rhapsody

Last year, appliance manufacturer Haier America surprised me by producing its very first MP3 player. More specifically, I was confounded by the fact that the company actually made a decent one that offered a variety of compelling features most mainstream MP3 player companies had overlooked (wireless podcast updating, for example).

Now, Haier is updating its Rhapsody Ibiza line with--get this--the Mini and the Touch. Those certainly aren't the most original names (in fact, the words "blatant rip-off" come to mind), but to Haier's credit, the new players look nothing like the iPods of the same name.

First up is the Rhapsody Ibiza Mini, which will replace the current flash-based Ibiza Rhapsody. This pocketable player measures just 3.5 inches by 2 inches by 0.4 inch and features a 2.2-inch color QVGA screen dominating its face. Just below is a four-way directional pad composed of tactile controls for main navigation. Around the edges of the device, you'll find a dedicated volume rocker, a power button, and a Wi-Fi connect key.… Read more

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: an MP3 player is the perfect workout companion. There's nothing like a little music to get you motivated for a sweat session. Of course, some MP3 players even take things a step further by offering other fitness-friendly extras. Such is the case with Haier America's latest Ibiza device, the Trainer. This 2GB player includes a built-in heart-rate monitor, a pedometer, a calorie counter, and a stopwatch. Really, what more could you ask for from a gym-ready gadget? How about an FM tuner, you say? Why yes, there'… Read more

Apart from the song "Sleigh Ride," which I've been known to whistle on cloudy days in June, I hate traditional holiday music. Part of it comes from when I worked on the floor in a bookstore for a year, and was subjected to three months of traditional holiday tunes on endless loop, eight hours a day, five days a week.

But tomorrow, we're hosting a holiday party, and you can't have a party without holiday music. The only Christmas song in my collection is John Lennon and Yoko Ono's antiwar "Happy Xmas (War … Read more

Although there are a slew of music-streaming services across the Web, they're not created equal. But if you find the right service to match your music style, you'll quickly realize that finding the best song for a particular occasion isn't as hard as it once was.

Grooveshark

Including Grooveshark in the list of the top five music-streaming services may surprise some since it doesn't get the kind of attention Last.fm or Pandora does. But with the help of an outstanding search interface that lets users find a slew of songs by artist, album, or song, … Read more

The great draw of portable MP3 players is quantity.

I remember when my wife and I took a six-month backpacking trip back in 1999. We never even considered bringing an MP3 player, which might have had a whopping 64MB of flash memory, enough for about a hour of audio compressed at 256kbps. Instead, we brought a Discman and about two dozen CDs in a soft case. We grew extremely bored with those CDs and ended up jettisoning or trading most of them.

Today, you'd laugh if somebody told you they were considering bringing CDs on a trip--why would you, … Read more

Amazon, Rhapsody, and iTunes were the big winners in a study of which music services are most popular and recognized by people who download music.

At the same time, Ipsos, a market research firm, announced Wednesday that its survey of 1,249 digital music buyers showed eMusic didn't see any growth in the public's awareness or usage. MTV and VH1 actually fell in those areas, according to an Ipsos spokesman. One of the reasons may be because MTV shut down its own service and last August teamed with Rhapsody on a joint venture.

The research by Ipsos did … Read more

In today's show, featuring co-host Dan Ackerman, we discuss the benefits of being an independent musician (Dan says it's a great time!), the increasingly furious-yet-futile fight between the MPAA and RealDVD, Delta preemptively filtering porn on planes, and Kid Rock finding a home on the Web, regardless of whether we want him there.

eBay buys Bill Me Later, lays off 1,000 http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10058660-92.html

Judge temporarily halts sales of RealDVD in wake of lawsuit http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081005-judge-temporarily-halts-sale-of-realdvd-in-wake-of-lawsuit.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10058574-93.html… Read more

Truck stop rocker Kid Rock has been one of the poster boys for the "ignore downloads" crowd.

His latest album, Rock and Roll Jesus has not only sold more than 2 million albums, but has continued to sell lots of copies long past its release date--this week, nearly a year after release, it's still at No. 7. That's almost unprecedented in this day and age, when top-selling pop artists (think Mariah Carey) sell hundreds of thousands of albums in their first week then plummet off the charts. Why the staying power? Some argue it's because … Read more

Best Buy's acquisition of Napster is likely to mean RealNetwork's Rhapsody music service will wave goodbye to more than just one of its biggest partners.

Rhapsody of course powered Best Buy's digital music store. Two music insiders told me on Thursday, while I was reporting a story about whether Apple is wise to get into music subscriptions, that the Napster acquisition will almost certainly mean Best Buy will sever it's relationship with Rhapsody. This means that RealNetwork's CEO Rob Glaser would no longer have the muscle behind him to demand electronics companies make their players … Read more