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Sonos announced an upgrade to their digital music system that allows its users to access the Rhapsody music subscription service directly from the Sonos Digital Music System, using its large, color remote control (with scrollwheel). You can now sit on your couch while browsing playlists, searching for artists, and doing most of what you can do with Rhapsody on a computer – the most impressive, to me, being the ability to tag songs for addition to your Rhapsody music collection.
This last feature means you can skip through all sorts of Rhapsody- and user-generated playlists as entertainment in and of itself, but also as a method of adding new music to your own library. It's probably the easiest and most seamless method for discovering and acquiring digital music available today (not to mention casually pumping any of about 2.5 million songs into one or more rooms in your house for a low monthly fee).
I saw this system in action a few days ago, and it worked really well. Surprisingly, you don't even need to have your computer turned on at all, unlike the units out there that can only stream music from a computer, because the Sonos connects directly to the service, thanks to an API from Rhapsody.
Existing Sonos customers can download a free firmware upgrade to add these capabilities (and get a free 30-day trial of Rhapsody), and the system works with Mac, Windows, and Linux. However, the service is only available in the U.S.
The least expensive Sonos configuration costs $650 (for a ZonePlayer 80 and a remote control), but considering its easy functionality, well-designed remote, and awesomely tight integration with Rhapsody, I'd say it's worth it.
Here's more information on Sonos 2.0; various configurations listed here.
