In its second-quarter report, Spotify said its subscribers rose 31% year over year to hit 108 million subscribers at the end of June. “That figure was weaker than Spotify expected but keeps it well above its closest competitor, Apple Music, which had 60 million subscribers as of June,” reports CNET. From the report: Spotify also said Wednesday that 232 million people now use its service at least once a month, up 29% from a year earlier. Spotify, unlike Apple, has a free tier that lets anyone listen to music with advertising. Apple has never disclosed a monthly-active-user stat; almost all people who use Apple Music are subscribers. Spotify’s growth in monthly active users beat the best-case prediction the company made in April, coming in 4 million above the 228 million high end of guidance. But its subscribers — who make Spotify way more money than ad-supported free listeners — were at the low end of its expectations. Its 108 million figure scraped into its guidance range of 107 million to 110 million.

Its subscriber growth was relatively weaker because fewer people signed up for its heavily discounted student plan. Spotify also said it would make up for the latest quarter’s shortfall by the end of the year. Looking ahead, Spotify predicted that it will have 110 million to 114 million paid subscribers by the end of September and that its monthly active users will increase to between 240 million and 245 million. By the end of the year, it expects to cross the milestone of a quarter of a billion monthly listeners.

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Source: Slashdot – Spotify Keeps Big Lead Over Apple Music But Disappoints With 108M Subscribers

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: About 5,000 euros ($5,600) are set to buy your 10-year-old combustion clunker an electric makeover — and offer a cut-price way to avoid driving bans across European cities. French startup Transition-One has developed retrofitting technology that adds an electric engine, batteries and a connected dashboard into older models of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, Volkswagen AG, Renault SA and PSA Group for about 8,500 euros, or 5,000 euros after government subsidies in France.

In the prototype Twingo, three battery packs are fitted in front and two in what used to be the gas tank. The whole pack, bought from a Tesla Inc. parts reseller, weighs 120 kilograms (265 pounds). To compare, Renault’s electric Zoe has a 290 kilogram battery for a 210 kilometer driving range. Prices start at around 23,000 euros excluding battery rental battery. The transition takes less than a day, leaving the original stick shift and gear box and installing the plug behind the hatch that drivers usually pop open to refill the tank. Founder Aymeric Libeau, whose previous experiences include co-founding software company Pentalog Group, has worked on retrofitting for two years, and tested the method with a French business school. He is looking to raise 6 million euros to build a factory he says would be capable of churning out as many as 4,000 vehicles next year.

Libeau expects French and European regulator approval by the end of the year and will start pre-orders in September to test demand.

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Source: Slashdot – French Startup Transition-One Plans a ,600 Electric Makeover For Your Old Diesel Car

Citing threats to free speech and civil rights, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts on Tuesday moved to prohibit local government from using facial recognition. Three other cities in the country have already instituted such bans over concerns that the technology is biased and violates basic human rights. Gizmodo reports: In December of last year, the Cambridge City Council passed the Surveillance Technology Ordinance which requires the council’s approval prior to the acquisition or deployment of certain surveillance tech, which included facial recognition software. The order was passed on Tuesday by the council and will next be sent to the Public Safety Committee, Mayor Marc McGovern and Councillor Sumbul Siddiqui both confirmed to Gizmodo in an email. This marks one step closer to banning the city’s use of the tech altogether.

The amendment, sponsored by Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern and two city councilmembers, argued that, given recent reports, it’s evident this tech can discriminate against women and people of color. They also argued that facial recognition technology violates a person’s civil rights and civil liberties. “The use of face recognition technology can have a chilling effect on the exercise of constitutionally protected free speech, with the technology being used in China to target ethnic minorities, and in the United States, it was used by police agencies in Baltimore, Maryland, to target activists in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death,” the amendment states.

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Source: Slashdot – Cambridge, Massachusetts Moves To Ban Facial Recognition

Samsung is one of the only companies still producing tablets to rival Apple’s iPad. Today the company announced the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6, its latest high-end tablet, for $649. Pre-orders start August 23, and the device ships September 6. Samsung says there will be an LTE version available later. Ars Technica reports: The Samsung Tab S6 features a 10.5-inch 2560×1600 OLED display, a 2.84GHz Snapdragon 855, and a 7040mAh battery. The base version has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, with a higher tier of 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. For cameras, there’s an 8MP front camera, while the rear gets a 13MP main camera and a 5MP wide-angle lens. The device is down to 5.7mm thick and weighs 420 grams. This is Samsung’s first-ever tablet with an in-screen fingerprint reader. Interestingly, it’s an optical reader instead of the ultrasonic tech that the Galaxy S10 uses. Somehow, on a 10-inch tablet, Samsung couldn’t find room for a headphone jack. Even Apple, which ditched the headphone jack two years ago, still puts a headphone jack on iPads. Samsung is apparently declaring war on the headphone jack with this round of updates — the Galaxy Note 10, launching next week, is expected to dump the headphone jack, too.

The S-Pen comes with the tablet but doesn’t stow away inside the body; instead, a groove on the back of the tablet gives it a spot to magnetically attach to. Of course, don’t expect the tablet to sit flat on a table with a big pen attached to the back. As with other newer Samsung devices, the S-Pen now comes with a battery and some Bluetooth functionality, allowing it to do things like work as a remote shutter button for the camera. A new “Air action” gesture system lets you do things like change the camera mode or scroll through pictures with a flick of the pen.

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Source: Slashdot – Samsung Won’t Let Android Tablets Die, Announces the Galaxy Tab S6