VUDU on Thursday announced that it has brought brought three key Internet apps to VUDU-enabled TVs. These are the same apps that were already available on the VUDU box and include Picasa, Flickr, Pandora, a free TV on-demand service and a few simple games. VUDU says it brought these apps to the TVs from its partners due to popular demand.
After making its appearance at Verizon earlier today, Sprint also announced that the BlackBerry Curve 8530 smartphone is coming soon to its lineup as well. Potential customers can register now to receive updates on the handset. Preloaded apps are the primary difference for Sprint's Curve 8530 and include the Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV and Pandora radio.
Google at a Los Angeles event tonight unveiled its widely expected advanced music search feature. The addition (a video of which is available below) automatically parses regular searches for music from all four major labels and automatically filters it by artist, album or track; users can then either sample or buy the tracks through Lala or MySpace's iLike. Those who use recommendation-based Internet streaming service like iMeem, Pandora or Rhapsody can also find related music.
HP early today is making an aggressive push into touchscreen PCs with two key updates to its TouchSmart home all-in-ones. The TouchSmart 300 and 600 add true multi-touch input and have significantly expanded use for the technology: they can not only use pinch-to-zoom, flicks and other gestures in the general operating system thanks to Windows 7 but in several new touch apps for the systems' custom front end. They can now navigate Hulu or Netflix streaming video, stream Pandora or Rhapsody music, or update and follow Twitter feeds all primarily using touch.
Chumby will add a new gadget to its range, with the Chumby one, which will be a clock radio. The all-purpose device adds both a regular FM radio tuner, and will bring in Pandora Internet radio as well as access to other Internet radio stations. As with the original Chumby device, userscan install widgets that include Google Calendar, weather, Facebook and nearly 1,500 others.
Music royalty groups ASCAP and BMI are pressing online music stores like Apple's iTunes to pay performance fees not only for actual song downloads but also videos and even the 30-second samples used to preview the music in advance. While these stores already pay the distribution fees for the songs themselves, ASCAP, BMI and labels claim that just downloading and playing the content also counts as a live performance and should bring an extra fee.
HP has introduced several new wireless-connected standalone displays, the DreamScreen 100 and DreamScreen 130. Both products are similar to digital photo frames, but with additional connectivity to services such as Snapfish, Facebook and Pandora. The interface is also capable of presenting weather forecasts, calendar information and a digital or analog clock.
Sonos on Friday announced through a Twitter post that its CR200 touchscreen controller, Sonos CR for iPhone and Sonos CRs for Mac and PC will get the ability to post tweets on Twitter directly through a given device. The feature should come through a software update that, on the Controller or an Apple device, will bring an onscreen keyboard.
Mitsubishi announced on Thursday that it has integrated VUDU support for the flagship Diamond models in its Unisen Immersive Sound range of LCD HDTVs. This will give users access to VUDU's extensive library that include thousands of HD movies and TV shows. The two Diamond Unisen models, the 46-inch LT-46249 and 52-inch LT-52249, have an Ethernet port that allows them to connect to the web. Otherwise, there is an optional VUDU wireless accessory bridge for hooking up to existing home networks.
Apple today said it has approved Spotify's iPhone app. A spokesperson for the company made the rare statement ahead of the app's appearance for paidContent in what's seen as a bid to prevent accusations of anti-competitive behavior regarding the app, which will need a 10 Euro (roughly $14) monthly premium subscription but which will give unlimited streaming of music over both Wi-Fi and on iPhones using 3G. It's unclear when the app will actually appear but is expected only in countries where Spotify is already available on computers, such as the UK or Spain.
Revo this morning claimed the high ground in radio docks through the unveiling of the IKON. The system aims to be a center for all digital audio with DAB+ radio (for the UK), Internet radio through many sources that include Last.fm, Pandora, Rhapsody and Sirius, an iPhone/iPod dock and media sharing from Macs and PCs on the local Ethernet or Wi-Fi network. A unique advantage in the field is a 3.5-inch touchscreen that provides both a much more context-sensitive interface for each source but displays album art, song data and anything else a given format allows.
AT&T today issued their promised formal responses to the FCC's inquiry into the rejection of Google Voice on the iPhone. AT&T senior executive VP Jim Cicconi in a statement flatly stated that the carrier had "no role in any decision" of Apple's to deny the software reaching the App Store and specifically denied any contact with Apple regarding the particular app. AT&T also didn't express its opinion on the app in any context, according to the executive.
Sonos has released an update to its iPhone app that works with the company's multi-room music systems. Version 3.0 adds a new "Info View" command that connects to a variety of extra content from sources such as Last.fm, Pandora, Rhapsody, Napster and Sonos Radio. While listening to last.fm, users can view artist information, similar artists or upcoming concert dates.
Home theater manufacturer Onkyo has recently announced the release of two new high-end home theater receivers, with the TX-NR807 and TX-SR707. Both are 7.2-channel systems, though the TX-NR807 has the ability to stream audio from Internet-based services such as Pandora, Rhapsody, Sirius and Internet radio from vTuner's database. Music on networked PCs and hard drives can also be played back as the receiver is DLNA 1.5-compliant. It supports MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG Vorbis and AAC file playback from PCs.
Sonos was founded with the dream of building a reasonably affordable whole home audio solution in an era where many systems did (and often still do) cost several thousand dollars or more. Now on its second generation of hardware and with much more mature software, it's possible the company's music system may have reached its zenith. We want determine just how true that is in our larger review.
Owners of Internet radio stations and music label groups struck a deal on Tuesday that should allow online outlets to continue streaming music. The agreement is now a scaling one and will ask larger stations to pay either 25 percent of their revenue or a per-track rate based on the year, ranging from 0.08 cents per song in 2006 through to 0.14 cents per song in 2015, depending on whichever is greater. Those companies that make less than $1.25 million per year will be asked to pay between 12 and 14 percent of their revenues.
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.
The Splashtop instant-on platform from DeviceVM is coming to Sony's VAIO NW-series notebook PCs and Acer's AspireRevo nettop PCs, as per a pair of Tuesday launches. Sony's implementation of the platform is called Quick Web Access, while Acer calls its RevoBoot. In either case, Splashtop, which could be described as a lightweight Linux operating system, allows users to access the Internet within a few seconds but without having to boot the full operating system.
Ford and Microsoft, which have jointly developed the SYNC communications and entertainment system for various Ford vehicles, may soon get streaming Internet radio capabilities via a partnership with Internet radio provider Pandora. A representative from Ford's Design and Technology team, Charlotte Fisher, has promised SYNC will receive regular updates sometime between every six and twelve months and has confirmed that Ford is currently engaged in talks with Pandora.
Yahoo today unveiled a reworked, public beta version of Yahoo Music that significantly changes the company's philosophy on content. The new version serves as a central hub for third-party music services and will let users buy songs from a number of sources, including Amazon and iTunes. It likewise collects Internet radio streams from Last.fm and Pandora as well as music videos on YouTube.
Palm today took aggressive steps to expand support for the webOS by adding legacy support, Internet sync, a larger developer program and new third-party apps it says showcase the new mobile platform. The company has revealed that outside firm MotionApps has developed a utility known as Classic that emulates support for PalmOS software. Like its rough equivalent in Apple's Mac OS X, it creates a virtual environment that works with "most" apps; the change to a full touchscreen OS requires that MotionApps put in simulated buttons. It should launch at the same time as the Pre, which should ship to Sprint in late spring.
Music from iTunes and other download stores now makes up exactly one third of all music sold in the US, according to NPD Group findings. The jump comes after the number of buyers climbed from 28 million in 2007 to 36 million in 2008 and these new shoppers bought more tracks. By contrast, CD sales have continued to plummet and saw about 17 million Americans stop buying CDs altogether in 2008, resulting in a drop for CD sales of about 19 percent.
VUDU has recently announced it has added support for the recommendation-based Internet radio service Pandora. The feature is the first music application available on the VUDU Box and allows on-screen access to the multitude of channels. Multiple user accounts are supported, so each member of the family can log in and access their own favorite presets.
TIME has published a list of its ten favorite App Store downloads. Pandora Radio ranked highest and was considered "the all-time best free app for music lovers." The streaming music service also scored the top position in Apple's overall comparison of free apps. Users can enter an artist, song, album or genre, and Pandora then creates a station that provides similar music from a wide range of content.
Chumby today added support for a new set of features on its namesake customizable Internet media device. The updates are headlined by the addition of Pandora's radio streams; users can now listen to their personal Internet music feeds on the device and flag songs as they would on a computer or cellphone to favorite certain music styles or exclude others. Pandora can also be used as the default alarm along with other usual sources. Using the new stream on the Chumby is free.
Logitech on Thursday turned its attention to wireless audio courtesy of both a wholly independent Internet radio and speakers built just for notebooks. One of the first fruits of Logitech's buyout of Squeezebox, the Squeezebox Boom can pull and play unprotected music from any recent Mac or Windows PC on a local 802.11g Wi-Fi network but also picks up Internet streaming radio services entirely on its own, including largely free services such as Last.FM, Pandora or Slacker as well as a user's memberships to primarily for-pay services such as Rhapsody and Sirius' Internet streams.
In addition to new software, Sonos today overhauled its ZonePlayer music streaming hubs with two new models that should both be more useful across more areas. Both the high-end ZP120 and simpler ZP90 are the first to use the company's in-house SonosNet 2.0 network. The standard uses the same multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) antenna technology as 802.11n Wi-Fi to roughly double the range of the device's mesh network and thus let users tap into music from the Internet and local network from a greater distance in a given home. The network is also encrypted in AES and is backwards-compatible with earlier ZonePlayers.
Internet radio provider Pandora and personal peripheral maker Logitech on Tuesday announced a partnership that will give owners of Logitech's wireless music systems, including the Squeezebox and Squeezebox Duet, as well as the Transporter, free access to Pandora's service. The arrangement is the first to offer the Internet service at no charge, but later this fall will expose users to advertising that will essentially pay for the subscriptions.
