US drivers to get radio like news, music with Spotify playlist

Mimicking the functioning of old-school car radios, Swedish music streaming giant Spotify is launching a new playlist called "Your Daily Drive" that would bring music as well as news podcasts to car drivers, The Verge reported on Wednesday.

The unannounced feature is first reaching Spotify users in the US where the news podcasts would be provided by The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Radio International. 

Details about the global availability of this feature's roll-out remains undisclosed as yet. 

Earlier this month, the music streaming platform began testing five human-curated podcast-only test playlists. "The Daliy Drive playlist would also join other Spotify lists in promoting podcasts.

Last month, Spotify publicly began testing its first hardware ever -- a voice-controlled smart assistant for cars intending to help the app learn people's audio habits while they are on the road. 

The device is called "Car Thing" and as part of the test, it has been distributed to some US-based premium users for free.

In the US, Spotify has a user-base of over 60 million people. IANS