News

Deezer’s Shaker Connects Friends Across Music Apps

The new feature lets users share music with up to 14 people, even if they don’t use the same streaming platform.

Published

3 years ago

November 14, 2023

Nour Nasir

Deezer

Amongst a flurry of updates, improvements, and a recent rebrand, music streaming service Deezer has now announced Shaker. The new feature lets users “access the perfect music mix for any moment with friends, family, co-workers, or anyone you want to spend time with”.

The concept is simple: With a few screen taps or mouse clicks, a mix is generated that blends together a group of friends’ favorite music and includes fun insights into the musical compatibility and guilty pleasures of group members.

Aside from the intuitive interface, the clever thing about Shaker is that it allows users to connect with up to 14 friends using a simple invite link — even if they use a different platform like Spotify and don’t want to download the Deezer app. The Shaker algorithm then starts work by generating a mix of 70 songs tailored to the group’s unique preferences. If they’re unhappy with the selection, they can easily refresh a mix or curate a playlist from scratch.

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“Shaker is designed to create a feeling of connection, encourage people to experience music more freely, erase the boundaries between friends, and create a space where you can discover new songs to fall in love with,“ explained Alexandra Leloup, VP Product at Deezer, “To achieve this, it was key to not only include tailored playlists based on the musical tastes of users and their friends but to make sure everyone can join in no matter which streaming platform they use”.

Shaker aims to help users say goodbye to hours spent curating playlists for their parties, road trips, and sports sessions, creating the perfect fusion of music tastes to connect friends like never before.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.