The RNID, the charity for the deaf and the hard of hearing has joined the struggle to inform youngsters of the dangers of listening to their MP3 players too loudly.

The message is simple, if you play your music too loudly for a sustained period using your headphones you run a very real risk of damaging your hearing permanently, causing premature deafness.

The RNID says that two thirds of all youngsters who use MP3 players and iPods are unaware of the risk of having the volume too high on their players, and are risking their hearing.

There are currently 8 million MP3 players sold every year in the UK, which means that’s a lot of people potentially damaging their hearing.

New research from the RNID discovered that a staggering 72 out of 110 people who regularly use MP3 players had their volume above 85 decibels.

According to the World Health Organisation, just an hour’s listening to headphones at that level can cause damage to hearing, but alarmingly just 15 minutes listening to music at 105 decibels will cause damage.

In short, 6 out of 10 MP3 player users didn’t know that listening to their music at high volumes can damage their hearing.
Clearly awareness of the problem is an issue.

Even though the analogue switch off is fast approaching, sales for DAB digital radios have gone into free fall in recent times here in the UK. It seems that the British public just can’t accept the fact that in order to continue to listen to their old ‘wireless’, they’ll need to upgrade to a DAB radio sooner rather than later.

Sales were performing well up until Christmas 2005, but as soon as the BBC finished running its DABaganda TV advertising campaign the sales dried up.

With such poor sales one could presume that digital radio would fail as a standard, however this is one format that cannot fail as it has no competition, and is required if listeners wish to continue with their radio service.

Of course, DAB isn’t the only way to listen to digital radio, digital TV and broadband also allow listeners to pick up digital radio.

The BBC however has only been pushing DAB digital radio as a platform for digital radio, when they should have been promoting the fact that other technologies can also pick up the signal. This would have meant more widespread listenership.

When the BBC launched their streaming iPlayer on their website, listeners online jumped 22% in a single month, 6 times faster than the DAB digital radio take up.

The big drawback to DAB is that only 90% of the population will ever receive the signal, meaning the BBC really should be promoting other avenues to run in tandem with DAB.

Those that are able to pick up the signal however enjoy a far better audio experience than that received from an analogue radio.

Although it may seem that everyone these days has a TomTom stuck to their car windscreen in much the same vein as the fluffy Garfields of the 1980s, the Dutch based company that manufacturers the satellite navigation boxes has seen its profits fall by 83% in the first quarter of 2008.

This suggests that the market for standalone satellite navigation systems maybe diminishing.

Eric de Graaf of Petercam stated:

What we saw for the first time is that selling prices fell, but volumes didn’t improve enough to compensate. It’s a signal the market is getting saturated.

The trend appears to be heading towards devices that can do more than just one thing, such as guide you to destination, especially as GPS becomes more common on mobile phones, with may mobiles now having GPS and Internet, meaning Google Maps allows users to navigate for free.

A recent report stated:

By 2010, Gartner estimates, 500 million cell phones capable of navigation will cell [sic] annually, compared to just 95 million pure navigation devices.

This means that technology is heading down the route of converging on one super device. Rather than having an MP3 player, a mobile phone and a satellite navigation system, consumers want something that caters for all of their needs in one device.

For those of you who thought you’d seen the end of the 12 inch vinyl record, think again. The medium, long championed by ‘true music fans’ as the best sounding of all recording formats, is experiencing something of a renaissance.

Don’t fret about this meaning a challenge to the MP3 market though, because MP3 players are partly responsible for the return of vinyl. Rather than being aged music lovers harking back to the good old days of crackly sounding records, today’s vinyl is being snapped up by the younger generation looking to experience the vinyl revolution, and to port the ‘newly discovered format’ to their portable music devices.

The invention of the USB powered turntable that allows music fans to take their vinyl collection and copy it directly on to their home computers and MP3 players has seen a resurgence in the sales of vinyl.

This represents great news for vinyl lovers who may have thought that the advent of the digital era would have seen the demise of their format, however quite the opposite has happened.

While the digital media of magnetic tape and compact discs may become obsolete through MP3 players, vinyl appears to have weathered the storm, only to come back stronger and with a greater fanbase.

In a fiercely competitive MP3 player market, new innovations and technological advances aren’t the only way that MP3 player manufacturers are looking to win some ground with consumers.

The novelty MP3 player route is also something that attracts a substantial customer base. For example, iRiver have just launched something called the ‘M Player’. It’s been out in Korea for some time now, and has just made its way to the USA. The M Player is a Mickey Mouse inspired player that features the famous ‘head and ears’ ball design. The ears themselves aren’t just there for show either, as they also double as the volume control buttons.

It’s being sold in the US through the Disney Store.

The player has a shiny surface and is available in a variety of colours, such as pink, silver, blue, black and white. The MP3 player is fairly small in storage, featuring just 1GB in memory, but is uses USB 2.0 so you can transfer your music from your PC.

The retail in the USA is quite pricey at $70, which works out at around £40 in the UK.

You can expect this to be on the Christmas of every little girl if it makes it over the UK.

If you remember Transformers from the early eighties, you may remember a Transformer called Soundwave.

Transformers were robots who could turn into cars, planes and household objects. For example, Optimus Prime was the Autobot leader and he would Transform into a articulated lorry. Megatron was the Decepticon leader and he would change into a gun.

One of the best Transformers was a Decepticon called Soundwave, who would turn into a stereo cassette player, a piece of technology somewhat outdated in today’s World.

However, partly due to the Transformers movie last summer from Michael Bay, there has been a surge in interest in Transformers over the last few years. In fact, the Transformer Soundwave has been reissued as a toy, but complete with a working MP3 player.

The original Soundwave toy had a series of Transforming cassette tapes who would fit into chest, such as Ravage, Rumble and Laserbeak. This new Soundwave has a space in his chest (where the cassettes would normally go) for you to slot in an SD storage card.

It doesn’t stop there either as the Soundwave MP3 player also has some Transforming MP3 accessories that you can purchase. His two henchmen, Rumble and Frenzy, exist as fully functioning, Transforming MP3 earphones.

If you’re into Transformers and wanted a new MP3 player, this could be just the player you’re looking for.

Pro Evolution Soccer has long been the greatest football game on any console system. FIFA fans will argue of course, but I’ve always viewed it that playing FIFA was the closest thing you could get to watching Match of the Day, playing Pro Evo was the closest thing you’d get to playing football.

The two games have always come out over the years on a variety of formats, but the difference in gameplay has always been minimal. It was just a simple matter of which consol you had, or which controller you preferred. For example, the old Xbox controller was always difficult to grip whereas the PS2 controller was a more natural, ergonomic design.

However, with Pro Evolution Soccer 8 on the Wii, the control system and the game are completely different to the other formats. The Wii version features a unique control system that allows users to select players who are not in control of the ball and make ‘off the ball’ runs.

The Nunchuck is used to control the player in possession of the ball, while the Wii remote is used to select and control other players. This allows you to create, and execute complicated passing manoeuvres to score the ‘perfect goal’.

From the official press release:

Shooting also benefits from more control over the players, with the Nunchuck used to shoot or head simply by shaking it. As with the real sport, however, timing is everything in front of goal, and the speed of the pass or cross, the ability of the player, the angle of trajectory and the timing of the shot or header will all have differing effects on the resultant shot.

PES 8 on Wii is a completely new way to play football.

It’s one of the biggest and most successful movie franchises ever made, and considering it was written and produced by the same guy behind Star Wars (George Lucas), and with the same leading man (Harrison Ford), is it any wonder that one of the most popular games ever (Lego Star Wars) would inspire a similar game for this film series?

His name is Indiana Jones, and he’s coming to Wii in the shape of Lego to celebrate the release of the new, fourth, Indiana Jones movie: Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Crystal Skull.

Lego Indiana Jones: The original Adventures promises to have the same humour and playability as the famed Lego Star Wars series, and has been developed by the same Manchester based company ‘Traveller’s Tales’.

The game will feature exciting sequences and lines from the original Indiana Jones Trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

You can relive the best moments from the movies, but with a Lego twist, such as the pit of snakes and the famous chase with a boulder.

The game will also feature over 60 different playable characters, including Short Round and Marion.

Japanese technology giant Samsung has unveiled two new MP3 players. The S2 and S3.

The Samsung S2 has similar traits to the pebble and is seen by Samsung as a direct competitor to the hugely successful iPod Shuffle and Creative’s Zen Stone. The Samsung S2 comes with 1GB of data storage and features support for MP3, Windows WMA and OGG file formats.

It also comes with essential FM radio player.

The new Samsung S3 is a more traditional MP3 player. It comes with 3 different storage size options, 2, 4 and 8GB of memory options. It also features a 240×320 pixel display screen and will also support MP3, WMA and OGG formats.

The Samsung S3 however will also play MPEG-4 video, whilst also coming with an FM radio. It features a healthy 30 hours of battery life and also has some flash games installed, for when you’re bored of your stored music.

If the player sounds familiar, that’s because it’s very similar to the Samsung T10/P2, just the S3 comes without Bluetooth or Touch Screen.

Neither player is particularly remarkable, nor do they push the boundaries of what is possible in 2008.

One of the biggest advantages an MP3 player has over any other previous music format is that free music has always been fairly easy to come by. While you can get free CDs in certain Sunday newspapers, they always tend to be older, more over-played material. With MP3s however there are plenty of websites offering free, legitimate and legal, music downloads of the latest tracks.

AC/DC front man Brian Johnson is currently offering three tracks as free music downloads, all of them original tracks, to celebrate the release of the new film, Totally Baked, on DVD.

The film is a ‘stoner’ comedy produced by the AC/DC front man. Brian Johnson also produced the tracks for the film’s soundtrack. The tracks include ‘Chain Gang’, ‘Chase that Tail’ and ‘Who Phoned the Law’.

You can download all three tracks for a limited period only, and rip them to your MP3 player by following this link.

10% of all of the DVD sales from the website are donated to the organisation ‘NOTML’, which is the National Organisation to Reform Marijuana Laws in the USA.