Startup Slacker, Inc. enters the crowded music player and music service market with an interesting new approach: Free Music.

You buy the Slacker digital audio player starting from $149 for 2GB up to $349 for 120GB and select and customize music from a list of various stations. Your music selection is synched via Wi-Fi or USB onto the Slacker player.

The listening experience on Slacker is more like radio. You can only skip 6 songs per hour and have to listen to commercials. For $7.50 per month you get commercial-free listening and unlimited track-skipping.
Slacker is also planning to introduce a satellite-radio car kit in the second half of 2007 to sync new music on the go.
More details about Slacker on Laptop Mag. Laptop Mag also has an interview with the CEO of Slacker Inc. Dennis Mudd.
See also the Slacker site for more details.