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pandora

OpenPandora to soon bring gaming to your palm

Ars Technica is reporting that Pandora, a long-anticipated open-source gaming handheld designed to compete with Nintendo's DS, Sony's PlayStation Portable, and other mobile-gaming devices (and not to be confused with the popular Internet music service), will be released in 2009. No firm date has been released.

The project, however, still needs some work:

Judging by the video, there's still quite a bit of work to be done on the case itself. But the team has had working hardware for the innards for some time now, so some final fabrication, polish, and (quality assurance) work seem to be … Read more

iMeem starts charging for uploads

Correction: iMeem said it erred in stating some of the financial costs of its new fee structure. The corrected prices are below.

Social-networking site iMeem has always been known as an ad-supported service, which means visitors have never had to pay for anything. That appears to be changing.

For iMeem users who once uploaded hundreds or even thousands of songs, videos, and photos to the site without paying a dime, iMeem has quietly rolled out a new fee structure. And that has irked some people.

Founded in October 2004, iMeem is a social-networking site that focuses on music and enables … Read more

Pandora brings audio ads back to its radio

Personalized Web radio service Pandora has added 15-second audio advertisements that will occasionally play between songs.

The company's official Twitter feed first announced the inclusion of ads, saying Pandora will be "extremely respectful of your listening experience" while promising "to be prudent."

So far, the ads have been used sparingly. Pandora's founder and chief strategy officer, Tim Westergren, told PressDemocrat.com in an interview that the average user will hear an ad only once every two hours, but the company is experimenting to see what works.

Pandora has experimented with audio advertising in the … Read more

MP3 Insider 130: Personal radio apps for the iPhone

Donald and Jasmine discuss Pandora 2.0 and the new Slacker app for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Also on deck: a bit of info from the NAMM show and a little good-natured ribbing at Haier America's expense. Oh, and we poke some serious fun at Microsoft...prepare for your ears to bleed a little first, though.

Listen now: Download today's podcastRead more

Daily Tidbits: SearchMonkey reads Wikipedia

Yahoo announced on Thursday that it has added Wikipedia deep links and images to its search results. The company, which is using its SearchMonkey platform to add more third-party content to its results, claims that all Wikipedia results in its search will now include links to the first four sections of the article, as well as an image. The feature can be turned off through Yahoo's preferences pane.

MediaGlow, AOL's publishing unit, announced the launch of a new sports site Thursday. Dubbed FanHouse, the site sports a new design and "an expanded lineup" of national sports … Read more

Too lazy for Pandora? Try Slacker

Correction: as a commenter pointed out, you can in fact create stations on Slacker based on a favorite artist or song--you select "Find Music," then search by artist or title and it will build a station around your search. I thought this feature was missing on the iPhone app. Now, you cannot customize those stations by adding "seeds" like you can on Pandora, nor can you use the Fine Tune feature to tweak them, but the basic idea--stations based on a particular artist or song--is available. My bad.

Slacker released its radio app for the iPhoneRead more

Review: Pandora 2.0 for iPhone and iPod Touch

Since its release in July of 2008, the Pandora Internet radio iPhone app has been one of our favorites and a consistent top download from Apple's iTunes App Store. Pandora's uncluttered and intuitive interface, coupled with its unique knack for song recommendations, makes it an ideal no-fuss app for anyone looking to add streaming music capabilities to their iPhone or iPod Touch.

In version 2.0, Pandora adds several new features without undermining the simplicity that made the original app so great. Users can now listen to 30-second previews of bookmarked tracks directly within the app, without bouncing over into the iTunes store. You can also send links to songs now, as well as stations, to contacts from your address book.

Creating new personalized radio stations in Pandora has never been easier. As before, Pandora lets you create stations by entering any artist, song, or genre as a starting point. In addition to creating stations from scratch, users can now create stations on the fly based around any artist or song on Pandora's Now Playing screen or user bookmarks.

Pandora 2.0 now offers biographical information for the currently playing artist right from the Now Playing screen (similar to the Last.fm app), as well as a detailed account of why each song was chosen to be included in your station. Pandora also added a track progress bar to the Now Playing screen, showing how far along you are within a particular song.… Read more

Daily Tidbits: Nine Inch Nails is the coolest band around

Nine Inch Nails band leader Trent Reznor announced in a blog post on the band's official page Wednesday that a "subversive" group contacted him recently with 400GB of HD footage from three of the band's recent concerts. In a move that would send shock waves through the music industry, Reznor provided a link to the file and challenged fans to create compelling videos out of all the footage. Those interested can find more information about the video on the Nine Inch Nails Web site.

Slacker.com, a service that provides personalized online radio stations, announced Thursday … Read more

Samsung HT-BD1250: 5.1-channel home theater offers Blu-ray, Netflix, Pandora

Samsung's got three new all-in-one home theater systems for 2009, all of which are headlined with built-in Blu-ray and support for streaming online Netflix video and Pandora's free Internet music service. The HT-BD8200 and HT-BD7200 are both "lifestyle" systems with minimalist form factors, funky designs, and front-only virtual surround sound (the former is a speakerbar with wireless subwoofer and the latter sports a 2.1 design). But if you want real surround sound, you're going to need actual rear speakers--and that means the more traditional 5.1-channel design of the Samsung HT-BD1250.

Samsung, of course, … Read more

HT-BD7200: 2.1 Blu-ray home theater from Samsung

The HT-X710T was one of Samsung's funkier home theater products of 2008, a 2.1-style (two speakers plus subwoofer) home theater system with a tapered, wall-mountable DVD player head unit. While the 2009 follow-up shares a similar "Touch of Color" red-accented design and curved enclosures, the HT-BD7200 gets a Blu-ray upgrade (replete with BD-Live capability and Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding) and support for streaming Netflix online video and the Pandora music service. It's also Wi-Fi-ready, but you'll need to invest in a separate USB 802.11n dongle, or stick with wired Ethernet … Read more