Several things set the Jambox apart from other wireless speakers, such as an airtight enclosure that plays low-frequency audio that can be felt from a distance. Equally impressive, in what may be a first for wireless mobile speakers, the Jambox can be updated through apps and software improvements delivered through the MyTalk online platform (currently in beta). Apps available for the Jambox will include dialing apps and voice text messaging apps to take advantage of the integrated hands-free capability of the device. Software updates will also be distributed via the MyTalk platform.

The Jambox will be available at Apple Stores and Best Buy stores on Nov. 16. It can currently be pre-ordered from Jawbone for $199.

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The phone becomes an extension of doubleTwist, with full syncing of music, photos and movies just like iTunes handles it for iOS devices. In place of the iTunes Music Store, doubleTwist is fully integrated with the Amazon MP3 store for shopping. Even more useful is the complete integration with the Android Market for perusing, buying and installing apps onto the Android phone. Best of all? This functionality is free for the taking.

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DRM-protected files won’t play on an iPad or iPhone using ZumoCast, but that’s about the only major limitation aside from requiring your home computer to be powered on. However, you can sync media files with ZumoCast for offline playback on a mobile device — in that case, the home computer can be sleeping peacefully. The ZumoCast desktop software handles all file-sharing aspects and it supports adaptive transcoding. That means the audio and video quality will adjust on the fly to offer the best experience based on your web connection.

Initially for iPad and iPhone, ZumoCast is planned for additional mobile platforms. That makes sense as ZumoDrive, the cloud storage service, is also supported on Google Android and Palm webOS handsets. The company also says that “video sharing and enhanced music and photo interfaces” are in the works. ZumoCast is in an open beta, so you can sign up to try it. At this time, no pricing has been announced for the media streaming service.

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A Slacker Radio Plus subscription is required to access the new ABC News channel, although a 14-day free trial is available for basic subscribers. The Slacker service can be accessed through the desktop, on BlackBerry phones, Palm webOS phones, iPhones and Android smartphones. Personal music stations are streamed to the subscriber, and the service learns what the user likes as songs are tagged in real-time. After a short time observing what the subscriber prefers to hear, Slacker does a good job only playing music the listener enjoys.

Plus subscribers ($3.99 monthly billed annually or $4.99 billed monthly) gain the ability to cache music on phones, eliminating the need for a constant data connection as with streaming. Plus service is also ad-free, and song lyrics are at hand if desired.

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The new ability to cache songs is available with a Slacker Radio Plus membership for as little as $3.99 per month. Users of the free version of Slacker can cache songs for 14 days at no charge, but will need to upgrade the membership to listen longer than that.

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That minor issue aside, I found this headset to perform admirably. For the price, music is a joy to listen to on the 476s — it uses 32mm drivers with a response range of 20Hz to 20kHz, so bass is quite nice. And Digital Signal Processing is built in to help with echo cancellation — that wouldn’t help with the podcast because of the method we use to record our tracks, but for general chatting, it works very well.

One area I find headphone-makers skimp on is in the length of cable, but that’s not the case here. Plantronics provides a full 2-meter cable from the headset to the USB 2.0 connector. Also handy is the inline remote for volume control and muting — that actually worked well on the podcast as I slurped coffee while muted. For traveling, the 476s fold up, but I’d like to see a small bag included with them  – perhaps I’m spoiled by my old folding Plantronics headset that did have a travel bag.

The Plantronics .Audio 476 USB headset works with either a Microsoft Windows PC or a Mac OS X computer — no drivers are needed. The MSRP is $54.95, although I’m sure you can find them online for less. For general music enjoyment and voice chatting, I’m pretty impressed. If it weren’t for my specific podcasting requirements, I’d probably pick up a pair of these myself.

For Android devices, the service offers unlimited access to over 9.5 million song tracks, but only while connected to the web. Unlike services that support offline music caching, this iteration of Rhapsody doesn’t. That’s not unlike streaming Pandora music, but Slacker does support offline playback for Android. However, a “download subscription music to your mobile device” feature is coming soon, says Rhapsody’s site. I can’t comment on the service, even though I’ve downloaded the app to my Nexus One — for some reason, I can’t create a new account because the email address I’m using is already registered with Real. And yet, when I try to have to the password reset sent to that email, it’s not an address on record. And so the beta goes…

I’m pretty partial to Pandora, but I’m sure each service has its fans. What’s your favorite and why?

Image courtesy of Cnet

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As the name implies, the navigation interface is a cube: spin it up or down to browse by album covers or twirl it left and right for quick alphabetical searches. If you’re not into the cube thing, 3 offers two other views. The wall option shows a scrollable grid with two columns of album covers, while the boring view is just a plain text listing. Actually, it may be called boring, but the large artist name with smaller album title has a little Microsoft ZuneHD feel. Each view still shows music controls, making it easy to play, shuffle and skip around.

The app is fairly intelligent and customizable too — it can retrieve album art over the web if needed. And since the visual interface utilizes album art, you’d hope this feature would be there. In fact, I love to play a music and watch the cube rotate around like dice at a craps table with each new song. Another setting lets you choose if the music controls are at the top or the bottom of the screen. And Cubed also supports Last.fm scrobbling so you can tell your friends what tunes you’re listening to. One close call: I almost couldn’t find the music scrubber controls, so I originally thought you couldn’t navigate back or forth in a song. As I was shooting pictures of the app however, I tapped inadvertently under the song title, and what do you know: a scrubber. It looks nice but doesn’t offer a very fine level of control — and it took me a couple of days to find it. ;)

Overall, the free download offers a far better visual interface than the standard Music app found in Android. I’ve included the QR code above for Android handset owners, so happy listening and don’t get too mesmerized by the addictive cube!

QR image for the Android Market courtesy of Android Guys

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I’m anticipating naysayers who predict that Apple won’t approve offline music caching. This time, I think they may be right and if so, it’s not just bad news for Rhapsody — word on the street is that the Slacker folks are looking to add offline music caching to the iPhone client too. I can think of three reasons that Apple wouldn’t allow offline subscription music caching:

Apple bought LaLa for a reason — in December, Apple purchased a music streaming service as part of a perceived paradigm shift. While I didn’t predict the details, I wasn’t surprised by the move in general. We might not have the infrastructure to support it yet, but streaming music from the cloud is coming, just as I said only days before news of the LaLa deal. In my GigaOm Pro report (subscription required) called “Forget Syncing, Music, Let’s Put It in the Cloud!” I outlined how Amazon is already well-suited to offer online music storage and streaming. But Amazon doesn’t have a handset like Apple does. And until the LaLa deal, Apple didn’t have the platform for such a service. They do now — or at least they have the talent and experience of people who do.

Apple redefines existing markets — Apple is good at many things, but perhaps their core competency is in redefining products and markets. Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player, but they did create an iconic one that owns the market. With the iPad, Apple is trying to do the same. The company watched others try the tablet market with limited success and is now redefining the mobile slate. By now, Apple has seen and studied the likes of Rhapsody, Slacker, Pandora, Grooveshark, Microsoft’s Zune and others — the market for streaming subscription music is generally defined at this point. With iTunes, the LaLa purchase, and innovative data plans for new devices, Apple is poised to redefine another market.

iPhone OS 4.0 is coming soon — The next version of Apple’s iPhone OS is widely expected to hit this summer. It’s not likely a “point version” but a full step forward, which equates to potentially new and innovative features. While I can’t predict what those features will be, a music subscription service isn’t out of the question now that all of the pieces are in place. Put another way — I wouldn’t expect a new service to debut in an update to the iPhone 3.x operating system. A better fit would be with the next major version, which gives Apple talking points to generate buzz.

Since the new Rhapsody application isn’t yet submitted to Apple for approval, there’s time to get in on this March Madness (or the other one, actually) and make your pick — do you expect this feature to make it through iTunes App Store Approval process?

For the GigaOM network’s complete SXSW coverage, check out this round-up.

This video taken by Todd Bishop of TechFlash demonstrates a prototype, real-time voice translation service. Microsoft calls it the “Translating Telephone” but for now, it’s a demo voice over IP service used in conjunction with other Microsoft unified communications solutions. Like Google’s Voice product, Microsoft’s Exchange Server 2010 supports voicemail transcription. But Redmond is taking things one step beyond a standard voice to text service. The prototype shows a voice to translated text, using a conversation between an English-speaking caller and one that speaks German. It’s not perfect just yet, but the accuracy is impressive, as is the speed of the translations which are computer-spoken.

While the hardware powering smartphones of today aren’t the best tools for translation, this type of service could be implemented in a client-server setup  – the two phones used for conversation would simply provide the audio, speech and connectivity, while a communications server processes the translations and serves them up. There would of course be a delay while the speech is translated, but it could be manageable. More likely to interfere with adoption is the sound of the voice — we’ve grown accustomed to hearing the actual voice of the person we’re speaking to on the phone. Phones with translation capabilities would make the conversation less personal due to a synthesized voice, but at least we’d be able to understand one another. Besides, I see a whole new market evolving — translation service providers could sell custom voices. I think I’d spring for an Angelina Jolie voice and I probably wouldn’t care too much if the translation wasn’t quite right. Sprechen sie deutsche, Ms. Jolie?

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Offline music caching requires a Slacker Radio Plus subscription, which is $4.99 per month, or a yearly fee of $47.88. The subscription also provides your music ad-free, offers unlimited skips and complete lyrics for songs. Slacker says that if you’re not a subscriber, you can still test the offline caching with a 14-day trial. Nosing around the forums, I see that caching will take place over Wi-Fi or your phone’s cellular connection. Nice to see that it isn’t limited to just Wi-Fi, although that’s the default connection. You can also schedule an auto-cache so the software will be fully loaded when you wake in the morning, offering connection-free tunes during the day.

The new Slacker version for BlackBerry is limited to certain handsets. Older Curve 8830 plus 8300-series and lower devices aren’t supported with this version, so if you have one of these, don’t look for the new cache feature. Given the general similarity between Pandora, which offers both a free and paid program, I’m curious if you’re using Pandora, Slacker, or both of these music apps on your handset. And is anyone besides me wondering why Apple is leaving money on the table by not offering a music subscription service?

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Good news for fans of Slacker, the service that streams music to both computers and handsets. The software is officially supported on webOS and available in the Palm App Catalog for Pre and Pixi devices. The webOS version joins Android, BlackBerry and iPhone handsets. Although I got a sneak peek at CES, here’s a feature list in case you missed it.

• Music library featuring millions of songs
• High-quality stereo playback from any available wireless connection
• Create custom artist stations based on artists or songs
• Over 120 professionally programmed and customizable genre stations
• View artist biographies and photos
• View album art and read reviews
• “Peek Ahead” artist and album preview
• Rate songs as favorites
• Ban songs and artists from stations

I’d provide my own impressions since Slacker is now installed on my Palm Pre, except for one small, but key detail — I don’t have my Palm Pre. ;) I loaned it to Dave Zatz for a few weeks and he gave Slacker the old once over.

“Of course Slacker rocks. And the app functions much like you’d expect it to. Although, as a webOS n00b, I’ve had to get used to finger swiping in lieu of tapping a back button. Otherwise, it’s quite comparable to their other mobile apps – a wide variety of “radio” stations and the option of upgrading to a paid subscription (~$50/yr) to display song lyrics, provide unlimited skips, and do away with all advertising.”

I’d don’t see any mention of offline song caching in either the press release or in Dave’s overview, so that’s something I’d like to see added in a future release. Last I heard, that functionality — which originally was specific to BlackBerry devices — is now in the iPhone and Android apps. Since I’m a “turn off the juice when not in use” kind of guy, I’m all for some Airplane Mode with Slacker tunes.

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In an iTunes world, synchronizing music to a non-Apple device remains a challenge for some. We saw it with the Palm Pre — which had unofficial iTunes support shuffled on and off quite a few times. For the record: that song stopped playing months ago. And this challenge is evident even more with the bigger Android user base. With the Nexus One, I’m doing what I did with the Palm Pre — using DoubleTwist. And the platform appears poised to take over the stage when it comes to music management on mobile devices.

TechCrunch expects a formal announcement out of DoubleTwist sometime today. T-Mobile has apparently signed a deal to promote DoubleTwist as a media management platform and will showcase in-store banners to promote it. Not only that, but you might see DoubleTwist pre-installed on some T-Mobile Android handsets as part of the deal. That bit is actually intriguing to me, mainly because you currently don’t install DoubleTwist on a mobile device. Instead it resides on your PC or Mac, just like iTunes, where it manages the content and converts for use on hundreds of devices.

Note that I said it “converts for use.” That’s one of the reasons I abandoned iTunes for DoubleTwist months ago. The other reason is that I’ve only bought DRM-free music from Amazon’s MP3 store, which is also integrated into DoubleTwist. The conversion functionality within DoubleTwist means you don’t really have to worry about file formats, codecs and the like. DoubleTwist knows which devices support which formats and it simply converts as needed, depending on your specific device or devices. Granted, DRM-encrypted tunes are still a no go — DoubleTwist doesn’t “crack” the DRM for you, although that’s kind of ironic. The program was created by Jon Lech Johansen, aka DVD Jon. Jon created the DeCSS application which cracks the protection on DVDs. ;)

Although DoubleTwist may not appear as polished as iTunes, I can’t help but recommend it. It works as advertised for both audio and video files. Just this weekend I schlepped the entire Beatles catalog from my Mac to my Nexus One via a custom playlist without a hitch. With most people wondering how to get their iTunes library to various mobile devices these days, DoubleTwist’s simplicity and effectiveness can make it a hit on Android, Palm, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, not to mention the Sony PSP and Amazon Kindle.

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Image Credit: AndroLib

Many of the apps are ones I’ve seen or used before, but two jumped out at me. NewsRob is a free Google Reader app for RSS and since I live in RSS seven days a week, it immediately got a download on an old G1. My first take — it’s quite usable and offers starring, sharing and more, just like Google Reader on a desktop browser. Also getting a download is Astrid, which is a free task manager. Although I use Remember the Milk for Android, Astrid also synchronizes with RTM, so it’s worth taking a look.

Android Guys also found a new app for me and it strongly supports my GigaOm Pro piece (subscription required) on why streaming music through the cloud is moving towards reality sooner rather than later — Grooveshark for Android is now available. You’ll need a VIP account with Grooveshark — $30 a year — but you can upload and stream your entire audio library to an Android device, plus listen to gobs of other music as well.

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Although my initial thought on this was back in May, I expanded upon this solution in a recent piece over at our GigaOm Pro subscription service and while the technology may be lagging, the business model could easily be there. Amazon already has the storefront and a mobile client for purchases. Why can’t S3, Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, be my music library in the cloud where I could have near unlimited storage? From a cost perspective, it would take $6.70 to initially transfer and then store the music for a month, using currently available S3 pricing. To stream 3 GB in a month — more than most people would likely do — would be about a half-dollar, plus another $3 for the monthly storage. Amazon could even “hide” the transfer prices in the cost of MP3 files, much as they do for Kindle content.

Again, there’s the dratted technology limitation, which in this case is the required mobile web connection. Wi-Fi still isn’t everywhere and 3G won’t meet everyone’s needs either — there are still those pesky 5 GB monthly bandwidth caps, not to mention coverage gaps. But I think a non-persistent wireless connection could be mitigated by Amazon themselves. Slacker Radio for BlackBerry caches music in cases like that, so why couldn’t Amazon build the same functionality in a handset client? Like I said, they already have a client for purchases and transfers — adding a music player with caching ability is the next logical step to me.

The benefits are there — leaving behind physical phone storage limits, no more synchronizing, and having your entire music library available on potentially all of your devices. Does the idea have enough merit for the future?

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