Logitech today announced that they have begun shipping their Squeezebox Touch Wi-Fi home music server to customers who had pre-ordered the devices.

The Squeezebox Touch features a 4.3-inch touchscreen which allows users to interface, play music from their iTunes and MP3 collections and control various online radio services which include Pandora, Rhapsody, Last.FM and Deezer. Users can also play AM/FM radio stations from the unit.

The Touch unit also features the same analog and digital outputs needed for headphones, external speakers and various other audio-video components that are found on the original classic units.

The Touch also adds USB and SDHC memory card support (up to 32GB). Finally users can sync their personal Flickr accounts with their Squeezebox Touch for extra measure.

Currently the units are showing out of stock on the Logitech website, but you should be able to pick one up soon for $300. [Electronista]

Logitech Squeezebox Touch Now Shipping, Website Shows Out Of Stock is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Livio NPR Internet Radio first made me think of the old days of radio, where talk ruled and music was thrown in between moments of debate. It turns out the radio actually does play more than just National Public Radio, but talk fans will still love the devices NPR functionality.

The radio runs on WiFi or Ethernet connectivity and allows users to set their favorite NPR stations using the “My NPR” button, while browsing over 1,000 NPR station streams with the dedicated button. The player also includes over 800 podcasts and archived NPR programs. If you get sick of talk, simply browse through the nearly 16,000 validated Internet radio stations provided by Reciva®.

Users can even browse their NPR and music stations by genre, location or even keyword for quick access to the information you want to hear.

The unit is priced at $199.99, which given it’s niche abilities is well worth every penny.

Livio NPR Internet Radio, It’s Good For More Than Fireside Chats is a post from: The Inquisitr

A new internet radio licensing agreement that is being hailed as a victory of sorts for providers such as Pandora will kill innovation and smaller providers.

While the compromise on fees is welcomed, the devil is always in the detail, and the detail comes at a hefty price for small sites. To be precise, the new scheme dictates a minimum annual fee of $25,000 for “pureplay webcasters.” The $25,000 is counted towards the revenue split (itself a staggering 25%) or the per play count, but it’s the mandated minimum fee that’s the killer.

$25,000 may not sound a lot for bigger online radio stations, or similar services such as Pandora, but for the small indie online radio market, it will be a killer because many would be fortunate enough to make $25,000 a year to begin with, but even if they did make more, $25,000 out of a profit of $30,000 or even $50,000 (profit before the royalty payment) is a massive burden.

Existing players aside, the imposition is even greater on new internet radio stations. Innovation often comes from below, and new stations (not unlike blogs) take time to establish an audience, and even longer to earn money. The innovation we’ve seen in content through blogging started from the ground up, but in online radio that’s now no longer affordable unless the station takes funding, but even there the fees impose an artificial constraint of funding upfront to innovate.

The continuing hypocrisy in the debate around internet radio fees continues to be the double standard between the treatment of radio and internet radio. Traditional radio in the US doesn’t pay anything to play music, and yet internet radio is expected to pay 25% of turnover. I’m not suggesting that either internet radio or traditional radio shouldn’t pay something, but both should be treated equally, with royalties charged at a reasonable rate based on profit without a minimum annual payment.

New Internet Radio fees will kill innovation is a post from: The Inquisitr

LAUNCHcast Gets CBS Support

First up, Yahoo’s LAUNCHcast Radio: The company that’s been Yanged into the ground has announced it’s essentially handing off its online radio system to CBS Radio. The official phrasing is that CBS Radio “will power Yahoo Music’s LAUNCHcast Radio.” All of LAUNCHcast’s stations, however, will be combined with CBS’s. A new CBS Radio player will replace the Yahoo player on the Yahoo Music site. And CBS Radio will handle all sales related to the stations. As far as we can tell, CBS has all but acquired the thing. (Yahoo, presumably, will continue to take some portion of the profits.)

In any event, the move will create a combined 300+ stations and will add support for Firefox and Safari browsers. It’ll also bring some traditional stations into the LAUNCHcast mix, including New York’s WFAN, Los Angeles’s KNX, and Philly’s WPHT.

The change is scheduled to take place early next year.

Pandora’s Boom

The other news comes from Internet radio company Pandora. After a year filled with royalty-related woes, Pandora has some happy news to share: Its popular iPhone app has now topped 2 million users. Not bad for a company that had said it was on the verge of shutting down just a few months ago.

“Times, they are a changin’,” notes Pandora founder Tim Westergren.

Internet Radio Wrap: LAUNCHcast Goes CBS, Pandora Hits New Milestone is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Katz Online Network already boasts 1,200 commercial stations from Clear Channel, Cox, Emmis, and a host of other ownership groups in addition to the independent Internet-only content — something Clear Channel claims as a first. All combined, the properties will pull in almost five million listeners a week, the company says.

The Internet stations on-board include Energy Group Radio, Club 977, Accuradio, Digitally Imported, FineTune, Radioio, and SmoothJazz.com.

Not surprisingly, Clear Channel is pushing the network’s advertising opportunities in a not-so-subtle way. Let’s hope the arrangement at least brings in some new revenue for the smaller, independent net stations that have put their content into the mix.

Independent Internet Stations Sign On For Massive New Radio Network is a post from: The Inquisitr