LG has officially unveiled a new smartphone designed specifically for music fans interested in prioritizing their listening experience. While the overall specs are not comparatively of the highest order, the phone features 1-watt speakers, a pair of premium earphones, and a Focus Mode setting for temporarily turning off calls and texts. The LG Band Play phone also includes “a 5-inch 720p HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor, 13MP camera, a 5MP front-facing camera, 2GB of RAM, and a 2,300mAh battery,” reports Ubergizmo. The new phone will launch this week in South Korea for about $355. Availability in the U.S. has yet to be announced.

Microsoft has announced the rollout of Office for Android phone. The launch, “which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint designed for the Android smartphone experience, follows earlier efforts at bringing Office to Android tablets, as well as support for Office on iOS devices, Windows and OS X,” reports TechCrunch. The Office apps allow users to review and edit files, deliver presentations from their phones, and easily retrieve documents stored on services such as Box, Google Drive and Dropbox. The apps will be pre-installed on mobile devices from more than 30 manufacturers, including LG, Samsung and Sony. Word for Android, Excel for Android and PowerPoint for Android are available for download on Google Play.

Lenovo entered the PC stick market this week with the unveiling of its Ideacentre Stick 300, scheduled to launch in the U.S. this fall for $129. The Ideacentre, which can plug into displays to provide PC capabilities such as videoconferencing and Web browsing, features an Intel Baytrail processor, 2GB of memory and 32GB of storage, according to Digital Trends. The pocket-sized stick will run Windows and offer Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. It also includes an HDMI port, MicroUSB 2.0 port, an SD card reader and its own tiny built-in speaker. Lenovo’s offering will compete with existing products including Intel’s $150 Compute Stick.

Microsoft used its E3 media event last week in Los Angeles to present its vision of the future of immersive entertainment with a “mixed reality” demonstration of the popular video game “Minecraft” seen through its HoloLens headset. The demonstration at the Shrine Auditorium exhibition hall lasted only a few minutes but its impact continues to resonate. Although Microsoft has provided few detailed plans, its early demos and comments made at E3 and other conferences suggest a future that is something more than a virtual or augmented reality. Continue reading Microsoft: Mixed Reality is Future of Immersive Entertainment

Amazon announced that it is introducing limited support for high dynamic range content on its Amazon Instant Video service. The HDR support will initially launch for Amazon Prime members in the U.S. with the full original series “Mozart in the Jungle” and the pilot episode of the original “Red Oaks.” Netflix announced earlier that it also plans to support HDR video this year, starting with its original series “Marco Polo.” However, most consumers have yet to purchase televisions that support HDR, so it may take a while for the technology to gain mainstream adoption. Continue reading Amazon Prime Instant Video Intros HDR Support for New Series

In a first for HBO, the premium cable network is promoting its new original series “Ballers” and “The Brink” by offering free access to select full episodes on Facebook. The premiere episodes, to remain on the social platform for a limited time, became available yesterday, three days after their debuts. “According to HBO, the episodes will not be available on YouTube or any other third-party digital platform, nor will they be available on cable, satellite or telco TV services (except to HBO subs),” reports Variety. “In addition to Facebook, the episodes are also available on HBO Now — its recently introduced over-the-top service — and HBO Go, for pay-TV customers.”

FBR Capital Markets suggests that Netflix would attract a bigger 24-hour audience than each of the major broadcast television networks within a year, if the streaming service were part of the Nielsen ratings. “One major caveat: Nielsen TV ratings cover, at most, up to seven days of VOD and DVR viewing — and exclude online-video views, which networks say are an increasing part of the pie,” explains Variety. “Moreover, TV networks provide a different blend of content, such as live sports, that Netflix doesn’t.” While Netflix claims it is not concerned with ratings, since it does not sell traditional TV ads, FBR analysts note that the comparison is meant to illustrate the growing popularity of Netflix.

Having a Facebook account is no longer a requirement for sending Facebook messages. Users can now sign up for the Facebook Messenger mobile app by simply entering their cell phone number. “Messenger, which boasts 700 million users, is one of a suite of mobile apps that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is keen to grow to one billion users or more,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Others include a second messaging app, WhatsApp, and photo-sharing app Instagram. WhatsApp has 800 million users, making it and Messenger the world’s two most-used messaging apps, according to market-research firm GlobalWebIndex.”

Privacy violations are becoming a major concern with young social media users. Survey data released this week by USA Network indicates that 55 percent of young people would drop social media “if they could start fresh;” 75 percent would be “somewhat likely” to deactivate their accounts if privacy breaches continued; while 23 percent said they were “highly likely” to close their accounts in the face of more breaches. “Young Americans’ sense of privacy online has been so violated that most of them believe that it’s safer to store their personal data in a box than in the cloud,” notes TechCrunch. “Indeed, the survey said that physical filing systems were actually listed as the ‘most trusted’ personal data storage method for young people.”

Hulu announced yesterday that its subscribers will have the ability to add Showtime for $8.99 per month starting in time for the July premieres of “Ray Donovan” and “Masters of Sex.” The deal represents the first time that the streaming VOD service has partnered with a premium cable channel to drive subscriptions. Hulu customers will still need to pay $7.99 per month to stream the other available content. Hulu, which originally launched as a free, ad-supported service, recently rebranded itself by removing the word “Plus” from the name of its paid tier. Continue reading Hulu to Offer Showtime for an Added Fee Beginning Next Month

Toshiba is developing a new Internet-based communication encryption system that analysts claim cannot be breached. The primary challenge in creating a foolproof system has been building a key to decode encrypted data that can be safely transferred from one place to another. “The key for Toshiba’s quantum-cryptography system will come in the form of photons that are delivered through a custom-made fiber optic cable not connected to the Internet,” The Wall Street Journal explains. “Due to the nature of the particles, any interception or wiretapping activities on the cable would change the form of data, making any spying attempts detectable.” Toshiba hopes to commercialize the service by 2020.

About 70 million photos and videos are posted daily to Instagram. This week the Facebook-owned service began tapping into that content to provide its 300 million users with the feeling of being part of current events as they unfold live. An updated Explore button, working with the service’s algorithms, will take Instagram users to the most important and timely imagery in their regions and across the nation — from live sports and concerts to breaking news. Instagram has also made it easier to find images via its search function and will feature hand-selected collections for content discovery. Continue reading Instagram Updates Put Users in the Middle of Current Events

A three-minute, 360-degree online video features YouTube star Lilly Singh (Superwoman) and other YouTubers taking on a Terminator sent from the future going crazy in the YouTube Space LA studio. “Terminator Genisys: The YouTube Chronicles in 360″ can be watched with Google’s Cardboard VR viewer. The video is “part of a partnership between YouTube, some of its creators and Paramount Studios to promote the new Terminator Genisys franchise, which also includes a three-part webisode that expands on the plot of a Terminator visiting YouTube’s production facility,” reports Variety. “For the 360-degree video, YouTube teamed up with the Venice-based VR production company Specular Theory.”

In San Diego last week, the International Telecommunication Union agreed on a definition for the 5G network requirement in addition to a schedule to commercialize the technology by 2020. ITU “has decided to define 5G as a network which is capable of transmitting data at up to 20 gigabits-per-second,” reports The Korea Times. “This means that users can download one ultra high-definition movie in 10 seconds. The 5G network will also have a capacity to provide more than 100 megabits-per-second average data transmission to over one million Internet of Things devices within 1 square kilometer.” IMT-2020 (the official name of the network) will be demonstrated at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

Musicians are coming up with new ways to leverage streaming music technology. Eternify, for example, is a website that enables users to play songs from Spotify’s catalog in 30-second loops, an approach that can slowly build up the pay-per-stream revenue for a given artist. “Last year, indie funk band Vulfpeck launched an album named Sleepify that consisted entirely of silent tracks,” notes The Verge. “They encouraged fans to stream the album on repeat while they slept, promising they’d use the streaming revenue to fund a free tour.” Ohm & Sport, the band that created Eternify, estimates that each 30-second stream will generate $0.005 for the artist.