Live365.com Launches Player365 Beta Testing for Pocket PC

For those in the world that are card-carrying members of the "first adopters" club and waltz around with their Pocket PCs complete with a wireless Internet connection, one more choice for streaming wireless music just popped into the picture. And for the rest of us, Live365's (www.live365.com) announcement that it has launched beta testing for its Player365 technology delivered wirelessly to Pocket PCs, is another small step in the direction of untethered Internet radio.

If you have all the toys and prefer a musical existence where you can choose to avoid Christina Aguilera, the Live 365 beta is available for download at www.live365.com/mobile . The streaming player supports most Pocket PC's including the Hewlett-Packard Jornada 540 series, Compaq iPAQ 3x35 series and the Casio Cassiopeia E and EM series.

"This is one of the first steps towards making Internet Radio portable. Within 5 years, radio listeners will be able to receive wireless Internet radio in the car and all over the world. As one of the biggest names in Internet radio, we are thrilled that our users now have access to the only MP3 player for Pocket PC in the world and will be able to bring all of Live365's 34,000 and growing Internet radio stations wherever they go.'' said Alan Wallace, senior vice president of Communications for Live365.

Live365 states that its Player365 streaming technology is network agnostic and can deliver Pocket PC-based service wherever an Internet connection can be obtained. Additionally, Player365 is compatible with Shoutcast compliant streaming MP3 sources and has a small footprint of 275k.

Penguin Radio and Akoo Partner

In other news today, Akoo (www.akoo.com), the company that offers the KIMA, and Penguin Radio (www.penguinradio.com), a company that intends to release a more expensive wireless Internet radio appliance by Christmas this year, have announced that they will collaborate to distribute Internet radio to the car stereo via cellular phone.

Apparently, the companies intend to attempt this feat over current generation networks using an interface they will develop between PenguinRadio's Phone Radio Analog service, whereby users can access the company's radio database via phone, and Akoo's Link-It a new wireless device that enables users to send music from MP3 players, portable CD players and/or cellular phones to the car stereo.