ANBARASUASOKAN

Once upon a time, the analog cassette tape was king. And for those that remember the time, chances are you might also recall having made a mixtape or two as well. Australian-based start-up venture Sharetapes is looking to recapture a little of that old-school magic, albeit with a modern twist, by launching a line of physical cards that you can load-up with playlists from websites like YouTube, Spotify and 8tracks. Users can then share their saved lists with other people’s smartphones using near-field communication (NFC) technology or quick response (QR) scanning codes. View all Near-field communication on mobile devices is becoming ever more commonplace, and the potential for it to become an essential part of everyday life is huge. We are already tapping our bank cards against a screen at the supermarket checkout, and new examples of NFC-enabled products for use with smartphones, such as  business cards  and  door locks are highlighting the innovative pote...

YouTube, whether intentionally or not, is the new MTV. Not long after the network once known as Music Television stopped playing music, Google’s video streaming service took its place as the preferred music video source for teenagers. According to a new report, Google is now ready to take the next step and sell subscriptions for its service. According to  Fortune , Google is preparing to launch a YouTube subscription service later this year. Rather than creating a paywall around existing YouTube content, though, the paid tier would simply let viewers enjoy copyrighted musical content ad-free. Spotify for music videos? The YouTube subscription service would be separate from – but overlap with – an (also-rumored) Google Play subscription streaming service. The Android version is expected to more closely resemble Spotify’s (and Rdio’s, Deezer’s, Rhapsody’s, etc.) on-demand audio model, while an ad-free YouTube would be more akin to a Spotify for music videos. In its early y...