Designed by Dean Ekkaia and Sean Solberg, the Audman is aiming to be the world’s smallest speaker dock and it will even charge your gadget on the go. The case has dual speakers, two headphone jacks for sharing, and large analog buttons to control your music playback. It even comes with a mixtape app that makes it look like you’re playing cassettes while listening to tunes.  With the lid closed, you can listen to music, and iPhone users can receive calls and make them using Voice Control dialing. However texting and using apps will be problematic, as the case completes hides away the screen of your phone unless you pop the lid open. When opened up, it still holds your iPhone securely and it even works as a small kickstand for viewing video.

The Audman is up for pre-order over at Kickstarter, and you need to pledge at least $125(USD) for the full Audman model. For $35 to $65, the Audman LT model is also an option if you like the retro looks but don’t need the speakers or charging capabilities. They’ve got 14 days left to attain their $42,000 goal and they’re at $7,000, so if you want one, you’ll want to get over there and make a pledge.

[via Ubergizmo]

The button allows you to share and discover content through Facebook integration. It also will let you explore the Qriocity service from Sony, which provides streaming music and video content. The phone has got a glossy finish and a mineral glass display. It will be available in either black or white, but the white version is certainly distinctive.

It has a 3.2 inch touchscreen and a 1GHz processor under the hood. You’ll find two cameras, including a rear 5MP AF one that will capture 720p HD video. It also features Sony’s “xLoud” technology, which lets you crank the volume all the way without distortion. Since it’s an Android phone, it will have access to the 250,000 apps in the Android Market. The Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman will be launched later this year – sometime in Q4. Prices haven’t been announced yet.

[via FarEastGizmos]

That’s exactly what the guys at OOO My Design did when they made their Silla cassette tape chair, created from a variety of old tapes. I’m not sure how comfortable it would be to sit on top of dozens of tapes and tie-wraps, but it does look cool, don’cha think?

At least while you sit there, you can relax and listen to some old tapes, since the chair comes with a WalkMan attached to the side. It’s not yet available for purchase, but will sell for €140.00 (appx. $196 USD) when it’s released.

[via Bit Rebels]

Fast forward to 2009, and after 30 years it’s quite unfortunate to see that the brand has not aged well. Its latest flag bearer – the Walkman X – is freakin’ expensive and has poor online capabilities, but at the end of the day it’s an excellent music player, and that’s what the brand is all about. To celebrate it’s 30th anniversary, Sony made a chronological montage of the bajillion iterations of the Walkman.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I wasn’t born in ’79 but I’d be lying if I said that I don’t recognize almost all of those models. This is how a techie like me knows he’s getting old, by the number of models that a gadget has had in his lifetime. Dammit. At least I can say that I’m just 3 PlayStations old. Or is it 7 PlayStations?

[via Akihabaranews]

This handmade leather case comes to us courtesy of London UK artist Tovicorrie of Beautiful Skin. Each one is imprinted with a retro image of Sony’s classic cassette player, layered onto either a soft brown or burgundy red cowhide, and in orange, blue, brown or hot pink Walkman colors. Note the tape that’s in the player is AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock” – a nice touch – unless the thought of Angus Young strutting around the stage disgusts you.

In addition to iPhone cases, he’ll also make iPod Classic or iPod Touch versions if you specify that when you order. They’re available over on his Etsy shop for $28 (USD) each. Tovicorrie – we salute you!

The X doesn’t win on all fronts though: Ashcraft found the touchscreen a bit unresponsive, and its interface won’t win any awards for style.

In the end though, the X is a media player, and judging from the review, its audio and video quality make it more than a match for the PMPs that are currently out today. You can check out T3′s review and hands-on video here.

Head on to Sony Style’s website to pre-order the X-series Walkman; detailed specs are also available there. The 16 GB model sells for $300 USD, while the 32 GB model is $400 USD.

The X1000 series come in two flavors, but the only difference between the two models is their storage capacity. The NW-X1050 can store 16 GB of data, while the NW-X1060 has double the capacity at 32 Gb. Both models can play audio (mp3, ATRAC, linear PCM, AAC) and video (WMV, AVC, MPEG-4) files.

The X1000 series also includes the barely functional NetFront browser, the same browser that’s on the PSP, along with Microsoft Live Search and a quick link to YouTube. The latest Walkmen (Walkmans?) are also equipped with the now requisite capacitive touchscreen, as well as a 1-seg digital TV tuner.

The NW-X1050 will sell for about ¥40,000 ($408 USD) while the NW-X1060 is priced around ¥50,000 ($509 USD). Check out Sony’s press release or the Sony Style website for more details on their latest potaburuodiopureya.

[via anythingbutipod]

The Walkman X can play MP3, WMA, and AAC audio files and WMV, MPEG-4, and AVC video files. Winner right? It’s the BMW M6 of Walkmen. I am hoping both for our and Sony’s sake that the X won’t be too expensive when it comes out this summer. If not, the iPod Touch will remain king. The addition of noise cancellation might bump the price up though. Sony could end up with another PS3: so advanced but so expensive.

Speaking of Walkmen, the one on the right is the X’s little brother, the W. W is short for “wearable”: it’s obviously going to go up against the likes of the iPod Shuffle. One of the W’s main draws is that the player is actually built into the earphones. Of course that would also be one of it’s biggest weaknesses. If the earphones suck, you can’t just ditch them and stick other earphones/ headphones in.

Another ace up the W’s sleeve is its insanely fast charge time. Charge it for 3 minutes and it’s good for up to 90 minutes of use. Charge it for 30 minutes, and you get a whopping 12 hours of continuous playback. The iPod Shuffle has a similar battery life but a 4-hour charge time. In the words of Sony Insider: “Wow.” In my words: “Wow.” All together now: “WOW.”

The W will also try and one-up the feature that gave the iPod Shuffle its name with it’s “Zappin” feature. The W senses if its wearer has bad taste in music and zaps him if he does. In my words: “Wow. Not true.”  Zappin is like the Seek function in car radios: To offset the lack of a screen, the W can browse through your songs by offering you samples or sound bites until you hear the song you want. “Wow. Zappin”. I hope the feature works well, or at the very least an option where you can adjust the length and speed of the seek function is available.

The Walkman W has a capacity of 2Gb and will be sold for $69 this spring. Which Walkman do you guys prefer? Think they can edge out their Apple counterparts?

[via Sony Insider, PC Mag & Gizmodo]

The article adds, “upon listening to an artist, you may click on the artist name and watch music videos of the artist on YouTube through Wi-Fi (WPA and WEP support included).” Other features that the new Walkman are supposed to have include a built-in link to Amazon’s online music store, a dedicated You Tube app, podcast downloads as well as online software updates.

This rumor is so hot that all we got was the mock-up… so yeah. No other pics. Just got logos and pasted em together. Anyway the new Walkman is said to also have a built-in S-Master digital amplifier and noise canceling capabilities. To differentiate themselves from the competition, Sony are calling the new Walkman “iPod Touch”. Kidding.It can play cassette tapes. No. The new Walkman also has a built-in FM radio. If any of you technabob viewing people get to go to CES ’09,do  tell us if  any of this is for real or if I just made it up.

[via Sony Insider via anythingbutipod]

I love how the artist even made a little pair of headphones and some cassettes to go with the portable tape player.

All were lovingly handcrafted by Israel’s VeryNiceDolls. While you’re off ogling their Flickr photostream, be sure to check out their other plush creations, including a cool toaster (complete with buttered toast), a reel-to-reel tape player and a pair of sneakers.

[via Craft]

Regency TR-1
Back in 1954, I.D.E.A. released the very first portable transistor radio. The Regency TR-1 radio measured 3″ x 5″ x 1.25″ and featured an analog AM tuner. In a strange prediction of things to come (I’m talking to you iPod), the Regency came out in a variety of colors over the years, ranging from a simple bone white to pearlescent lavender and lime colors.

The TR-1 tuned stations by a simple gold dial and played through a low-fidelity monophonic speaker. It retailed for $49.95 back in the day, which would make it cost around $325 in today’s dollars.

KLH Model 11 Portable
With the companies he founded still making an impact on today’s audio scene, Henry Kloss developed the very first portable stereo back in 1962 when he released the KLH Model 11.

The Model 11 was the first transistorized stereo system, and featured a record player, amplifier and two speakers which all folded neatly into a “suitcase” for easy transportation. While the stereo only ran on A/C power, not batteries, it still was a milestone in the development of portable music players.

Philips Compact Cassette and the Norelco Carry-Corder 150
In 1965, Philips released the first ever compact cassette tape. Originally designed for recording dictations and other boring stuff, the cassette recorded up 45 minutes of sound on single 1/8-inch tape.

To compliment Philps’ innovation in recording media, they released the battery-powered Carry-Corder 150 cassette recorder. It ran on 5 flashlight batteries and weighed in at over 3 pounds (fully loaded). Later, Mercury Records would release a selection of music on Philips cassettes for about $6 a piece. Cassette and 8-track tapes would dominate the portable music world for the next 20 years.

Sony Walkman TPS-L2
Back in the 1970′s and 1980′s Sony was the king of miniaturization, and in 1979, they released the first truly self-contained portable music system, the TPS-L2 Walkman cassette player.

The Walkman’s real innovation was its size, measuring only slightly larger than a cassette tape itself. Featuring a pair of portable, lightweight headphones and operating on AA batteries, it ushered in a new era of portability. The original Walkman retailed for 33,000 Japanese Yen, which would be around $274 US dollars today. The Walkman went on to sell millions of units and spawned numerous variations and imitators for many years after its initial release.

Sony Discman D-50
As CDs overtook cassette tapes in both sound quality and popularity, Sony saw the need to update its popular Walkman line for a new generation.

In 1984, on the one year anniversary of the introduction of compact discs, Sony introduced their D-50 portable CD player, the first ever portable digital music player. The D-50 was actually my own first foray into portable music players, and it truly was a marvel. Just slightly larger than a CD case, the player offered all of the great audio quality that digital recordings had to offer.

SaeHan / Eiger Labs MPMan F10
The very first solid state commercial music player didn’t come from Apple, Diamond or Creative as many think. In fact, it came from a Korean company called SaeHan Information Systems, and was imported to the U.S. by Eiger Labs. The MPMan was the very first MP3 player of all time. It featured a whopping 32MB of RAM (expandable to 64MB by sending the player back to Eiger for an upgrade,) and held about 8 average length tracks (around 32 minutes of music.)

The MPMan appeared on shelves in the summer of 1998, and ran on a rechargeable NiMH battery pack. Since the player used solid state memory, it actually had about 9 hours of battery life, which is still better than many hard drive based players today.

Apple iPod and iTunes
Leave it to Apple to stand back, look at what other companies were doing wrong, and to vastly improve upon their mistakes. The original iPod, released in 2001 combined a 5GB hard drive with a rechargeable battery pack and a paradigm breaking user interface. Marketed by Steve Jobs as “1000 songs in your pocket,” the iPod didn’t necessarily do that much differently under the hood from other MP3 players, but it had a sleek design (by 2001 standards), a unique and simple navigational system, and the Apple brand name to back it all up.

Initially, the iPod only supported Macintosh computers, and the only way to get music tracks was to record from your own CDs or from (often illegal) downloads on the Internet. In 2003, Apple released iTunes and opened their iTunes store, which made it easy to purchase legal music downloads for just 99 cents a track. Shortly afterwards, they introduced a Windows-compatible version of their software.

With their one-two punch of form and function, Apple continues to dominates the portable music player market today. Over the years Apple has continued to release a plethora of new iPod models, including the recent addition of video playback, and the forthcoming iPhone.

Only time will tell how portable media players will evolve. With innovations like touchscreens, high definition video playback, wireless streaming, low cost solid state memory and more on the horizon, the first 50 years were just the beginning.