Pandora Radio, the personalized internet radio service that has remained among the most popular iPhone apps on the iTunes App Store since its inception in July (and that I’ve previously called the iPhone’s killer app), will be releasing its most significant update yet later today. Dubbed Pandora 2.0, the application will now include artist biographies, streaming samples for songs you’ve bookmarked, and perhaps most notably, the ability to create a station using a single song (much as you would using the iTunes Genius features). Other features in the new release include a CoverFlow-like view for song history, the ability to share stations with friends using Email, and a song progress bar (which has long been annoyingly absent).

Pandora has been around for years, offering a very powerful music recommendation engine powered by The Music Genome, which employees professional musicians to describe each song using over 150 attribute (or “genes”).

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

12 inch Netbooks are coming. Dell has the Inspiron Mini 12, Samsung will unveil its 12 inch netbook model to the U.S. shortly, and more are coming. And Intel isn’t happy about this at all.

In fact, the whole Netbook market may be making them nervous. Despite the fact that they power most of these devices with their new Atom chip that handles some PC chores well and uses a lot less power (so batteries are smaller and last longer). Intel sees Netbooks as devices for people who can’t afford normal laptops, or as second devices. But it’s clear that a lot of people are buying them instead of normal dual core machines, despite their very serious limitations.

That means that for the most part, every Netbook sold is one less Dual Core that Intel can sell at a higher price and higher margin. Which explains exactly why the company has been publicly criticizing the performance of the machines. “If you’ve ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size–it’s fine for an hour. It’s not something you’re going to use day in and day out,” said Intel VP Stu Pann at an event last year.

Intel also wants to keep Netbooks at 10 inches or less. Some PC companies we’ve spoken with say that Intel doesn’t want Atom chips in devices bigger than 10 inches, and puts incredible pressure on them to keep Netbooks at 10 inches or less. Dell’s Inspiron uses an Atom chip anyway, but Samsung is using Via’s competitive (and less expensive) chip, the Nano.

We asked Intel if they forbid manufacturers to build Netbooks with larger than 10 inch screens, which is what those manufacturers are telling us (Dell notwithstanding). Their answer: “Intel defines a netbook as a 10″ or smaller screen size. We recommend that OEMs and netbook manufacturers use that guideline as well in order to get the best user experience.”

That’s a nice statement but it’s complete rubbish. There is no performance loss with a 12 inch screen v. a smaller screen (other than power usage). A 12 inch Netbook is just as fast or as slow as a 10 inch one. The only difference is that the user is even less likely to buy a low end laptop with a dual core.

Netbooks are clearly here to stay, and the new models with larger screens and larger keyboards solve two of the three problems I have with them (the last issue is Vista and XP, which runs poorly on these devices, but people are fixing that problem, too).

We’ll soon see 13 inch and larger Netbooks, despite the pressure Intel is putting on manufacturers to keep them at 10 inches. Intel may not agree to have their chips in these devices, but Via, with their excellent Nano competitor, seems more than willing to fill the void.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

MixedInk, a document editing site that allows large groups to democratically create a single collaborative document, has launched its service to the public. The service fuses concepts from Digg and popular wiki sites to create a unique document creation tool that is ideal for groups far larger than you’d normally encounter in the workplace. In conjunction with today’s public launch, the site has also partnered with Slate to create a community-written inauguration speech for President Obama, which will be published on the site in two weeks.

While there are quite a few collaborative document services available (including Google Docs, Zoho, and the just-announced new version of iWork), most of these services focus on letting a small group of people interact. Unfortunately, these services are clumsy for large-scale collaboration with groups of more than a dozen or so people, as it becomes difficult to reach a consensus and certain sections are repeatedly overwritten.

MixedInk is taking a different approach to collaboration, allowing users to draft their documents using a Digg-like voting system. Instead of constantly editing the same document, users are invited to submit their own versions, which can then be voted on and rated by their peers. As they they read drafts submitted by others, users can mouse-over the passages they like most and incorporate them into their own submissions (the system will also suggest popular passages as you write using keyword detection). Over time, the most popular passages and versions float to the top until the entire group is satisfied and voting ends.

MixedInk probably won’t be useful for small groups (it would probably be easier to pick up a phone), but for larger scale initiatives it could become a great alternative to traditional Wiki systems, which often use confusing versioning systems. The system has already been put to the test on some very large-scale documents: over the summer the technology was used by the Netroots community to write its platform.

The service is available for free to users who create documents on MixedInk’s site, with a premium version available for branded enterprise solutions and possible integration into other sites.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Nearly two years ago, Steve Jobs published an open letter to the music industry calling for the death of DRM (digital rights management). He convinced EMI to ditch DRM back in April, 2007, but the three other major music labels held out. Until today. Now all the songs on iTunes are DRM-free, or soon will be.

And, with that, the DRM era of digital music finally can be put to rest. (Amazon’s MP3 store has been selling DRM-free tracks from all the major labels for a year now already). The labels were likely holding out for other concessions from Apple, such as variable pricing (which they got), and the Apple also thankfully convinced them to sell songs over cellular data networks to iPhones for the same price as they could get them on their computers.

But it looks like the labels prevailed in sticking it to consumers on one last point. Anyone who wants to upgrade their entire existing iTunes Library to DRM-free versions of the same songs, can conveniently do so with one click. But it is going to cost you 30 cents a track to do so. That’s right, you have to pay again for songs you already bought. Let’s see, 6 billion songs X 30 cents = $1.8 billion in potential upgrade fees. That’s a music tax, plain and simple. No wonder the music companies finally relented.

It still won’t save them.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Artiklz is debuting its conversation search engine to the public today, and it’s definitely worth taking a look. What the service does is aggregate comments from the more popular blogging and commenting platforms as well as a number of services including Digg, Reddit, FriendFeed, Delicious, etc. and make them available through a single search engine.

This is very similar to what companies like Crunchies finalist BackType and also uberVU are all about, and I definitely see the need for this type of service: regardless of one’s interests or line of work, dedicated comment search engines make it easy for users to find out what the content and tone of conversations across social media really are. I like the fact that you no longer need to visit every web service that has comments separately in order to find out what’s being said, but that you can go to a single place, do a simple search and find out.

Artiklz also helps center discussion about your blog posts in one location, enabling you to get notifications by e-mail, SMS, IM or a web interface, whenever a new comment is made about your writings on any given service. You can also add a badge to your blog that gives your readers the option to be notified when you post a new article, or when somebody leaves a comment on a given post, and you can even track a specific individual’s comments.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0