It’s a free radio service with over 200 stations, and a catalog of music drawing from the iTunes Store. People can listen to stations, then download songs if they they like them.

You will be able to use iTunes Radio from an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, PC or Apple TV. It will include stations inspired by stuff you’ve already listened to, as well as stations curated by Apple and personalized genre-focused stations. You will also be able to create stations based on specific songs.

“The more you use iTunes Radio and iTunes, the more it knows what you like to listen to and the more personalized your experience becomes,” the company explains.

“iTunes Radio is an incredible way to listen to personalized radio stations which have been created just for you,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “It’s the music you love most and the music you’re going to love, and you can easily buy it from the iTunes Store with just one click.”

As an added bonus, it will give you exclusive premieres from top-selling artists. It will also host special events like live streams from the iTunes Festival and other exclusive iTunes sessions.

And of course, it includes Siri integration (Siri has some new features of its own).

Apple explains, “Let Siri make your listening experience even more fun. Ask Siri ‘Who plays that song?’ or ‘Play more like this’ and Siri will make it happen. Say something like ‘Play Jazz Radio’ or ask for any of your existing favorite stations and genres. Shape your stations by telling Siri what you like and don’t like, or tell Siri to pause, stop or skip. You can also have Siri add songs to your Wish List to download later.”

iTunes Radio is ad-supported and free. If you’re an iTunes Match user, you’ll get it for free without the ads.

It’s currently available to stream, for free, on iTunes, a week ahead of its launch.

Random Access Memories, one of the most highly-anticipated albums in recent memory, is the fourth studio album from the French duo.

Using this link, you can access the free stream on the album’s official iTunes page. The page says that you can stream it “for a limited time” – no word on just how long that is. You can also pre-order it for $11.99.

The iTunes stream has been giving some people some issues, so if you find yourself in that unfortunate predicament, it’s up on Grooveshark as well.

UPDATE: We’re all smiles.

UPDATE 2: Forget the dance party thing, for the most part. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Starting now, users will be given an option to download purchased content later.

When you purchase something, let’s say a TV season, you’ll be prompted with a “Download Now?” dialogue box. From there, you’ll be given the option to download now or save it for later. if you choose “later,” the content will be accessible to download any time in the future via the cloud.

The new download option will affect purchases of TV seasons, Season Pass, movie bundles, music box sets, or individual movies or TV episodes using iTunes 11 or iOS 6 or later.

It’s not a huge update, but it’s significant. Let’s say you think of something that you want to buy, you buy it, but then you don’t really have the connection to attempt a massive download. This feature could be incredibly useful for those who make a habit of downloading big packages.

Of course, the new download later option is only available for users who live in places where Apple supports iTunes in the cloud.

[Apple Support via MacWorld]

Ella Fitzgerald’s version of “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” topped the UK jazz chart:

Judy Garland’s version of the song also tops the Soundtrack Songs chart:

The song has generated a great deal of controversy in the UK, as Politics.co.uk reports:

MPs are demanding the BBC back down over plans to play the song Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead on the official singles chart this weekend, after a concerted campaign to make it number one.

The Judy Garland song has been seized on by opponents of Margaret Thatcher to celebrate her death from a stroke earlier this week and it has already sold 20,000 copies since Monday.

Thatcher’s divisive politics are well known, but obviously many find this all offensive and very disrespectful.

When asked about why iTunes content appears to be ranking less well in search results these days, Google told Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land:

We’ve been having some issues fetching pages from the iTunes web servers, and as a result some people may have had problems finding iTunes apps in search easily. We’re working with the team there to ensure search users can find what they’re looking for.

Matt Cutts has also been talking about it on Twitter:

Follow @OurielOhayon

Ouriel Ohayon
@OurielOhayon

iTunes URL lost in Google anyone? http://t.co/4MVFSHaXOP

Follow @mattcutts

Matt Cutts
@mattcutts

@OurielOhayon I assume you saw http://t.co/9wSh40FUw3 ? The iTunes web servers were sending lots of 403s when fetching from certain IPs.

Follow @mattcutts

Matt Cutts
@mattcutts

@OurielOhayon in other words, it wasn’t anything on our side.

Follow @OurielOhayon

Ouriel Ohayon
@OurielOhayon

@mattcutts thanks Matt. Actually I was not assuming any scenario. Just observing the changes. Hope you ll fix it soon ?

Follow @mattcutts

Matt Cutts
@mattcutts

@OurielOhayon I have high hopes, but this is the expected behavior when a web server returns 403 HTTP status code to Googlebot.

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
8 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Actually, this is only the first volume, indicating that more will be on the way. The track listing is as follows:

1. Jamie N Commons – “Lead Me Home”
2. Bear McCreary – “Main Title Theme Song” (UNKLE Remix)
3. Voxhaul Broadcast – “You Are The Wilderness”
4. Baby Bee – “Love Bug”
5. Fink – “Warm Shadow” (Dactyl Remix)
6. Of Monsters And Men – “Sinking Man”
7. Emily Kinney and Lauren Cohan (Beth & Maggie Greene)- “The Parting Glass”
8. Delta Spirit – “Running”

“Already, three incendiary tracks from the album have been released: Emily Kinney and Lauren Cohan’s powerful folk elegy ‘The Parting Glass,’ Baby Bee’s guitar-heavy zombie blues jam ‘Love Bug,’ and Jamie N Commons’ soulful ‘Lead Me Home’,” AMC says in a blog post. “The full compilation includes previously unreleased material like ‘Sinking Man’ from multiplatinum-selling Icelandic alternative folk sensation Of Monsters and Men, an UNKLE remix of composer Bear McCreary’s ‘Main Title Theme Song,’ Delta Spirit’s ‘Running’ and more. Just like the show, the soundtrack remains a dynamic powerhouse replete with unforgettable moments.”

The soundtrack will hit stores on Tuesday, March 19.

More The Walking Dead fun here.

“It’s inspiring to see what educators and students of all types are doing with iTunes U,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “With the incredible content offered on iTunes U, students can learn like never before―there are now iTunes U courses with more than 250,000 students enrolled in them, which is a phenomenal shift in the way we teach and learn.”

According to Apple, iTunes U currently caters to over 1,200 colleges and universities as well as 1,200 K-12 schools. In all, iTunes U offers more than 2,500 public courses, and “thousands” (unspecific) of smaller private ones.

iTunes U courses can be created in 30 countries, and are accessible in 155. Although Apple touts strong interest in the U.S. (a single Ohio State chemistry course enrolling 100,000 in just one year) over 60% of iTunes U app downloads come from an international audience.

According to Apple, the 25 billionth song was “Monkey Drums” (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch, and was downloaded by a guy named Phillip Lüpke from Germany. For this distinctive honor, Lüpke will receive an iTunes gift card worth €10,000.

This isn’t the first time Apple has given out a big prize when they hit a milestone. Back in March of 2012, Apple’s App Store hit 25 billion downloads and the company gave a Chinese man a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

“We are grateful to our users whose passion for music over the past 10 years has made iTunes the number one music retailer in the world,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “Averaging over 15,000 songs downloaded per minute, the iTunes Store connects music fans with their favorite artists, including global sensations like Adele and Coldplay and new artists like The Lumineers, on a scale we never imagined possible.”

The iTunes catalog features over 26 million songs and is available in 119 countries.

Take a look:

The app uses natural language voice search first and foremost, but includes a keyboard input option. Right now, it only works in English and understands a few types of questions pertaining to places, music and news. It utilizes speech recognition and text-to-speech technology from Nuance Communications. Here are some examples Yandex provides for the types of questions it works for:

- If you are looking for a proven sushi place in New York, you can just ask: what sushi restaurants do my friends go to in New York?

- Want to catch up on news, ask: news shared by my friends.

Wonder’s launch comes at an interesting time, amidst a slow roll-out of Facebook’s own attempt at social search. Of course this is a mobile app, and Facebook’s launch does not include mobile (though that will come in time). It’s unclear whether or not Yandex intends to release Wonder on Android.

If you buy an iTunes Season Pass for the show, you’ll receive the last three episodes of season three on January 29th, weeks before they air in the U.S. Downton Abbey season three has already completed its run in the U.K., having aired its eighth episode on November 4th, 2012 and its annual Christmas Special on December 25th.

The Downton Abbey season three DVD set will also be released on January 29th.

Each episode is $2.99 is purchased on their own, but a Season Pass will run you $19.99. That’ll save you roughly seven dollars.

So if you’re a cordcutter and looking to purchase season three of one of the better shows around, iTunes has a pretty decent pitch: 9 episodes for 20 bucks, plus you get to watch the final three before your friends do.

Watch Downton Abbey Season 3, Episode 1 on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

[h/t Mashable]