Turning an online music service into a powerful automated DJ isn't easy. You can give an algorithm millions of songs and millions of data points, but it's still not going to have any style. So of all your options—including Google's new All Access—what's the streaming radio most worth your time? We found out.

A decade ago, when Pandora unleashed its service based on its Music Genome algorithm, it was impressive enough that something so simple even worked at all. You just punched in an artist or a song, and Pandora would populate a playlist of similar stuff, and send it to you over the Internet. Magic.

A lot's changed since then. Today's best online music services are way more powerful sound machines with slick interfaces, granular control over what you're listening to, and loads of additional features that open the door to a world of music you might never have otherwise discovered.

Let's talk about robotic taste...

Before diving into the more sophisticated features of each of the services, I did a little baseline test to see how well they could generate a simple, single-artist playlist. After using each service for a couple of hours so it got to know my taste a bit, I asked each service to make me a station based on the 70s/80s British punk band Wire and took note of the first 40 tracks played. Here's the breakdown of how many unique artists each station played. (Note: There are other online radio services, like upstart Songza, that don't offer generative playlists so we didn't include them.)

iHeartRadio: 36

In short, there was a pretty broad discrepancy at even this simple task. That's not to say more was better, though; while the services that generated the least variety were noticeably repeating artists, stations with the most variety often felt random, and in the case of iHeartRadio, jarringly so. But they all basically got it done.

While Pandora's Music Genome was first, it wasn't a very hard system to replicate. In fact, most of these services are using the same core brains: iHeartRadio, Spotify, Rdio, and Mog all pull their original taste profiles from a company called the Echo Nest, which specializes in music metadata for exactly this type of application. At a certain point, the algorithm isn't worth re-engineering from the ground up. Last.fm and Slacker have homegrown versions. It's not clear whether Google built its own formula.

In other words, the best radio experiences aren't powered by the smartest algorithm—especially when the algorithms are all largely the same. A confluence of factors, including everything from integration with social networks to the design and overall usability of each service's unique features adds up to a total package that's more meaningful than simple numbers might suggest.

Really, iHeartRadio is a radio in the most traditional sense. The Clear Channel-owned company started out as a simple platform for listening to the huge conglomerate's terrestrial radio stations from your computer. And it's actually weirdly entertaining to listen to LA's KROQ all the way from New York...for about a second, until you remember that regular radio stations are terrible, which is why we turned to the Internet in the first place.

Still, all of that data makes Last.fm more of a recommendation engine than a polished way to listen to music. Using your data, it will serve up some choice stuff you've never heard of, as you dig around in the community, Last.fm opens itself up in the way a record collection used to. Luckily, because Last.fm's platform is open, you can take advantage of all of its good parts, and use it to improve other services with better user interfaces.

Monthly price: Free or $5 if you want to listen to music on the standalone desktop app.

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Its on-demand service notwithstanding, Slacker's focus has always been radio, and importantly, curated radio stations. This is real radio because it's assembled by real people rather than by an algorithm. Many of these stations are excellent. I've been a big fan of stations like Dive Bar Jukebox, which plays everything from contemporary cult hits to vintage soul. It provides the kind of variety you can't really get from a machine.

But trends being what they are, Slacker has had to evolve its generative playlist features to keep up with everyone else. A few months ago, Slacker launched a redesign centering around intensely fine control over what you're listening to. In other words, after you make an artist-based playlist, you can tweak the mix of music with six different sliders, which can be used to create some interesting blends.

Slacker's new UI is ambitious and it's very good-looking, but it's pretty confusing too. Everything is dynamic and some menu is always sliding out from somewhere. The whole thing needs some streamlining.

More importantly, though, Slacker has completely missed the potential of social—which it actually sees as one of its selling points to people who are embarrassed about their musical taste. No matter how powerful those curated stations are, there's no better indicator of what you're going to like than what your friends like.

Monthly price: Free ad-supported, $5 unlimited radio with mobile station caching, $10 unlimited radio and on-demand music.

3rd Place: Google Play All Access

Google's newly-launched subscription service makes being easy look, er, easy. As I noted in my hands-on impressions, it's minimal in all the right ways. It feels like a more powerful service than it is because the navigation is so easy. You hardly ever need to click more than twice to switch up what you're listening to.

All of this, though, masks the fact that Google's radio offering is a very basic artist/album/song station generator. Subjectively, I think All Access made the best playlists of any of the services. And that's without any way to modify the variety of what you're listening to. Sobresaliente!

But when it comes to getting beyond your own taste—and the taste of Google's obviously excellent algorithm, All Access leaves you all alone. You're pretty much stuck with boring brain. You've got very little idea what anybody else is listening to because All Access only connects with Google+. Sorry, no Facebook, no standalone social network, no way to look at other people's playlists. All you get is the option of pushing a post with what you're listening to onto Google+. Lame.

Spotify just rolled out its new web-based UI, which goes a long way towards fixing the catastrophe of an interface it had before. Don't get me wrong, Spotify was probably the most-important on-demand pioneer, and along with Rdio, Spotify was amongst the first to show how important social integration could be.

The new interface erases the distinction between radio stations and playlists. Every time you make a playlist from Spotify's catalog, the it's added to your list of stations as well. Spotify has been listening very carefully to what people want, which is why the new look is centered around a flashy "Discover" page, which recommends artists, playlists, and other users based on your taste.

What's more, Spotify still hasn't managed to make social totally useful to listening to stuff. The new design conflates following your friends with following international music superstars. You can listen to your friends playlists. That's neat! But realistically, you don't want something your friends have curated—you want to know what they're listening to a lot.

Monthly price: Free on-demand on your computer (ad-supported), $5 on-demand on your computer, $10 on-demand including mobile.

Bestmodo: Rdio

Rdio kills this test on the strength of is UI and social integration. Link Rdio up with Facebook, and it's impossible not to find new music from your friends, or even, to find new friends on Rdio with good taste in music. Who knew music discovery could get you laid?

And that's really important. Rdio takes a lot of the thinking out of generating a station. You can go the traditional song/artist/genre/trending routes we've been talking about all day, or it'll make you a station based on a playlist you've got as you can on Spotify. But Rdio's options keep going. How about a station based on your best friend's most-played albums? Or a station based on stuff that's trending in your network? You could create these stations yourself manually, but Rdio skips that step and just crunches the data to create the playlist for you. And remember, everybody is basically working with the same data.

Monthly price: $5 unlimited music streaming on your computer (including on-demand), $10 unlimited music including mobile.

Today at its I/O developer's conference, Google launched Google Play All Access, its long-anticipated subscription music service. I just spent some time exploring the on-demand catalog as well as its radio and music discovery features. The service's UI is impressively fast and fluid. Indeed, it's minimal in all the right ways. If only it wasn't so lonely in there.

It's an Add-On to Google Play Music

All Access is an add-on to the Google Music storage locker that has existed since the end of 2011. That means that you can upload the music from your computer and then complete your collection from Google Play's enormous catalog of music.

It costs the same as Spotify, Rdio, et al. Once its introductory $8 promo-pricing is gone, All Access will cost $10 per month for the entire on-demand catalog, radio, and use on mobile devices. There are no tiered plans. It's the whole shebang or nothing.

The Web UI Is Fast and Intuitive

Navigating the catalog and the app's different features couldn't be easier. The design is simple but at the same time packed with functionality. When you hover over a rectangular icon for an artist or album you're immediately presented with graphics to play the music or the familiar Google "..." button that reveals a menu with more options.

The whole interface is refreshingly intuitive. You never hit a dead-end when you're moving about different sections of the service. Every time you want the name of an artist or an album or something to be clickable, it is.

The detail pages albums are really nice example of the myriad ways All Access makes your life easier. Besides a little info about the artist, there are obvious buttons that let you launch radio based on that album or to add it to your library.

The new Google Play Music App for Android is slick too

Same deal as the browser version. No dead ends. Swiping songs you dont want to listen to out of the play queue is very satisfying.

I love that "Share YouTube Video" is an option

YouTube videos are actually my de facto vector for sharing music with friends on Facebook and Twitter. If you share a Spotify link—or a link from any walled in garden—it inevitably means that someone won't be able to enjoy it.

Google built that behavior into All Access. Instead of having to go search for a YouTube video when I want to share something, I can just click "Share YouTube Video" and a pop up will present you with links for few versions (if they're available). It's easy, and it doesn't require your friends having a Google+ account to enjoy.

I don't love that the service only gets social with Google+

Then again, All Access doesn't have very good social skills. Facebook? Nope! Twitter? Nope! A real-time feed of what all of your friends are listening to? Nopenopenope!

If you'd like, though, you can choose share on Google+ because of course you can share on Google+. It feels awfully lonesome in there.

Listen Now is a convenient way to just put something on

Part of the problem with expansive streaming music services is that sometimes it's hard to figure out what jams your want to bust. The "Listen Now" tab is Google's answer to this problem. It's designed to provide you easy access to the radio stations and artists you like—as well as those it thinks you might like based on your activity. The straightforward tile design makes it simple enough to just impulsively click something and be done with it.

Radio is solid but unremarkable

This is the oldest trick in Pandora's box: New Order is your favorite band? "Age of Consent" is your favorite song? Type it in and you'll get a playlist. The playlists I got were great on some cursory inspection. Plenty of variety and even hints of robotic taste. It's nice that you can remove songs from your radio queue if you want.

Again, it's the UI that sets radio apart from competitors. There's a lot packed into a simple interface.

Should you ditch Spotify or Rdio?

Not yet. Take advantage of the free trial first. Google Play Music All Access has amongst the smoothest designs we've seen for something with so much horsepower. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with Spotify's great social integration baked-in—and the social integration it does have is half-baked.

Google is overhauling Google+ with 41—yes, forty-one—new features. They're based around three areas of the Chrome experience: Stream, Hangouts, and Photos. The new design is rolling out today, and it looks beautiful enough to actually use.

Your Stream is getting a beautiful-looking redesign based on cards. There's a three column view that looks as though it responds organically to your gestures and touch.

Google also introduced the new Hangouts app that we've been hearing about. All in-one chat across all of Google's services: Google Talk, Hangouts, Voice, Google+ Messenger all in one place. (Check out our whole post on that.)

Finally, Google made a huge play on Photos. This started earlier this week when Google upped the total storage for Google accounts to 15GB. And you'll need it because Google is letting you upload much higher resolution photos than you're used to from Facebook or Twitter.

And since most of us are terrible smartphone photographers, Google is adding a whole bunch of automatic photo adjustment features that fall under Auto Highlight, Auto Enhance, and Auto Awesome, which the company claims will turn all of you terrible photos into good ones. There are a lot of little features, but the long and the short is that they're trying to implement brain-free versions of Photoshop features.

It's a compelling idea: You upload your photos and they automatically get better. The demos Google showed off are very impressive, but it sounds a little too good to be true so we'll believe it when we see it. (Check out our full photo post.)

All in all though, it's nice to see Google innovating impressive features in Google+. Don't give up, Google!

You can now buy a music subscription from Google. Here's everything you need to know about Google's crack at rocketing to the top of the charts. Get ready for Google Play Access.

Google Play All Access launches in the US today. It costs $10 per month. Everybody gets a 30-day free trial, and if you sign up soon, it will only cost you $8 per month.

During today's Google I/O keynote, Google introduced All Access, which it is better for music discovery than its competitors. At first, it seems like a simple on-demand-meets-radio service with the personalization options you would expect. It works on phones, tablets and web browsers.

From a design and UX perspective, the innovation comes from the degree to which it's easy to switch between the hands-on and hands-off experiences. If you don't know what you want to listen to you can just hit "Listen Now" and start listening to something right away. When you want to geek out on Google's the huge on-demand catalog, you can do that too.

The best part, though? You get to keep the awesome features that came with Google Music. They're totally integrated. It's on-demand music, radio, and online storage locker for your personal collection all in one place. Dope.

Google has long been missing a streaming music answer to services like Spotify and Pandora. Google has the muscle—and, if you sign up early—a better price point—but the little guys have the head start. We'll have to wait and see which service comes out on top.

Google I/O, the company's mammoth annual developer hoopla, goes down this week. Here's what you can expect to learn and see from Google during the three-hour keynote extravaganza in just a few hours. (Updated)

Not Much New Hardware?

While last year's I/O was a parade of Nexus devices, Chrome/Android chief Sundar Pichai told Wired that this year's conference will focus more on what the Chrome and Android ecosystems are good for than on introducing radical new products.

Given that this year's chatter has been pretty light (so far) it's possible we won't get any new blockbusters on that scale; at most, we might see a zippier Nexus 7 (more on that later). Still, downplay as Pichai might, it's hard to imagine Google spending three hours with the tech world's rapt attention and not introducing something shiny to play with.

No Chrome-Android hybrid (yet)

When Google put the head of Chrome in charge of Android as well, it seemed apparent that the company was planning to merge the two operating systems at some point down the road. We're not there yet, though. In the aforementioned Wired interview, Pichai basically evaded the question, saying it's not going to happen—or at least not yet.

What you can expect to see, though, is the platforms starting to inch towards a more integrated ecosystem. Indeed, Google's competitors are on their way already: Microsoft effectively created a combination desktop and mobile OS with Windows 8. Similarly, Apple appears to be moving in that direction with the latest releases of OS X and iOS.

Image via Paul Wilcox

A healthy slice of Key Lime Pie

The star of this year's I/O will unquestionably be improvements to Android, although that could be everything from an incremental update to a version overhaul. Some say it will be called version 4.3 while others say it will be called version 5.0. The former would be a new iteration of last year's Jelly Bean, while the latter would be a jump ahead to the next letter in the Android alphabet: Key Lime Pie.

It would break with tradition if Google didn't give us a totally new version at I/O, but given that we haven't heard too much about a full renovation, a Jelly Bean bump and a Key Lime Pie both seem likely. Again, though, if you've got three hours to kill, you might as well fill it a major announcement and not just tiny updates.

Image by Dustin Dennis/Shutterstock

A Redesigned Google Maps

This Morning, a sign-up page for a redesigned Google Maps reportedly went live but was taken down.

The rumored new features for Google Maps include Google Now-like intelligence that serves you the information you want to know. There are also rumors that Google will integrate Google Earth directly into Google Maps, which would be very handy indeed.

We didn't mention Maps in our original round-up, but it makes a lot of sense that Google would introduce some visible upgrades to the beloved service because, well, it's beloved. It's got the maps edge over everyone. Fingers crossed.

Google Play Games

You know what people like to do on their phones? Temple Run! Angry Birds! Well, after nabbing a new Chief Game Designer for Google Play, all signs seem to indicate that Google is about to launch its own Game Center-like focal point for gaming apps. Makes sense!

The evidence? Android Police dove into the code on Google Play Services v3.1.36 that's supposedly rolling out to phones, and discovered that this latest version contains a new "Play Games" with architecture for matchmaking and achievements, much like its iOS counterpart. All of the phones we have on hand are still running v3.0.27 so we can't confirm this for sure, but the evidence looks solid.

Image via Android Police

A tower of Babel

Rumors about a unified hub for all of Google's various chat services have been circulating for a while now, with some saying that the originally reported "Babel" code name will be ditched for the Hangouts name Google has been using for its group video chat since the launch of Google+ in 2011. Either way, expect to see a major unified chat experience—which if executed properly could end up being the most important announcement of all.

Image via TechRadar

A Google streaming music subscription service

If the mounting rumors over the last few months are true, Google has been plotting some kind of music subscription service along the lines of Spotify of Pandora. This service would be an addition to Google Music storage locker and store that has been around since late 2011. The service seems like an obvious move, and if Google has the rights locked up, there's no reason not to launch it at I/O.

The service could come in a couple of different flavors. Some suggest that the subscription will come as either part of Google Music or YouTube. The former would make sense because, uh, Google Music already exists. Meanwhile, YouTube just launched subscription channels, and at least one report seems to think that the music subscription could be YouTube branded.

What's next for Glass

Does Google even have a project that's more devy than Google Glass right now? Last year at I/O Google tossed a bunch of people wearing glass out an airplane and showed-off their X-Games potential. The company also announced Glass Explorers program, which is just now starting to bear fruit. We'll definitely be seeing some announcements and news on this front—we're just not entirely sure what's coming.

A new Nexus 7 tablet is possible

At last year's I/O, Google introduced the Asus-built Nexus 7 tablet, which remains to this date the best Android tablet you can buy. It would make sense for Google to introduce a follow-up this year, right? Well, at least one analyst thinks so, and has been hyping an Asus follow-up to the Nexus 7, which he says will be powered by a burly Snapdragon 800 processor and will come all dressed up with a glorious 1080p display.

Sounds so exciting that it could be too good to be true so we'll file this one under wait-and-see. Analyst reports tend not to mean much more than "analyst pipe dream."

Google TV or media streamer (but not the cursed Nexus Q)

Over the last few years, Google TV has evolved from a joke into a half-decent platform. Unfortunately, hardware manufacturers have failed to implement it as either a set-top-box or a native OS inside a TV. Or at least, have failed to implement it well. At this point, Google needs to deliver some hardware of its own, or provide some promising features that will tempt OEMs to take another flier on its TV product.

Last year, Google took its first crack at creating a media streamer of its own, and the resulting Nexus Q was such a disaster in its very conception that Google yanked it before it even finished shipping pre-orders. Google maintains it wants to ship the product, but All Things D says we won't hear about the ill-fated orb this week.

No new phone, but maybe some special editions

The Nexus 4 is so wonderful in large measure because it runs that hot hot stock Android amazingness. But there are downsides to the hardware. For example, it doesn't have LTE and the camera is garbage. Well, it would be great to get a new phone, but we haven't heard any reliable rumors save a highly dubious murmur about a white version of what already exists. Does that video above look right to you?

As for other existing Android hardware, there's an ultra-thin rumor about a Samsung Galaxy S4 "Google Edition" that will run stock Android instead of Samsung's TouchWiz skin. That sounds like wishful thinking—and we do wish it!—so if it doesn't happen, take it up with Geek.com.

Google-owned Motorola has been working on an X device, as well, but there's no indication that it will launch at I/O. Given how much Google has kept Moto at arm's length on the hardware side since the acquisition, it seems reasonable to expect that it'll keep for another day.

Fortunately the Galaxy S4 and HTC One have proven that there's plenty of Android hardware innovation to be had outside of Google itself.

Anything we missed? Anything you especially want/don't want to see? Let us know in the discussion below.

Yup dude. I know the feeling.

If you're a believer in science, you're probably at least vaguely aware that prevailing theories posit that the birds of today are distant relatives to the dinosaurs that died off millions of years ago.

Which makes sense! I mean, Jurassic Park, COME ON! Er...but it's actually a little bit weird because on the surface it's not clear how that works.

How exactly does a creature evolve feathers necessary for flight when there's no clear value to the incremental stages? You need all of the feathers to fly. Just a few won't do it. The archaeological record suggests that dinosaurs had feathers on their tails arms and heads for ornament and intimidation, but that doesn't provide a full explanation of how fully-feathered birds took flight.

Well, as the narrator explains starting at about 2:35 into the TED (yes, TED) video above, even just a few feathers would have given dinosaurs some lift when running, helping them run faster. This small advantage developed over millions of years could have evolved into flight. Sounds reasonable. [TED]

Today, during the BlackBerry Live Keynote, the company announced that it will be launching BlackBerry Messenger—BBM—on iOS and Android this Summer. This is a big move for the company, which has found itself increasingly trapped in a badly-built prison of its own making.

Now, BlackBerry will make one of its most popular features to users of superior phones who aren't willing to jump onto BlackBerry's otherwise lackluster platform. If you haven't seen BBM working on BB10 yet, you should. It's a very slickly designed chat experience.

According to BlackBerry CEO Thorston Heins, the service will launch only with messaging and groups, but it will later expand to voice, screenshare, and the company's new company-centric "channels" service.

This is a very smart move for BlackBerry as excellent cross-platform chat becomes an increasingly important sphere companies are battling over to win customers.

There's reason to believe that this is going to be the next killer smartphone feature. Facebook Messenger's SMS support with the newly-developed chat head halos has been a significant move into this area on Android. What's more, Google is expected to launch a unified chat hub under the "Hangouts " monicker during the Google I/O keynote tomorrow. Indeed, the whole reason standalone services like GroupMe and WhatsApp exists is because none of the huge tech companies has managed to get this right yet.

BlackBerry did it first and best—and should have opened BBM to Android and iOS years ago. Now that everyone has turned to the services that swooped in to fill the void for Android and iOS, it might be too late for BBM to catch up.

On the other hand, BlackBerry has been consistently innovative in messaging, and if it can offer some features others haven't yet, the service might have a chance. Even BBM competitors haven't nailed BBM's seamless transitions or features like screenshare—at least not as well as BBM. It turns out BlackBerry's great hope might be communication rather than the keyboard used to bang it out.

Google is famous for the Easter eggs stashed in its products. What seems an ordinary interface reveals itself to be something else entirely with the right set of keystrokes. This newly discovered gem might be one of the most entertaining we've ever seen. Head over to Google Image Search and punch in a query for "atari breakout"—or just click this link—and say goodbye to the rest of your evening.

Yes, my friends, that 14-character search will magically transform the results screen into an Atari Breakout session. A celebration of the game's, er, 37th anniversary? Who cares? Woohoo! Fun! [Google via Engadget]

http://gizmodo.com/5989478/all-th...

"The new pricing plan applies to new Aereo members. Current Aereo members will continue to enjoy the benefits of their original plans until the end of their current membership plan period. Current $12/month members will be automatically upgraded to 60 hours of DVR storage capacity. "

Does that help?

Aereo's embattled cloud-based DVR service for network television is getting an updated pricing structure on May 15th. The options will be trimmed from the previous 5-tier structure down to just two plans. Sure, that should be easier for people to understand, but the rejiggered structure makes the cheaper monthly plan far less attractive.

Now there are just two monthly plans that cost $8 and $12 like before. The differences are these: The $8, 20-hour plan only lets you record on channel at a time now, instead of two. As for the $12 plan, it gets a bump to a 60-hour DVR from 40 hours before.

In other words, if you're interested in Aereo, you've got more incentive to upgrade to the more expensive plan now. They've gotta pay for that legal defense somehow!

I could not be more excited.

All at once the day it comes out or little installments to savor the magic?