If you contact Spotify's customer service with a valid receipt, the company will refund your Car Thing purchase. That's the latest development reported by Engadget. When Spotify first announced that it would brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024, it said that it wouldn't offer owners any subscription credit or automatic refund. From the report: Spotify has taken some heat for its announcement last week that it will brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024. The company described its decision as "part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings" (read: cut costs) and that it lets Spotify "focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users." TechCrunch reports that Gen Z users on TikTok have expressed their frustration in videos, while others have complained directed toward Spotify in DMs on X (Twitter) and directly through customer support. Some users claimed Spotify's customer service agents only offered several months of free Premium access, while others were told nobody was receiving refunds. It isn't clear if any of them contacted them after last Friday when it shifted gears on refunds. Others went much further. Billboard first reported on a class-action lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 28. The suit accuses Spotify of misleading Car Thing customers by selling a $90 product that would soon be obsolete without offering refunds, which sounds like a fair enough point. It's worth noting that, according to Spotify, it began offering the refunds last week, while the lawsuit was only filed on Tuesday. If the company's statement about refunds starting on May 24 is accurate, the refunds aren't a direct response to the legal action. (Although it's possible the company began offering them in anticipation of lawsuits.) Editor's note: As a disgruntled Car Thing owner myself, I can confirm that Spotify is approving refund requests. You'll just have to play the waiting game to get through to a Spotify Advisor and their "team" that approves these requests. You may have better luck emailing customer service directly at support@spotify.com.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotify is about to render its Car Thing dashboard accessory inoperable on December 9th. Not only is the company refusing to open-source the device, it won't offer owners any subscription credit or automatic refund. "Rather, it's just canning the project and telling people to (responsibly) dispose of Car Thing," reports The Verge. From the report: "We're discontinuing Car Thing as part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings," Spotify wrote in an FAQ on its website. "We understand it may be disappointing, but this decision allows us to focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users." The company is recommending that customers do a factory reset on the product and find some way of responsibly recycling the hardware. Spotify is also being direct and confirming that there's little reason to ever expect a sequel. "As of now, there are no plans to release a replacement or new version of Car Thing," the FAQ reads. Car Thing went on sale to the public in early 2022 for $90. Spotify halted production several months later "based on several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues." At the time, the company said: "Existing devices will perform as intended."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotify is about to render its Car Thing dashboard accessory inoperable on December 9th. Not only is the company refusing to open-source the device, it won't offer owners any subscription credit or automatic refund. "Rather, it's just canning the project and telling people to (responsibly) dispose of Car Thing," reports The Verge. From the report: "We're discontinuing Car Thing as part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings," Spotify wrote in an FAQ on its website. "We understand it may be disappointing, but this decision allows us to focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users." The company is recommending that customers do a factory reset on the product and find some way of responsibly recycling the hardware. Spotify is also being direct and confirming that there's little reason to ever expect a sequel. "As of now, there are no plans to release a replacement or new version of Car Thing," the FAQ reads. Car Thing went on sale to the public in early 2022 for $90. Spotify halted production several months later "based on several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues." At the time, the company said: "Existing devices will perform as intended."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After being rumored for years, Sonos has officially entered the headphones market with its new Ace headphones. "The Sonos Ace wireless over-ear active noise-canceling headphones are specified to go toe-to-toe with the established market leaders from the likes of Apple and Bose, and they're priced to match at $449," reports Wired. From the report: Visually, you get an elegant and notably slim pair of over-ear headphones in either a black or "soft" white matte finish. Thanks to a light 312-gram weight, and with some very well-judged clamping force and a clever hanger arrangement that conceals the hinged yoke inside the body of the ear cups, it means all-day comfort. The combination of memory foam, vegan leather, and stainless steel is equally beneficial where comfort and aesthetics are concerned. Branding is restricted to one ear cup, and it's laser-etched, so it manages to be understated while still catching the eye. Where the Apple AirPods Max shout "look at ME!," the Sonos Ace enunciate it quietly and precisely. As far as performance is concerned, you get all the bells and whistles you'd expect. Wireless connectivity is via Bluetooth 5.4, and they have SBC and AAC codecs, allowing the Ace to be compatible with ALAC and Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound aptX Lossless. Sound is delivered by a pair of custom-designed 40-mm dynamic drivers. Sonos is characteristically coy about frequency response, but from my brief listen at a recent press event in London, they were full-range enough for real bass. Ported acoustic architecture allows for optimum low-frequency extension. Spatial audio is available via those streaming services that support Dolby Atmos and/or Sony 360 Reality Audio, and Sonos' Intelligent Motion Processing with Dolby Head Tracking dynamically follows your head movement to provide an even greater sensation of immersion and envelopment. There are other cool features that most other headphones can't offer, by virtue of Sonos' ubiquity in many homes. At launch, the Ace will interact seamlessly with the Sonos Arc Dolby Atmos soundbar to swap TV sound between bar and phones at the touch of a button. Sonos suggests that compatibility with its other soundbars (Beam, Beam Gen 2, and Ray) is coming soon, along with a new TrueCinema technology that will map your listening space to reproduce your room's characteristics in the sound of the Ace. [...]

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Aamrok 3.0, ported to Qt5/KDE Frameworks 5, has been released," writes Slashdot reader serafean. "With the heavy lifting being done, the Qt6/KF6 version is expected later in the year." Originally developed for Linux as part of the KDE desktop environment, Amarok is a free, cross-platform music player that supports various audio formats and a user interface that can be tailored to individual preferences. These are the main features/changes, as highlighted in a KDE blog post: FEATURES: - Added a visual hint that context view applets can be resized in edit mode. - Display missing metadata errors in Wikipedia applet UI. - Add a button to stop automatic Wikipedia page updating. (BR 485813) CHANGES: - Replace defunct lyricwiki with lyrics.ovh as lyrics provider for now. (BR 455937) - Show only relevant items in wikipedia applet right click menu (BR 323941), use monobook skin for opened links and silently ignore non-wikipedia links. - Don't show non-functional play mode controls in dynamic mode (BR 287055) The changelog is available here. You can find the package on download.kde.org.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Several users on Reddit have noticed that Spotify has started hiding song lyrics behind a paywall. "This means you won't be able to sing along unless you know the lyrics already, or are willing to look them up in another app," reports Android Police. From the report: Still, you lose the convenience of real-time sync with the track and automatic scrolling. Like skips per hour, it appears Spotify will implement a limit system and accessing lyrics will count against the user's limit, which should ideally reset after a stipulated time. Spotify usually requests lyrics from songwriters, publishers, and independent artists. However, in most other cases, the company has a working relationship with MusixMatch to provide lyrics, and perhaps Spotify isn't willing to absorb the costs of this partnership. That would explain why lyrics are now paywalled, but as a free-tier user, such changes are chipping away at the service's appeal.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today is Record Store Day, which according to Wikipedia is happening in the U.S., the UK, Ireland, Mexico, Europe, Japan and Australia. An anonymous reader shared this report from The Los Angeles Times: 420 isn't just for stoners. This year, Record Store Day — the worldwide celebration for independent record shops that typically happens every third Saturday of April — falls on the storied day... [A]udiophiles and vinyl collectors will converge at participating stores to search for one-of-a-kind wax and CD releases by artists new and old, along with other one-of-a-kind items.... This year's event brings in roughly 400 anticipated titles including a live recording of Talking Heads from a 1977 performance (featuring seven previously unheard songs), a 12-inch vinyl release of Daft Punk's "Something About Us (Love Theme From Interstella 5555)", an unreleased live solo recording of "The Godmother of Rock n' Roll" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (from 1966) and a 10-year anniversary edition of Freddie Gibbs & Madlib's "Piñata." Also, this year's Record Store Day ambassador, Paramore, will release a remix version of its 2023 album, "This Is Why" and Cheech and Chong will reissue the soundtrack for their 1978 film, "Up in Smoke," on smoky green vinyl just in time for 4/20... [E]ven if you're not interested in copping a special release, it's still worth checking out what your favorite record store has to offer on April 20. You'll find events like in-store DJ sets, pop-up shopping experiences and in-store performances. The event features Record Store Day exclusives (not otherwise available), as well as specially-pressed commemorative editions (which will see a later release on plain black vinyl). American Songwriter lists some of the highlights: A special limited edition "miniature turntable" and four 3-inch singles of the Beatles' songs played 60 years ago on the Ed Sullivan show. A four-LP set of a 1989 Grateful Dead concert A limited edition "expanded" edition of Elton John's album Caribou with a disc of bonus tracks. A 12-inch EP previewing the upcoming box set edition of John Lennon's Mind Games album, including a song Lennon wrote for a 1973 Ringo Starr album which also featured George Harrison. A white-vinyl pressing of seven Rolling Stones tracks recorded last October — including the live debut of four songs later released on their new album Hackney Diamonds. (One track is a duet with Lady Gaga) You can see the full list here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Abstract of a paper on Nature: Music is ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and lyrics play an integral role when we listen to music. The complex relationships between lyrical content, its temporal evolution over the last decades, and genre-specific variations, however, are yet to be fully understood. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of English lyrics of Western, popular music over five decades and five genres, using a wide set of lyrics descriptors, including lyrical complexity, structure, emotion, and popularity. We find that pop music lyrics have become simpler and easier to comprehend over time: not only does the lexical complexity of lyrics decrease (for instance, captured by vocabulary richness or readability of lyrics), but we also observe that the structural complexity (for instance, the repetitiveness of lyrics) has decreased. In addition, we confirm previous analyses showing that the emotion described by lyrics has become more negative and that lyrics have become more personal over the last five decades. Finally, a comparison of lyrics view counts and listening counts shows that when it comes to the listeners' interest in lyrics, for instance, rock fans mostly enjoy lyrics from older songs; country fans are more interested in new songs' lyrics.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rachel Treisman reports via NPR: Authorities in the Russian republic of Chechnya are banning music they consider either too fast or too slow, effectively criminalizing many genres. The Chechen Ministry of Culture announced the ban on its website last week, by the order of Culture Minister Musa Dadayev and with the agreement of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. "Musical, vocal and choreographic" works will be limited to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute (BPM) to "conform to the Chechen mentality and sense of rhythm," said Dadayev, according to the Russian state-run news agency TASS. "Borrowing musical culture from other peoples is inadmissible," Dadayev said, per a translation by The Guardian. "We must bring to the people and to the future of our children the cultural heritage of the Chechen people. This includes the entire spectrum of moral and ethical standards of life for Chechens." Russian media report that artists have until June 1 to rewrite any music that doesn't conform to the new rule, though it's not clear how it will be enforced. [...] The government's crackdown on certain musical tempos would silence most modern music genres. Electronic styles of music like house, techno and dubstep all tend to have BPMs of over 116, says the audio tech company Izotope, while the average tempo of 2020's best-selling pop songs was 122 BPM, according to the BBC. The independent Russian news outlet Meduza said the tempo of the Russian national anthem would be considered too slow under the new limit, reports RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. But it would seem to permit hip-hop music, which generally has a BPM of 85 to 95. "Chechnya is a roughly 6,700-square-mile autonomous republic situated in the North Caucasus of southern Russia and home to some 1.5 million people, the vast majority of whom are Muslim," notes NPR. "The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has said Kadyrov's regime 'maintains hegemony through the imposition of a purported 'traditional' version of Islam, which falsely claims to defend local belief and culture, and combat violent extremism.'" "'In reality, Kadyrov has [co-opted] Chechen religion and culture to support his brutal regime, which violates the secular constitution of the Russian Federation and international standards of freedom of religion or belief,' it added."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.