Amazon on Wednesday launched Amazon Music Unlimited, a music streaming service meant to compete with apps like Spotify and Apple Music. Amazon Music Unlimited differs from Amazon's previous music service, called Amazon Prime Music, in that it has a much larger library and is open to users who don't subscribe to Amazon Prime. Whereas Prime Music offers 2 million songs, Amazon Music Unlimited offers "tens of millions," putting it on par with Spotify and Apple Music's selection. Amazon's Music Unlimited app will work on iPhone and Android devices, as well as Windows and Mac computers. Amazon Music Unlimited costs 9.99 a month for non-Prime members, and 7.99 for Prime members (Amazon Prime, which offers free two-day shipping and other benefits, costs 99 a year). A family plan will be made available later this year for 14.99/month, Amazon says.

The service supports the company's Echo Speakers and Alexa voice assistant. Echo users can request songs from Music Unlimited using just their voice. Alexa can pick up the latest song from the artist and play music based on mood and taste. A new feature called side-by-side pairs artists' commentary with selected songs from their catalog. But the USP of the service is its price, which effectively comes down to 6.58 for Prime users for a yearly subscription. The company is offering users a 30-day free trial. Family plans with a 6-account subscription will be rolled out soon, costing 14.99 per month and 149 for a yearly subscription. Echo users get the cheapest deal, although the subscription will be limited to a single device.

Amazon is launching a paid streaming music service, the latest entry in an increasingly crowded field. Amazon Music Unlimited is being positioned to compete against existing services such as Spotify and Apple Music. It will cost 8 per month, or 80 a year, for members of Amazon's 99-a-year Prime loyalty program. Non-Prime members will pay 10 a month, the same monthly fee charged by Spotify and Apple Music. Owners of Amazon's Echo smart speaker, meanwhile, will be able to get the unlimited music service on one device for 4 per month.

Amazon's Music-Streaming Service Competes on Price and Robotic Assistance At 4 a month, service is cheaper than rivals'; 'Alexa' helps find songs

Ask Siri or Amazon Alexa to tell you a joke, and you'll probably get something a 10-year-old would scrunch her nose at. Google wants to change that. The company unveiled Google Home, its Amazon Echo-like home assistant, last week. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google hired writers from places like Pixar and the Onion to help spice up the Home's dialogue and give its AI more personality. Apparently there's more work to be done: As Tech Crunch points out, Google currently has a job listing for someone with "experience writing dialogue for plays/screenplays, fiction/interactive fiction, and/or comedy/entertainment." Personality can be hard to nail down in AI.

NEW YORK--"Alexa, take on Spotify and Apple Music." But Amazon on Wednesday launched Amazon Music Unlimited, an on-demand streaming service powered by the Alexa voice familiar to Echo owners, and a service primed to muscle in on an already congested streaming market for music. Amazon Music Unlimited debuts with a catalog of "tens of millions" of songs--Amazon won't reveal a precise number-- as well as curated playlists and personalized stations. That promises to makes it more of a viable competitor against Apple Music, Spotify and any number of other streaming services than the company's existing Amazon Prime Music service, which has a far more limited catalog of some two million songs and will remain available at no extra cost to Amazon Prime members. All too often when you request a song on Echo, Prime Music only plays a sample.

Alexa can already order you an Uber, control your smart home devices, and keep you company. She's about to learn much better DJ skills, save you six bucks a month on streaming music, and possibly even change the way you listen to music in your house. Amazon Music Unlimited, a beefed-up subscription service built to compete with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, launches today. It's cheaper than those big-name services--for many users, at least--and it features clever voice control with the company's Echo speakers. If you're using Music Unlimited on an Amazon Echo, Tap, or Dot, the service only costs 4 a month. To use it on anything else--mobile devices, your computer, a Fire TV stick, or even Sonos speakers--the pricing falls more in line with Spotify or Apple Music.

Entrepreneurs need little convincing that technology is important, rapidly evolving, and likely to have a profound impact on their businesses. But keeping track of developments, and knowing where to focus one's attention, is anything but straightforward. Analysts at PricewaterhouseCoopers (pdf) say the impact of constant technological breakthroughs represent a "megatrend" – a change so big that "every business should develop an emerging technology strategy". They have highlighted eight key areas that all businesses should pay attention to. The artificial intelligence market is growing rapidly and forecast to be worth 36bn by 2025.

When a lot of us think about Data Science and Machine Learning, we might shy away and think - 'that's only for the clever boffins' ... 'I didn't do advanced maths in school, I'll avoid that...', or'I only do basic coding and SQL, it's no use to me...'. Like a lot of areas, the thing is that, if we don't at least take a look at it, we are doing ourselves a disservice. Sure, I will be the first to admit that Data Science and Machine Learning can be hard, but guess what, that's only a small part of the domain. The majority of it is quite accessible to most developers and is not that difficult to either learn, or use. In addition, the Data Science and Machine Learning tools given to use by Microsoft in Azure, make it super easy to get started.

Here's your daily dose of an indie film, web series, TV pilot, what-have-you in progress, as presented by the creators themselves. At the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a project you'd want to see? Tell us in the comments. Logline: In the near future, a young animator is offered what should be her dream job. But when she discovers the truth of the modern "creative" process, she must make a hard choice about her passion for film.