WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2014 lifestyle F e a t u r e s Top 10 songs, albums on the iTunes Store These product images provided by Google show the mood music feature on the web version of Google Play. — AP photos 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Top Songs Out Of The Woods, Taylor Swift Shake It Off, Taylor Swift All About That Bass, Meghan Trainor Animals, Maroon 5 Bang Bang, Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj Habits (Stay High), Tove Lo Trumpets, Jason Derulo Don’t Tell ‘Em (feat. YG), Jeremih Cool Kids, Echosmith Black Widow (feat. Rita Ora), Iggy Azalea 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Top Albums Anything Goes, Florida Georgia Line 1989, Taylor Swift rose ave., You+Me Old Boots, New Dirt, Jason Aldean In the Lonely Hour, Sam Smith Hozier, Hozier Blood Moon: Year of the Wolf (..., Game) FOUR (Deluxe Version), One Direction Sweet Talker, Jessie J Sonic Highways, Foo Fighters — AP Google’s streaming music service adds mood to mix G oogle’s music-subscription service will try to anticipate its listeners’ mood swings as it amplifies its competition with Pandora, Spotify and other popular services that play tunes over the Internet. Starting from today, the $10-amonth All Access service will make music suggestions based on educated guesses about each subscriber’s mood and likely activities at certain points in the day or week. For instance, a subscriber who opens the service on a smartphone on a Monday morning might be offered a playlist suited for commuting, going to the gym or getting motivated for work. Opening the app on Monday evening, though, might generate songs appropriate for eating dinner, studying or unwinding. Six different music mixes created for different emotions and activities - with such labels as “Jumping Out of Bed” or “In The Lonely Hour” - will be automatically displayed for All Access subscribers in the US and Canada. The mixes won’t be played unless the subscriber selects one. The feature won’t be immediately available in the other 43 countries where All Access is sold. The mood music also will be tailored to each listener’s tastes, so a subscriber who already has signaled a preference for rock and an aversion for country music would be more likely to hear the Rolling Stones perform “Monkey Man” than “Dead Flowers” in their mixes. Subscribers also will be able to request playlists designed for specific activities such as napping or housecleaning. Google’s attempt to cater to people’s moods reflects the growing importance of delivering soundtracks that suit listeners’ discrete tastes and lifestyles. Making the right recommendation is becoming more crucial now that Google, Pandora and Spotify have secured the licensing rights to most of the same music. 30 million titles “The content is roughly the same, so the main thing you can do for a user now is to have the right context,” said Brandon Bilinski, product manager for Google Play Music, which runs All Access. “We want to get our listeners to the right music to fit the mood and make them feel good.” Google Inc. picked up the mood-melding technology in its July purchase of Songza, a free music service with about 5 million listeners. Google’s All Access service launch just 17 months ago, leaving the company that runs the Internet’s dominant search engine and other leading digital services in the unfamiliar position of trying to catch up. Pandora Media Inc’s free Internet radio station boasts 76 million monthly listeners, while Spotify has 40 million listeners, including more than 10 million subscribers to its $10-permonth service. Google hasn’t disclosed how many people subscribe to its All Access service, which offers a music library spanning 30 million titles. Selecting songs based on listener’s shifting moods is similar to what a smart music player called Aether Cone does. That player draws upon the music from another subscription service called Rdio Unlimited, which also charges $10 per month. Computer’s analytical powers Pandora, Spotify and other services all strive to lead their audiences to mixes and genres that will please them, though the others tend to depend on computer algorithms that analyze each person’s preferences and listening histories. Combining human knowledge with a computer’s analytical powers is similar to what Beat Electronics was doing with its own music-streaming service before Apple Inc. bought it for $3 billion earlier this year. Apple has said Beats’ recommendation system eventually might be blended into its own music-streaming service, though that hasn’t happened yet. Google’s new feature includes several thousand playlists assembled by Songza music aficionados that include DJs, performers and critics. Songza’s hand-picked playlists will be slightly adjusted by algorithms programmed to learn more about each listener’s tastes and habits. As time goes on, Google hopes to provide even more nuanced playlists that acknowledge a person’s mood is likely to be much different while driving to work on a Friday morning than a Monday morning. For now, though, the Mountain View, California, company will depend on cues from each subscriber. “We can be smart about a lot of things, but it’s really hard to tell a person’s mood,” Bilinski said. — AP Shmulik Freireich, an Israel Antiquities Authority conservationist works on a commemorative inscription in stone dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian that was found outside Jerusalem’s Old City, at the Rockefeller museum in Jerusalem. — AP photos Italy’s singing Nun picks ‘Like a Virgin’ as her first single I taly’s singing nun, Sister Cristina Scuccia, who won “The Voice of Italy” in June, has released a cover of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” as her first single, ahead of a forthcoming album. The 26-year-old Sicilian sister’s rather restrained cover of “Virgin,” softly sung against picturesque religionthemed Italian backdrops, while wearing her nun’s habit, crucifix around her neck, and plain black shoes, is bound to provoke some polemics, especially in Italy. And is clearly calculated to generate boffo sales. In an interview with Italian catholic daily Avvenire, Scuccia said she “chose it with no intention to provoke or scandalize.” “Reading the text, without being influenced by previous interpretations, you discover that it is a song about the power of love to renew people, to rescue them from their past,” she professed. “We have transformed this song from the pop-dance piece which it was, into a romantic ballad, a bit like the ones by Amos Lee. Something more similar to a lay prayer, than to a pop piece,” Scuccia went on. Scuccia reportedly took her vows in 2010 after a rebellious adolescence. She has been training as a singer for years and before appearing on “The Voice” had previously auditioned for several other TV talent shows, including “XFactor” in Italy. Scuccia become a global sensation starting in March when her rendition of Alicia Keys’ “No One” on a “The Voice” blind audition in Italy got more than 50 million hits on YouTube and appreciative Tweets from Keys herself and Whoopi Goldberg. Sister Cristina’s debut album will be out Nov 11 on Republic Records. It will also include covers of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know,” Jessie J’s “Price Tag,” Coldplay’s “Fix You,” Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors,” and Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World,” as well as two new original tracks. — Reuters Rare Roman inscription unearthed in Jerusalem I sraeli archaeologists yesterday unveiled a 2,000-year-old commemorative stone inscription dedicated to Roman Emperor Hadrian, which researchers say sheds light on the Jewish revolt against the ancient empire. The stone, which measures a meter by a meter-and-a-half (three feet by five feet) and weighs a ton, was found near the Damascus Gate entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City, with Israel’s Antiquity Authority (IAA) calling it “one of the most important Latin inscriptions” discovered in the Holy City. The six lines in Latin, engraved in the hard white limestone, are a dedication from the Roman army honoring Emperor Hadrian, who visited the city in 130 AD and whose many building projects included the wall named after him in Britain to demarcate a border of the Roman Empire. The IAA said the stone may have originally been set into a gateway. It was found on top of a deep cistern, with a semi-circle cut through the lower part of the inscription to allow access to the water. “We have testimony in a new medium - stone - and a remnant of an original monument,” said Rina Avner, who led the IAA excavation along with Roie Greenwald. The event mentioned in the inscription took place before the so-called Bar Kokhba revolt (132-136 AD) against the Roman Empire, she told AFP. She said historians remained divided over whether the revolt was a result of harsh measures taken Turkish people keen on learning Arabic language T he Turkish people are very keen on learning the Arabic language to enable them to better understand the Holy Quran and Islamic values, said Turkish academic here yesterday. Speaking to KUNA, Head of the Arabic Language Department at the University of Gazi in Ankara, Professor Musa Yildiz said that historically, the Turkish people started learning the Arabic language during the era of Islamic conquests when the Turks began to have contact with Arab Muslims. Sharing common social values and ethics, the Turkish people assimilated into the Islamic world and began to become vanguards of the Muslim nation, said the academic, noting that Islam played an integral role in the social transformation of the Turkish people. Yildiz said that Arabic had a great impact on the Turkish language with the Turks adopting the Arab letters in writing for a long period of time before switching to Latin alphabets in 1928. In regards to modern teaching of the Arabic language, Yildiz affirmed that the Arabic language was taught in all school levels before University as a selective subject, but it was compulsory for those willing to become Imams and scholars in the 1,001 religious schools in Turkey. On the level of university and high learning institutions, Yildiz said that there were 2,500 university student learning Arabic while there were around 52,000 counterparts studying at higher Sharia (religious law) institutes. —KUNA against Jews by Hadrian, who rebuilt the city with pagan temples and named it Aelia Capitolina, or if the decrees were punishment for the rebellion. The latest finding is proof of “public official Roman building in the city” of Jerusalem in that year, she said. While the inscription did not change the way history would be written, it was “another significant piece of the puzzle we’ve been trying to solve for a while,” Avner said. — AFP World-leading professional hair color brand Goldwell ushers in new era in coloring G oldwelloffers intelligent technology that gives unmistakably beautiful hair color and extends 100% accuracy in mixing coupled with bright finish Al Jothen Co, one of the leading distributors of internationally reputed professional beauty brands across the entire Middle East, has reinforced that Goldwell, the world’s top hair care brand, has taken hair colouring to a totally new level in Kuwait. 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TopChic, the permanent hair color from Goldwell offers a mix of 125 shades, comes with the unique Depot Can system - a major breakthrough in colour oxidation and a distinct advantage compared to other hair colour brands available in the tube technology. “The world-class Goldwell hair colour is designed to suit various hair coloring needs in Kuwait. Al Jothen, is renowned to bring world-class innovation to the region, and this launch is part of the efforts to cap the success with a truly innovative product,” said Abdul Majid Madi, CEO of Al Jothen Group. Madi added: “The launch of Goldwell in Kuwait is part of Al Jothen’s commitment to bring world-class brands to its clientele in the region. The move also reinforces Goldwell’s reputation as the best hair care brand and colour solution in the market offering excellence and innovation.” Innovative technologies and tools that support professionals prepare and condition the hair with TopChic depot can deliver optimal color results every time, for each unique style. It offers 100% accuracy in the mixing ratio between the colour and lotion (Peroxide), as opposed to 80%-90% accuracy with tubes. As a result of this, TopChicis simple to use and five times quicker than the tube in terms of color application. TopChic Lotion (peroxide), with its patented formula, has a unique technology too and its IntraLipid technology sustainability replenishes lipids inside the hair which improves hair structure, keeps it protected and ensures perfect hair coloring results and longlasting shine.
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