Maybe it is, but to a music-appreciating tech geek, the comparisons fall a little flat.

Take a look:

(Hopefully that video is still there, though for some reasons advertisers don’t always like the exposure that free YouTube marketing gives them)

OK, so “first there was the road map. Now there is the GPS”.

Let’s skip for a moment the horrible phrase “the GPS” because that’s not the focus of this rant.

Now…

“First there was vinyl. Now there is the MP3″.

Unless L’Oreal is trying to tell consumers that INOA is of a lower quality than established products, this is a poor statement to make.

Most of us know that, MP3 files even encoded at their highest quality cannot match that of lossless audio files, or even lossy formats with better encoding like AAC.

Don’t even get me started on the notion that MP3 (or even CD) could be of better overall quality, in theory at least, than vinyl… and this is coming from someone who never owned vinyl but understands why it is technically superior, if not particularly convenient.

I guess the marketing peeps would’ve found it harder to justify going to the masses with the phrase “First there was MP3. Now there is 24-bit Free Lossless Audio Codec”.

Sigh. It’s not easy being pedantic, you know.

Low on features (plays music in the order it’s stored on a memory card) but high in visual appeal, it’s 8cm (about 3 inches) in length and authentically detailed.

It should be, in fact, because it has been officially licensed by Taito. I’m sure you can get knockoff variants for less than the $23.90 being asked here — they might even have an LCD to view your music track details on. This one doesn’t, but then it worked for Apple so that shouldn’t bother you much.

OK, fair dos — you can’t use it as a real lightsaber. I bet you’re shocked to learn that.

Anyway, it’s been online for a couple of months but won’t be available until February. If you’re interested in pre-ordering it, head over to the Star Wars Light Saber Kei MP3 Player product page.

Via

Good thing for us, we can find all sorts of gadgets and toys to lessen the headache that traveling can bring. Here are some of my favorites – some I have and more on my wish list.

1. Apple iPod or any mp3 player. I was having second thoughts about writing “any mp3 player” as most people I know will not accept anything but an iPod, but the point is to have music to soothe you or to pump you up while waiting for your flight or while you’re trying to get over your fear of flying.
2. Kindle or any other e-book reader. I do not have a Kindle, although I wouldn’t mind getting one this Christmas. What I use is the PSP, and it works perfectly well. There’s nothing like reading to pass time!
3. Netbook. A MUST. It combines the functions of items 1 and 2 plus more. Having a netbook handy can help you tune out the crowd as you watch movies, surf the net, write, listen to music, or play a game. I also like to lug around my USB wireless Internet dongle with me as I have no assurance of access to the Internet everywhere I go.

And what’s on your geek travel bag?

I just love having the ability to mix together music and play around with it, but I’ve never invested in turntables which is why I love software-based mixers or the amazing Pacemaker.

Now, from the developers of noise.io, an amazing iPhone-based synth, comes Touch DJ, an amazing piece of software that lets you mix music without the need for headphones.

“How is that possible?” I can hear seasoned DJs muttering incredulously. Touch DJ uses some interesting technology to allow DJs to visualise the bass beat, which is generally what you use to beat match between songs. For those who need the audio feedback, simply plug in a stereo splitter.

Other features include a range of effects, pitch and tempo changing, vinyl spin and break, an onboard sampler, plus 25 dance tracks to practice with.

It’s not cheap ($19.99) but it is getting some good reviews. Check out the promo video below.

Touch DJ on iTunes

Anyhow, it got me reading up on more Walkman stories, and one of the most interesting that I ran across is Scott Campbell’s little experiment. Scott is a 13-year-old kid who has used an mp3 player most of his life. When challenged to swap his iPod for a Walkman for one week, he didn’t realize just how much of an adventure he was in for.

The BBC featured his review and comparison of the two portable music players. It was quite amusing to read his thoughts:

My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day.

He had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.

When I saw it for the first time, its colour also struck me. Nowadays gadgets come in a rainbow of colours but this was only one shade – a bland grey.

His dad’s Walkman must have been way older than mine – mine is black and not THAT big (at least I think so!). Anyway, you can read the rest of his story here.

Maybe you have your own nostalgic moments about the Walkman? Any interesting stories of your own?

Amazon UK has made a move that just might spark a “war” between online music stores. Yesterday, Amazon UK slashed its pricing on songs! We all know that one of the most popular online music stores is iTunes. In fact, I don’t think I have ever bought music from Amazon. That is why a lot of people are saying that this move by Amazon is actually a bid to attract some customers from iTunes.

With their current promo, Amazon is selling some of its top music downloads for a mere 29p! Compared to iTunes, you can make up to 70p savings on one song. Add that savings up if you buy lots of songs, and you make really considerable savings! Imagine having to pay only 3GBP for an album. Now isn’t that really cheap???

This move is really making waves everywhere. The Guardian even ran a feature on the promo, which by the way, is running indefinitely. Here are some of the tracks that you can get for 29p:

…Lily Allen’s The Fear and Lady GaGa’s Poker Face – to 29p.

On the bargain list, which spans pop, hip-hop, rock, classical and jazz, music fans can also find older tracks such as Oasis’s Wonderwall, the Dambusters March played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World.

I guess I am outta here – have to check the other tracks!

Our friends at ThinkGeek would surely agree. That is why they have come up with the ultimate shirt for geeks who want more excitement and/or drama in their daily lives. I am talking about the Personal Soundtrack Shirt.

This shirt has a speaker embedded onto the front. While it has built-in sounds, it does offer personalisation through SD-card capabilities. You can also use your iPod or any other mp3 player to create the soundtrack of your life. And when you need music to accompany your daily routine, you just need to push a button on the remote control device.

The remote control is very small, which you can put in your pocket. If you know which buttons to push, you don’t even have to show the remote – just keep it in your pocket, push, and hear the appropriate sound or song. What started as a joke for April Fool’s is now a reality. The question is, would you actually buy this shirt? I am quite unsure, to be honest with you.

This could be one of the smaller but at the same time more ridiculous media players and certainly deserves a place in our Dept. of WTF.

The ‘nut’ can be controlled with just one button. Plug in the earphones and it will start automatically, unplug them to stop listening. Where have I heard last method before?

For $21 you can now also have a nut in your pants! With 1GB of music

Or you can attach the nut to your bag when not listening and have a $21 decoration for your bag.

This baby is perfect for those moments wherein you want to relax and let it all out under a gushing stream of water from the shower.  You don’t even have to worry about the Juke Tower getting wet – it is water proof!  As you can see, it has a vertical design, with the speakers face downward.  Though I do not know how that would affect the sound quality, it probably will keep water out better.  Then again, everything sounds so much better in the bathroom right?

The Juke Tower is actually an MP3 player.  The controls can be found on the top of the tower – volume and track skip.  The weird thing about this gadget is that it does not have any internal memory.  As such, you would have to use a USB stick to play tunes.  While the tower may be waterproof, I am not so sure whether a USB stick can take the moisture and steam that will surely ensue when you are taking a shower.

Other specs:

-LED clock (yeah, it lets you know that you have been practising your vocal chords for too long)
-powered by 3 AA batteries (about 12 hours of music – I doubt you take showers that long)
-white or black casing

Now available at TokyoFlash for £100.

Creative Zen X-Fi

A product that recently caught my eye is the new Creative Zen X-Fi 8GB MP3 Player. I’ve been a big fan of Creative’s MP3 offerings as I have never really got on with the gear from Apple. When I got my first MP3 player in fact it was a Creative model, with only 32MB of memory. That shows how long I’ve been buying them!

So, the X-Fi is the new flagship product and offers to restore the quality of your compressed music ensuring that you hear what the artist(s) and producer(s) intended from their work. All sounds so good so far. Naturally, I had to find out whether this was true. I must say, I was quite happily not disappointed.

Here’s a rundown of the features of the product:
The only players to feature award-winning Xtreme Fidelity™ X-Fi audio technology, the Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN is available today at The CREATIVE Stores at Marina Square, Plaza Singapura and International Business Park, the online store at sg.store.creative.com and authorised dealers in Singapore. The Creative ZEN X-Fi will be available later this month.

The Creative ZEN X-Fi and Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN provide a breakthrough in sound quality for MP3, WMA and unprotected iTunes music with the X-Fi Crystalizer®, a proprietary audio technology developed at Creative’s Advanced Technology Center that restores the highs and lows to music during playback that were lost during the ripping to MP3, WMA or AAC formats. This allows you to listen to your music at a higher quality than was previously possible on any MP3 player.

The Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN introduces a new way to experience music in your home. The Creative ZEN X-Fi’s Wireless LAN capability enables you to wirelessly stream and download music from your PC to your player over your wireless home network, and playback in X-Fi audio quality.

From the living room to the bedroom, the Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN can access the music on your home PC, which can be played through the built-in speaker, a home speaker system, or even the Creative ZEN X-Fi Docking Speaker System accessory, which provides room-filling X-Fi audio quality in a portable speaker. You can also stream and download your video files in supported formats and your photos directly to your Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN from your PC. In addition, you can stream a variety of ZENcast and podcast channels to the player.

With the Creative ZEN X-Fi, you can really experience your music with the sound quality of the original recordings. To truly deliver the ideal music listening experience, Creative is including a set of premium EP-830 in-ear earphones with every Creative ZEN X-Fi and Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN player.

“We’re very excited to achieve this breakthrough of adding our X-Fi audio technology to a ZEN player, setting the highest standard in audio quality for portable music players,” said Craig McHugh, President and COO of Creative.

“Some of the top recording artists in the music industry are very outspoken about the poor quality of digital music. We addressed the issue of the poor quality of digital music by inventing X-Fi technology, which restores the quality of music that is lost during the digital ripping process, and now for the first time ever we’ve been able to implement this technology in a ZEN.”

“We also give you the freedom and flexibility of being able to listen to music, watch videos and view photos on your Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN that are stored on your PC,” continued McHugh. “You can also wirelessly add your favourite music, videos and photos to your player from your PC, so you’ll always have them with you wherever you go.”

The Creative ZEN X-Fi and Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN also feature:
* A built-in speaker so you can listen to favourite songs with friends
* X-Fi Expand to move and expand the sound forward for a natural listening experience over headphones that simulates the sound from stereo speakers
* An SD card slot so you can add more music, video or photos to the player
* A vibrant 2.5-inch TFT display with 16.7 million colour support for an excellent viewing experience with videos and album art
* Built-in FM radio with 32 presets
* Built-in microphone for voice recording
* The new Creative Centrale application for organising, CD and playlist creation, and transfer of a wide variety of video formats, including WMV, AVI, MJPEG, MPEG4-SP, DivX 4 and 5 and XviD
* Using Creative Centrale, player syncs with Microsoft Outlook – contact, calendar, “To Do” list and more
* Creative ZEN X-Fi Video Converter, which converts video files to formats suitable for wireless streaming, will be made available for web download early August 2008
* Exclusively on the Creative ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN models, enjoy free instant messaging over popular IM services including Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live! Messenger. Chat with friends and express yourself using personalised emotive avatars with different facial expressions and hair styles

The model that I tried was the non-WLAN version and came in the 8GB flavour. I think what impressed me most, apart from the improved sound quality, was the quality of the screen. My various DivX anime series looked amazing on it, as did the TV show I converted after ripping the DVD.

In all, the Creative Zen X-Fi is a brilliant player that unfortunately will continue to be overshadowed by the arguably weaker iPod – simply because that’s the product everyone has heard of. Fair? No. Hopefully us geeks though will take a cue from each other and check out Creative’s latest offering. Even the supplied headphones are quality. It is simply a great package that a music fan won’t be disappointed by.