I’m a little late in recommending this, but better late than never.

Last.FM is a social music service that lets you customize the music you hear based on what you’re listening to already. The more you listen to music you like, the better playlists Last.FM builds for you.

It works by doing something they call “scrobbling.” Scrobbling, while funny to say, is an ingenious concept. You install a small application from Last.FM that provides a plugin for iTunes, WinAmp and Windows Media Player. Whenever you listen to music on any of these applications, the Last.FM application scrobbles the tracks you play.

It learns what you like based on what you listen to.

Thanks to scrobbling, the website can compile a recommended playlist of similar artists just for you. Once you’ve given Last.FM a taste of your tastes, it generates a sort of you-centric jukebox that you can listen to free online or in the player on your computer.

Whenever you’re listening to a radio station (and not your own playlist) you have the option to love or ban tracks you hear. This helps the software know where it’s gotten your preferences right, and where it’s missing the mark.

As your playlists and recommendations grow, you can share your music with friends. They can share music with you. You can listen to customized radio stations programmed by other users with tastes similar to yours. And, of course, you have the option to buy albums and songs via Amazon or iTunes from your Last.FM dashboard.

It’s very cool and very free. It is also remarkably good at figuring out what you’re going to like. I’ve collected quite a few new favorite artists in the short time I’ve been using it.

There are some hangups, though. The website and player interfaces aren’t always intuitive. In the online service, you can’t usually play a specific full-length track by an artist you like. You have to play a radio station of “similar” artists that will eventually include some songs by the artist you chose. And the Last.FM website seems to suffer from slowdowns and outages quite often. But none of these issues is by any means enough to make the service unusable.

Also, in addition to the core free service, you can purchase a subscription for $3/month. For the fee, you get to listen to your own customized radio station, get premium bandwidth for music streaming, no ads, and enrollment in beta testing and special programs. But that’s only if its worth it to you.

One other service that Last.FM offers is an events calendar based on your location and tastes. At any time, you can see concerts and shows coming up in your area, get the date/time/ticket prices, and find out whether any other users are attending. If you know of an event that isn’t listed, you can even submit it yourself.

If you listen to music, and I know you do, you’ll like Last.FM.

(my Last.FM username is cechols)

In case you weren’t paying attention (and you probably weren’t), XM and Sirius executives have spent the last couple years consistently denying rumors that the two satellite radio services are secretly in love. According to a Gizmodo article from June of 2006:

[Sirius Radio Chief Executive, Mel] Karmazin continues to say that Sirius is definitely not up for sale and that a merger probably wouldn’t work out. He was quoted saying that the current Sirius business plan does not include making any kind of deals and he also said that he would be gone if any kind of merger happened.

Typical posturing. These celebrity couples always deny their romances even when everybody knows what they’re up to - even after the paparazzi has caught them making out at Hyde and holding hands on their vacation together in Cabo.

Then, on January 11th of this year, the two services announced that they would, in fact, hook up, promising a celebrity couple the likes of which we haven’t seen since Britney and K-Fed. They made the announcement at the North American Auto Show, much to the disbelief of nearly everyone “in the know.”

Not surprisingly, the grouchy old FCC responded within the week, saying that the love affair wasn’t happening - as it would violate federal antitrust laws. It would also violate specific FCC rules that were put in place when the two services first started. FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, said on January 17th in no uncertain terms:

FCC regulations created when the satellite radio service was conceived more than a decade ago clearly state that “two satellite radio operators [must] remain in place,”

An article in MediaWeek added:

…he noted that there is “a prohibition on one entity owning both of those licenses” and he reminded reporters of how the commission rejected the proposal merger between the two satellite television companies to merge in the summer of 2004. In fact, that proposal was rejected by a pro-consolidation oriented panel of commissioners in less than 60 days, a world speed record in Washington regulatory terms.

Even Gizmodo gave up hope for the merger, saying:

After much speculation, it appears that the prophesized (sic) — and hoped for — union of XM and Sirius simply isn’t meant to be. At least, that’s what FCC Chairman Kevin Martin says, posturing that such a merger wouldn’t win approval under the FCC’s current rulebook, given that the regulations that brought both of them into business also forbid them from being owned by a single entity.

But today, flying in the face of every piece of news reporting, posturing and federal regulating, XM and Sirius threw caution to the wind and announced their engagement. They haven’t set a date yet, but both said they’d really love to have a fall wedding.

According to the official press release:

SIRIUS and XM to Combine in $13 Billion Merger of Equals - Provides Consumers with Enhanced Content, Greater Choices and Accelerated Technological Innovation - Enables Satellite Radio to Better Compete in Rapidly Evolving Audio Entertainment Industry - Extraordinary Value Creation for Shareholders - Mel Karmazin to Serve as Chief Executive Officer and Gary Parsons to Serve as Chairman of Combined Company

If you’re not a fan of poorly-constructed press release headlines, you can also get the joyous news from his side or her side.

And don’t worry about that nagging old FCC. Father of the groom-to-be, Karmazin says,

“We would not be announcing this if we did not think that we’d have approval.”

So there it is. It’s love. And you can’t fight love.

I’m still trying to decide how I feel about this thing. I have subscribed to both services: XM for about two years, and Sirius since Christmas. Both have great offerings, and in a lot of ways, they are very similar.

According to articles I’ve read, the costs involved in providing satellite radio are high for their respective owners, and the subscriber growth has been fairly slow. In many ways, the very competition that those FCC regulations are in place to protect is hurting both services. They’re constantly fighting rising operating expenses and battling each other for the same audience.

A merger makes sense for the two companies. They’d both be saving money, wouldn’t be undercutting each other for licensing rights and advertisers, and would be able to work cooperatively to provide a better experience for a (hopefully) growing subscriber base.

To me, the chance to have a unified service, likely with expanded programming and savings doesn’t sound like a bad thing. Maybe then I can get the stuff I like from Sirius with XM’s superior satellite antenna reception.

Obviously there are concerns about hardware, channels, subscriptions, and everything else. Do I have to buy another radio? Will I lose the channels I’ve come to love?

Who knows. Right now, I guess I’m optimistic. I’m a big fan of satellite radio, and I’ll be sticking with it regardless.

Oh, and I’ll tell you this: in my opinion, Xirius beats Brangelina any day of the week.

+ + +

*UPDATE: Read this article from Wired. It does a good job of putting the realities of this story in perspective.

In a news story that relates to more than one article we’ve posted lately, Australian technology company, CSIRO, has unveiled a shirt that turns air guitar into real guitar. Sort of.

The CSIRO Air Guitar is equipped with motion sensors that translate your arm movements into actual sounds that can be recorded and shared with others.

The air guitar works by recognising and interpreting arm movements and relaying this wirelessly to a computer for audio generation. There are no trailing cables to get in way or trip over.

Textile motion sensors embedded in the shirt sleeves detect motion when the arm bends - in most cases the left arm chooses a note and the right arm plays it.

Imagine going to a karaoke bar wearing your wireless guitar shirt. You step on stage, cue the man in the sound booth and then rock the house down Slayer-style with nothing but your own two hands. It’s honest-to-goodness technology that is bound to find applications everywhere from gaming to nightclubs.

You can watch videos of the CSIRO shirt in action from their website.

And in case you didn’t know it existed, you can check out the US Air Guitar Championships (and 2005 champ, The Rockness Monster) here.

[Thanks to Casey for the tip]

According to a survey by ABI Research, a majority of iPod owners who plan to purchase another MP3 player would consider buying a Microsoft Zune:

1725 teenage and adult US residents were asked whether they planned to buy an MP3 player in the next 12 months. Of those responding that they were likely to do so, 58% of those identifying themselves as existing iPod owners and 59% of those who owned other brands said they would be “somewhat likely” or “extremely likely” to choose a Microsoft Zune player over an iPod or another brand of MP3 player.

“Our conclusion,” says principal analyst Steve Wilson, “is that iPod users don’t display the same passionate loyalty to iPods that Macintosh users have historically shown for their Apple products.” Only 15% of iPod owners said they were “not very likely” or “not at all likely” to choose Zune.

I have to admit that the responses are a little surprising. Traditionally, Apple users are a loyal demographic. But seeing these results make it clear that iPod owners are not necessarily Apple loyalists; they are gadget enthusiasts.

As with the console war Microsoft is about to fight with SONY and Nintendo, there’s no way to know for sure how the market will receive a new competitor in a product line with an established giant. Certainly, one poll is no way to gauge the actual purchasing decisions buyers will make once the Zune is released - but it’s making Apple nervous.

To see the full research brief from ABI’s Microsoft’s Zune report, click here. There’s much more data in the full brief.