E-books seem to be the wave of the future, as they're a handy way to tote around numerous novels and textbooks. Typically the fashionistas have started getting in on the action, as we can now purchase the Sony Reader in a delightful cherry red. The specs are exactly the same, as the overhaul is purely superficial. You can still read novels with eInk technology, play MP3's and view JPEG's and though there have been some issues with the formats the Reader allows (PDFs cause problems) I think the new colour will help it appeal to a younger audience. Next step, a pink version? I hope not...

£199.00, exclusive to John Lewis

See: Is the eBook nearly there yet? I
Could the BeBook beat the Sony Reader? Time will tell I Shiny Review: Sony Reader

It's that time of year again, where shop windows start to fill up early with Xmas tat, red and white stickers adorn items in store, and companies start producing miniature products in an attempt to lure in Christmas credit crunch shoppers. Say hello to the Orbit, a smaller version of Altec's iM207 speaker. It's a mini speaker which comes with an extra rugged casing to allow for bumps and bruising in your bag, and gives you a 360 degree field of sound.

It's a new idea, and one that no one is sure whether it will take off wildly or crash and burn. Sandisk are launching the Sansa slotMusic player, which is designed to play only albums which come pre-loaded on their microSD cards. It's currently only in the US, but Zara's had a sneak peak, and seems impressed.

I've just had an email suggesting that this pocket cinema projector is perfect for 'off the cuff business presentations'. Um, really? Has anyone ever been in a situation where they've thought they've just been nipping out for a pint, only to find that actually, it's been the ideal opportunity to pitch their Big Idea to the person who was once on Dragon's Den, but went bankrupt so had to leave, who just happens to be sitting next to them sipping a large glass of the house rose? No. Quite.

More realistically, you can connect it to your iPod or PMP, and view the media on a projected 50-inch screen. There's also an inbuilt stereo speaker, although you're not doing to get Dolby Surround Sound booming from this little box.

From sex toys to sexy MP3 players, Philips is really outdoing itself on the tech front recently. The gorgeous design of the GoGear Luxe means Philips is directing this one at the ladies, but that's not to say men can't totally go for the purchase too - stylish and sexy gadgets do not equal women. Whether you're a boy or girl, man or child, this clip-and-click audio player/Bluetooth headset is a good choice of MP3 player.

The Dastardly Duo, Dan and Duncan (Dancan, if you will) have been checking out the new Creative MP3 players - the X-Fi, which comes with added WiFi, and the Zen Mosaic. One comes with an arm band, one looks like a child's toy, and much fun was had by all.

Get the X-Fi here and the Mosaic here.

More happy stuff! This is still in the concept stage, but it's so lovely I thought your life would benefit from reading it.

This MP3 player splits in half, creating one for each wearer. When docked, the same music has to be uploaded to each, creating identical playlists. When you're apart, you get to listen to the same version of Lady In Red, I Just Died in your Arms Tonight and Wind Beneath my Wings.

Actually, I've just read that back and I've made myself feel a bit sick. Sorry - we'll go back to being snarky now.

[via Yanko Design]

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This must be the week of budget gadgets that wouldn't look out of place amongst the Fisher Price toy range. We've seen an Alcatel handset which looks like it'll produce ring tone noises at the press of a button and generally do kiddie phones-esque things. Then we had Vodafone's budget Sagem MY300C, aka the butterfly phone, which gives off the same vibes as the aforementioned Alcatel offering. Next to go into the budget/candy box is the Bandi MP3 player from SAFA Korea (see how well it fits in with the marshmallows in the background?), complete with blue cloud casing. It's not just restricted to a bluey hue - it also comes in pink, black, white and green.

Zara checks out Philips' chunky portable DVD player, perfect for shoving in the car in anticipation of a 12 hour journey. There's also an iPod dock, an SD card slot and a couple of headphone jacks.

You can pick one up from Amazon for £199 here.

What do we have here? An Internet browsing device that's portable and pocket friendly. Hmm, like an iPhone/ Smartphone/ BlackBerry? NO. Ok, a UMPC then? Fraid not. Ahh, I get it, like an iPod Touch or Archos 705? Wrong again.

What we have here is a portable pocket friendly device that's for surfing (hence the name) and has no memory capability at all, no headphone jack or speakers and can't play videos. Ah, I get the idea now. So what's the point of this then?

Ever since Alex got her hands on a Sony Reader I've been dying to try it (OK I wanted to anyway) but now I'm wondering if it would be better to save my cash for a BeBook. It may come in at £29 more expensive, but the features sound like they're slightly higher spec.

As with UMPC's once one brand starts pumping them out, everyone wants to play, and it seems e-books are the next to join in with this craze. The BeBook has an internal memory of 512MB, which means it can hold approx 1000 books. All it needs is a 4 hour charge, which will last you 7000 page turns (quite a while then) and plays a ridiculous amount of formats. At last count it was compatible with 25, including pdf, mobi, prc, epub, lit, txt, fb2, doc, html, rtf, djvu, wol, ppt, mbp, chm, bmp, jpg, png, gif, tif, rar, zip, and mp3. Phew!

Hippyshopper has news of the latest Trevor Baylis eco-product coming out, in the form of this second generation wind-up media player. Whilst the first had a decidedly 'Hi, I'm an eco product!' look to it, the design of this one puts it amongst the big boys. Crank for just one minute, and you'll get 45 minutes of music playback.

And the specs are completely comparable to other less friendly players. There's music playback of MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV and OGG files, video playback of AVI, WMV and MP4 files, photo and e-book viewing, an internal memory and an SD slot for memory expansion.

You can get your music from specific MP3 retailers, you can get it from your network operators, and increasingly, you can get it from your handset manufacturer. Fresh off the back of the Nokia's Comes With Music announcement, Sony Ericsson has announced PlayNow plus, which gives Sony Ericsson customers unlimited access to millions of tracks for one flat rate. This is all part of what Omnifone announced back at 3GSM.

Thanks to HSDPA, you'll be able to download tracks over the air, as well as from your computer. You can send playlists between them, and there will be a TrackID Chart accessible for discovering new music. The only problem comes at the end of your contract, where you're only allowed to keep the top 100 most played tracks (about eight CDs worth).

What do you mean you don't want it to look like you have blue bottle flies hanging off your ear lobes? What do you mean you worry that it might make people think you smell, or have some other kind of unspecified hygiene issue? Can you not see the possibilities?

No, well, me neither. But regardless, the peeps over at Fredflare think there's a market. For $15, we're not talking noise cancelling, tweeters, peepers and bass type sound. We're mostly just talking blue bottle resembling randomness.

Get them here. [via Unplggd]

We're big fans of PMP's in the office, but the lower end of the spectrum tend to be rather shoddily made and gimmicky. Archos may have cornered the premium end of the market, but it's possible the miShake could makes waves lower down.

Would we feature these headphones if today wasn't Talk Like a Pirate Day? Tis difficult t' know, me hearties. On another note, is this getting tired yet?

These headphones are designed to magnetically clip onto your earlobe, so you can appreciate the skull and cross bones in all their glory. You then get a speaker that nestles towards your ear canal, which sounds... odd. If you parle Japanese or shoddy Babel Fish translation-speak, you can get them here for $18.

[via Gizmodo]

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Wonderful DRM-related news! (Oh come on, even acronyms can warrant an explanation mark sometimes...). 7digital have secured the fourth of the four major record companies so they can supply customers with even more DRM-free music. That means an MP3 file format, all playing nicely on both iPods and pretty much any other music playback device. All tracks are of relatively high quality, at 320kbps - iTunes Plus tracks only reach 256kbps.

The addition of Sony BMG means 250,000 additional tracks from the likes of Michael Jackson, Kings of Leon and Bob Dylan. Sony BMG have even agreed to upgrade previously purchased tracks to MP3s at no extra cost. And there's more, thanks to the site's open API.

The iPod Touch gets less of a refresh than the Nano. It's thinner than before, and there's a few tweaks to keep people shopping. Like the iPhone there's now a volume control on the side, and a speaker. But be warned, it's for 'casual use only'. Expect some irritating bus journeys as a result.

They've also built in Nike+ as standard, and now you don't need to plug in an adaptor. Will that make you buy it, or even take up running? No, me neither, but it's a nice touch.

The latest players on offer from Samsung are based around the concept of `Imagining Freedom from Monotony`. Right. With that rather uninspiring title aside there's two models that aren't half bad There's the YP-U4 Litmus, a sleek looking player that's available in three fashion friendly colours, blue, purple and red. It weighs in at 27.5g and offers you a battery life of 16 hours.

Cowon aren't necessarily a company you go to first for media players, but they've got some lovely looking players prepared to tempt you over. Both the L3 (right) and the S9 Curve (left) are touchscreens, and the S9 features an AMOLED screen. This means an ultra thin, ultra bright screen, but with minimal power consumption, which could explain the 40 hours music playback.

The other device, the S9, has a 3.3-inch LCD screen and an acccelerometer, for automatic adjustment to landscape for video. Both units will feature a TV tuner, and support Apple lossless and True Audio codecs.

Most importantly though, they're per-ty.

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