I thought that Microsoft’s Zune HD would be the first portable HD Radio unit for sale, but it wasn’t meant to be. Electronics retailer Best Buy won the race that nobody is watching. Actually, at least one person was watching. Dave Zatz hopped over to his local Best Buy and dropped $50 to get an HD Radio for totable tunes. He bought an Insignia model, which is the “house brand” for Best Buy.

At $50, the NS-HD01 is more of a bare-bones device than a high-end portable. There’s no AC adapter included, for example. To charge the device, you connect it to a computer with the included USB cable. The included earbuds aren’t the highest quality, either. Using a set of third-party headphones might be hit or miss as well, based on Dave’s tests. He had to position the headphone jack just right in order for it to make the proper stereo connection. However, there is a nice armband included, making this a nice unit to accompany you during exercise.

Although I’m tempted, at $50, for higher-quality sound and a greater number of digital radio stations, I’m going to pass. If I could track my running activities with the NS-ND01, like I can with my iPhone, then maybe I’d drop the coin. For now, I’ll let Dave enjoy this one solo.

HD Radio has always appealed to me, but I’m thinking the opportunity for it is passing. I realize not everyone wants to carry a phone or a digital audio player with pre-loaded music, but there are so many other options today: Slacker, Pandora, and even satellite radio. More vehicles are getting configured with easy-to-use auxiliary jacks, USB ports and Bluetooth, too. Is it too late for HD Radio to become a major player?

So maybe you’re not ready for a web-based operating system but you still like to flit from computer to computer. That’s great for hitting up the web but not always so great for playing media files. Sure, if you’re sticking with Flash-based vids or a common file format, you’re likely in the clear. But you can’t expect every major codec installed on every PC you come across, can you? Lifehacker says that with VLC Media Player Portable, you don’t have to.

The highly flexible media application is part of the Portable Apps suite, which means you can carry VLC on a flash drive in your pocket. The download is 20MB, but will only take up to 37MB on your flash drive. The portable version has may of the same features as the latest desktop version and supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg and many other media formats.

I use Pandora almost every day to stream music to my computer while I work. I sometimes use it on the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3G too. I love the steady stream of music it feeds me that always seems to be music I like. It’s kind of like a psychic radio station that knows exactly the music I will enjoy. I have been concerned for a while that the battle over music royalties would put Pandora out of business, but the good word today is an agreement has been reached between web broadcasters and the music business.

According to ReadWriteWeb, Pandora and other web radio companies will have to give the music industry 25% of their revenue as royalties for the artists and labels, per the new agreement. That sounds awfully high to me but according to the CEO of Pandora, Tim Westergren, that royalty is low enough to keep them operating.

Pandora has both a free version and a paid version (Pandora One) of the streaming service and this new royalty will result in a change in the free version. Heavy users of the free version of Pandora will have to kick in $0.99 for the remainder of any month in which they hit 40 hours of streaming music. That sounds pretty reasonable to me and heavy users should consider the paid version anyway to help them stay afloat.

One of the benefits of working for the GigaOM Network is gaining exposure to a lot of great resources. The recently launched GigaOM Pro is a major source of information that touches on a lot of what we do. GigaOM Pro has published a technical report (subscription required) that delves into the impact that speech technology can have for mobile uses such as those performed on a phone. I have long been an advocate of speech recognition, and I believe it can play a part in creating a natural interface for working with computers. Speaking your mind takes on a special meaning when it’s done in order to interact with a computer. That interaction can benefit when applied to the mobile phone, perhaps even more so than with speech-enabled computers.

The mobile phone is a personal device that has become ingrained in most everything we do in our lives. It is a device that is designed from the ground up to work with speech, and it makes great sense that a proper interface revolving around speech technology could be a huge benefit.

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Nuance is now offering TALKS&ZOOMS v4 for Symbian S60 handsets. The software is geared for blind or visually impaired mobile phone owners. Using Nuance’s text-to-speech technology, TALKS&ZOOMS can read aloud contact info, CallerID data, text messages, help files, web pages and other information.

The speech engine also integrates with Wayfinder Access, a navigation application, as well as Quickword, which can read or add edits to email documents and their attachments. The software is available as a limited, free trial, but it appears that purchases go through specialized dealers. Since this is a unique solution, it’s not cheap. The one dealer I looked at sells the software for $295. Then again, it’s probably worth any price for an excellent mobile text-to-speech app on handsets.

Last week, I was at my ex-wife’s house and she needed help moving music from a PC to a Mac. I walked her through how to move an iTunes library and noted that she planned to move it through physical media. Like so many others these days, she has a wireless network in the home, so it was just as easy to move the data over the air. She didn’t realize that her Mac and PC could talk to each other, which I suspect is also common — not to our tech-savvy regular readers, but the population at large.

The experience coincided nicely with Mike Wolf’s piece asking if Sonos will ever be the next big thing. Mike looks at why consumers aren’t adopting a streaming solution in the home and concludes two reasons: the economy and alternatives. I have no doubt the economy is holding back tech purchases for some. I also agree that consumers go for easy solutions like iPod docks instead of more elegant solutions like Sonos, which I love, by the way. You can see how much in this video.

I’d argue there’s a third reason.

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Hands-free communications is becoming more important these days. Many places are creating, or have already passed, hands-free laws that make it illegal to hold the phone and talk while driving. BlackBerry recently introduced a Bluetooth speakerphone solution to compete with the many third-party options on the market. The Visor Mount Speakerphone VM-605 adds more than simple hands-free conversation, though.

The $99 device also streams wireless music from your BlackBerry through your vehicle’s speaker system. I’m curious how the audio quality of that function is since the VM-605 acts as a wireless bridge using two different technologies. The device clearly accepts the audio from your handset using the Bluetooth A2DP profile, but then pipes it to your speakers through an integrated FM modulator. I’d have to hear that to gauge the quality. As if that weren’t enough, the VM-605 also works with select third-party GPS mapping applications. Deets are scarce on that bit, but I gather that you can speak your mapping request and/or the device will pipe turn-by-turn directions through your vehicle speakers.

The device isn’t much bigger than a handset and includes an 1100mAh battery, so there’s no need to have a power wire hanging down from the visor.

Late last night, I realized I hadn’t follow my normal web routine that day. One of the first sites I hit every day of the week is the Amazon MP3 store. Why? Two reasons. First, they offer a new MP3 album on the cheap, for anywhere from 99 cents to $3.99. It’s a great way to build a music collection on a budget. Second, I’m expanding my musical horizons by previewing genres and artists I’d never listen to otherwise. Even if I don’t buy an album, I’m at least exposing myself to different types of music.

So anyway, it was nearly bedtime when I realized I missed out on my daily dose of DRM-free music. My Palm Pre was already in my pocket, so I fired up the Amazon MP3 application. Unfortunately, the MP3 du jour isn’t prominently featured on the small screen. I’d love to see an update to make that happen soon.

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Thinking about a set of Bluetooth Stereo headphones for your mobile handset with A2DP support? I don’t blame you. I really enjoy listening to wireless stereo music on my Palm Pre with the Altec Lansing BackBeat 903 headset. Those got me to sing and dance, but the exact same headset on an iPhone 3G has Sascha Segan singing a different tune.

In his review of the iPhone 3.0 software on PCMag.com, I noticed this tidbit about using the very same Altec Lansing’s on an iPhone 3G with the latest firmware:

“One new feature, stereo Bluetooth, bombs. Music on our Altec Lansing BackBeat headphones was so full of hisses and distortion it was laughable—almost as if Apple was saying, “This is why we hate stereo Bluetooth.” The headphones weren’t the problem, as the same music files sounded much better on a BlackBerry Storm.”

On the other hand, James is thoroughly enjoying the new AD2P support using his Plantronics Pulsar 590E headphones. So what gives?

If I were in the market for pair of Bluetooth stereo headphones, I think I’d be looking for reviews and tests of it with my particular handset. I wouldn’t think that different combinations would produce different results, since A2DP is profile of a wireless specification, but obviously there’s some hiss-tory of differing results.

Well, that 32 GB iPhone 3G S is arriving tomorrow, which will hold all of my music and then some. Now I can finally take every tune with me when I run. Yes, I admit the sacrilege: I run with my iPhone…miles at a time. A smaller, flash-based digital audio player would probably better suit my lifestyle, but I take advantage of device convergence when it makes sense. So the larger iPhone solves all of my problems, right? Wrong…I really need to make some playlists based on the BPM, or Beats Per Minute.

Lifehacker must have sensed my immediate need because they mentioned the free MixMeister BPM Analyzer for Windows and Mac today. The software is really meant for the DJ scene, but BPM means the same to DJs and runners, so I grabbed it. You just drop tracks or whole folders in and the software will analyze the music to figure the BPM. I have one or two iTunes DRM-protected albums and it didn’t work on those, but all of my other music looks supported. MixMeister updates the ID3 tags of the files, too, although I had to do a “Get Info” on my music files to see the change take place. That feature should help me make a few smart playlists for various workouts. After this, I might have to splurge for one of the Nike+ sensors for tracking data since the new iPhone supports it. Wow, the hardest part of my workout will just be the running part after all this tech.