iHome’s announced its new iH69 and iH70i speakers. The new speakers are designed to allowing users to dock, charge, play and sync iPods directly to their computer.

The “all-in-one” speakers feature high-fidelity Reson8™ speaker chambers and a sync switch, with the iH70 model boasting higher wattage and a full function remote control.

The iHome iH69 and iH70 cost $99.99 and $129.99 respectively.

Video-game retailer GameStop has decided to stop selling Microsoft’s Zune players at its stores due to what it sees as insufficient demand from customers.

“We have decided to exit the Zune category because it just did not have the appeal we had anticipated,” said a GameStop spokesperson. “It (also) did not fit with our product mix.” GameStop made the decision about a month ago. GameStop said it will sell Zune players online until it clears out its inventory.

GameStop has hundreds of stores across the country and losing that distribution channel could hurt Zune sales. Many of GameStop’s customers are avid users of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console and could have presented a cross-selling opportunity for Microsoft.

Microsoft said that the Zune player continues to be carried by other retailers. “We have a set of great partnerships that give Zune a strong presence at retail including Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and others,” said Adam Sohn, director of marketing for Zune, in a statement. “We will continue to invest in retail partnerships and have seen good momentum online and at retail over the last few months.”

The decision to stop selling Zunes took a toll on the company’s margins in the first quarter. Gross margins for the quarter were 26.1%, down from 27.2% the same quarter year before, reported GameStop on Thursday.

Oppo offer its new portable media player. S11 is the current top player of the OPPO mp3 player line featuring a 3” touchscreen, g-sensor and tv-out. The Oppo S11 has a file manager allowing id3 tag browsing and file search.
Among its features there is the video preview, a small thumbnail showing a screen of the video file. It does allow bookmarking of music, video and ebook position to let you return to where you left in any case.
The built in photo viewer comes with a nice thumbnail feature to quickly browse the pictures.
There are various built in games, making use of the g-sensor.

On the video front, it’ll play nice with AVI, DivX, XviD, RM, RMVB and FLV formats. If the 4GB of internal memory just isn’t enough, there’s also a microSD slot for loading in additional media. Price - $163.99.

Apple announced that its iPod shuffle is now even more affordably priced at $49 and that it is introducing a new 2GB model of the iPod shuffle for $69.

“At just $49, the iPod shuffle is the most affordable iPod ever,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod Product Marketing. “The new 2GB model lets music lovers bring even more songs everywhere they go in the impossibly small iPod shuffle.”

The new 1GB iPod shuffle is available immediately for a suggested retail price of $49 through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The 2GB iPod shuffle will be available later this month for a suggested retail price of $69 . iPod shuffle requires a Mac with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later and iTunes 7.4; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista or Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 2) or later and iTunes 7.4 or later.

Look on this AS-IP300 iPod dock station from Kenwood. Dimensions are a good, 380×157x221mm at 1 kg (1.2) for this iPod dock equipped with a couple 1.9W speakers. The price is set at 95€.

Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS say the new HD-AAC codec delivers better-than-CD-quality sound in file sizes that are small enough to be offered online - like on Apple’s iTunes Store, for example.

The codec is based on MPEG-4 SLS - a scalable lossless format. HD-AAC enables you to enjoy high quality 24-bit / 96KHz files on a home media server, for example, and then use the base version (called the AAC-LC layer) of the same file to play back on an iPod or other AAC player. There’s no need for you to rip different versions of your music at different codecs for different devices.

The Fraunhofer Institute says that future devices - like iPods - may also be able to play back the full lossless audio files once they’re equipped with suitable decoders. It even says that because HD-AAC is scalable you can use it to fire files over a network, with the file size scaled depending on the amount of available bandwidth. Handy for wireless multi-room audio streams, for example.

The arrival of HD-AAC could also spell good news for Apple’s rivals - Sony, Creative and others also offer AAC playback on their portable audio players.

Meet a USB Flash Card MP3 Player, credit card style MP3 Player. It is not only a MP3 Player, but also a Mass Storage Device.

Features: support MP3 and WMA playback, LED indicator, build-in rechargeable battery.
Size: 85.5 x 54 x 4.5 mm, weight: 20g. Price - $42.

Hacha planning to release the new MP3 players, PA20 & PC20, by Sept 22 . The Hacha PA20 is a 3.2-inch, touchscreen media player, with 4GB of memory, the ability to play all of media formats (MP3, AVI, XviD, WMA, WAV, APE, FLAC), and a microSD slot for an additional 4GB of storage. Hacha PA20 will cost $175. The $170 PC20 has all the same features, though its 3-inch screen isn’t touch-sensitive, and it totally rips off the iPhone’s design. Both players are available for pre-order right now from internet.

Apple unveiled a new iPod, called Touch. The new iPod Touch equipped Wi-Fi capabilities that will work with the new Wi-Fi iTunes music stored.

“Apple today introduced the new iPod touch featuring Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch user interface that enables users to find and enjoy all of their music, videos and more on its gorgeous widescreen display with just the touch of a finger. First introduced on iPhone, the multi-touch interface uses pioneering new software to present the perfect user interface for each application. The iPod touch also includes Wi-Fi wireless networking, the first on any iPod, and three amazing applications that use it—Safari, the most advanced browser on any mobile device, lets users wirelessly view web pages just as they look on their computer, and features Google Search or Yahoo! oneSearch; Apple’s YouTube application lets users wirelessly watch over 10 million free videos from the Internet’s most popular video website; and the new iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store lets users wirelessly browse, preview and buy songs and albums from the most popular online music store in the world. The iPod touch is an unbelievable 8 mm thin, and is priced starting at just $299.

“The iPod touch is a landmark iPod, ushering in a whole new generation of features based on its revolutionary multi-touch interface and built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “People are going to be amazed at how thin it is and how much it does.”

With its gorgeous 3.5-inch widescreen display, iPod touch is perfect for watching movies and TV shows, as well as viewing photos and album art. iPod touch has a built-in accelerometer that automatically senses when you rotate it into its landscape position. When you’re in music, it automatically switches to Cover Flow so you can browse your music collection by album cover artwork with just a flick of a finger. When in Photos, it automatically displays the photo in its landscape aspect ratio; and when in Safari it displays the web page horizontally. iPod touch also has a built-in ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the display’s brightness. iPod touch features up to 22 hours of audio playback and up to five hours of video playback.

Also Apple released its most exciting iPod lineup ever with the iPod shuffle in five new colors; iPod classic holding up to 40,000 songs; the incredible all new iPod nano with video playback; and the breakthrough iPod touch with a revolutionary multi-touch user interface. iPod owners can choose from a vast ecosystem of accessories with over 4,000 products made specifically for the iPod including cases, fitness accessories, speaker systems and iPod connectivity in over 70 percent of US automobiles.

The new iPod touch will be available later this month. The 8GB iPod touch model is $299 (US) and the 16GB iPod model is $399 (US). iPod touch requires a Mac with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS X 10.4.10 or later and iTunes 7.4; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista or Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 2) or later and iTunes 7.4. Internet access is required and a broadband connection is recommended, fees may apply. The iTunes Store is not available in all countries.”

Meizu has announced its second generation M6 MP3 player. The M6 Mini Player SL is just 7.3-mm thin, and featured a 2.4-inch display. The new M6 player is also support for lossless Monkey’s Audio (APE) file format. That slim profile forced Meizu into a smaller battery but the player still manages to pump 26-hours of audio and 4.5-hours of video off a single charge. Meizu’s M6 will be present in China on September 25th in 2/4/8GB capacities in prices up to $146.