According to a report from the researcher NPD Group, consumers in the USA won’t be spending as much this Christmas on technology as in previous years. With the struggling global economy, consumers in America aren’t expected to buy as many iPods or Nintendo Wii consoles as they perhaps would normally do this time of year.

The research showed that 54% of those questioned were looking for specific items on yesterday’s Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, instead of just browsing for bargains that retailers were hoping to offer them.

Some consumers had even stated that they were no longer looking to make any technology purchases at all this year, with 33% of consumers who said that had planned to be a big screen TV, now choosing not too because of the economy.

Many consumers said that because of the economy they wouldn’t be loyal to the big brands when it comes to choosing an MP3 player, which isn’t such great news for market leader Apple, or Sony. Consumers stated that the price was the main factor.

Many associate MP3s with pirates, but usually the association comes from pirated music downloaded in MP3 format from the Internet. This news however is very different. We’re talking about the sea faring, cutthroat pirates that smuggle and steal, and the MP3 is a sonic blast played on an MP3 player to defeat the pirates.

If only Orlando Bloom had thought of that!

A British security firm has created a ‘sonic laser’ which can be used at sea to thwart pirates from stealing treasure, of sorts. You may think that pirates aren’t such a big problem anymore, but you’d be wrong. In the Gulf of Aden, just off Africa, piracy at sea is rife.

The MP3 plan involves a long range acoustic device (LRAD) which is attached to a simple MP3 player, or even a cheap iPod. The equipment is the same size a satellite dish and can emit a painful noise to fend off pirates if they get too close.

The security firm, Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions (APMSS), uses three man teams to help shipping companies ward off pirates with the MP3 player technology, and they’ve been inundated with work off the east coast of Africa.

It doesn’t get much press in the UK, but today in the USA is Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year for the American public. Apple, with its range of iPods, is all geared up for the event with a series of discounts.

Traditionally Black Friday, which is the day following Thanksgiving, signals the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, and is heralded by a day of huge discounts, both online and in the high street. Apple is reported to be offering discounts today of up to 15% on its products, making for some very cheap iPods on offer.

With the current financial crisis, the prediction for sales this year in the US isn’t optimistic, but Apple hopes that their planned price cuts will tempt people to part with their cash this festive season.

Apple announced their plan for discounts on their own website, but hasn’t provided any details. Experts predict that Apple will be very aggressive with their discounts, as with the global economy the way it is, they’ll need to take drastic measures to kick start the holiday season.

There are even rumours that Black Friday might make an appearance here in the UK, so if you’re looking for cheap iPods, you know where to go!

Apple’s iPhone 3G has been wowing audiences everywhere, with its MP3 player functionality, Internet browsing options, games player prowess and general do everything nature. However the iPhone 3G has fallen foul of Advertising watchdog ASA. They received a total of seventeen complaints over the TV advert for the iPhone 3G, all protesting that Apple had somewhat exaggerated their claims about the speed of the iPhone’s Internet connectivity.

As a result, the TV advert for the iPhone 3G has been banned.

The TV ad for Apple’s phone showed the iPhone downloading a file in a matter of seconds, and browsing from page to page online in moments. The speed shown in the advert was ‘exaggerated’ as the iPhone 3G isn’t that fast at all. Apple claim the advert wasn’t supposed to show the iPhone 3G in reality, was just supposed to compare the phone to the first release. Apple say that users should easily realise that Internet speeds would vary for everyone.

ASA disagree however, and the ad has been banned from our TV screens. The voiceover for the ad that claims the iPhone 3G was “really fast” has been deemed to be misleading.

Despite recent reports showing that standalone MP3 players, such as the iPod Touch, were better in terms of performance that mobile phones that also player MP3s, such as the new iPhone 3G, it seems that the UK consumer still wants to see MP3 players and mobile phones as one unit. In fact, as many as 75% of MP3 players sold in the UK are also mobile phones.

No wonder Apple was so keen to make a mobile phone that played music; they’ve just quadrupled their sales potential for the iPod with the iPhone.

The research comes from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), showing that in the past 12 months 32 million MP3 players were sold in the UK, with three quarters of those being mobiles.

These figures dwarf the sales of CD playing technology, where only 8 million players were sold in the last 12 months.

It’s hardly surprising that so many MP3 players sold are also mobile phones, as approximately 90% of mobiles feature MP3 player functionality. This doesn’t of course mean that consumers are buying mobile phones over MP3 players, it just means that many mobile phones being purchased also happen to be MP3 players.

There are a few different ways to recharge your iPod or MP3 player, including the old fashioned method of plugging it into a wall socket, charging it via USB, and even the recently announced ‘shoe recharger’ that we featured a few weeks ago. Now though a new, more environmentally friendly, way has been suggested.

Charging your iPod using an onion!

It started as a viral video on the Internet, which many people believed to be a hoax, but now claims from a shop worker in Portsmouth are that he has invented a way to recharge an iPod using an onion, soaked in a drink. He says he can add enough power to his MP3 player to last an hour, meaning you’ll never need to look for your charger again, so long as you have an onion to hand.

There is even a degree of science behind the notion, as the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Jon Edwards states:

The science behind the idea isn’t bad - you can generate an electric current from vegetables - but the video is a hoax.

It appears then that using an onion to charge iPod might not be the way forward, but it’s an interesting idea, and one that deserves further exploration.

If you’re one of those people who’s refused to go down the new iPhone 3G route, insistent that a mobile phone and an MP3 player should remain separate, there may be some degree of validation to your decision from a new report. It seems that the new iPod Touch is faster in terms of processing speed that Apple’s new, much lauded, iPhone 3G.

The CEO of Handheld Games Corp, Thomas Fessler, has produced a report which states that the iPod Touch features a processor speed of 532MHz, which is much faster than any previous iPod Touch, or any iPhone (including the 3G model). The previous iPod Touch ran on 412MHz.

The report was conducted to see how well their game, TouchSports Tennis, ran on each available device. When the tests were conducted, the new second generation iPod Touch showed the best performance and was the fastest.

This shows that it’s best to keep mobile phones and MP3 Players separate for enhanced music listening enjoyment, but you can still get an MP3 Player that will play games faster, and better, than a mobile phone.

There’s no denying that the iPhone is a staggering piece of kit. It’s won many accolades since its launch, including many gadget of the year awards, but is it likely to compete against the leading games console when even Sony and Microsoft have failed in terms of sales?

It seems as though may pose a challenge for the Wii, as a new series of free games for the Apple iPhone that have been released allow users to play games on the handset, using the handset itself as a controller.

The gaming website iFun has release four games that can be played on the iPhone, and your computer at the same time. Players can use the iPhone as the controller, playing the game on the computer screen.

All you need to do to play is to connect the iPhone to the same wireless network as your PC or Mac, download the games and begin playing.

Whether this will be enough to compete with the Nintendo Wii is another matter, but when the games are free to download it’s definitely worth a look.

Could the bods at Apple be working on a new iPod? With MacWorld two months away, the rumours of what will be announced, and what Apple are working on, are flowing thick and fast.

For example, one rumour doing the rounds is that Apple is currently working on its own search engine, which presumably would allow users to find music downloads quickly and easily. The smart money however is on this rumour being false. What is more interesting, and reportedly from an inside source, is that Apple could be working on a new iPod.

The news was given to Stuff.TV by a reported inside man at Apple, the same guy that spilled the dirt on the iPhone before its launch.

However the news of a new iPod seems unlikely because Apple only just launched a new range on nanos, and updates to its Classic and Touch iPods.

If the rumour is true though, it’s very exciting as the new iPod Stick will reportedly contain a 7 megapixel camera and WiFi.

It may come as little surprise, but almost 50% of all teenagers are obsessed with technology, and 80% of teenagers can’t imagine living one day without their tech.

Research conducted by CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) has shown that teenagers are obsessed with their tech as they’ve been introduced to gadgets such as mobile phones, MP3 players and games consoles ever since they’ve been able to walk as toddlers. Tech has played such an important in their lives that many teens use it stay in touch with their friends.

A quarter of teens were unable to say that didn’t spend less time with their friends because of the ease of keeping in touch through technology, including mobiles and the Internet.

Analyst for CEA, Steve Koenig, stated:

Teens are comfortable with technology and value the improvements technology makes in their lives. As this generation looks for all-in-one features and bigger and better products, they will fuel the growth of the consumer electronics industry.

The survey, conducted in the US, showed that the average teenager planned on spending $312 (around £190) on technology, including iPods and MP3 players, within the next six months.

The survey also showed that 50% of teens spend their day revolving around their tech, including keeping in touch with friends and browsing the Internet for entertainment purposes, or for downloading music on sites such as iTunes.