If you scroll down TechMeme today past all the news about Microsoft’s surface computing concept (way cool), you’ll land on several articles about CBS’s acquisition of Last.fm. I have a very selfish reason for finding this interesting. If Last.fm warrants a buy-out by CBS (to to the tune of $280M), maybe that means Pandora will survive. The way I figure it, either someone with a large bankroll picks it up to compete with CBS, or, preferably, legislators finally recognize just how valuable Pandora-like services are and shut down the CRB’s plans to impose unworkable royalty fees.

Okay, probably just wishful thinking. Please don’t take away my Pandora.

The argument I hear about television is that we’ll never move completely to a pay-per-program model because the vast majority of people like being able to sit mindlessly in front of a TV screen and channel surf. I agree because that theory has already so clearly played out in the radio world. As popular as the iPod franchise is (we have at least three in my house), it doesn’t take the place of radio.

Maybe it’s because radio is so important that the business of radio is so royally screwed up. The CRB is threatening to kill off much of Internet radio, the two satellite radio providers in existence are cozying up to the FCC in hopes of merging, and few terrestrial radio programs survive on the air today unless they appeal to the lowest common listener denominator. What’s the deal?

Obviously people want radio because companies are busy figuring out ways to stream it to every kind of device. But that technology is going to be worthless if the radio sucks or if subscription fees price the mass market right out of the market. I don’t know what the solution is, but I sure wish someone would figure it out.

While I had been hoping for an agnostic solution, Pandora’s first portable offering (!) is on Sprint. A Power Vision plan plus $2.99/mo gets you mobile access and a web account upgrade (as in no ads). The downloadable J2ME app is currently only available on five phones, including the Samsung A900 (aka “Blade”). Support is planned for additional models including the Motorola RAZR, Sanyo M1, “Katana,” and Samsung Upstage. And it just so happens Sprint is sending me an Upstage loaner…

I was right on target last week with my “Sansa Connect with Pandora” suggestion — Turns out they’re working with Zing (designers of Sirius Stiletto and that SanDisk Sansa Connect) on a WiFi player. Pandora has provided me screengrabs of the prototype running in an emulator:

Click thumbnails for a larger view.

The AP writes:

“We knew that if we wanted to be radio with a capital ‘R,’ we have to be everywhere, and not just on the Internet,” said Pandora founder Tim Westergren. “We knew we had to make it mobile.” Pandora is expanding to other devices as well. Also starting Wednesday, its music streams can be directly tapped from Sonos Inc.’s home digital music system.

Last week I journeyed into town and lunched with Verizon’s PolicyBlog founder and editor, John Czwartacki. We engaged in some interesting industry and blogosphere discussion. I was also reminded that I don’t miss the old-school DC dress code.

Strangely, the PR group was sending out a release of top ten VCast Bee Gees downloads timed with Barry Gibbs guest mentoring of American Idol’s final four. Given my perceived demographics of the typical music-downloading customer (younger) versus a typical Bee Gees fan (older), I wonder how many actual downloads that list represents. And given how poorly the AI singers did with the songs (not to mention: disco is dead), I don’t imagine that number growing significantly.

The last time I quizzed my contact at Pandora on making their service portable, I commuted two hours a day and worked out of an office. With a new work-from-home lifestyle, my desire for portable Pandora has diminished… However, I still think this is a great avenue for them to explore (even being geographically challenged). I’m betting something like a “Sansa Connect with Pandora” would generate a lot of interest amongst the digerati. Mp3.com writes:

Cutting the chord between Internet radio and the PC is vital to the business, [founder] Westergren says, noting that his company is on the hunt for deals with portable devices. “It’s definitely holding us back and we’re not sitting idly by,” he says. “Our intention is to make radio, period, and to be radio with a capital R you have to be everywhere, you can’t just be on the PC.”

And speaking of mobile tunes… Once I get done with my next round of travels (Bay Area & Denmark) I’m going to give Yahoo’s unlimited music download service a spin on my Samsung Blackjack and OTTO review sample.

(via Orbitcast)

Let me tell you what I won’t do. I will not purchase a digital movie, whether via Xbox 360, Amazon Unbox on TiVo, iTunes, or anything else. I’m hooked on the Netflix paradigm of unlimited rentals not to mention I have no guarantees that the movie I purchase today will work on the device I purchase tomorrow. So If I can’t have unlimited rentals, I will stoop to individual rentals. Heck, I’ll even overpay as I’ve proven with those $6 HD flicks on Moviebeam and Xbox. From where I’m sitting, Apple is leaving money on the table by not renting films and not offering a music subscription service. However… Based on some recent rumblings, including analysis of Thursday’s shareholder meeting, it looks like both still exist as possibilities.

In other Apple news, one teenage researcher believes iPods can interfere with pacemakers. Yowza! Though CrunchGear possibly puts it into perspective:

So what have we learned? It’s not that electronics produce electromagnetic frequencies capable of killing grandpa. No, the moral of the story remains the same as always: Don’t strap electronics to the chests of people with pacemakers. These are things that patients in this situation know.

iPod Shuffle case with earbud wrap, keychain, and bottle opener.