Ugh. So much for impulse purchases. I wandered over to the AT&T store on Friday to pick up a stereo Bluetooth headset to use on occasion with my Blackjack, work Treo 700w now with A2DP, Macbook Pro, and Muziq. While the Southwing SA505 headphones are inexpensive ($60), have decent buttons, and seem relatively comfortable… the audio performance is just bad. Poor sound quality, all kinds of static, and drop outs if I turn my head - even within about 3′ of a device. These will be going back. A buddy of mine has had good luck with iLuv. Any other suggestions?

Pandora on Muziq.

I was pretty psyched a few months back when Sprint told me they were shipping a Samsung UpStage to evaluate… However, the reality of the device hasn’t been impressive at all. I’m a big fan of Samsung products, and over the years I’ve probably owned more Samsung phones than any other (back in the day they were the only ones who provided desktop stands) including my current mobile (Blackjack). Having said that… The UpStage is just way too schizophrenic. On paper it sounds clever — phone on one side, MP3 player on the other. But practically speaking, it’s mostly a pain to hit the Flip button and rotate the phone when you want to do something. Any time you want to see if phone is powered, you have to check both sides. Don’t even get me started on battery life. Beyond that, the touchpad is squirrelly and not very intuitive. Sprint service was generally very good and ordering music was relatively painless… and I’m looking forward to trying it on a (hopefully) better designed handset that just arrived: the LG Muziq.

After Sprint deactivates the UpStage at the end of the month, I’ll do a site giveway - so stay tuned.

After yesterday’s scare, rational thought prevails.

With three days to go before the Copyright Royalty Board’s new royalty scheme goes into effect and essentially kills off Internet radio, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has denied a motion to postpone the deadline.

Maybe this is a good thing because it will force Congressional action, but it also leaves my in a cold sweat that my access to Pandora may disappear this weekend. Please call your representatives in Congress! Tell them to bring to a vote and support the Internet Radio Equality act, S. 1353 in the Senate and H.R. 2060 in the House.

It’s come to this: a day of radio silence. Pandora, AccuRadio, and my own local WXPN among many others are going silent today to protest fee increases from the Copyright Royalty Board that will effectively put them out of business if something is not done before July 15th. We’ve covered this story multiple times in the past, and the mainstream media is finally picking up its cue with coverage today in The Washington Post, The Toronto Globe and Mail, and on Reuters.

What can you do to bring back Internet radio? Call your Congressional representatives, tell your friends, give money to the cause.

Over on my LinkedIn network, an interesting question was posed: How often do you listen to podcasts? The author limited his query to non-work-related and non-NPR content. Here’s my response:

I rarely listen to podcasts. So interesting followup questions might be: Where/when/how do people listen? I find I can’t concentrate on a podcast while working on my computer and I don’t listen through my iPod or TV when relaxing.

Generally speaking, I’m more visually oriented and prefer reading or watching video over a purely audio broadcast. If I still regularly commuted (via subway), I might listen to podcasts more frequently. Though I’d just as likely watch some DVRed video clip on my mobile instead.

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As promised, iTunes and EMI (partially) delivered on their promise of releasing DRM-free music. However, the initial batch of tracks doesn’t include anything in my collection.

The bigger news with the new service seems to be iTunes Plus embedding personally identifiable info, such as name and email, into every file. I don’t have a problem with tagging tracks as a means to limit piracy, though Apple would be taking less heat by being  more forthcoming. Like most folks I blew right past the Plus fine print, so I’m not sure what I agreed to. This is all I was able to dredge up from their Terms of Use:

(xii) iTunes Plus Products do not contain security technology that limits y our usage of such Products, and Usage Rules (iii) – (vi) do not apply to iTunes Plus Products. You may copy, store and burn iTunes Plus Products as reasonably necessary for personal, noncommercial use.