They’re calling the project NEW!, and it promises to focus on unsigned acts as well as recent record label signings, and will feature new music from popular genres including CHR/Top 40, rock, urban, country and adult contemporary.

Here’s the game plan: Selected each quarter by label reps experienced in working with new artists, 16 recently signed acts called “featured artists” will have an artist-produced “home video,” five streaming tracks and a link to their Web pages. Labels already on board for the project are Atlantic, Capitol, Columbia, Def Jam, Lava, Manhattan, RMG, Rounder, Sony BMG, Virgin, Warner Bros. and Wind-Up. Additional signed acts will get one streaming track, a photo, bio and a Web link.

Meanwhile, the unsigned acts will be made up of 50 GarageBand.com artists, which will also have five streaming tracks as well as a bio, photo and a link going back to GarageBand.com that will provide more information about the acts.

For years, radio stations have been accused of ignoring new artists, signed or unsigned, in favor of proven talent. For the newly signed artists this represents a chance to rise above the static and actually be heard. For unsigned acts, the fact that the largest radio chain in the free world is co-partnering to promote these artists through its individual station Web sites will give a much needed power surge to the thousands of bands and artists that only need a sympathetic pair of ears in the right place to help them take that first giant step toward quitting their day jobs.

“The Internet has emerged as an important way for music fans to discover new music and NEW! is a tremendous opportunity for both newly signed and unsigned artists to reach millions of music fans,” said Evan Harrison, executive VP of Clear Channel Radio and head of the company’s Online Music & Radio unit. “With hundreds of songs available on demand, NEW! presents the ultimate new-music jukebox.”

A little more than a week out of the box and Apple’s iPod-like phone is hardly receiving the raves the iPod brand is known for. In fact, judging by the reviews, this may be the first time the runner known as Apple has stumbled in the marathon race that is the digital music biz.

On September 14th, Apple unveiled two new products – ROKR, which is an iTunes compatible phone manufactured by Motorola, and the iPod Nano, a flash memory-based music player that is being touted as a replacement for the iPod Mini.

For the most part, it’s the ROKR that’s getting no respect. Apparently, even Apple isn’t that crazy about it, for The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out that the unit occupies significantly less space on the computer company’s home page than the Nano. Furthermore, while The Journal described the ROKR as “OK,” it also said the phone, along with two competing music phones the newspaper tested, failed to match either the “style or the functionality of the iPod.” The newspaper said none of the phones managed to live up to the “full potential of what a combined cell phone and music player could be.”

While the ROKR does work with iTunes, you can’t download music directly from the music store to the phone. Instead, just like iPods, you must first download the tracks to a computer and then port them to the player/phone. Other iPod features missing from the ROKR include the now-familiar click wheel. Instead, you get a minuscule joystick that makes a pencil’s eraser look gigantic.

Plus, there’s that annoying facet concerning the phone’s memory. No matter if you want to load the phone with thousands of two-minute punk tunes, or fill it up with lengthy song cycles by Pink Floyd, the ROKR will hold only 100 songs. While Apple hasn’t yet explained the 100 song limit, The Journal speculates that the limit is intentional, and was implemented by Apple to ensure that the ROKR would not cut into iPod sales.

However, there are a few advantages to having a ROKR. Well, maybe a couple. First of all, like similar phones on the market, you can reduce your number of traveling gadgets by combining music and wireless communications into one small package. Second, the ROKR can be synced to iTunes through your computer, making updating as easy as updating an iPod. For iPod vets, moving up to a ROKR may seem like the next logical – if somewhat clumsy – step.

Meanwhile, the Nano is getting a warm reception, mostly because of its size – it’s about 62 percent smaller than the iPod Mini – and battery life, which lasts about 14 hours between charges.

Unlike previous iPod rollouts, this time it looks as if Apple is batting .500 instead of a thousand. While the Nano has gained almost instant acceptance, it looks as if the ROKR may not be the phone / music player that people were expecting from Apple. Could this be the “wrong number” Apple’s competitors have been hoping for?

If you were into computers back in the old days, specifically anytime from 1989 to the early 1990s, there were at least two programs that you just had to have.

One was Quicken, the software that’s virtually synonymous with managing home finances.

And the other? You couldn’t write with it, nor could you balance a checkbook or publish a newsletter with it. In fact, when you get right down to it, the program didn’t actually do much, other than one spectacular thing.

It made toasters fly.

As more and more consumers realized the advantages of having computers in the home, the After Dark screensaver series became so popular that one would almost have expected Hollywood to make a movie based on the concept. Conceived in a moment of breakfast brilliance by physicist Dr. Jack Eastman, the After Dark series eventually included screensavers starring flying toilets as well as a “bad dog” digging up your desktop.

Now you can immerse yourself in nostalgia at ScreenSavers.com which is currently featuring the After Dark series, one screensaver at a time. You can download an option-restricted demo of the original flying toasters screensaver for free, or purchase a fully enabled version for $9.95.

Probably one of the more amazing factoids regarding the popularity of the After Dark series is that it became a bestseller at a time when the actual need for screensavers was diminishing. While older monitors were infamous for screen burn, meaning that a still image such as a spreadsheet or word processing document could literally burn itself into the screen, the monitors introduced in the early ‘90s featuring faster refresh rates weren’t as susceptible to burns. No matter; as monitors improved, so did sales.

“Although screensavers might have been invented to prevent phosphor burn, a big part of what made After Dark so popular is that it was one of the first applications to try to make computers a bit more fun,” ScreenSavers.com GM Dan Smith told Pollstar. “So, although the need to prevent phosphor burn might be gone, I think the need to have some personalization on your desktop is still very much still there.”

Smith also said that, while the After Dark series was one of the most requested screensavers at his company’s site, other savers, from waterfalls to celebrities, also are extremely popular.

“People aren’t downloading them to protect their computers as much as they are downloading them to express themselves and customize their machines to their own affinity,” Smith said.