July 03 - 12:20pm EDT   imeem is gradually building its own music store that may afford it independence from Apple's iTunes or Amazon MP3, an investigation has found. Normally, those buying permanent copies of music from the site must go through an Amazon or iTunes link and buy it off-site; quietly, however, the company has been adding direct-download MP3 purchases of its own for certain artists, such as Iron and Wine. The payment system is direct and uses either credit cards or PayPal. [full story]

July 02 - 04:50pm EDT   MCS Music America has filed a lawsuit against Real Networks, Yahoo and Microsoft over alleged music copyright infringements earlier this week. The copyright administration company claims the defendants breached copyright on several pieces of music and their artists. MCS represents a large number of other plaintiffs and says streaming music services such as Rhapsody, Zune and Yahoo Music allow users to retain the copyrighted tracks for an extended period of time, saying the defendants are required to obtain the rights for such a form of distribution. [full story]

July 02 - 10:20am EDT   Archos on Thursday confirmed that it would port its Archos 9 PCtablet to the US. The ultra-mobile PC is due to arrive Stateside in the fall and is one of the first systems known to ship with Windows 7. Adding the OS both gives it reasonable performance with its 1.2GHz Atom chip as well as fuller support for the touchscreen features essential to the design. [full story]

July 02 - 07:15am EDT   Sonos is poised to update its veteran home audio controller with its first touchscreen model as a leak has shown this morning. Where the existing controller depends on button controls and a small screen to steer the wireless audio system, the CR200 spotted by Automated Home would have a much smaller overall profile but a larger touchscreen as its near-exclusive interface. All the multi-room audio selection and track queuing of the current model appear to carry over, as would a charging cradle for power. [full story]

July 01 - 06:15pm EDT   MacSpeech has released MacSpeech Dictate Legal, and MacSpeech Dictate 1.5.2. The Legal version provides speech recognition tools for legal professionals and their support staff. Users can create legal petitions and briefs or build client consultation records. Text and commands can be dictated directly into applications, with support for more than 30,000 words and legal-specific terms. The software is bundled with a USB headset that provides a microphone for input. [full story]

July 01 - 04:05pm EDT   AT&T on Wednesday announced it will soon begin offering the BlueAnt Q1 voice controlled Bluetooth headset at its retail locations and online store. The headset, first released at the start of April, has noise-cancelling functionality and allows users to control it via voice commands. Integrated multipoint technology lets users pair up the headset to up to two different handsets at the same time. [full story]

July 01 - 01:35pm EDT   Versions of the Sony Walkman have now been on sale for 30 years, notes Agence France-Presse. The first version of the product went on sale July 1st 1979, based on the sketches of engineer Nobutoshi Kihara, and sold 30,000 units in two months. By 1989 cumulative Walkman sales had exceeded 50 million, and today, numbers are said to be over 385 million. The company has since lost much of its ground to Apple, which has sold over 200 million iPods in eight years. [full story]

July 01 - 11:20am EDT   Pioneer on Wednesday brought out four new home theater receivers to its flagship Elite lineup, including the top-rung SC-27 and SC-25, as well as the slightly lower-end VSX-21TXH and VSX-23TXH. All four have a customized USB/composite cable that allow users to integrate their iPhones and iPods into their home theater audio systems. Once connected, the Apple devices can be controlled via the systems' remote controls, and their content sent to 2nd and 3rd zones setup in the home. The SC-series units are meant to reproduce Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks found on more advanced Blu-ray discs. Both have a Direct Energy HD Class D amp based on ICEpower. [full story]

June 30 - 05:00pm EDT   iPlayMusic has launched the beta version of a new download service, providing chords, music and lyrics for songs from a user's iTunes library. Chords for iTunes synchronizes video with the audio of an iTunes track, allowing users to slow down or speed up while maintaining proper pitch. [full story]

June 30 - 04:50pm EDT   Edifier recently announced it has now made its iF500 iPod dock entertainment system available in North America. The large dome of the iF500 houses five separate speakers and is made with vibration and resonance control in mind. The device, which was launched in Europe earlier this year, can accommodate iPods and iPhones, as well as other portable audio players via their headphone jacks thanks to an auxiliary input. [full story]