Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
Pearl Jam, who has sold more than 3M copies of shows from their bootleg series, launch their own download store tomorrow (at their official website). Hours after their completion, full concerts from the group’s fall tour will be available for $9.99 as 192K MP3s [...] For $9.99 users will be able to download a full [...]
Yet another article on the hard work Sony’s newly appointed CEO, Howard Stringer, has in front of him. The trouble with Sony is it’s both an electronics and an entertainment company. Sony Music executives lose their sleep at the idea of a portable device that plays MP3 files natively, and doesn’t restrict the user in [...]
3,700 Japanese 5GB Zen Neeons might be infected with the W32.Wullik.B@mm virus (UPDATE: the worm affects players with serial numbers between 1230528000001 and 1230533001680) Sirius’ portable music player receiving satellite signal only when docked (in other words, no live satellite radio goodness for you S50 owners) [via] MTV to launch “Urge” music service in 2006 [...]
The United States Patent and Trademark Office never ceases to amaze. Yesterday it granted Creative the so-called “Zen Patent” (U.S. Patent 6,928,433): Creative’s invention for the user interface for portable media players enables selection of at least one track in a portable media player as a user sequentially navigates through a hierarchy using three or [...]
OK, time to wrap-up all the Motorola/Apple phone bits and pieces we’ve tracked. Come September 7 on San Fransisco’s Moscone Center, Apple will unveil the fruit of their collaboration with Motorola. The New York Times cite Roger Entner, a telecommunications industry analyst who has been briefed on the announcement. We’ll see “a complete line of [...]
The world’s smallest digital audio player (measures 24×24×24mm, weighs 18grams) gets reviewed by PC Magazine. Apart from a few weak points (mainly the lack of Shuffle-like sonic accuracy, and a kinda weak battery) they give it the thumbs up (rating: 4/5): [...] it’s more than adequate for its intended market, and all the extra features [...]
August is firmware month. iRiver H10 (5GB/6GB) gets A-B repeat, alphabetical ordering for your texts & photos, deletion of recordings on-the-fly & scroll speed acceleration (think iPod here) among other additions and improvements. Note that this firmware upgrade is only for the MTP devices, those that sync with Windows Media Player. (Those of you who [...]
Apple is inviting reporters to San Fransisco on September 7 to announce something big, if we’re to believe the company’s writings. “1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything,” the invitation reads, referring to the release of the first 5GB iPod nearly four years ago. “Here we go again.” Our guess is on the we-expected-you-months-ago Motorola [...]
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