radio

At this point, Apple is all but certain to unveil iRadio -- or whatever it calls its Internet radio service -- at Monday's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Early Friday, Apple reached a deal with Sony Music, the last of the three major labels it needed to sign up, according to people familiar with the deals. And now Apple has also signed up Sony/ATV/ That deal, first reported by Billboard, was confirmed to CNET by a Sony/ATV spokesperson.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Sony/ATV, the world's largest publishing house, is jointly owned by … Read more

After more than year of off-and-on negotiations, Apple has now reached deals with all three major music labels, making it increasingly likely that Apple will unveil its free Internet radio service at next week's WWDC event.

The latest deal is with Sony Music, according to industry sources who said the two sides struck a deal Friday morning. Sony had been the lone holdout of the three major music labels, haggling over some details that frustrated execs at the other labels. The world's largest label, Universal Music, was the first to sign on, followed by Warner Music and its publishing arm, Warner/Chappell. … Read more

Pandora on Wednesday is launching a new platform, called tv.pandora.com, that will make it easier to stream its Internet-leading radio service on televisions through set-top boxes and the TVs themselves.

At least, in theory.

Initially, the new platform is available just on gaming consoles XBox 360 and Playstation 3. Other partnerships -- such as those with TV makers like Sony or Samsung -- are still waiting in the wings.

The move to migrate Pandora more to the living room comes alongside the company's continued struggles to get its advertising dollars growing as quickly as listeners -- and … Read more

Apple struck a licensing deal Sunday with both Warner Music Group and its publishing arm, Warner Chappell, bringing Apple's free Internet radio product that much closer to launching, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

The deal suggests that Apple is working hard to unveil what's been dubbed iRadio at its Worldwide Developers Conference, which begins June 10.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment.

Warner is the first of the major labels to reach deals for both recorded music and publishing, sources say.

Apple last month reached a deal to license music from Universal Music, the world'… Read more

As consumers are buying more smartphones, their listening of digital radio stations and other live programming is growing fast, says TuneIn.

The Internet radio service on Wednesday announced that its 40 million monthly active users have listened to more than a billion hours of programming in the first four months this year. That works out to about 6.25 hours per user, per month. How this compares to the same period last year the company won't say, though it noted it's a new record.

TuneIn's also got a new $25 million round of funding led by Institutional … Read more

Pioneer pulls the wraps off of the third generation of of its app-powered series of car stereos this week with the announcement of the AppRadio 3. The new model adds a surprising new feature and a few others that I feel the line of receivers should have had all along.

AppRadio 3's biggest new party trick is the addition of the MirrorLink connectivity standard to its feature set. When connected to supported phones via USB, MirrorLink allows AppRadio to mirror the phone's display with touch sensitivity, putting the apps on the device at the user's fingertips. More … Read more

Apple, which has been aiming for a summer rollout of a streaming music service, has hit a negotiating snag with Sony Music over some of the features that it is building into its product.

More specifically, Apple and Sony Music, the world's second-largest music label, are still trying to hammer out details over how much Apple would pay for songs that people listen to a fraction of and then skip, according to people familiar with the negotiations. There could be other points of contention as well.

Apple's streaming music service, which most closely resembles Internet radio leader Pandora, … Read more

Whether he's talking about the weight of 300 billion elephants or battling Bill Nye the Science Guy for geek supremacy, famous astrophysicist and Star Talk Radio host Neil deGrasse Tyson is someone I pay attention to. I'm interested in his opinion and give it more weight than a lot of other people's. When he tackled one of the greatest sci-fi rivalries of all time, I perked up. "Star Trek" or "Star Wars"?

It's no secret Tyson is a major Trekkie, but his bountiful space love doesn't stretch to encompass "Star Wars" quite so much. Now we know why. "I never got into 'Star Wars,'" he admits in an interview with Business Insider (see embedded clip). "They made no attempt to portray real physics. At all."… Read more