mp3 player on technabob...

Hot on the heels of Apple’s recent announcement to drop the price of it’s latest (5.5 generation) iPod 30gb model to $249, Creative Labs has just dropped the price on their Zen Vision:M 30gb model to $249 as well…

Mobility Today posted some up close footage of the new Microsoft Zune media player in action today.

Note the huge album art, and video playback is done in landscape mode to provide excellent widescreen movie viewing…

Hot on the heels of Apple’s iPod announcements, Microsoft has officially taken the wraps off of their Zune media player. As expected, the player can handle both audio and video playback on a 3″ LCD screen that can work in either portrait or landscape mode. The player can handle media in h.264, MP3, AAC and WMA formats…

One of my favorite places for fun and unique items on the web is the $25 Giant Robot Store. I just came across a fun gizmo on their site called the “FM3 Buddha Machine.”

The Buddha Machine is said to be the “anti-ipod.” The device only plays nine ambient drone tracks (from 2 to 42 seconds in length) over and over and over…

Commodore, the brand that brought us the Pet, the VIC-20 and the C64 are now bringing us another oddly named device, the Gravel in Pocket.
The personal media player was announced today at the IFA 2006 consumer electronics show in Berlin…

Crunchgear has broken the news that the initial Microsoft Zune media player will be manufactured by Toshiba, not Microsoft.
The device has been registered with the FCC as the Toshiba 1089. It’s been confirmed that the player features a 30GB hard drive, a 3″ LCD, USB 2.0 and 802.11 b/g connectivity…

[UPDATE 9/28/2006: After rumors of a low-ball $229 price, the Zune was officially announced for $249.99 - that's the real, final MSRP]
This Week in Consumer Electronics (TWICE) has learned from several retailers that Microsoft is planning to release their “iPod killer”, Zune digital media player this fall (rumors have it as a November 14th release date) at an MSRP of $299…

Creative Labs has announced the release of a new version of their Zen Neeon music players, improving significantly on the original models by adding a color screen, video playback and greater memory capacity.With these specs, these players look poised to take on the Apple’s rival iPod Nano line:

1, 2, and 4GB options
1.5″ Color Display
(128 x 128 pixels)
Audio: MP3, WMA, and WAV
Video: Transcoded AVI
FM Tuner
5-band Equalizer
Voice Recorder
Line-In Recorder
20 hour battery life for audio, 8 hours for video
5 brushed-metal colors
Dimensions: 81 x 42 x 12.5 mm; Weight: 50g

Initial pricing has only been announced in Singapore, as follows: S$199.00 (appx…