Posted Feb 26th 2008 10:07AM by Paul MillerFiled under: Portable Audio Break out the champagne, that Apple spec bump you’ve been waiting for is finally here: the 2GB ipod shuffle is shipping as of today. It’ll set you back a cool $69, but if you’ve decided to hold off on this round of lackluster MacBook updates, we’re guessing you’ve got the cash. Go ahead, you’ve earned it.Tags: audio, hi fi, cable, digital (Read the full post about ‘Apple’s 2GB iPod shuffle now shipping’…)

Surround Xi is a little speaker tube with a USB port, which plays any MP3 or DRM-free WMA tracks you plug into it. It works with USB drives and iPods, and is most suited to thumbdrives, first-gen Shuffles and other miniature players that can simply be jammed in and left there. The stereo speakers are not entirely horrible, providing clear but bloodless audio so long as they’re not turned up too high. It’s also cute, with pleasant metallic paint and, with four AAA batteries, cordless operation (a wall-wart is supplied). Standard Duracells lasted for about 4-5 hours. With an eBay price of $15 (Makers Rapha says it can be found at Kmart and Target, but neither store has it on their websites) it’s flaws and limitations can be forgiven, if not omitted. (Read the full post about ‘Surround Xi: Surprisingly Good Cheap Gadget Of The Day’…)

Sony is accompanying its UX series of digital voice recorders with higher end versions from the ICD series, targeting professionals, broadcasters and non-PC users, bringing to the table double the storage capacities compared to the models they are ousting. First off we have the high-end ICD-SX68 and ICD-SX68DR9 digital voice recorders thaat are meant for business professionals, and they function with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software from Nuance Communications, Inc. When used in tandem with Sony’s Digital Voice Editor software, users will be able to convert voice to text, although I’m not sure whether the voice recognition software is up to par or not (hopefully it won’t end up like Brain Age’s “Black” and “Blue” dilemma). (Read the full post about ‘Sony ICD Series Of Digital Voice Recorders’…)

Looking for a big HDTV?, and I mean a very very big HDTV? Then you can look no further than the brand new 103-inch plasma HDTV, the Panasonic TH-103PF10UK. This massive plasma screen of course has a full 1080p HD resolution and a whole bunch of improvements over the previous model. This 103-inch plasma hdtv comes from Panasonic’s 10-series of plasmas. The new and improved Panasonic TH103PF10UK apparently has better wall mounting configuration, new improved video processing technology for a sharp image when showing lower resolution content, or during zooming on an image, and a new anti-reflective coating to improve visibility in light reflecting environments. (Read the full post about ‘Panasonic TH-103PF10UK | 103-Inch HDTV’…)

Apple announced today that iTunes has become the 2nd largest music retailer trailing Wal-Mart.  Apple states over 4 billion songs have been sold through the service and love to toss around the 20 million served up on Christmas Day 2007.  Apple bases its data on an NPD report. Apple says it has captured 50 million iTunes users, which if my math is correct, means an average of 80 songs per customer.  Does that sound right to you?  I’ve got more than that. Can anyone not see a day when iTunes passes Wal-Mart?  Clearly Apple is dominating in online music sales thanks to their players and the ease of use that is the iTunes experience.  With no independent music store pressure, Apple is reaping the benefits of a virtual monopoly. (Read the full post about ‘iTunes: over 4 billion served’…)

Absolut Quartet is a play on the famous vodka brand, where it features a large scale of differently filled wineglasses in order to provide an exact musical scale. In addition to making fine tunes in your drunken revelry, this neat set up is capable of hurling projectiles as well - presumably fun when you’re drunk. It is known as the “Ballistic ping pong marimba”, and will definitely sit down well with the little juvenile in all of us. Tags: Gadget, gadgets, wi-fi, consumer technology (Read the full post about ‘Vodka Creates Music’…)

Taiwan based GPS manufacturer, Marbella, recently announced their new and exciting GPS, the NAV-8800. The main difference of this GPS and the others in the series is that this model comes with a little bit bigger screen at 4-inches. Also, like many other GPS units, it uses the SiRF Star III GPS receiver. Additionally, this GPS acts a lot like a PMP in the sense that it displays photo albums - which can be cool to show off whenever you are going to a relative or a friend’s house. Also, it has an mp3 player and can play videos, however, no word on formats as of yet. What’s more is that it comes with a really nice integrated 2-megapixel camera. (Read the full post about ‘Taiwanese Marbella announces the NAV-8800′…)

This is one of the tiniest ECGs I’ve ever laid my eyes on, as it consists of an extremely tiny LCD display, a pair of electrodes and an ARM training unit. It is powered by an STM32 Primer chip, where pressing both your thumbs on the two electrodes will begin the ECG trace. Once your pulse is detected, it will beep while showing off the heart rate in a decimal format in the top left hand corner. Hopefully the accuracy of such a simple DIY project can be improved, allowing field personnel to carry a compact and lightweight ECG - that remains but a pipe dream at the moment, so this DIY ECG is relegated to the “fun” category in the meantime. Tags: video game, pvr, home theater, players (Read the full post about ‘DIY Compact ECG’…)

When you work on computers, one of the easiest ways to pull data off of a hard drive is to plug it into a different working PC. Rather than actually cracking the case on said PC, one of my favorite tools to use is an external USB adapter. While this method is much easier than putting the old hard drive inside of your computer, I always wondered if there was an easier way. As it turns out, there is. This cool dock from Fujitsu actually lets you use a hard drive in the same fashion as your ipod when you want to sync it. Just slide in the hard drive and you’re good to go. This eliminates any of the annoying cables that you must plug and unplug with the traditional adapters. (Read the full post about ‘Fujitsu Calmee Space lets you dock your hard drives’…)

Earlier today, the Apple Store was offline worldwide. Typically, this means new products or updated ones. Today was no exception. The MacBook received an upgrade today featuring “[T]he latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, larger hard drives, and up to 2GB of memory standard. Best of all, MacBook still starts at $1099. It’s the same does-everything-you-want notebook but better.” The new MacBook comes in three models (all featuring the 13-inch glossy widescreen display) and includes faster processors and larger hard drives across the board. The white 2.1 GHz and 2.4 GHz models come with a 120GB or 160GB 5400 rpm hard drives respectively and the black 2.4 GHz model has a huge 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive, previously only available as an option - now standard. (Read the full post about ‘Apple Announces New MacBook Models’…)