Samsung Electronics decided last year to build a rival to Apple iPod, so it turned to Paul Mercer, an ex-Apple Macintosh software designer and a team of developers from Iventor, Inc., who wrote some of the software used in Apple’s iPod. As a result of that effort, Samsung’s new Z5 portable MP3 player will appear on store shelves March 5.

Mercer ran Pixo, Inc., a company he founded after leaving Apple in 1994 to write software code for hand-held devices. So when Samsung turned to Mercer for help it was the right move, considering Pixo helped design Apple’s iPod.

Pixo’s software provided the iPod with a simple music interface that was used by Apple. To Mercer’s credit, Pixo’s name even appeared in the credits of the original iPod MP3 player.

Samsung said it hired Mercer and Iventor to create a similar music interface for the Z5 MP3 player to Apple’s iPod to develop a simple screen and a distinctive touch-sensitive scroll wheel for making selections.

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Japanese company Konami will issue this summer a curious LCD-based portable game in which the MP3 player “raises” virtual characters. This MP3 toy is called the Otoizm. Otoizm will require people to raise their digital pets by feeding them some block rockin’ beats. Otoizm is connected to an MP3 player and will classify the loaded music into one of 19 different categories. Depending on what category of music is playing will directly affect the type of growth and changes the digital pet will encounter.

Korean company Belco introduce with new MP3 player, called BCIP-1000. The BCIP-1000 can work as VoIP cellphone.

You’ll get 128Mb (up to 1GB) of flash memory with a TFT display. The new MP3 player provide USB interface and ÎÑ Windows 98/ME/2000/XP . As MP3 player Belco BCIP-1000 represent ID3 tags.

BenQ-Siemens EF51 is a new MP3 player with an built-in mobile phone. The BenQ EF51 designed with five keys for music control functions, below an 1.6-inch color display (262,144 colors, 128 x 128 pixels).

The new MP3 player support files in MP3, WMA, AAC and AAC+ formats. A new cool feature is the voice-operated music selection function, which allows users to simply tell their mp3 player the name of the song or artist and it starts playing it.

The BenQ-Siemens EF51 also has integrated 3D surround sound, a 6-band equalizer and enables music to be recorded directly from the integrated FM radio.

The new mp3 player is also equipped with an 1.3 megapixel digital camera. The BenQ-Siemens EF51 will be available in second quarter 2006 in white and black color variants.

Microsoft developing new MP3 players at challenging the dominance of Apples iPod MP3 player.

The Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, praised Apple’s iTunes music store and said the software giant was talking with hardware partners to create media devices that can be less expensive and easier to connect and can handle pictures and video better.

Gates said the market share for digital music players compatible with Microsoft software is around 20 percent, a figure that is lower than he would like.

Shiro, Singapore based company, has anounced the soccer ball-shaped Shiro AS MP3 player. The specifications aren’t anything out of this world, but are cool for many consumers. You’ll get 1GB of flash memory with a battery-conserving OLED display. Shiro AS MP3 player provide 10 hours of juice. It’ll take your standard MP3 and WMA files, as well as having FM recording functionality.

New MP3 player will be on Singapore’s market in this April.

The availability of wireless iPods came a step closer today after PortalPlayer, the chip maker behind the Apple music player’s audio logic, will add Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support to its products, Reg Hardware has learned.

The move comes courtesy of a tie-in with UK-based Bluetooth chip design pioneer CSR, aka Cambridge Silicon Radio.

PortalPlayer said it will integrate its PP5022 audio chip family with CSR’s UniFi Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controller. It will demonstrate a reference platform based on the combined technology next week at the 3GSM show in Barcelona.

The company’s pitch is that the integration will allow PortalPlayer-based gadgets to use Bluetooth stereo headsets and reach out to computers’ music archives via the wireless networking technology, and to connect directly to music download services through Wi-Fi hotspots.

reghardware.co.uk

Online retailer Advanced MP3 Players, based in UK, will this month ship its first own-brand device: the small, ready to skim across the waves Pebble. The ovoid audio item sports a shiny black back and a mirrored silver front lit by a blue OLED status panel. The controls are arranged in a circle that’ll be familiar to iPod Shuffle users.

The 20g, 4.7 x 3.2 x 1.3cm-wide Pebble will be made available in 512MB and 1GB forms. Both have an integrated lithium-polymer power pack capable of providing up to 12 hours’ playback. It can play MP3, WMA and ASF files, but can’t cope with DRM-protected tracks alas. Tracks are loaded by drag and drop - the Pebble is a USB Mass Storage device - and the battery is charged via its USB 2.0 port - so there’s no bundled AC adaptor.

The box bundles a “luxury” lanyard earphone cable holder ready for the included ‘phones. The earphones double up as an antenna for the built-in recordable FM tuner. The player also has a stopwatch function - since it looks like one, why not?

Advanced MP3 Players will ship the Pebble on 28 February. The 1GB version will cost ?99; the 512MB model, ?79. Both prices include VAT.

reghardware.co.uk

Apple cut the price of its MP3 player, the iPod Shuffle, and launched a smaller-capacity version of its mid-priced iPod Nano.

Cupertino, California-based Apple said the 512-megabyte Shuffle will now sell for $69, down from $99 previously. The 1-gigabyte model will sell for $99, down from $129.

The 512-megabyte version holds about 120 songs. The new 1Gb Nano, the sleek iPod model, was priced at $149.

The 2Gb Nano sells for $199 and holds about 500 songs; a 4-gigabyte model sells for $249.

IOPS anounced interesting models of MP3 players. S10 and S20. First of all it’s very tiny 42 x 67 x 19 mm, and weighs only 25 grams. Even though missing a screen this MP3 players seems like an interesting things.

Both MP3 players support entry for SD memory cards with sizes up to 2GB, and in addition to that the S20 comes equipped with internal memory ranging from 256MB to 1GB. USB port hidden on the bottom of the player.

Both S10 and S20 run on a single AAA battery.