Media Player News

Earth-Shattering Early Zune Release

Thank goodness that cell phone cameras have enabled us as a civilization to capture these critical moments in consumer electronics history. Like the (accidental?) early release of the 120GB and 16GB Zunes and the subsequent re-pricing of the old 80GB model.

The Zune 3.0 software and the new Zune models were expected to be released on September 16th, but it looks like some employees are getting a little overzealous with their product displays.

If you don’t happen to live near the Fry’s in Atlanta (top image) or the Walmart in Harborcreek, PA (bottom image), you’ll just have to wait with the rest of America.

[Via Engadget]

There are worse ways to charge your iPod

If you have 25 extra dollars sitting around and you would rather buy a gadget than light your cash on fire (which is illegal) consider this nifty lighter-socket-powered combination LED flashlight and device charger. Finally, we can charge our iPods and have something a little brighter than our cell phone LCD for lighting up a dark room. Gadgets that combine two great functions into one don’t always make it into our blog, but this one was hard to resist.

It’s not that this little contraption can charge our plethora of portable electronics… or that it can serve as a handy flashlight… it’s the quaint simplicity of the maker’s website, which features 4 or 5 spelling/grammar mistakes. And there’s the wonderful play on words that brought about the genius title of The Flashlight-er^TM.Now if only our iPods could be charged with UBS…

[Via CrunchGear]

Creative Mystery

Introducing the latest in the line of personal electronics manufacturers trying to be trendy and mysterious in their advertising campaigns: Creative has announced that they will be… making an announcement.

Creative sent special press invitations to a September 17th media event. Just what will be unveiled is still up for speculation, especially among vocal Creative devotees, but it’s a good bet that it’ll center around their X-Fi technology. (For those who have lost track, X-Fi is short for Xtreme Fidelity.) With Creative, that doesn’t narrow it down much. New headphones? New PMP? Speakers? iPod sound dock?

It’s possible—but seems like a longshot—that Creative will be unveiling the much-rumored media player from the recently unearthed patents. Whatever the announcement will be, we hope that it lives up to the hype that Creative is trying to build. With the shadowy mystique of this teaser, Creative ought to be releasing the next iPhone killer and not just another sound card branded by Fatal1ty.

While we’re at it, can we petition advertisers to stop using bad spelling as a catch-phrase? "Are you hear yet?" Seems like they bit off a bit more than they could chew in trying to create a marketing campaign that’s… well, creative.

Via Engadget

Conspiracy Theory for Apple Foes

Gadget fanatics will go to all sorts of extremes to spark their own desperate speculations. Witness the recently unearthed patent application filed by Creative in January of this year. What do these patent diagrams show? Well it would seem to be some kind of media player. More aptly, the description reads, "…a perspective view of a media player showing our new design."

Since the pics are huge, we put them here.

[Via anythingbutipod]

Apple is the Funnest

Legions of Apple fans are drooling over a wealth of information from today’s event. Fortunately for Apple, they discovered long ago that it doesn’t take much to get their fans excited. Just throw some more colors out there and it’s like you’ve released a whole new product!

To be fair to Apple, they do continue to improve, if not innovate, their products. The new iPod Touch is looking slinkier than ever with its curved back and minute profile. They’ve added support for their Genius playlist, plus the iPod + Nike feature—though we wouldn’t pick the iPod Touch as a natural jogging partner. They’re also really pushing the Touch as a gaming device. Of course, no serious gamer would consider any Apple product to be a gaming device… until that unspeakable day when they announce an unholy union between Apple and Nintendo.

Continued >

Zune 3.0 Is On Its Way

What’s better than a whole new line-up of iPods? A whole new line-up of Zunes! At least, that’s what Microsoft is hoping. In a week when Apple is likely to make their own splash with a slew of media player announcements, Microsoft has squeaked in to steal their thunder and give the world a glimpse of the new Zunes.

The big hardware improvement will be the increased capacity: a 120GB hard drive model and a 16GB flash model. Increased capacity is great, but admit it… what you’re most excited about is the slick new blue color.

We also love Microsoft’s decision to include an FM tuner in the Zune, and the 3.0 update will bring every Zune the ability to tag and purchase songs from the radio. Apple might be king of the media players, but it’s still baffling that they don’t have a tuner. It’s true that radio is a niche market compared to the burgeoning digital music phenomenon, but we think a lot of people would like to use their iPods to listen to sports broadcasts on the go or enjoy NPR once in a while. (Not to mention all the people who still tune into the radio for their dose of pop music.)

Also on tap for the Zunes? Lots of ways to give and get more music recommendations and to construct smart playlists using Mixview. There’s support for audiobooks, too. And two free games: Texas Hold ‘Em and… Hexic! We loved Hexic when it launched with the Xbox 360, so we’ll hardly complain about this great addition.

All of this will be coming your way September 16th. Now if only anything in this press release could even remotely steal any kind of thunder from a powerhouse like Apple…

[Via Microsoft]