talked about much compared to competing models from the likes of Sony, Sennheiser, V-Moda, Audio-Technica, Bose, and Beats, but it's a really good headphone. It's been on the market for several months, but it's beginning to become available at additional retailers.

The L2 is a semi-open design, which means it will leak some sound but not as much as an open-back headphone (such as its sibling, the Fidelio X2). It comes with two cloth-covered cables, one of which has an inline remote and microphone for cell-phone use, so it does double duty as a home and mobile headphone.

It's got a one-button remote that's designed to work with both Android and Apple phones, which is good. It lacks volume controls, but you can pause/play tracks and skip them forward and back, as well as answer and end calls.

Overall, the 260-gram headphone seems sturdily built -- its headband is made out of aluminum -- and is comfortable to wear, with nicely padded, leather-covered ear cushions that are equipped with memory foam. They fit snugly but not too snugly on your ears, and sound isolation is good.

While we were able to wear the L2 for long stretches, it's not as comfortable as the Sony MDR-1A, which is lighter at 225 grams. It's also worth mentioning that this wouldn't be the best headphone to wear around during summer because your ears will get steamy.

The L2 folds flat but it doesn't fold up like the Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 does. A basic cloth carrying pouch is included to stow the headphones. Some other headphones in this price class come with better carrying cases.

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