Last.fm (www.last.fm) today announced that it is launching a service to allow anyone to listen to music on the site for free.

Last.fm has become one of the leading places in the world where people can go to listen to music online. Its vast library has attracted a community of more than 20 million unique monthly users in 240 countries around the globe. The heart of Last.fm is a powerful recommendation engine that guides listeners to music they are likely to enjoy based on prior selections, connecting them with the music they love and with others who share their tastes.

In launching this service, Last.fm becomes the first music website to offer free, global, on-demand access to the largest licensed catalogue of music built on partnerships with all four major record labels - including Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI - as well as CD Baby, IODA, the Orchard, Naxos and more than 150,000 independent labels and artists.

Last.fm’s free-on-demand service will be advertiser supported, allowing clients many unique opportunities to reach a highly targeted and engaged audience.

Last.fm was acquired by the CBS Corporation on May 30, 2007.

“It is clear to us that communities built around great content are increasingly driving traffic and revenue online,” said Leslie Moonves, President and CEO of the CBS Corporation. “We acquired Last.fm because music is one of the best ways to build communities on the internet. Adding such a tremendous collection of content to Last.fm will help it grow by leaps and bounds. The skill set that we’re learning along the way will be very important as we build additional online communities around our other world-class content as well.”

Martin Stiksel, Last.fm co-founder, said: “We’re giving the listener free access to what is basically the best jukebox in the world. The ability to dip into such a uniquely broad catalogue from your laptop, home or office computer, and listen to whatever you want for free represents a new way of consuming music that in turn might change the way you listen to music. In that respect, nobody else can currently offer what Last.fm is offering right now.”

Dell will start selling two (Red) laptops and one desktop running Microsoft Windows Vista on Friday. The two companies will donate $50 for a laptop and $80 for a desktop to the Global Fund, which finances health programs in Africa.

(Red), founded by U2 singer Bono and Bobby Shriver, works to develop co-branded products with companies such as Motorola Inc <MOT.N>, Apple Inc <AAPL.O> and Gap Inc <GPS.N>, which then donate a portion of the proceeds for antiretroviral drugs.

Microsoft said it expects “several hundred thousand” (Red) Dell PCs to be sold in 2008. The PCs, designed in part by Bono, will have a distinctive red casing and the Windows interface will feature a red background and sidebar.

“My job is to put some poetry in the machine, put some funk in the machines,” Bono said in an interview with Reuters.

(Red) has raised $53 million for the Global Fund since it was founded in 2006. Bono, who expects to exceed that figure in 2008 alone, said the organization lost some potential partners after a critical article in Advertising Age questioned the effectiveness of the campaign.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who provided some of the seed money for (Red), defended the group, saying it has saved lives that would have otherwise been lost.

“I guess you can criticize even life-saving activities. I don’t know how, but if somebody has a better idea than (Red) to save more lives, we are all ears,” said Gates in an interview. “I put it in the category of a creative use of capitalism.”

Gates, Dell and Bono are expected to announce the partnership formally this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The Dell products offered under the (Red) brand will be a XPS One desktop and XPS M1330 and M1530 laptop computers. The products will sell for the same price as regular Dell models.

The computers will go on sale January 25 in the U.S. and then the product will be available in 30 countries on Jan 31.

Britney Spears is courting to reclaim her kids.

Sources close to the “Gimme More” singer confirm to E! News that Spears will appear in court Wednesday morning to ask a court commissioner to restore her visitation rights for her sons withKevin Federline, Sean Preston and Jayden James.

The emergency hearing was called by Spears’ attorneys at the behest of the 26-year-old entertainer and will come two days after she finally showed up for a deposition in her long-playing custody dispute with Federline. The next scheduled court date for the former wasn’t until Feb. 19.

Spears is expected to attend the 8:30 meeting along with manager Sam Lutfi, who accompanied her to the Monday session.

Los Angeles Court Commissioner Scott Gordon stripped Spears of visitation rights after she refused to return the boys at the prescribed time back on Jan. 3, leading to a tense standoff with police and, ultimately, her forced hospitalization. The children, who remain in the care of Federline, 29, have not seen their mom since.

According to TMZ, Spears will seek monitored visits with the boys in a “therapeutic setting.”

Meanwhile, Spears is expected to continue being deposed by Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan in the coming days.

Speaking to reporters on Monday evening, Kaplan said that he questioned Spears for about 40 minutes, even though she was present in his office for over two hours.

“We are going over things that are very, very gut-wrenching,” Kaplan told People. “It’s not something anyone would enjoy.”

Asked by Access Hollywood if he believed Spears would be able to see her children soon, the attorney said, “There are certain things that have to be done by her in order to make everyone comfortable—and to answer any unresolved questions so that we don’t have to worry about anything that occurred a few weeks ago.

“She is not the enemy. She is not being viewed as the enemy, and what is being done, even though it may be unpopular with her, is to make sure that she can be a full participant going forward in the future.”

HBO will soon make its content available on the Internet, The New York Post reported in its Monday editions.

The service, HBO on Broadband, will roll out in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wis., Tuesday - and in other markets shortly thereafter - with the caveat that consumers able to access the service are either HBO subscribers or customers of the high-speed Internet service offered by their local cable operator, Time Warner Cable or subscribers to the roadrunner.com Internet service, the Post reported.

The network is in talks with other cable operators about expanding the service in other markets.

HBO on Broadband will offer 600 titles and 400 hours of downloadable content, including movies, documentaries and original series like “The Sopranos” and “Six Feet Under.” Every month the service will offer the entire set of an HBO series. The service will also feature sample episodes from every HBO original series as well as a “bridge series” ahead of a new season of a given show, the Post reported.

There is one thing about being a teen that every generation experiences. A teen must have a place to hang out, a place to meet and socialize with friends.

For some of us it might have been the malt shop, for others the mall.

For today’s teen, it’s the Internet, especially MySpace, Facebook and other networking sites. These sites generally offer an excellent way for teens to keep up with their friends while making new friends along with the way.

MySpace has grown to be the behemoth of the social networkingwebsites, thanks in part to its openness that allows teens to be, well, open. But it’s this openness that has created a headache for parents, teachers, teens, while raising serious issues of privacy and safety.

Trying to restore its good name — and to relieve mounting legal pressure from 49 states and the District of Columbia — MySpace recently agreedto implement new measures to protect young users from sexual predators. Earlier MySpace had deleted the profiles of approximately 29,000 known sex offenders and predators.