¬† Microsoft has officially announced tomorrow as the release date for its updated line of Zune portable media players. The new Zunes promise higher capacities, useful wireless capabilities and support for podcasts. Updated Zune software will also be available, bringing new capabilities to the first-generation Zune players. Microsoft is also offering customization options for the […]

Cool Hunting has the scoop on Zune Originals, a collection of 27 original artworks by 18 international artists, designed to be engraved onto the back of the device. On the Zune Originals site, launching tomorrow (13 November 2007), visitors will be able to customize their Zune by size, color, illustration and with up to four […]

by James Lewin The market for handheld devices such as Palms and Pocket PCs is tanking. The worldwide handheld device market posted its fifteenth consecutive quarter of decline in shipments. According to IDC, vendors shipped 728,894 handheld devices in 3Q07, 39.3% less from the same quarter a year ago. “The handheld device market has been […]

A reader, Graham Pollard, wrote us, wondering why podcasting hasn’t seemed to reach Apple’s UK stores. Pollard is a big fan of podcasts, and dropped by the Apple store recently on a visit to London, so he could check out the latest iPods. He writes: “I was quite surprised to find that at the nano […]

Pioneering sci-fi podcaster Scott Sigler, creator of the EarthCore and Ancestor podcast novels, wants to kill you. He’s working on his latest novel/podcast, Nocturnal, and he needs some people to kill off. Here are the gory details: “I’m running a contest where your name can be the name of a victim in NOCTURNAL. All you […]

Creative Technology, makers of the Zen portable media player, is struggling. The company, which delisted from the Nasdaq earlier this year, posted Q1 2008 (through Sept 30th) sales of $185 million. That’s down 24% since last year. Income was actually up for the quarter, though, which the company attributes to improvements in operations. Apple saw […]

Since this Thursday, Apple limits sales of the iPhone to two per person, and has prohibited cash-only sales of the cellphone, presumably to stop people from reselling them.¬† Before Thursday’s policy change announcement, there was no cash restriction and the purchase limit was five per person. Company spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said that limiting purchases to […]

Podcaster, mobilecasting guru and Zune Podcast Programming Manager Rob Greenlee has announced 1-click podcast subscriptions for the Zune portable media player. The 1-click process will launch the Zune Marketplace software and add the podcast subscription to the user’s collection. The process will work best if the Zune user already has the new Zune Marketplace software […]

A new version of Expressivo text-to-speech software has been released. New with version 1.3 is integration with iTunes, making it easy to automatically translate text-to-speech and get it on your iPod. Any text read by Expressivo is automatically added to your iTunes library as an audio file. Texts read by Expressivo can also be played […]

AT&T and Apple have sold 1.325 million iPhones, according to Strategy Analytics, making it one of the most popular mobile devices in the United States. “The iPhone has become AT&T’s top selling device, commanding some 13 percent of AT&T’s overall handset sales, and the 4th top selling handset in the US market,” according to Barry […]