Digital Jukebox

UK's first downloads chart

The singles chart in the UK maybe looking increasingly sickly, but, as we all know, the world of online music downloads is fighting fit and growing stronger by the day. And, unsurprisingly, radio is beginning to want a piece of the action.

Virgin Radio is launching the nation’s first online music chart, to be broadcast from Sunday 29th August at 7pm. The sales figures that make up the music chart are being taken from Napster, with a countdown of the top 20 tracks sold on Napster’s online store.

The chart will register full-length live streams and downloads made on subscription, as well as permanent downloads. It’ll be interesting to see how music downloads differ from normal single sales. We predict more goth tunes making the top 20, since goths don’t like to go out in the sunlight too much. Virgin radio certainly thinks (hopes) so – it’s giving away a day with Robert Smith of The Cure as a promo for the countdown. Plus, it won’t really fit with Virgin’s demographic if it turns out that online shoppers are downloading Busted and Rachel Stevens tunes.

iPod PDA inevitable?

Interesting article in the FT about the inevitability of an iPod PDA. Analyst Jakob Nielson insists that, "as the pods go up in gigabytes, it's inevitable that they will become general purpose storage devices. Add a colour screen and they become photo viewers." From there he believes it's a small step for music hard drives to add PDA functionality: "all a PDA needs to become a music player is a higher quality chip and a headset plug."

So Apple CEO Steve Jobs can insist all he likes about the iPod's only raison d'etre being the music, but as hard drives become smaller and cheaper, an all-singing all-dancing music player-PDA hybrid is apparently the obvious conclusion.

iRiver certainly seems to think so. Marketing manager, Carsten Bickhoff, expects that "within 12 to 15 months there will be a hard drive-based player with true PDA functionality."

Read [via Macworld]

Toshiba's Gigabeat coming to the UK

We're going to go out on a limb here and say that the Toshiba Gigabeat will be available in the UK by the end of the year. We may well be wrong, but we've got very good reasons to suspect that it will reach these shores fairly soon. And if it does, it's in with a good chance of pinching a few sales from Apple.

The Gigabeat is currently only available over in Japan, which is a crying shame for the rest of us. The G5 has smaller dimensions that the iPod and is incredibly slim. While 20GB versions are available, the G5 offers just 5GB, which is still more than enough for most people. The G5 can play MP3, WAV and WMA files and is available in a number of colours.

If you're not willing to hold out to see if our prediction of a UK launch is correct, you can buy one now on the Audiocubes website for $349, plus shipping.

Oregon's new range of music players

We've already told you about the waterproof MP120 MP3 player that Oregon Scientific has just launched, but the company also has a number of other new products in its music player range. We popped over to the launch last night to see what was on offer.

Probably the most eye-catching player on display was the MP100 (pictured), which, at only 28g and measuring just 40 x 28 x 18mm, is a serious contender for the much-coveted title of "World's Smallest MP3 Player". Whatever, it's certainly a very tiny device indeed. The blue backlit LCD display provides basic track info, while the 128MB player has room for around 2 hours of MP3s or 4 hours of WMA files. The MP100 costs £80 and is available in four colours: orange, blue, black and titanium.

Oregon has experimented with the earphones, designing them to double up as a neck cord. There's also a magnet near the base of the cord which is supposed to keep the headphones out of the way when you're not using them. We're not entirely convinced of the merits of this design, but it does at least mean you won't lose the teeny player.

The MP130 comes with a number of additional features. The £90 player includes an FM radio and voice recorder, as well as an SD/MMC expansion slot for boosting the 128MB of internal memory. Again, this MP3/WMA player comes in a choice of four colours (as above) and includes the neck cord-headphones combo.

Finally, the MP140, which is not due out for a few months yet, is just 6.6mm thick and comes with a transparent display and an FM radio. It will cost around £100.

Oregon

Bikers go digital

While silver may be starting to look a bit passé in the gadget world, we still can’t resist a nice bit of shiny chrome. Especially not when that chrome gadget is attached to a Harley Davidson.

The Road Tech HA90 is Harley’s own handlebar-mounted MP3 player. The music player uses SD memory cards, which means you’ll probably only be able to fit Freebird, Bat Out Of Hell and maybe a bit of Blue Oyster Cult before the maximum 1GB of memory runs out.

The player comes already supplied with a 64MB SD card. Large, backlit buttons on front means big hands in large gloves will be able to control it, while biker geeks will be pleased to note it uses the faster USB 2.0 connection.

Looks like it’s only available in the US at the moment.

Read [via Engadget]

Philips and Nike become jogging buddies

Philips has teamed up with Nike to offer a swish Swooshed personal sport audio range. The small, black MP3 players have been developed especially for exercise, which presumably means that they go nice and loud so we’ll be able to hear the music over our desperate gasps for air.

The two MP3 players available (PSA220 and PSA250) have 256MB and 512MB of memory capacity respectively, which is more than enough to see us through 5 minutes of jogging down the road before we collapse and die from exhaustion. Both music players come with an FM radio and a stopwatch. A five-key remote control belt keeps the player in place, while a safety strobe light will make night joggers visible in the dark (and will also help to deter epileptic muggers, presumably). The 220 costs £150, while the 250 will set you back £200.

The £130 MP3CD player (PSA410) provides 30 minutes of buffer shock protection and will play MP3 or WMA CDs as well as the normal ones. There’s also an FM radio on board.

Finally, the £40 FMRADIO (PSA110) is, you guessed it, an FM radio with 10 digital tuning presets.

Packard Bell guns for Apple

Yet another company fancies taking a shot at Apple. Packard Bell has become the latest company to enter the digital music market with a range of players, including a model set to rival Apple's iPod mini.

Available in September, the Pocket M@estro sports a 5GB hard disk, can play back both MP3 and Windows Media Audio (WMA) music files and features an FM radio and voice recording facilities. The M@estro, which has a battery life of seven hours, is expected to retail for around £200, with a 2.5GB version selling for less than £150.

Packard Bell has also introduced a trio of Flash memory-based players. The £100, 128MB wearable player, the AudioDream; the AudioKey FM with up to 512MB of memory with FM radio (prices from £66); and the budget AudioBell USB storage device with up to 128MB from £46.

Details from the press release follow:

AudioDream

A musical gem, the AudioDream is a digital music player and fashion statement all rolled into
one. Beneath its ultra slim, aluminum exterior resides a powerful flash memory music player
capable of holding up to 8 hours of music (WMA format). Light enough to be worn around the
neck and small enough to fit into any pocket or purse, its copious list of features also includes
a dazzling OLED display with ID3 TAG support, 5 equalizer presets, a built-in FM
tuner/recorder and voice recorder. Its rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery provides up to hours of
nonstop playback.

AudioKey FM

Easy to use and featuring a backlight screen, the AudioKey FM flash memory player brings
high-quality audio enjoyment to on-the-go users. First, it is a skip-free Flash Memory MP3
player that provides 12 hours of play time on a single AAA battery. Storage capacities range
from 64MB to 512MB. The 512MB version can hold up to 16 hours of WMA music (8 hours of
MP3). Second, it is a removable USB storage drive, perfect for toting around important
computer files. Third, it comes with a built-in FM radio player and recorder with 20 presets for
enjoying and recoding radio shows on the go. Finally, it features a built-in microphone for
recording up to 8 hours of voice memos.

AudioBell

Highly affordable, AudioBell is a flash USB storage drive and digital music player. It offers
children a convenient and trendy way of carrying around computer files and listening to digital
music. Shaped like a ladybird, it is designed to fit comfortably into a child’s hand. The
ladybird’s black spots are the control buttons. Available with 64 and 128MB of storage, it can
hold up to 4 hours of music (WMA). Its lithium ion battery provides up to 4 hours of non-stop
play time and charges off the PC’s USB port.

www.packardbell.co.uk

iRiver H340 review

The Guardian has one of the first reviews of iRiver's H340 40GB - an innovative digital music player that has a colour screen and, uniquely, can also connect via USB to devices like digital cameras.

Read it here

iRiver's digital music players are held in fairly high esteem by MP3 enthusiasts who praise them for their excellent sound quality and innovative features.

For the recently launched H340 40GB hard disk-based player, iRiver has added what is certain to become a key facility on rival models: a colour screen. The 2in display doesn't make it any easier to find your way round your music collection - iRiver needs to work on the interface. However, the device now moonlights as a reasonably good quality picture viewer, displaying JPeg images. Another neat feature is that you can connect certain digital cameras to the player via USB to transfer the images over - a lifesaver when you are on holiday. Like its predecessors, the H340 offers playback of MP3 and WMA files, a voice recorder and FM tuner, and battery life of 16 hours.

Its key flaw is its size: it is both bulkier and heavier than its key 40GB rival, the Apple iPod. Nevertheless at £360 the H340 is an innovative player.

Apple offers over a million tracks

Just a quickie post to note that lucky Apple iPod owners in the US can now choose from over one million songs from the iTunes Music Store. Featuring tracks from all five major record labels and more than 600 independent labels.

This is all very nice for the Americans, but over here we're still waiting for Apple to make deals with some of the independent labels. We have to make do with 700,000 tracks

Nokia to offer music downloads service

Nokia may be lagging behind in the multimedia stakes, but the company seems intent on doing something about its slipping popularity. After Motorola’s recent deal with Apple to get iTunes onto its handsets, Nokia has struck a similar deal with Loudeye.

Loudeye doesn’t actually offer a music downloads service itself, but it does help other companies to set up online music stores. While this may mean that Nokia is intent on creating its own music downloads service, the chances are that it’s an attempt to encourage network providers to develop their own stores. Which will in turn encourage the networks to buy more Nokia handsets.

Many of the networks, such as O2 and Orange, already offer a music download service and this is obviously something they see as a growth market worth pursuing. Offering music downloads to subscribers represents an appealing extra service to customers, as well as a nice little extra earner – especially if a company like Loudeye is doing all the hard work setting it up for you.

With phones already offering music storage and playback facilities, how long is it going to be before iPods and their ilk are an endangered species? While some manufacturers still firmly believe that people will still want to keep their gadgets separate, there’s strong reasons to believe that hybridised mobile handsets will be the way forward – especially if phone companies continue to pursue that market.

Loudeye press release