The Roku Channel Store is an open platform for delivering content to Roku boxes beyond the already-integrated Netflix, MLB.tv and Amazon channels. We all had high hopes for full-length streaming video, and rumors pointed to Hulu, but alas, it is not to be. The first ten "channels" were released today, and Hulu is not among them. The list:

Pandora, Facebook Photos, Revision3, Mediafly, TWiT, blip.tv, Flickr, FrameChannel, Motionbox and MobileTribe.

The Channel Store itself seems pretty open-ended, with a freely available SDK so developers can add to the Store's selection—and we hope they do, because these offerings are pretty meager at the moment. The Roku Channel Store is a free and automatic upgrade starting today, and works on all Roku devices, but there aren't any killer apps here (and neither Pandora nor Flickr is really a barn-burner at this point—at this point, every gadget I own, including my alarm clock, does that stuff). Here's hoping for some serious development efforts. Press release is below. [Roku]

Roku Launches Open Platform for Delivery of Content to the TV; Announces First 10 New Channels

Pandora, Facebook Photos, Revision3, Mediafly, TWiT, blip.tv, Flickr, FrameChannel, Motionbox and MobileTribe all now available on the Roku player

Silicon Valley, Calif. – November 23, 2009 – Roku, Inc., maker of the popular and award-winning family of Roku players, announced today the Roku Channel Store and the first 10 free channels for Roku customers to enjoy on their TVs. From internet radio to video podcasts, professional web content to photo sharing and personal videos, the Roku Channel Store provides an open platform for delivering quality content to the TV. New channels now available for customers to add today to their Roku experience via the Roku Channel Store include: Pandora, Facebook Photos, Revision3, Mediafly, TWiT, blip.tv, Flickr, FrameChannel, Motionbox and MobileTribe. For the complete list of channels and specific channel descriptions and features, please go to http://www.roku.com/roku-channel-store.

These first 10 channels are just the beginning for Roku. Many other developers are working on Roku Channels now, and Roku expects additional developers to adopt the Roku platform over time. New channels will appear in the Roku Channel Store automatically as they become available.

The Roku Channel Store represents an opportunity for content owners and publishers to reach an already large and growing audience of Roku customers. By creating an open platform for delivery to the television over the Internet, Roku has leveled the playing field for content owners.

"The Roku Channel Store turns the Roku player into the world's first open platform designed specifically for the TV," Anthony Wood, founder and CEO of Roku, Inc said. "Now content producers and distributors – from single person shops to billion dollar corporations – can deliver their content directly to consumers without having to go exclusively through cable operators, satellite networks or TV affiliates."

To create a channel for the Roku Channel Store, a developer creates an application using Roku's free software developer kit. This SDK is available free upon request by emailing partners@roku.com.

All Roku players, including the Roku SD, Roku HD and Roku HD-XR models, are compatible with the Roku Channel Store. The new channels are in addition to the existing Roku channels already available: Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Video On Demand and MLB.TV.

Pricing and availability

The Roku Channel Store will be delivered as an automatic and free upgrade to all existing Roku customers over the course of the next two weeks. New customers will automatically be upgraded when they first install their Roku player. To browse and use the Roku Channel Store, customers will be prompted to create a Roku account. Existing customers who do not want to wait for their Roku player to update automatically can manually update their Roku player immediately. Detailed instructions can be found under the Roku Channel Store tab at http://www.roku.com/support/faqs.

First introduced in May 2008, and updated regularly with free software updates, the Roku player family provides the easiest, most affordable and reliable way for hundreds of thousands of Roku customers to watch their favorite movies, TV shows and sporting events instantly on their TV. All three Roku players are available immediately at http://www.roku.com starting at $79.99 and include free shipping for a limited time.

About Roku, Inc.

Roku is a market leader in innovative applications for digital media, opening up a new world of entertainment to the TV. Through its work in both software and hardware, the company develops and sells consumer products that give customers the ability to take charge over their entertainment choices, combining high-value content and immediate access to that content at a low price. Its products include: The family of Roku players and the SoundBridge Internet radio line. Roku is privately held and based in Saratoga, Calif. For more information on the company and its products, visit: http://www.roku.com.

Basically, as you can see in the picture, you will see play buttons alongside different songs when you get search results. If you press play, a popup from MySpace (iLike) or Lala appears, letting you play the full song and giving you buttons to buy it or get more info. You will also have the chance to check out the band on other services/sites, including Pandora, iMeem and Rhapsody. (As you might imagine, there's no mention of iTunes in all of this.)

In essence, Google isn't playing the music at all. It's up to MySpace and Lala to manage the rights of the full-song playback business, and to serve up the content. For more info, check out the YouTube video or Google blog. They say they'll be rolling it out to US Google users over the next day, so be on the lookout. [Google]

Whether you're taken with the S5 largely depends on how you feel about Sonos in the first place. If you've been itching for an elegant way to play music and internet radio over your home network, and you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you'll probably love the S5. It's not very different from Sonos's other products, really: Instead of plugging in your own stereo, the S5 simply supplies its own. Navigation, playback and music discovery are unchanged from previous Sonos products, so I'm going to focus on the hardware, mostly sound quality.

The receiver/speaker all-in-one is smaller than you'd expect, no bigger than a mid-sized iPod dock, and conservatively styled in white metal with a grey grille. I tested it alongside the winner of our iPod dock Battlemodo, the JBL OnStage 400p, for purely sound-specific purposes, since the actual products have a different feature set. Hardware-wise, the Sonos S5 lacks the JBL's iPod dock (as it doesn't really have a need for one) but does have Wi-Fi, ethernet and audio-in and -out.

It's super easy to set up; the iPhone app discovers any Sonos hardware, which you name and then have access to from the main menu. You choose music, either from a location on the network (like a computer, or in my case an Apple Time Capsule) or from streaming services like Pandora, Napster and Last.FM. Streaming was very quick, with only a split-second lag before the song started, and streaming music (both from a saved location and from the internet) played back so smoothly you can't tell that it's streaming. The Sonos iPhone app is excellent, as always—check out our review for more on that. Suffice to say that it's extremely fast and easy to use, whether you're searching through Last.FM for an artist or just streaming your own tunes from a computer.

Sound quality was actually very slightly disappointing, in that it didn't totally blow me away. It sounds quite good, don't get me wrong, and played far louder (without audible distortion even at its highest setting) than the JBL OnStage 400p, but on the whole I preferred the JBL. Though the Sonos is packing two tweeters, two mids and a subwoofer, bass wasn't nearly as full and rich as on the JBL. EQ can be tweaked via the remote (iPhone/iPod Touch or Sonos controller), but its stock setting was a little jarring on the highs and slightly thin-sounding compared to the JBL. At low volumes, the difference wouldn't be noticeable, but blasting Discovery's "Orange Crush" showed a distinct difference between the two.

I don't want to imply that the S5's sound quality is lousy in any way: It's definitely above-average for an all-in-one system, and I was impressed with the lack of distortion and clarity. But I kind of expected to be wowed, and I wasn't. That doesn't mean it's not an interesting and worthwhile product, but it could be better.

The S5 worked flawlessly with other S5s, able to play different songs simultaneously—but if you want one to stop playing its song and join in with another S5 to play in tandem, it can do that too, and sync perfectly. It's pretty cool and worked well, but I'm not sure why you'd need two all-in-one units to play the same song at the same time in different rooms.

I really like the Sonos S5 as a speaker for a room where you don't want a full stereo—like the kitchen, say, or the back porch. It's great to be free from wires yet still have access to all of your music, and services like Pandora. If you already own an iPhone or iPod Touch, it's actually a solid deal, provided you're sold on Sonos: The ZonePlayer 80 costs $300, but for $100 more you can get a portable (and pretty decent) speaker with the S5.

But the question I was left with: Is it worth the $160 premium over the JBL OnStage 400p? I'm not sure, really. The S5 is a more elegant solution, certainly, but a lot of users just want a quick-and-dirty playback device, and the S5 is too refined for that. If you're already a Sonos devotee, the S5 is an interesting and affordable addition to the lineup, but if you aren't sold on the whole concept, I don't think the S5 will change your mind. [Sonos]

Both the DreamScreen 100 (10.2-inch screen) and 130 (13.3-inch) have 2GB of built-in storage, though they also have a combo flash card reader and USB connectivity for more room. You can load content onto them either through the storage or by a drag-and-drop software interface on a PC. Though it can stream audio and photos (with a really pretty interface, nice big album art), it can't stream video.

The DreamScreen becomes more of a mobile Internet device with its Facebook, Pandora and Snapfish photos support. However all of these have limitations. Firstly, all of these are controlled by either a remote or by buttons on the device itself—the DreamScreen isn't a touchscreen. Secondly, in the Facebook app you can only browse your photos, see status updates and view event invites.

While the DreamScreen has wireless capabilities it doesn't have a browser function and is more for consuming short bits of online content. It does seem like device primed for applications or widgets (I'm thinking Chumby here), but right now HP is only offering these capabilities.

The DreamScreen 100 is available today for $250, while the DreamScreen 130 is expected to be available sometime this fall for $300. Full press release below. [HP]

HP Announces New Line of Wireless Connected Screens with HP DreamScreen

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 17, 2009 – People now can stay current with Facebook friends and photos, listen to Pandora Internet radio, share Snapfish personal photos and enjoy their music and pictures from home networked PCs(1) with a new category of connected screens from HP.

The HP DreamScreen, a companion to the PC, connects easily to a wireless or wired network to bring photos, music and video into any area of the home. The screen also transforms social media and web information into consumable, bite-sized pieces.

"Constant, always-on access to friends, information and entertainment is a common expectation today," said Satjiv S. Chahil, senior vice president, worldwide marketing, Personal Systems Group, HP. "With HP DreamScreen, social media, web services and digital entertainment can be enjoyed in more areas of the home."

The HP DreamScreen features a piano-black design with a vibrant, flush glass widescreen display. The DreamScreen 100 (measuring 10.2 inches) was designed to fit perfectly on a nightstand or dresser. The HP DreamScreen 130 (measuring 13.3 inches) is ideal for kitchen counters and coffee tables.

A product demonstration is available at www.hp.com/go/dreamscreen.

Enjoying digital entertainment

The HP DreamScreen comes with 2 gigabytes of built-in memory for storing photos, music and home movies directly on the device. Digital content can be loaded and played using a USB drive or most types of flash memory cards. Photos and music can be streamed wirelessly or moved to the HP DreamScreen by a simple "drag and drop" motion from a networked PC with included software.

Finding and playing songs is easy – searchable by artist, album or genre – and is enhanced with album cover art. High-fidelity speakers are built in and include connections to accommodate headphones and external speakers.

For music enthusiasts, the HP DreamScreen allows users to stream music directly from the Internet using Pandora. The custom-designed experience makes accessing Pandora accounts easy. Album cover art is displayed and users can personalize their stations by thumbing-up favorite songs or artists to refine their stations.

"Pandora's listeners want to have access to their personalized stations on a variety of devices," said Jessica Steel, senior vice president, Business Development, Pandora. "The HP DreamScreen makes it fun and easy for listeners to enjoy Pandora throughout their homes."

In addition, the HP DreamScreen gives users access to HP SmartRadio, a new service that aggregates streams of live Internet broadcasts from more than 10,000 radio stations around the world. Users can now listen to their favorite radio stations on the Internet by location or genre in any part of their home.

With the HP DreamScreen's capabilities, it becomes the "fourth screen" in people's lives, extending the enjoyment of digital content beyond a computer, TV and mobile phone.

Staying connected

The HP DreamScreen includes 802.11 b or g wireless capabilities to access real-time information from the web. By selecting the Facebook icon, for example, users can stay up to date with their social networks while away from their computers. Friends' status updates, photos and upcoming events can all be viewed in real time.

In addition to viewing images from a PC, flash memory card or Facebook, customers also can access their own or their friends' Snapfish photos and albums. Photos from any of these locations can be enjoyed in slideshow mode simultaneously with music stored on the device or streamed from the user's PC in the background.

Checking time, day and weather

The HP DreamScreen also helps people prepare for and organize their day with access to five-day weather forecasts for cities around the world and a view of their calendar. The HP DreamScreen's built-in clock feature can show time in digital or analog format with dual time-zones and lets users choose tones or music for alarms.

Setting up is easy

The HP DreamScreen was designed to be fun, simple and intuitive. A remote control that nests almost invisibly on the top of the product is easy to use, and touch controls that are visible only when the border of the screen is touched provide another way to select activities or preferences. Both models come with a stand and are ready for wall mounting right out of the box.

Pricing(2) and availability: Perfect for holiday gift-giving

The HP DreamScreen 100 is available today in the United States for $249(2) from online distributors including BestBuy.com, Amazon.com and HPDirect.com. U.S. channel partners include the full range of more than 900 Best Buy retail outlets, which will be selling the HP DreamScreen 100 starting Oct. 11.

The HP DreamScreen 130 is expected to be broadly available this fall in the United States for $299.(2)

About HP

HP, the world's largest technology company, simplifies the technology experience for consumers and businesses with a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

Rhapsody claims its catalogue includes 8 million tracks, but unfortunately they only stream at 64kbps quality. [Real Networks | iTunes]

Update: Rhapsody has been approved. More information.

The screenshot is courtesy of a Gdgt hands-on, which explains that "unlike Spotify's yet-to-be-released iPhone app, Rhapsody's app lacks offline capability." No local storage until version 2.0, apparently. Bummer.

Also worth noting: the free app won't support Rhapsody Unlimited subscribers ($12 a month).

Even if the app is approved (that is, Apple doesn't balk at competition to iTunes on its own device), you kinda get the feeling it'll be a tough sell beyond existing subscribers until they get the local storage sorted. In the meantime, the company plans a limited time free-trial, and an Android version. From its blog:

"We are working diligently on an Android app and once we're done there, we plan to turn our sights on more mobile platform and carrier app stores"

[Real Networks Blog and Gdgt]

Excessive royalty rates were the main reason sites like Pandora hovered near the brink of collapse last year, but this agreement will see a 40-50% reduction in those fees through 2015. However, Pandora will have to give up a 25% share of its revenue as part of the deal. Because these fees are higher than those of traditional radio, Pandora will also have to impose 40 hour limits on users of the free version. Should you surpass that number, you will be required to pay a $.99 fee to continue listening through the end of the month. Users of the paid version will not see a service change.

All in all, it seems like a pretty fair compromise for the listeners, but the truth is that the internet is the future of radio—and it appears that the music industry is going to screw them while they can. [TechCrunch]

With Pandora One, which is available from today (sorry, still only in the US), you're mostly paying for one thing: no ads. But unlike their old premium service, this promise really means no ads—no ads on their website, no ads in their audio streams, and no ads in third-party apps, like their popular iPhone client. And about those clients: now there's an official desktop app, built on the cross-platform Adobe Air. According to TechCrunch, it's a bit minimalist, but good.

In addition, Pandora One provides an option for high-quality 192kbps streaming, which is a boon to anyone who uses their PC as a home stereo. Pandora One also eliminates the nagging timeout functions, which would cut off your stream after a set period of inactivity.

It's not a massive upgrade to the core service—listening to Pandora One will be quite a bit like listening to free Pandora—but if Pandora is your primary source of music, the $2/mo door charge is probably worth it. [TechCrunch]

The Price: $500 for style, connectedness and decent—but not perfect—video file support

The Verdict: It's a crazy, unexpected piece of hardware, so thin and light that the press photos don't really do it justice. Still, since it basically does the same thing as Samsung's cheaper BD-P3600, and LG's new wired and wireless Blu-ray players, I can't help but think the $500 sticker price will be a bit prohibitive for anyone not using it as a decorative wall-hanging piece.

Setup was easy. It comes pre-loaded with Netflix and Pandora, and I first connected it via Ethernet to a sweet Linksys Powerline adapter which ran downstairs to my router, and was running with HD 30 Rock episodes in no time. Not forgetting what Samsung wants us all to remember, that this is a Blu-ray player, I popped in T2, and soon saw Arnold emerging naked from a molten sphere of energy.

Despite its thinness, the rear fan (which you see in the gallery) was not noisy at all. I had a movie playing at a low volume, and could hear everything, and couldn't distinguish the fan's white noise from the other white noise in the house.

My only trouble I had was with networking. It says on the box "Wireless" but when you open it up, you find it requires a separate Wi-Fi dongle. My head quickly did the math: "Consumer-electronics software plus plug-in dongle equals call to tech support." Sure enough, even though it recognized my SSID and let me input a password just fine, it was unable to connect. (The solution, it turned out, was to enter my network password under WPA2 instead of WPA.) The other weird thing about the wireless dongle is that it clearly wasn't designed for this wall-hanging player—if you have it plugged in on the side USB port, you can't press the player flush against the wall.

The pleasant surprise was that the video decoder can read XviD and DivX movies, at least the ones I tested. It wasn't down with DivX 7 MKV, but it liked some older AVIs. It also didn't like H.264, but for some reason that seems to be a hard codec for these off-the-shelf software players to master. MP3s played fine, though it was filenames only—no metadata for you.

What's the takeaway? For movies, even ill-gotten ones, it's a good box. Netflix and Pandora are surely only the beginning, too. If Amazon Video on Demand is already on Panasonic, Sony, TiVo and Roku products, it's surely a matter of time before they sign with Ole Sammy. Ditto for Rhapsody, which seems to find its way into a lot of connected devices.

In the end, it makes sense if you have a simple bedroom setup that you don't want to mess up with a big "entertainment center." But bear in mind, when you wall mout, you still have to worry about the wires coming out of the back, and until they make a sleek glassy cable box to go with, you're always gonna have something bulky under your TV set. [Product Page]

In Summary
Not only stylish, but quiet and lightweight—easy enough to hang on a wall.

Netflix and Pandora are currently the only net media streaming apps, but we expect more to come.

Wi-Fi and other networking features are not for amateurs, but if you figure it out, you can watch XviDs streamed from a PC.

Price is pretty damn high, and many functions can be found in other products.

I think anyone reading this understands that the internet is the new trading post for artists, listeners, critics and salesmen. It's impossible to avoid some of the marketing campaigns carried out on MySpace and YouTube, but mostly music's move to the internet gives listeners more power to develop their own tastes, for better or for worse. You can turn to MP3 stores, recommendation services, internet radio and podcasts, MySpace—and even personal music blogs and forums that'll help you "sample" pirated music. Here's my take on each method of discovery and the relevance it has to listeners:

Recommendation Services

The Pandoras, Rhapsodys and Last.fms of the world are nice, because they do most of the discovery work for you, without pushing some corporate agenda on you behind the scenes (...ahem...Clear Channel). Even better, these services cater their first song selections around your initially revealed tastes, and as you give the software feedback as to what you like and don't like, they continue to refine and improve their artist recommendations. Zune's Mixview also provides a similar service, visually recommending similar artists and songs to those already in your library.

But my problem with a service like this is that you don't necessarily get music that's really new or groundbreaking. Sure, it might be new or exciting to the casual music fan, or just someone who spends all their time listening to these services, but for the true junkie—okay, maybe "music snob"—it's hard to really be wowed by any of these services. We've seen and heard most of it before.

MP3 Stores

Sometimes looking for new music to actually buy is a great way to discover new stuff. Whenever I stop through the legendary Amoeba Records in SF to buy actual, real CDs and vinyl, half my stack is full of stuff I'm completely unfamiliar with. The same holds true with MP3 stores.

Whether it's the monoliths like the iTunes and Amazon mp3 stores, or smaller music peddlers like Boomkat, Bleep, Beatport or Juno, most these stores not only let you click through and listen to all the 30-clips you can handle, but they have tons of recommendations in the sidebars, allowing you to explore similar artists and sounds. The only problem with this? If you don't want to buy all these tracks, hunting them down again is a drag. And in the case of some of the more obscure stores, you might not find the songs anywhere else.

Internet Radio and Podcasts
The beautiful thing about radio in its prime was that, top hits and genres-aside, you never knew what you were going to hear at any specific moment. That unpredictability has an addictive quality to it, and internet radio preserves that spirit to a degree. Though not as popular in the era of the iPod, I still tune in to internet radio stations when I'm feeling bored with my music collection.

Two of my personal favorites are KCRW out of LA, which sticks to indie and the non-top-40 pop hits, and Rinse FM out of London, which has a current rotation of DJs spinning Grime, Dubstep, House and whatever other electronic genres are currently bubbling over there. My favorite thing about these two stations are that they put the content above all else—playing music they like, and not necessarily music that will sell. (On perhaps the complete other end of the music spectrum, Wilson recommends similarly free-minded stations WFUV in New York, and KEXP in Seattle.)

The risk you run in your path of discovery, however, is that if your ears are at the mercy of the DJ you're listening to on internet radio, and if you don't like their taste, hard luck.

MySpace and Twitter

This is what I sort of view as the great democratic project in music. The complaint while the internet was in its infancy was that big media and big corporations had too much influence over what music made it, and what didn't. Obviously that's all changed, in large part to MySpace.

As a social media service at large, MySpace is an eyesore and an abomination. But as a place to discover new music, believe it or not, it's an invaluable goldmine. Big artists, small artists, fat artists, skinny artists—hell, your mom—all have the same basic framework at their dispersal to reach the masses when they're using MySpace. Here you can find your favorite established artists sneaking new tracks up on their page, you can find work from newer artists who have no official releases out, or you can stumble upon that completely random, brilliant band of 17-year-olds from Pawnee, Oklahoma throwing out avant-garde acid pop.

But the best part, is that you can click around their grid of friends, who most of the time are other musicians, and you can get lost in musical worlds you didn't know existed. I spent eight hours doing this one night last winter, and found enough new artists and styles that kept me interested for the rest of the year.

On the Twitter side, it's mostly just good for gathering names and news, but the fact that more musicians, writers and other people of interest are using the service to jot down thoughts means you get to see what they're into at any given moment. People ranging from The Root's ?uestlove, to The New Yorker's music writer Sasha Frere-Jones, to Diplo all twitter frequently about the new music they're digging at the time.

The Online Music Media

The big music magazines, like Rolling Stone and The Source, went from influential and respected in their prime for their great taste and writing, to walking punchlines later on for their willingness to make a buck at the cost of content. What this did was open the door for music blogs to jump in and give readers a new place to figure out what's new and good in the world of tunes.

Most of the bigger/more general music blogs (Pitchfork, Stereogum, Gorilla vs Bear) will never be the first ones to break a new artist, but they will be quick to tell you when known artists have new works available or coming out soon. Smaller, niche blogs (The Fader, Xlr8r, Valerie), however, will cultivate their sites like boutiques of taste, and always look for what's next in music, as opposed to what's now.

Filtering through sites like this takes a decent amount of work, however, and is for the dedicated music fan. Lesser enthusiasts need not apply.

"Sampling"

The Somali method is for the most hardcore of the hardcore. People who don't want to wait for the media to tell them what's what, and would rather just "sample" it for themselves, hit the internet hard and heavy for albums that leak weeks, sometimes months, ahead of their release.

"Sampling" these albums is not for the faint of heart. It takes a general sense of music knowledge, music news, ability to follow the right websites and some technical know how. Bittorrent (and once upon a time, Oink...RIP) is a hotbed for many music leaks as they hit, but since it's tough to mask your IP address if you're not in a private community, it's easier to "sample" the same album using RapidShare, MegaUpload or Mediafire. (In case you're wondering, avoid RapidShare at all costs, use Mediafire whenever possible...you'll save like 5 years of your life).

Generally the best place to "sample" these links to new album leaks are in the threads music-related forums. This could be a forum for an artist, a record label, a genre, or just music in general, but people always start an upload thread full of links for you to troll.

There are also blogs and sites that keep track of the latest leaks. Bolachas Gratis is probably the most famous of the bunch, famously hopping from blog service to blog service, finding a new home to post links to albums for you to "sample." Nodata.tv aims to do something similar, while there's another site, Did It Leak, that just lists albums it's seen floating around the internet. They even have a Twitter feed.

These days, once you have an album title, its as simple as visiting Google Blog Search, MAYBE typing an album name in the search bar in quotes, and MAYBE adding a 2009 and "+rar" or "+zip" to the search string (NO IDEA what those mean!). Search around for a few bit blogs that may have a link, and bam—new music to "sample".

This is undoubtedly the best method for pure discovery, because it lets you chase down the latest and greatest in music without being tainted by anyone else's opinion or tastes. But it also requires an obsessive, nerdish approach to music fandom that may have ramifications on your social life. Not to mention a total disregard for the economics of the music business, and for the needs of artists to be remunerated for their work. So, you know, proceed with caution.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

We last saw the Pandora as an inert prototype, which showed us what the console would look like but not how it would run. Here we see the whole package, albeit in naked, anemic white: the machine boots into its Angstrom Linux OS, opens Quake and plays a game, controlled with the device's keypad. It's good to see the little guy make it this far, but at the moment it's not doing anything that other Linux MIDs can't handle.

The really hard part for the project will be coaxing some games out of an as-of-yet nonexistent developer community. And for the record, TuxRacer doesn't count. [OpenPandora—Thanks, Jack!]

Vudu notes that this is the first music application to be folded into the RIA platform. It joins YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, and 120 web-based video channels that are currently available for Vudu owners.

And since many households have several individuals with individual tastes, the new Vudu-Pandora UI supports multiple accounts. A nice touch. Full presser follows.

VUDU Introduces Pandora, First Music Application for VUDU

Latest Major Application Built on the VUDU RIA Platform Enables VUDU Owners to Bring Truly Personalized Radio to their Televisions and Home Theaters For Free

Santa Clara, CA, March 16, 2009 – VUDU, a leading provider of digital on-demand entertainment products and services, announced today that VUDU owners can get immediate access to Pandora's free, personalized Internet radio service on VUDU. Pandora represents VUDU's first music application for its growing RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform.

Pandora joins YouTube, Flickr, Picasa and a selection of more than 120 channels of web based video content available to VUDU owners in their living rooms for free.

"As we continue to expand our RIA platform, we look forward to bringing many more popular services like Pandora to the VUDU Service," said Edward Lichty, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Content. "Our open development environment allows us to easily release new applications in partnership with some of today's most popular services and content delivery platforms, increasing the value of the VUDU service platform for our users and partners."

"Pandora is committed to enabling our listeners to enjoy their Pandora stations in all the places they listen to music; at home, at work or on the go," said Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora. "We were impressed with VUDU's speed and the quality of development and think that VUDU is a great way for our listeners to access their favorite Pandora stations in the comfort of their living room."

VUDU customers can now experience Pandora on their televisions with all of the functionality that has made Pandora the leader in Internet radio. Using VUDU's award winning remote control, VUDU customers can create new stations and personalize them by adding new variety to the station and "thumbing" songs up and down as they play. Additionally, Pandora on VUDU supports multiple accounts enabling every member of the family to play his or her own personalized Pandora stations.

Pandora (www.pandora.com) is a free, personalized Internet radio service based on the Music Genome Project, which began in 2000 and is the most thorough analysis of popular music ever undertaken. Each song in the massive collection, which includes Pop, Rock, Jazz, Electronica, Hip Hop, Country, Blues, R&B, Latin and Classical, is analyzed and assessed against up to 400 distinct musical attributes (encompassing melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) to capture its unique musical identity. Pandora uses this information to build playlists based on musical similarity. By entering a favorite song or artist, a listener is instantly launched into a personalized listening experience. Listeners can create up to 100 of these personal radio stations and refine them by providing thumbs up or thumbs down feedback.

Introduced in late 2008, VUDU's RIA is a standards-based platform that makes Web-hosted rich applications and services easily accessible through the VUDU Labs area of the VUDU service. Consumers can now use the VUDU remote control to access their favorite Internet content in their living rooms, optimized for display on their HDTVs. Combining the openness and ease of development of Web applications and a lean-back user experience optimized for television, VUDU RIA will be opening to developers later in 2009.

The campaign, which started yesterday for a targeted segment of pandora listeners, brings a 15-second audio spot for the Fox show "Lie to Me" (yay!) after you stream 10 songs, and then again after an additional 20 songs are played. Users who are targeted for the ad should expext to hear 15 seconds of advertising every 2 hours.

As much as I don't want to be coaxed into watching "Lie to Me" in between my non-stop flow of "coldly rhythmic" Berlin trance, this is definitely something I can put up with for a completely free and brilliant service.

[Daily Geek]

You can also take your track-based stations (previously only generated via artist and e-mail them to friends, just like the artist stations (Update: Pandora says something here is new, but you folks are right, you could do this in the last version. Weird. The emailing bit is still true.) Artist biographies also show up inline now to supplement Pandora's ingenious descriptive tags.

The update is available now on iTunes, even though the App Store page still says version 1.2.1: [Pandora via TechCrunch, LifeHacker]

If you don't happen to have one of these phones, don't worry. Pandora plans on getting around to other Windows Mobile devices over time. The video above illustrates the service running on a Moto Q9c. [Phone Scoop and Artificial Ignorance]

So how do they get away with it? Well, Lala assumes that you're doing most of your listening over the web—as a result, the songs that cost a dime are only playable through a browser, like Rhapsody in the olden days. If you want the DRM-free MP3 for your portable player (or whatever), you're looking at a more typical 89 to 99-cent sticker price. All songs in the 6 million+ track catalog can be sampled once for free before you commit to purchasing them, and the 10 cents for a web purchase can be credited toward your MP3 purchase, so it's not money lost.

If you listen to most of your music sitting at the computer, and have qualms about stealing it, Lala may very well be a good way to go. It's like a soup made up of the best components of other online music services such as iTunes, Rhapsody, Pandora, and Last.fm. The site is appealing, the music recommendation engine is good, and there's some value in there. If you're the type of person who would add just one or two new songs per day to your personal playlist, this kind of a la carte pay system is a lot cheaper and more practical than Rhapsody. You can build up a nice collection for a few dollars a month, and you don't keep paying after you've amassed all the music you need.

Finally, web browsers and internet connectivity is becoming, if not already, the norm in smartphones, I mean "coms", and Lala plans to expand to meet this market. They already have an iPhone app in the approval process, which will play recommended songs and hopefully soon, your web library too. An app that acts like Simplify and Pandora together? It could be a real winner, but we'll reserve judgment till we see it in action. [Lala]

PALO ALTO, Calif., October 21, 2008 – Lala is unveiling the first and only free service to instantly provide anywhere Web access to an existing MP3 music library such as iTunes. Replacing the outdated approach of uploading MP3 files from a PC, Lala introduces a licensed technology to instantly match songs from consumers’ personal music library with the Web-based catalog on lala.com.

Adding new music to a collection is easier and less expensive than ever. Sample any full song or complete album for free. Add songs to a Web collection for only 10 cents, and buy DRM-free MP3 downloads for as low as an additional 79 cents.

“We live our lives in a browser, whether it’s emailing, watching television shows or using Facebook” said Geoff Ralston, CEO of Lala. “When I launched Yahoo! Mail few thought hundreds of millions would depend on Web email. My music belongs online in the same way. Will there be anything without a browser in 5 years?”

Microsoft Explorer, FireFox, and Safari browsers on both Windows and Mac OS are supported.

Major and Independent Labels Support
All four major labels including EMI Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group and publishers have licensed Lala with partnership agreements to stream and sell music online.

And unlike ad-supported music sites, Lala has garnered support from over 170,000 independent labels and distributors.

"We thank Lala for their support of A2IM and the independent music community and congratulate them on the launch of their new service which includes tens of thousands of independent artists, labels, aggregators and distributors," said Rich Bengloff, President of The American Association For Independent Music (A2IM). "As the primary advocacy group for the independent music community, we also applaud Lala for recognizing the value of independent labels and artists to their business and providing inclusion to the independent community in their launch."

The Most Affordable Music on the Web
Lala offers consumers the easiest, most affordable way to buy music on the Web. Lala’s catalog includes over 6 million songs which users can play once for free before buying. For as little as 10 cents, users can buy a Websong, a new product that gives users the ability to play as often as they choose from their web collection. The Websong fee can be applied towards the purchase of the DRM-free MP3 version of the same track. MP3s are priced from 89 cents or 79 cents with a prior web song purchase.

Unique Features of lala.com
· Completely advertising free service
· First and only fully licensed service for free Web hosting of a personal music library
· Instant matching of MP3s and iTunes Fairplay songs to the Web without uploading
· Fully featured web-application in a browser with speedy look-ahead search, drag and drop playlist creation, and instant, continuous music streaming
· 6 million and growing song catalog
· Free sampling of the entire catalog as songs or albums
· Websongs available for purchase at 10 cents or less
· DRM-free MP3s for additional price of 79 cents
· Support of popular Web browsers including Windows Explorer, Firefox, and Safari
· Support for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS
· Catalog of all four major labels and publishers
· Catalog of 170,000 independent labels

Discover New Music from Pandora on Your Chumby®

New Content Keeps Music Fans Engaged with Pandora Radio, Music Videos from Avot Media and News Headlines from Rolling Stone

SAN DIEGO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Chumby is now giving music fans a new way to stay constantly connected to the music of their favorite artists, while also introducing them to new music they’ll love. All chumby players can now tune into personalized radio stations from Pandora accounts and have Pandora set as the audio source for custom alarm clocks. Additionally, chumby users will now be able to search and view music videos and more from a music video widget powered by tipMotion from Avot Media, Inc., and receive up-to-the-minute music news and images from RollingStone.com, all without logging onto a computer.

“We know music is a big part of people’s lives and fans want to have always-on, always-fresh access to their favorite artists,” said Stephen Tomlin, CEO of chumby. “A benefit of buying a chumby is that the product is always improving as we add new content and features through automatic upgrades. Now chumbys can be used as radios for the Pandora service at no charge, so whether you bought your chumby months ago or today – you win.”

Pandora is an Internet radio service that is now accessible through chumby. When you indicate a song or artist that you enjoy, Pandora responds by playing selections that are musically similar. You can provide feedback on the individual song choices to further refine the playlist to suit your taste. Your chumby can also wake you with your favorite Pandora station and let you listen to “personalized” radio all day.

“Chumby’s innovative connected media player is a natural fit for Pandora,” said Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora. “With Pandora now available on chumby, our listeners have even more ways to hear their favorite artists and discover new music.”

Also available on chumby are music videos powered by Avot Media, a video formatting and streaming solution provider. Now chumby users can watch the most popular music videos each week, and search for thousands of popular music, entertainment, news, and sports videos on the most popular search engines at the touch of a button.

Chumby music fans will also be able to receive the latest news and images of their favorite bands through updates from RollingStone.com. In addition, Wenner Media, Inc., publishers of RollingStone.com, will also showcase content from other Wenner publications such as UsMagazine.com.

The addition of music content from Pandora, music video streaming from Avot Media and music news updates from Wenner Media complements the strong music and podcast offerings already on chumby, including thousands of AOL SHOUTcast stations, music news from MTV and VH1, and dozens of great streaming stations on Radio Free Chumby.

• ARM® Cortex™-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux
• 430-MHz TMS320C64x+™ DSP Core
• PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware
• 800x480 4.3" 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD
• Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host
• Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output
• Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls
• 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
• Around 10+ Hours battery life

Maybe it won't be a success as a game console, but perhaps they got a small hit for people looking for even smaller netbooks. [Bit-tech]

I say "likely" because they still need to dot i's and cross t's on the royalty deal itself, but here, Congress approved their ability to do that, and just in the nick of time.

Pandora chief Tim Westergren told us today: "We’re just hugely grateful to our listeners and everyone who moved so quickly to mobilize support. This last weekend was just extraordinary." There you go, the world itself may be collapsing, but at least you know our legislators listened to your pleas to keep your favorite web radio broadcasters in business.

DiMA Thanks Congress for Passing Webcaster Settlement Act

Washington, D.C., September 30, 2008 – The U.S. Senate today approved the Webcaster Settlement Act, and sent to the President this bill that authorizes Internet radio services and agents for copyright owners and performers to negotiate new royalty agreements retroactive to 2006, and that could resolve future disputes through 2015.

The House of Representatives passed the bill September 28.

Jonathan Potter, Executive Director of the Digital Media Association, offered this statement:

“On behalf of DiMA and our Internet radio members, I want to thank Congress for acting quickly to pass the Webcaster Settlement Act. This legislation will enable DiMA and our member companies, and all Internet radio services, to continue negotiating royalty rates with SoundExchange for the years 2006-2015. We are very hopeful of reaching agreement soon, and thereby creating long-term stability that will re-energize the Internet radio business.

"We express great thanks to Senators Wyden and Brownback, and Representatives Inslee and Manzullo for sponsoring the Webcaster Settlement Act and also being great leaders of the Internet Radio Equality Act.

“We are also grateful to Chairman Berman, Chairman Conyers and Chairman Leahy, and Ranking Members Smith and Specter for their leadership on the Webcaster Settlement Act and their ongoing support for Internet radio."

[Digital Media Association]

Though we had previously feared the worst, Pandora honcho Tim Westergren told us today that he and other web broadcasters were about to reach a settlement with SoundExchange, the RIAA and the Copyright Royalty Board. They needed a bit more time, which would be granted by a new bill, HR 7084. Though the bill, introduced by Congressman Jay Inslee and others, only extends the negotiation period, Westergren told us that it's the clincher. "We've negotiating for over a year, but people on both sides are now feeling optimistic about getting a deal done," he says. "This bill is a signal of that. We need more time, but we're getting there."

Enter the NAB, who issued the following statement to us and others from Executive VP Dennis Wharton:

NAB has concerns related to Congress attempting to fast-track a bill introduced less than 24 hours ago that could have serious implications for broadcasters, webcasters, and consumers of music. NAB spent more than a year trying to work out an equitable agreement on webcasting rates, only to be stonewalled by SoundExchange and the record labels. We will continue to work with policymakers on a solution that is fair to all parties.

The funny part about this, at least to Westergren, is that this bill and subsequent settlement would actually grant broadcasters lower fees on the internet, too. "If this falls apart, [NAB members] pay more for their webcasts, too," he says. "So there's only one interpretation, that they are trying to kill us."

Man, Pandora, why is everyone out to get you? If you readers feel like forming up in Pandora's defense, tell your congressperson that you support HR 7084, aka the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008. Congressional switchboard is (202) 225-3121, and you know your congressperson has a website, right? Since Capitol Hill is abuzz nights and weekends trying to stem the financial crisis, you can pretty much call at any hour and someone will answer. [Pandora]

The Price: $200 for 25-station 4GB, and $250 for the 40-station 8GB unit. The free service is ad-supported and allows six skips per hour, while the premium service costs about $10/month and is ad-free, offers unlimited skips and the ability to save songs to the device.

The Verdict: The Slacker G2 looks a million times better than its first-gen sibling. The older player was bigger and thicker than a deck of cards, with poorly placed buttons and a capacitive touch strip that felt somewhat cheap. The G2 trims the fat from the device, leaving a screen just big enough to show album art, and controls that are far more intuitive than its predecessor. The 2.4" display is clear, text is very readable, menus are simple and it's about as tall and thick as an iPod dock (but much lighter), a good size for the hand.

For this portable Pandora-style player to succeed, it needs two things. The first thing is, it needs a great selection of songs, tailored to the user's tastes. In this respect, it's awesome—even pre-programmed stations (think satellite radio rather than Pandora) have a wide ranging and thoughtful collection of artists, and stick mostly to singles or fan favorites so you don't get many strange deep cuts. Custom built stations (which you have to create in the web player) are even better. In both cases, you can favorite or ban song suggestions that you don't like, but if you design a station with more than 200 songs, you won't get any outside suggestions (though you probably no longer count as a true "slacker").

The other thing the G2 absolutely needs is a solid connection for refreshing stations. Sadly, this is where it falls short. A full refresh took almost two hours; stations took at least 10 or 15 minutes apiece to download. Adding a custom station for the first time took forever, and so did refreshing stations that I listened to often, favoriting and banning many songs. You can't refresh one station at a time—only all stations at once—and you can't create stations directly on the device either. I'd love to see these two things in a firmware update. Slacker may have shown us its more viable future in smartphone software with its recent BlackBerry announcement. Still, with some software tweaks and better networking, the company could make the G2 a decent alternative for those who fear convergence. [Slacker]

Our own Chris said he played it over EDGE while driving around Southern California and didn't lose signal once. Other pros include album art and allowing you to skip, bookmark and thumbs up/down tracks for better accuracy. While all of these features make Pandora a great app, just thinking about it makes my battery drain. [iPhone App Marathon]

Falcone was particularly excited about the Squeeze network, which lets you manage all your music online, and says that because of the open-source and Linux-friendly nature of Squeeze, the "tweaker or hacker type" will have lots of fun.

In the written portion of the review, Falcone mentioned that "it lacks the iPod's speed-sensitive ability to quickly jump up and down through long lists," something that scares me a bit because I have lots of music and very little patience. Also in the prose, Sonos is mentioned as an expensive rival good for people who want to fill five or more rooms with sound, or people who already own Sonos.

In the end, Falcone says he "couldn't be more pleased with it," which is good news for those of us unwilling to start at $1,000 for a wireless audio system, and bad news for the good people over at Sonos. Sorry dudes! [CNet]

The Duet is platform friendly, running on Macs, PCs and Linux machines and handling a buttload of non-DRM file formats, including Apple Lossless, FLAC, WMA Lossless as well as MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP2, MusePack and WMA. There's no telling yet how well the Duet can organize all of your music, and if it can do the Sonos trick of playing the same song throughout the house with no delay. Still, it's clear that this is a direct attack, with the Duet packing a Sonos-like third-party music supply from Rhapsody and Pandora.

Fact Sheet Plus More Pics:

Logitech® Squeezebox™ Duet Network Music Player
Listen to the music you love in any room in your home
Shipping: January 2008
Price: $399.99 (Controller and Receiver)1 Available at: www.logitech.com

Product Description
With the Logitech Squeezebox Duet Network Music System, music lovers can listen to digital
music on the home-entertainment system in their living room, the stereo system in their bedroom,
even on the mini-system in their kitchen - anywhere they have audio gear. And control it all from
the palm of their hand. The Squeezebox Duet offers an innovative controller with a full-color LCD
screen and compact receiver, enabling people to wirelessly browse, select and play all their PC
music on their existing stereo systems.

Key Features
o Multi-room controller with 2.4-inch color LCD screen
o Convenient interface includes scroll wheel, familiar menus, intuitive buttons
o Controller displays song titles, album art, personalized wallpapers and additional
information including RSS Feeds and radio station information2
o Support for a wide variety of digital music files, including uncompressed and lossless
formats
o True 802.11g wireless networking and dual internal antennas
o Easy to add more Squeezebox receivers, allowing people to listen to a different song in
each room, or synchronize their receivers to hear the same song throughout the house
o Connect to SqueezeNetwork, Logitech's always-on Internet radio and music aggregation
service, which enables Squeezebox Duet owners to stream music - even with their
computers turned off
o Access a directory of thousands of Internet radio stations and subscription services
including Pandora, MP3tunes and Rhapsody

System Requirements
o 256 MB RAM
o Ethernet or wireless network
o 20 MB hard disk space
o Windows: 733 MHz Pentium running Windows NT/2000/XP
o Mac: OS X 10.3.5 or later
o Linux / BSD / Solaris / Other: Perl 5.8.3 or later
o Broadband Internet connection3

Warranty
o Two-year limited warranty

The cute little ZoneBridge is actually the best part of the news to me: rather than paying for a $350 ZonePlayer to connect to your router (which may be somewhere that will never need music), you can drop $100 to start the connection. As we told you earlier, ZoneBridges will also be good for fleshing out the mesh network in big-ass homes.The addition of the two music programs means that the Sonos now has a heady number of music-source choices. Both Rhapsody and Napster offer free anonymous no-credit-card one-month trials, so you'd be dumb not to try out both for the duration before making a decision. I've traditionally favored Rhapsody, but Napster is coming in $3 lower, at $10 per month, so that's going to make it a contender.

The Best Buy Digital Music Store is a Rhapsody-powered service that will cost $15 per month and won't have a free trial. However, it is a way for Best Buy to promote Sonos systems in the store, so I guess it has its purpose. Sonos also has Sirius and Pandora on the dial, for still more options. At some point, does it get too crowded in that Controller? I am starting to wonder. [Sonos]

There's still a 1.3 megapixel camera, battery life of 4 hours for talk time and around 10 for music-only playback. There is also an FM transmitter, like the original Fusic, but now it can be used with downloaded tracks as well as MP3s you may have loaded up.

Speaking of loading up MP3s, you can do it pretty easily using the old drag-and-drop method; I decided not to bother with Sprint's music manager software, but you probably guessed, the phone does have an EVDO connection to Sprint's Music Store. (That's 99-cents per song if you have the $15-per-month Power Vision data plan.)

What's new is that it's the first Sprint phone that accepts the larger 4GB MicroSD cards—this is helpful as there is no internal memory you can allocate for music.

The Muziq is also a lot more grown up, having ditched the assortment of colored plates in favor of the black and red scheme that proved to be the key to the LG Chocolate's runaway success (uh, kidding there, though I do prefer the new color scheme).

A sweet effect is that the touch panel on the face that controls music has vibration force feedback: when you tap it, the vibe hits for a split second, giving you the sense that you pushed a button. The CDMA version of LG's Prada has this feature on its touchscreen—in fact I think this type of force-feedback will appear in more and more handsets.

The Muziq has lost the Fusic's baby fat: it's a good bit slimmer and it doesn't have a visible antenna either.

Though there are some style improvements, the Muziq has lost much of the individuality of the Fusic; besides external design changes, its user interface is shared with other Sprint music phones, and the Fusic's cool LG-designed comic-book menu is nowhere to be seen. I may be the only one who misses it, and there are other interface options, but I do get a little bit sad when I see handset makers' little design touches get steamrolled by carrier standardization.

Carrier standardization wouldn't be as big a deal if I thought customers were getting something useful out of it. My biggest beef with the phone is that, even though it's supposed to be for people who pay $15 per month extra for music services, it's really hard to find any streaming radio. The "Music" button takes you to the player and to the store, but Sprint's new Pandora service isn't yet preloaded (though it's supposedly coming) and other radio options are buried under the Sprint TV heading. Why do they even exist? It's not like you can use them with the FM transmitter, or navigate them when the phone is closed. If the network is the thing, then networked music, in all forms, should be the key to Sprint's music strategy. Let's see it!

In the meantime, it's not a half bad phone—you know, for making calls, receiving calls, sending text messages and such—for anyone who isn't standing in line at an Apple Store right now.

GO TANGLE-FREE WITH MUZIQ BY LG, EXCLUSIVELY FROM SPRINT, OFFERING A TRULY WIRELESS MOBILE MUSIC EXPERIENCE

Attractive device gives customers the freedom to easily receive and listen to music without cables or wires through over-the-air song downloads, FM transmitter and advanced stereo Bluetooth

First Sprint device that allows use of a 4GB microSD memory card - holds up to 4,000 songs

Available July 15; Sign up for availability notification at www.sprint.com/music

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. and SAN DIEGO, Calif. - June 26, 2007 - Sprint (NYSE: S) and LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A., Inc. (LG Mobile Phones) today announced the upcoming availability of a new music phone that provides customers with the ability to quickly and easily experience music on the go - MUZIQ by LG. This innovative device comes packed with industry-leading features, including over-the-air song downloads, a 4GB microSD memory card slot and a built-in FM transmitter allowing customers to listen to their tunes wirelessly through any FM radio within 10 feet.

Operating on the Sprint Mobile Broadband network, MUZIQ by LG provides easy access to Sprint's exclusive multimedia content. A successor to last year's FUSIC by LG, MUZIQ by LG provides quick and easy access to Sprint-exclusive content, including:
• Sprint Music StoreSM, powered by Groove Mobile, which allows users to browse and wirelessly download full-length songs directly to their phone from a selection of more than 1.6 million songs.
• Pandora Mobile, a downloadable application that provides personalized streaming radio by allowing customers to enter a favorite musical artist or song and automatically receive a radio station with songs that have similar qualities.
• Sprint TVSM with more than 50 channels of live television and on-demand video and audio.
• Sprint Navigation, powered by TeleNav, providing full-feature GPS navigation including voice and on screen turn-by-turn driving directions and more than 10 million business listings.
(Standard data charges apply to all downloads from Sprint.)
MUZIQ by LG offers multitasking capability that allows users to play music in background mode while also using the phone for text messaging or playing games. It also features advanced stereo Bluetooth® and a dedicated music button and camera button for quick operation.

"We are very excited to add MUZIQ to our portfolio of industry-leading music phones," said Oliver Valente, Sprint's senior vice president of product development. "This device reaffirms Sprint's commitment to offer innovative music devices that enable customers to get music wherever they are and listen to music however they desire, whether that is through Bluetooth headphones, their car stereo or the device itself."

MUZIQ by LG comes packaged with Sprint Music Manager, powered by Smith Micro, giving users the power to quickly and simply transfer, or "sideload," unprotected songs from a PC to the handset via a USB cable. Provided on CD-ROM, Sprint Music Manager allows songs to be managed on a PC through an intuitive interface. The box also contains a 64MB MicroSD memory card and a USB cable.

"LG Mobile Phones is thrilled to introduce Muziq," said Jon Maron, senior director of marketing, LG Electronics MobileComm, U.S.A., Inc. "Muziq is the latest innovation in mobile music technology and allows consumers to merge their love for music with a high functioning mobile handset."

MUZIQ by LG is the first Sprint device to offer a microSD card slot capable of managing 4GB of memory - or up to 4,000 songs from Sprint Music Store. Additional features include a 1.3MP camera/camcorder with flash, PictBridge support for printing pictures directly to supported printers and Wireless Backup to quickly restore contact information if your phone is lost or stolen.

MUZIQ by LG measures 3.80" x 1.94" x 0.61" and weighs just 3.14 ounces. MUZIQ by LG will be priced at $99 with a two-year service agreement. It will be available at Sprint retail stores, www.sprint.com and 1-800-SPRINT1 on July 15. Customers can already register to be among the first to purchase MUZIQ by LG at www.sprint.com/music.

Customers purchasing MUZIQ by LG as a replacement for an existing mobile phone are encouraged to donate their current phone, battery and accessories to Sprint Project Connect. Donated equipment, regardless of make, model or service provider, will be recycled in an environmentally friendly manner or refurbished and resold with proceeds benefiting K-12 education. More information, including a prepaid mailing label, can be found at www.sprint.com/projectconnect.

OK, first: how does that work? Lala doesn't upload everything. Most of the songs you own are probably in its servers already; it will only upload the stuff it didn't have. If you are wondering if that includes The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Dave Matthews Band, stuff famously not available online, it does. Lala assumes that if you own it, you have the right to it. It's a fair-use defense that makes sense, since you can't really distribute music through the service, you can only access it for your own use.

Next: what's this about my iPod? At this point in time, Lala is storing tracks as MP3 files. (I think 128Kbps, but could be greater—in the future, they say they will offer their stream at the original resolution of the track you own, but for now there's a bandwidth issue.) You can't download the tracks to a computer hard drive, but you can sideload the tracks straight to your iPod. If, and it's a big "if", you set up your iPod to sync with the service. You can't use the iPod with your iTunes again without reconfiguring it. Lala says you wouldn't need to, since it will give you access to anything you buy at iTunes, but I still think it's a bit of a leap of faith.

But what's in it for Lala? Well, for starters, the company wants to grow the music-sales business, selling cut-rate CDs and facilitating music swaps with other members. Logging your preferences is an easy way to build an oh-so-sweet customer profile, just like Amazon.com and iTunes do.

Will there be any digital tracks for sale? They have already inked a deal with Warner Music, letting you sample Warner tracks as many times as you like on the service, like a free baby Rhapsody. The company is talking with other record labels, too, so it soon could be a free alternative to Rhapsody, Napster and the like, with similar digital-download catalogs.

Is that all? With the DRM-free business taking off, the obvious next move is to sell non-DRM tracks for download to the iPod—like much of the American populace, these guys do not have any real interest in other music players. Before all of the deals are signed, there are lots of music samples available under net radio licenses, so you can easily get artist-themed user-generated radio stations a la Pandora.

How well does this whole thing work? So, it's in beta. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make total sense yet. I'll spare you the specifics only because beta is as beta does, and frankly, free services are fun to try even if they end up screwing the pooch. Last I checked, the system was down, because the old Lala.com was giving way to the new Lala.com.

When it's back up, have a try and let me know what you think. I'm excited because a) anywhere access is just cool and b) I think what these guys are doing is a little bit crazy, and I want to see where it goes. Their last idea, the CD swapping thing, was also crazy, and I'm not sure it totally worked, but it was original enough for muchos kudos, and this idea is even more ballsy. Let's see what happens. – Wilson Rothman

Service Homepage [Lala.com]

Note: The site appears to be back up and running.

Prototype Of Pandora Wifi Device Shown Tonight In San Francisco [TechCrunch]

Sure, lately most people including Giz have made Pandora out to be just a victim of the dreaded Copyright Royalty Board. But clearly the Pandora's people have been doing more than just calling congressmen and woeing their own demise. Here's the whole basket of new Pandora goodies:

• Starting now, five Sprint phones will be Pandora ready, and by the end of June, Pandora says that all Power Vision phones will be good to go. If you have a Pandora.com account, you will get "seamless integration" into your phone. Besides, you will be able to create and fine-tune stations using just the phone. After a 30-day free trial, the ad-free Sprint Pandora service will cost $2.99 per month. Keep in mind, there'd be a Sprint data-service requirement of at least $15 per month on top of that, and there's no word of how good the streaming quality is, but if you already pay for Power Vision, it's probably worth a try. Below are shots of Pandora on the defunct Samsung A900; our opening shot is of the Pandora interface on the new music phone, the UpStage.

• Sonos 2.2 software release, free to all Sonos owners and immediately available, will include a 30-day free trial of Pandora, with a given station streaming simultaneously and in perfect sync to all of your rooms, or up to 32 different Pandora stations streamed to 32 different receivers at the same time. Like the Rhapsody service offered for Sonos, the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card; unlike Rhapsody, Pandora will cost only $36 for a full-year subscription. (You can't do as much, of course, and some people will probably want both, but it's an interesting option.)

• New Web interface, totally redesigned for "better integration of content and community." Rather than describe it, I'll just toss it in here:

• The final point of Pandora's presentation involves future applications. Wi-Fi-connected players are an obvious point. No, there is no Zune creeping into the picture (yet), but there might be a different Connect-ion: the presentation says that Pandora is showing off a Zing-enabled device. Well, the Sansa Connect is the only one of those we can think of off-hand so, like, sweet! – Wilson Rothman

Product Page [Pandora]