A cellphone that can store as much MP3 music as iPod Mini MP3 player will be launched by Nokia later in 2005.

The move follows Sony-Ericsson’s unveiling in March of a music-storing Walkman phone and marks another nail in the coffin for pure MP3 players. Cellphone makers are betting that people will prefer to carry one gadget rather than two.

Like the basic iPod Mini, Nokia’s new phone incorporates a diminutive 4-gigabyte hard disc drive capable of storing at least 3000 music tracks. By comparison the first Walkman phone – the W800, also to be released later in 2005 – will store about 150 tracks on a 0.5 gigabyte flash-memory card.

A Netherlands proposed tax on MP3 players could devastate sales of hard disk players.

The tax is being proposed by the Stichting Thuiskopie foundation, and is set to become law in the Netherlands in a few short months unless the European Commission finds a reason to intervene. It is unlikely that will happen, as it has failed to come up with a policy for levy taxation so far.

The idea of all levy based legislation is that some form of copyright collections agency collects tax by imposing a surcharge at the point of sale for any storage devices that could possibly be used to store pirated works. This certainly extends to the iPod which has up to 60 GB of storage, and which can store MP3 files.

Because of the fact that the great bulk of iPods are used to store legitimate iTunes files which are Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected, this means that copyright is being purchased twice over for these devices if a levy is also paid.

The charge will be levied against every MP3 player, and is effectively a tax on the MP3 format. Some efforts to place MP3 files under DRM protection will also mean that these will pay copyright twice over.

An airline passenger’s MP3 player led to an emergency landing at Chicago O’Hare Airport, the evacuation of 74 passengers and crew and a search of the plane by the Police bomb squad.

The United Airlines flight was headed from New York to San Francisco when a passenger told a flight attendant he saw another passenger with suspicious materials, United spokesman Jeff Green said.

The flight crew looked at the materials, and the pilot decided to land at O’Hare. The 66 passengers and eight crew members were evacuated while the bomb squad inspected the materials and the plane, Green said.

The material turned out to be wires, an MP3 player and homeopathic medicines.

The passenger who brought the items was cleared to reboard the flight, which continued its flight to San Francisco after about three hours at O’Hare.

ID-AL (Interactive Digital Audio Line) – its new professional MP3 players. They are no more looped CDs or tuned radios. Fully automated, ID-AL MP3 players are able to play tons of music and programmed audio messages.

Installed instead of a CD player or other sound source, the ID-AL player operates entirely autonomously thanks to a 40Gb hard disk. ID-AL MP3 players can be used in a wide range of premises such as restaurants, car parks, train stations, waiting rooms and radio stations.

With a standard PC or Mac computer, the tracks to be played are quickly transferred into the SP603 hard disk via a USB2 link. An Ethernet/modem extension card is used to control remotely one or several players and to transfer upgrade orders via the internet. It is also possible to automate the players completely by programming them to download upgrades available on a FTP site. The FTP protocol is used to transfer large files between a computer and a remote device, often a server or a personal page host server. The device is also able to send report emails, play lists and program execution confirmation.

With the new computer virus ‘Nopir-B’ worm spreading through Europe, computer users are advised to take extra caution. The W32/Nopir-B worm, which spreads over peer to peer file-sharing networks, claims to be a DVD copying utlilty. In reality however it attempts to delete all of a users MP3 music files, as well as disabling various system utilities and wiping .COM programs.

The worm is said to destroy the user’s operating system, making it impossible to reboot computers. Experts say the worm has not made its way to Korea yet but advised PC users to upgrade their anti-virus software.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, made the following statement about the worm:

The internet is swamped with people pirating movies and music, costing the entertainment industry millions each year. The Nopir-B worm targets people it believes may be involved in piracy, but fails to discriminate between the true criminals and those who may have MP3 files they have created themselves. Whichever side of the fence you come down on in regards to internet piracy, there’s no debate about the criminal nature of this worm – designed to inflict malicious damage on people’s Windows computers.

National sales of digital music players will grow 35 percent this year to 18.2 million units, and sales are expected to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 10 percent through 2010, when the national installed base will hit 56.1 million units.

Apple, whose iPod is one of the leaders in the digital music player market, is expected to dominate sales over the medium term, according to the research, but Jupiter expects that flash-based players will surpass the current hard drive-based models in 2007.

BenQ unveiled new MP3-enabled cameraphone, named the Qube Z2.

The Qube Z2 targeted the music enthusiast segment.

Available with six equalizer settings, including normal, bass, rock, fashion, jazz and classis, and 3D surrounding sound, the Qube Z2 is designed to appeal users wanting strong MP3 functions.

The MP3-enabled handset is equipped with a built-in 1.3-megapixel camera with a 1,280 x 960 SXGA resolution.

The M315 handset, to be launched at the end of this month, will be a Bluetooth-enabled handset. Another new handset, the U700, to be launched soon, will have a built-in 2-megapixel camera.

The Qube Z2 has a price tag of around $320.

Shanghai court has accepted two copyright cases filed by Universal Music and Warner Music against the Shanghai Book City and several Chinese music producers, judges said yesterday.

The plaintiffs said in their lawsuits that the book city sold pirated MP3 discs that contain songs from pop stars Daniel Chen and Sammi Cheng.

Universal Music and Warner Music hold the copyrights associated with the songs, the plaintiffs said.

The suit also alleges that 5 recording firms issued MP3 discs containing the songs without authorization.

Universal Music and Warner Music have asked the court to order the defendants to stop sales immediately and make a public apology. The plaintiffs are also seeking unspecified financial compensation.

Sony will this month ship its latest hard drive-based personal digital music player, this time adding a removable battery to the feature set and an anti-impact system to the unit’s hard disk.

Sony NW-HD5 digital music playerThe NW-HD5 is equipped with a 20GB drive, which sports a “G Sensor” to detect sudden drops and cushion the storage medium to prevent damage and data loss. IBM recently added such a mechanism to its ThinkPad hard drives, as did Apple with it laptops, but this is the first time we’ve seen the technique applied to portable music players.

The player goes on sale in Japan on 21 April for around ?35,000 (?172). There’s no word yet on European or US availability, but we note the Japanese unit incorporates English, French, German, Spanish and Italian language support, so a broader roll-out has to be on the cards.

There will be 1.5 mln digital music player owners in Australia by the end of 2005, IDC says, noting that the price floor could hit $50 due to increased competition. However, average selling prices for portable flash players will increase by 6.8% in 2005 because of the influence of the higher-end brands, such as Apple, Sony and Samsung pulling their weight and intensifying their marketing.