Streaming music service Spotify is now cheaper for families, matching Apple Music in both price and number of family members. The Spotify family plan now covers up to six people for one monthly $14.99 fee. Previously, $14.99 included only two members, though you could pay $5 extra for each additional person up to a maximum of five. Spotify's new plan is thus no different for two-person families, but could be more than half off for a household of six. As a bonus, Spotify families aren’t locked together in a Family Sharing group, as is the case with Apple Music.

 

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Streaming music service Spotify is now cheaper for families, matching Apple Music in both price and number of family members. The Spotify family plan now covers up to six people for one monthly $14.99 fee. Previously, $14.99 included only two members, though you could pay $5 extra for each additional person up to a maximum of five. Spotify's new plan is thus no different for two-person families, but could be more than half off for a household of six. As a bonus, Spotify families aren’t locked together in a Family Sharing group, as is the case with Apple Music.

 

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

jones_supa writes: Investigators in France have raided Google's Paris headquarters amid a probe over the company's tax payments, Reuters reports. The French Finance Ministry is investigating $1.8 billion in back taxes. According to a report in French daily Le Parisien, at least 100 investigators are part of the raid at Google's offices. A source close to the finance ministry said that the raid at Google's offices has been ongoing on Tuesday since 03:00 GMT. In February, a source at the French Finance Ministry told Reuters that the government was seeking the $1.8 billion from Google. At the time, official spokespeople for Google France and the Finance Ministry refused to comment on the situation. Google could face up to a $11.14 million fine if it is found guilty, or a fine of half of the value of the laundered amount involved. In April, the EU revealed plans to force multinationals such as Google, Amazon and Facebook to disclose exactly where and how much tax they pay across the continent. A new clause was added since the Panama Papers leak requiring the companies to report how much money they make in so-called "tax havens."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Danny Sullivan, reporting for Search Engine Land: How many searches per year happen on Google? After nearly four years, the company has finally released an updated figure today of "trillions" per year. How many trillions, exactly, Google wouldn't say. Consider two trillion the starting point. Google did confirm to Search Engine Land that because it said it handles "trillions" of searches per year worldwide, the figure could be safely assumed to be two trillion or above. Is it more than two trillion? Google could be doing five trillion searches per year. Or 10 trillion. Or 100 trillion. Or presumably up to 999 trillion, because if it were 1,000 trillion, you'd expect Google would announce that it does a quadrillion searches per year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

France is suffering from major fuel shortages, with oil refineries still blockaded by striking oil workers.

France is suffering from major fuel shortages, with oil refineries still blockaded by striking oil workers.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis are working on creating half-human, half-animal hybrid embryos dubbed chimeras to better understand diseases and its progression. But not everybody is thrilled about it. IBTimes reports: One of the aims of the experiment using chimeras is to create farm animals with human organs. The body parts could then be harvested and transplanted into very sick people. However, a number of bioethicists and scientists frown on the creation of interspecies embryos which they believe crosses the line. New York Medical College Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy Stuart Newman calls the use of chimeras as entering unsettling ground which damages "our sense of humanity." They are not alone in voicing their opinion against the idea. Huffington Post adds: The project is so controversial that the National Institutes of Health has refused to fund it. The researchers are relying on private donors. Critics of these experiments say they are too risky because there is no way of knowing where the human stem cells will go. Will they just become a pancreas? Or could they become a brain? And if they become a brain, will the pigs who house them have human consciousness?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Don Reisinger, reporting for Fortune: Apple won't be competing with its carrier partners anytime soon. Speaking at Startup Fest Europe in Amsterdam during an interview on Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook squashed rumors that his company is planning to eventually get into the cellular market to compete with the likes of AT&T and Verizon. "Our expertise doesn't extend to the network," Cook said. "We've worked with AT&T in the U.S., O2 in the U.K., as well as T-Mobile and Orange, and we expanded as we learned more. But generally, the things Apple likes to do, are things we can do globally. We don't have the network skill. We'll do some things along the way with e-SIMs along the way, but in general, I like the things carriers do."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Don Reisinger, reporting for Fortune: Apple won't be competing with its carrier partners anytime soon. Speaking at Startup Fest Europe in Amsterdam during an interview on Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook squashed rumors that his company is planning to eventually get into the cellular market to compete with the likes of AT&T and Verizon. "Our expertise doesn't extend to the network," Cook said. "We've worked with AT&T in the U.S., O2 in the U.K., as well as T-Mobile and Orange, and we expanded as we learned more. But generally, the things Apple likes to do, are things we can do globally. We don't have the network skill. We'll do some things along the way with e-SIMs along the way, but in general, I like the things carriers do."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CPAN Artifact Repository Manager

CPAN Artifact Repository Manager

Build an optimized subroutine parameter validator once, use it forever

Build an optimized subroutine parameter validator once, use it forever