Creative Finally Give Us The 32GB Zen Flash Media Player

Creative gives us the world's first 32GB Flash Media Player

MP3 player Grand Masters, Creative, have given everybody a bit of a shock by announcing the arrival of an absolute Everest of a device with their whopping new 32GB Flash Media Player. Talk that a 32GB Creative Zen was coming our way was flowing freely amongst Tech-Heads in recent times but Creative were always very rigid on the whole idea and constantly dismissed that such a device was in the making. It seems those cheeky Creative chappies just love a good wind-up.

The supposed "never gonna happen" player has been released in Asia this week and believe it or not... the UK! although stock is limited over here and when i say limited, i really mean LIMITED. I'm not talking a thousand or a couple of hundred here, it is more like... 50! So, if you want one get yourself over to Creative Labs pronto.

The Creative Zen 32GB has double the memory of the new iPod Touch, 4 times more than the iPhone and it has a SD/SDHC card slot so you can add even more! Despite all this its size is still that of a credit card, only, a little chubbier. The 32GB model will support file types WMA, MP3, AAC, WMV9, MJPEG, MPEG4, DivX and XviD and will display video at a 320x240 resolution. It also has other little treats such as a built in microphone and a built in FM radio, supplied software for converting formats and it will play stuff bought from iTunes. With a price of £284.99 it does look a little steep so all you need to ask yourself is "Is this too high a price for the worlds first 32GB flash media player?"

Related:

Creative Labs

The Bike To Beach iPod Speaker For Your Bike

Ever been out for a cycle on a Sunday morning and realise that your Bike is missing its very own Jukebox? No, neither have i, but, it does sound pretty cool huh? iPod dedicated company, iHome on the other hand HAVE thought about it and have seen the idea through with their iH85B Speaker or "Bike to Beach Bicycle Speaker for iPod" as it's dubbed.

The speaker case is water resistant and is clamped onto your bike just like a water bottle. The remote control is mounted to your handle bars so you can easily change tunes while cycling! The speaker can also be used at home and comes with an AC adaptor and will charge your iPod while it is connected.

So its an "iPod Home Dock" and a new type of Dock, the err... "iPod Bike Dock".

Check it out more here at iHome.

BBC News Show Click Check Out New Motion Sensitive Laptop Technology

BBC News 24's technology show Click takes a look at new Motion Sensitive Laptop technology, plus, "Why magnetic PDA screens are no good", the new Samsung SGH-F300, double sided phone and music player and Samsung's new very unique carry case/battery charger. Check out the video below.

Motion Sensitive Laptop Video

Waterproof iPod Speakers: For Those Who Just Can't Get Away From Their Pod!

With the on the go music world controlled by the iPod nowadays there can just never be enough accessories to go along with the worlds favourite MP3 players. Here is one of my very favourites. If that little player doesn't ever leave your side and has replaced the dog as "man's best friend" then this is the perfect accessory for you!

Whether its down the beach, at the swimming pool, singing in the shower or diving with the rubber ducky in the tub, these Waterproof Speakers will keep the tunes playing no matter what waves hit them. You may even replace ducky in the bath tub with them. Throw them in the bath and let them float about while you chill to the sounds it spills out. The speakers are inside a case in which you also put your iPod. You can control your iPod from the outside of the case with the rubber membrane that works the wheel on your iPod.

Top gadget for bathroom antics! These Waterproof iPod Speakers are available at Firebox.

Amazon To Open Online Music Store With No DRM

Amazon are planning to launch an online music store that sells music without copyright protection. Amazon are licensed to sell music from 12,000 different record companies. Millions of tunes are to be sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). ALL music sold from the website will be DRM free which means tunes will play on ALL MP3 players, watch out iTunes, oh and Windows Media guys, you better watch out too!

There are no official details on when the store will be open which means we don't have an exact date for "National CD Burning Day" yet, but it will be open some time this year.

The MP3 Player That Fits On Your Finger Tip!

When i first saw this thing i thought, no way! this can't really work, it must be sum kind of joke shop toy but yes its for real. With a dimension of 24mm x 24mm x 24mm, you will struggle to find a smaller player than this but what i find more amazing than the size is, what has actually been crammed into this claustrophobic little space. With an amazing 2GB of memory you will be able to store 200 hours of tunes. 2GB in that little thing! The 3.7V lithium battery will also provide hours of playback and it even has FM radio.

It supports MP1, MP2, MP3, WMA, WMV, ASF, WAV 7 and comes complete with its own special lightweight headphones

Check It Out At Gadget Universe

Fed Up With Bebo & MySpace? Give Imeem A Go!

Website Of The Week

Sorry to say but this is about another Social Networking site. Frankly, i am sick to the back teeth of your Bebo's and your MySpace but i have found another one that i just cant get away from, i don't know whether this is fortunate or unfortunate but either way i really like it! It is called Imeem and is an online media community. To be a bit more specific i am going to take a line right out of their homepage.

"IMEEM is an online community where artists, fans & friends can promote their content, share their tastes, and discover blogs, photos, music and video."

Recently i have been away from my music supply and it has been driving me mad! I love tunes and when i don't have my sounds to listen to, i get really cranky! Well this Imeem site has saved my life, or rather it has saved others from my crankiness! Very simple to use, sign up in the same manner as all the rest of them, search for a song in the search bar and add it to a playlist, easy! I was very surprised at the amount of songs available and the variety, i have found stuff that i have been trying to find for years! As long as this website is opened up in the browser you can leave the CD's to go dusty in the rack.

I have been using it primarily for my Trance supply but the video, photo and blogging services look great aswell. I'm going to get a video playlist going on next.

Check out my profile and have a look at the rest of Imeem

MP3 Players To Have Sat Nav?

UK scientists are planning on adding satellite navigation technology to MP3 players to help guide lost and desperate souls around cities. On the move rockers will be able to program a destination into their MP3 player and be directed as they stroll to their sounds. The technology will be developed to allow users to personalise the system to their own preference. For example, just say you have programed in a destination, if you are heading in the right direction, your music will play through both headphones and will signal you to turn right or left by shifting volume to different ears.

Another feature is a "nudge alert". Lets say you are visiting an unfamiliar city, perhaps on a day out or trip and you have an appetite for museums and art galleries. You program into your device that they tickle your fancy and it will alert you when there is one nearby, by either a physical tap or vibration. If you ignore the device it will stop nudging you until it finds something else that might be of interest to you! What a clever little thing!

Swansea and Glasgow universities have received funding for the three-year project and are working on it as we speak.

Top Summer Gadget: Wireless Outdoor Solar Speaker

With summer approaching fast, the urge to make a right mess of a barbecue while getting seriously sloshed in the back garden is beginning to get too great. Now for a proper summer shindig we all know that you need to have a decent player that will blast out those beats right? and the ghetto blaster that drunk Uncle Dave keeps standing on sending out the tunes from the kitchen just isn't enough! No fear, this year you can be the saviour of the garden binge with this Wireless Outdoor Solar Powered Speaker!

No batteries, no cable extensions, no problems! The solar panel will keep it charged using nothing but the ray's of the sun and no there isn't a catch and no, setting it up wont send the blood pressure through the roof!

Here is a simple 3 step guide as to how it is set up:

1) Plug the mains transmitter into the wall.
2) Plug your MP3 Player/Stereo/PC into the mains transmitter.
3) Take the speaker outside, plant it in with the roses or the strawb's out of Uncle Dave's way, then press ON.

Now if you are thinking, "Great!, now i can organise my very own music festival in the back garden!" then you would be wrong. The 5W power it pumps out is not really enough to create your own rave cave but is perfect for a burnt barbecue on a sunny Sunday! This great gadget is available from Firebox and should definitely be near the top on your summer gadgets shopping list.

Curry's Pull The Plug On Cassette Tapes

Is this true? Audio tapes are being pulled from electrical stores? Had they not already been pulled? Personally i forgot about the tape a long time ago. The days of recording your favourite tunes when they came on the radio and making soppy mix tapes are long gone to me.

In 1989 Curry's sold 83 million tapes, last year they managed to sell 100,000. I am surprised they managed to sell that much! I mean lets face it, this is a world of MP3, cassette tapes are for really old people who are still living in the stone age. Along with the tapes, Curry's will be phasing out tape decks as well. With less than 5% of audio equipment equipped with tape decks these days i don't see this taking too long.

This news on cassette tapes adds to the death of the floppy disk earlier in the year which is really making 2007 an "out with the old and in with new" year (if we haven't had one of those already)

Simple Guide To Replacing Your iPod Battery

So you have had your iPod for quite some time now and you've started to recognise that the battery just doesn't seem to be holding out for as long anymore. Well don't worry because you wont be the only one that's experiencing this, it is very well known that there is a bit of a problem with the iPod batteries. So your having a look at it and your thinking "How the hell do i get a new battery in this thing?" Well you have 3 options. Option A is sending it away to Apple with a cheque for $70. Option B is buying a big chunky battery backup device that sits on your iPod like a hikers rucksack, or there is option C which is get a battery and put it in yourself!

Not to keen on cracking open your iPod and messing about with its organs? Don't worry, there really is nothing to it. When you buy your replacement battery kit, it comes with everything you need from tools to instructions and of course the battery! In the end it will be a lot cheaper and your iPod will be running as if it were brand new plus no silly add-ons such as battery backups. Below is a video on how to change your battery.

Is DRM Finally Going To Be Removed From Music Downloads?

Ever purchased music by download then realised it doesn't even play on your bloody MP3 player? Yes, its a real pain in the backside and of course your not going to buy tracks via download again, why would you?

Well it seems our friends from the music world, finally might have thought of a solution. Hmm... why don't we make tracks available for ANY Mp3 player? Oh for crying out loud! about time! Personally i think this is the main problem in the lack of sale via download along with free file sharing. After all, these guys are trying to make money right? Give the people what they want already!. After questioning all record labels (tiny guys, middle guys and huge guys!) and those who aren't assigned to a record label, 70% of them agreed with the thoughts that I've had running through my brain for what seems like a decade. Dropping DRM will make a lot, lot more people happy and will definitely notch some 0's onto the end of the record labels bank balance. Win win situation if you ask me!

After all these discussions and polls however, including the fact that 70% of the music industry agreed that it would be better to drop DRM, they still ain't going to drop it. Although EMI are said to be using a lot less DRM than before. Hats off to you guys. Not that Apple will lose much sleep over it, they rule the roost on this side of the market for sure.

Samsung Open Online Music Store Along With 2 New Players

Samsung have announced they are going to give Apple and their iTunes a run for their money by opening their own online music store. Having clearly thought long and hard on the name for their new store, "The Samsung Music Store" is going to be up and running and ready for business next month and will only be of any use to those who have Samsung players. From the word go, 2.6 million songs are going to be on offer and it is understood that most are to be protected WMA's but Samsung say that plenty of DRM free MP3's will be on offer. Tracks will cost 79p and albums will be costing £7.99

Along with this announcement is the arrival of 2 new players, The Samsung K3 (pictured left) and the Samsung T9 (pictured right). These players will be available starting either from this week or next. Some of the T9's features are a 1.8” full colour LCD screen, MPEG4, JPEG photo, Gaming Multimedia Files and Bluetooth Wireless Headphones compatibility, so yes it has Bluetooth! It also has a FM Tuner, 30 hours battery life! and the 4GB model has the potential to hold 2,000 WMA tracks. Prices are expected to be £89 (1GB), £119 (2GB) and £149 for the 4GB. It is also believed that Curry's are going to be the main supplier of these, not sure exactly if they will be the only supplier but they are definitely the main one, so if you want one, get yourself over to Curry's!

Personally, i think the K3 looks better, It looks like they've mixed an iPod Nano and an LG Chocolate phone together and came up with this. The K3 is available up to an 8GB model and has pretty much all the same features as the T9, except for the Bluetooth, and the battery life is slightly less at 25 hours. Prices are set to be £89 for the 2GB and £119 for the 4GB but I'm not exactly sure about the price for the 8GB model. As a bonus, all of Samsung's new music players will also come with a week's subscription to Napster totally free!