Spotify

In an announcement on Friday, Spotify revealed that it will stop offering political advertisements on its platform starting in early 2020. This isn't a permanent suspension of its political advertisements, but rather a decision to 'pause' this type of ad during what is expected to be a contentious election season. The decision comes amid growing concerns over the role political ad manipulation can play in shaping election outcomes.

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Despite the PR and legal tussle with Apple, Spotify remains the world's biggest name in the music streaming business. How it got there, however, is the subject of much scrutiny, criticism, and debate. It definitely didn't get there by being a social network itself, something its own users have been wishing for years. Spotify may finally be ready to give in, probably not out of charity, and is testing a new feature called Tastebuds that will let users get some insight into what their friends have been listening to, perhaps repeatedly even.

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Once upon a time, social interaction between users seemed to be part of Spotify's strategy, but in recent years, we've seen the company pare back some social features in favor of discovery by way of curated playlist. If you're one of the users who laments those disappearing social features, there may be hope yet, as a newly-discovered prototype suggests that Spotify may be looking to bring back music discovery based primarily on what your friends are listening to.

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Spotify has finally given iOS users access to a nifty feature that first arrived on Android earlier this year. With the new Sleep Timer function, users can choose how long music will play before automatically turning off. The feature solves a common annoyance involving listening to music at night, one often responsible for disrupted sleep and grumpiness the next day.

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This afternoon Microsoft Chief Product officer Panos Panay announced a release delay for Surface Earbuds. Earlier this year, Microsoft's Surface Earbuds weren't given a definite release date - but were generally assumed to be coming to market by the end of 2020. As it turns out, and confirmed this afternoon, these earbuds needed a little more work than originally expected.

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Only days after the same support arrived on Sonos speakers, Spotify has announced that its Free service is now accessible through Amazon's Alexa personal assistant. This marks the first time users have been able to access the free version of the service using Alexa, including on smart speakers and the Fire TV platform. The move follows Amazon's recent expansion of its own free music availability.

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Spotify has launched a new feature that makes it easy for users to generate playlists for their upcoming road trips. Called 'Soundtrack your Ride,' the new tool taps Google Maps to power a route-based music playlist long enough to cover the entire distance. Spotify pairs the map tool with a small quiz that'll help ensure the user gets the type of music they'll enjoy.

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After no small amount of delays and a bigger amount of controversy, the Magic Leap One finally leaped into existence last year to bring its own version of augmented reality to real reality. Since then, AR and even VR have somewhat taken a backseat in tech news but that's not to say they're dead. In fact, Magic Leap has made an announcement that could, to some extent, help bring home the AR message to the rest of the world.

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Spotify Free users will now be able to stream to Sonos speakers, removing the previous requirement that listeners have a premium account. The update means that Sonos owners can now dip into Spotify's catalog without having a monthly fee to consider, as well as getting access to the streaming service's personalized playlists.

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Spotify today announced that it's rolling out a new app aimed specifically at kids. Dubbed simply Spotify Kids, the app will be available to subscribers who are on Spotify's family plan. At the moment, availability is pretty limited, as Spotify has only launched the app in beta for the time being.

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The app Spotify will soon be sending you more notifications than it already did before now. Don't worry, though, the notifications aren't the sort that appear in your Android or iOS notifications panel. Instead, it's another notification that appears in the Spotify app, appearing over the top of the rest of the buttons and the content in the app - and maybe that doesn't bother you at all!

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Around this time last year, Spotify decided to run a promotion in which it handed out Google Home Mini speakers to Premium Family subscribers. That promotion is back this year, but this time around, Spotify is expanding eligibility. Not only are Family plan subscribers eligible to receive a Google Home Mini, but those on individual Premium accounts are eligible as well.

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