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What is Scrobbling? The purpose of Last.fm’s scrobbling system is to give users a way to see their music listening habits and recommendations that may be of interest. As you play songs from sources that use scrobbling, Last.fm’s service adds this information to its database, which displays various statistics (song title, artist, and more). Metadata information, such as a track’s ID3 tag, supports this reporting. By building a profile of the songs you listen to, Last....

Tidal Ownership and History The platform was initially owned by many high-profile artists, including Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Coldplay, and Calvin Harris. Square, owned by Jack Dorsey, acquired 80% ownership in 2021. Despite Jay-Z’s claim that Tidal isn’t competing with anyone, the platform is essentially a competitor of Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music. But there are a couple of things that set it apart. What Makes Tidal Different? Tidal was the first music-streaming platform to offer high fidelity, lossless audio quality....

VoLTE Offers Clearer Voice Calls VoLTE offers high-quality voice calls with minimal background noise. VoLTE calls are also generally considered more reliable and stable since they are less prone to suddenly disconnecting or experiencing glitches. VoLTE uses the LTE standard for network transmissions over the 4G wireless network, which allows cellular providers to more efficiently deliver communications services to their customers—whether that’s phone calls, video calls, text messages, or anything else....

What Devices Does Windows 10X Support? Windows 10X works on Windows-based devices with a two-screen form factor like Microsoft’s Surface Neo, which is due for release in Fall 2020. PC manufacturers, ASUS, Dell, HP and Lenovo are confirmed to be releasing similar devices around late-2020 and early-2021 that will also take advantage of the Microsoft OS. Computers, laptops, and tablets running Windows 10 cannot upgrade or switch to Windows 10X. Doing so would be like trying to put iOS on a Windows PC....

When Does the New iPhone Come Out? Figuring out when the new iPhone comes out isn’t an exact science — at least not until Apple makes an announcement of a release date. But, based on history, you can make an educated guess. Most likely, new iPhone models will come out in September or October every year (with a few possible exceptions, as we’ll see). We can say this based on the release dates of previous iPhones: While it was unclear at that time whether the fall release of the iPhone 4S was a one-time thing, with the September release of the iPhone 5 and almost all subsequent models arriving in September, it seems likely that all new iPhone models will now be released in the fall....

The Playdate is a pocket game console from indie software house Panic, with hardware design help from Teenage Engineering, the company behind the iconic OP-1 and OP-Z synthesizers. One look at the Playdate’s specs will show it’s not a rival to the Nintendo Switch, or any other handheld console. It has a black and white screen, with no backlight; its games have names like Casual Birder, Executive Golf DX, and Echoic Memory....

The answer is complicated, and it depends on how much money you want to spend, how picky you are about sound quality, and a few other factors. There are ways to make an existing amp work with a sub, but the best results come from matching a subwoofer and an amplifier to achieve the harmony you desire. Who Needs a Subwoofer Amplifier? The short answer is that everyone who wants a subwoofer in their car also needs a subwoofer amplifier....

Bits, Bytes, and Prefixes All computers store data in a binary format as either a one or zero. Eight of these bits together form a byte. The various amounts of storage capacity are defined by a prefix that represents a specific amount, similar to the metric prefixes. Since all computers use binary math, these prefixes represent base-2 amounts. Each level is an increment of 2 to the 10th power or 1,024....

While these ads can be helpful in reminding you of products you may be interested in purchasing, they often clutter up content you do want to see and can slow down web page loading times. Online advertising is necessary to support websites and pay for expenses such as web hosting, compensation for writers and developers, and other costs. However, many people find online ads to be intrusive and annoying and prefer to turn them off....

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, but it has nothing to do with those awful fairytale-looking photos of the same name. It’s a way of capturing a wider range of light (and dark), and then playing it back. It’s available on HDR TVs, but is a fairly new technology for mobile devices. Now, it’s available in the iOS YouTube app, but there are other apps that support it, too. “If you’re a producer, HDR video can elevate your work because it’s simply brighter and more colorful than standard video,” writes Engadget’s Steve Dent, describing an HDR project....

The Mac has way more power than the iPad and iPhone when it comes to automation. You can pretty much program it to do whatever you want. In theory. To use most of those tools—AppleScript, shell scripting, the supposedly user-friendly Automator—you have to be able to program. Shortcuts, on the other hand, is kind of like Legos for automation, in that anyone can pick it up and automate dull, repetitive tasks....

Earlier this week, Pine64 announced that it was working on an e-ink reader after years of fans asking for one. The PineNote, as it has been aptly named, is set to arrive sometime this year, and Pine64 says it should be one of the most powerful e-ink devices available when it launches. Set to retail at $399, the PineNote is a bit more expensive than some of the other e-ink readers that you might find available on the market today....

Zoom has a history of security and trust screwups, from installing secret web servers on your computer to lying about its number of daily active users. Now, Mac security researcher Patrick Wardle has discovered a flaw in the installer that leaves you open to exploitation. Given its track record, it seems likely that Zoom might have similar problems in the future, so how should you protect yourself? “Perhaps the marketplace will punish Zoom for the security breach, but this illuminates a much bigger issue in the cyberthreat arena....

The news about Meta is downbeat, which may signify the industry’s fate as the company is one of the top players in virtual reality. The company has invested billions in its Quest line of VR headsets to access the metaverse, a version of the Internet as a universal and immersive virtual world. Don’t believe the hype, some experts say. “For everyday users, VR offers an escape to another time and place—real or imagined,” Ryan Harmon, the president of Zeitgeist Design & Production, a company that produces immersive experiences, told Lifewire in an email interview....

Monitors using the new DisplayPort 2.0 spec already should be in stores, but COVID-19 canceled last year’s “plug tests.” These are in-person meetups where engineers from different companies hammer out interoperability issues. “VESA is now planning our next PlugTest for this Spring in Taiwan,” a Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) spokesperson told The Verge, “so we expect to get this process rolling again.” DisplayPort 2.0 The big change in DisplayPort 2....

The problem is that ATT isn’t a block-all solution to trackers. If a user (you or I) opts out of being tracked by apps, then Apple disables its own built-in ad-tracking system, and requires developers to respect that decision and disable any other tracking software in their apps. What ATT doesn’t do is actually block those third-party trackers. For that, you need a third-party app—but you need to make sure you trust it....

What You Need to Connect to Wi-Fi All modern smartphones, tablets, and computers come with a built-in wireless network adapter. If you’re using an older device, or if your internal Wi-Fi adapter is broken, you can purchase a USB Wi-Fi adapter. If the network is secured with a password, or the administrators have hidden the network name (SSID) from being broadcast, you’ll also need to find out that information to get connected....

If you use a generic USB wireless game adapter or Ethernet-to-wireless bridge, then you can swap the adapter between your Xbox and computer with no problem. Using the Xbox 360 Wireless Networking Adapter The Xbox 360 Wireless Networking Adapter is compatible with the original Xbox 360 console and the Xbox 360 S console. When you connect the adapter to the Xbox 360 S console, it disables the wireless N feature in the console....

The Free version is basic in the extreme and lacks background scanning. The only upgrade is the paid Premium version, which adds real-time protection with the company’s Neural engine. Lean and light, AntiMalware tries to deliver top-notch protection without slowing the system down too much. With that said, we put this antivirus program through the paces and tested its performance, so read on to see our full thoughts. Type of Protection: Machine Learning AntiMalware 3....

Router manufacturers assign routers a default private IP address. The address 192.168.0.100 is not a common router address. Still, a few broadband router models and access points use it (as well as other devices), including some Netgear models and some printers by SerComm and USRobotics, among others. How Private IP Addresses Work Private network IP addresses cannot be accessed from the internet directly but can allow any device on a local network to connect to another device on that network....