YouTube Music Key and Google Play Music Key to unite audio and video

It is only just a leak so far, but we have it on good authority that Google's YouTube will be launching a service called YouTube Music Key, which will be a paid subscription service to provide ad-free, curated music videos, recorded concerts and more. In addition, Google Play Music All Access is to be renamed Google Play Music Key and add 20 million new tracks to their collection.

The combined YouTube Music Key and Google Play Music Key is expected to sell for $9.99 per month. That's the same price as All Access runs for now. 

The resulting service provided here is one that is ultimately unparalleled in the media streaming world right now. Google is effectively providing a one stop shop for all of our musical desires. No longer will we have to go to Play Music to listen to tunes, then kill it off and open up YouTube to be able to catch the video for that same artist we were just listening too.

Music related news and apps from the first week of May

Checkout this collection of the biggest music and audio news and apps for the week. In the news department, we've got a possible acquisition of Beats Electronics, a good deal on tunes in the Google Play Store and Pandora is testing out a new way to make some money. As for those apps, one winds it up and the other brings it all back down to sleepy town, let's check out Spoticast and Doze.

Control music and more straight from your Notification bar, Tasker is just that good

Are you getting tired of Tasker yet? I'm not. I let you know about a big update that pushed out recently to Tasker, it included a lengthy list of updates and new features. One of the most up front new features that is either powerful or annoying, depending on your point of view, is the ability to place up to three buttons within the permanent Tasker notification, that fire off your favorite Tasks.

Whether you like the feature, or hate it, this tutorial will help you out.

Music

I was asked recently to explain a little bit about music files, specifically MP3 files, in regards to quality.

The general idea was that the original files in the WAV format were over 100 MB in size, but after converting to MP3, the file size was reduced to only roughly 3% the original size. How can MP3 possibly be of any useful quality if it is so small?

As I know the inquisitive nature of the requester, I began by explaining some of the basics of the MP3 digital music file as we use them today:

ES File Explorer File Manager

If ever there was one that could do it all, this may be it.

ES File explorer is a whole bunch of tools all wrapped up in the guise of a File Manager. At the heart of it, of course, ES File Explorer is a great file explorer for normal and Rooted users alike. From there, it adds value by offering as many related functions as it can muster, including app backups, cloud and network file navigation, media players and even fire up a WiFi hotspot. Let us focus on one function at a time:

Transferring Files on Android - Using Wireless Technologies

Wired, Wireless, or something in between? Part 2 - Wireless Techniques

In Part 1 - Wired and Physical Media Solutions, we talked about using USB cables, SD Cards and Flash media to transfer your files onto a new Android device. If those techniques didn't work to get your movies and music, photo collection or other files onto your Android device, you still have several options ahead of you.

Chromecast, or Not to Chromecast?

That is the... er, let's call it... a question.

For a very affordable $35, you can get your hands on Google's entry into the 'tiny-pc-for-your-tv' market, the Google Chromecast. You may be asking yourself where this stands versus GoogleTV, this is smaller. For those that have not heard of it yet, it is a USB stick sized unit that plugs into the HDMI input on your tv, is powered by usb (from your tv, or the supplied power unit) and let's you play online, and some offline, content on your television.

The primary use-case would be to fire a YouTube video from your Android Tablet up to your TV so you can continue to surf on your tablet. Sounds magical so far, but is it? Depending on your needs and expectations, yes, it is magic. If, however, you just wanted to play content you already own, maybe not so much.

Let me explain. Right on the box it advertises that it can handle YouTube, Netflix, Google Play content (video and music) and pass a tab from your Chrome browser. The first thing you'll notice is that the first three items are streaming services, if your home internet regularly leaves you buffering, don't expect the Chromecast to speed things up. If you are lucky enough to live in a Gigabit world, where buffering is not an issue, you will love the Chromecast for these services. Luckily, audio is a little easier to tackle, so popping your music to the tv, via Google Play Music, is a snap.

Tasker for Android - A Basic Volume Changer

Let's see how it is actually done.

Tasker is a very powerful application on Android that allows a user to code a number of actions (here on known as Tasks) based upon a number of events and triggers in the Android OS. If that did not make any sense to you, let me try an example scenario: At 10pm your ringer volume is changed to 0. Where the time change is an Event/Trigger from the OS and changing the volume is a Task that you code.

It would take a great amount of time for me to now outline even half of the stuff Tasker is capable of, so let us just say that it can do almost anything that is capable of being done in Android. Setting your ringer volume is pretty basic, creating a full application is tough, but entirely possible.

Transferring Files on Android - Using Wires and Physical Media

Wired, Wireless, or something in between? Part 1 - Wired and Physical Media Solutions

One of the first things you may try to tackle after you get a new Android device, and poke around all the cool features and settings, is to transfer some files to it. This holds doubly true if you are upgrading from an older Android device that you now need to get files off of. Whether you have movies and music, a photo collection or just an encrypted PDF of your ID, you have several options ahead of you.

This is Part 1 of 2, in which we cover transferring files using wires and other physical medium, feel free to jump ahead to Part 2 - Wireless Techniques.

Android Developer Options: The Ones That Should Be Normal Options

They may not be for everyone, but they certainly shouldn't be limited to devs. 

Pure Android has a set of options available, in a hidden settings category, that are designed to help developers fine tune their applications. For normal users, most of the options would make no sense to mess with, and can actually be detrimental to performance and reliability. But there are a few that would be great if they graduated into the normal settings on every device.

Developer Options used to be a visible category in your device settings, buy in more recent versions of Android it was hidden, only to be found by going into Settings -> About Device and clicking on the Build Number several times. It will show you a click countdown until you become a developer; who knew it was that easy! 

Warning!  I've said this already, these are Developer options, if you don't know what a setting means or what it does, Don't Touch It. 

Zooper Widget - Your design guide and how to build a custom widget from scratch

You must know by now that I am a huge fan and user of Zooper Widget for the design and function of my Android devices. There is little that Zooper cannot do design wise, and paired with Tasker to add functionality, I have no other widgets running on any of my devices. (Except the stock music player widget, but I'm working on creating my own there too.)

I promise you that a great article on how to integrate Tasker and Zooper Widget is on its way, for today, I want to introduce you to my most comprehensive Zooper Widget guide yet.

Zooper Widget

A whole new look to your clock.

In its simplest form, Zooper Widget offers a unique new set of designs for the clock on your Android Home and Lock screens. Under the hood, it has a great number of customization aspects to let you tweak to your desires. The thing is, unless you wish to switch back and forth between different designs, the free version is good enough. However, if you are an avid Tasker user, it is extremely well worth ponying up the couple dollars for the pro version.

Use Tasker to bypass silent mode on your Android phone, so you don't miss emergency calls

We walked you through setting up Tasker to automatically silence your phone at night, so you can sleep uninterrupted without ever having to manually silence your phone again. Whether you manually silence your device, use another app, a system setting or use Tasker, you may miss important calls while your phone is quiet.

We are working off of a basic premise today, that if specific contacts, like your parents, call you in the middle of the night, there is obviously something wrong. It's pretty simple, if you receive a call from specific contacts, Tasker simply increases the call volume to make sure you don't sleep through the call.

Android Home Screen

Widgets, shortcuts and fuzzy kittens.

One of Androids most powerful, appealing and functional pieces is its Home Screen abilities, offering you a place to completely customize the look, feel and operation of your device. The default Home Screens go beyond allowing you to change the background and put links to your apps, going so far as using Widgets to allow you to perform actions without having to launch an app.

Your Home Screen is the location you end up when you press the Home button on your device.

Make your music charge your phone

While most of us are struggling to keep a charge on our phones and other mobile devices, we often turn to bigger batteries, extra power sources and software power saving measures to get through our day. While all of these measure satisfy our needs, researchers in London have another approach in mind, charging a device with sound.

The premise is simple, kinetic energy is harnessed to produce electricity, we've heard about this in numerous Japanese roads and walkways, and even old wrist watches that shake to charge. Sure, the tech is a little different, but the idea remains the same, physical actions performed on an object can be converted into electricity.

In the case of Queen Mary University in London, the devices are made to be not much larger than a couple quarters in size, small enough to fit inside the average smartphone, and accepts the vibration from sounds to do all the dirty work.

Google+ Auto Awesome Photos

Fancy features for people that just take pictures.

In 2013, Google launched a powerful set of free photo customization features that it has been continually improving and enhancing in an effort to automatically take your photos from normal to awesome! The feature set includes tools such as color/brightness/contrast enhancements, stitching together a string of photos to make panoramic views, converting multiple shots of the same thing into animated gifs and more.

How to use NFC Tags to fire off Tasker Tasks, using Trigger

Now we're getting into the good stuff. Let's take the Tasker projects that we've already built and use the program called Trigger to enable NFC Tags to fire off our Tasker Tasks.

That was a mouthful. Let's walk through it a little slower. You know what NFC Tags are, of course. Those little tags that are usually about 1-inch circles that look a little like the RFID tags you used to see in all of your movie and cd purchases. Yes, those NFC Tags. Now, what if you could perform almost any action on your Android device just by tapping a NFC Tag to it? That's what I'm talking about!

Humble Bundle adds dedicated Mobile section, launches SEGA bundle to kick it off

Fans of Humble Bundle rejoice! Well, Android users that are fans of Humble Bundle, anyway.

Continuing to rock the Android world, the folks behind Humble Bundle are topping off a whirlwind tour of a new Android app and a great mobile bundle with another great mobile bundle and a full dedicated mobile section on their website.

The new bundle is called the Humble SEGA Mobile Bundle, packed with your favorite SEGA games, so mostly just Sonic the wedgehog stuff. Sorry, hedgehog. The Mobile tab on the website is really the exciting thing here, as it brings with it the promise of a continual stream of Android games, apps, books, comics, music and more.

Peer 2 Peer

I just wanted to say a word on Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing.

It itself is not illegal and evil! It is a great tool that users abuse for ill purpose.

Somebody like myself invented this ingenious method of transferring and sharing files over an internet connection; it wasn't designed to break any laws. It is the users that choose to share legally protected files that give this excellent tool a bad name.

Moto G on sale for $50 for a limited time. Verizon model at Best Buy

It is not very often that we come across deals that are too good to be true. If you live in the U.S. and are willing to be a Verizon customer, this deal is about as good as it gets. Head over to the Best Buy website to pick up the Verizon Moto G for only $49.99.

For the rest of us, we still have a very capable handset here that can be put to use without a service contract. One commenter over on my full post at Android Authority plans to strictly use his as a Chromecast remote. I was thinking of using one as a Chromecast (Cheapcast) receiver, hooked up to the home stereo to play music. I also consider grabbing another that I can mess around with, Rooting, ROMing and all that 'dangerous' stuff.