Best Buy to drop CD sales July 1 while Target may only pay labels per sale

Two of the last bastions of physical media for music are reportedly loosening their grips on the CD as the downloads era gives way to streaming.

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Google Play “Best of 2016” includes a lot of face, Deadpool

Who knew that you could pull together Justin Bieber and Ryan Reynolds together in one list?

The Google Play Store sells millions of copies of apps, music, movies and more over the course of a year and, for the first time ever, it decided to celebrate all that content in an awards ceremony. But now we’re talking about sheer volume as Google is disclosing the top five downloaded pieces of content in several categories for the year.

The Google Play “Best of 2016” list covers six categories: apps, games, music, movies, TV shows and books.

Believe it or not, Deadpool actually took the top spot in two of the categories, besting another literary entry from J.K. Rowling and a freaking Star Wars film:

Streamed Songs

  1. Stressed Out, Twenty One Pilots
  2. Sorry, Justin Bieber
  3. One Dance (feat. WizKid & Kyla), Drake
  4. Don’t Let Me Down (feat. Daya), The Chainsmokers
  5. Me, Myself & I, G-Eazy

Books

  1. Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe by Cullen Bunn
  2. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne
  3. The Girl on the Train: A Novel by Paula Hawkins
  4. The Art of War by Tzu Sun
  5. Me Before You: A Novel by Jojo Moyes

All of these releases proved to be global hits for 2016 and a lot of these seem to be products for their time — the dominance of selfie editing apps is apparent here. Let’s hope that 2017 brings a little more freshness to the table.

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Netflix brings its rich content library offline for Android and iOS downloads

Has Netflix become too big to fail, even as video streaming competition intensifies, and its subscription fees rise? The American multinational entertainment company doesn’t want to find that out the hard way, keeping DirecTV Now at bay with a long overdue mobile app update.

Starting today, both Android users on platform version 4.4.2 or later, and iOS device streamers running at least 8.0 can download their favorite TV shows and movies for offline viewing. As Netflix puts it, the market-leading VOD service finally features an “airplane mode”, “road trip mode”, “stuck-in-the-subway-for-20-minutes mode” to bring your “favorite stories” just one tap away at all times.

No extra costs, no strings attached, no download or playback limits and restrictions (we presume), and yes, offline viewing capabilities are “included in all plans” and available for all relatively new Android and iOS phones and tablets.

It’s also extremely simple to locate the download button on the details page of a film, TV or web series, and while parts of Netflix’s ginormous content library can’t be watched when disconnected from the internet yet, “Orange is The New Black”, “Narcos”, “The Crown”, “House of Cards”, “Stranger Things” and “Master of None” headline the list of downloadable shows right off the bat.

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OnePlus 3T wallpapers free for download by company’s favorite artist

Hampus Olsson, based in India, is proud of his work with OnePlus. Ever since the manufacturer’s co-founder, Carl Pei, sat down to chat with him on how to paint the home screens of the OnePlus 2, Olsson has provided all the native wallpapers for OnePlus’s devices ever since.

That now includes the OnePlus 3T, and yes, this iterative update to the OnePlus 3 did justify a refresh in wallpaper design. Olsson actually got the “urgent” request from the company as he was headed out for a European vacation.

“I, therefore, decided to go back to basics, not touching my computer at all during the initial design process,” Olsson recounts.

Between painting in Paris and longboarding in Berlin, you can take a look and download the results for yourself, entirely for free. Hit the source link up for more.

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Verizon cruises over RootMetrics testing for 1H16 — T-Mobile last, but most improved

Time to knock some balls about.RootMetrics chewed through 265,386 miles across all 50 states and performed nearly 3.7 million tests in conditions from the great outdoors to the urban jungles and, yes, even inside the concrete canopies of 125 metropolitan areas. All of that just to find out how our big four carriers in the US are doing.So, how did everyone do? Well, ...

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The Nexus Launcher: leaked, dissected and pointed back at Google

If you want the Nexus software experience (at least on the home screen) without getting a Nexus device, you can apparently just go on the internet and get it. The .apk is out for the so-called Nexus Launcher — and that brings some pertinent questions to a head.First off, is it going to replace the Google Now Launcher? That one still exists on the Play Store for now, but could it get ...

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T-Mobile Tuesdays tops the app charts

All that demand that shut the T-Mobile Tuesdays app down for most of its first Tuesday out has proven very useful for the Un-carrier to boast about. Who knew that free pizza, ice cream and a movie every week would draw people to downloading something?When you’re the #1 free app & #1 trending search in the @appstore. Get ready for next

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End of iTunes downloads “not an if, but when”

Revenues from streaming music have overtaken revenues from download purchases. And it took so little time for that to happen.In 2012, Apple made $3.9 billion in revenue from iTunes music downloads, the most it’s ever made from them. Since then, download numbers have fallen off: a 16 percent drop-off last year, maybe 25 to 30 percent this year. The tumble could end up with Apple reaping only $600 million from downloads in 2019.The numbers are part of the conversation Apple executives are ...

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Play Store, App Store continue with download-revenue gap

Google and Apple are doubling up on each other, at least according to App Annie. The app data intelligence firm has released data for app downloads and revenue it compiled over the past quarter and it shows some trends continuing on from when we last picked them up. The good news overall? Both downloads and revenues are on the rise for both platforms, but the Play Store still leads in downloads by 100 percent while the App Store gets 90 percent more revenue. India had the ...

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