Creative are set to take on Apple’s video-enabled fifth-generation iPod with their new Zen Vision:M player, due to be announced tomorrow.
Christened the Zen Vision:M, the new player packs a 30GB hard drive and a large 2.5in, 262k-colour, 320 x 240 LCD into its diminutive 10.4 x 6.2 x 1.9cm proportions.
The Vision:M can play back MPEG 1, 2 and 4, WMV 9, Motion JPEG, DivX 4 and 5 and XviD video files, and display photos saved in the JPEG format only (so tough luck to RAW photographers looking for a handy all-in-one storage device.)
Creative claim that the rechargeable battery can keep punters entertained for four hours in video-playback mode – twice as long as the iPod’s two hours.
Music formats supported include MP3, WMA with DRM and WAV and there’s a handy built in recordable. Creative claim music can be played back for fourteen hours on a single charge.
The attractive looking unit weighs in at 166g, 30g more than the 30GB iPod’s 136g and share similar proportions (and design) – although the Zen is substantially deeper than the iPod.
The Vision:M sports a slim connector which suggests that there’s a raft of compatible accessories on the horizon, both from Creative and third parties.
It’s a shame seeing a company as, err, creative as Creative coming up with a design so obviously ‘inspired’ by the iPod, but perhaps it’s a sign that they’re signing up to a philosophy of, “if you can’t beat them, join them.”
The Vision:M goes on sale in Japan in mid-December for about a trillion Yen (well, OK, 39,800) which converts into a reasonable £190 ($329, €280) and it’ll be available in not-at-all-copying-iPod pure white, definitely-not-Nano-esque black and a rather jaunty green which we like best. It launches in London tomorrow.
Japan Sharp and NTT DoCoMo will be launching the SH902i FOMA, their funky new 3G clamshell phone in Japan this week.
As ever, there’s a veritable feast o’multimedia bolted on board, with the all-swivellin’, all-flippin’, shiny handset coming with an impressive 3.16 megapixel autofocus camera, an MP3 Player and the highly rated NetFront Web browser.
The phone goes on sale in Japan on December 9th with no date set for us technology-starved folks in Britland.
The long, long, long awaited Mamiya ZD medium format digital SLR is now available on pre-order in Japan, with UK delivery promised in January.
Inside the pixel-guzzling beast lies Mamiya’s exclusive 14bit A/D (analogue to digital) converter, enabling photographers to rattle off 12bit images at a nippy 1.5fps (up to 11 images).
On the back of the camera, a 1.8in LCD offers image previews with a LCD window below displaying ISO and exposure information.
The price is going to hover around an eye-watering €9200 – enormous wonga for some, but it’s the kind of figure that may finally tempt die-hard professional film photographers into the digital fold.
Vodafone has started to roll out its global Mobile TV channels, serving up a feast of “world-class TV brands, pan-European sports coverage and leading entertainment and documentary programmes”.
Sports fans will be kept amused on the move with Eurosport, UEFA Champions League and, err, Chilli TV (who?) channels, with the Vodafone service also carrying popular channels like MTV and Discovery.
Vodafone say that their research into the market revealed that Mobile TV complemented television viewing habits at home and thus demonstrated a hearty appetite for the product amongst consumers.
In an attempt to get right on down with the online world, Nokia has unveiled a blog relations campaign for its new N90 phone, offering information and podcasts about the handset to bloggers.
“Since bloggers are articulate, passionate, and prolific – and have more space to write in than a newspaper columnist – they can yield incredible dividends,” enthused Abramson.
Try as we might, us cynical folks at Digital Lifestyles couldn’t shake off a nagging suspicion that the marketing world’s new-found enthusiasm for blogs is more about trying to control and coerce what’s been written about their products in the blogosphere.
NTL is currently in talks to merge with Virgin Mobile in a deal that would create a potential rival to the now 
In a fiercely competitive market, cable companies on both sides of the Atlantic are looking to outflank their satellite and phone company rivals by adding mobile phone services to their portfolio of voice, Internet and TV services.
NTL and Telewest have notched up around 5 million subscribers combined, next to BSkyB’s 7.8 million digital television viewers.
They may look like something a WW2 pilot would have strapped on to their heads before going off for a dogfight, but the Grado SR60s are, quite simply, the best headphones in their price bracket – and higher.
Untroubled by the vagaries of fashion, Grado’s hand-made SR60s have a refreshing no-nonsense look about them.
The driver units are covered by black supra-aural foam ear pads, with an unusually thick cable coming from each earpiece, stethoscope-style.
Sonically, they’re a revelation. The sound is full-bodied, fast and articulate with a solid bass performance creating an impressively spacious soundstage.
The clarity and depth of these phones is unheard of at this price level – stick on a pair of trendy designer “DJ” headphones after a session on the Grados and it’ll sound like listening to a transistor radio.
Tying in nicely with Skype’s new video calling feature (Skype 2.0, now in public beta), Creative have announced a new WebCam certified by Skype.
“Our partnership with Creative is important in helping to make the consumer experience with Skype Video calling simple and effective,” he continued.
There’s also a ‘snapshot button’ for taking low res stills at 640×480 via interpolation (in other words, it’s a smaller image artificially blown up, so don’t expect anything near digicam quality).
Summary
The camera is the first of a new generation of Fuji cameras sporting the new Super CCD HR sensor which – unlike previous models – doesn’t rely on interpolation jiggerypokery to deliver its 6.3 megapixel output.
We can’t count as fast as that, but it certainly proved to be one of the fastest compacts we’ve tested to date, with no perceivable delay after pressing the shutter button.
A handy LCD brightness boost switch helped compose shots in dim light, although we found it prudent to turn off the dazzling, kryptonite-like green focus beam which was so bright that you’d end up with pictures of people covering their eyes and screaming.
Out on the streets, the camera proved fast to start up, responsive, quick to focus and produced some excellent quality images, capturing impressively high levels of detail.
We remained impressed with the camera throughout the testing period, although some gripes surfaced: we found the lack of any real manual control frustrating at times and the less-than-intuitive menu system made some tasks unnecessarily fiddly.
Despite our catastrophic experiences with the 
Context-sensitive buttons either side of the display provide a simple user interface offering fast access to relevant features – it’s one of the best interfaces we’ve seen.
A unique feature to Pure is the ReVu function, which lets you pause and ‘rewind’ live DAB digital radio, courtesy of a constantly updating 20 minute buffer.
The package is rounded off by two stylish Rosewood speakers with 5¼” woofers, and 19mm Mylar-dome tweeters, a simple remote control and aerial.