Looks sweet, no?
Also packs quite a punch, with features including 4GB of memory, a 2.4in screen, a microphone plug for voice recording, FM support of some kind, USB support and MP3/WAV/OGG/WMA for audio, Xvid for video, 20 hours of battery life for audio and 6 for video.
[via Gizmodo]
Remember the Nokia HS-20 headset we liked? The reason was that it incorporated a remote control with a microphone and a 3.5mm adaptor into a phone's headset, which allows the use of any headphones, as well as working as a phone headset.
Tekkeon has created something which blows the HS-20 right out of the water.
Think of a headset which has HS-20 functionality - while connected to your mp3 player! That's essentially what myTalker does. To quote from the product literature: "myTalker™, the Bluetooth™ gateway from Tekkeon, turns your iPod or MP3 player into a Bluetooth headset. This tiny accessory uses your own music headphones for your calls, so there’s no need to miss a call, or frantically juggle your headphones and mobile phone. You answer and make calls with a single touch of the gateway. And you have one-touch access to advanced calling features like last number redial, voice dialing, and call waiting."
Unfortunately, you still need to charge it daily (it has a built-in Li-ion battery with a manufacturer-claimed 5-8 hour talktime and 120 hours standby) and the only control you have over the mp3 player is with regard to volume changes.
On the bright side, if you frequently expect to receive calls while listening to music, this makes it oh-so-simple. Of course, if you decide that you want an N91 instead, you get control of the player as well. Choices, choices...
[via Slashphone]
Before the colour iPods, the more expensive iPods used to ship with a wired remote controller. For some reason Apple phased this out when the colour 4G ipods started to ship, but now iPod remotes are back, as the iPod Radio Remote.
They're better than before though - the old style remotes were basically six buttons - the new style has only five; but is shaped like the ipod wheel. (Pretty! see left) Of course, the big thing about it is that it will enable radio. This is a boon for those who want an iPod, and also a radio (obivously). I've never quite understood why this would be, but I suppose there's no accounting for tastes... The remote also requires a software update to work - this might mean that the radio "program" is in the update, and so perhaps a hack to enable radio without the remote is possible.
Ooh - iPod with Radio! (Now all we need is recording...)
Radio Data System (RDS) is supported, but there is no screen. It's also unclear if radio "stations" can be saved... Pity it's only in white - were I to buy an iPod now the black (nano) would be a serious contender. If you're a fan of iPod headphones, it also comes with a pair of those. It's not clear if the remote will work with older ipods - it connects via the dock connector, so it is a possibility...
[via Ubergizmo]
Update: Engadget has a video review. They like it a little more than the E1.
The new Motorola ROKR is out - but even though it sports a prettier design and a better screen, it lacks iTunes. Perhaps the 50 song limit got to Moto? Users may still upload their own MP3 files, but we don't quite know what the player is like.
We can't see this as anything but a letdown - without the iTunes edge, it's unclear how Motorola intends to take the music phone lead, particularly since Sony Ericsson has just released a new version of the w800i - the SE w810: Now with quadband GSM support (850/900/1800/1900 = Yay! for the US)and an improved look, and the same excellent 2 megapixel camera.
[via Ubergizmo]
Everything USB has a review of the iRiver U10, a tiny (see picture on right) flash mp3/video player with a 2.5" QVGA LCD and flash lite support. Have we said it's tiny?
The Flash lite support means that the player also ships with 6 games (which look pretty entertaining) but the lack of storage space (1GB max), high price (US $249 for the 1GB), slow transfer (15 MBPS) and limited video playback speed (15fps) are problems.
We think that if the price drops, it'll be alot more attractive, especially against the ipod nano which has no (real) video support and only a 1.5" screen.
[via Ubergizmo]
Music radio is great. It exposes the listener to new artists, is generally free, and is available in many modern music players (but not natively on the ipod). Radio has predictably expanded it's distribution medium, embracing the internet, and there it's (probably) has been pretty successful. It's hard to tell, but note that all the big media programs (Windows Media Player / Itunes / Realplayer) have radio feeds built in.
There is a problem though - while the range and types of genres available for selection are many and varied, whether you like a particular song is probably still a hit-or-miss affair. With the advent of personalization technology, this is set to change. A pioneer of personalized internet radio is Pandora. From a single seed song / artist it auto-generates a playlist for you. We've been trying it out, and it's pretty good. There are a couple of wrinkles though: you need to create an account, and have a US zipcode - after awhile - and it pops up advertising unless you subscribe. Both of these are probably acceptable, because the music is gooood.
(We're not sure if it'll run on your mobile... You might need flash lite, and even then it might not work.)
[via igakunogakus
Over at Arstechnica, Charles Jade is asking if "the cell phone the new black (iPod)?"
The answer is probably - not yet.
As noted, there is no phone (or service - both for the provision of music and bandwidth) as yet designed to allow the downloading of music over the air - and as we have previously argued, this is probably the test which has to be passed before MP3 players become fully converged with cellphones.
We would like, however, to point out one new development which might accelerate this process - not because it will serve to untangle the legal mess which has to be navigated for the service to occur, or that it is a new phone which is the cellphone equivalent of the Grail, but because is it possibly representative of an evolutionary change of mindsets.
This is the Nokia Music Headset HS-20 (pictured above). Incorporating a remote control with a microphone and a 3.5mm adaptor (and shipping with headphones which look like they are in-ear), it is stated to be compatible with the N-Series, E-Series, and the L'Amour Collection.
On a superficial level, this new headset will make it trivial to use better headphones to listen to music on-phone. However, we hope that it also means that Nokia has recognized that music quality matters - a necessary step towards full music/mobile convergence. Whether or not this is true depends largely upon the sort of sound capable of being reproduced by the handsets in question. Initial indications are good and we will find that out in due course.
It's such a pity that this headset is not planned to be included with phones like the N80 instead of the microphone-less AD-15 - but we suppose that there is a reason that white ipod earbuds are ubiquitous.
Stanford University has decided to release content to the general public via the iTunes Music store. From the Stanford press release:
Today, the university will publicly debut a project called Stanford on iTunes, providing Stanford-related audio content via the iTunes Music Store, Apple's popular music jukebox and online music store. Stanford on iTunes will give alumni and the general public free access to a wide range of Stanford-specific digital audio content.
This is excellent. Many American educational institutions have gone down this path before (see, for example, Harvard@home), but this allows much easier access, and will probably result in greater mindshare, and hopefully a better educated public. We would suggest that video lectures are the next step, but unfortunately it's quite common that brilliant, brilliant academics are awful lecturers, so perhaps not.
Anyhow - plug right in: http://itunes.stanford.edu/
[via Arstechnica]
