If you’re a fan of Pandora’s streaming internet radio service, you can finally breathe easy. The company (along with other internet radio outlets) had the shadow of a royalty increase looming overhead, but it appears that it has hammered out a deal that will keep it afloat. But in the effort to stay alive, Pandora had to make some  sacrifices. And so may you.  In an e-mail to TechCrunch, Pandora CTO Tom Conrad wrote:

While we feel this is a substantive victory, the revised royalties are quite high – still much higher than any other form of radio. As a consequence, we will have to make an adjustment that will affect about 10% of our users who are our heaviest listeners. Specifically, we are going to begin limiting listening to 40 hours per month on the free version of Pandora. In any given month, a listener who hits this limit can then opt for unlimited listening for the remainder of that month for just $0.99. In essence, we’re asking our heaviest users to put a dollar (well, almost a dollar) in the tip jar in any month in which they listen over 40 hours. We hope this is relatively painless and affordable-the same price as a single song download. Alternatively, they can upgrade to “Pandora One”, our premium version which offers unlimited monthly listening in addition to its other benefits.

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Touchscreen portable media players are all the rage these days, so it makes perfect sense that Archos, one of the the major players in the PMP space, should continue the trend with its upcoming Archos 3.  Featuring a 3-inch “tactile” screen (haptics, perhaps?) that encompasses the entire face of the player, the Archos 3 sounds much more pocket-friendly than the Archos 5 ($338.37) or Archos 7 ($259.99).

But does the enhanced portability come with the trade-off of no video playback? Archos’ product page mentions music playback and photo viewing (along with a calendar, stopwatch, audio recording, and a 8GB capacity), but video playback is conspicuously absent. We’re reaching out to Archos for additional info.

So, a question: Is the lack of video on a 3-inch device a dealbreaker in a portable media player?

[Hat Tip: Anythingbutipod]

Just two days after Microsoft confirmed that it would be bringing its newest Zune HD to market this fall, we caught a glimpse of the ultra-sexy device at the All Thing Digital 7 Conference.

We only got to play around with the device for a few minutes, but it is at least half as thin as our Zune 80GB device and felt really light in comparison. The player has a 3.3-inch, 480 x 272-pixel display, but what makes this screen stand out is that it uses OLED technology. The colors on the screen were extremely bright, especially when a short nature video played back, and even the text in the user interface was sharp. Underneath the screen is a horizontal button for getting to the menu and there is a volume toggle on the edge.

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Today, Sony lifted the curtain on its latest portable media player: the Walkman X series. The music and video player features a 3-inch OLED touchscreen display, Wi-Fi connectivity, a wide 180-degree viewing angle, and integrated digital noise-canceling–but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Sony has packed some rather interesting features under the hood of the X series including “Scene Scroll” (which lets uses select their preferred time increment in a video, and move forward and backward through scenes with a swipe of the finger in a very Cover Flow-like fashion), Slacker Radio (which buffers and caches up to three of your favorite stations), and YouTube.

Users can interact with the Walkman X series via the aforementioned touch interface, or dedicated buttons for those that prefer physical keys.  It supports protected WMV, H.264, and MPEG-4, and is rated for up to 33 hours of music playback and up to 9 hours of video playback. The Sony Walkman X ($284.77) players are available now for pre-order, and come in two capacities: 16GB ($299) and 32GB ($399), the same prices as similar-sized iPod touches.

Question: If you’re in the hunt for a new PMP, does the Walkman offer enough features (as nice they are)  to sway you away from an iPod?

Shortly after Amazon unveiled its Kindle DX this morning, we got some solid hands-on time with the larger display e-book reader. Check out our initial impressions, large photo gallery and hands-on video below.

The 10.4 x 7.2 x 0.38- inch Kindle DX is incredibly slim, though .02 inches thicker than the Kindle 2. The all-white device has an an aluminum back and felt incredibly comfortable and smooth in our hands. It is heavier than the Kindle 2, but isn’t overly heavy.

The device uses the same navigation buttons and toggles as the Kindle 2, however they only line the right side of the device. There is a Home, Previous Page, Next Page buttons from the top to bottom and between the Menu and Back buttons is the same five-way controller found on the Kindle 2. Two stereo speakers sit on the rear of the device and a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top. A new QWERTY keyboard with oval shaped  keys fits below the display. The Tylenol-capsule-shaped keys were comfortable though the keyboard has been shrunk to accommodate the larger screen.

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The portable media player market is a crowded field with Apple, Cowon, Creative, Microsoft, Samung, and others duking it out for your multimedia dollar. So in order to stand out from the pack, a PMP has to offer something unique that its rivals lack.  iRiver has adopted this tactic with the introduction of the P7, a PMP featuring a brushed-metal finish and a built-in media converter.

Available now in 8GB ($179) and 16GB ($209) flash capacities, the iRiver P7 features a 4.3-inch (480 x 272) touchscreen display and a widget-like GUI that lets you view all of the available options at a glance.  It includes codec support for audio (MP3, WMA, OGG, ASF, FLAC, APE, WAV),  video (DivX, H.264, MPEG, RM,  RMVB), and photos (JPEG, BMP, GIF).  SRS WOW HD, 7 preset EQ settings, FM tuner, radio/voice recording, firmware upgradeability, and a microSD card slot round out the feature set.  iRiver rates the player to have 50 hours of audio playback, and 7 hours of video playback.

Intrigued? So are we. Look for a full review of the iRiver P7 after it touches down in our offices.

Are you a SanDisk Sansa Fuze ($74.99) fan that wants in on some of that sweet slotRadio action? C’mon, you know you do. That’s why SanDisk’s latest Sansa Fuze firmware upgrade brings slotRadio card compatibility along with the usual bug fixes.

For those not hip to slotRadio, its SanDisk’s new microsSD-based audio format that’s designed eliminate the perceived hassle of loading MP3 players with tracks via iTunes and other software, by allowing users to pop the cards directly into a slotRadio player ($99 with a 1,000 song mix card). Now you can use those same music cards with the Sansa Fuze.

According to the gents at Anythingbutipod, using slotRadio cards with the Fuze is very similar to using them with dedicated slotRadio players. You skip songs and change stations with the main buttons, and the slotRadio interface only appears when a slotRadio card is inserted. Nice. If you’re ready to rock download the new firmware using the SanDisk Updater.

Hat Tip: Anythingbutipod

Note: If slotRadio compatibility isn’t enough, this update also brings file and folder browsing, and “Replay Gain”, which keeps the sound at an even level throughout a song or album.

Back in January, Apple announced that it had hammered out a deal with EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group to spread DRM-free, 256kbps AAC songs across the whole of world’s most popular music store (previously such tracks were regulated to the iTunes Plus Music Store).  Today, the arrangement has gone live, and with it comes a variable price scheme:  songs are now ticketed at either $0.69, the familiar $0.99,  or $1.29.

Scrolling through today’s top songs,  we saw a healthy mix of $0.99 and $1.29 tracks, but we couldn’t find a single $0.69 song among them. It makes one wonder if only the less popular tunes will make it to that sweet price point, but as how Jose Louis Pardo’s “The Hucklebuck” is $0.99, who knows how this thing will play out.

What do you think of today’s big music move? Is it a great move by Apple, or is Amazon MP3’s 256Kbps catalog (mostly priced at $0.99, but with the odd $0.79, $0.89, $1.29, and $1.99 tracks)  look increasingly enticing?

On the same day that Amazon announced the Kindle 2, its unreleased competitor, Plastic Logic, made headlines by announcing its plan to launch a content store at the same time its eReader goes on sale. The store will feature content from  major publications such as USA Today and the Financial Times and content aggregators like Zinio, Ingram Digital, and LibreDigital.  The content store will be built in cooperation with Fictionwise, a leader in eBook technology.

So what’s all the fuss about the Plastic Logic Reader? We saw a hardware prototype on display at CES and were blown away by how thin, light, and legible it was. There’s no doubt that the hardware itself, which features an 8.5 x 11-inch plastic (as opposed to glass)  display with a touchscreen instead of buttons and keys, is far superior to the first-generation Kindle and likely even to the Kindle 2.0.

But don’t just take our word for it. Check out the video below, which we shot at CES.

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Like my colleague Joanna, I am not a fan of the notion that pink = feminine or that Valentine’s Day promotions must needs include products painted in shades of fuchsia and rose.  Take this deal from Sony Style that offers  His n’ Hers 2GB Walkman Video MP3 players for $40 off when bundled together.  The problem is that you have to bundle a black one with a pink one.  You can’t get two black (or even two pink, should you desire them).  The deal itself is pretty good — $100 for two decent players — but the assumptions behind it are not.

If you want to get a His n’ Hers set of MP3 players in a wider variety of colors and for less than $100, consider a pair of refurbed iPod Shuffles.