Venture capital is flowing once again to startups at a steady pace. During the first quarter of 2010, the total value of venture funding doubled to $12.8 billion from $6 billion a year before, when it was scraping the bottom of the barrel. However, the funding amount is down 16 percent from the $15.3 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, based on an analysis of CrunchBase data.
Some of… → Read More
Sonos has now confirmed the Index Ventures investment we reported two days ago. The company has taken an additional $25 million in capital from Index, raising the total raised by the company to $65 million. And Index Ventures Partner Mike Volpi, a former CIsco executive, has joined their board of directors.
The funds will be used for growth equity, says the company, which signals that they are… → Read More
Sonos, the Santa Barbara, California based startup that develops of wireless multi-room music systems, is taking a new round of financing from London-based Index Ventures, we’ve heard from multiple sources. Partner Mike Volpi, a forcer Cisco exec who found himself in the middle of a huge drama last year around eBay’s Skype spinoff, will join the board of directors of Sonos.
Volpi will bring real… → Read More
If you’re familiar with the Sonos system, then there isn’t too much news here. In fact, there’s not too much news even if you don’t know what Sonos does. Let me break it down for you: the Sonos system is a nice, comprehensive wireless music system for your house that you can control via your iPhone. If you haven’t heard of it before and you’re wondering how to get your music collection to various… → Read More
What we have here is the Sonos CR200 controller that was leaked a couple weeks back. By now, I’d imagine most of the CG audience is familiar with Sonos and what they’re all about, so I don’t really need to dive into that. All you really need to know about the CR200 is that it features a 3.5-inch capacitive VGA touch-screen and has a kickass keyboard. Just check out the video to see what it’s… → Read More
Boy oh boy did I love reviewing the Sonos Bundle 150. The Sonos multi-room home audio solution is superb. One wart to the system was the controller: the scrollwheel was a little cumbersome for some actions, not to mention outrageously expensive as a stand-alone component. Looks like a new touch-screen controller is due out soon, though, which should remove one complaint from my review. Or you can… → Read More
Unless you’re down to hobble your own crazy homebrew set-up, tinkering with wireless audio systems is a damned expensive hobby. Everytime I read about these products, I imagine some rich old dude tango’ing himself around his mansion with a rose in his teeth and an air-partner in his arms.
Linksys’ just announced “Wireless Home Audio System” is an obvious attempt at a shot across Sonos‘ bow … → Read More
We’ve reviewed a lot of home audio solutions, and they all offer different benefits and drawbacks. The big trend is “music everywhere”, whether through powerline networking or wirelessly. Most of these products require a specific music source to feed into the system. Sonos brings something rather more complete to the goal of “music everywhere”. Read on for the… → Read More
Those of you with Sonos equipment already filling your abode with the sweet tunes of your music library and an iPhone or iPod Touch should promptly hit up Apple’s App Store and download their free app now. It may or may not be available right this second, but it should make its way to the App Store sometime today. There are two other Sonos apps currently available but they want you to pay $15… → Read More
I think what they’re trying to say in this video is that the new Sonos CR100 remote is completely water proof which means you can can leave it by the pool next to that bottle of Jack Daniels without worrying that your “house guests” might drop it into the deep end. Note: you can probably stop watching this at about the 2 minute mark. → Read More
Sonos just announced smaller receivers and players. The ZP120 – with amp – is 43 percent smaller and the ZP50 – without amp – is a standard receiver. Both use MIMO for increased range and link quality. If you’re familiar with the current Sonos line-up you’ll be doubly impressed by the size of these little buggers. The entire kit, along with the LCD-based remote… → Read More
Sonos, makers of everybody’s favorite way to stream music throughout your house, has announced a partnership with Sirius. The deal: Beginning today, if you’ve got Sonos’ Zoneplayer hardware, you can download software that lets you stream 80 channels of the satellite stuff–including Howard Stern and the NFL. It’ll be free for 30 days, after which point it’ll ring… → Read More
This week: Computers, set-top boxes (like AppleTV), and AV receivers are battling to be your household hub, streaming music and movies back and forth across your pad until you become sterile and glow in the dark. All this gear is versatile, but it’s hard to know which one to pick — especially when hefty sums of money are involved. Sonos and now Denon seem to have the most promising… → Read More
Sonos is busy this week. After announcing Phil Abram as its new president and COO, the Santa Barbara based company has announced an arrangement to offer its wireless music boxes in Best Buy stores. The Sonos BU130 is available today in more than 440 stores and will be featured in more than 600 stores by the end of 2007. It will be showcased with a live, interactive multi-zone display. → Read More
Sonos has announced the installation of Phil Abram as its new president and chief operating officer. He comes fresh off an 11 year stint at Sony where he held a number of strategic management roles, the most recent being vice president and senior general manager of television products. The move could signal a significant strengthening of the core for Sonos, who, to date, has released superb… → Read More
Sonos today announced the availability of the $999 Bundle 130 (BU130). The bundle includes one Sonos ZonePlayer 80 (ZP80), one ZonePlayer 100 (ZP100) and one Controller 100 (CR100). The package will allow users to wirelessly stream music to two rooms and control it remotely using the awesome controller. Users can also opt to include a Loudspeaker 100, bringing the package total to $1,149. Previous… → Read More
Pandora, the U.S.’s favorite streaming music service, just launched two new products, Pandora for Sprint and Pandora for Sonos. → Read More
Music streaming service Pandora has had its ups and downs over the last two years since launching. People love to listen to their personalized radio stations that get more and more tailored as you tell it what you like and don’t like. But recent changes to the royalty rates they must pay the RIAA for playing music over the Internet will be going up drastically in the coming years. And… → Read More
Later today Sonos will announce that their home music devices will now support Microsoft DRM’d music. That means music from AOL Music Now, MTV Networks’ URGE, Napster, Wal-Mart, Yahoo! Music and the Zune Marketplace will all play on the Sonos devices. Users have been able to play music from Rhapsody since September – meaning that all major music services except iTunes are now… → Read More
The word “audiophile” gets bandied about so much that it seems in danger of losing its true meaning as a descriptor for a grade of products that is of such high quality that most of us can’t hope to afford then. But this year saw quite a few items blurring the line between audiophile and consumer audio, as higher-end components are finding their ways into almost-affordable products. The… → Read More
SanDisk, makers of the Sansa players, and RealNetworks, makers of the Rhapsody music store, are teaming up together to ensure their hardware and content work seamlessly together. Before now, the only player to work bundled with a single music store was the Apple iPod. It was this synergy, among various other things, that allows the iPod to become the de-facto champ of portable music players and… → Read More
Streaming music and video could finally invade the living rooms of mainstream America next year. With Apple’s iTV vaporware device coming to light early, it sort of sets the stage for all kinds of digital fun. → Read More
Sonos today announced that the latest version of their home music devices now support streaming music from Rhapsody. We have previously written about Sonos and a couple of weeks ago we spent some time with the two founders of the company talking about the future direction of the company, what their plans are and getting insight into this latest release. As we previously mentioned, Sonos is one of… → Read More
I’ve spent the weekend setting up and using a Sonos music system in my house. Sonos sells hardware that connects to your home network to play digital music and internet radio stations (and also Rhapsody) around your house. Each piece of hardware is a separate zone, so different music can be played in different areas of your house, all controlled by a single wireless hand held device. → Read More
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