Stay in the zone with focus@will

Listening to music while working isn’t for everyone, but if done right, it is promised to help you work better. Or at least that is what the startup focus@will is promising. The music site wants to help you get into the “zone” and keep you working with music that isn’t going to distract you. There are more details on their site if you want to read more about the science behind it.

There are no ads on the site. What you get a three-week free trial period and after you can only listen for 100 minutes at a time or pay the monthly subscription fee of $3.99 for unlimited access.

Roku expands to Canada, announces availability of players in Best Buy and Future Shop

Roku just announced the availability of its popular streaming players—the Roku 2 XD and Roku 2 XS—at Best Buy and Future Shop stores around the country and online as well.

The Roku 2 XD offers you the best value for streaming video and music on TV, has built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, and supports 1080p HD video. The Roku 2 XS is the top-of-the-line version that has the XD's features but also comes with an enhanced remote with motion control, an Ethernet port, and a USB port. The players retail for $89.99 and $109.99, respectively.

Growth all around for Slacker

Touted as the "world’s most complete music service," Slacker proudly showed off its latest audience growth figures after the company's relaunch on February 13^th of this year. The redesign of the brand's digital music service provides access to millions of songs and hundreds of expert-crafted stations for free—whether on the web, using mobile devices, and even in the car.

They had over six million new listeners, with 3.5 million on mobile and over 100,000 new paid subscribers. Average listening time has increased by 25 percent and it is being installed on more than three times as many iOS devices. It also has consistently ranked in the top three grossing apps of the App Store Top Grossing Chart. Find out more about Slacker or give the service a try over here.

Review: Rdio streaming music service

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

A few weeks ago during a Telus event, we met some folks for Rdio, a streaming music service with over 7,000,000 songs. Rdio is available as a website and also has clients for the iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone mobile devices, which can play streaming music or cache songs for offline playback. There are also clients for the Roku and Sonos systems. The web-based service also offers a native desktop client app for Mac OS X and Windows.

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