The Future Of Music Streaming Is Reading Our Minds?

Music lovers, it’s time to break up with your favorite DJs, because there’s a new wave of streaming apps about to make 'em obsolete. Beats Music, using technology designed by Echo Nest, will react like a mood ring to decipher what songs to play for the soundtrack of your life. It’s designed to read your musical mind on a few simple details you type in, such as who you’re kicking it with and what you’re up to.

“When you get in your car, it automatically starts playing NPR. When you come home, it knows if your wife is home. If she is, it plays jazz on the stereo, and if not, it puts on death metal,” the director of Echo Nest, Paul Lamere, told Fast Co. Design.

Beats Music will make discovering new artists a completely mindless experience. Unlike Spotify, it’s a zero-button system that doesn’t make you configure or adjust the tracks. Pandora, the first predictive streamer, focused on technical components of the composition, like electronic roots and “intricate melodic framing” for Imagine Dragon’s radio, instead of focusing on the listener’s feelings and activities at the time.

In the future, Echo hopes to utilize your Twitter or Facebook statuses to narrow in on your state of mind before it lets you hit play. And, let’s face it, the last thing you want to hear after a breakup is Etta James’ "At Last." (Fast Co.Design)