Remix photos and music with the M-Robe

Here's an interesting little multimedia editing suite that fits in the palm of your hand. Create your own video clips with the M-Robe all-in-one portable multimedia centre from Olympus. Take digital pictures, add music and remix with the new M:robe MR-500i motion music player.

Like the I-pod, the M-Robe is a sleek and stylish white portable hard disc drive that can store both photos and music to carry with you wherever you go.

Unlike the I-pod, however, the M-Robe can then manipulate the data stored on it and provide a mobile editing station for a variety of special effects. You can download music from the Net or record your own soundtrack to accompany your digital picture presentation, and it can then be transferred to your computer for sharing with the world.

Two models have just been released in Japan. The 20 GB MR-500i motion music player offers a full fusion of music and images, up to 5,000 music selections or 20,000 images to be carried. It has a 3.7-inch VGA monitor and a camera function that turns the large LCD monitor into a viewfinder that captures images simply by touching the screen. It can also connect with a digital camera. Captured images can then be organized into albums, displayed in calendar format and viewed as slideshows. The MR-100 HDD compact music player is a streamlined 5Gb model that focuses on the music and is able to store up to 1,200 songs.

They both have a gorgeously simple touch and click screen operation and a user-friendly GUI that provides visual and emotional feedback in response to user input. Music and images can easily be searched by date, playback history, or user-assigned keyword. You can search music by album, artist, genre, composer, year of release, or playback history. Images can be viewed in thumbnail, album, or calendar format, making it even easier to find the ones you want, and create new ones you dream up.