Every day, at least one news item makes us pause, and say, “Well, duh” (as in, “yeah, tell me something I didn’t already know.”). Our “duh!” moment of today comes courtesy of a study on social networking by new media market research firm Grunwald Associates. Their scholarly finding: kids aged 9 – 17 are paying [...]

When Microsoft introduced the 2nd generation Zune portable media players last fall, it was clear that they’d done a lot to catch up with Apple’s iPods. If Amazon’s sales are any indicator, though, Microsoft’s 2nd Zune sales have tanked since their introduction. Apple’s iPods continue to dominate the list of top MP3 players at Amazon, [...]

Russell Holliman, Founder and CEO of Podcast Ready, tells us his company has just signed a distribution deal with consumer electronics manufacturer Coby that he expects will ship 5-10 million mp3-player/ podcatching devices over the next 12 months, starting with the fourth quarter of this year. By Holliman’s reckoning, “that brings the total projected to [...]

If appliance maker LG has its way, your next MP3 player may be a washing machine. LG has filed for a patent for a Home appliance with MP3 player. Here’s how LG describes their invention: The washing device comprises: an input/output terminal for physically connecting the washing device with the MP3 player for data communication [...]

We’re not sure if we really want to plug headphones into a watch, but the Swatch Infinity looks pretty sexy. It is a bracelet-style digital watch that features a removable face, MP3 player, video and photo viewer. Unfortunately, it’s a design concept by designer Pierre Merlet.

The Skullcandy MacGyver MP3 Watch not only has possibly the coolest name ever for a watch, it puts up to 1 Gig of memory for podcasts and music on your wrist. The Skullcandy MacGyver MP3 watch features a selectable 5-mode audio equalizer, 3-D stereo sound, music shuffle play feature, a built-in voice recorder and an [...]

Nielsen Media Research has released findings from its 3rd Quarter Home Technology Report which show that MP3 players are now found in a quarter of US homes, and that more U.S. households now own DVD players (81.2% of all households) than VCRs (79.2% of households). The trends bode well for podcasting, if not for video [...]

Microsoft has announced that the Zune software has been updated to be compatible with Vista: Today (Tuesday the 19th of December) we’re issuing a 22 MB update to make Zune compatible with Windows Vista. The update also improves the Zune software installation process, addressing the issues that some of the known issues users reported. Like [...]

In spite of the largely bad reviews the Microsoft Zune has received, the company expects its new portable media player to sell more than 1 million units by the end of June. The software maker said Wednesday it was pleased with response to the device. “We’re forecasting just over 1 million units for the fiscal [...]

Owners of iPods and other portable media players are thieves, according to Universal Music CEO Doug Morris. “These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. “So it’s time to get paid for it.” Microsoft recently announced that the Zune’s purchase price includes a cut for [...]