January 23, 2008

Last.fm now plays full length tracks and entire albums (for free)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 11:21 AM

Last.fmLast.fm has just undergone an incredible update that awards it the "World's Best Jukebox" moniker (self-awarded, of course).

As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website.

The service also is boasting "the most complete, licensed music catalog" in the world with support from The Big Four music labels as well as over 150,000 indie labels. It's all immediately available on demand without logging in.

Gizmodo calls the updated version "internet radio on 'roids, basically."

The free (banner ad-supported) service has the limitation of only allowing the same track to be played 3-times. But Last.fm will soon be announcing a subscription service that will allow for unlimited plays as well as "some other useful things."

"We’re also working on bringing full-length tracks to the desktop client and beyond," said the company. It's that "beyond" part that I think folks should keep an eye on, as Last.fm could very well do what Slacker is doing.

Last.fm was acquired by CBS for $280 million in cash in May 2007.

last.fm

[Last.fm Blog via Gizmodo]

January 9, 2008

CES: RCA Infinite Radio - Internet Radios (with Slacker)

Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 3:44 PM

ces-2008_rca-infinite-radio-1.jpg

Audiovox this week unveiled its RCA-brand "Infinite Radio" series of tabletop internet radios.

Each tabletop radio features regular analog AM/FM, USB Host, WiFi 802.11b/g, and direct access to a custom Web radio aggregation service and to Slacker’s personalized Internet radio service.

The RCA RIR200 retails for a suggested $99, but the $149 RCA RIR205 adds a companion “WiFi enabler,” a transmitter/receiver that plugs into a wired home-network router and removes the need to use WiFi setup software.

The interesting thing is that the Slacker service is embedded into these devices. Slacker has an API that allows the service to essentially be built into any internet connected device. This is just one example.

Check out a bunch more photos after the jump...

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January 2008 (2)