Gadgety News

And they’re off!!

Apple’s ‘12 Days of Christmas’ promotion has started.

So if you’ve got a new iPod or iPhone - or just want to load up with some free tunage you can start with the video to that infectious Ting Tings tune “That’s Not My Name”.

For me I can’t help thinking of “Mickey” by Toni Basil - but it is still a cool tune…..and I’m probably showing my age……………

The promotion, which will run from Boxing Day until January 6 will see iTunes gifting you a free piece of content on a daily basis.

Skip merrily along to http://www.itunes12daysofchristmas.co.uk/ and sign in with your account to download the Apple freebies each day.

All together now:

They call me ‘hell’, They call me ‘Stacey’, They call me ‘her’, They call me ‘Jane’.
That’s not my name - That’s not my name - That’s not my name - That’s not my name……………..

Gawd bless ya g’vnor! Mr Apple sir, bless ya heart.

It has been confirmed that Apple will be giving away free media content between Christmas and the new year.

The iTunes Store will be offering a free download every day for twelve days as part of its “12 Days of Christmas” promotion.

The tag-line seems to be “a great way to start filling the iPod you received for Christmas”.

I reckon it’s more a case of ‘download from us and not anyone else….especially that pesky Amazon MP3 lot!’

The first download will be available on Boxing Day and then every day afterwards until 6 January 2009.

Apple says downloads will include rare singles, exclusive live tracks, free music videos from some of the biggest artists in the world plus classic TV episodes.

Any which way you cut it - it’s stuff for free so tis a goodly thing in my book….errr….iPhone

iTunes

If the Cowon O2 failed to cut the mustard then this most certainly will!

The most hyped Cowon media player thus far, the S9, is just filling out it’s citizenship forms and will be in the UK on Friday.

The much loved Advanced MP3 Players will be carrying the first units, and hope to be able to deliver S9s to homes across the country on Monday or Tuesday next week - In loads of time for crimbo!

Sorry, I seem to have gotten quite carried away there.

Why all the hullabaloo?  What is this thing of which I speak?

The S9 is the curvy, funky, and gorgeous music and video player from Cowon who are quite possibly in the top 3, if not the top, manufacturers of the best-sounding audio players on the market.

The S9 will come in 8GB and 16GB flavours priced at £169 and £199 respectively.

It features a 3.3-inch touch-sensitive AMOLED screen, and can rock out to MP3, WAV, WMV, FLAC, OGG and APE audio files and WMV video files (plus some others apparently).

Other points of interest is the stereo Bluetooth and 55 hours of claimed battery life.

The S9 is being introduced at parties as the best-sounding MP3 player in history!

No small claim that but apparently Cowon’s own CEO, Namkyu Park, has personally supervised the S9’s audio capabilities.

So if you disagree, you know who to call

Crave

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a James Bond type and love the chunkiness featured in 70s digital watches you are going to love Thanko’s MP4 watch.

At first it looks like a typically retro digital time-piece with a decent sized face but when you discover that it’s packing a camera that’s able to shoot video in 352×288 and take stills at 640×480 then the geekahol starts to flow!

That’s not all people!

The MP4 also doubles up as a wrist-based entertainment centre able to dish out MP3/WMA audio playback, AVI video and a photo/text file viewer.

Ok, so it’s not exactly going to be kind to your peepers when trying to watch the video playback or read those text files - but it is more than likely going to impress the lads down the pub.

The watch is out in Japan for £108 and, lets face it, Thanko’s wares usually hit the UK eventually.

So, OO8 - Q will be in touch soon
 

Update:  This is now available at Brando’s webstore for $129.oo!!

Thanko via Akihabara News

When I was told to check out “iFrogz” I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I certainly didn’t expect headphones! 

These look pretty funky and they set themselves apart from the rest by offering a stupid amount of optional designs.

Of course, until getting some of these cans over my lug-holes I can’t say how good the audio is through them but as far as having something personalised to groove to these might make plenty of sense.

So, those options then.

Well:  You’ve got different art and colors for the headbands, outer earpiece, cushions, and…you get the idea.

The earbuds start at $20 and Headphones at $35 so I wouldn’t expect studio/audiophile quality here but for some cool ‘phones that show your style I think that you’d be hard pressed to find such a choice for the price.

I know some of you are rocking some pretty impressive audio kit.  With that you’ve proabably got some sweet, sweet headphones for when your partner doesn’t want to hear Jaco Pastorious get experimental or Opeth chugging away.

Unfortunately not all media players have the power to make those hefty drivers in your cans really work.

Little things like iPod Nanos have enough to drive tiny in-ear headphones and earbuds, but at some point you get headphones where that signal just isn’t enough.

All you need to do is drop less than £15 and get yourself this itsy amp from Fiio .

The E5 replaces their E3 and boosts the signal without adding noise and makes your nice audio gear sound great when you’ve gone all portable.

It’s not yet ready on their website but I’m certainly tempted for when I’m wanting to use my fully enclosed monsters on the train, etc

Slashgear

If you’re looking for something that’s like an iPod then you could do a lot worse than to check this little beauty out!

The Cowon O2 is coming to the UK and it is more than adequate to taunt the iPod and blow raspberries at the best of the rest.

Memory for all your media ranges from 16GB to a lovely 32GB of flash storage.

That’s not enough? Then whack in an SDHC card for up to 32GB more!

Video caresses those eyes of yours via the HD-friendly 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen and there’s compatibility for just about every audio and video format around - yes, even MP3’s!

If it wont play; well……you’ve probably made it up yourself!

Throw in video recording, photo viewing, a respectable battery life of 18 hours of music per charge and an open source operating system - the latter of which could bring forth some interesting downloads, stuff and things.

There’s no pricing details as yet, but as most of us know, Cowon players are generally very competitively priced

Cowon

MP3 music downloads at seven big UK online stores are to be marked with this highly attractive, new and cutting-edge MP3 compatible sign. How cool is that? ~insert sarcasm where applicable~

It’s part of an initiative (to spend pointless money) led by the Entertainment Retailers Association to make consumers aware of the “advantages of the format and the fact that it can be used across multiple brands of music players and across PCs and Macs”.

7digital, Digitalstores, Tescodigital, Tunetribe, Play.com, HMV and Woolworths are all on board for the launch. The ERA digital chairman Russel Coultart said the move was to take the message to music fans “that they can legally buy downloads which are not locked to specific players or computers or mobile phones”.

7digital said consumers much prefer the MP3 format because it is so easy to use. If the MP3 logo is successful, it could be rolled out by the equivalent trade bodies internationally and Coultart also said it is in discussions with music retail organisations globally “to make ‘MP3 compatible’ an international standard”.

This is all very well but how long have MP3’s been with us? Surly it’s not far off from being old enough to smoke and drink? I would understand all this fuss if there hadn’t been a new version of this tech available – I’d call it MP4 or something

The other thing that confuses me about this ‘push’ is that MP3’s aren’t that great quality and now that even small players can manage 4gb why can’t we be upping the quality? Surly we should be pushing CD quality by now?

If it’s a problem about downloading – most people have access to broadband now (especially with all these mobile interweb dongles flying about the place – you don’t even need a BT line!).

Soon there will be a generation of music lovers that will expect that highly compressed low quality vibe – weren’t we dragged away from vinyl and promised a golden-age of high quality, high fidelity listening through a surround sound immersive environment at one point? Or did I dream it?

ERA credits MP3s with much of the growth of music downloads sales, which have risen 41% year-on-year to October this year, according to the Official UK Charts Company, and album sales are up 69% - Before anyone hails iTunes as the leader………….as far as I’m aware (and please correct me if I’m wrong) iTunes started by using MP3 but then quickly moved over to AAC……

~End Rant~

I’ve seen double-adapters for headphones plenty of times but if you’re anything like me you’re gonna end up leaving them at home.

Some bright spark has had the brains to shove a splitter on a keyring - genius!

Now a pair of friends can happily share tunes safe in the knowledge there will be an acceptable earphone to ear ratio - although I’m not sure how it affects sound quality and/or volume.

Buy it here: Gadgets.co.uk for under 7 quid!

The Sony Rolly has always been an enigma to me.

Ok, it’s cute - It’s probably one of the cutest small speakers around.

But.

It’s a portable, trundling, dancing speaker - but the sound isn’t great for £250.

It’s a music player able to stream via A2DP Bluetooth or play from its internal flash but there’s no place to shove your 3.5mm lead.

 Sony are now updating it - and it will be controlled by YOU!! MWAHAHAHAHH!!!

Ahem.  Next month, Japanese Rolly buyers will be able to get the new SEP-50BT version complete with Bluetooth controls thus allowing them to make Rolly dance and spin like a performing monkey-bot all directed via their mobile phones.

I can imagine the high jinks and thoroughly wicked japes to be had through controlling the egg-shaped dancing speaker under somones chair and then unleashing a choice cut from ‘Cannibal Corpse’ as the little mp3 player starts its own circle pit :) 

The new system will actually give you control of up to seven of the little blighters at the same time using a mobile phone or laptop.

I reckon it’s time for some synchronised dancing……….

Gizmodo

To be filed safely under - “nothing special but too cute to ignore”.

These headphones from Greenhouse are for all of us that like the idea of having a mini Angel and Devil shoved into our lugholes.

They’ll rock out an average sounding 5mW output, 20Hz to 20kHz response and are unleashed in Japan in five different color combos for about $10.

Not sure if that stand does anything apart from give you somewhere to sit the little fellas and ask them “should I stick toffee on the dogs back teeth again?”……………

NewLaunches

Play.com, the online store, has just bitten a chunk out of Apple.

Their range of DRM-free music now includes artists from Sony BMG, Warner and Universal joining EMI and a host of independent labels. 

At 65-pence-per-track, that’s 14p less than the iTunes variety and you don’t need an iPod to play them either.

Smugness abounds in the Play.com camp as they also beat HMV, Amazon and Tecso to signing with the big four.

PlayDigital head Wendy Snowdown says: “It’s great for us to get this service live before Amazon, HMV and Tesco and it’s showing in the sales results.”

They’re not the first, however, 7digital pipped them six weeks ago, but Play says the ability to purchase from DVDs, books and everything else, in the same shopping basket gives them the upper hand.

A bit of modesty please Play

PlayDigital

According to Japan’s Nikkei newspaper (kind of Japans’ Wall Street Journal) they report that Nintendo will launch a new version of the DS later this year.

Now I’ve already talked about this but this is where the Nikkei article gets interesting:  They say that this new DS is coming loaded with a built-in camera, music playback and a more powerful wireless to boot!

The camera will be used for new types of games - given what they’ve created with the Wii there’s no telling what this could lead to - though I’m sure it would involve taking pictures of yourself at some point…….

Of course, it’ll reportedly launch in Japan before it hits overseas, where it’ll sell for under 20,000 yen (Kotaku notes the current DS is 16,800 yen).

If true, it looks to be another iteration of the current DS, not the dual widescreen jobby I mentioned before - expect it in April or May 2009.

Nikkei via Kotaku

This is a totally cool bit of kit.

Songreference has a free download for the Windows version of iTunes (Mac to follow I guess) and Winamp called MiniTube.

MiniTube will sniff out the music video of whichever MP3 you are playing at the time.

That’s cool enough but it then plays it all synced up to the song.

The syncing part is the trickiest bit and, quite frankly, makes all the difference.

The plug-in also has links to Wikipedia information on each song.

See a demo video here.

Why?

That’s my first question on discovering the latest venture by the large labels to convince us that we need another physical media to carry our tunes.

Personally CD’s are still my main alternative to MP3, etc.

I still have my vinyl but that weighs a ton. I loved the ease of tapes and I even tried MiniDisks. In fact I  still record my rehearsal jams on MD but that’s about it.

These Sandisk slotMusic cards are not much more than tweaked 1GB microSD cards with a logo and a special USB-compatible sled: and the fact that they’ll carry albums from BMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group fails to pique my interest.

They’ll be DRM free which, to be honest, is a pleasant surprise.

It’s an attempt to change the way some people buy MP3s, the cynical amongst you might think this is a way to attract people back into real stores.  I worked for FOPP and I can tell you that when the chain of stores went into receivership noone was particularly shocked.

Anyhooooo…you’ll get a card you can slot into your cellphone or PC with high-quality MP3s (up to 320kbps), artwork, videos and such, which you can also reuse as a 1GB memory card later, and that’s kinda handy I spose.

If I want, and I generally do, a physical, tangible version of a bought album I’d go for the one with pictures and sleeve notes I can read, touch and yes; perhaps even smell!

I am prepared to be proved wrong - we can only judge after crimbo has come and gone I guess.

SlotMusic

These natty new Bluetooth headphones from Sony are pretty clever.

Not because they’re Bluetooth (c’mon people - how long has that been around?) but because they’ll sync up with your music player and your phone at the same time!

We heart convergence.

The three new cordless headphones for the sporty, or sporty at heart are the DR-BT160AS, DR-BT160IK, and DR-BT14Q Bluetooth.

They all have control features built in to the headset, which means that now instead of having to rummage in your pockets (Oooooer missus!) to change tracks on the treadmill, you only have to fiddle with your ear - much more acceptable in company methinks.

The ‘phones are released out into the populous next month, and they’ve even made them iPod compatible.

Gawd bless ya Sony!

Sony

At last!

The UK gets something first :p

Not that I’m bitter, but us folks here in Blighty get very little before anyone else and usually most tech actually reaches us a good 6 months down the line with the added bonus of a few extra quid slapped on the price just for the privilege!

Nokia are set to put that all right with their ”Comes With Music” service. 

We shall get this by October 2008 and it will offer user a full 12 months of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue.

To quash the many rumours - you can keep the tunes once the contract is up.

But there has to be a carch surly…….

Well, the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic ‘Comes With Music’ edition might not be everyone’s idea of the perfect phone. But if you want to be an early adopter, that’s the price you’ll have to pay.

Carphone Warehouse is the exclusive retailer until the end of 2008 and they’re taking pre-orders from today for both the phone and access to just about every track offered by the major labels by phone and PC.

Go forth you mobile music lovers and enjoy this little thing - for Britania’s sake

Carphone Warehouse

It’s finally been announced that Sony’s cute dancing MP3 player, aka Rolly, has been given the nod for its European launch!.

It’s said that it will go on sale in October but there’s no price info yet - In the States the gadget costs around the $400 mark so if all things were equal it should be around £200 - but don’t get your hopes up

The Rolly offers 2GB of memory, built-in lights, four to five hours of battery life, and Bluetooth connectivity.

Rolly will ship in Europe with three pre-choreographed tracks: “The Pretender” by the Foo Fighters, “Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne and “Acceptable In The 80’s” by Calvin Harris as well as two demo tracks that will get the little bot flapping and busting some moves!

Those whacky, crazy and imaginative people over at KDDI AU Design Project in Japan have come up with this great funky concept for the next generation of music-phones.

Named Box To Play, it starts off as a really neat mobile blower with the regular keypad, camera and stuff…. but then the magic happens!

It transforms into its own speaker system with a graphic visualizer around its 4 sides.

You really must check out the movie of the concept here: KDDI AU

Via Gizmodo

This one really caught my eye and I felt the need to share. 

The chance of getting my hands on legal mind-altering drugs, without the side-effects sounds good - and to achieve this through technology – well, that sounds too good to be true!

Now, the promise of  “proven, scientific and safe methods of synchronising your brainwaves” through pulses of binaural beats or sound waves has been an on-going thing since the ’30s. 

Basically the science of altering your mind’s state and your mood by sounds.

Users of sound cancelling headphones can quite often feel the effects of the sound waves, reporting a light-headedness or dizziness with specific models.

i-Doser claims you can get a similar experience from their MP3s, which offers certain sounds that mimic feelings brought on by your average street drugs………..apparently.

For less than a tenner, i-Doser will sell you the Recreational Simulations 1 MP3 pack, which contains four “doses” in MP3 format, each provoking the feeling of a different ’street drug’…….obviously I would not be able to comment on that. 

Effects often gained from the use of marijuana, cocaine, opium and peyote are promised in these doses, with each audio track containing their “advanced binaural beats that will synchronise your brainwaves to the same state as the recreational dose”.

It’s up to you whether you think that these effects are merely psychosomatic - but perhaps there’s only one way to find out………maaaaaaaaaaaan.

i-Doser via T3