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Get your tunes on

We weren't disappointed by Slacker Radio's free iPhone app. After logging on, the dark-themed app lets you simply tap the icons at the top of the stations list to launch favorite and custom stations. Scrolling down, you'll encounter a search option and top music stations, followed by a long list of musical genres; a logical flow for the iPhone's design.

Slacker also takes advantage of the iPhone's height to much more prominently display album art than on other mobile devices. The controls to pause, skip, save, and ban an artist are finger-friendly. You'll be … Read more

Slacker Radio slides onto the iPhone

Updated 1/14/08 at 12:16 a.m. with U.S.-only service details.

Leave it to Apple to make Slacker look like a...you know.

Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, streaming Internet radio company Slacker Radio released Slacker Radio for BlackBerry (download), and announced that an iPhone cousin was coming out as soon as Apple approved it.

Announced on Tuesday, Slacker Radio for the iPhone and iPod Touch is just as lip-smacking good as anticipated, and is primed to give other streaming music apps like Pandora, Last.fm, and Tuner Internet Radio a … Read more

Slacker Radio brings BlackBerry a neat caching trick

This week at CES, Slacker made good on its word and released a version of its mobile, streaming, Internet Radio app for BlackBerry.

Slacker Radio for BlackBerry, a free over-the-air download for BlackBerrys running version 4.3 and above, gratifies with crisp album art, intuitive navigation, and all the customized streaming stations you could want.

What impressed us most is Slacker's newly added feature--right now just for BlackBerry--that caches songs as they play, allowing you to essentially play back your stations offline. It only works if you've got a microSD card, mind you, but once you're set … Read more

Slacker, Howcast added to Sony Bravia Internet Link channel line-up

Sony's Bravia Internet Video Link (or "BIVL," as we call it around here) is getting two more content partners: Slacker and Howcast. Slacker is the online streaming music service (similar to Pandora and Last.FM), while Howcast is a help and how-to Web site. Both will be available for free on the Sony IPTV accessory, which streams digital audio and video to compatible Bravia TVs. They join free channels available from YouTube, Wired, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, and CBS (CNET's parent company), among others content partners.

Unfortunately, we gave Bravia Internet Video Link low marks when we … Read more

MP3 players with good taste in music

Music can be a powerful emotional and psychological trigger for many people. Heck, it even has a physical effect on people--anyone who can't help but tap her feet and nod her head when listening to an infectious beat can attest to that. For precisely these reasons, many die-hard music fans will spend hours on end creating the perfect playlists for lounging, working out, commuting, and generally affecting mood and motion. Unfortunately, many of the rest of us don't have the time--or desire--to create all the specifically tailored playlists we could ever want. So what's a casual listener to do?

Luckily, many device manufacturers have gotten hip to the fact that there's a significant number of music fans who want reasonably personal track lineups presented to them without all the time and hassle. Several MP3 players released in recent times offer various smart DJ functions that go beyond ID3 tag recognition and individual user play count. All of the options below feature music recommendation functions that can be utilized completely on-the-fly, without connecting to a computer.

Apple iPod Nano: The Nano's new Genius feature lets you create an instant 25-song playlists around the musical characteristics of a single song (based on data gathered from iTunes). The Genius feature is easy to use, and the results are fun, provided your music collection holds enough songs to make interesting connections. You can save Genius playlists directly onto your Nano, and with automatic syncing enabled in iTunes you can also transfer them back to your computer. Cost: free/included with the player. Sony S-Series Walkman: The S-Series offers a feature called SensMe Channels, which is a "smart" DJ that uses an algorithm to analyze songs in order to create custom playlists based on each track's speed, mood, and rhythm. The Channels range from Morning to Lounge to Extreme and can be accessed under a dedicated icon on the Walkman's main menu. If the Channels are not to your liking, you can reanalyze your library to create new mixes. Cost: free/included with the player.… Read more

RCA Infinite Radio: Slacker, Internet radio, and AM/FM for less than $100

We recently christened the Logitech Squeezebox Boom as our favorite Wi-Fi radio, but that's not to say there's no room for more products in that burgeoning category.

Take the new RCA Infinite Radio RIR200 from Acoustic Research. In addition to its ability to pull in thousands of Internet radio stations from across the globe, this squat little networked clock radio can also access the Slacker music service (free with ads, or paid without) as well as good old-fashioned over-the-air AM and FM radio. It's also got weather forecasts (courtesy of WeatherBug) and will even interrupt what you'… Read more

Review: Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player

The first portable device to come out for the Slacker Web Player took nearly a year from beta to retail and fell a little flat with several consumers and industry experts, mainly because of its large and boxy design, an extraneous touch-strip control, and a satellite-hopping wireless function that never came to fruition. Fortunately, Slacker took its growing pains in stride and was quick to push out its follow-up device, the G2. The new portable flawlessly integrates Slacker's excellent free music service in an improved package with a super simple user interface. At $199 for the 4GB model and $… Read more

Even BlackBerrys can be Slackers

In what is perhaps Slacker's first step in offering its music service on third-party devices, the company has partnered with RIM to bring a mobile Slacker application to RIM's line of BlackBerry smartphones. The app, which will be available in October for free, will essentially turn the mobile device into a Slacker Portable Player--it works in largely the same way as the firmware on the player. More details after the jump.

The first step is to log onto the Slacker Personal Radio Web site and create a list of favorite stations from more than 100 professionally programmed … Read more

RIM makes friends with MySpace, TiVo, Microsoft, Slacker

Our hardworking colleagues at CNET have been in the thick of the action at the CTIA wireless show this week and we figure Crave readers will want in on the fun, too.

In case you haven't seen, today Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry, made a whole slew of announcements about bringing popular consumer applications to the device. It already has Facebook for BlackBerry, but now RIM is expanding.

• As CNET News reported earlier this week, Microsoft Live Search will be integrated with the BlackBerry Browser.

• BlackBerry users will now be able to schedule their TiVo recordings from their phone, … Read more