radio

Boxing out Pandora music fans

Pandora, an Internet service that lets people listen to streaming music, is shutting its service to non-U.S. listeners, according to several reports.

The ban is due to new regulations that will raise royalty fees that Webcasters must pay to record labels, Pandora founder Tim Westergren told The Register. The ban, he said, "follows months of pressure from record labels."

Pandora representatives told Techcrunch that they have been working on obtaining international licenses for nearly two years and are close to deals in the U.K. and Canada.

The service has always been intended for U.S. users, … Read more

New Net radio fee collections delayed

The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board has pushed back the date on which a contentious fee hike for Internet radio broadcasters takes effect.

In a 32-page final rule (PDF) formally published Monday, the three-judge panel within the Library of Congress set July 15 as the date that the new royalty rates required of Net radio operators will kick in--two months later than the original deadline.

After more than a year of vetting outside submissions, the judges issued an initial ruling on March 2, drawing widespread outcry from large and small commercial Webcasters and the public radio community.

The board prescribed … Read more

Net radio bill blasted by royalty collectors

A congressional push to overturn controversial increases in fees for Internet radio operators came under attack on Friday by SoundExchange, the organization that collects royalty payments on behalf of musicians.

SoundExchange has been among the chief forces that successfully persuaded the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board to elevate the fees required of Webcasters over the next few years by anywhere from 300 to 1200 percent, according to the rules' opponents. The CRB this month has already declined to reconsider most of its March 2 decision after reviewing petitions submitted by National Public Radio, Clear Channel Communications, groups representing smaller commercial … Read more

A digital diamond of a mini-system

OK, this isn't a new product, but we were so impressed with it at a trade show we felt the need to get one in anyway. Pure Digital's Legato II is a digital diamond of a mini-system, with built-in DAB radio, an SD card slot and a USB port for MP3 playback, a CD player of course, three auxiliary inputs for iPod connections and the like, and technology that allows you to pause and rewind live digital radio. It's also absolutely beautiful.

Here at Crave we get to see so many elegant devices and products, but only … Read more

A DS Lite radio to numb the senses

It's unclear exactly why anyone would need a radio to go with their DS Lite, unless it was just part of a broader goal toward full sensory overload. But Brando has made the "NDS Lite FM Radio Converter" anyway, to plug directly into Nintendo's handheld gaming device with a backlit LCD screen to indicate station and frequency info. There's no need for separate batteries, as it uses the DS Lite's power source. Now it just needs some "smell-o-phone-type technology for complete multitasking.

eSnips launches Radio widget

Social networking and content-hosting site eSnips has rolled out a new feature in time for Web 2.0 Expo: eSnips Multi-Channel Radio plays music uploaded to the site by users.

Currently the channels are organized by music genre, but eventually users will be able to create their own personal radio station, which can include material across multiple genres of music.

All original material hosted on the site is eligible to be played on the channels. Users can "favorite" a song and rate whether they liked it or hated it. Each channel in a genre plays the 40 most … Read more

HD radio gets more affordable

We've been touting the virtues of digital radio for some time now, but a prohibitive factor (to cheapskates like us, anyway) has always been price--usually somewhere around $300. An outfit called Radiosophy, however, is aiming to change that in a hurry by offering its "HD100" for $120.

The high-definition radio is intentionally stripped-down but still includes such information as song and traffic data, as well as an alarm clock and connections for MP3 players, according to Electronista. And as if the price weren't low enough already, Radiosophy is running a promotional $100 tag for customers that … Read more

Radio vest is for adventurers (not us)

Sure, you can get vests that play your music, but what will you do in an emergency situation? That's when you may wish you had what Hammacher Schlemmer calls "The Only Two-Way Radio Life Vest."

The Coast Guard-approved personal flotation device comes with two (count 'em) 14-channel two-way radios--"one integrated into the chest of the life vest and another for use on a boat or on shore, allowing instant communication from water skier to boat or ship to shore from up to 1.8 miles away." They also have large buttons and LCDs "… Read more

An FM radio with creative license

For those who like manually tuning in FM radio stations instead of using the automatic scanner, this stick-shift FM radio is the way to go.

According to Tokyomango's translation of the vendor site, you shift left and right to change stations and up and down to adjust the volume. You just throw it in park to turn off the unit.

The product page also shows a couple of output ports on the shifter radio, although it's hard to tell what they are. Ideally, one of them is an audio-out port, because I'd imagine the sounds coming out … Read more