Introducing the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway, hot off the presses at the FCC, coming to an executive's office sometime in the future.

It uses Bluetooth to enable a wireless transmission of music from your BlackBerry device to your home or portable stereo. Simply pair your BlackBerry to the Gateway, and plug the Gateway into your stereo (via a 3.5mm line-in or RCA aux input).

Magically all your music tunes get streamed to the speakers of your choice. Think of it like a dock for your phone, only without the wires.

What was it that the NAB used to define satellite radio? Oh right, "nationwide, multi-channel, audio programming." So... what would you call streaming audio over mobile devices?

[via Gizmodo]

Amazon announced today that they will buy digital audio book provider Audible.com for $300 million.

Audible has been partnered with XM for several years now, from including Audible support in the Helix/Inno, to the XM Audible Store, to various co-sponsored events and XM's Sonic Theater (ch 163) featuring Audible content. But I'm assuming none of that will change, since there's no reason for it to.

One interesting thing to think about is Amazon's increasingly aggressive foray into digital media distribution.

Not only do they have a massive DRM-free digital music service, but now they have the leading spoken-word provider as well.

And with the Amazon Kindle (pictured above), users can access and download all of that content over a built-in high-speed wireless EVDO connection... for free.

While Kindle (which Amazon is struggling to keep up with the demand of) doesn't necessarily market itself as a music player - it's primarily an eBook reader - but the capability is currently there. And there could be more to come.

"There are a number of experimental features. We have made them accessible so customers can tell us if we should work on them and make them part of the product," said CEO Jeff Bezos on the earnings call.

It's nothing, yet, but it sure makes you go "hmm."

[ZDNet, TechCrunch]

The smartphone is a quad-band HSDPA device, equipped with WiFi, Bluetooth, full Web Browser, PIM, and - you guessed it - GPS functions. It'll run off of Garmin's own operating system with the user interface based on the current one Garmin's PNDs utilize. Oh, and that 3.5-inch LCD display? It's, of course, a full touchscreen.

Pricing and availability will reportedly be announced soon.

Now, if there's any gripe folks have had about satellite radio's retail strategy - it's been the lack of integration in PNDs and Cellphones. Well, now Garmin's gone and made those two, one and the same.

[Engadget]

If there's one thing I know about spectrum, it's that it's terribly boring to talk about. So when news hits the wires about the coveted 700mhz spectrum auction starting today, most folks' eyes glaze over and their brains switch to hold-music.

Thankfully, the good folks over at Engadget Mobile have put together a handy list of need-to-know items about today's auction and have translated the FCC-speak into Normal-speak. GigaOm has a nice breakdown as well.

There's some 214 bidders in this auction. Some of the big-boys to keep an eye on are AT&T, Verizon and Google, not to mention Cox, EchoStar, and Paul Allen (the deep pocketed co-founder of Microsoft) - check out USA Today for a nice chart breaking down the interests of some of the key players.

What does this mean to satellite radio? Nothing right now. Ultimately I think Block C, which is the nationwide block with the most bandwidth, will lead to the much fabled Wireless Internet (one of the FCC's requirements is to make Block C an "open-access" network), but that's all just pipe-dreams right now. There needs to be a winner first.

In the past year, more Americans have become used to thinking of their cellphones as entertainment devices at a soaring pace, according to a new-media survey from Deloitte & Touche.

Deloitte's first edition of the survey (which was performed just 8 months earlier) showed that 24 percent of U.S. consumers used their cellphones as entertainment devices. Since then, a follow up survey shows that entertainment usage on cellphones jumped 50 percent, bringing the total of U.S. consumers who use their cellphones as entertainment devices to 36 percent.

The findings of the survey of 2,081 Americans, conducted in late October, were provided to The Hollywood Reporter before their official release next month.

Roughly 62 percent of "millennials" (13-to-24-years-old) are using their cellphones as entertainment devices - that's up from 46 percent in the previous study conducted in late February. And among Generation X consumers (25-to-41-year-olds), the number grew to 47 percent - up drastically from 29 percent in the earlier survey.

That's a pretty rapid adoption rate. And only in eight months. Now imagine how that usage will grow in the next two years?

Note to Sirius and XM: If you want to ride this wave - stop thinking of your mobile services as a revenue generators, and start thinking of them as a lead generators. The key to adoption, is exposure.

[Reuters]

Nokia, the world's biggest cellphone maker, yesterday announced a deal with Universal Music Group that will give customers buying select mobile devices unlimited access to millions of tracks for a year - and lets them keep the music afterwards.

Nokia is hoping that the other Big Three music labels will soon be on board.

Starting in the second half of 2008, the program (called "Comes With Music") lets folks who buy a qualifying phone to have unlimited access to Universal's entire artist catalog for a year. Once the year is over, you can keep all that music without it disappearing when the subscription is over.

The one downside (and it's a big one) is that the tracks are protected with Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM, according to Ars Technica. If you want to burn the music to a CD, you need to pay. Hopefully Nokia and/or Universal will learn the err of their ways and remove the DRM caveat, because that would be the largest stumbling stone preventing this from taking off.

Of course, Nokia isn't disclosing which phones/devices need apply, and they didn't say what the terms of the deal were. But Universal's digital operations chief, Rob Wells, told Reuters in an interview: "Unless there was enough money for the world's biggest record company we would not have agreed to the deal."

DRM or not, it's still a big deal. And one that has the potential to turn both the mobile audio, as well as the unlimited music subscription services, on their collective heads. Nokia moves a lot of phones, and if they make the "Comes With Music" service available on a large number of handsets, that means there's now instant access to millions of songs in a lot of people's pockets.

Why should Satellite Radio care? Because Nokia obviously is seeing a value in providing music on mobile devices, and is pushing their leadership position hard to make sure they have a foothold.

Just a couple days ago, Nokia unveiled Nokia Internet Radio (pictured at right), a free downloadable application that will also be embedded in upcoming Nokia S60 3rd edition devices. It's essentially a directory, and an interface, of internet radio stations accessible on your Nokia phone.

Browse by station name, genre, country or language. Nokia Internet Radio also updates the top ten most popular internet radio stations hourly in its own special directory. The service also lets you save a list of "Favorites" - essentially presets of your top station - so they're accessible right away. And it's free.

The NAB says that there is no other "Nationwide Multichannel Mobile Audio Service" out there to compete with Sirius or XM.

I beg to differ.

Verizon Wireless said yesterday that it'll open its network to any phone, device or software application by the end of 2008. It's a move that surprised many wireless industry watchers because of Verizon's voracious opposition to "open" access.

The company said they'll publish the technical standards for developers to meet for access to its network, sometime in early 2008. Any device meeting its standards would work on its network and any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices.

Some (like Reuters) might assume that this is some sort of reaction to Google's plans for buying up spectrum (not to mention their common wireless operating system). But this likely has been in the works for sometime.

"We as Verizon Wireless place our bets on what applications and devices will be a hit," Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam said during yesterday's conference call.

"At the same time, customers' needs are increasing and diverging. Soon Verizon Wireless will not be able to meet every customer's needs with our specific portfolio of devices and applications," he said.

The #2 wireless carrier said devices would be tested and approved in a lab, which received additional investment of $20 million this year in anticipation of increasing demand. This allows Verizon to still maintain control over what devices are permitted to access its network, but the intention is to ensure manufacturers have some level of standards to comply to.

And then there's this piece of info from McAdam [via Gizmodo]:

"This isn't just phones - it could be a very small module in a gaming station, a home appliance, something that goes into your car. It doesn't have to have the traditional distribution or volumes. [Traditionally] if a device is not going to sell hundreds of thousands, it's hard to decide because of our scale. But now, if something only sells five, now it can be on our network."

This "opening up" of their network to small players reduces the barrier to entry. If your device tests out, you can go to market. Folks in the satellite radio biz better be watching this, and watching it closely.

It's always better to manage change, than to react to it once it's too late. Verizon seems to be recognizing that by fostering an environment for development and innovation. If the gates are truly opened, then we could be on the cusp on revolutionary change.

[more on the New York Times]

And so it begins...

Introducing iRadio, an application for the iPhone that essentially brings the SHOUTcast internet radio player to your iPhone. Thousands of radio stations are now available for playing and browsing... literally at your fingertips. It works over WiFi and can work of AT&T's EDGE network as well.

A year ago, no one was talking about Apple or Google in terms of the wireless landscape. Now, these two companies are the forefront of every wireless discussion out there. And both have a vested interest in bringing every possible functionality to your pockets - including "radio."

"...barely a day passes without the introduction of a new competing device or service." (David K. Rehr, 2006 NAB Radio Show, September 21, 2006)

Ain't that the truth.

[Gizmodo via Hear 2.0]