Digital Jukebox

MP3 Goggles

US-based Finis just unveiled its answer to an MP3 player for swimmers. Whereas the Orgegon Scientific MP120, which is already available in the UK, relies on a traditional earphone design, the SwiMP3 uses bone conduction technology to transfer sound to the inner ear via the cheekbone. According to Finis, this dramatically improves the sound quality underwater. A special pair of goggles is supplied to house the SwiMP3. The player is Windows and Mac compatible and has 128MB of storage space. In the US it costs $250, but there's no news of a UK launch at the moment.

Finis

Sony 1GB flash player with MP3 support

Sony is releasing its first digital music players that are compatible with MP3 files in the UK next month. From November, you'll be able to buy Network Walkmans NW-E99 for around £160, and NW-E95 for £120. The flash-based players have 1GB and 512MB of memory respectively. Using Sony's Atrac music file compression, the NW-E99 will be able to squeeze in over 40 CDs worth of music. The players should provide around 70 hours of battery life and weigh around 40g.

Sony

Griffin follows Apple's lead

Griffin's releasing a black version of the i-Trip to match the Special Edition iPod. The company has also re-released its black version of the PowerMate, so you'll be able to goth up your whole Apple collection in no time.

Griffin

Black U2 iPod

Not content with making themselves look foolish on the current iPod ads, U2 has collaborated with Apple to produce a black Special Edition iPod. The player has been rumoured for some time, and Apple has finally released the official announcement along with pics. The 20GB iPod is apparently inspired by the design of the band's latest album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb . Whatever, the bright red scroll wheel seems a tad unnecessary to us - what was wrong with having it all totally black? Plus, the earbuds are white, so it's all a bit of a mish-mash. We haven't actually seen one yet, though, so maybe it's more dazzling in the flesh.

U2 fans will be delighted to hear that the iPod comes with the signatures of the boys laser-engraved onto the back. There's also a free poster of the band and £40 off the band's music on iTunes. It will cost £248.99 (since the normal 20GB version is £219, we're guessing you do have to pay for those free extras after all).

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Apple's iPod Photo in 40 and 60GB versions

Typical. We desert our post for a couple of hours to chomp on pizza and chuckle at Little Britain and Apple goes and makes it biggest announcement of the year so far.

Yes, that iPod Photo that has been rumoured for the past month or so isn't just vapourware but a real world product that goes on sale in the UK today.

The basic details are that it is available in 40 (£359, £90 more than an ordinary 40 Gigabyte iPod) and 60 Gigabyte (£429) versions, it sports a 65K colour 65k-color screen with 220 by 176 pixel resolution, has the same click wheel as it predecessor and has - in theory - 15 hours of battery life.

The screen can be used to view your own JPEGs, which you transfer via iTunes, or to see album artwork. It comes with a TV out too so you can view the images on your TV screen. The Photo iPod is exactly the same size as an ordinary iPod.

Buy Apple iPod Photo 40GB for £354 here[M9585]
Buy Apple iPod Photo 60GB for £424 here [M9586]

Music downloads from a phonebox?

Now that everyone's got a mobile phone, hardly anyone uses phone boxes anymore - except as toilet facilities of course. BT says that 60% of its 70,000 phone boxes lose money and the company hasn't built any new ones since 2001. Now, in an effort to stave off their inevitable demise, BT has taken a leaf out of Madonna's book and is going for a radical reinvention. The company is apparently in talks with "a leading provider of digital music content" to work out a deal that would see its 12,000 internet connected Information Kiosks turned into music download stations. The service would be for anyone with an iPod (so guess the "leading provider of digital music content") and users will be able to pay for downloads via a credit or BT charge card. The service could be in full swing as early as next year.

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100 Gig MP3 player

How much storage space do you need on your hard disk digital jukebox. 20 Gigabytes? 40? 80? Well Xclef has once again upped the ante by delivering a version of its Xclef 500 player that sports a monstrously large 100 Gigabyte jukebox.

Can there really be that many people in the world who need a 100 Gig player? Probably not, but it does mean that chances are you need never worry about the player's hard disk ever being completely full.

Not surprisingly the Xclef 500 is a bit of a chunky beast, but it does boast plenty of features including a very respectable 20 hours battery life, an integrated FM radio and direct encoding of MP3s via its optical line in connector. No news yet on price or UK availability, but we reckon it will land here soon probably via www.advancedmp3players.co.uk and will retail for around the £400 mark

Archos taks on iPod mini with 20 Gig player

How do you fancy an iPod mini size digital music player with a full iPod sized storage capacity of 20 Gigabytes? Well Sony got close with its NW-HD1, and now it appears that French manufacturer Archos has actually pulled off this marvel of miniaturisation with its upcoming Gmini XS200.

The tiny player measures just 7.6 x 5.9 x 1.9cm and weighs 120g which is roughly the same size as Apple’s, unbelievably hard to find the UK at least, iPod mini. Yet the XS200 has five times as much storage as the mini offering 20 rather than four Gigabytes. It also trumps its Apple rival on battery life, offering ten hours as opposed to the mini’s eight, and it will play WMA files, though not AAC ones.

One rather cool innovation in that it sports a virtual keyboard that enables users to name tracks and playlists on the fly.

Continue reading "Archos taks on iPod mini with 20 Gig player"

Napster pre-paid cards the first of their kind

Roxio's online music service, Napster, is to become the first in the UK to offer pre-paid cards in shops for buying digital music downloads. The cards, which are being sold through the Dixons Group stores (Dixons, Currys, The Link and PC World), are similar to pre-pay cards on phones. Each card contains a unique code that users enter on the online store in order to buy tracks. The cards can also be redeemed against subscription costs. They will cost £14.95 for 15 tracks, £56.95 for 60 tracks and £25.95 for a 3-month subscription. That should make buying Christmas presents that little bit easier this year. The cards will be in store from November.

Napster

Aigo's MP3 players

The E808 and the F186 are the two latest music players released by the relatively unknown Aigo. The E808 is being pitched as the most affordable MP3 player on the market, with pricing starting at £39.99 for the 128MB version. There's also a 256MB version for £49.99 and a 512MB variety at £89.99. The player comes with an FM radio with 10 presets and users can record straight from the radio into MP3 and WMA formats via the ADPCM recording feature.

Meanwhile the F186 comes with a few more features, including a voice recording facility and a line-in for recording from other devices onto the player. Any analogue files are converted automatically into digital MP3s. There's also an FM radio with 20 preset stations and FM recording. The F186 starts at £69.99 for the 128MB version, £89.99 for the 256MB version and £109.99 for the 512MB version.

Aigo

Philips makes life better for the joggers

One of the main problems with hard disk music players is that you can't run with them (well, that's not actually a problem for us, but it is for sporty types who prefer jogging to blogging). The solution to this has traditionally been to use the Flash memory-based players instead. But their problem is that they've usually only got enough memory to get you round the park once, obliging you to update the tracklist constantly, or put up with the same songs day in day out. Well, now Philips reckons it's come up with a solution to both these problems. Instead of relying on Flash-based systems, the company is working on a hard disk player that won't jump. Todd Selwyn, market manager for Philips audio, explains: "it will work by using a buffer system. The player will sample an hour's worth of music and store it in the buffer." The actual hard disk itself will then shut down and stop spinning, which means it won't be able to jump.

Although there's no definite details on when will be available, Philips has indicated that it's likely to be sometime next year. We're guessing it will be around 2-5GB rather than a larger 20GB player. Philips has already shown its concern for the jogging section of society by teaming up with Nike to make a Bluetooth MP3 Pedometer (pictured), and it looks as though the hard drive player will be in conjunction with Nike as well.

Bose SoundDock for the iPod

Bose is having a nice time at the moment. The company has just been awarded "Cool Brand Leader" status by the Super Brands Org, and Metro readers have voted Bose the coolest brand in technology. With all this apparent coolness emanating from the company it's unsurprising that its teamed up with one of the other technology manufacturers renowned for its cool image. The SoundDock speaker system allows you to dock your iPod and play music through the speakers. Like the i-Station you can charge your iPod at the same time, so you don't have to run the system off battery power. There's also a credit-card sized remote control that allows you access to the basic iPod functions such as volume settings. It's available on the Bose website for £249.

Bose

i-Station iPod speakers

Logic3 has rocked the boat a little with its iPod speaker system - it's gone and stuck a hyphen in between the i and the Station. Still, that's the only even slightly controversial aspect of the i-Station speaker set, with the colour and design very much in keeping with the Apple ethic (even if those buttons do look a little clunky next to iPod's lovely smooth touch wheel). The speakers will set you back £59.99 and include a subwoofer and 3D surround sound. The dock will work with both iPod and iPod mini players and will recharge batteries as it goes. If you fancy doing a bit of old-style ghetto blaster shoulder-holding, the unit can be powered by four AA batteries and it weighs 400g so you shouldn't be crippled after a day of carrying (just deaf). The speaker set can be synchronised with your PC or Mac via USB and FireWire and will also work with other music players such as MP3, MiniDisc and CD players.

Available on the high street soon.

First Bluetooth headphones

We were over at Photokina last week and we found some great little products to report back on. We've been holding out for pics, though, and now we've managed to get hold some. NHJ, a Japanese company that supplies a lot of products to the UK gadgets shops has managed to come up with what looks set to be the first set of Bluetooth headphones to reach these shores. The VHD-5500 is a 5GB hard disk player that will be on sale here in January. Retailing at around £250, the player transmits music to the dedicated headset via Bluetooth. We had a quick go and there were no problems with the music cutting out even when we took a little stroll away from the player. We weren't too sure about the actual sound quality, but that may have been more due to the fact that we were at a noisy exhibition, so we're witholding judgement until we get a proper go. One thing we will say is that they're not the most attractive headphones in the world. The player itself is slightly larger than the iPod mini, plays MP3 and WMA files and will directly encode MP3 from a CD player/hi-fi.

NHJ

BenQ adds hard disk MP3 player

After releasing a slew of flash based music players under the Joybee banner BenQ has bowed to the inevitable and made its first hard disk model.

Set to debut in January the as yet un-named player spins both MP3 and WMA files and features a four Gigabyte hard disk.

Its USP is that it is the first relatively small, in both size and storage capacity, jukebox to sport a colour screen. It also features an SD card slot so users can easily port their JPEG images on the hard drive and check them out on the player’s screen.

If BenQ can sell it for under 200 quid it might just tempt a few potential iPod mini buyers.

[Photo via Sorobangeeks]

Philips' 2GB jukebox

There's room for more than 1000 songs on Philips' latest hard drive music player. The HDD070 comes with 2GB of storage space and a built-in FM radio. The player, which costs £150, is available now. It's the beefed-up version of the company's previous portable music players and comes in at a very portable 93g. Battery life is touted as 10 hours. Not much else to say about it really, except the usual comments about iPod Mini killers etc etc.

[Edit: Oh, and it looks a lot like Cowon's HD200, the 5GB hard drive that has just gone on sale for £179.99]

Philips

IRiver's 1GB Flash player

One gigabyte of Flash memory? That's more like it. Being able to store a sensible amount of music suddenly makes iRiver's latest flash-based player, the iFP-900, look a whole lot more appealing. The player, which is also available in 256MB and 512MB capacities, is being touted as the company's flagship model for the Christmas period. The small, silver player includes a 1.2-inch colour LCD display screen with 260K colours that can be used for showing JPEGs and BMP image files. The battery life will apparently supply up to 40 hours of music playback.

Other features include an FM tuner, direct recording from the radio, built-in microphone and an alarm clock. There's also a combined analogue and digital line-in so you can record form external audio signals. All in all, some nice features on the little players. Shame they're still so pricey. The RRPs are set at £169 for the 256MB model, £224 for the 512MB one and £270 for the 1GB version.

Product Page

Griffin iBeam

Two new plug-ins from Griffin. This time there's a torch and a laser pointer that can be plugged into the top of your iPod or iPod Mini. Although you can only fit one in at a time, they're being sold as a pair. The iBeam package costs $19.99 and will start shipping by the end of October. The kit is available on pre-order now on Griffin's website.

Griffin

Toshiba's 60GB music player

Toshiba's latest 60GB Gigabeat is part of a new range of Gigabeat F Series music players. All three players (the other two are 10GB and 20GB) use Toshiba's new 1.8-inch hard drives, with the 60GB version the first of its kind available. The design is a bit of a change from the company's other Gigabeat models, with a more iPod-like shape to it. The 2.2-inch colour LCD sets it apart, however, and the plus sign-shaped control pad also gives it a more individual look. Battery life is cited as around 11 hours. There's still no current plans to launch the players over in Europe, but Tosh hasn't yet ruled it out altogether. It's puzzling that the company is content just to sell to the Japanese market when it would surely do so well over here.

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Sony changes its mind about MP3s

Sony's somewhat unexpected decision to add MP3 capabilities to its digital music players suddenly makes its players look a whole lot more appealing. Previously only compatible with the company's own music file format, Atrac, portable hard drive players like the NW-HD1 now stand a much greater chance of offering serious competition to the iPod. The VGF-AP1 already offers MP3 playback and the company is aimiing to launch newly MP3-compatible devices later this year. Software upgrades for those who already own the music players will also be available.

One of the best things about the decision is that it will be far easier to use other downloads services and there will be no more faffing about converting files on your PC before copying music across. Sony Connect is one of the less user-friendly online music downloads services around, so the company should probably think about giving that a bit of a revamp before it loses all its customers to other sites.

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Indie labels give Apple a good bashing

The continued failure of Apple’s iTunes to secure deals with the independent record labels in the UK is causing a round of tutting and sighing within the music industry. The indie labels have been roundly criticising iTunes, and the downloads service continues to go without bands and singers such as Franz Ferdinand (this year’s Mercury Music Prize winners) and Eric Prydz, this week’s number one in the singles charts.

One of the more baffling aspects of the continuing saga is that Apple has actually signed a deal with some of the labels, such as Domino and Ninja Tune, but just hasn’t got round to adding them to the library. Chrysalis Music Group, meanwhile, is still waiting for the paperwork to turn up – as are a number of other companies.

Since independent record labels makes up around a quarter of the UK sales, you’ve got to wonder what Apple’s playing at. Napster and Sony Connect have managed to sort themselves out, so what’s taking Apple so long?

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Easy Music could make life very difficult for iTunes

Good old Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Not content with terrifying the airline companies by setting up one of the cheapest flights operators in the country, the entrepreneur has just confirmed that he’s made a deal with UK music downloads company, Wippit, to set up a rival to iTunes and Napster. The company, called Easy Music, will be charging as little as 25p for some tracks, which is just stupidly cheap. We’ll be waiting to see how Apple, Napster and the rest respond to this news, but there’s a good chance that this will start up a pricing war that should only benefit the likes of us.

You may recall our recent report that Stelios is also setting up a budget mobile phone network. Read article.

Oakley Thump MP3 Sunglasses

Oakley’s getting in on the portable audio market with the release of its Thump MP3 sunglasses. The shades come with a 128MB or 256MB music player built in that can play MP3 and WMA files. The headphones don’t actually stick in your ears, but rather “float by” them, and you can adjust them to get the best balance between external noise and the music. If you want to carry on with the music, but don’t want to continue wearing sunglasses, you can just flip the lenses up. You’ll look like a half-wit, but what does that matter. Judging by the press pics you have to be either Goldie or Vin Diesel to pull the things off anyway.

A USB 2.0 connection means you can transfer files across from your computer, and the battery has enough power to run for six hours.

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Sony Pocket (another "iPod Killer") on its way

Sony’s VAIO Pocket will be launching over here fairly shortly. The VGF-AP1 media player will be available to buy in October, although price details still haven’t been released (we’re guessing it’ll be around £400 for the 20 gig though). The VAIO Pocket has a picture viewer along with the music player and comes in 20GB and 40GB versions. The player is larger and heavier than its Apple rival, but the 2.2-inch screen gives it a reasonable excuse. The battery life is also supposed to be better than the iPod, quoted at 20 hours compared to iPod’s eight.

Unlike the NW-HD1, the Pocket has the distinct advantage of being able to play MP3 files. (The NW-HD1 converts them to Atrac.) It’s also compatible with WMA files.

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More competition for the iPod mini

iPod mini competitors are coming thick and fast. The Rio Carbon is an obvious contender, and the MPIO HD200 is also now available for pre-order. The 5GB hard drive in good old white should pinch a few of the mini’s potential customers. It offers support for MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG file formats as well as supplying an FM radio and a claimed 14 hours of battery life – far better than the measly 8 you get from the iPods.

A scroll wheel on the side along with a Back button does all the navigating, while the remote on the headphones means you can operate it while it’s packed away in your bag. Other features include a mic for voice recording and a line input for direct MP3 encoding.

It’s bigger and heavier than the iPod mini, measuring 60.6 x 84 x 19 and weighing 120g. It will also cost more than the mini, at £199. But it’s available on pre-order right now and will be on sale from mid-September, so if you’re desperate for a mini music player, here’s your chance.

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Mobile phone to kill iPod? Samsung debuts hard disk handset

Just the other week we predicted that phone manufacturers would soon be giving up on stupidly expensive flash memory cards and kitting out their handsets with hard disks. These are of course significantly cheaper and, most importantly for the consumer, offer a great deal more storage.

They could in theory also render hard disk music devices like the iPod redundant as users can store their tunes on the handset’s hard disk and have no need for a secobnd device. Motorola’s recent deal with Apple to offer iTunes on its mobiles shows that the iPod’s manufacturer is also sensing that this could be the way in which the market, at least in Europe and the far east, is likely to develop.

Anyhow it seems we were right for Samsung has just announced the world's first ever mobile with an integrated hard disk.

Unveiled yesterday at a Japanese telecoms show the SPH-V5400 is a clamshell type phone with a 1.5GB hard disk.

It comes with an integrated mega pixel camera, MP3 player and a TV out connection.

Drop in Guinness sales all iPod's fault

The Inquirer has a great story about how the decreasing volume of Guinness being imbibed over in Ireland is attributable to the emergence of the iPod. How you may ask? Well, according to the experts, young Irishmen are shunning the famous stout and saving their pennies (or, more correctly, their cents) in order to buy electronic equipment. The prime culprit is of course the iPod, which will no doubt soon be blamed for a rise in street crime and a drop in education standards.

The Inquirer poo poos the iPod theory, and instead blames the 6 percent drop in sales on the new anti-smoking laws in bars and pubs. We’d be inclined to suggest that young men are just more eager to keep their waistlines svelte in order to ensure a place in one of Ireland’s many upcoming boybands. We would, that is, if Irish boyband members weren’t so universally podgy.

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Wippit launches wireless music and video services

Wippit may not be the best known or largest of the music downloads companies, but it has manage to beat the bigger boys in the race to start up a wireless music and video downloads service.

Working in partnership with British technology company, SlamTV, Wippit is starting a trial of the service, which will work with any WAP/GPRS or 3G phone. Users send “Whippit” via text to 81223 and receive a link to a 32KB download that supplies the necessary application for downloading music or video files.

Wippit hasn’t put an exact figure on the cost of downloads, but prices should start at around £1.50.

Wippit

Apple iPod gadgets

The Guardian has a quick take on the growing number of accessories available for the Apple iPod digital music player.

Following on from of cases and wireless add-ons, it appears hi-fi manufacturers are starting to take the device seriously offering systems that enable the player to be easily integrated into a system that already includes speakers, an amp and a radio.

Read here for the full story

PodPod for your iPod

Now it’s really starting to look like the bottom of the ibarrel is being merrily scraped over at Griffin Technology. The company has come up with the PodPod, a soft foam cup type thing that’s designed for sticking in a cup holder (in cars etc) to keep your iPod or iPod Mini safe and sound.

The premise is that there’s no iPod holders available in cars, so how will travellers possibly cope? But, there must be a better solution than a chunk of moulded grey foam? At least it’s not too pricey at $9.99 from the Griffin website.

Pre-order yours here.