can be heard on the Echos and will have no additional cost

Spotify and Apple have long been betting heavily on podcasts and now it’s Amazon’s turn. The company has just announced that, finally, Amazon Music integra los podcasts in its application for iOS and Android in Spain, although they can also be heard on the Amazon Echo and on the web.

The key to the service lies in the integration with Alexa, since users will be able to ask the assistant with their voice to start the playback of an episode and listen to it on any device, be it mobile, Echo Auto or a smart speaker. It should be noted that podcasts can be listened to in any Amazon Music subscription plan.

Read more

The suspension of the Janssen vaccine complicates the goal of group immunity in Spain for August, but even without it it would be feasible

In January, there were suspensions of the first doses and shortages to inoculate the second ones due to production problems at Pfizer and Moderna’s delays in the delivery of vials. In March, the cases of thrombi in those vaccinated with AstraZeneca that severely eroded confidence in this vaccine and forced to reconsider the age groups it was aimed at. And in April, new cases of thrombi in young and middle-aged women vaccinated with Janssen in the United States, something that led to Johnson & Johnson paralyzing the administration of doses of its own vaccine.

The vaccination race against COVID-19, one of the great events of our lives, is presenting some complications, and the latter is especially delicate: Janssen’s is a key vaccine to reach the deadlines set by the Government of Spain, which set for the last week of August the figure of 33 million vaccinated: 70% of the Spanish population, and therefore, the longed-for group immunity. However, the vaccine that does not need deep freezers or a second dose is on a pause from which it will be necessary to see when it comes out, and in what way. Any day that passes without recourse to its doses will further jeopardize the achievement of the summer goal.

Read more

The next thing for Bizum will be QR payments in physical stores: the company proposes its arrival for “the last two quarters”

The mobile payment solution for Spanish banks, Bizum, has about five years of history. He was born in 2016 at the right time and in the right way. It could be the success story of a startup who came to solve a problem and was rewarded by the public, but the idea comes from a traditional sector and even hundred-year-old companies.

It is the result of the union of different Spanish financial entities that believed that joining forces to offer a universal mobile payment solution for all entities, with a single infrastructure, added up. And yes, it has added.

Read more

(spoiler) because I got a better browser

In 2017 I was writing an article on how if you used Chrome and wanted to change browsers, Opera was perhaps your best option. Although I still consider Opera to be one of the most interesting browsers out there and an excellent option for those who are used to Chrome, for me the best browser today is definitely Microsoft Edge.

The reasons are many, and I will talk more about them along these lines. However, unlike what has happened to me with other browsers that I have used in the last 10 years or so (and in my line of work there have been many, including some quite rare), with Edge once I started using it I never looked back, in fact this month I’ll be fulfilling two years of having stopped using Chrome completely, and that has never happened to me since the Google browser exists.

Read more