MP3

October 30, 2006 Two of the age old problems facing every audiophile consumer appear to have been solved by a US$50 USB-thumbdrive-sized device. Instant FM Music plugs into your computer’s USB Port, enabling you to tune to your favourite FM or Web Radio station and record the station's entire playlist, at the same time as identifying the individual tracks for easy playback. So you’ll never have to listen to the radio and wonder what the name/artist of a track might be, or where you might get it. A complete USB hardware/software solution, the device finds and records the user’s favorite songs, podcasts and sporting events automatically, separates, identifies and labels the songs using a combination of Snaptune One and the company’s own the company’s own analog-to-digital audio converter and Radio Data Reception System (RDS) capture technology. This technology combines with the software’s other tools to enable consumers to easily tune across the entire FM band, record live broadcasts and view displays of RDS/RBDS data such as station call letters, radio text and more on their PC monitor. Read More

October 23, 2006 Text-to-speech converters suck, or at least they used to suck – these days the latest converters such as the US$30 Odiogo are remarkably good at giving the written word a coherent news reader voice. Odiogo downloads your favorite RSS news and blog feeds and converts the text into spoken word so it becomes available via an MP3 player, when you want. Odiogo converts any RSS news and blog feed into a Podcast! As seen in the pages of the Red Ferret Journal. Read More

August 22, 2006 Competition improves the breed, and in the hot-hot-hot world of MP3 players, the 8 GB SanDisk Sansa e280 is the best of breed this week. Unveiled yesterday as the world's largest capacity flash-based MP3 player, the e280 has a suggested price of US$250, audio, photo viewing and video clip playback capabilities and a microSD expansion slot allowing expansion to 10GB of music with a 2GB microSD card. The player features an open digital rights management system that allows users to purchase songs or access subscription download services from numerous sources. In keeping with the ever-improving bang-per-buck trend, SanDisk has lowered its prices on the entire Sansa e200 line of products, including the existing 2 GB (US$140), 4 GB (US$180) and 6 GB (US$220) models. Read More

August 14, 2006 We just can’t get over how hot MP3 players are at present. From being non-existent just a handful of years ago, portable audio player sales last year hit US$5 billion in the United States, which comes into perspective when you find out that the combined home and automotive market for fixed audio systems was US$5.11 billion. Whatsmore, the MP3 market is expected to more than double again by 2009. Then consider that the market leader (Apple’s iPod) has 75% of the market, despite offering no functional advantage beyond the user interface and charges a significant premium for its products. It seems logical then that the contenders are lining up with killer pricing strategies. We’ve already reported on the world’s cheapest MP3 player, but expect that with the price of flash memory continuing to fall, we’re going to see some outrageous bargains over the next few years and here’s another to start you thinking. The Chinese 1GB Ainol V3 is half an inch thick, supports all major formats, has a 1.3-inch 160 x 129 screen, FM radio, USB 2.0, miniSD slot and retails for US$69 in China (US$50 for the 512MB version). Read More

August 13, 2006 With MP3 player sales booming and threatening to become a disruptive media technology, the BBC is planning to develop a “plug-in gadget that turns MP3 players into digital radios.” Plans are in the early stages and no functionality spec or firm details have been released, nor has a cost or availability details, but a BBC spokesman was reported as saying, “it's important for to us to make sure that people can listen to digital radio on their own terms" according to the BBC web site. The BBC spokesman said the BBC was conducting feasibility studies for the design, manufacuring and marketing of the device. The plug-in gadget would not be limited to playing the BBC digital radio stations and versions might also be available for mobile phones and cars. The BBC initiative comes just after the release of a study by global market research firm Ipsos which indicates that as many as one in five Americans over the age of 12 now own portable MP3 Players and one in 20 own more than one. Read More

July 16, 2006 This is one of the most cost effective iPod accessorioes we’ve ever seen, and it’ll look after your iPod at the beach or the pool or anywhere outdoors where your pride and joy might get wet, sandy, dirty, dusty or damaged. It’ll service any MP3 player and comes with an AM/FM radio built-in as well as the stereo speakers - the Aquadock MP3 docking station is water resistant and costs just US$29.95. Read More

May 19, 2006 We’re bullish about the prospects for MPEG Surround and see it as inevitable it will be adopted by the mass market. MP3 Surround enables high-quality surround sound at bit rates comparable to those currently used to encode stereo MP3 material. It is backwards compatible to stereo MP3; a legacy MP3 device plays back MP3 Surround as high quality stereo. Most importantly, it comprises a full set of tools enabling the representation, reproduction and rendering of multi-channel audio for a broad spectrum of applications, from digital broadcasting, to mobile entertainment, to Internet music distribution. It brings true surround sound to any media system at next to no overhead in transportation and storage, and preserves consumers' investment as existing home stereo equipment can stay in use. The Fraunhoffer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS invented the MP3 and is working with Agere Systems, Coding Technologies and Philips, to demonstrate the full potential of the new Surround Sound system at AES (Audio Engineering Society) Pro Audio Expo which begins in Paris tomorrow. Wanna try for yourself? Go here to download a free evaluation version of the Fraunhofer IIS MP3 Surround player. Read More

May 3, 2006 We’ve mentioned this capability before but we’re still so tickled about it, the shipping release of H2O Audio iPod nano waterproof housing gave us the ideal excuse. Anyone who swims knows the solitude of the water and the semi meditative state that can be achieved. There are those among us though, who crave the rhythm offered by music and this ingenious waterproof housing/headset combo enables one to listen to most mp3 players underwater. The H2O housing also offers safe sanctuary to your MP3 player during adventure sport activities such as surfing, wakeboarding, water skiing, snowboarding and probably anything else you can think of other than perhaps diving and the diminutive iPod nano design ensures users it can be strapped on and simply won’t get in the way. With the nano housing, absolute waterproof protection is not at the expense of access to Apple’s interface – the casing has a unique full-function Commander scroll-wheel assembly that provides users with ready access to all of the iPod nano's proprietary click wheel functions even when fully submerged in water. will be able to take their playlist with them regardless of outdoor conditions or recreational environment. Excellent action piccies with the housing being tested to the extreme!! Read More

April 15, 2006 If you’re in any doubt about how ubiquitous the MP3 player will become, think about this. Japanese company Evergreen has released the DN-2000 onto the Japanese market. The DN-2000 has no internal memory and no display, but takes SD cards up to 1GB and like most MP3 players, doesn’t need a display because the standard interface of buttons is entirely adequate. We’re not going to put the price in the heading or first paragraph so you can decide for yourself just how cheap it might be possible to sell such an MP3 player for … with earphones, after design, manufacture and marketing. Read More