Iriver has always been known to come up with new products and surprise its customers by constantly innovating and experimenting by staying tuned to the users’ tastes and market trends. They have brought on markets popular devices, such as the versatile D20/D25 dictionaries. In keeping with their reputation, they have just announced a new, highly innovative navigation device - The NV Life - that of course, doubles as a PMP.

Let’s check some of the features of The NV Life
•    The NV Life comes with a 800×480 screen. It also comes with FM transmitter and DMB TV tuner.
•    It offers player identification and password protection facility so that stolen players can easily be identified.

However, iriver has perhaps failed to take into account the needs of people who want more than half a movie on their player. To put it simply, the NV Life only comes in 2 and 4GB. A SD slot is there, but an apparent lack of SDHC support means the player can have maximum storage capability of up to 8GB. No mention regarding pricing or availability has been made as yet.

Wolfson Microelectronics, according to media reports, has lost out in its bid to supply Apple’s next-generation iPods - with audio chips. Wolfson currently produces chips for Apple’s iPod music player. Its other customers include Hewlett Packard, LG, Canon, Microsoft, TomTom and Samsung.

On its part, the firm merely stated it had been notified about one of its product offerings not being accepted by a major Tier 1 customer for inclusion in the next-generation of its portable media players. The high growth product, as mentioned above, is assumed to be the iPhone. Wolfson has not officially confirmed this news bit. However, it will continue to share a strong relationship with the ‘customer’ as a vital supplier for its many other high-growth product areas, it informed.

In spite of this blow, the firm remains confident of achieving good growth in the current financial year, and is anticipating full-year revenue in line with market expectations. It also expects revenues to be in the range of $44-$48million for the first quarter, and anticipates strong growth for its mixed signal devices from other application areas, comprising handsets & GPS systems that would mostly even out the loss of revenues from MP3 players.

MPIO isn’t really among the most popular mp3 player brands out there on the market. However, they’ve been around for some time, and this time they might have just done the trick with the MPIO V10 Personal Media Player. It seems to be equipped with pretty much anything a die-hard music fan could desire. To start with, it draws your attention with its metallic design.

The 3″ 480×272 pixel touch screen puts it close to the Samsung P2 screen wise. There are not many players in that class right now. The codec support is rather impressive. It supports AVI, WMV, MP4, ASF, DivX, VOB, TS, DAT, XviD, MP3, WMA, AAC, MPG / MPEG, OGG, PCM (WAV), GIF, PNG, JPEG, BMP, SMI, TXT. Such extensive Video support is generally only found on bigger PMPs.

Along with the elaborate codes support, it has a FM tuner, TV out and a dictionary. The downside perhaps is 8GB of internal memory. A SD slot will help though. Battery life is rated at about 5 hours for video.

Telecast has plans to come up with its new PMP dubbed Teclast’s M26, which features a touchscreen. This PMP is perfect for people who enjoy watching videos while they listen to their favourite music.

Teclast’s M26 touchscreen PMP boasts a 2.6-inch screen that displays videos and pictures at 400 x 240 resolutions. It supports various file formats including, RMVB, RM, FLV and AVI file formats, TV out and Microsoft’s PlayFX abilities, too.

Thanks to its built-in FM radio, users can listen to their favourite shows and news and stay updated. However, nothing has been revealed about its release dates or prices, but it would be available in black or white colours.

To enjoy your personal music collection in your car all you require is the Sony MEX-BT3600U in-car CD tuner. You just need to plug in & play your favourite tunes on your car stereo through your USB digital music player. You can also play music from your compatible phone or MP3 player in wireless mode via Bluetooth. The new Quick-BrowZer interface allows you to search your MP3 music library quickly.

You can even chat hands-free through your car stereo thanks to Bluetooth. There is also a front panel AUX input, which connects with the headphone output of any given personal audio player. The unit utilises Bluetooth A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) producing high stereo quality digital audio streaming over a Bluetooth connection. An indicator on the display of the head unit confirms connection with a nearby Bluetooth device. Bluetooth AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile) lets control of Bluetooth music source functions, such as track pause and skip directly from your car stereo.

The in-dash head unit links in wireless mode to the new models of mobile phones from Sony Ericsson & other cell phone manufacturers, which support Bluetooth connectivity. The Sony MEX-BT3600U in-car CD tuner (with Bluetooth connectivity & USB) will be available from May 2008 throughout Europe.

MP3 players are definitely one of the greatest electronic inventions ever made. Every music lover will sure agree to this. They not only let you to build huge and choicest sound file libraries but also carry those files along with you. You can thus tune to your favourite music and songs irrespective of your location and time. Isn’t that amazing?

To add to the excitement and fun of music-listening, newer models are being released for an enhanced user experience. You must be curious to know about the next eagerly awaited MP3 device ready to hit the market in the near future.

Well, going by the buzz, GenMP3 has just reported that the 3rd instalment of the Zune is all set to be released in late 2009.” The news is confirmed according to Microsoft France’s Francois Ruault recent statement in French newspaper GNT.

The 3rd instalment of the Zune is will in all probability be released around the Autumn next year. In the same report in GNT, it has also been mentioned that the Zune Marketplace will hit mobile platforms on the upcoming ‘Windows Mobile 7 OS’. Let’s wait and watch.

One more innovation in the mp3 players market is from a famous brand – Onda, that is! This time it is Onda’s VX767 PMP.

This sleek, sizzling and sexy device sports a 4.3-inch widescreen, which displays videos and images at a 480 x 272 hi-definition screen.

Its other exciting features are as follows:

•    Onda’s VX767 PMP can easily support various formats, such as RM, RMVB, FLV, AVI, MOV, ASF, MP4, WMV, 3GP and MPG.
•    The mp3 player also incorporates support for TV out.
•    The built-in FM tuner enables listeners to stay in sync with the latest happenings and their favourite shows.
•    Users can also choose to expand its storage capacity by just inserting a 32GB microSD card if they wish to store more music into the player.

However, nothing has been disclosed about its internal memory and prices as of now.

One of the world’s leading mp3 player manufacturer’s Sony has come up with a flash-based MP3 player that holds up to 8GB of music and video with superb audio quality. The new Sony NWZ-A818 is built with style and function in mind and is direct competition to Apple’s iPod Nano.

It boasts a 2-inch QVGA (240-by-320-pixel) TFT color display and is available in either a black or a silver case. It supports various files including .aac, .mp3, .wav and .wma files and syncs perfectly with Windows Media Player 11. This unit can play music for about 30 hours on a full charge. With easy navigating four-way main control buttons and dedicated ‘option’ and ‘back’ buttons, navigation is a snap. Using just one hand, you can easily shuffle songs and search for photos or videos. The Sony NWZ-A818’s signal-to-noise ratio was 75 dB (where a higher number means a cleaner signal). Using a proprietary 22-pin connection to establish a USB link to the computer, it is very convenient to store songs in this mp3 player.

Overall, this 8GB Sony NWZ-A818 delivers impressive sound quality through its excellent supplied ear buds.

Boasting a storage capacity of 2GB, the Eco EMP-MX71 comes with an expandable SD memory card slot that allows users to store more songs and images in their player. This player also sports a 1.8-inch display and supports various file formats including MP3, WMA, ASF, WAV, and OGG files. Additionally, it also supports video player WMV, AVI, and MPEG files with help from a file conversion utility. It includes voice/in-line recording, which enables users to conduct crisp and clear voice recording.

One of the best features of this player is users can power the Eco with the built-in hand crank, which gives at least 40 minutes of music playback for every minute of winding. The crank will also charge dead cell phones and users can also power up the player via its USB port. Other features on the EMP-MX71 include an LED flashlight, a photo viewer, and a text file reader for user’s convenience.

One of the leading consumer electronics makers Sony announced that their next PlayStation 3 firmware updated v2.20 will add new features to PS3. This version will enable PS3 users to download video content, ringtones, interactive movie-based games, and more when the software will be released in late March.

The updated features will also allow users to copy photos and music playlists over USB from their PS3 to their PSP. The “Resume play” control will enable PS3 system to start playing a Blu-ray disc and DVD at the point it was stopped, even if the disc had been removed. Another control named “Audio Output Device” will be a new Remote Play setting, facilitating PSP to serve as a remote control for music played through PS3. In addition, “Mosquito Noise Reduction” control will be added as an AV setting in the control panel of the DVD/BD player for improved movie playback.

Additionally, PS3 system’s Internet browser will also be enhanced. Video files directly linked from a Web page will be allowed to be streamed, and the browser’s view speed will be improved. People will be able to play DivX and WMV format videos that are larger than 2GB.