There are a couple of dilemmas for anyone who takes their MP3 player to play in the car. How do you get the sound to the car stereo and how do you stop the thing sliding about all over the place? The TrekStor MP3-RadioStation f.ox tackles these.
The TrekStor MP3-RadioStation plugs in to the cigarette lighter slot (or cigar if you’re posh), which means it’s easy to find and there’s no need for a separate power source.
Where do the tunes come from? There’s no storage on board, as the music is supplied via a USB memory stick that plugs in the bottom. This arrangement brings the advantage of low cost expansion and that the music storage is only limited by the size and number of memory sticks you’ve got.
Navigating tracks up, down and pausing is done by the button on the top.
To get over the challenge of getting the audio between the player and legacy car head-units, TrekStor have used low-powered FM transmission with a selectable frequency, available to some other players as an after-market add on.
To set it up, simply press the Channel button on the top of the MP3-RadioStation until an FM frequency that isn’t used by a radio station is displayed on the top, then tune your car stereo into that frequency. Bingo.
Sadly for UK users, devices like this can’t be used legally, as Ofcom don’t differentiate between low-power gadgets such as this that transmit over a short distance and a full blown radio station.
Expected release date is November 2006, priced at around €15.
According to new research from The Diffusion Group, only 14% of broadband households would be interested in an iTunes online movie download service for use on PCs or portable devices if titles were priced at $15 each. This compares to total interest of 23% at $10 per download – a 64% decline in interest when increasing the cost per title by only $5.
Regardless of whether the iTunes movie download service is announced this month or later this year, Greeson believes that the time is right for Apple to enter this market space. “Although current services such as CinemaNow and Movielink continue to languish, Apple is aware that the conditions are now suitable for extending iTunes to include full-length movie downloads. Consumer awareness has improved; video-over-broadband is now viable; studios are now making movies available for online download to DVDs; portable video platforms are improving qualitatively with each new generation; and Apple’s brand awareness and credibility are at all time highs. As well, CinemaNow and Movielink’s experience, while insightful, is of limited value to Apple, who continues to enjoy the fruits of being a market-maker in portable digital electronics and online media services.”
News International, MySpace-Murdoch’s newspaper enterprise yesterday launched a new, free newspaper and Web site for London.
Besides the centrally placed Sky adverts, there’s a 
A new report from anti virus firm SoftScan has revealed that spam levels remain hideously high at 87.72% of all email traffic, while reports of phishing activity have soared.
Spam levels are expected to reduce by a few per cent soon, with the post-summer holiday rise in legitimate business email pushing the spam percentage back down to its usual level of around 85 per cent.
We’ve already told you about the electronics-focussed and very blokey Make: magazine, but they’ve now got competition in the shape of a soon-come sister publication called Craft:, which is aimed at the “new alternative craft movement.”
In line with its hip Web 2.0 aspirations, the magazine comes with an interactive website offering tons of links to ‘craft mafia’ clubs, an online blog, projects, magazine features and a clever idea to deliver knitting patterns over iTunes.
The magazine are trialling the service now, so mad-for-it crafters can download a pattern for a stretch tube top with drawstring bottom, hipster shorts with scoop sides (whatever that is) from 
Fun, funky and painfully hip, the Craft: website is already a great resource for DIY types looking for inspiration and ideas, and makes a pleasant change from the usual corporate homogenised dreck that we keep getting press releases about.
In a move that was as unexpected as night following day, MySpace has finally revealed plans to introduce its own music downloads service before the end of the year.
Now the most visited site in the US, MySpace boasts millions of users with the site already established as an essential part of any new band’s online promotional activities.
This gets around Apple’s stubborn refusal to licence their FairPlay digital rights management system to third parties, letting music fans play purchased tracks on their iPods.
Although there’s no shortage of gadgets like smartphones, PDAs, iPod and PSPs that are capable of playing back video, getting footage on to the fellas can be a bit of a pain.
Users can connect the V-Mate to the AV output of their video recorder, set-top box, Freeview, DVR, DVD player, TV or other device and use the V-Mate’s remote control to configure the device, plus record and access content via a TV-based interface.
During his keynote, Gee Sung Choi, President and CEO of Samsung announced the launch of the YP-5K, a very slick MP3 player with built-in pivoting speaker, letting you ‘entertain’ your friends or fellow train passengers.
If you’re a modern, go-getting metrosexual-about-town like us Digi-Life hipsters, you’ll be the owner of a mile-long list of passwords, web logins, ATM PINs, program serials, bank account details, credit card numbers and passcodes for highly exclusive West End nightclubs.
Using SplashID
Naturally, with all your precious data a mere password away, it’s vital that you make your SplashID password a good ‘un – if that kind of thing defeats you, there’s a handy password generator onboard to help you create hard-to-crack passwords.
A nice touch is that you can click the clipboard icon next to listed passwords and have the code automatically placed in the clipboard ready for pasting into your browser or program password box.
Because of SplashID’s cross-platform abilities, we’ve been able to exchange data from Palm to Windows Mobile devices (and back again) without a problem so it’s pretty much future proofed, and the desktop integration is a great way of ensuring that the info is kept up to date.
Although speakers are an essential part of any gadget lovers set up, let’s be honest: they’re a bit boring to look at.
Well, we actually already use one of their keyboards that does just that, but we’re sure that some folks may appreciate being able to adjust volume, treble and bass, and play, pause, skip forward and jump back through tracks from the comfort of their, err, speaker.