It seems every few days now there are reports from around the world about how teenagers are suffering hearing loss or damage due to the volumes that they are listening to music. It’s usually MP3 players that are seen the as the main culprit too, as opposed the more obvious source of loud music at parties or clubs.

A recent report by the Australian government has shown that Aussie youths are damaging their hearing, again largely due to MP3 players. The report warns that young people are facing permanent hearing problems if they continue to ignore the warnings.

According to the report, two in three Australians have suffered some kind of hearing damage and a staggering 70% of younger people, aged between 18 and 34 have reported ringing their ears.

The report stated:

This may reflect a lifestyle aspect, with younger Australians more likely to attend bars, pubs and listen to music through headphones. Is Australia Listening?

The report went on to say that 76% of Australia’s youth regularly listen to MP3 players with their headphones, and 60% of them have their volume turned up too high.

If people don’t act now and reduce the volume on their MP3 players, they’ll face permanent damage to their hearing.

If it is loud, it can cause damage. and if it does cause you damage, it is permanent.

Our rule of thumb is if people have to raise their voice or actually shout at you to make themselves understood while you are listening to music in your ears, then that is loud enough to be potentially damaging.

Next Monday Apple is set to launch the next step in its war with the mobile phone manufacturers by unveiling the iPhone 2, but Apple’s new competitors aren’t actually concerned. In fact, quite the opposite; companies such as Palm and RIM are welcoming the launch of the iPhone 2 as they believe it will renew interest in the market, even though Apple plans on selling millions of its product worldwide.

Mike Laziridis is the CEO of the company Research In Motion, who manufacture the industry leading mobile phone, the BlackBerry.

The way I look at it is there are 1.2 billion cellphones out there, and we’re just scratching the surface.

Steve Jobs will be making a keynote speech on Monday during Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, and is expected to announce the iPhone 2 during his speech.

Dubbed the “BlackBerry killer”, the iPhone 2 is set to have features such as 3G networking and exchange support. It’s expected to be the phone that many potential buyers of the first iPhone have been waiting for.

The news that Apple’s competitors are welcoming the release of the iPhone 2 are not just bravado either, as sales of the BlackBerry actually jumped by 38% after the launch of the first iPhone. It does seem that Apple’s success has breathed new life into the market.

The iPhone’s effect on the mobile phone market has been very similar to the iPod’s impact on the MP3 player market. Apple practically created the MP3 player industry when they released the iPod, and now they’re rejuvenating the mobile phone industry in much the same way.

You’ve heard of TV killed the radio star? Well now it seems that MP3 players have killed the radio star too, as more teens listen to music on their MP3 players, personal computers and iPods than they do the radio.

Coleman Insights conducted a survey to find out the listening habits of teenagers when it comes to their choice of platforms for their music. It appears that modern technology such as portable digital audio players and computers have taken over from the humble wireless. Even the DAB Digital Radio hasn’t helped to address the slide of popularity the radio is facing.

A study conducted for the CHR radio station showed that 84% of teens aged between 14 and 17 used technologies such as MP3 players and iPods to listen to their music, whereas only 78% said that they listened to radio stations, such as FM and AM stations.

One of the questions the teenagers were asked was:

Where is the first place you go to hear music?

41% of the teenagers said that their first choice was their iPod or MP3 Player, whereas only 22% said they’d choose an FM radio.

Jon Coleman, the president of Coleman Insights stated:

The fact that kids are using alternatives to radio obviously isn’t news to anyone, but this is the first time in all our studies that we’ve seen the numbers support new technologies over radio.

This shift, however, should convince radio stations that they have to determine how radio can fit into the lifestyles of younger listeners if they are not already attempting to do so.

For some time now Apple has dominated the portable music player industry with its iPod, by making the most user-friendly system on the market. They recently entered the mobile phone with the iPhone and made a massive impact immediately. Later this year they’ll be releasing a new, improved iPhone that should make even more waves among the major mobile phone manufacturers.

One market though that Apple have yet to fully enter has been mobile gaming. That so far has been the domain of Sony with the PSP and Nintendo with their GameBoy over the years, and now the Nintendo DS.

Apple though has plans to muscle in on their market, by increasing the gaming capabilities of the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

Apple is expected to unveil the next generation iPhone shortly, as well as a new section of iTunes where iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be able to download software, and games, from the website.

With Apple’s marketing power and the technological power of the two products, they could pose a serious threat to the Japanese Nintendo DS.

Like the DS, the iPhone and iPod have touch screen capabilities, but the Apple products will also have motion sensor functionality much like the Nintendo Wii.

All of this predicted technology is fine however, but Apple still have to realise it. They also have to challenge the games industry itself which is full of Nintendo loyalists and fanboys. Technology alone will not be enough for Apple.

Games such as Mario and Zelda are Nintendo exclusive. Apple will have to start from scratch if they’re going to compete on the gaming front.

According to rumours coming out of the Singapore based company, Creative, they’re planning to release a new MP3 player within the next two months. The inside word on the new mp3 player is that it would be called the Zen Share and would enable users to share music between MP3 players using wireless technology.

Originally this player was intended for release either in May or June, but rumours now put the intended launch date somewhere inside the next two months. However these new rumours suggest that the MP3 player will not be called the Zen Share after all.

Jan Hvidberg, Creative Nordic product manager, said in a recent press conference that they had tried to develop an MP3 player that allowed the sharing of files, but the designs had to be shelved because of technical difficulties with the process.

He did say though that a new device is in development and the emphasis has been on the design aspect. He also said there was an end to Creative’s development of hard drive based MP3 players, instead they would be focusing on flash drives.

Creative themselves have neither confirmed nor denied the statement.

Transcend are a Taiwanese firm who make MP3 players and flash memory cards. They claim that due to the stabilising of microchip prices and a growing demand for MP3 players their profits are due to increase, giving them a double digit profit margin. This is good news for Transcend after they an initially slow start to the year with a poor first quarter.

Steve Chang, Vice President of Transcend said in an interview with news agency firm Reuters:

The first quarter was a bottom and the gross profit margin already rebounded to above 10 percent in April and May.

Steve Chang claims that Transcend’s margin will hit the double digits in terms of percent by the 2nd and 3rd quarters. Apparently Transcend expect the numbers of MP3 players that are shipped this year to be double that of last year.

40% of Transcend’s revenues from the DRAM (Dynamic random access memory) chips that the company manufactures. The chips are then used in servers and home computers.

Transcend have been in business for just 20 years and also manufacture flash cards for mobile phones and digital cameras.

Monopoly, the game that has caused so many arguments in so many households throughout the world, is finally coming to the iPod.

Whether you love or loath the game, you can’t deny the popularity of the board game that allows players to but up parts of London for just a few quid, and then extort rent from their family members for landing on their coloured squares.

Now, thanks to video games giant Electronic Arts, Monopoly is coming to the iPod, the iPod classic and the iPod nano. The classic game, with the full rules that are often argued over, is available from iTunes for the bargain price of just $4.99.

The game allows you to build your own property empire buying up locations based on colour coding, and to build houses and hotels. The original game is owned by Hasbro and was licensed to EA to release for the Apple iPod.

Players are able to play against the iPod (which means no complaining when you lose) or with up to four friends using other iPods.

The game is available for 3rd generation iPod nanos and 5th generation iPods.

In today’s society it’s become more and more apparent that teenagers have a massive amount of disposable income, more so than their parents seem to have. Is it any wonder that marketing companies have been targeting the youth market with such vigour? It’s a very affluent market, and one that generate huge profits for companies smart enough to capitalise on it, such gadget and technology companies.

Because of the way family structures and family units have changed over the past few years, the wealth that seems to have befallen the teenager has increased. This has led them to spend more on goods, services and disposable items.

Recent research has suggested that the teen market in Canada is 4 million strong, and they spent a staggering $14 billion in 2006.

This means the average Canadian teen has roughly $500 per month to spend. When you consider that they have diverse income streams such as pocket money from parents, part time jobs, money from grand parents and stepparents, it’s not hard to see how they manage to amass such spending power.

The biggest market teens are spending their money on is in technology, such as mobile phones, iPods and MP3 players. Teens are even acting as council for their technophobe parents, so when the teen isn’t actually buying the technology product, they’re the decision maker in any purchase.

This means that any company looking to drive sales of technology products needs to appeal to the youth market. If they’re not buying the product themselves, they’ll most likely have the final say in the decision.

Recently Apple filed for a patent for a solar powered cell within an iPod, under the screen; prompting speculation that the technology giant was looking at bringing out a solar powered iPod. However, as we look at the practicality of such a device, it does seem that this is unlikely.

The problem is, that although solar powered technology has been around for some time in equipment such as watches and calculators, they require considerably less juice to function than a modern day iPod. In fact, to power an iPod on the same technology you would be looking at the power of approximately one million watches.

Hardly practical.

It is possible however to power an iPod by solar power, but you would require something like Brunton’s Solaris i6, which would give enough power for the job. The problem with this is that it’s larger than an iPod and costs in the region of $210, which is about the same as an iPod.

So doubling an iPod’s price and increasing its size just to make it solar powered? That seems unlikely.

The other problem of course is charging your iPod. How much damage can you expect to do to the storage drive by leaving your iPod baking in the sun?

There are a great many patents filed by companies such as Apple for whenever one of the engineers has an idea; this looks like it could be one such case.

Many reports recently have highlighted the problems of teens damaging their hearing by listening to their MP3 players too loudly. Concerns from parents and government seem warranted; as many teens readily admit to knowing about the dangers, yet seem unwilling to actually turn their volumes down because it hampers their enjoyment.

They simply think it won’t happen to them.

It’s not just damage to hearing that is faced by teens, they’re also susceptible to injury from accidents as a result of not being able to hear what is around them, especially when out in the street.

CoreMicro, a Canadian company, have an answer though as they’ve just launched what they term ‘ear saving technology’.

The product in question is ‘SafeVolume earbuds’ that will retail for just $19.99, and promise to limit the volume of portable digital music players such as MP3 players and iPods. They’re proven to work as well, winning a 2008 iParenting Media Award.

Dr. Blake Papsin, Cochlear Americas Chair in Auditory Development, stated:

When hearing is damaged or lost, there’s no way to get it back. These earbuds will reduce the numbers of hearing impaired children coming to see us in the future - and we can only imagine how many kids will be grateful to their parents for protecting them against a preventable source of hearing loss.

Hearing loss is a big problem in Canada as 1 in 10 Canadians experience hearing loss, partly attributed to MP3 players.

The earbuds cap the volume at 85 decibels, meaning users will not damage their hearing while using them.