While most radio stations are looking for ways to expand their online presence, CBS Interactive Music Group is doing the opposite with social music site Last.fm, says Paid Content.

CBS will broadcast the streaming service on the company’s HD multicast stations. Last year Last.fm became part of CBS.

Last.fm will effectively take over CBS HD broadcast stations starting in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. The broadcasts kick off on Monday, October 5. The broadcast will feature a mix of music influenced by the service’s user-generated weekly charts along with live performances and interviews.

Listeners will be able to access the station through the Last.fm site as well as CBS Radio and Yahoo Music radio sites as well as mobile apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and certain BlackBerrys.

David Goodman, president of the recently formed CBSi Music Group, told paidContent that CBS will devote more resources toward promoting HD radio in general, something that could give Microsoft’s upcoming Zune HD devices a boost as well. The Zune HD will go on sale September 15, with 16GB and 32GB models, priced at $219 and $289, respectively.

Meanwhile, Apple’s new iPod nano features an FM receiver enabling radio’s 235 million weekly listeners to have another way to listen to radio, says Radio Online. The new unit will also offer live pause capability as well as iTunes tagging.

The radio tuner allows users to tag songs they hear on the radio, sync them with their iTunes, and identify the song’s artist and title and purchase it from the iTunes store via the Radio Advertising Bureau’s “Buy From FM” platform, explains Ad Age.

Jeff Haley, CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau, “The idea that an 85-year-old medium has the chance to remain relevant and capture new distribution in an environment when those things are hard to come by is very exciting.” In addition to Buy From FM, the FM tuner could also enable radio stations and advertisers to tag their radio ads to become interactive through the MP3 platform.

The industry’s largest company, Clear Channel, has also made significant in-roads in bringing radio to iPhones and BlackBerrys, and this week just rolled out the 2.2 version of its iheartradio application for 300 of its stations. The app amassed 2.5 million unique listeners by June, with streaming radio helping to increase Clear Channel’s cumulative audience by 15%.

Walt Mossberg reviewed popular iPhone Navigation Apps in the Wall Street Journal, yesterday. Automated, turn-by-turn navigation with voice-prompts do not come free, like other location-based that show what’s nearby.

But the iPhone’s built-in GPS, large screen, decent mono speaker and large selection of car mounting kits make it a tempting navigation device, says Mossberg. He reviews four apps: from TomTom for the iPhone, Navigon MobileNavigator, AT&T Navigator and MotionX-GPS Drive.

None of the apps stood out as much better than the others at navigation, says Mossberg, though they have different styles and features:

• TomTom for the iPhone: The U.S. and Canada navigation app costs $100 and takes up a 1.2 gigabytes of space on your phone. But there is no subscription fee and the maps are always present.
• Navigon MobileNavigator: This app costs $90, and it takes up 1.3 GB on the iPhone because it also stores all the maps. There is no recurring fee.
• AT&T Navigator: Downloads maps and info on the fly, but it takes up less space on the phone—just 2.3 megabytes. That means you need a good connection at the start of a trip. Though the app download is free, a $9.99-per-month subscription fee will automatically be added to your AT&T account.
• MotionX-GPS Drive: The main screen has a clever menu arranged in a circle. It’s also fairly small—just 10 megabytes or so. But it must download maps and other info each time you start a route. Drive also is potentially the cheapest of the four apps. It will cost $1.99 and include a 30-day free trial. After that, it’s $25 a year.

There are many wonderful location based applications that don’t feature turn-by-turn navigation, of course.

Many use Skyhook’s cellular/WiFi database. Skyhook is able to provide location information to your device, even if it doesn’t have a GPS built-in, by mapping nearby cell towers and wifi access points. By triangulating tower signals, Skyhook can determine your position, and passes that information to your cellphone. It can also integrate GPS (if you have it). Indoors or out. Google Maps uses it.

But if that data is wrong, you can’t change it.

Don Park, who co-founded Dailywireless.org, has created a creative-commons licensed location database alternative that he calls Geomena. You can input the location of your WiFi Access Point using Google Maps. Rick Turoczy, at Silicon Florist has an excellent description of Geomena. But Don’s project — with just 7 WiFi access points registered — is a little shy of the tens of thousands in the Skyhook database.

Geomena demonstrate how a creative-commons location database alternative could be created. OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Offshoots of OpenStreetMap include; OpenSeaMap, OpenCycleMap, FreeMap and YourNavigation.

Microsoft has created the nonprofit CodePlex Foundation with the stated goal to increase communication between open-source communities and software companies. WhereCampPDX, October 2-4 in Portland, includes Microsoft as a major sponsor. The jury is still out on the CodePlex Foundation, says ArsTechnica.

Motorola’s has unveiled the Cliq, their Andoid-based smartphone, to be sold through T-Mobile. The phone was shown at Mobililize 09, the conference put together by Om Malik.

“It’s alive,” said Motorola’s Sanjay Jha, the co-chief executive of Motorola, who was hired a year ago from Qualcomm to revive its cellphone business. He was joined on stage by T-Mobile’s Chief Technology Officer, Cole Brodman to introduce the new phone and its associated services.

Motorola also unveiled Motoblur, a new service for smart phones to combined a wide variety of social networks. MotoBlur graphically integrates all user messaging accounts via email, text message or social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. It also syncs photos and uses themed widgets as a way to enable the user to access different content.

The Cliq has a sliding QWERTY keyboard, 3G and Wi-Fi connections, reports Katie Fehrenbacher, in addition to a 5 MP camera, video recording and a standard headphone jack. The phone has a 3.1-inch touch screen, a slide-out keyboard, and will feature an HTML browser via Google, a number of Google mobile services such as Google Maps, built-in GPS, as well as access to Google’s mobile application store.

There was no announcement of devices for Verizon or AT&T or Sprint. However, Motorola is expected to introduce a second, more expensive smartphone in a few weeks that will work on the Verizon network. The price has not been announced, reports the NY Times, but analysts expect a $100 price tag.

Palm Inc. has just announced a smaller spin-off of its recently released Palm Pre smartphone – introducing the Palm Pixi. Running on Palm OS, the Palm Pixi boasts of powerful features that would put even its small form factor to shame because of those features. An exposed QWERTY keyboard, multi-touch and natural gestures enabled are just some of the key features of the Palm Pixi.

The Palm Pixi smartphone, features the Palm Synergy which gathers all your related mobile information and presents it in a nice single view. In addition, it also features the App Catalog, a built-in facility that gives you an option to select what mobile application you would want to install on the Palm Pixi.  The Palm Pixi also allows you to open different applications simulataneously.

For its communication features, the Palm Pixi offers instant messaging facility through AIM, GTalk and Yahoo Messenger. What’s good about the Palm Pixi’s IM feature is the fact that it combines all your conversations with one person in one single chat-style view. So, it doesn’t matter whether you stop chatting now and continue later on. You can get back to where you left during your conversation and continue your conversation.

The Palm Pixi also lets you browse the Internet and allows you to scroll and zoom using natural, intuitive gestures. It also features a universal search engine that search through your contacts and apps as well as do search on Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia or even Twitter.

Other features of the Palm Pixi include A-GPS, location aware, a 2 megapixel camera with LED flash, Photobucket and Facebook support for uploading of photos, direct access to Amazon MP3 store, and support DRM-free iTunes music, videos, and photos.

Full Specs of the Palm Pixi is as follow:

• Dual-band CDMA2000; 3G: EvDO Rev A
• 2.63-inch touch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color 320×400 screen resolution Sub-HVGA display
• Direct Push Technology
• POP3/IMAP (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail^™, AOL, Hotmail^®, etc)
• Integrated IM, SMS, and MMS
• Built-in GPS
• Ambient light, accelerometer, and proximity sensors
• Audio Formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV
• Video Formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264
• 8GB Memory

Finally Sony Ericsson has officially announced the follow-up to the Xperia Windows Mobile Phone – the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2. Running on Windows Mobile 6.5, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 offers quick mail and calendar synchronization, Micorosoft Office Mobile documents editing as well as a unique slideview feature that provides users with quick access to their frequently used applications.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 is also loaded with 14 specially designed Xperia Panels and users can also download 16 more including Skype, Mytopia, Google, CNN, Windows Live and more. It also now features an improved 3D signature panel and a fully improved high-resolution 3.2-inch touch screen. This 3.2-inch screen complements well the Xperia X2’s 8.1 megapixel camera.

For social networking activities, the Xperia X2 offers quick access to Facebook for uploading photos. The Skype panel gives users a chat facility.

Full specs of the Sony Xperia X2 is as follows:

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• UMTS/HSPA 850/900/2100
• 8.1 Megapixel  camera with 16x digital zoom, auto focus, geo tagging, image stabilizer, video recording
• support MP3/AAC music tones, stereo speakers, equalizer, media player
• 110MB internal memory
• Memory card support for microSD and microSDHC up to 16GB
• Standby time 500 hours (GSM), 640 hours (UMTS)
• Talk time 10 hours (GSM)
• Talk time 6 hours (UMTS)
• 20 hours music listening
• WiFI, Bluetooth
• A-GPS
• TV Out

Amazon is trying to convince a federal judge to block the $125m settlement that will let Google Books make out-of-print works available online.

Amazon’s opposition was made public last week when it joined the Open Book Alliance, notes C/Net. Now Amazon has filed its own brief with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, arguing against making the proposed settlement final.

In its filing (click for PDF), Amazon notes that it has also scanned books, but has not taken the controversial step that Google took in scanning out-of-print but copyright-protected books without explicit permission.

When Google began scanning books from libraries, it believed it had the right to scan the entire text of a copyright-protected book under fair-use laws so long as it only displayed a snippet of the contents. Authors groups and publishers vehemently disagreed, resulting in a class-action lawsuit and the proposed settlement at issue in this case.

At least two other Google rivals, Microsoft and Yahoo, are expected weigh in with their opposition.

The U.S. Justice Department, which is taking a look at Google’s book deal, has until Sept. 18 to share its thoughts on the case. That filing may provide a better indication whether Justice believes Google’s deal with authors and publishers would violate U.S. laws set up to prevent predatory pricing and promote competition, says USA Today.

According to a report from Forrester, the eBook and eReader market has now hit a point where it is ready to break out of its niche and become a mainstream phenomenon. But Forrester says an e-reader need to cost between $50 and $99 before most consumers would consider buying one.

Google is expected entry into the eBook market shortly, reports the NY Times. Google has already made its 1.5 million public-domain books available for reading on mobile phones as well as the Sony Reader, the Kindle’s largest competitor.

Toshiba is showing a 7-inch multimedia tablet, the JournE touch, reports Engadget.

The JournE features a 7 inch touchscreen display and uses an ARM-based processor. It packs 802.11b/g WiFi and runs Windows CE 6.0 Pro, but it looks like there’s a custom user interface and some custom software including an RSS reader and support for YouTube, notes Liliputing. Video formats WMV, DivX, and H.264 are supported and it can output sub-1080p video over an HDMI plug in the dock.

The default web browser is the mobile version of Internet Explorer and a company rep says they are considering Android as an OS. The device is only 14mm thick and weighs just under a pound. There’s 1GB of built-in storage, but that can be expanded via the SD slot, and the device can access external storage over USB. Apparently it will cost about (249 Euros or about $356 US) when it becomes available, probably later this year.

While Google Voice can’t seem to get their foot in the App Store’s door, Vonage has waltzed right through, notes TechCrunch.

According to a recent release from the Jersey-based VOIP giant, their new Vonage mobile application has been approved for inclusion into Apple’s App Store as soon as it comes out of beta.

Details are still lacking. TechCrunch speculates that the app — when it shows up on the App Store — may utilize Vonage phone numbers:

Given Vonage’s position in the VOIP industry, it seems likely that we may soon have a Google Voice-esque app that allows users to make and receive calls that tie into an existing Vonage phone number, but right now your guess is as good as ours. For all we know, we could be looking at something as lackluster as an extension of Vonage’s existing Visual Voicemail service, but hopefully the app won’t stop short of what it should be.

Of course, given the ease of Vonage’s app approval, one question in particular is bound to come up. Apple claims that the deciding factor in holding up Google Voice’s approval was that it “[replaced] the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail”. It’ll be interesting to dig in and see how Vonage adapts to Apple formula, but it looks like it will be a while before we can judge for ourselves.

Cellular carriers don’t want to become a “dumb pipe”, with users circumventing cellular voice service with 3rd party VOIP calls using their data service.

Video would be worse.

YouTube, the world’s No.1 video website, currently offers video for free, on an advertising-supported basis.

Reuters reports that the company is in talks with several major movie studios about streaming movies over the Internet. YouTube, owned by Google, has held discussions with Lions Gate, Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers about online movie rentals, reports Reuters.

It would mark the first time the world’s most popular video site would charge its users to watch videos.

In many cases, the movies would be available for rental for a fee in a system similar to Web rental programs from Apple’s iTunes, Netflix and Amazon. YouTube would likely charge a similar fee, around $3.99 a rental.

No word on a mobile version. Yet.

Many users say they pay for data services — phone companies have no right to discriminate against their 3rd party apps just because they conflict with similar cellular-backed apps. It restricts competition. The FCC appears to be sympathetic, and has opened an inquiry into competition and “openness” in the cellular industry.

Google’s sites accounted for 9 billion videos viewed in the U.S. during July, mostly from YouTube, with 42 percent of the online video market, according to ComScore of Reston, Virginia.

Finally Sony Ericsson has officially announced the follow-up to the Xperia Windows Mobile Phone – the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2. Running on Windows Mobile 6.5, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 offers quick mail and calendar synchronization, Micorosoft Office Mobile documents editing as well as a unique slideview feature that provides users with quick access to their frequently used applications.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 is also loaded with 14 specially designed Xperia Panels and users can also download 16 more including Skype, Mytopia, Google, CNN, Windows Live and more. It also now features an improved 3D signature panel and a fully improved high-resolution 3.2-inch touch screen. This 3.2-inch screen complements well the Xperia X2’s 8.1 megapixel camera.

For social networking activities, the Xperia X2 offers quick access to Facebook for uploading photos. The Skype panel gives users a chat facility.

Full specs of the Sony Xperia X2 is as follows:

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• UMTS/HSPA 850/900/2100
• 8.1 Megapixel  camera with 16x digital zoom, auto focus, geo tagging, image stabilizer, video recording
• support MP3/AAC music tones, stereo speakers, equalizer, media player
• 110MB internal memory
• Memory card support for microSD and microSDHC up to 16GB
• Standby time 500 hours (GSM), 640 hours (UMTS)
• Talk time 10 hours (GSM)
• Talk time 6 hours (UMTS)
• 20 hours music listening
• WiFI, Bluetooth
• A-GPS
• TV Out