Here’s a cool concept that’s bound to become a reality one of these days. Designers from the ”Metatrend Institute” have created a novel way of showing off your musical, as well as personal tastes. The concept, simply called “transparent OLED Headphones”, allows the user to customize the OLED headband with any visualization of their choice. The flexible display can show album art, track info, or any message you want to share with the world. It even has a “rhythm sync” mode allowing the headband to change colors based on the type of music being played.
This headphone concept is just one offshoot of the upcoming flexible OLED trend that we’ll see in the future. The technology is certainly there to create these types of wearable displays, the only hurdle right now is cost. Once prices come down for flexible OLED’s, we can all fulfill our wishes of becoming human touchscreens..err..maybe that’s just my wish.
What are the odds of a missing iPhone 4G prototype landing in the hands of Gizmodo editors? I mean, it’d have to be on par with a missing U.S. nuke falling into Kim Jong Il’s lap no? Not that I’m saying the folks at Gizmodo are fascist dictators who want to take over the world or anything, but it’s certainly an odd coincidence that something so coveted in the tech world would find its way to tech bloggers. However Giz got the device, it is indeed the real thing from the looks of it.
The iPhone receives a long overdue makeover. It’s thinner, has sharper edges,and an aluminum border around the entire phone. New additions include a front-facing camera, improved rear camera with flash, a micro-SIM card slot, dedicated volume buttons, and supposedly a higher resolution display. The internal battery appears to be bigger as well.
Here’s a hands-on from Jason Chen showing off some of the new additions to the rumored Apple iPhone 4G
I’m sure Gizmodo’s inbox is chock full of cease and desist emletters from Apple’s lawyers. Speaking of, does finders keepers, losers weepers hold any weight in our legal system? Anyway, we still have to classify this as a rumor, but I’d put money on this being the iPhone 4G. We’ll update you with any juicy tidbits as they come in.
One look at last year’s W-series, and it was clear Sony designed it with runners in mind, or so you’d think. The wearable Walkman, which packed a DAP into a pair of earphones, had well-documented issues with moisture. Sweat too much, and the device could malfunction on you. Sony’s only option at the time was to put out a voluntary recall for select models, but now they have a more permanent solution. The newly announced W250 series looks nearly identical to the original, but this time they made sure to make it water-resistant. It has a waterproof rating of “IPx5″, which is 4th highest according to a random site I just googled.
Features are just about the same as last time too. It comes with 2GB’s of storage, supports MP3, WMA, and AAC, and will playback for approximately 11 hours on a single charge. It’s already on sale at Sony Style for $59.99
Sony has also refreshed their B-series. The B150 series has a built-in USB plug, supports for MP3, and WMA, an FM tuner and recorder, and provides an has an estimated battery life of 18. It’ll be released in June with meager capacities of 2 and 4GB’s, and a range of colors to choose from. Pricing info has not been announced yet.
Some may have forgotten, but the Creative ZEN was actually the first 32GB flash player released. I thought it was a bold move at the time, considering the financial woes of the Singapore company. Despite their continued struggles, Creative has announced a 64GB model for the ZEN X-Fi2. They’re not the first to reach that capacity this time around, but better late than never I say. The 64GB X-Fi2 is available for S$399 Singapore dollars, or about $287US.
Creative has announced a new line of players called the “ZEN Style” series. The new players, as the name would suggest, are stylish, and come in a variety of colors. Here’s a quick run-down of the new series.
ZEN X-Fi Style
The name may throw you off, since it’s closer to the original ZEN, than the ZEN X-fi, at least in terms of looks. The ZX-Fi Style has a 2.4″ display, X-Fi sound enhancements, a built-in speaker, and 25 hours of battery life. Sadly, the device doesn’t appear to have an expansion slot.
Specs:
Capacity: 8, 16, and 32GB
Display: 2.4″ TFT (320 x 240 resolution, 262K colors)
Audio: MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC, and WAV
Video: MPEG-4 SP, WMV, Xvid, Divx (up to 640 x 480 resolution)
The ZEN Style is a compact player, with roughly the same dimensions as the ZEN Mozaic. There are two models to choose from, the 100, and 300, with the latter having an FM tuner, and a built-in speaker.
Specs
Capacity: 4, 8, and 16GB
Display: 1.8″ TFT (128 x 160 resolution, 65K colors)
The new Style series doesn’t really bring anything we haven’t seen before. Rather, these players are re-skinned versions of older players, with a few new tricks. The new designs are certainly more mainstream, compared to something like the Mozaic however, and the prices are pretty reasonable too.
Yesterday Microsoft released Firmware Update version 4.5 for the Zune HD. The update brings a few features, like Smart DJ mix, and Marketplace Picks, that were previously available on the Zune PC software. It also adds support for Xvid, and Divx codecs with no transcoding required. According to what I’ve read, the device also got a boost in performance, with thumbnails and other animations loading faster, smoother web browsing, and so forth.
Here’s an official Walk-through of Zune Update 4.5 (try to ignore the hosts’ pretentiousness):
To update, simply connect your device, and load up the PC software.
Well would you look at that, Cowon has officially announced the J3. The player has already received a 2010 reddot design award, and deservingly so from the looks of it. The J3 actually has a lot in common with the S9, but one-ups it by adding a microSD expansion slot. It also gets a nice bump in battery life, with an estimated 64 hours of audio playback time.
Cowon J3 Specs
Capacity: 4, 8, 16, and 32GB with microSD expansion
Display: 3.3″ AMOLED touchscreen (480 x 272 resolution)
Audio: MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, APE, and WAV
Video: AVI, Divx, Xvid, and WMV (supports resolutions up to 480 x 272 at 30fps)
Bluetooth/FM Tuner/recorder/DMB (for Korea)
Voice and Line-in recorder
Extras: Flash games, calculator, TXT
Battery life: 64 hours for Audio, 11 hours for video
Dimensions: 56.0 x 106.6 x 9.9mm (weight: 76g)
The J3 is one sexy looking device. It’d be even sexier with some WiFi love, but I won’t complain. No official pricing has been released, but a site called “boxweb” has it ranging from 189,000 to 329,000 Korean Won, or roughly $167 to $291US.
Did you know website designers double as magicians? Well not really, but they sure know how to pull a Houdini act. A 64GB Zune HD listing was spotted earlier on Zune.net, but it’s since been removed. Was it simply a mistake, or is Microsoft going to be the first to release a 64GB player stateside?
A shot of the V5 playing back a Divx torrent of Star Wars that Cnet “questionably procured”
The Cowon V5 didn’t exactly go over well with our members when we first reported on it, but that’s nothing compared to the ass-kicking that Donald Bell of Cnet just dished out. I haven’t used the player myself, but after reading the article, I have to wonder if Cowon somehow personally harmed Mr. Bell or his family. The article is rather one-sided, throwing out one criticism after another, without nary a comment on what the V5 is good at. Any comments on sound quality? Of course not! This is Cowon we’re talking about; who buys one of their players for that?
I’ll side with Cnet on what sounds like a ridiculous GUI, filled with silly icons of men chasing women, and other facets that may just express the cultural differences between the US and Korea on what we find appealing. There is a good chance this issue can be alleviated by a user-created theme however. The article also downplays the V5’s video support, and the quality of playback. Surprisingly, Donal Bell also implicates himself, on behalf of Cnet, for being advocates of piracy when he writes “Sure, the Cowon V5 can output our DivX torrent of “Star Wars” over HDMI, but the touch-screen user interface is a cluttered, emasculating, eye-straining, deliberately confusing facepalm.” Who would of thought a site as big as Cnet, whose parent company is CBS, would openly express the use of copyrighted material obtained through illicit sources.
Anyway here’s a few Highlowlights of the blog post:
“Things start falling apart on the main menu screen, which is composed of 27 animated icons–5 of which actually do anything. Maybe Cowon is trying to be cute with its useless animated icons of egg-laying chickens and lightening clouds, but mostly it feels like a bait-and-switch…After drilling down into the music playback screen, you’re presented with a baby-blue-hued menu screen that tries to break your eyeballs and your patience simultaneously. The font Cowon uses is absurdly minuscule
What else can you do with the Cowon V5? Well, I could go into the Windows CE 6 desktop view, which is completely useless without a stylus–or maybe you’d like to hear more on the built-in calculator, voice recorder, or Flash game player? More important, though, is what’s missing. Specifically, I’m more than a little bummed about the absence of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or just about any other feature that could justify the V5’s high price and annoying design. Then again, just imagining the kind of crippled Windows Explorer mobile browser that Cowon could have shoehorned onto here is enough to make my head explode. Bottom line: the Cowon V5 is just an all-around disappointment. If you really need a PVP with HDMI out and HD video support, go grab an Archos 5 or pick up a Zune HD and wait for XviD support later this year.”
No doubt many of the complaints are deserved, but it also came off as terribly nitpicky. Engadget has also published a review which ironically is more balanced in its analysis. You can read that here
On the front page of Cowon’s Korean site you’ll find a banner announcing the company’s 2010 red dot design award winners. Cowon has won this highly coveted award numerous times in past years, but usually they’re for players that were already announced. Among the players shown, there’s one that may catch your eye. It has a similar form-factor to the Cowon S9, but with a brushed aluminum build and a new interface. According to [link], we’re looking at the Cowon J3.
The J3 shares most of its specs with the S9, making it more of a cosmetic makeover than a completely new player. It has the same 3.3″ AMOLED touchscreen, comes in 4, 8, and 16GB capacities, and has Bluetooth and a G-sensor built it. The player is said to be released later this month. Hopefully Cowon actually announces it before that happens.
